A barrel-chested man of medium height, his cheek deformed by a long scar, strode through the rear door. He spotted Bak, his eyes widened with recognition, and he swung around as if to run. He had nowhere to go; the armory had only a single exit.
"Senmut!" Bak snapped, silencing the pounding and chipping, drawing a dozen gawkers from the surrounding rooms.
A look of craven fear washed across the scarred face. "I didn't slay Lieutenant Puemre! I swear it!"
Bak had expected a denial, but one of lesser consequence. "If you're as innocent as you claim, why did you knock me out? Why search the house?"
The chief armorer scowled at the watching men, sending them scurrying back to their tasks, then hunkered down near the outer door, listening to every word, every shade of meaning. He would no doubt report what he heard to his family and probably to half of Iken as well.
"I've done nothing!" Senmut said. "I swear!"
"Why did you run two days ago, when you found me in Puemre's house?"
"Wouldn't you? Would you want to be blamed for something you didn't do?"
"You're open to blame until you explain yourself." Losing patience, Bak caught Senmut's arms above the elbows and shook him. "Now talk! I want no more denials."
Senmut backed up, his steps clumsy, his eyes fearful. "I went looking for the boy, that's all. I swear it! Then I saw you on the floor, Puemre's belongings strewn around you, and I ran."
"The boy…" Bak's ears took in the silence of the tools, the idleness of craftsmen too busy listening to work. "You need a jar of beer, Senmut." To the chief armorer he added, "I'll not keep him long."
Senmut, startled into obediencg, led the way to a house of pleasure in the next block, where the proprietor sold beer so thick it clogged the strainer. The establishment was neat and clean, with walls freshly whitewashed and a floor sprinkled with water to keep down the dust. Beer jars and drinking bowls stood in tidy stacks, and a few low three-legged stools were scattered among straw-stuffed pillows for seating. The brew was strong and tasty, ideal for breaking down a wall of defense and loosening a tongue. A large helping of patience might also be in order, Bak reminded himself.
"You went looking for the boy," he said, keeping his voice kind, conversational. "The mute child Ramose, you Senmut eyed his interrogator with suspicion. "He needs a new home. I thought to take him to mine, to make him part of my household." He drank from his bowl, taking several healthy swallows. "I've no wife to mother him. She died two years ago. But my children like him, and my oldest daughter is a mother to all."
Bak studied the armorer's face, searching for a lie. "The neighbors haven't seen the boy since the night Puemre disappeared. I fear for his safety."
Senmut's work-hardened hands fidgeted on the bowl.
"He's a tough little fellow, a born scavenger. He can get by where most others would starve."
"Puemre was slain," Bak said, spelling it out. "The child might well have suffered a like fate."
The armorer's voice turned gruff, despairing. "Puernre was a son to me, and Ramose a son to him. I'll care for him as I will my daughter's unborn child." Bak's last grim words must have sunk in then, for he shook his head and gave a pathetic imitation of a smile. "The boy ran away, that's all. He came to my daughter yesterday morning to let her see he was alive and well. In the market, it was, soon after the fishermen brought in their catch."
Bak's emotions leaped to surprise and delight, and gratitude to the lord Amon. Yet he was confused by Senmut's mixed signals, by so deep a despair. "Your daughter cooked for Puemre and cleaned his house?"
Senmut wiped his nose with the back of his hand, sniffed. "She cared for him, yes, and one day soon she'll care for his child." His voice broke, and he covered his face with his hands. His shoulders trembled with silent sobs.
Puemre's child? Bak laid a kindly hand on his arm. "I must speak with her, Senmut. Where can I find her?" Mutnefer, Bak guessed, was close to Aset in age, but there the resemblance ended. Where Woser's only daughter was delicate and lovely, Senmut's eldest child was graceless and plain. Where Aset was girlish and fanciful, Mutnefer was a woman heavy with child and the responsibility for her father's household, six children between the ages of two and twelve.
"Puemre loved me, and I him." Mutnefer rested her hand on her unborn child, and her voice trembled. She wore a loose dress of ordinary linen, a single wristlet of bronze, and the merest touch of kohl on eyes red-rimmed from crying. "He meant to take us with him when he went back to Kemet."
Bak, seated on a stool in the roofless cooking area behind the three-room house, was touched by her faith in Puemre's promises. Hiding his compassion, he watched her drop a lump of well-kneaded dough into a round pottery baking dish, setting it in a mound of hot coals. She covered the dish with a conical lid. A naked two-year-old boy played in the shady doorway and a girl of eight or so bent over a stone mortar, pushing the grindstone back and forth, making coarse flour from grain. He- had seen two other small children, the oldest about five, playing on the roof under the sharp eye of a ten-year-old. The child next in age to Mutnefer, a boy of twelve or so, had gone to the river to fish. All who were old enough had to earn their bread in Senmut's household.
"Without your help, how did your father plan to care for so' large a brood?"
Her smile was as tremulous as her voice. "They, too, were to go to Kemet: my father, my brothers and sisters. Puemre promised us a house on his father's estate, a parcel of land, and even a servant, a woman to care for the small ones. Instead of making weapons, my father would make tools for the men who worked the fields of the estate."
A promise easily made, Bak thought, and equally easy to forget. "What was to become of you? Were you to wed him or…?"
She laughed, incredulous. "I have no noble blood! He loved me, yes, and he meant to take me into his household. I would've been his favorite for all time, he vowed, but his concubine, not his wife."
Bak thought4 best to drop the subject before she guessed how skeptical he was. He did not want to hurt her. "When did you last see Puemre?"
"The evening he disappeared." Her voice dropped to an unhappy murmur. "He walked me home before reporting to the commander's residence."
"What did he say? Will you tell me of his mood? Was he happy or sad or angry, for example?"
Mutnefer retrieved a portable camp stool from the house. The legs were carved and painted to look like the delicate heads of river birds, the seat made of finely woven leather. Bak could imagine a piece of that quality in the commander's residence, not in this poor household.
She noticed his interest. "Puemre saw the trouble I had getting off the ground once I sat down, so he brought this stool to ease my life." Blinking back tears, she placed it in the shady strip next to the wall and sat down heavily.
He wondered what he would do if she had the baby then and there. The thought was unsettling-until he recalled seeing women on the roofs of several houses in the block.
"Puemre came home that day long before dusk. I always cooked his evening meal and ate with him and Ramose, then brought whatever was left back to my family." She closed her eyes, swallowed. "He picked me up and swung me around in a circle, so excited he spoke in riddles. He mentioned the king Amon-Psaro, the prince, revenge, and a great battle with the Kushites. He said our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut herself, would give him the gold of valor and more."