"Speaking of Commander Woser…" Imsiba nodded toward the door.
Bak glanced around, muttered a virulent curse. The commander was standing on the threshold, his mouth tight and determined, his body stiff with suppressed tension. He stepped inside and the room went dead still, the sailors and soldiers startled by the arrival of so lofty an officer.
What is he doing here, Bak wondered, in this lowly place where one would never expect him to set foot? "Tell me of Nebseny," he said to Nebwa.
"Woser's coming this way."
"If you exert enough pressure on the strongest of metals, it'll break."
"Not always where you want it to."
"Tell me of Nebseny," Bak repeated, sensing Woser coming up behind him.
Nebwa wiped the skepticism from his face. "I've never met him and know nothing about him as a man." He toyed with his drinking bowl as if unaware of the silence in the room or the reason for it. "He's reputed to be a fine archery officer, cool under pressure, one not afraid to stand at the head of his men in the heat of battle."
"Lieutenant Bak." Woser's words came out hard and fast, betraying his leashed anger. "Troop Captain Nebwa and Sergeant Imsiba. Are you merely drinking together, or am I interrupting a meeting?"
Bak formed a genial smile. "We've little time for pleasure tonight, so we brought our business with us. Will you pull up a stool and join us, sir?"
Nebwa glanced pointedly around the room and chuckled. "Police officers, you'll notice, concern themselves less with their surroundings than those of us accustomed to the more formal life of a garrison."
Imsiba turned away, hiding a smile, and asked Sennufer to bring a stool. Woser eyed the place, its wiry proprietor, and the other patrons with a stony disdain. The sailors and soldiers sat tongue-tied and stiff beneath his cool gaze.
"I've asked Nebwa to tell me what he knows of some of your officers," Bak said, deliberately prodding the commander.
Woser dropped onto the proffered stool and leaned toward Bak. "My officers are worthy men." He spoke close to a whisper so his words would not carry, but his voice was hard and edged with anger. "You've no right to treat them as potential murderers, and you've no reason to consider them as such."
"Commandant Thuty gave me the authority to do as I see fit." Bak's voice was equally firm. "Do you wish to sit here and listen to what Nebwa has to tell me? Or would you rather remain in ignorance until at last I lay hands on the man who slew Puemre?"
Woser turned half-around and his eyes raked the other customers. "Get on with your business or get out."
A sailor scooped up the throwsticks, made a call, and flung them across the floor. A soldier called out to Sennufer and held up a finger for a jar of beer. Other men gulped from their bowls. They spoke to one another, their voices too loud, nervous. Woser swung back around to glare at Bak.
Nebwa gave his friend a quick look of comprehension, as if for the first time he fully understood the obstacles Bak faced. "I've known Troop Captain Huy for years, though not well. He's been assigned to duty in Wawat off and on for as long as I can remember. Our paths have crossed often, but we've never lived in the' same garrison at the same time. My father always spoke of him with respect, and I've always liked him and believed him an honorable man and officer. He knows the whole of Wawat better than anyone else I know. If war should come to this part of our empire, his knowledge could make the difference between victory and defeat."
While Nebwa spoke, Bak watched Woser surreptitiously. The commander looked surprised and pleased at the words of praise. His jaw came unclenched, his fingers uncurled from tight fists, his shoulders relaxed.
"Huy's a stiff-necked old boy," Nebwa added, "and as stubborn as they come. Once he forms a thought, it turns to stone. He'd fight to his death, so they say, for whatever he believes."
"An admirable trait, I'd say." Woser gave a disgusted snort. "I fear for today's army and the well-being of the land of Kemet. You younger men have no sense of duty, no loyalty to ideals."
Bak clamped his mouth shut, refusing to argue the point. The regiment of Amon was the best fighting force Kemet had ever known, and he suspected the other newly rebuilt regiments shared its excellence. Was Woser baiting him to sidetrack him? Or did he truly believe the past better than the present? He glanced at Nebwa. "What of Lieutenant Senu?"
Nebwa's eyes shifted toward the commander, then dropped to his beer jar. "Like Huy, he's spent much of his life in Wawat, but he's also been assigned to duty farther upriver. I've never lived at the same garrison, and, until today out at the slipway, I doubt I ever met him."
"He's an upright, decent man." Woser waved off Sennufer's offer of a brew. "A good, solid officer."
"No doubt," Bak said under his breath.
"I've heard of Lieutenant Senu," Imsiba broke in. "The tale may or may not be true but, considering the circumstances, it's worthy of telling." He spoke to Woser rather than Bak. "They say he once found a sergeant trading with a local chieftain, handing over weapons made in Kemet and getting in return young and untouched girls stolen from desert nomads. Senu killed both men and left them in the village for all the world to see."
Woser's eyes met Imsiba's and held. "It's a tale, no more. Senu's record is clean."
A minute smile flickered on the Medjay's face, and he bowed his head in acknowledgment. "As you say, Commander Woser."
Bak could almost read his friend's thoughts: Senu deserved a golden fly, not censure. He was inclined to agree. With reluctance, he turned his thoughts to his final suspect, Inyotef. Why, he wondered, must I feel so guilty each time I think of him? The injury to his leg resulted from an honest accident, not from any fault of mine. "Can you tell me of the pilot Inyotef?" he asked Nebwa.
Nebwa gave him a sharp look, as if wondering how he could bring himself to ask the question. "I've met him four times, each time the men in my company helped tow a vessel along the slipway. I can't claim to know him any better than I know Senu, but I've often heard him praised. He's considered the best pilot on the river between Abu and Semna."
"He should be," Woser said irritably. "He's plied the waters of Wawat off and on for years. Long before he commanded a vessel, he served here as a seaman."
"I've heard he first came on one of the ships carrying the army of Akheperenre Tuthmose," Nebwa went on.
"He's gone home to Kemet many times, but has always. come south again, though rarely so far. This is his first assignment to a garrison on the Belly of Stones. He lived before in Abu."
"Does he have any reason for shame?" Bak asked, closing his heart to a second surge of guilt.
Nebwa gave him another quick glance. "They say when his feet touch dry land, his tongue grows sharp and he sometimes strikes out with his baton of office. His wife left a year or more ago, taking their children with her, and some believe he struck her once too often."
Bak could not remember Inyotef losing his temper. Had he grown bitter after the accident? Bitter and vindictive? Bak prayed the cause lay elsewhere-or, better yet, that the tale was untrue.
"She denied the charge," Woser said as if in answer to Bak's thoughts. "She told me she hated Iken and wanted to live again in a richer, gentler land. How could I fault her when my own daughter shared the wish to leave?"
"You seem never to find fault in anyone, sir." Bak eyed the commander thoughtfully. "An unexpected trait in a man who's reached the lofty rank of commander."
"I find fault with you, young man." Woser sat stiff and straight, his eyes level and unflinching. "You're so anxious to lay hands on a murderer here and now that you refuse to look farther afield at far more likely suspects."
"An anonymous trader?" Bak's laugh held no humor. "Can't you see my intent? The sooner I eliminate the innocent, the faster I'll lay hands on the guilty."