Bak knelt beside Sergeant Psuro, who was skinning a hare he had trapped, and spoke softly so his voice would not carry.
“Will Minnakht’s donkeys survive the journey to the sea?”
“If the sickness was caused by the tainted water in the stream, as Nebre and I believe, and if we share our good wa ter with them, their illness should clear up and their strength return. We must also lighten their loads and not push them too hard. We’ve already tended the galls on their shoulders.”
Psuro spat on the ground, a sign of contempt he had copied from Troop Captain Nebwa. “That Minnakht. What kind of man is he to treat his animals so?”
“Fear can make a man push beyond endurance the crea tures he needs most. Not wise in a desert such as this, where one’s life is so dependent upon their well-being.”
Psuro eyed with tight-lipped disapproval the man of whom they spoke, who was kneeling at the edge of the stream, washing his face and arms. “And he professes to be a man of the desert.”
Because Minnakht’s donkeys were weak and Bak’s ani mals had to carry a considerable amount of extra weight, the journey down the wadi to the sea took two days more than it should have. Neither Psuro nor Nebre nor the nomad guide bothered to hide their contempt for a man who would sacri fice his animals for himself. Bak, who wanted to set Min nakht at ease, took care not to register his own disapproval.
The wadi opened out onto the shore. After spending so many days in the barren desert, the clear blue waters lapping the sand drew them like ants to honey. Laughing like chil dren, in too much of a rush to remove their clothing, they raced into the water and indulged themselves in a long, re freshing swim. Later in the day, their guide led them south to the next oasis, which was located at the base of rounded grayish hills rising behind a narrow coastal plain. An open pool containing drinkable water supported a lush palm grove, grass, reeds, and tamarisk, and a tiny garden whose ancient caretaker dwelt in a palm-frond shack. From their camp, they could see the glittering expanse of water that merged with the sky on the horizon.
Early the following morning, Psuro and the guide led the donkeys south to the port. His mission was to take them to the paddocks where Lieutenant Nebamon kept his pack ani mals, to find the fisherman Nufer and tell him where Bak waited, and to purchase necessary supplies for the voyage across the sea and south to the trail that would take them home to Kemet.
Bak expected the Medjay to be away for no less than three days. Rather than remain at the oasis, where Minnakht grew irritable and furtive each time a nomad family came to water its flocks, they walked each day to the shore. They swam fully dressed to protect themselves from the hot sun. As had been the case throughout the journey down the wadi, they never let the explorer out of their sight. While Bak swam with him, Nebre remained on shore with their weapons.
While Nebre swam, Bak stood watch.
Minnakht made no comment until the second day after
Psuro’s departure. He flopped down on the sand and grinned.
“I know you vowed to keep me alive and well, Bak, but your scrupulous devotion to duty has begun to wear on my pa tience. Can I not at least walk alone along the water’s edge?
With no donkeys or supplies, I can go no great distance.”
“A man might well be hidden among the rocks on that hill side, waiting for you to go off alone.” Bak pointed toward a high rocky mound rising from the plain.
“No man, no matter how talented with the bow, could strike his prey from so far away.”
“If he carries an ordinary bow, I agree, but have you not seen how far an arrow can fly when delivered by a compos ite bow?”
“How many men in this wasted land would have such a weapon?” Even as Minnakht scoffed at the idea, his eyes darted toward the bows laying on the sand beside Bak, both of the composite variety.
“Where you go, we go,” Bak stated in a voice he hoped would conclude the argument. “You’ve told us time and again that you fear for your life. If you truly do, you’ll talk no more of how weary you’ve grown of our company.”
Minnakht drew a spiral in the warm sand in front of his crossed legs, then erased it with a brusque swipe of his hand.
“I should not have let Psuro take away my donkeys and water jars. You’ve admitted you don’t know the fishermen who’re to take us across the sea. How do you know you can trust them?”
“I trust the man who told me of them.”
Minnakht opened his mouth as if to pursue the argument, but Bak’s closed expression forbade further debate. So he drew another spiral and eradicated it as abruptly as he had the first. He no longer bothered to hide his irritation. “Four of us cooped up on a small boat with the lord Set only knows how many fishermen. I’ve had nightmares no worse than that.”
