Imsiba arrived with two fresh jars of beer. Glancing at the littered floor and bench, he chuckled. “When first we met, I thought you a man of refined taste.”
Bak merely grinned. “You spent some time with Roy’s crew, I noticed, during the voyage from Pahuro’s village.”
Sobering, Imsiba handed over a jar, set the uppermost stool on the floor, and toed the second stool away from a thin ribbon of smoke coiling toward the door. Knucklebones clattered on the floor outside, one man laughed and another moaned.
“They’re poor specimens, I can tell you. Irascible and coarse.” Imsiba broke the plug in his jar, dropped the pieces onto a pile of papyrus waste, and sat down. “Two faults they seem not to have: indolence and disloyalty. They’ve toiled long and hard together and have formed a rock-solid unit, with Captain Roy at the core. His death will in time tear them asunder, but not yet.”
“He must’ve been generous to earn such loyalty.”
“They show little sign of wealth now.”
Bak waved off the objection. “Too many unlucky games of chance, a craving for women, a large family somewhere making frequent demands. I’ve seldom met a sailor who could hold onto so much as a handful of grain.” He scooted back against the bench and set his beer jar aside, unopened and unwanted. “What’d they have to say about their cargo?”
80 / Lauren Haney
“They claim this is the first time they’ve carried contraband.”
Bak raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“I know,” Imsiba said, “once a smuggler, always a smuggler. In this case, though, the reason they gave for Captain Roy’s willingness to take the risk has some merit.”
“I yearn to hear it.”
“I can only repeat what I was told.” Imsiba eyed the coffin with distaste. “Captain Roy had decided to leave Wawat forever, returning to his wife and family in Kemet. The crew was going with him, each and every man. This was to be their final voyage north from the Belly of Stones. The precious items they took on board would’ve given Roy the wealth to buy another, bigger ship at Abu, and his men a new berth, one much to their liking.”
“A good excuse for law-breaking,” Bak admitted. “What kind of place did Pashenuro find to sequester them?”
Imsiba smiled. “One I’d not enjoy. A house in the outer city. One not far from the animal paddocks, where few men live.”
“He couldn’t have made a better choice,” Bak laughed.
“Forced to enjoy only each other’s company, with the smell of manure perfuming the air and Buhen’s houses of pleasure just out of reach, they may decide that confessing the truth is more appealing than keeping their silence.”
“So Pashenuro believed.”
Bak stood up, stretched. “It’s been a long day, Imsiba, one I hope never to repeat.” He scowled at the clutter around his feet. “Hori will have to find another room to call his own.
I’ll speak with him tonight.”
A sharp hiss drew his attention to the entry hall. The two guards, one with his hand poised as if interrupted on the brink of casting the knucklebones, exchanged a meaningful glance and looked furtively at Bak. When they realized his eyes were on them, they hastily looked away, as men do when they have a guilty secret.
“What’re they up to?” Bak asked Imsiba.
“They’ve a bet, and it rests on your shoulders.”
“Do I want to know the details?”
“It’s simple enough,” the big Medjay laughed. “One man bet you’d throw Hori out in less than a week. The other said you’d let the boy stay longer. Now you’ve given them your decision.”
Bak shook his head in amazement. “They’ll bet on anything.”
“They will.” Imsiba’s smile faded, and he nodded toward the coffin. “Can we not find a better place for that?”
“The entry hall is inappropriate. And we can’t move it into our men’s quarters. They’d rebel. Nor can we put it in the prison area, not with Rennefer in there. Her tongue’s sharp enough as it is, without giving her an object on which to hone it.”
“She’s made no friends among those who stand guard, I can tell you.” Imsiba finished his beer and laid the jar on the floor. “The men long for the day you take her before Commandant Thuty and they’re rid of her.”
“As soon as I can, I will. I’ve had no time yet to document her offense.” Bak stepped over Hori’s mess and looked down at the white man-shaped box. “Leave the coffin here. I’d not like it to remain forever, but a few days will make no difference.”
“Who lies inside?” Imsiba asked, scrambling to his feet to stand beside him.
Bak moved a lamp close and let his eye run down the band of symbols that ran the length of the coffin from the broad painted collar to the projecting foot. He had struggled through the inscription earlier, so the poorly drawn symbols came easier the second time. At the end of a simple offering formula, he found the name, which he read aloud.
“Amonemopet, web priest in front of lord Khnum; son of Antef, scribe in the place of truth; son of house mistress Hapu.”
“An ordinary man.” Imsiba let out a long, slow breath. “I thank the lord Amon for sparing us. I feared he might be a man of noble birth and no end of trouble.”
82 / Lauren Haney
The following morning, Bak awakened close on sunrise with Rennefer uppermost in his thoughts. He rousted Hori from his sleeping pallet; they took bread, dates, and writing implements onto the roof; and in the cool of the early morning settled down to record the woman’s offense. With Bak dictating to the scribe, the document was soon completed and they went on to the next, an account of the wrecked ship and the contraband it had held. Half the morning passed and they were close to finishing a third report, one describing Mahu’s death, when Imsiba came to ask when they would see Sitamon. Bak hurried to the end of his task and he and the Medjay set off to an interview neither looked forward to.
“I know nothing of Mahu’s business. If I’d been here longer, perhaps he’d have told me more.” Sitamon, seated on the floor beside an upright loom, made tiny pleats in the hem of her long shift, tucked modestly around her legs. “We were strangers, you see, just beginning to know each other after years of living apart.”
“I understand,” Bak said, and he did. He rose from the chair she had brought for his use and wandered around the small courtyard. Sitting in stately luxury did not suit him.
Sitamon, who had been expecting them, thanks to Tiya, had ushered them into a house of moderate size, with three rooms around an open court. The dwelling was neat and clean, the rooms bright, the few pieces of furniture of good quality. As the air was cooler outside, stirred by an erratic breeze, she suggested they talk in the courtyard. There they found a pale, thin child of perhaps four years, playing by himself near a round mudbrick oven, moving miniature boats across a make-believe river. Each time he thought no one was looking, he stared at the two men who had come to see his mother-soldiers, he must have thought, warriors.
“Did your brother seem anxious about his upcoming voyage?” Bak asked. “Eager to be on his way? Worried about the delay and our inspection of his cargo?”
“All of those and more.”
He exchanged a quick glance with Imsiba, who knelt beside a spindly pole supporting a roof of loosely woven palm fronds, dry and rustling in the breeze.
“Wouldn’t you be concerned if livestock made up the greatest portion of your cargo?” she asked. “Cattle and goats of the highest quality bound for Waset and a royal estate?
He’d carried tribute many times, he told me, and often living creatures, yet he never failed to worry. What would he do if they all took sick and died? The ship was his, but would Maatkare Hatshepsut be content with that as repayment?”
“Our sovereign isn’t known for her forgiving nature,” Imsiba said.
Sitamon flashed a smile his way, thanking him for understanding. She was a small woman, delicate of build, with shoulder-length dark hair turned under at the ends. Her face was pale with shock and grief; dark smudges beneath her eyes spoke of a sleepless night. Imsiba, Bak noticed, could not take his eyes off her.