Hearing voices in the lane outside, Bak tipped his stool back and peered through the door. Imsiba stood a dozen or so paces away, talking with a trio of spearmen. Bak swallowed his beer in a single gulp and stood up, ready to leave. "As for me…" Nofery sneaked a glance in his direc tion, smirked. "I was young and beautiful then, desirable to many men. Amon-Psaro among them."
The smirk convinced him: she was trying to dupe him for the second time in one day. Giving her his most charming smile, he bent over and pinched her cheek. "You were never young and beautiful, Nofery."
She stared at him with an expression so forbidding he thought for a moment she would slap him. Then she started to laugh, great hearty guffaws that set in motion every roll of fat beneath her long white shift.
Bak, feeling a bit guilty for making fun of her, pulled her to her feet. "Come, old woman. Imsiba is outside. I trust he's spent much of the afternoon questioning those poor wretches Seneb brought from the south. If so, he's earned a reward. A jar of beer should suit him, the best you have."
"You want me to go to Iken." Imsiba's voice was flat, his expression disapproving.
Bak shoved aside a basket of crusty, fist-sized loaves of bread and sat down on the second step of the open stairway leading to the roof. Fine dust drifted aimlessly in a sliver of sunlight falling from above. "The commandant said., send a courier,' and you're the man I've selected."
"What of Seneb? I've not yet finished questioning those who traveled with his caravan."
Bak had thought out exactly what he wanted, and he was not about to retreat before the Medjay's assault. "Am I not able to question them as well as you?"
Imsiba scowled at the world in general. Bak settled back on the stairs and glanced around his quarters with the unconscious satisfaction of one who had experienced life in a barracks. The room in which they sat was small and plain, with a hard-packed earthen floor and white plastered walls. One stool stood just inside the entrance, the other in a corner amid a clutter of rush baskets overflowing with scrolls, a writing pallet, paint and water pots, all the tools of Hori's trade. One rear door led to Bak's bedchamber, the second to the scribe's room. A large white dog with a broad muzzle and sagging ears sprawled between the two, his legs and bushy tail twitching in response to a dream.
Surrendering to the inevitable, Imsiba dropped onto the stool by the entrance, his back to the narrow, sun-baked lane. "What am I to do once I'm there? Or, more to the point, what are your special instructions over and above delivering the message of Lieutenant Puemre's slaying?"
Bak gave his friend a look of mock innocence. "You question my motives, Imsiba?"
"I know you too well, my friend, to look only on the surface of any task you give me that's out of the ordinary." Bak plucked a loaf from the basket and, breaking into laughter, threw it at the Medjay, who caught it with easeand a reluctant smile.
"One day I'll disappoint you, but not today." Sobering, Bak leaned forward, elbows on knees. "If the man who took Puemre's life has been caught, the matter is closed, and all I ask you to do is satisfy my curiosity. Who slew him in so foul a manner and why? For what reason did he fail to register here in Buhen? What story lies behind the belt clasp?"
Imsiba shook his head. "If the slayer has been caught, a message would've come to Commandant Thuty long before now, especially if Lieutenant Puemre was of noble birth."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you? Yet Thuty hasn't even been notified he's missing." Bak raised a cynical eyebrow. "Don't you think an officer's absence would've been noticed by this time?"
"Perhaps you make a mystery where none exists." The Medjay spoke with no conviction whatsoever.
"Go to Iken at first light tomorrow. Speak with the garrison commander and learn all you can. If he can offer no solution to Puemre's death, I must go at once. The slayer's trail is already two days old. By the time you return, three will have passed, and a fourth day will go by before I can get there."
"Are you not leaping too fast, my friend? Commandant Thuty has yet to decide what he wishes you to do." "The slain man was an officer, Imsiba, and from all appearances a man of quality." '
The Medjay muttered a curse in his own tongue. "This Lieutenant Puemre could not have been slain at a worse time. You should journey upstream with the rest of us, not spend your days in Iken, searching for carrion."
"I'm not sure when the lord Amon will arrive in Buhen or how long it'll take him to reach Iken. I'd wager six or seven days, maybe more." Bak's mouth tightened to a thin, stubborn line. "I hope to lay my hands on Puemre's slayer long before that."
Imsiba looked doubtful. "I yearn to believe you can, my friend."
"Thanks to Commandant Thuty, I feel like a man who's been offered two plump pigeons but given no opportunity to eat either of them." Bak's voice turned grim. "I may fail in the attempt, but I intend to try for both."
Chapter Four
Commandant Thuty strode through the door of the room he used as an office. Speculation as to the reason for his summons faded to silence. The dozen officers scattered among the four red columns that supported the ceiling stepped back to make a path to the armchair standing empty against the rear wall.
Nebwa leaned close to Bak and murmured, "Where's Imsiba?"
"I sent him to Iken." Bak kept his voice equally muted. "He left at first light and should be back before nightfall." "You sly jackal." Nebwa grinned. "What'd you tell him to do? Whisper your praise in the garrison commander's ears?"
Bak snorted. "Questions, Nebwa, not praise." His eyes strayed toward the commandant and an anger born of frustration seeped into his voice. "If I'm to resolve Puemre's death, I've no great desire' to report to Iken blinded by ignorance."
Thuty shifted his chair from the wall to stand behind it with his hands resting on its back. "A courier arrived from the north no more than an hour ago," he announced. "If the breeze remains fair, the lord Amon will reach Buhen by midafternoon today."
Murmurs of anticipation, excitement rippled through the room. Even Bak, who had grown to manhood only a half hour's walk from the god's mansion in the capital, was not immune. His joy was soon marred by regret, followed quickly by dismay. Imsiba would not be back in time to watch the holy procession. And the god's arrival at so early a date shrank the number of days that would pass before Amon reached Iken to only four or five. Could he hope to search out Puemre's slayer in so short a time?
Thuty raised a hand for silence. "I assume each of you has told your men what I expect of them when the sacred barge docks at the quay?"
"Yes, sir," the officers chorused.
"I've seldom seen so many kilts and shields drying in the sun," Nebwa muttered. "The rooftops are as littered as the desert verge when an army long away from water rushes to the river for a swim."
Another officer laughed softly. "My men have polished their spearpoints so much they've lost their edge."
Bak's smile was automatic, his thoughts wandering. Since taking command of the Medjay police, he had snared three men who had taken the lives of others. Two had been easy to catch, the slaying done in anger and the slayer too paralyzed by his offense against the lady Maat to cover his tracks. The third death, that of Thuty's predecessor, had taken weeks to resolve. If Puemre's slayer had not yet been caught, such would probably be the case here as well.