Lauren Haney - The Right Hand of Amon

Gently but firmly, he pushed her away, pivoted on his heel, and followed Nebseny down the stairs. He left the building with a sigh of relief and a rueful laugh at his own expense. For the first time in his life, he was running away from a beautiful woman.

Not until he was halfway to the towered gate did he realize how much he had learned without exchanging more than a dozen words with Nebseny. The young officer was in love with Aset, crazed with jealousy. He had implied that the girl had, at the very least, encouraged Puemre's attentions. If that wasn't a reason for murder, Bak did not know what was. As for Aset, could she have slain Puemre, he wondered? She might well have had reason, especially if he spurned her, but she was too slightly built, he felt sure, and not strong enough.

"Haven't seen either man this morning." Sennufer lifted a crumpled cloth from the top of a game table and wiped away the sweat rolling down his face, neck, and wiry torso. "If they show up, I'll tell them you're looking for them."

"They'll come," Bak assured him from the doorway. "We were to meet here sometime after midday."

The house of pleasure reeked of sweat and fermenting bread. The heat hung thick and cloying in the air. A half dozen men, sailors from the look of their sun-toughened skin, sat on the hard-packed earthen floor, playing a game of chance. Each time one threw the gaming sticks, they yelled or cursed according to their luck.

"Have you seen the craftsman who dreamed of murder?" Bak asked. "Or remembered anything more about him?"

Sennufer, his mouth screwed up in thought, threw the cloth over his shoulder. "I keep seeing his hands, a grayish dirt under his nails, but I told you that before." He removed a beer jar from the stack against the wall and, donning a genial smile, held it out. "Come on in, Lieutenant. May as well enjoy a Rew while you wait."

Bak smiled his thanks, but edged backwards, beating a tactful retreat from the heat, the stench, and the noise. "I've a man to see at the harbor. Tell my men to come to me there."

Grayish dirt. Sennufer had initially described the besotted man's hands as dirty, but had given no color. Now he claimed the dirt was gray. Bak could think of no specific craft where a gray material was regularly used. Maybe Sennufer erred, with time adding color to his imagination.

He swallowed the last few bites of fish and threw the broad leaves in which it had been wrapped into the river. For an instant they remained cupped together, floating like a miniature green boat, but the current soon caught them and swept them downstream, tearing them asunder. He left the shade of a tamarisk, its roots teased by the rising waters of the river, and climbed the bank. Upstream lay the harbor, where he was to meet the last of the four officers who had attended Woser's meeting, the river pilot Lieutenant Inyotef.

He strode along a sandy lane poorly populated in the midday heat by a few sailors, a trader or two, and a housewife with her young female servant. Three men walked past in the opposite direction, leading a donkey caravan. The heavy scent of hay piled high on the animals' backs made Bak sneeze. A dozen or more warehouses faced the harbor, along with a few small places of business and homes. The tumbled walls of several abandoned warehouses stood among them, reminders of a more industrious time long ago when more grain was needed to feed a large and hungry garrison. Two squat cargo ships and a narrow-hulled trading vessel nestled against the quays. Several small skiffs were tied among them.

Bak sat in the shade of a stand of acacias near the harbor, his knees drawn up beneath his chin, his eyes on the ships and the men toiling in and around them.

"Lieutenant Bak?" A male voice behind him.

Bak hastened to stand, then turned around and gaped. "Inyotef?"

The man standing before him, a man of medium height, slender yet broad-shouldered with curly graying hair, broke into a smile. "By the beard of the lord Amon! Never would I have dreamed the police officer I was told to meet would be you!"

Bak clasped Inyotef's shoulders. "Nor would it ever have occurred to me that the river pilot Inyotef was in actual fact Captain Inyotef of the royal fleet."

"No longer, my boy." The older man stepped back to look at the younger. The movement was awkward, one of his legs less nimble than the other.

Bak sucked in his breath, his eyes darted toward the weaker limb and away. The puckered brownish scar and misshapen bone below the knee struck him like a blow to the stomach. He was responsible for the injury that had crippled this man.

"I now see ships safely through the Belly of Stones." Inyotef smiled, either unaware of Bak's dismay or ignoring it. "The task may not be as glamorous as captaining a warship, but it requires more thought and skill."

"How long have you been in Iken?" Bak managed. "Three years this time."

He must have come soon after his leg healed, Bak thought. Had he been sent south because a man so deformed was believed unworthy to sail one of the great royal ships of the line? "This time?" he echoed.

"I've a skiff tied up at the northern quay. Come, we can talk there." Ushering Bak along the waterfront, his pace rapid in spite of his pronounced limp, Inyotef explained. "My first command, long ago, was in Wawat. I learned then to bring the ships through the rapids at Abu and twice I brought vessels through the Belly of Stones. So when I heard a pilot was needed here, I asked to come."

Bak tried not to — see the limp, tried not to remember, but the nightmare would not go away. The regiment of Amon had been sent to Mennufer to practice maneuvers on the great sweep of sands west of the pyramid-tombs of the early kings. They had sailed from Waset by boat and were to return the same way. Bak's chariot horses, among others, had been assigned stalls on the deck of Inyotef's ship. He and the captain had become friends of sorts, talking as men do about anything and everything during the long, idle hours of the voyage.

On the morning of departure for the return trip, he had led his team, two fine bay geldings, to the gangplank. Four men stood two or three paces away watching the loading, among them Captain Inyotef. One of the horses was highly strung at the best of times. The gangplank terrified him. Bak calmed him with words and caresses and led him to the narrow bridge. As his front hooves touched the wood, someone laughed, a hearty guffaw that boomed across the wharf. The horse flung its head back, jerking the halter from Bak's grip, and swung around, striking Inyotef, knocking him to the pavement and stepping on his leg.

Bak had gone with his company back to Waset but, thanks to a physician friend of his father, had kept track of Inyotef's progress. The break had been bad; for many days the doctors held little hope he would survive the pain and infection. Willpower alone had pulled him through the crisis. After the worst was over, he had improved daily until he was once again on his feet. Bak had heard no more. He had assumed, or wanted to believe at any rate, that Inyotef had fully recovered.

"You've no need to ache with guilt, Bak," Inyotef said, reading his thoughts. "During those days while once again I learned to walk, I realized I'd never command another warship. It wasn't in me, and I'm speaking of my heart as well as my body." He stopped before a sleek white skiff bobbing on tiny swells washing against the quay. "I'd wanted to return to Wawat from the day I left, but the power and thrill of command held me in Kemet. My injury gave me the excuse I needed."

"I'd like to believe that." The words sprang forth from deep within Bak's soul.

"I swear by all the gods in the ennead, it's the truth." Inyotef clapped him on the shoulder. "Now let me show you my pride and joy, and then we'll talk of murder." Bak searched Inyotef's face, looking for blame. He found none. He wished he could so easily forgive himself.