Bak stood up and brushed the sand from his buttocks and legs. “Do you or do you not wish to be safe?”
“You know I do.” The explorer rose to his feet and formed a bitter smile. “I’ve no choice but to trust your judgment, but
I don’t have to like it, do I?”
Bak grinned. “You’ll one day look upon this journey as a memory to treasure.”
Minnakht’s incredulous look melted into a rueful laugh.
“Will we cross the sea to the Eastern Desert and sail south along its shore? Or will we follow the coastline of this wretched land before crossing over?”
That, Bak suspected, was the question the explorer had been edging toward all along. “I’ll let the fishermen make that decision.”
Psuro returned with the fishing boat, which its crew an chored a dozen or so paces off the beach. The sergeant dropped into the water, waded ashore, and, while he and Bak walked south along the water’s edge, reported the success of his mission. As Amonmose had promised, the vessel was larger than most fishing boats that plied the waters of the
Eastern Sea. In addition to its master Nufer, it had a crew of three. It offered plenty of space for four passengers and, in addition to the supplies needed for an extended fishing expe dition, enough for Bak and his party during a journey that could take as long as three weeks. Satisfied with all Psuro had accomplished, Bak waded out and hauled himself on board, where he spoke at length with Nufer.
They sailed early the following morning.
“What a life this is.” Minnakht placed his fishing pole be tween his knees to hold it steady, spread his arms wide, and stretched luxuriously. “If I didn’t prefer to roam a larger world, I’d remain with these men forever.”
Bak chuckled. “Not a day has passed that you haven’t re minded me that you’re a man of the desert, not the sea. Why this sudden affection for this vessel and the fishing?”
“Can I not enjoy the moment while at the same time I long to be free, to go where I please?” Laughing, the explorer took up his pole and dabbed the line up and down, making the wooden float bob on the water’s surface. “I like you, Bak, and I know you mean well, but your constant companionship is burdensome. Yours and that of everyone else in this small space we inhabit.”
“Thus far, we’ve made good time. These islands mark the halfway point in our voyage.”
Bak swept his hand in an arc encompassing a multitude of brownish or grayish rocky outcrops rising from the water over which they were sailing. Some were islets barely large enough to support the nest of an osprey. Others were consid erably more spacious, with sandy beaches that offered a safe haven to thousands of sea birds and their young. In the water below, a multitude of bright fish swam among plants that rose from the depths, waving long colorful arms in the sea’s currents.
“Once we pass through them, we’ll follow the shore of the
Eastern Desert.”
“At long last! You’ve no idea how much I long to sleep on the land I hold so close within my heart.”
Nufer was a cautious man, one unwilling to sail through the brightest of nights. During the several days’ voyage down the eastern shore of the sea, they had anchored at the water’s edge and camped on the sand. The coastal plain had been bare and uninviting, the mountains to the east high and for bidding. Bak knew their task would be more difficult when they reached the Eastern Desert, but he was glad to leave be hind that wasted landscape.
A smile spread across his face; his eyes twinkled with good humor. “You think we’ve held you close thus far, but what you’ve faced in the past is nothing like the way we’ll guard you when you set foot on the land where your life is most at risk.”
Minnakht rolled his eyes skyward. “Can I not breathe without taking in air you’ve expelled?”
For the next three nights, Nufer anchored his vessel in the shallow waters off small barren islands, lumps of rock and sand that rose in the sea off the coast of the mainland. Min nakht jested about the choice of camping places, asking Bak if he feared he would slip away. Bak had a feeling he was merely going through the motions of complaining.
On the fourth night, rather than camp on an unusually large island lying offshore, they anchored off the mouth of a wadi that cut deep into the Eastern Desert. For the first time since crossing the sea, they slept on the mainland. Minnakht displayed nothing more than a casual interest in what Bak had assumed would be a tantalizing route into the interior.
Had he decided at last to place his trust in them? Or was he biding his time?
