Bak eyed his friend intently. “You must truly care for mistress Sitamon.”
“What have I to offer a woman like her?” Imsiba scooped up a small, sharp stone and flung it hard across the unmarked sand.
“Few men walk as tall as you, my brother, in every sense of the word.”
With a bleak laugh, the Medjay brushed his hands together, ridding them of sand, and firmly closed the subject. “If we’re to search this wasteland, we must establish bounds.”
Bak squeezed his shoulder, showing him he understood.
“Look at that ridge, Imsiba, and tell me what you see.”
The Medjay stared. Slowly his frown dissolved and he nodded. “I see a wall of rock, unlike the rocky shelf containing the old cemetery in Buhen, and at the same time similar.”
“Exactly.” Speaking slowly, thinking out a plan as he did, Bak said, “We know where Intef was slain-on the back side of the ridge about a half hour’s walk north of here-and we know the headless man leads the ox into the desert from the cove behind us. I think it safe to begin our search 216 / Lauren Haney here, using as our southern boundary this spine of rock.
We’ll work our way north along the ridge, passing if we must the place where Intef was slain and going on as far as the place where we found his donkeys.”
“The task will be onerous, my friend.”
“But not impossible to complete.”
“And if we find nothing?”
Bak refused to dwell on the possibility of failure. “I wonder how Intef found the tomb. Did he come this far south to hunt? Did he follow the headless man from here, or did he find it another way?”
“The hunter Intef?” Ahmose looked first at Bak and then Imsiba, the wrinkles across his brow deepened by perplexity.
“Of course I knew him. He came every month or so. Camped downriver in a patch of wild grasses, a place where his donkeys could graze without troubling nearby farmers.”
“Did you ever talk with him?” Bak asked.
“Now and again.” Ahmose gave him a sharp look. “Why?
What did you find when you walked out on the desert that brought you back to me a second time?”
The old man, driven by curiosity, had hurried down the path to meet them. He squatted now on the bank near his skiff, looking down on the pair in the boat. Swallows scolded from a nearby acacia. A gray duck led her fuzzy, cheeping brood through the reeds, swimming in fits and starts, harvesting insects.
“Did you not watch us from the summit of this island?”
Imsiba asked, his voice wry. “Surely you saw that we came up empty-handed.”
Ahmose raised his chin high, indignant. “Life here is lonely, Sergeant, and one of endless toil. Am I not entitled to a time of rest?”
“The sergeant meant no offense,” Bak said, smothering a smile, the better to smooth the old man’s ruffled feathers.
“You’ve every right to take some ease. Would I have vowed to find you a servant if I didn’t think you worthy?”
Ahmose opened his mouth and closed it, the reminder sapping his resentment.
A breath of air touched Bak’s cheek, not the hot caress of daytime, but the cooler kiss of evening. They could linger no longer. To attempt to reach Kor in the dark, sailing through these hazardous waters, would be foolhardy. “Did you ever speak to Intef of the headless man?” he asked Ahmose.
“I warned him to take care, to stay far away from the cove and close his eyes and ears to any ships he might see or hear.”
“Sealing his lips like those of all who live and toil along this stretch of the river.” Imsiba’s voice was flat, his demeanor critical.
Ahmose gave the Medjay a disdainful glance. “We don’t farm this land because we’re brave men, sergeant. We stay because this was the land of our fathers and their fathers before them. We’ve no other place to go and no other way to earn our bread.”
Bak shot a warning glance at the Medjay, urging silence.
“Did Intef heed your words of caution, old man?”
“I never saw him at the cove when the headless man met the ships, but I once saw him there the following day.” Ahmose waved off a fly. “He must’ve heard a vessel come and go, and voices in the night, and decided to see what he could see. I climbed into my skiff and rowed across to the cove, where I warned him a second time to take care.”
“Did he ever follow the headless man into the desert?”
Ahmose snorted. “He was a hunter. Would such a man follow a trail when he feared his own tracks might be followed?”
Bak smiled to himself. For one whose life was so limited, the old man missed almost nothing. “Did you ever see him far out on the desert? Possibly leading his donkeys along the ridge that separates this valley from the endless sands to the west?”
“He always came down from the desert.” Ahmose’s eyes narrowed. “The ridge, you say?”
“I know you’ve much to do and have precious few moments to stand idle,” Bak said, grinning, “but if you happened to be in need of rest, and if you happened to look toward the western desert, did you by chance ever see Intef exploring the ridge with more care than you thought necessary?”
Ahmose blinked a couple of times, absorbing the jest, then slapped his knee and burst into laughter. “You’ve a fine tongue in your head, Lieutenant! A way with words I truly enjoy.”
Imsiba lowered his head as if in prayer, hiding his face.
Bak gave the old man a fleeting smile, but remained silent, waiting.
Ahmose contained himself with difficulty. “The time I spoke with Intef at the cove, he went on about his business, traveling north along the river toward Kor to deliver the game his donkeys carried. Sometime later-a month, maybe longer-he came back. I saw him at the river one evening and the next day out by the ridge.” The last trace of humor faded from the old man’s face. “He was taking his time, tracking, I thought. I hurried into my house and knelt before the shrine. And I prayed he wasn’t tracking the headless man.”
“I sent two boats into the Belly of Stones and a like number of patrols along the water’s edge. They both came back empty-handed.” Nebwa ran his fingers through his unruly hair and stared sightlessly across the harbor of Kor. “If Wensu’s in there, he’s hidden his ship in a spot not easily found, and not a farmer along the river is willing to give him away.”
“They’re afraid,” Bak said, weariness creeping into his voice. “Of the authority you and I represent. Of Wensu, and rightly so. Not Captain Roy, for they must know by now that he drowned in the storm. And they fear the headless man.”
Nebwa planted his backside on a mooring post. “You saw for yourself how vulnerable they are. Can you blame them for being skittish?”
“Not at all.”
The two men sat in silence, mulling over the day’s minor successes and major failures. The lord Re lay on the distant horizon, a red-orange ball flattened against the outer gate of the netherworld. Not a breath of air stirred.
Except for a man whistling a bright and cheerful tune, the harbor was quiet, with many of the smaller vessels departed.
The larger ships remained, their masters unable to get mooring space at Buhen with the vizier’s fleet soon to arrive.
The five great warships plus the vessels already there would fill the harbor to bursting. To move a ship from Kor to Buhen and then have to move it back was not worth the effort.
“You’ll send soldiers upriver to look after Kefia’s farm and old Ahmose, as I promised?” Bak asked.
“How long must they stay?”
Bak gave a sharp, humorless laugh. “I’ve vowed to end this nightmare before the vizier arrives. That gives me one day, two at most.”
“I’ve bent my knees today before every shrine in Kor,”
Nebwa said with a resigned smile. “Something tells me I’d better go around again.”
Bak awoke the following morning long before daybreak.
He lay on his sleeping pallet, listening to Hori’s soft breathing in the next room and an occasional whimper from the large and good-natured dog the youth had brought into their lives as a puppy. Bak’s tangled sheets smelled of perfume, souvenir of the pretty young woman who had come to him in the night, sent by Nofery to put him in her debt. The old woman, whose curiosity knew no bounds, wanted to be sure he would tell her of his quest for the man who slew Mahu and Intef-and, no doubt of greater interest to her, the ancient tomb he sought and the riches it might contain.