Lauren Haney - The Right Hand of Amon

"Without your help, how did your father plan to care for so' large a brood?"

Her smile was as tremulous as her voice. "They, too, were to go to Kemet: my father, my brothers and sisters. Puemre promised us a house on his father's estate, a parcel of land, and even a servant, a woman to care for the small ones. Instead of making weapons, my father would make tools for the men who worked the fields of the estate."

A promise easily made, Bak thought, and equally easy to forget. "What was to become of you? Were you to wed him or…?"

She laughed, incredulous. "I have no noble blood! He loved me, yes, and he meant to take me into his household. I would've been his favorite for all time, he vowed, but his concubine, not his wife."

Bak thought4 best to drop the subject before she guessed how skeptical he was. He did not want to hurt her. "When did you last see Puemre?"

"The evening he disappeared." Her voice dropped to an unhappy murmur. "He walked me home before reporting to the commander's residence."

"What did he say? Will you tell me of his mood? Was he happy or sad or angry, for example?"

Mutnefer retrieved a portable camp stool from the house. The legs were carved and painted to look like the delicate heads of river birds, the seat made of finely woven leather. Bak could imagine a piece of that quality in the commander's residence, not in this poor household.

She noticed his interest. "Puemre saw the trouble I had getting off the ground once I sat down, so he brought this stool to ease my life." Blinking back tears, she placed it in the shady strip next to the wall and sat down heavily.

He wondered what he would do if she had the baby then and there. The thought was unsettling-until he recalled seeing women on the roofs of several houses in the block.

"Puemre came home that day long before dusk. I always cooked his evening meal and ate with him and Ramose, then brought whatever was left back to my family." She closed her eyes, swallowed. "He picked me up and swung me around in a circle, so excited he spoke in riddles. He mentioned the king Amon-Psaro, the prince, revenge, and a great battle with the Kushites. He said our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut herself, would give him the gold of valor and more."

Bak felt like hugging her. She had supplied the motive for Puemre's murder, far exceeding his expectations. Puemre had somehow discovered that Amon-Psaro was to be slain at the hands of an avenger. He should have shared the knowledge with someone in authority, but had kept the matter to himself so he alone could bask in glory. Now he was dead, silenced forever. His secrecy was unforgivable. Even if he mistrusted his fellow officers and his commander, he should have sent a message to Commandant Thuty.

Bak questioned Mutnefer further, but she could tell him nothing more. Puemre had babbled, filling in no details. If he had not opened his heart to her, Bak wondered, with whom had he talked? An image of the sketch on the pottery shard leaped into his thoughts. The mute child. Who better to confide in than one who could neither hear nor speak?

"Your father said Puemre's servant, the boy Ramose, came to you in the market yesterday."

Mutnefer stared at her hands, her fingers entwined over her bulging stomach, her face bleak with worry.

"If he can name the man who slew Puemre, and I've reason to believe he can, he's in grave danger." Bak leaned toward her, willing her to speak. "I must find him, mistress, before the killer does."

"I don't know where he is." Her hands writhed. "I can't talk to him. Puemre never taught me how. But I could tell how afraid he was."

"Did you give him food?"

She bit her lip, nodded. "What 1 could spare."

"How much did he take from Puemre's house the night he ran off."

"Not much. He's surely finished it by now."

He's probably stealing to survive, Bak thought, and what better place than at the market. "If you see him again, will you bring him to me?"

"If I can." She swallowed hard, striving to be strong. "He didn't trust anyone but Puemre, and now… Well, he came to me yesterday, but he ran off again."

Bak rose to his feet, preparing to leave. The gritty whisper of the grindstone drew his eyes toward the thin, silent girl laboring over the mortar. He prayed to the lord Amon that no child of his would ever have to live so hard. "My men and I have more rations than we can use this week. Will you accept a few items in return for what you've told me?"

The pleasucp he saw on her face was as great a reward as the information she had provided.

As he walked the narrow lane outside the house, another thought surfaced. If only one officer was stalking AmonPsaro, why were the others covering his tracks? Could the reason have something to do with a shared experience in the war against the Kushites twenty-seven years ago?

"Lieutenant!" It was Kasaya, running down the lane from the fortress. "I've been looking everywhere for you, sir. Commander Woser and his officers have gone out to the slipway." He stopped in front of Bak, his massive chest heaving. "The barge of the lord Amon is approaching Iken, with Sergeant Imsiba, Troop Captain Nebwa, and half the garrison of Buhen."

Bak broke into a smile, delighted at the news. "It'll be wonderful to see a friendly face again and to speak for a change with officers who're straightforward and honest."

Kasaya grinned. "First you must speak with Commander Woser. He wants to see you right away."

"No more bad news, I hope."

"He didn't bless me with knowledge."

Bak's laugh was short-lived. He recounted his interviews with Senmut and Mutnefer and told Kasaya to go find Pashenuro. They should take all the rations they could spare to Mutnefer, get her description of the mute boy, and goon to the market. The child, he felt sure, would turn up sooner or later and he wanted at least one of them there when he showed his face. The boy had to be found and any secrets he held somehow released. Only then would he be safe.

"I've seldom seen men work so hard," Imsiba said, his eyes on the crowd massed in the distance. The glitter of gold could be seen above their heads, the elegant, upswept prow of the god's barge towed now by men rather than a warship. "I pray the lord Amon makes the effort worthwhile."

"You've heard Amon-Psaro is already in Semna," Bak said.

Imsiba's face turned dour. "How can a man expect a god, no matter how great and powerful, to heal a child so ill?

"What does Kenamon have to say?"

"He speaks with the unflagging faith of a priest, not the practical physician he is. But the closer we come to Semna,

I've noticed, the more often he kneels in prayer."

The big Medjay's gloom was contagious, filling Bak's heart with grim and unwanted thoughts.

They strode across the sandy waste, neither in a mood to talk yet comfortable with the shared silence. Bak's eyes darted ahead, tracing the course of the slipway along which the lord Amon's barge was being dragged past the most formidable of the rapids below Iken. The route stretched across the sandy desert flat, a road paved with logs, slightly curved to form a cradle, lying side by side on a bed of dry and cracking silt.

As they neared the barge, Nebwa stepped back from among the soldiers surrounding the vessel and shouted an order. The men standing in front, well above a hundred troops from Buhen, took up the slack on heavy ropes attached to the craft, while others alongside did the same, their task to prevent the barge from tipping to the right or left as well as to aid with the tow. Several men carrying large round-bottomed jars hurried forward. Commander Woser and the officers Huy, Senu, Inyotef, and Nebseny stood off to the side with Kenamon. The lesser priests and a couple of soldiers purified for the occasion knelt beside the lord Amon's golden barque, waiting to lift it onto their shoulders and move it forward with the barge. The doors of the shrine were closed and sealed, protecting the image of the god from the noise and dust of the outside world.