Psuro stared, appalled, at the reptile. “How could a viper get into your sleeping mat?”
“Not by itself, I’d wager.”
The sergeant tore his eyes from the creature. “As I said be fore, sir, you’re no safer here among all these soldiers than you were in the solitude of the desert.”
Chapter 15
“Someone tried to slay me last night.” Bak looked at each of the men scattered around User’s camp, registering their reac tions. “When I unrolled my sleeping mat, a viper fell out. An angry viper bent on avenging its captivity.”
User, honing the edges of his spear point, showed no sur prise at this new attack on a member of the caravan, but his usual grim expression turned grimmer still. Nebenkemet looked up from the cooking bowl he was cleaning with sand and muttered a curse. Ani, who was tucking a dirty square of linen into his belt with the expectation of collecting a few samples of turquoise, looked appalled. Wensu, seated on the ground, the last to finish his morning meal, glanced quickly at the sand around him and scrambled to his feet.
Amonmose slipped his arms into the sleeves of his filthy tunic and pulled it over his head. “I thought we’d left that vile criminal behind when we crossed the sea.”
“Could not the snake have crawled inside to escape the heat?” Wensu asked.
As far as Bak could tell, each of the men had reacted in a predictable manner. “The mat was rolled too tight. Only be cause the lord Amon chose to smile upon Psuro did he avoid being struck by its deadly fangs.”
“And because you were quick with the dagger, sir.” The sergeant stood with the other Medjays at the edge of the camp, watching the men in User’s party as closely as Bak studied them.
About thirty paces away, Lieutenant Nebamon stood with
Sergeant Suemnut, a hard-muscled man of medium height, in front of the hut in which the supplies had been kept safe until they could be transported to the mines atop the moun tain of turquoise. They watched the soldiers who had come from the port with the caravan scurrying around, placing yokes on the prisoner’s shoulders and checking for balance the baskets and bundles of supplies and the water jars sus pended from either side. When they finished that task, more than half the soldiers, grumbling among themselves, as sumed identical burdens. The remaining men stood off to the side, fully armed and awaiting Suemnut’s signal to depart.
“I know several attempts have been made to slay you, but were they true attempts on your life?” User asked. “All who’ve vanished or have died were men familiar with the
Eastern Desert. As I am. You’d think I’d be the next target, not you.” He raised his hands to stave off comment and bared his teeth in a sham grin. “Don’t get me wrong, Lieutenant.
I’m grateful. But I’m also puzzled.”
Bak gave him a sharp look. “You knew the man we found dead at the well north of Kaine?”
“If I knew him, I’d have said so.” User scowled, irritated.
“You’re not the sole man in this caravan who’s capable of reaching the vast sum of two after adding one and one to gether. No sane man would travel the desert alone if he didn’t know it well.”
Bak ignored the sarcasm. “You’re right. To keep to his pat tern, he’d wish you dead instead of me. Unless he’s more afraid of me than you.”
“If it’s wealth he’s after, he has no reason to fear me. I’m no closer to finding gold today than I was twenty years ago.”
User’s laugh was humorless, directed at himself. “As for you,
Lieutenant: If I planned some vile deed abhorrent to the gods, I’d want you out of the way. You may not know this land, but you’re tenacious. And you’re a soldier free of the burdens of official duty, the nearest thing in this godforsaken land to a policeman.”
“I am a policeman.”
Bak glanced at Amonmose, the sole man among them who had known who he was. The trader smiled, relieved at the disclosure. Ani looked startled, while Wensu appeared an noyed. Nebenkemet’s expression shut down, a man refusing to reveal himself.
User burst out laughing. “I should’ve guessed. The ques tions you’ve asked, the way you examined the men we found dead, and most of all, the Medjays. Not many ordinary offi cers command a troop of Medjays.”
“How could you not tell us?” Wensu demanded. “We had a right to know. Men have been slain beneath our very noses, yet you sat back and did nothing. Said nothing. We needed protection, reassur…”
“Silence!” User snarled. “If the lieutenant and his men hadn’t joined our caravan, we might all be dead by now. His
Medjays have walked ten times the number of steps the rest of us have taken, scouting ahead, searching for him when he was abducted, following suspicious footprints. I’ve not seen you put forth one-tenth the effort.”
Thoroughly chastised, Wensu swallowed whatever else he thought to say.
“I came not as a policeman,” Bak said, “but as a soldier given a task by his commandant. If we’d not found the man dead at the well, I’d have revealed myself sooner. But men an swer questions more readily when asked by a friend or ac quaintance, so I decided to keep secret the fact that we’re policemen.”
“You thought one of us slew the stranger,” Ani said, clearly surprised.
“My men found no sign of an intruder.”
User eyed him thoughtfully. “You’ve been watching us ever since, saying nothing, hoping to pounce on the rat among us.”
“The night Dedu walked away to be slain, we found the footprint of an unknown party in your camp, a man whose print Kaha first spotted between Kaine and our initial camp site, the man who’s been watching us ever since. That print cleared no one of suspicion, but it suggested that someone other than any of you might’ve slain the first man.”
“What of Senna and Rona?” Amonmose asked.
“The floor of the gorge was too rocky, the patches of sand too disturbed to reveal footprints.”
“Do you continue to believe one of us is the guilty man?”
Ani asked. “Is that why you’ve come to us this morning?”
“I don’t know the name of the slayer,” Bak admitted, “nor am I convinced he’s among you. Whether or not he is, wher ever he is, I intend to snare him. If one of you has been help ing him, you’ll suffer a like fate. Make no mistake about that.” He scanned the faces of the men before him. “I keep no secrets. I share with my men all I know and suspect. I’ve re ported to the captain of the ship on which we crossed the
Eastern Sea and to Lieutenant Puemre at the port. Any at tempt to silence me or to stop my investigation will be in vain.”
“I can’t believe any of them is a slayer.” Psuro, walking behind Bak up the narrow trail that led to the mines atop the mountain of turquoise, hoisted his quiver higher onto his shoulder. “Wensu’s all talk, too weak to face a man with a dagger. Ani wouldn’t know what to do with a weapon. As for the others…”
“You don’t think User could slay a man?”
“I do-for a good reason or in the heat of battle. I doubt he’d slay several men, one after the other, or creep up behind a man and stab him in the back.” Psuro glanced down the long, steep slope to their right, which was covered with bro ken chunks of reddish sandstone. “I believe the same to be true of Amonmose.”
Bak nodded, in full agreement. “What of Nebenkemet?”
“I’ve no doubt that he could slay a man, but would he?”
They walked on, following Sergeant Suemnut and four armed soldiers who led the supply train. Not a sound could be heard in the still air except the crunch of sandals on rock, a muttered curse now and then, and the faint call of a falcon soaring overhead. At the end of a long traverse around the curve of the mountain, they scrambled up a vertical section of reddish sandstone, split by erosion into thick, flat plates lying one on top of another.