Lauren Haney - The Right Hand of Amon

"Lieutenants Nebseny and Puemre lead the race. A trader has been suggested, but no one remembers seeing her outside her father's house with any man other than a servant or an officer."

"Probably not a trader then." Bak knelt to splash water on his face, arms, and chest. "How's Woser supposed to've reacted?"

"They say he's filled with rage."

Bak had never seen the father and daughter together. He vowed, when finally the opportunity arose, to pay close attention to the way they behaved with one another. He also renewed his determination to stay far away from Aset. "What else did you hear?"

"I heard much talk of Puemre's talents as a soldier. Even the sergeants, the most critical of men, spoke highly of his abilities. He erred a single time, they say, losing a few of his men because his ideals were so high he couldn't bring himself to ambush the unwary enemy. There was some talk that Troop Captain Huy was at fault there, but in general he's regarded as a good and honest man and few I talked with hold the blame as true."

Bak rose to his feet. A faint breath of air touched his dripping shoulders, cooling them for an instant. "Are the men aware of how much Puemre was disliked by his fellow officers?"

Pashenuro studied the water intently, his eyes on a school of fingerlings. "They know, but they don't understand. Especially since they respect and admire them all." He clutched his harpoon tighter, but the larger fish he expected never appeared. "You may or may not know, but every man you suspect of murder-except Lieutenant Nebsenylong ago received at least one golden fly."

Bak stood dead still, startled by, the news and humbled. Golden flies were awarded only to men of proven valor and presented by the sovereign herself. Or, more likely in this case, her deceased husband or her father before him. "How long ago?"

"Twenty-seven years. They fought in the army of Akheperenre Tuthmose during our last war against the Kushites."

Maatkare Hatshepsut's husband and brother. Not as great a warrior as his father before him, but one who had vanquished the Kushites once and for all. Bak was glad he had not known about the gold of valor when he spoke with the officers. The knowledge might have weakened his resolve to think of them as suspects.

"The news is a blow," he admitted. "How can I accuse men so valiant of slaying a fellow officer?"

"There's worse," Pashenuro said grimly.

Bak closed his eyes for a moment, resigning himself. "Go on."

"According to several men I spoke with, Troop Captain Huy and Lieutenant Senu came upon Puemre in a house of pleasure one night. They left before he did and were seen later, waiting in the shadows of the lane outside. The next morning, Puemre showed up at his men's barracks, bruised and battered from head to toe. He'd been beaten, he claimed, by men he never saw."

Bak leaped to the obvious conclusion, as every man in the garrison must have.

"Another time," the Medjay went on, "Puemre mysteriously fell overboard when on a ship piloted by Lieutenant Inyotef. Thanks to the lord Amon and the fact that he could swim like a fish, he saved himself."

Men of valor, Bak thought cynically. "What of Nebseny?"

"He once threatened publicly to castrate Puemre, but I heard of no instance where he tried to follow through. One reason given for the threat was mistress Aset. Another was an accusation Puemre made, saying Nebseny's archers failed to support his infantry during a riverside skirmish a month or two ago."

"With the officers divided, were not the troops also divided in their loyalties?"

"Not yet, thanks to the good sense and strength of purpose of their sergeants, but I felt an undercurrent of unease. A breach would soon have come, I think."

"Puemre's death came at a most opportune time, it seems."

Bak picked up a handful of small stones and pieces of broken pottery. One by one he threw them at the river, skipping them across its surface, giving his body something to do while he put Pashenuro's gleanings into perspective. Two facts leaped out from the rest: First, the officers had told him nothing more than every man and woman in Iken already knew. Second: "Did Amon-Psaro lead the Kushites when our soldiers faced them in battle twenty-seven years ago?"

"I thought the same," Pashenuro smiled, "but no. He was a prince then, only ten years of age, too young to go to war."

With a sigh, Bak transferred the last bit of pottery from his left hand to his right-and stopped to stare at the squarish lump. The shard was a greenish gray. And gray ware was made in Iken for trade upriver. The besotted witness must be a potter.

"I didn't see a thing!" Antef sprinkled a small handful of fine chaff on the lump of wet grayish clay and kneaded it in with all the power in his thick, stubby fingers, taking out his distress on the material. "I didn't! It was too dark! I swear to the lord Khnum!"

Bak controlled his impatience with an effort.

The chief potter had explained that Antef had once been a skilled craftsman, but was no longer trusted to form the clay into the mediocre ware shipped south to the land of Kush. The reason was apparent. Antef's hands shook uncontrollably, not so much from fear as from too much beer over too many long years.

Bak knelt beside the short, grizzled man and laid a soothing hand on his shoulder. "I'm accusing you of nothing, Antef. I merely want to know what happened that night."'

"I saw the lady Hathor. She came to me, offering me the pleasure of her body."

Antef looked around as if to assure himself his fellow potters were not listening. From the studied way they concentrated on their respective tasks, Bak could tell they were. The potter talked on, his tension receding as the goddess filled his thoughts. He told the same story Meryre had repeated but with many and sundry details, most of which, Bak suspected, had crept into the tale not from memory but through frequent repetition.

While the potter spoke, Bak glanced around the workshop, which he had found among the broken walls of an ancient house in the lower city. It was a good-sized enterprise employing four potters, each with an assistant to turn his wheel. Spindly wooden frames covered with reed mats shaded them and their work through the heat of the day. Another man puddled the clay, treading it out with his bare feet, adding sand or chopped straw or dung as required, while Antef kneaded special batches by hand. A younger man, maybe sent by his father to learn the craft, carried the formed pots into a roofless room, lining them up to dry.

The chief potter stoked a cylindrical brick oven as tall as he was.

"Saying she wanted me alone, with no other man to see or hear, the lady took my hand and led me outside the walls of the city." Antef was deep into his story, his eyes locked on some distant place well out of reach of men with less imagination. "We stopped many times to kiss, and she fondled me and 1, her. When at last we found our nest among the rocks, we fell to the earth together, starved for satisfaction."

Bak hated to interrupt so vivid a tale. "Where was this place, Antef?"

The potter shook his head, dragging himself back to reality. "North of here it was, among the rocks overlooking the far end of the long island." He pointed vaguely toward the river. "The place is rough and lonely, but the sand has made a bed as soft as the fuzz on a newly hatched duckling."

Bak remembered seeing the low rock outcrop some distance downriver from where he and Pashenuro had talked. It would have been a long walk for a man besotted by beer. "You've more to tell, I know."

Antef went on, describing in lurid detail every man's dream of a night with a goddess. His coworkers sneaked glances at each other and at Bak, their mouths twitching with silent laughter.

"When at last she wore me out," Antef said, "I closed my eyes and slept. When next I awoke, a sliver of moon was showing and she was gone."