Bak doubted these men who had spent a lifetime on the river would lose their way easily, even with a captain trying to deceive them. They were holding the knowledge back for some reason. “Could you find it if you had to?”
Min shrugged. “A ledge is a ledge, and one oasis much like another.”
Bak was willing to bet they had left mooring stakes behind, and the ledge would surely be scarred from the hull rubbing the stone. “Did you ever meet another vessel there?”
“Never.”
“We sometimes saw signs that a ship had come and gone,” the boy piped up.
Another, sharper hiss brought a flush to his cheeks. At the back of the room, several men exchanged thin-lipped, disapproving glances. The youth was speaking too freely to suit them, inviting punishment.
With Captain Roy gone, Bak could think of only one reason for holding back information: a desire to keep secret someone or something. “I’ve heard tales of a headless man meeting a ship in the dead of night at a secret spot south of Kor.” A loud, heartfelt curse confirmed his guess. “As the ship was yours and the secret spot served as your mooring place, I’m amazed you failed to remember him. Surely one with so outstanding a feature would be hard to forget.”
The men looked at one another, their initial surprise quick to vanish, replaced by glares of accusation, as if they blamed each other for giving away their secret.
“He was there.” The boy ducked away from a well-aimed elbow. “We saw him each time we stopped for cargo.”
Min’s voice took on a placating tone. “He always stood at a distance, a headless wraith in the dark. When the time came for speech, usually after we loaded, our captain went to him. As he walked back, bringing with him a new manifest, the headless man faded into the darkness.”
Remembering how awed these men had been of the place and the ship they had seen when loading the cargo north of Buhen, Bak gave Min a curious look. “You show no fear, as most men would, of a ghostly figure with no head.”
Min snorted. “He’s a man, that’s all.”
“That’s all? A man?” A hard-muscled young sailor strode from the back of the room to tower over him. “Well, let me set you straight, Min. That man had the power to make us all men of wealth-if only you and that boy had had the good sense to keep your mouths shut.”
Min shot to his feet, his chin jutting. “We never saw his face and don’t know his name. How can we approach him, offering our services? If we’ve no ship to call our own and no captain to point the way, what services can we offer?”
“Sit down, both of you!” Bak commanded.
Min dropped where he stood. The younger man tried to melt in among his fellows. As if his accusation alone had put an end to their hopes, they refused to shelter him, forcing him to sit at the front of their ranks beneath Bak’s watchful eye.
With order restored, Bak asked, “Do you know of a man, a Kushite tribesman, who sails a small, sleek ship down the Belly of Stones?”
The sailors looked at each other, seeking a reason for remaining mute. But with their plan to again haul contraband revealed as hopeless, they could find no further reason for secrecy. To a man, they nodded.
“Wensu he’s called,” an older sailor said. “We often haul trade goods he’s brought from far upriver. You saw for yourself the ebony logs we carried on deck. He tied up beside us the day before we sailed north from Kor, and we moved them from his deck to ours.”
“Could he and the headless man be one and the same?”
“No,” the sailors chorused.
“Impossible.”
“Never.”
“The headless man is a man of the north, not the south,”
Min explained. “He’s pale of body and limb, not dark like the Kushite.”
“Wensu?” Captain Mahu’s pilot, a small, wizened man with white hair, wrinkled his nose in mild distaste. “The Kushite, you mean. The one with the traveling ship he’s turned into a trading vessel.”
“So I’ve been told,” Bak said.
“Sure, I remember him there.” Clinging to the stanchion supporting the huge oar-like rudder, one of a pair that controlled the cargo vessel’s direction, the pilot lifted a foot to scratch the instep. “The quay at Kor has limited space, as you know. Because of the large quantity of trade goods that came down the Belly of Stones during high water, ships were moored two and sometimes three deep, awaiting their turn to load. For a time, Wensu’s ship was tied to ours, and his sailors had to cross our deck to go ashore.”
Bak scowled at the man, exasperated. “Did you not tell my sergeant that no one came aboard who hadn’t the right to do so?”
“They had every right. How else could they get from their ship to dry land?”
Offering a silent prayer to the lord Amon for patience, Bak leaned back against the railing around the aftercastle, a raised platform located behind the steering gear. From where he stood, he could see the length of the vessel. The stalls had been cleared away and the deck scrubbed until the wood glowed a warm red-brown. New dark green mats still giving off the tangy smell of fresh sap walled the deckhouse. The sacks of grain and sheaves of hay had been moved into the shade beneath the mat shelter. Sailors were spread out around the ship, polishing fittings, repairing lines and hawsers, and working aloft at the masthead and on the yards.
He wondered if they had grown weary of inactivity and taken these tasks upon themselves or if Userhet had descended upon them on Sitamon’s behalf, urging them to toil doubly hard for their new mistress.
“How many crewmen does Wensu have on board?”
“Only six. Men from far to the south.”
“Did you or your mates get to know any of them?”
The pilot shook his head. “None speak our tongue.”
Bak nodded his understanding. He could think of no easier way to keep a secret than to surround himself with men unable to speak the tongue of the land in which they toiled. “You told my sergeant that Mahu always posted guards when the ship was laden with cargo.”
“He did.” The pilot’s eyes darted toward Bak’s and slid away. “Much of what we carried belonged to other men, and his reputation rested on delivering each and every object. He wanted no one coming aboard who might pilfer or destroy.”
Bak’s voice turned hard, biting. “But, unknown to him, the guards sometimes left their post at night, slipping into the deckhouse to nap or onto another ship to wager over throwsticks or knucklebones.”
The pilot’s nose shot into the air, his voice turned indignant. “Oh, no, sir! We always did as Captain Mahu bade us! We never…Never!..failed in our duty.”
The pilot’s eyes darted hither and yon, searching for a way out. Certain the guards had left their post the night the tusk had been hidden belowdecks, Bak dropped off the aftercastle, shouldered him aside, and strode to the gangplank.
Bak hurried off the quay, eager to share his findings with Imsiba. He had two men: the Kushite Wensu, whose task it was to bring contraband from far upriver and down the Belly of Stones, and an unknown man of Kemet, no doubt the one who slew Mahu, who could write out a false manifest and pass it on with the items to be smuggled north. In a word, the headless man. If the gods chose to smile on them, their journey south the following day would answer their remaining questions and lead them down the path to their quarry.
Better yet and easier by far, they would find Wensu at Kor, snare him before he could flee, and set his tongue to wagging.
He went first to the guardhouse, but the big Medjay had not been seen since midday. At the police barracks, he was told the sergeant had come around midafternoon, changed into a fresh kilt, and gone on about his business. Hoping a change of clothing meant a visit to Sitamon, Bak crossed the city to her house, following lanes congested with soldiers hurrying to their barracks or home to their families after toiling all day at their posts. The last thing he wanted was to disturb the pair if they were together, but he need not have worried; the house was empty. According to a neighbor, Imsiba had come and gone some time ago. Sitamon and her son had left with him.