Lauren Haney - The Right Hand of Amon

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The answer came in the dead of night while he lay on his sleeping pallet on the roof, wide-awake, staring at the stars, letting his thoughts drift. Only he had seen the sketch on the broken piece of pottery. If someone thought it important enough to try to scare him off, the drawing must be factual. Which meant Amon-Psaro's life must be at risk after all. A chill flooded his body, making the hairs on his arms stand on end. If Amon-Psaro was slain by a man of Kemet, war would be inevitable.

He could be wrong. He prayed he was. But he had to assume the worst.

Chapter Nine

"Find that boy." Bak hurried up the gully to the fortress, through the main gate, and along the street to the armory, repeating the words over and over in his thoughts, the orders he had given Kasaya and Pashenuro. "If he still lives, we must make sure he stays alive. If he's been slain, we must learn how and when and by whom."

The Medjays had left their quarters with the same sense of urgency he felt. The mute boy Ramose had to be located and, if_ still living, Bak had to find a way to communicate with him. He had to know for a fact the significance of the sketch on the pottery shard. The fortress of Semna, and therefore Amon-Psaro, was too close to Iken for comfort. Even worse, all Bak's suspects would be traveling upstream to Semna with the lord Amon. The god's entourage would provide an ideal refuge for a potential assassin, allowing him to make his play and slip back among the others camouflaged as one among many.

Bak strode into the armory, a building too spacious for the number of men toiling there, its once whitewashed walls now worn and dirtied to the dark brown of river silt. Long ago when the fortress had been fully manned, the structure had bustled with craftsmen striving to arm a large and active force. Now, with the garrison small and the battles reduced to skirmishes, with most weapons brought in by ship from the north, the need was limited to minor manufacture and repairs.

Pausing on the threshold, he nodded a greeting to the chief armorer, a swarthy, muscular man of thirty or so years, and glanced around in search of the scarred man. The hot, stuffy room rang with the sound of two men hammering bronze points to harden the edges. The acrid smell of molten metal filled the air around a thick pottery furnace nested on a bed of charcoal. Quick, sharp clicks and the sound of broken stone skittering across the hard-packed earthen floor betrayed the presence of someone in the next room flaking flint for an arrowhead or some other implement of war. The stench of wet leather drifted through an open door, beyond which several men were stretching reddish hides onto wooden frames, making or repairing shields.

A barrel-chested man of medium height, his cheek deformed by a long scar, strode through the rear door. He spotted Bak, his eyes widened with recognition, and he swung around as if to run. He had nowhere to go; the armory had only a single exit.

"Senmut!" Bak snapped, silencing the pounding and chipping, drawing a dozen gawkers from the surrounding rooms.

A look of craven fear washed across the scarred face. "I didn't slay Lieutenant Puemre! I swear it!"

Bak had expected a denial, but one of lesser consequence. "If you're as innocent as you claim, why did you knock me out? Why search the house?"

The chief armorer scowled at the watching men, sending them scurrying back to their tasks, then hunkered down near the outer door, listening to every word, every shade of meaning. He would no doubt report what he heard to his family and probably to half of Iken as well.

"I've done nothing!" Senmut said. "I swear!"

"Why did you run two days ago, when you found me in Puemre's house?"

"Wouldn't you? Would you want to be blamed for something you didn't do?"

"You're open to blame until you explain yourself." Losing patience, Bak caught Senmut's arms above the elbows and shook him. "Now talk! I want no more denials."

Senmut backed up, his steps clumsy, his eyes fearful. "I went looking for the boy, that's all. I swear it! Then I saw you on the floor, Puemre's belongings strewn around you, and I ran."

"The boy…" Bak's ears took in the silence of the tools, the idleness of craftsmen too busy listening to work. "You need a jar of beer, Senmut." To the chief armorer he added, "I'll not keep him long."

Senmut, startled into obediencg, led the way to a house of pleasure in the next block, where the proprietor sold beer so thick it clogged the strainer. The establishment was neat and clean, with walls freshly whitewashed and a floor sprinkled with water to keep down the dust. Beer jars and drinking bowls stood in tidy stacks, and a few low three-legged stools were scattered among straw-stuffed pillows for seating. The brew was strong and tasty, ideal for breaking down a wall of defense and loosening a tongue. A large helping of patience might also be in order, Bak reminded himself.

"You went looking for the boy," he said, keeping his voice kind, conversational. "The mute child Ramose, you Senmut eyed his interrogator with suspicion. "He needs a new home. I thought to take him to mine, to make him part of my household." He drank from his bowl, taking several healthy swallows. "I've no wife to mother him. She died two years ago. But my children like him, and my oldest daughter is a mother to all."

Bak studied the armorer's face, searching for a lie. "The neighbors haven't seen the boy since the night Puemre disappeared. I fear for his safety."

Senmut's work-hardened hands fidgeted on the bowl.

"He's a tough little fellow, a born scavenger. He can get by where most others would starve."

"Puemre was slain," Bak said, spelling it out. "The child might well have suffered a like fate."

The armorer's voice turned gruff, despairing. "Puernre was a son to me, and Ramose a son to him. I'll care for him as I will my daughter's unborn child." Bak's last grim words must have sunk in then, for he shook his head and gave a pathetic imitation of a smile. "The boy ran away, that's all. He came to my daughter yesterday morning to let her see he was alive and well. In the market, it was, soon after the fishermen brought in their catch."

Bak's emotions leaped to surprise and delight, and gratitude to the lord Amon. Yet he was confused by Senmut's mixed signals, by so deep a despair. "Your daughter cooked for Puemre and cleaned his house?"

Senmut wiped his nose with the back of his hand, sniffed. "She cared for him, yes, and one day soon she'll care for his child." His voice broke, and he covered his face with his hands. His shoulders trembled with silent sobs.

Puemre's child? Bak laid a kindly hand on his arm. "I must speak with her, Senmut. Where can I find her?" Mutnefer, Bak guessed, was close to Aset in age, but there the resemblance ended. Where Woser's only daughter was delicate and lovely, Senmut's eldest child was graceless and plain. Where Aset was girlish and fanciful, Mutnefer was a woman heavy with child and the responsibility for her father's household, six children between the ages of two and twelve.

"Puemre loved me, and I him." Mutnefer rested her hand on her unborn child, and her voice trembled. She wore a loose dress of ordinary linen, a single wristlet of bronze, and the merest touch of kohl on eyes red-rimmed from crying. "He meant to take us with him when he went back to Kemet."

Bak, seated on a stool in the roofless cooking area behind the three-room house, was touched by her faith in Puemre's promises. Hiding his compassion, he watched her drop a lump of well-kneaded dough into a round pottery baking dish, setting it in a mound of hot coals. She covered the dish with a conical lid. A naked two-year-old boy played in the shady doorway and a girl of eight or so bent over a stone mortar, pushing the grindstone back and forth, making coarse flour from grain. He- had seen two other small children, the oldest about five, playing on the roof under the sharp eye of a ten-year-old. The child next in age to Mutnefer, a boy of twelve or so, had gone to the river to fish. All who were old enough had to earn their bread in Senmut's household.

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