A small flat head slid out of a fold of linen and a brownish body followed. The head rose off the floor, its upper body swelled to form a hood. It hissed at Bak and the men in the doorway. A cobra. One of the deadliest of all reptiles. Bak took the torch from the watchman and stepped closer to the snake. Holding the flame toward the creature, distracting it with fire, he muttered a quick prayer of forgiveness to the lady Wadjet, the goddess whom the cobra represented, and struck out with the spear. He drove the point through the hood, pinning the snake against the sleeping platform. The watchman killed the flailing creature with his spear.
"I've lived in Wawat more than thirty years," Nebwa said, staring at the broken body, "and I've never before seen a cobra this far south."
The watchman prodded it as if checking to make sure it was truly dead. "I saw one a month or two ago. It came south in a shipment of grain. I thought someone killed it, but maybe it got away."
"More likely someone kept it for himself," Nebwa muttered.
Bak felt chilled to the bone. So dangerous a pet would have made a good weapon if one wished to slay a king like Amon-Psaro. Or a nosy police officer.
Chapter Eleven
Bak woke up with what one of his Medjays, a man slain in the line of duty the previous year, would have called a burr in his loincloth. He itched to lay hands on the one who had left the cobra in his sleeping pallet. If the goal had been to stop his meddling, it had failed miserably.
He bade Nebwa good-bye at sunup, sent the twenty borrowed spearmen to the garrison stores for tools and supplies, and hurried to the market to tell Pashenuro of the new task he must shoulder. Following narrow, winding paths between stalls already drawing customers, he searched for his two Medjays. He traded a few faience beads for breakfast-a flat loaf of bread and a bowl of thick lentil stew-and ate as he walked along.
As early as it was, the proprietors of woodframe stalls roofed with reed or palm-leaf mats had set out bowls filled with fragrant herbs; amulets and good-luck charms; lentils and beans; bronze tweezers, razors, and knives; and a multitude of other small objects. Larger items were piled along flimsy walls: flint-edged scythes and wooden plows, lengths of linen, large pottery jars filled with beer or oil or salted fish or meat, smaller jars containing wine or honey. Local herdsmen and farmers were building red and green and yellow mounds of fresh fruits and vegetables on rush mats spread on the ground. Men and women set out baskets filled with succulent dates or sweet, sticky cakes or bread or eggs or grain. Several men had hung unplucked fowl from the wooden frames of lean-tos, while others were spreading fish on the ground.
He liked best the stalls of the men and women who had come from far upriver. Seated cross-legged on the ground or perched on low stools, the people were as exotic as the products surrounding them. Short and fat, tall and thin. Painted, tattooed, scarified, greased, smeared with red clay or white ashes. Some nearly naked, others elaborately robed, a few dressed no different than men of Kemet. Their offerings included tawny or spotted animal skins, ostrich feathers and eggs, lengths of rare woods and chunks of gemstone, caged animals and birds, shackled slaves.
The customers, though sparse at this early hour, were equally intriguing: local farmers and villagers; soldiers, sailors, and traders from Kemet to the north; and herdsmen, farmers, and villagers from far to the south. Each man and woman had brought objects to trade, foodstuffs and luxury items common to them yet desirable or rare to others.
Across a stretch of barren, hard-packed sand, he found Pashenuro sitting on the mudbrick wall of an animal paddock filled with a mixed herd of sheep and goats, talking with a bald, potbellied farmer. A fine dust rose in puffs above the bleating creatures, trotting this way and that for no good reason. Other paddocks contained donkeys, a lone mule, rare in this part of the world, and long- and shorthorned cattle, snorting or lowing or braying in protest of their entrapment. Dust drifted through the air, carrying the smell of animal and the stench of manure.
"The boy's been seen," Pashenuro said after the farmer walked away, "'but he's like a wraith, here one moment and gone the next. Today we'll search for a hideaway outside the market, looking into houses both empty and occupied, and the storage magazines as well."
Bak glanced at the rows of warehouses between the market and the harbor. If the buildings were fully used, two men would need a week to search through the objects stored inside. He yearned to shake Woser until his teeth rattled. "I must tear you away from this task and assign you to another. In the meantime, I've borrowed some men from Nebwa, and I'll send four to help Kasaya."
"Another task?" the Medjay asked, surprised. "I thought finding the child more important than anything else."
Bak gave a short, hard laugh. "To us, yes, but Commander Woser has his own priorities. He's ordered me to make habitable the island fortress so Amon-Psaro can live there in comfort and safety. I've no choice but to make you head of the men who do the work." He swatted at a fly buzzing around his face. "Come, let's find Kasaya, and I'll explain to you both at once."
Pashenuro could not stop shaking his head. "How can the commander do this, sir? Why is he doing it?"
"You didn't have to borrow men from Buhen." Huy shaded his eyes with his hand so he could watch the boat carrying Nebwa's spearmen draw away from the quay. "With Puemre gone, the men in his company are without an officer. I thought to hand them over to you until you're recalled to Buhen, or until Commandant Thuty sends someone else to fill the vacancy Puemre left."
Another time-consuming task, Bak thought. To lead a company of spearmen was a full-time job. "Nebwa offered men and I accepted," he said, keeping his voice noncommittal. "As for an entire company… I doubt I'll need so many, but I can't know for sure until I see the island."
"Shall we go?" Huy asked, stepping into the skiff he had made available for Bak's use. The craft rocked beneath his weight, its hull scraping the stone revetment that prevented the riverbank from eroding between the two quays.
Bak untied the vessel, jumped in, and shoved off. Sitting at the rudder, he took up the oars and rowed across the glassy surface of the harbor. The boat was small and compact, easily handled by one man, a pleasure to use. He longed to try out the sail, but that would have to wait until the return trip. The prevailing breeze at Iken, as at Buhen, blew from the north.
He had to admit Huy was doing all he could to ease the task of preparing the fortress for Amon-Psaro. He had given freely of tools, supplies, and food. He had promised as many men as needed, had arranged for two supply boats to ply the waters, transporting men and food and building supplies from Iken to the island, and had found the skiff. He had even volunteered to accompany Bak on this, his first journey to the island, guiding him across the perilous currents upstream of the rapids. Would a man bent on murdering the Kushite king be so helpful? Certainly-if cooperation would be to his advantage.
At the end of the quay, the current grabbed the vessel with surprising force, carrying it swiftly downstream. "Row well out into the channel," Huy advised. "You don't want to be swept onto the long island. You want to go around it."
Bak nodded, recalling the lay of the islands as he had. seen them from the girdle wall high above the river the first time he and Huy had talked. Upstream to the south, the main channel flowed broad and relatively free of obstacles. Immediately in front of the city, however, the river spread out in multiple channels, flowing around and over rocky islands and outcropping rocks that formed swirling, raging rapids impossible to navigate. The island closest to the Iken waterfront was the long, narrow tumble of broken rocks from which the man with the sling had harried him and the Medjays. Pockets of earth gave a foothold to sparse but tenacious trees and brush, much of which, he guessed, would vanish under water as the flood deepened.