Bak grinned unexpectedly. "That should keep you busy through much of the morning."
"Much of the week, I'd guess." Pashenuro laughed. Bak sobered, his eyes darted toward the younger man. "What have you to do, Kasaya?"
The hulking Medjay, sitting cross-legged on his sleeping pallet, poured a dollop of oil into his hand and spread it over his arms and torso. "I'm to start with Lieutenant Puemre's neighbors, teaming what they know of him and of the people he knew and the places he went. Of the people they name, I'm to go only to the civilians who knew him outside the garrison."
"I'll be talking to the men in the barracks," Pashenuro reminded him.
Kasaya frowned at the unnecessary offering. "If I find the mute child, I'm to bring him back here and guard him with my life. The same is true of the craftsman who drowns himself in beer. As for the scarred man, once I learn where he lives and toils, I'm to stay far away, letting him think he's safe from your questions."
"What of the woman heavy with child?" Pashenuro asked. "The one who cared for the dead man's house." Bak slipped a foot into a sandal, his thoughts turning to the sketch he had found in the mute boy's bed. He had been convinced of a plot when he found it, but in the light of a new day, the idea seemed ridiculous. Why would any man of Kemet want to slay Amon-Psaro? He was a powerful king, yes, but he ruled a distant land. A land so far away, it seemed more mythical than real.
Still, a tiny suspicion lurked, an irritant like a minute grain of sand lodged in the corner of an eye. "If she cleaned the house for him and the boy, she also washed their sheets and made their beds. I should talk to her myself."
"Amon-Psaro's courier passed through on his way to Buhen soon after nightfall last night," Woser said. "He came again at daybreak, carrying Commandant Thuty's answer and instructions for me as well."
"The king's entourage is within a few hour's march of Semna!" Bak slumped onto the nearest stool, one of several scattered around the courtyard. "I don't want to believe it!"
"They'll march through its gate before dark. There they'll remain, awaiting the lord Amon."
"The young prince must've taken a turn for the worse." Woser strode across. the courtyard, pivoted, and strode back. Worry clouded his face. "The long journey and the heat of the desert at this time of year would be a strain on anyone. For a frail and ailing child…" He shook his head, the wrinkles on his brow deepened. "I pray Amon-Psaro understands that the lord Amon can sometimes be whimsical in his cures."
I pray Kenamon's skills as a physician are worthy of the challenge, Bak thought, sharing the commander's concern. "The god's barge must already have left Buhen," Woser said, taking another turn across the court, narrowly missing a basket of white thread wound into balls. The container stood at the foot of a loom on which a length of finely woven linen was stretched. "The vessel should reach the gates of Iken by dusk tomorrow. The lord Amon will spend but a single night here in the mansion of Hathor before journeying on, 'directly to Semna."
"He won't linger at the other garrisons along the Belly of Stones, visiting the gods as originally planned?" Bak whistled softly. "For time to be so critical, the prince's life must truly be threatened."
"The boy can't breathe in the life-giving air, so the courier told me. Each day that passes seems his last."
The two officers looked at each other, awed by a course of events they were helpless to alter, their mutual mistrust momentarily forgotten.
Woser was the first to turn to more practical matters, to tasks he could control. "All our plans for the lord Amon must be revised. The procession when he arrives will go on, but the presentation of gifts, the distribution of food and drink, the merrymaking, must be curtailed. We must assign additional sentries without delay and send more troops to patrol the desert track. We must…" He went on, listing the many and varied tasks that had to be done, squeezing four days' work into half the time.
Bak let his thoughts stray to his own pressing needs. If he was to take his place at the head of his men while they served as Amon-Psaro's guard of honor, he had only two days to lay hands on Puemre's slayer. An impossible task unless the witnesses, the mute boy and the besotted man, were found. As for the sketch, he prayed the child could somehow explain it away.
A new thought came to him. Perhaps Puemre had for some unimaginable reason taken a dislike to Amon-Psaro. Maybe he had made the sketch, hoping to bring misfortune to the Kushite king by means of sympathetic magic. If so, it had worked; the prince's health was failing daily. But what if I'm wrong? Bak wondered; what if there is a plot afoot? Tiny fingers of fear ran up his spine. Amon-Psaro would soon be encamped at Semna, a bare day's hurried walk from Iken. Too close by far.
"I must quickly get on with the task Commandant Thuty assigned me," he said. "Are your officers here, as promised?"
Woser scowled, the moment of mutual regard lost. "I trust you understand how much they have to do in too short a time."
"I'll not keep any of them long," Bak assured him.
Troop Captain Huy leaned over a broken section of battlement and eyed the rooftops of the lower city. Bak stood beside him, high above the escarpment on a partially fallen spur wall that projected from the eastern face of the fortress. In the distant past, the spur had served a purpose. Now, with the armies of Kush long ago defeated and warfare limited to desert skirmishes, with a powerful girdle wall in place, the spur had lost its value and had been allowed to crumble. Bak had demanded privacy, and he could think of no place more private in this or any other garrison.
"According to Puemre's personal record, he spent much of his youth on his father's estate near Gebtu." Huy spat a seed over the parapet and popped another date into his mouth. "One servant taught him to read and write. With another he learned to hunt and fish. A brave and respected veteran, a man I once knew, passed on the arts of war. The estate manager, of course, taught him the business of farming."
The tall, slender infantry officer was close to fifty. His eyes were a startling blue, his gray hair cropped even shorter than Bak's. He spoke in a wry voice, not quite poking fun at the dead man's upbringing, but letting Bak know the contempt he held for those who thrived on advantage and privilege. A long, ugly scar on his right shoulder left no doubt that he had earned his position, second only to Woser in the garrison hierarchy.
A breeze not yet heated by the sun rustled their hair. Swallows darted away, soon to return to their twittering young hidden in nests bored in the weathered mudbrick. The view wts glorious-and enlightening-showing clearly the tactical significance of the fortress and its island outlier.
In the hazy distance, the river made a sweeping bend through the desert, flowing broad and relatively free of obstacles. Below the bend, Iken's two white stone quays reached into the water to shelter the surprisingly large number of vessels that plied the hazardous waters of the Belly of Stones. The fortress loomed over the harbor and, a short walk north, the crucial point where the river literally broke apart, torn asunder by rocks and islands to form a multitude of swift-flowing, foam-shrouded rapids. A calm, smooth channel dammed downstream by a rocky cascade separated the lower city from a long tear-shaped island that supported only the most tenacious and water-tolerant brush and trees. Beyond, rising from the rocks of a second, higher island, a smaller fortress gave a second important advantage over an attacking army.
With no time to linger on details, he turned his attention back to Huy. He shared the troop captain's conviction that a man should earn his way, but he kept the thought to himself. "You've just described a life of bucolic gentility. That doesn't explain how Puemre qualified for service in the regiment of Amon."