“So you did as you were told,” Imsiba prodded.
Kefia nodded. “The animals are sometimes taken away and returned in the night, and each time I find gifts on my doorstep. When next I go to the cove, I see signs of a ship and the presence of men.” His voice rose in pitch, trembled.
“That’s all I can tell you! I swear it!”
Bak, like Imsiba, could not believe Kefia had resisted the temptation to spy on his benefactor. To make him admit he had done so would be difficult if not impossible. He thought it best to move on. Perhaps someone with less to lose would have noticed more.
“The pigeons rose from the downstream end of the island.”
Bak, seated in the prow of the skiff, studied a patch of churning foam off to the right, half-submerged rocks lurking beneath a delicate froth. “A flock of a hundred or more.
We’ll find a farmer who’s raising them, I’m sure.”
Imsiba glanced upward, his eyes following a sheer bluff of black rock to a summit crowned by an overhanging acacia.
“The view from up there must be spectacular. How much of the cove, I wonder, can be seen after dark?”
“Look!” Bak pointed. “Goats!”
Ahead, the face of the cliff fell away and tumbled rocks formed a more gradual slope. Acacias, tough grasses, and weeds clung to the upper reaches, while tamarisk fringed the lower. A half dozen of the sure-footed animals stared down, unafraid.
“Did Nebamon’s servant not say that the farmer who talked of the headless man went to Buhen with goats to trade?”
“He did, and with the cove so near…” Bak left the thought, the hope unspoken.
Rounding a shoulder of glistening rock, they came upon a papyrus skiff lying among the weeds above the waterline.
A short, wiry man with limp gray hair sat on a projecting rock, fishing pole in hand. The instant they came into view, he jammed the pole into the earth, pushed himself to his feet, and scrambled down the slope to the water. Catching the prow of their boat, he pulled it close so they could dis-embark.
“Took you long enough to get here, Lieutenant,” he said, grinning broadly.
Bak laughed. News of their mission had traveled faster than they. “If you know who we are, you must know why we’ve come.”
“The headless man.” Helping Imsiba drag the skiff up on the bank, the old man looked with a covetous eye at the weapons lying in the hull and at the basket of food and drink they had yet to consume. “I’ve seen him. Not just from up there…” He waved a hand toward the highest point on the island. “…but from the water. Couldn’t get too close, mind you, but I got near enough to see the black cloth wrapped around his head and to hear him talk to the masters of the ships moored in the cove and to see the grand and worthy objects they’ve been smuggling across the frontier.” Like many a man who lived apart from his fellows, he was gar-rulous to a fault.
Imsiba eyed him narrowly. “If you saw so much, why didn’t you report it long ago?”
“Fear, pure and simple.”
“And now?” the Medjay demanded.
The old man gave an exaggerated shrug. “I think it time the scales of justice are balanced.”
And with us close on the heels of the smugglers, Bak thought, you’ve decided it’s safe to seek a reward. Thus your trip to Buhen. “We’ve brought bread and beer and the flesh of a goose, old man. Could we find a place to sit in comfort?
We can talk while we share the food.”
Eyes sparkling with anticipation, the old man gestured toward a narrow, winding path that led upward. “Ahmose, I’m called. Welcome to my farm.”
The island was a gigantic clump of cracked and broken rock whose nooks and crannies had been filled, through the centuries, with wind-blown sand and silt laboriously hauled from natural deposits found elsewhere. The larger patches of soil were planted with fruits and vegetables, the lesser supported the weeds and bushes and wild trees that provided food for the goats. A close to idyllic situation, safe from most desert marauders and intruders, yet at the same time precarious and one of endless toil. Carrying water to the higher garden plots had to be an arduous and never-ending task.
Not far below the summit, a tiny mudbrick house stood behind a walled courtyard, partially shaded by acacias. A pigeon-cote stood close by, and four pottery beehives filled a rocky nook overlooking the house. As they approached the building, a wizened old woman vanished through the doorway, leaving a mound of coarse-ground flour beside a grindstone.
“My mother-in-law,” Ahmose said. “Just the two of us left now. Everybody else has gone. My wife, my sons and daughters, my grandchildren. Most are dead, the rest moved away.”
Bak could well understand the reason. Not many people would thrive in so lonely a spot. Though the island offered a rare freedom, few could tolerate so much time alone with their own thoughts.
Imsiba sat cross-legged in the shade and cut the goose into four portions. He rewrapped one in several limp leaves and placed it near the grindstone. Ahmose’s eyes flickered surprise, but he made no comment. The other portions, the Medjay handed around.
“Now, old man,” Bak said, sitting beside his friend, “how long have you been watching these secret meetings in the night?”
“More than a year.” Ahmose wiggled briefly, searching for a softer spot for his bony rear. “Mighty entertaining, they’ve been, and often enlightening.”
“Tell us.” Bak handed him a small, round loaf of bread but held on to a beer jar as if too intent on the answer to think to pass it on. He was certain the old man was the source of Nebamon’s tale, a tale sure to draw either a desert patrol or the police, and he was equally certain Ahmose wanted something in exchange for the information he meant to give.
The old man tore a chunk from the crusty bread, stuffed it into his mouth, and began to chew, stretching the time.
The pigeons swept low overhead, returning from their flight with a whirring of wings, and settled on the courtyard wall, the house, their own house, and the earth. Imsiba covered the fresh-ground grain with a reed mat he found draped over the wall.
“I’m in need of a servant,” Ahmose said. “Someone young and strong, who’ll help tend my vegetables and my flocks.
Someone to carry water when the plants are thirsty and feed the animals when they hunger. Someone to help the old woman with cooking and cleaning, neither of which she can do any longer with skill. Someone to care for the two of us when our strength fails.”
Bak stifled a smile. The request was reasonable, the need probably greater than the old man let on, but he had too much experience to agree too readily. “Until I know what you have to offer, I can do nothing but think on the matter.”
“Two ships, I’ve seen.” Ahmose paused, pretending to sort out his thoughts. His eyes drifted to the beer jar Bak held, then dropped to the portion of goose Imsiba had given him.
“One vessel is small and agile, sailing swift and sure among the rocks, its master a man of the south who can see in the dark and who can tell by the whisper of the water what lies beneath the surface. The other vessel is bigger, a trading ship, the captain a man of Kemet who goes by the name of Roy. He, too, knows these waters, but is hampered by the size of his vessel.”
“You’ve told me nothing I didn’t already know.” Bak looked at the jar as if surprised to see it in his hand, and tossed it to the old man, who caught it with the deftness of a youth. “To earn a reward, you must give me information far more worthy than that.”