A half-dozen soldiers stood guard, while others performed the small, tedious duties necessary in a desert outpost. Their primary duty, Bak suspected, was to care for the caravan ani mals during their brief but regular sojourns. A few men branded as prisoners suffered the harshest duty, repairing tools, cleaning manure from the paddocks, and so on. No mads came and went, men who had left families and live stock in distant wadis while they came to trade.
Like the soldiers who had brought in the caravan, Bak and his party slept through the day. Not until after the evening meal did he have the opportunity to speak with Lieutenant
Huy, a slim, ruddy-faced man who, according to Nebamon, treasured his senet board and playing pieces and pressed all who came near into playing the game with him.
“I’m eternally grateful, Lieutenant.” Huy sat on a low stool beneath an acacia and set up the board, which had fold ing legs and contained a drawer in which to store the pieces.
“I seldom get to challenge anyone new.”
Bak, seated on a similar stool, watched him place the pieces in their appropriate squares. “Nebamon said you’d want to play.”
What the caravan officer had actually said was, “If you want him to answer your questions, you must play at least one game with him. But let me warn you: he fancies himself an expert, and he doesn’t like to lose. His goodwill is impor tant to the smooth running of this mine, and I can’t tell you how difficult it is to think of new ways to let him win.”
“He must’ve told you, then, that each time he comes, we compete.” Huy, who had given Bak the white cones and had taken the blue spools as his own, made the opening move without throwing the knucklebones, as he should have, to de cide who would begin. “I enjoy our games, but I can predict his every move. He plays with no imagination whatsoever.”
Bak took a sip of beer, smothering a laugh, and began to play. After allowing Huy to take his third playing piece, he said, “I understand Minnakht asked many questions about mining the turquoise while he was here.”
“He did.” Huy pounced on another piece. “I helped him as best I could, but finally sent him to Teti, the overseer.” He no ticed Bak’s curious look and smiled. “I’m responsible for the mines, yes, but my primary task is the smooth running of this camp and seeing that the men are supplied with all their needs, modest as they are. Teti knows the mines and mining better than any living man, so I entrust him to oversee the ac tivities atop the mountain of turquoise.”
Bak saw an opening on the game board so obvious a blind man could have spotted it. He could not resist taking one of
Huy’s pieces. “I understand he also asked about copper mining.”
The officer eyed the board and his mouth tightened, but as the number of spools exceeded the cones, he had no grounds for complaint. “He inquired about the workings west of here and those much farther away to the south. I told him all I knew, which isn’t much. I’ve been to the former, of course, but I’ve never seen the more southerly mines.”
“He visited the closer location, I understand.” Bak noted a careless move on Huy’s part and was sorely tempted to take advantage. He resisted the urge.
“He did, and he asked for a guide to take him south. I re fused. We were closing these mines for the season and none of the men who remained had sufficient experience to lead him through the mountains. I also warned him that those mines might already be shut down.”
“After I climb the mountain of turquoise, I wish to see the copper mines he visited. Would that be possible?”
“When Nebamon returns to the port, his caravan must make a detour to those mines. They’ve a load of copper ready to transport to the sea, the first of this season.”
Nebamon and his men had set up camp near the donkey paddocks, as had User and his party. Bak and his Medjays had elected to sleep twenty or so paces away and an equal distance from the nearest cluster of huts. At dusk, while Min mose prepared an evening meal of fish cooked with onions,
Bak strode across the sand to the caravan officer’s camp.
Nebamon saw him coming and motioned him to sit on the sand beside him. Handing his guest a jar of beer, he grinned,
“How did your game progress, Lieutenant?”
“Unfortunately I failed to win,” Bak said, forming an un happy look that would have convinced no one-except per haps Lieutenant Huy.
“I trust you made up for the loss in another way.”
Bak took a sip of beer and grimaced. It was one of the bit terest brews he had tasted since leaving the southern frontier.
“Tomorrow I’ll climb the mountain of turquoise and speak with the overseer.”
Nebamon smiled at Bak’s reaction to the beer. “Teti.”
“You know him?”
“I’ve seen him here at the camp a couple of times.” Neba mon sipped from his beer jar, then set it on the sand between his bare feet. “The miners say he’s a hard man, but one who can smell turquoise where none believe the stones exist.
They say he enters a shaft and strolls around with his hands locked behind his back. He tilts his head one way and an other, peering at the walls, and finally points a finger. Eight times out of ten, the miners find turquoise in that very spot.”
“If he’s so competent, why would Minnakht have spent so much time with the miner from Retenu?”
“Teti probably didn’t want to be bothered with him.”
If the overseer had no time for one man, Bak wondered how he would feel about ten, strangers one and all, demand ing a personal tour of his domain. “Huy said I could climb the mountain and descend in one day.”
The caravan officer raised his beer jar and twisted it in his fingers, making a show of studying it. Bak was reminded of the old woman Nofery, his spy in Buhen, and the way she doled out information, hoping to make a better bargain.
Nebamon, however, responded freely enough. “My sergeant,
Suemnut, and his men must escort the prisoners up the mountain tomorrow and must deliver the supplies we brought. They’ll leave at first light. You can walk up with them. The trail isn’t difficult, but can be confusing to one who’s never climbed it.”
“How long will they remain atop the mountain? I’ll need time to speak with Teti and I’d like to see the mines.”
“They won’t tarry.” Nebamon glanced toward the pad docks and said in a too-offhand voice, “If the donkeys are rested by the time they return-and they should be-I thought to leave in the early afternoon.”
Bak gave the officer a speculative look. He was convinced he wanted something, but what it might be, he could not imagine. “I’ve come too far to make such a hasty journey.”
Nebamon drank from his beer jar. Screwing up his face in distaste, he nodded. “I agree.”
Bak hated to ask the question. The answer might be costly.
“Could I convince you to stay an extra day?”
Nebamon’s lips twitched. “On one condition.”
“That is?”
“When at last you reach the land of Kemet, I’d be obliged if you’d send back to me twenty jars of the finest brew you can find, and a single jar of a good northern wine.”
Bak burst out laughing. “Done.”
“I’d like to go with you, sir.” Psuro untied his rolled sleep ing mat, clutched the edge, and flung it out on the sand.
“We’re surrounded by soldiers, true, but if the man who’s been trying to slay you is close by, you’re no safer here than you were in the Eastern Desert.”
“I insist you accompany me, Sergeant, and Nebre and
Kaha as well.” Bak glanced toward User’s campsite. “I feel certain User and Ani will wish to go and probably all the other men who came across the Eastern Sea with us. Any one of them may be as much at risk as I am.”
“I doubt that, sir.”
Refusing to argue with him, Bak picked up his sleeping mat, untied it, and shook it open. A long, thick brownish snake writhed free and dropped to the ground. A viper. Snap ping out a curse, Bak leaped backward. The deadly reptile sped across the sand toward Psuro, who stood paralyzed with shock. Too far away from their weapons cache to grab a spear, Bak tore his dagger from its sheath. Uttering a hasty prayer to the lord Amon, he flung the weapon. The slender blade impaled the snake just below its head. While it whipped its tail, trying to shake itself free, Bak leaped toward the spears, grabbed one, and slashed the head from the crea ture. Moments later, the snake writhed its last.