Lauren Haney - The Right Hand of Amon

"He must've kept the boy with him!" Bak was surprised, though not sure why. "The mute child Nofery talked about."

Kasaya, little more than an overgrown child himself, had been intrigued by Nofery's tale. "Maybe Puemre kept him as his servant. A boy of six or seven years can do many small tasks to ease life's path."

"How did they manage to talk to each other?" Bak wondered. "More important, where's the boy now?"

The two men studied the room, looking for signs of recent occupation. The brazier was cold, the pottery dishes clean and neatly stacked against the wall. Both sleeping pallets were smooth and tidy. One chest contained men's clothing: tunics and kilts of fine linen, all clean and folded. Another was filled with sandals and armor and hand weapons: dagger, mace, and sling. A smaller chest held Puemre's razors, eye paint, and other toilet articles. An examination of the contents of several pottery jars large and small disclosed a bare minimum of foodstuffs.

"I fear the child's run away," Bak said. "With so little food remaining, I doubt he'll return." He was not unduly concerned. The boy was probably close by, living in the home of some soft-hearted, motherly woman with a brood of her own.

Kasaya hurried to the door to study the sandy lane. "He hasn't come this way since the last strong wind. How long ago was that, I wonder?"

"Go find a neighbor."

Within minutes Kasaya came back, bringing with him a dusky young woman of fifteen or so years holding a tiny baby to her breast. Her eyes were heavy with sleep, as if the Medjay had disturbed her afternoon nap.

"The wind blew hard three nights ago," Kasaya said. He nodded to the woman. "Speak up, mistress. Tell the lieutenant what you told me."

She lowered her eyes, too shy to speak in more than a murmur. "I've not seen the boy since the night before the sergeant came, looking for Lieutenant Puemre."

Bak's interest quickened. "The child was already gone before Puemre was found to be missing?"

Her eyes flickered to his face and away; she nodded. Bak's thoughts tumbled over each other, searching through the possibilities. Somehow the boy must have learned of his master's death. Was it possible that he saw Puemre die? Would it be stretching credibility to assume the murder had been witnessed by two people? One a drunk who might not remember and one a mute who could not repeat the tale? Both of whom had disappeared. "Tell me of that night," he urged.

"My man was on guard duty, so I lay alone on the roof. The air was hot and my baby restless. I couldn't sleep. I saw the boy climb up from this house and stand for an instant in the starlight. He carried a bundle on his back. A sheet, I thought, filled with I know not what, a burden so heavy it bent him double. He looked around like a puppy lost from its mother, searching for the terrors of the night. Finding no threat-he didn't know I watched him-he walked from roof to roof until he reached the far end of the block, where he disappeared from sight."

"And he's not been back since."

She hugged her baby close, gaining courage from its warmth. "No, sir."

Kasaya nodded in agreement. "I found sand on the mat above the ladder, so he didn't sneak in from the roof." Bak eyed the room, noting how neat it was, how abandoned it appeared. If the boy had seen Puemre slain, he would never come back. Nor would he be easy to find, as Bak had initially assumed. He let out a long, frustrated sigh. "Who's come to this house since Puemre's death?"

The girl nuzzled the dark fuzz on her baby's head. "The sergeant returned again and again, looking more worried each time. The woman came, the one heavy with child who cared for the house and cooked. Other men came, soldiers they were, but I know not how many for they all looked much alike to me."

Bak had expected no less, but his spirits sagged even further. With so many people coming and going, any clues Puemre might'6ve left had long ago vanished. The search he must make would be fruitless.

He asked a few more questions that led nowhere and dismissed the woman. "You may as well go, too, Kasaya. This house has been swept clean. I see no point in wasting your time as well as mine."

The lord Re hung low in the western sky, stretching the shadow of the escarpment across the lower city. The harbor was still and quiet, its waters a sheet of molten gold reflecting a cloudless sky. A soft breeze stirred the air, rousing the city's inhabitants to their evening endeavors, giving voice to animals and fowl and men.

Bak descended the ladder from the rooftop and glanced around the room. He had yet to search the sleeping pallets, then he could leave. As he knelt beside the child's bed, he wondered what Pashenuro had managed to glean from the garrison stores. A plump duck would be pleasant, he thought, and ajar of beer, treats to counterbalance his failure to find a single clue to Puemre's death. Or life, for that matter. Puemre had lived well enough, but austere, as if trying to prove to his fellow officers-or maybe himselfthat he could turn his back on his noble heritage.

Lifting the sheet, shaking it out, he thanked the lord Amon that he would soon be finished and on his way. He had barely peeked inside the house Woser had assigned to him and his men, but it seemed ideal: two rooms, located like Puemre's house at the end of a quiet lane. He eyed the pallet on which the mute boy had slept. The pad had been doubled, making it thicker and softer, more like a nest. He raised it, looking without hope for a hiding place in the hard-packed earthen floor.

A broken piece of grayish pottery fell from the folds of cloth, clattering to the ground, a shard with some kind of drawing in black ink on its smooth outer surface. Picking it up, he saw lines rough and uncertain, a sketch by an untrained hand. People with round heads and pointed, birdbeak noses, shapeless bodies, and stick-like arms and legs. Then his eyes widened and he pursed his lips in a silent whistle. The sketch showed a man with the tall crown of a king bending over a small figure lying on a bed. A second man stood behind the king, knife in hand, arm poised for a deadly thrust. The meaning was clear: the Kushite king

Amon-Psaro with his ailing son, and someone… Puemre maybe?… intending to slay the king.

He took a long, deep breath to calm his pounding heart. Was he leaping to a conclusion based on faulty evidence? Why would Puemre want to slay Amon-Psaro, a man who had not set foot on the soil of Kemet for many years and probably never would again? No, the idea was ludicrous.

He heard a sound, the faint crunch of sand underfoot. Swinging around, he glimpsed a deeply tanned leg and a short white kilt. Something struck him on the head, rocking him back, and he felt himself falling. The world around him turned to night.

Bak opened his eyes, tried to lift his head off the floor. The room tilted at a frightening angle, making his stomach churn. His skull felt about to burst. He closed his eyes, swallowed. After a while, he tried again to rise. This time, he managed to lift his shoulders onto Puemre's clothing chest, empty now, its lid askew. When the room stopped spinning, he looked at the mess around him and cursed with all his heart. Whoever had struck him senseless had torn the place apart. The chests were empty, their contents strewn around the room, along with the sleeping pallets and sheets. The food storage jars had been tipped over, leaving grain and flour, lentils and dried dates, dumped on the floor. His eyes landed on a grayish mass of grit close to his knee and he muttered another, harsher curse. The shard with the drawing had been crushed to bits.

The chunk of pottery could have been accidentally trod on during the search-but he did not believe it for a moment. He quickly sorted through his thoughts, finding a new possibility. Maybe Puemre was not the man who wanted Amon-Psaro dead; maybe instead he had caught someone else plotting against the Kushite king.