Bak was sure that was exactly what Seneb had done, and Puemre had taken upon himself the task of righting a wrong, just as he had when he beat the sailor who struck the mute child. A man of high principles. Or was he? What of the belt clasp?
Bak eyed the trader with disdain. "How did you convince the garrison commander to believe you over Lieutenant Puemre?"
"I saw no love between them," Seneb said in a sullen voice.
"And you'd. aheady sacrificed… What? Half your investment?… by denying knowledge of the hidden animals and what they carried?"
Seneb clamped his mouth shut, refusing to admit or deny. Bak jerked- the pole from beneath the trader's chin, grabbed his arm, and swung him around to face the dead officer. "Did you take this man's life, Seneb?"
"You accuse me of…" The trader stared with horrified eyes. "No!"
"Did you come upon him standing alone, somewhere along the river between Iken and Kor? Did you creep up behind him and knock him unconscious, giving him no chance to protect himself?"
"I didn't!" Seneb cried. "Ask my servants. Ask those wretched children I brought from the land of Kush. They'll all tell you. I never left the caravan. Not once."
"We'll ask them," Bak said grimly.
But will we get the truth from them? he wondered. They all hated the trader and no longer had reason to fear him. They would as readily lie now to see him punished as they would have lied to protect him while still he held the whip.
"Lieutenant Puemre, inspecting officer at Iken." Nofery savored each word as if the knowledge was more tasty than fine wine. "I can't imagine why none of the scribes remember him. He was so well-formed and manly."
Bak scooted his three-legged stool closer to the doorway to catch the afternoon breeze and took a sip from his chipped drinking bowl. The beer she had given him was not the best she had to offer, but it was exactly what he needed: thick enough to coat the tongue and pungent enough to chase away the scent of death.
"They never saw him." He took another sip, rolling the harsh liquid around his mouth. "I went again to the scribal offices after I left the house of death. They have no record of a Lieutenant Puemmre bound for Iken or anywhere else upriver."
Nofery plopped down on a stool, which disappeared be1 heath the sagging flesh of her thighs. "Records have been known to disappear through careless filing."
He snorted. "You tell that to the chief scribe."
Tipping his stool back, he rested his head against the doorjamb and eyed the small, cramped room. Since he had come to Buhen he had grown accustomed to its faults and even felt at home within its walls, but he could well understand why she wanted better quarters. Stacks of amphorae and beer jars lined dirty, scarred walls. A table piled high with pottery drinking bowls, most in worse condition than the one he held, stood near the back wall, partly concealing a curtained door leading to a rear room. A dozen or so low three-legged stools were scattered about, one holding a precariously balanced pile of baked clay lamps. After the house of death, the mingled odors of sweat, stale beer, and burnt oil were almost pleasant.
"What a snake that trader is!" Nofery sneered. "To slay so noble an officer was an abomination."
Bak frowned into his nearly empty bowl. "I wish I could be as certain as you are."
Her eyes narrowed. "You doubt his guilt?"
"If you took a man's life, old woman, would you offer as witnesses to your innocence eleven people who despise you?"
Nofery shifted her huge rear, no longer comfortable with her certainty. "I'd like to believe the gods have given me greater wit than that."
Bak lifted a pottery beer jar from the floor between them and refilled their drinking bowls. All in all, he was content with his day, but he felt it a beginning rather than an end. He had found the answers he sought, yet he had more questions now than when he started. Those he felt sure could be answered in Iken. He yearned to go himself instead of sending a courier ahead, as Commandant Thuty wished. But, like the dregs swimming around in his bowl, he was trapped by circumstances.
Nofery brokedegthe silence. "They say the lord Amon travels south to Semna to meet the Kushite king Amon-Psaro, and you're to go with him. You and Nebwa." She stared at the bowl in her hand. "Is this true?"
The abrupt change of subject, a studied indifference in her voice drew Bak upright. "You never cease to amaze me, old woman. I learned of our mission only last night."
"The tale is true then."
"Nebwa will go, yes." Sure she wanted something, he was wary of what it might be. "I may not."
He went on to explain the commandant's decision to make him responsible for all major offenses within Thuty's area of command. While he spoke, a pretty, tousle-headed young woman peeked around the curtain behind Nofery. Her eyes were heavy with sleep, her smile slow and lazy. Bak greeted her with an absentminded nod. He enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh as much as any man, but this was neither the time nor the place.
"So because Thuty chooses to wait," he said ruefully, "I'm sitting on top of a wall, wanting to leap in both directions yet unable to jump either way."
Nofery, grunting at the effort, bent over to pick up the beer jar. She splashed the liquid into his bowl and hers, chuckled. "If I know you, my fine young friend, you're already searching for a way to do both."
With a sardonic smile, he raised his hand to lick off the beer she had slopped over the rim of his bowl. The young woman at the curtain bared one small, shapely breast, fondled it, beckoned. He barely saw her. The old woman's words were like a herdsman's goad, urging him to move, not stand in place.
Nofery was as unaware of his thoughts as she was of the girl, behind her. "If you do go upriver with the lord Amon, you'll be in Semna for some time, they say, serving the king himself."
Her tone again was too casual, jerking his thoughts from his own desires to hers. The journey upriver could have nothing to do with her wish to expand, he thought. Unless… "What do you want me to do, old woman? Walk through the villages around Semna, looking for a few dusky beauties for this place of business?"
Nofery's face lit up, she chortled. "Now that's an idea! Not one I'd thought of, but…" Her laughter dwindled, and she shook her head. "No, I'll speak with Nebwa later. He'll serve my purpose better."
Unable to hold Bak's attention, the girl shrugged her shoulders, stepped back, and let the curtain fall.
He was puzzled. What else could Nofery want? "If you've something to say, spit it out. Imsiba will soon come, and I'll have no more time for your endless demands."
She stared at her hands, lost in some secret memory that softened her heavy features and gave warmth to her mouth and eyes. "I once knew Amon-Psaro, many years ago." "You, old woman?" Bak asked, incredulous.
"Barely more than a child, he was, yet more of a man than most I've bedded. He was strong and fierce and at the same time kind and gentle. A man above all others even then."
"How can you make such a claim? You've never traveled beyond Kor. You told me so yourself."
Her massive breast rose and fell in an exaggerated sigh. "More than twenty years ago, it was, in our capital city of Waset. He was a prince then, a hostage taken north to Kemet by the soldiers of Akheperenre Tuthmose after their victory over his father in the land of Kush."
Could she be telling the truth? Bak wondered. The war she referred to was the last the army of Kemet had fought in this wretched land. Male children of defeated kings, boys who might one day sit on the thrones of their fathers, were commonly taken to Waset to live in the royal house. Raised with the children of the highest men in the land, adopting their ways, making firm friendships, they more often than not returned to their homelands as staunch allies of the conquering nation.