Late the following evening, they camped on a narrow spit of jagged black rocks edged with sand that arced around a pool of mirror-calm blue-green water. A ridge rose gradually from the tip of the tiny peninsula to merge into a low cliff that had roughly paralleled the shoreline throughout the day.
Armed with harpoons, Psuro and two fishermen walked north in search of a quiet backwater where they might spear fish for the evening meal. Bak, Nebre, and Minnakht swam among a school of fingerlings that had sought shelter in the cove. Gulls wheeled overhead, squawking at the interlopers, while three white pelicans sat on crags, grooming their feath ers. Nufer, who feared the water as no sailor should, sat on shore with the third member of his crew, trading ribald jokes.
Darkness descended and the night grew chilly. The moon and stars shone above, a slice of white among chips of light as bright as highly polished rock crystal. The gulls flew off to their nesting places and their raucous calls were replaced by the lonely song of a night bird. Nufer nursed a fire in the ex 280
Lauren Haney pectation that Psuro and the sailors would shortly return with fish. Minnakht waded out of the pool, silencing the bird.
Shivering in his wet tunic, he wrapped his arms around him self and hastened to the camp. He trotted past the fire, head ing toward his meager belongings, and merged into the night.
Bak and Nebre exchanged a glance none but they could see.
The time dragged. The waiting seemed endless.
A long, shrill whistle shattered the silence.
Bak and Nebre scrambled out of the water. Nufer dipped an oil-soaked torch into the fire. While a flame burst into life, the two policemen slipped on their sandals and scooped up spears and shields. A quick glance verified that Minnakht had bolted.
Bak had expected no less.
The sailor plucked the torch from the fire and sped with
Bak and Nebre into the night, showering sparks behind them.
They ran along the base of the stony ridge, dodging rocks that rose out of the sand, splashing through pools of water, crunching across stretches of broken shell as sharp as the best bronze knife. Bak thanked the gods that he had had the foresight to inspect the landscape earlier.
Another whistle told them they were on the right course and bearing down on their quarry. A dozen paces farther, he spotted four men ahead. Psuro and the two fishermen stood around Minnakht, holding him in place with harpoons casu ally held but aimed at his breast.
“I should’ve known my flight was too easy.” Minnakht’s smile was thin, his good humor as shallow as the trickle of water beneath his feet. “You’d see me dead rather than let me make my own way back to Waset.”
Bak, refusing to answer smile with smile, motioned him to walk back toward camp. “Have I not kept you alive and well thus far?”
“You’ve kept me apart from all who might wish me ill, yes, but can you continue to do so?” Minnakht shook his head. “Not on a route as well traveled as the southern trail.
We’ll meet one man and another and another, and word that I live will spread like oil on swiftly moving water. An army couldn’t save me from my enemies.”
“We’ll guard you well, never fear.”
“I’ll wager that the men who wish me ill are the same as those who slew Senna and the others.”
“One man took their lives, not a multitude. If it’s you he seeks rather than me, we’ll snare him when he comes close.”
Minnakht stopped walking and gave a cynical laugh. “So
I’m the goat you’re staking out to attract a hyena.”
Bak took his arm and pressed him forward. “You’ll remain with us. We’ll see that you arrive in Kemet alive and well. Af ter that…” He let the thought hang, leaving the future open.
“Is Minnakht still sulking?” Bak asked. A night and a day had passed since the explorer’s attempt to slip away into the desert.
Psuro shook his head. “He can’t maintain the pose. He’s too genial by far.”
So they could talk without Minnakht hearing, they had walked south along the water’s edge, setting out as the sun dropped toward the western horizon. They were wading through the swells rushing onto the shore, splashing the sand and receding with a whisper. Garish red tentacles reached across the sky to be mirrored on the sea below.
They had camped on a barren shore, where the coastal plain was broad and the escarpment too far away to offer cover to a man attempting to run away. If a wadi drained the higher land, its mouth had widened out and had become lost in the flat expanse of sand and gravel.
“Never let him seduce you with his charm, Sergeant. He’ll flee if he can.”
Psuro frowned, perplexed. “Why he won’t resign himself to our protection, I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t entirely trust us,” Bak said with a wry smile.
