The hunter had been a careful man, they found, taking along plenty of food for his animals and two large pottery jars of water. By the time Amonmose returned with the dog, Bak and Imsiba had slaked their thirst, cared for the injured donkey as best they could, and watered the three beasts, using as a basin a deep reddish bowl burned black on the bottom from sitting on a cooking fire.
Imsiba carried the empty water jar to the supply donkey.
“Do you want to search this animal now, before I tie the jar in place?”
96 / Lauren Haney
Bak glanced at the sun, an indistinct golden ball hurrying across a sallow sky.” Later. We must hasten to Kor and have this game butchered before the meat goes bad. Then we can wash the grit away in the river and fill our bellies with food and beer.” He turned to Amonmose, on his knees, wiping the blood from their weapons. “You’ll come with us, I assume?”
“Is that an order, sir?”
Bak laughed. Who wouldn’t prefer the comforts of a fortress to spending the night in the open desert with Heribsen and his fellows? “It is.”
“Who would slay a man like Intef?” Nebwa shook his head, unable to believe, saddened. “He never did any harm to anyone. Never.”
Bak let his eyes travel across the hunter’s possessions, spread out on the sand before him. Other than the weapons, which he had laid off to the side, the objects were no different than those carried by anyone who expected to travel a long distance and depend solely on his own resources. Still, a diligent search might reveal some unexpected article, perhaps even a reason for Intef’s death. “He must’ve trod on someone’s toes. Why else take his life?”
Nebwa planted a foot on a collapsed mudbrick wall. “If so, it was unintentional. He was a good man.”
The supply donkey, freed of its load and fed, nudged Bak’s hip with its head. Scratching the animal’s nose, he eyed the southern end of Nebwa’s temporary domain: the long, narrow mudbrick fortification of Kor. Much of this portion of the old fortress had been given over to the caravans Thuty had ordered held here. A wall had been hastily built to contain the donkeys. Their masters, surrounded by the merchandise the animals had carried, were camped out among the ruined walls of buildings erected many generations ago and no longer needed. The two officers stood in a quiet corner of the paddock, away from prying eyes. The smell of manure was strong, and though the wind had dropped, dust hung in the air thick enough to stifle.
“He must’ve been on his way home when he was slain,”
Nebwa said, eyeing the quarter-full bag of grain lying on the sand beside a single sheaf of hay. “Not much food remains for man or beast.”
Bak nodded. “The other two donkeys were so laden with game, they couldn’t have carried more.”
“A pleasant surprise, that was,” Nebwa said with a grin.
“We’ll have a great feast tonight, stuffing all these wretched traders so full of hare and gazelle they’ll have no heart to assault my ears with further complaints.”
Laughing, Bak picked up the heavy water jar and, with his hand over the mouth to catch anything that might be hidden inside, poured its contents into a mudbrick watering trough.
The jar held no secrets. “Intef left the donkeys behind and went off into the desert alone, carrying the one goatskin of water. He wasn’t after game; the men on desert patrol found no animal tracks. So he had a goal, and it couldn’t have been far from where they found him.”
“There’s nothing out there but desert.” Nebwa scratched his head, thinking. “I’ll wager he knew someone was tracking him and he headed away from the river, hoping to lose him among the dunes farther west.”
“I doubt he’d have left his donkeys so vulnerable if he’d meant to be gone for long.” Bak laid the jar on the ground with its empty twin, picked up the goatskin, and poured the water into the trough. “You knew him. Was he a man who might carry contraband across the frontier?”
“Intef?” Nebwa snorted. “He was a plodder, not one to spit in the face of authority.”
Bak knelt and poked through a basket containing a small drill used for starting a fire, a bundle of twigs, and dry straw for tinder. Finding nothing of interest, he laid them aside.
He crushed two round loaves of bread as hard and dry as stone, and flung away the crumbs for the pigeons that seemed always to be underfoot. He tossed a sheaf of limp green onions in front of the donkey, along with two overripe melons he broke apart, thinking something could’ve been hidden among the seeds. Leaf packets containing a few dried fish and a
98 / Lauren Haney handful of dates joined the fire drill in the basket, as did a small jar that had been emptied of all but a few dried lentils and beans mixed together and another jar of poor quality oil for rubbing on the body.
“Nebwa!” Imsiba, leading the donkeys that had earlier been laden with game, strode out of a narrow lane between two partially fallen walls. “I thought you’d be here, seeing what there is to see.”
“I’d have been more entertained watching the butchers.”
Bak picked up the quarter-full bag of wheat, well aware of how often toll collectors found items hidden among the kernels. Pulling the red bowl close, trying not to hope but hoping anyway, he slowly poured the grain into the vessel.
Other than the usual small stones and chaff, he found nothing. Nebwa muttered a curse, as disappointed as Bak. Imsiba expelled something between a laugh and a snort.
Bak turned to the bundle of hay. With another surge of hope, he drew his dagger, cut the cords that bound the sheaf, and tore it apart. Lying in the center like a large, elongated egg was a wide-mouthed alabaster jar the size of his open hand, its creamy white surface streaked with golden brown.
His spirits soared. The container was elegant-and utterly out of place among Intef’s poor belongings. Hardly daring to breathe, he picked it up. Several hard objects rattled inside.
He glanced at Imsiba and Nebwa. The Medjay’s eyes glittered with anticipation. Nebwa looked on the verge of prayer.
Offering a silent prayer of his own, Bak twisted the lid, breaking a thin seal of dried mud, and tipped the jar upside down. A bracelet dropped into his hand amid a cascade of seven gold beads. A small papyrus-wrapped bundle followed, and a second bracelet. Too surprised to speak, he rose to his feet and his friends drew close, their heads bent over the treasure. For a treasure it was. Both of the bracelets, made of a multitude of gold and carnelian and turquoise beads, a dozen or more shaped like cowrie shells, were very old and special, objects that might have come from the pillaged tomb of a long-dead nobleman.
He handed the jewelry to Nebwa and unwrapped the bundle. The papyrus fragment was stiff but not brittle, which indicated it was of relatively recent manufacture. Inside, he found a chunk of ivory barely large enough to make an amulet or the bezel of a ring. A few words had been written on the papyrus, a portion of a ship’s manifest. The cargo listed was grain, the most common item shipped upriver, and the date of delivery was two months earlier.
Bak lay awake long into the night, trying to rest on a borrowed sleeping pallet spread out on the roof of the officers’ quarters at Kor. The stars were bright points of light in a sky no longer murky. The many animals sheltered within the walls made the small noises common to creatures restless among strangers: soft snorts, low brays, the muffled thud of hooves.
The excitement he had felt at finding the ancient jewelry had long since dissipated. The small hoard had answered no questions. Instead, it had given him another path to follow, one that might point the way to Intef’s slayer, but could as easily lead nowhere.
He tried not to be discouraged, but the feeling persisted.
Two murders in two days. Two dead men whose paths were unlikely to have crossed. And the slimmest of leads: an uncut tusk on Mahu’s ship, which had almost certainly led to his death. A few pieces of jewelry which might or might not have led to the death of Intef. And a small chunk of ivory which might or might not connect the two men.