Bak flashed a smile of thanks. “How many of the men who are presently working the mines are the same as those with whom Minnakht spoke?”
“The officers and overseers, most of the miners, and about half the soldiers are the same. The prisoners who toil on the goddess’s mansion, adding the new chambers our sovereign wishes built, differ from year to year.”
Bak set aside his empty beer jar and stood up to stretch his back. “All the men in User’s party will wish to come, and I want my Medjays with me. Is that too much to ask?”
“If you’ve a reason for taking so many men, it can be arranged.”
“I have no idea who the guilty man is,” Bak admitted, “and
I’ve thought at times that we have a snake among us.” He gave Puemre a humorless smile. “If I keep them all together and within arm’s reach, I hope to prevent another death.”
The following afternoon, the caravan left the port. The walking was easy for men and donkeys as they crossed the vast flat plain between the sea and the hills. Its sandy floor was strewn with chunks of gray and red granite, pink feldspar, and black basalt that had many centuries ago been swept down from the mountains. Ani ran from one rock to another, delighted with the display. He picked up innumer able colorful shards but, mindful of the difficulty of trans port, left most where he found them.
Along with the soldiers serving as guards and tending the donkeys and Bak’s small party, the caravan included thirty prisoners, men who would toil on the mansion of the Lady of
Turquoise. Bak did not envy them their punishment. The lord
Re had dropped behind the western horizon, offering a mag nificent showing of color, but the day was slow to cool. A prel ude to the many more long, hot days the men must endure.
Leaving the plain behind, they entered higher ground, fol lowing a series of dry watercourses carpeted with golden sand and hugged on either side by hills and escarpments, some yel lowish, some a glittering gray, and others shades of brown, all losing their color as night fell to blend together in shades of gray. A surprising number of acacias dotted the wadi floors, as did silla bushes and a kind of shrub the donkeys refused to eat.
Subsidiary wadis went off in all directions, a confusing maze of dry valleys cutting through the barren rock.
“You’ve no idea what you’re looking for?” Lieutenant
Nebamon drew Bak aside, allowing his sergeant to lead the caravan around a shoulder of rock by way of a narrow trail covered with a thick layer of soft sand. A steep bank fell away to the right, dropping fifty or so paces to the wadi floor.
Sand displaced by the animals spilled over the rim and slid down the slope with a gentle whisper.
They eased past several donkeys to stand beside a large boulder poised on the edge of the trail. A small grayish bird flitted out from above, startled from its sleep. The heavily laden donkeys passed one by one, their hooves mired in the deep sand. Several brayed their irritation at such strenuous effort.
“Did Minnakht ever explain why he wished to see the mines?”
“Not specifically.” Nebamon pushed back his lank black hair. He was of medium height and stick-thin. He looked to be about Bak’s age but his face was lined and leatherlike, vic tim of the harsh sunlight. “He questioned me about the way the men locate the copper ore and the turquoise and how they extract and process what they find.” He smiled at the mem ory. “I’m afraid I disappointed him. I’ve no interest in watch ing men burrow in the ground or toil over blazing furnaces, so I seldom go beyond the miners’ camps.”
Puemre had said this was Nebamon’s third year as caravan officer. Bak could not imagine spending so long a time in what had to be an exceedingly boring outpost without seek ing distraction. As far as he could see, no diversion existed except the mines. “Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“I once climbed the mountain of turquoise. I saw a few holes in the ground and men hacking away at the rock. I thought the lumps of stone they found small reward for the effort of transporting men, food, and supplies over inordi nately long distances and of grubbing the rock from the earth.”
“Men and supplies most often come from Mennufer along a trail some distance to the north, I understand. That has to be shorter than the southern route from Waset.”
“The journey is shorter, both by land and sea, the voyage made faster by northerly breezes. Still, the effort is substan tial for so modest a gain.”
“Our sovereign takes immense delight in the jewelry made from those chunks of stone,” Bak pointed out.
Nebamon leaped out to steady a donkey that had stepped on an unstable rock at the edge of the trail. “I assume Puemre told you she’s adding chambers onto the mansion of our
Lady of Turquoise.” He shook his head in disapproval.
“She’s never been here, of course, nor will she ever set foot in this wretched land, but I suppose she believes that enlarging the structure will increase her stature.” With a cynical laugh, he added, “While I was up there, I entered the mansion to bend a knee to the goddess. I almost broke my neck, stum bling over the stones lying about, awaiting placement.”
Bak enjoyed the lieutenant’s irreverent attitude, but fore saw grief in the future. Should the officer be posted to a gar rison in Kemet, he would have to bite his tongue to keep himself out of trouble. “Did Minnakht ever find a man who could answer his questions?”
“I heard that he spent a considerable amount of time with one of the miners. A man who toiled in the mines for several years, traveling all the way from the land of Retenu.”
Puemre had told Bak that many of the miners came from afar. They spoke a tongue other than that of Kemet and wor shipped different gods. For some reason Puemre could not fathom, the mansion of the Lady of Turquoise satisfied their devotional needs.
“Has that man come again this year?”
“I haven’t seen him. He was older than the other miners.
Too old for rough labor, I thought, and he seemed to know it.
He talked of leaving this life of deprivation and toil so he might spend his final years in his homeland, close to his wife and children, and their children.”
Bak muttered an oath. Thus far the gods were doling out the information he sought in such small bits that he feared he would die of old age before he learned the truth.
The prisoners trudged past, watched closely by their guards. Where they might flee in this waterless landscape, he could not imagine. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were roped together in a loose chain. Their faces were impossible to see in the darkness, but he sensed their lack of hope. He could not help but feel pity, but they had of fended the lady Maat and justice must be served.
Justice. He prayed that soon he would be able to offer to the gods the name of the man who had taken Rona’s life and the lives of so many others. At times he felt a glimmer of hope that he would do so; at other times he felt no closer to the truth than he had the day he and his men had set out from
Kaine.
The caravan reached the camp at the base of the mountain of turquoise the following morning. Bak pitied the soldiers posted to this hot and sun-bleached valley, and he was certain the miners and prisoners who toiled atop the mountain suf fered a harsher existence.
The camp was basic-primitive almost. Several groups of rough stone huts had been erected near the scree-covered base of a reddish sandstone mountain. A small flock of goats and four donkeys, tended by a nomad family, were perma nent residents, satisfying the scant needs of the army. Be cause the caravan animals had to bring their own food from the port and water had to be carried from a distant well, they never remained more than two or three days. Like the houses, the paddocks were walled with stone. Acacias fanned out across the valley floor, providing some relief from the sun.