The sergeant chuckled, but quickly sobered. “Nufer be lieves we’ll reach the southern trail late tomorrow or early the following morning. What are we to do with him then?”
Bak knelt to pick up the shell of a sea creature new to him.
Smelling the stench of the occupant decaying inside, he flung it into the sea. “I think it best that you hold him on the boat while I go ashore. I must report to the soldiers, and I must see if User and his party await us, as I suggested. I must also look for the nomad child Imset-or Nefertem, but I think his com ing unlikely.”
“Could Kaha have found him so quickly?”
“If Nefertem wanted to be found, I’m certain Kaha reached him. If he believed in my message, he’ll have sent the boy on his way within the hour.”
“The desert is vast, sir.”
“Yes, but one man alone can travel much faster than a caravan.”
They stood together, looking out upon the sea and a flock of squawking gulls swooping down for a late evening meal, flapping their wings and splashing the water while they squabbled for fish.
“What if Imset hasn’t come?” Psuro asked.
“We’ll wait.”
Bak prayed fervently that the child had arrived and even now stood on the shore awaiting them. The amount of food and water they had was limited. They could refill their water jars at the village well, but he doubted they could replenish their food supply unless they met a caravan carrying supplies destined for the mines across the sea.
“Lieutenant Bak!” The voice was childish but bordering on manhood.
Bak stepped away from the stone hut used as an office and storeroom by the soldiers who manned the outpost called
Tjau at the eastern end of the southern trail. A well encircled by a waist-high wall was nearby, and a stone-walled paddock enclosed a small herd of donkeys.
He looked in the direction from which the call had come, toward a dozen rough mud-and-reed huts occupied by no mads. Imset, who had been gathering dead branches from a clump of tamarisks a hundred or so paces away, dropped the bundle of fuel at the door of a hut and loped toward him across the hot sand.
Smiling, Bak strode out to meet the boy, scattering a flock of goats along the way, and clasped his shoulders in greeting.
The woman to whom the animals belonged stood in the doorway of the hut, keeping a close eye on man and boy. A small dark-haired girl clung to her ankle-length tunic and a baby crawled around her feet. A shaggy white dog lay with its head on its paws, watching the goats. Bak wondered if the woman was Imset’s mother or if he had joined her household to make himself less conspicuous while he waited.
Imset tugged from a leather pouch hanging from his belt the quartz pendant and a cloth-wrapped package. With a shy smile, he handed them to Bak. Bak unwrapped a limestone shard covered with writing. The message, written in the carefully formed script of a man who had long ago learned to write but seldom had occasion to do so, was brief and to the point: “I long to meet with my brother Minnakht. And with you, Lieutenant. You must travel west along the caravan trail. Your Medjay Kaha and I will await you at the well mid way between the sea and Waset. From there, we’ll travel on together.”
Bak smiled. The response could not have been more to his liking. Sobering, he stared off to the west, taking a few mo ments to decide what best to do.
“Do you know User?” he asked, pointing toward a camp site shaded by a large acacia some distance away. The ser geant in charge of the outpost had told him the explorer and his party had arrived four days earlier. He had urged them to continue west with the caravan, but they had refused, saying they wished to return to Kemet with Bak.
Imset led him to the crude hut. The woman and children shrank away, fearful of the stranger. Inside, lying on a bed of goatskins, he saw a length of bright fabric, several bronze spear and harpoon points, and a jar that contained honey or some other desirable substance difficult to get in the desert.
“You traded with him?”
“Trade. Yes.”
“Is User your friend?”
The boy nodded.
“Enemy?”
Imset shook his head vehemently. User had apparently won him over.
Signaling the boy to wait, he hurried to the building the soldiers occupied and asked for papyrus and writing imple ments. None of the men could read or write, so they were slow to take the request seriously. He snapped out an order, convincing them his need was real. The sergeant hastened to cut a small piece of papyrus from an inventory of supplies delivered some months earlier and a soldier located a scribal pallet so long unused that a thick layer of dust had to be scraped off before the ink could be moistened. Bak wrote a quick message to Nefertem, rolled it tight, and tied it with a bit of string. Getting into the spirit of the task, the sergeant secured it with a daub of mud and impressed it with a seal he had never before had occasion to use.
Bak tucked the cylinder beneath his belt and went in search of Imset, who had returned to the tamarisks to gather more wood. After helping the boy carry his gleanings to the hut, he looked toward the campsite he had yet to visit. “User,” he pointed, “and you…” He touched Imset’s chest. “Walk west.” He pointed toward the place where the trail began.
The boy gave him an uncertain look. Either he did not recall the meaning of the word walk or he did not wish to remember.
“Walk.” Bak moved two fingers like a man walking.
Imset gave a reluctant nod.
“You walk with User to the well. To water.” Bak pointed again to the boy and toward the camp, placed the first two fingers of both hands side by side and made the walking mo tion, and pointed west. He cupped a hand and pretended to drink, reminding Imset of the meaning of the word water.
Imset shook his head. “I walk with you to water.”
“You walk with User. I follow.” Bak made the walking motion with his right hand followed closely by two fingers of his left hand.
A stubborn look settled on Imset’s face and he turned to walk away.
Bak caught his arm to halt his flight, withdrew the papyrus from beneath his belt, and held it out. “For Nefertem.”
Imset took the scroll and inspected the seal. He looked at
User’s camp, thought over what Bak wished him to do, and nodded that he understood: the message must reach Nefer tem ahead of Bak. “I walk with User.”
“You want us to travel on to the well without you.” User gave Bak a suspicious look. “What’re you up to, Lieutenant?”
Bak laughed. “I’ll be no more than a day behind you.”
“What are we to do when we get there?”
“Make camp and wait for me. The water is good, so the soldiers here say, and the man who dwells there is friendly.
I’m certain he’ll enjoy talking to someone new for a change, and his wife will appreciate the goods you have to trade.”
Bak had left Imset to gather his few belongings and had walked to User’s camp. Minmose had greeted him with a huge smile and Amonmose with the hug of a bear. The other men, though more restrained in their actions, were openly delighted to see him, but were concerned that his Medjays had not come with him. Upon learning that his men were alive and well, their smiles returned and they urged him to sit with them, share their beer, and tell them of his travels. He obliged, giving them a brief account of his journey. True to his word, he made no mention of Minnakht.
User, whom he had drawn away from the camp as soon as he decently could, looked across a stretch of sand toward the men packing up to leave in the cool of evening. “The trail is easy to follow and I know it well from my youth. Why is the boy coming with us? Not as a guide, I’d wager.”
“He wishes to go west with me. I prefer that he travel with you.”
User eyed him thoughtfully. “You’ve a reason, I suppose.”
“One that should become clear when you reach the well.”
The explorer scowled, not happy with the evasion. “Why did you not tell us to go on with the caravan? Now we’ll be alone and at the mercy of the man who slew Dedu and Senna,
Rona and the stranger. The one who’s tried more than once to slay you.”
“His attention will be focused on me. You’ll be safer with out me.”
Looking unconvinced and not at all happy, User growled,
“I pray to all the gods in the ennead that you’re right.” He re alized the import of Bak’s words, added, “And that you’ll stay safe as well as us.”
“The trek will be well worth your while, I assure you.”
From the soldiers, Bak obtained three donkeys to carry water and supplies westward. Twenty-four hours after User’s party moved on, he, Nebre, Psuro, and two armed sailors
Nufer had loaned them escorted Minnakht along the trail.
The explorer made no real attempt to slip away, but he con stantly tested the men who were guarding him. Bak guessed he did not know this part of the desert well, and was waiting to make his move when he came to a place he knew better.
Before sunrise on the fourth morning after striking out from the sea, they strode into a large valley whose flat ex panse was blanketed in golden sand. It was enclosed by brownish hills that appeared low at a distance but proved, as they walked forward, to be high and rugged, singularly un inviting. The sun, a sliver of gold, peeked above the horizon to the west, bathing the sky in red and orange, revealing near the center of the sandy plain a stand of trees. What appeared in the dim light of dawn to be squarish mounds of stone grad ually revealed themselves as three drystone buildings and a walled structure that Bak assumed was the well.
Minnakht walked slower, reluctant to approach the tiny, isolated oasis. When the growing light and a fresh perspec tive revealed twenty or more donkeys in a walled paddock, he stopped. “You vowed to keep me safe.”
“I’ve heard that the man who dwells here exchanges healthy donkeys for caravan animals that show a weakness or an ill ness.” Psuro, walking beside the explorer, had never ceased to remind him in some oblique way of the manner in which he had neglected his animals. “He cures them and sees that they get good food and water until another exchange is needed.”
Bak doubted such was the case, but the barbed comment seemed to ease Minnakht’s doubts-at least for a while.
They strode on across the valley floor, walking on the hard sand alongside multiple paths softened by the hooves of many donkeys. The sun burst above the horizon to glare into their faces. The oasis slowly came to life. A donkey brayed and a goose cackled. Dogs barked, setting to flight a flock of birds, black silhouettes against the brilliant sky. Bak expected the dogs to come running and soon they did, a dozen scruffy mutts barking bravely from afar but too shy to come near.
The closer the men came to the cluster of buildings, the more tightly strung Minnakht became. He was not the only man to feel the strain. Bak adjusted his hand on his spear, balancing it better for use. He had to force himself to keep his pace regular and unhurried. Psuro, Nebre, and the sailors continually scanned the land to either side. Nebre retrieved his bow and quiver from the back of a donkey.
Two boys left the largest building and took a donkey from the paddock. The dogs streaked back to the oasis and fol lowed them north up a broad subsidiary wadi. They had to have noticed the party of approaching men, but gave no sign of greeting. A short time later, a woman left the building to draw water. A small child followed and pestered her until she finished her task. As she turned away from the well, she looked their way, waved, and in a leisurely fashion, carried the heavy jar inside. A donkey brayed as if forgotten. Two others took up the plea.
Minnakht stopped twenty paces from the closest building.
“You go ahead, Lieutenant. Make sure this place is safe.”
Bak barked out a humorless laugh. “You’d sacrifice your mother if you thought it to your advantage. Would you not,
Ahmose?”
The man who called himself Minnakht stiffened. “What?”
“Ahmose. Is that not your name?”
“You’ve lost your wits.”
Bak stepped away from the explorer, as did Psuro. Out of arm’s reach. The grim expression on their faces told truer than words how serious they were-and how unlikely they were to believe any denial.
Minnakht-or Ahmose-swung toward the sailors, the least wary and poorest trained of his guards. He flailed out at one man, shouldered the other aside, and began to run.
Bak, who had expected no less, raced after him, with
Psuro, Nebre, and the sailors fanning out behind. Suddenly twenty or more men burst from behind the nearest building.
Ahmose veered sharply away. Bak closed in on him, leaped at him, and with a flying tackle, pulled him to the ground. His prisoner tried to kick himself free and scramble away, but
Psuro grabbed an arm, jerked him to his knees, and placed his spear point to his breast.
The men who had appeared from behind the building swept forward, led by Nefertem and User. The group in cluded Imset, the members of User’s party, and more than a dozen nomads. They encircled Bak, his men, and his prisoner.
“You vowed to bring Minnakht,” Nefertem said, glower ing. “This is not my friend.”
“He’s not the man I knew,” User seconded the opinion.
“Who is he?”
“I couldn’t bring Minnakht, Nefertem. I fear he’s dead. I brought instead the man who took his life.” Bak grabbed a handful of hair and forced the captive to raise his chin so all could see his face. “His name is Ahmose. Like Minnakht, he explored the Eastern Desert-but farther north in the area where Senna grew to manhood. Senna was his guide and a longtime friend, but he slew him anyway, fearing I’d force the truth from him. I believe he also claimed to be Min nakht’s friend. When the pretense failed, he took his life while trying to force him to reveal the location of the gold he believed he’d found.”
The nomad chieftain, his mouth tight with anger, glared at the prisoner, then drew his hand back and slapped him so hard the crack of the blow echoed across the valley.