Lauren Haney - The Right Hand of Amon

Bak slipped into the room Kenamon had used as his own. The chamber had been cleared of the elderly priest's personal effects. Only the furniture remained-a bed, two woven chests, and a table-and a statue of the household god Bes standing in a wall niche. Removing the ugly, bowleg ged god, he revealed the four pieces of broken pottery he had found in the hideaway of the mute boy Ramose. He took the shards from the niche and sat cross-legged on the floor, studying the sketches in a patch of sunlight falling from a high window.

The sketches were no less confusing than they had been before, but looking at them with a fresh and more educated eye, they made a childish kind of sense. An army, men fighting on the field of battle, ships traveling downriverall images of the war twenty-seven years before, and the victorious journey back to Kemet. The embracing man and woman, Bak felt sure, depicted an incident closely related to the other images, an occurrence Ramose had believed worthy of documenting. He put the shards back where he had found them and replaced the statue, confident that if the portly servant had not found them, no one would.

Bak detoured through the kitchen, where the woman handed him a flattish loaf of bread filled with chunks of beef and onions, and then hastened outside to the street. Eating while he walked, he hurried through the fortress, out the gate, and down the path to the lower city. Thin spirals of smoke rose from a multitude of houses, spreading the odors of burning dung, cooking oil, fish, and onions. Cattle lowed, begging to be milked. A flock of pigeons took wing, whirring through the air low overhead.

Aware of how fast news could spread through a confined community such as Iken, he was not surprised at the hustle and bustle in the streets and houses along his route. Men, women, and children were rushing through their morning tasks, singing, joking, fussing, ridding themselves of duties so they. could enjoy a day of pageantry and celebration: the arrival of Amon-Psaro with his large and colorful entourage; the garrison troops presenting arms outside the gate; the procession through the streets of the lord Amon and lady Hathor, the priests, the military, and the Kushite caravan; the flotilla that would carry the gods and the king and his party across the river to the island fortress. A day never to forget.

Especially if Amon-Psaro were to be assassinated. Offering a silent prayer to the lord Amon, pleading for the god's help in preventing the king's death, Bak hurried on. He left the main street and turned down a narrow lane that took him to another lane strangely wider but not as straight. He passed the ruined warehouse, now little more than a foundation, that Senu had suggested Minnakht's men mine for mudbricks. Three small boys, chattering like sparrows, were squatting around one of many holes in the earthen floor, poking sticks down its open mouth, teasing a rat, most likely.

He rushed past two older boys trudging up the lane, one of twelve or so years, the second a bit younger, both with yokes across their shoulders from which heavy water jars were suspended. A few paces beyond, he plunged through the door of Senu's house and bumped into a low stool, tipping it over with a clatter. Instead of being empty and uncluttered, as it had been before, the entry room was filled with baskets heaped with vegetables: beans, onions, peas, melons, radishes, cucumbers, lettuce. A tall, thin woman sat cross-legged on the floor with three girls ranging in age from six to perhaps fourteen, shelling peas and beans into large round pottery bowls. The woman was as dark as night, the girls lighter but thin like their mother. A dusky young man of fifteen or so years who looked much like Senu sat on the stairway above them, sorting through a handful of fishhooks.

In a single fluid movement, the boy dropped off the stairs, grabbed a$arpoon leaning against the wall, and held it ready to throw at the intruder. The youngest girl sucked in her breath and scooted closer to her mother. The other two stared wide-eyed and afraid. The woman, whose name was Nefer, he had been told, rose swiftly to her feet, scattering a lapful of peas across the floor, and stood over her daughters, a lioness protective of her brood. A childish hiss behind him warned Bak to look to his back. The boys carrying the water jars stood at the door, trapping him inside. He hastened to raise his hands, palms forward. "I'm Lieutenant Bak, head of the Medjay police from Buhen. Senu surely told you of me."

Nefer's mouth tightened. "You're not welcome here, Lieutenant. Go away."

Like her husband, she was no longer young. The years, the frequent pregnancies, had taken their toll on both body and face, but Bak could see she had once been a very elegant if not beautiful woman.

"I've no time to waste, Mistress. I need your help, and soon!"

"You're not to be trusted, Senu told me. You believe he slew that wretched Puemre, and he did not."

"Where is he?"

"Where do you think he is?" she asked scornfully. "He has a task to do, and he's doing it. He went to the fortress to make sure his men were prepared for Amon-Psaro's arrival."

Senu might well be doing exactly what she claimed, Bak thought-or he might already be positioning himself to slay the Kushite king. He glanced around the room, trying to think of a sure and speedy way to get her to reveal what lay in her heart. "Yours must be the one family in Iken going about its tasks as if this day was no different than any other."

She swept her hand in an arc, drawing his attention to the overflowing baskets. "If we don't prepare these vegetables for storage, they won't last through the upcoming months. We've worked too hard planting and tilling and harvesting to watch them rot before our eyes."

"These are newly harvested?" He frowned at the baskets, puzzled. "Couldn't the task have waited until tomorrow, giving you the chance to watch the procession?"

"I see you've never farmed an island," she scoffed. "We left the crops in our low-lying fields as long as we could. If we'd not harvested yesterday, we'd have lost them all to high waters today."

Bak recalled the neighbor speaking of a farmer knocking on the door. He almost laughed aloud. A fellow farmer on the island, no doubt. And a hasty departure, not to hide from a prying police officer but to save a crop. Could the explanation for their disappearance be so simple? "Did your husband go with you to help?"

Nefer glanced at the abundance of vegetables and laughed. "What do you think?"

"A big job," he admitted. Grabbing the stool, he set it upright and dropped onto it. "Go on with your work, Mistress. With luck, you'll finish in time to watch your royal kin march through Iken."

She signaled her children back to their tasks and knelt to pick up the peas she had scattered over the floor. The boys at the door brought the jars inside and, with the help of their older brother, unloaded them from the yoke and leaned them against the wall. They joined the older boy on the stairway to watch and listen. To protect if necessary, Bak felt sure.

"Someone's told you of my relationship to Amon-Psaro, I see," she said.

Her composure, her utter lack of concern were disconcerting, not the way a woman would-behave if she carried fear in her heart. "I've heard you're a woman of royal blood," he said, keeping his voice noncommittal, giving no hint of how little he knew.

"I'm his cousin, a daughter of his father's sister. I was eleventh in line~to be his queen." A smile played on her lips. "Too far away to threaten those near the throne, but close enough to be kept in his palace as a spare."

The quip was so unexpected, Bak grinned. "I'm impressed. I've never talked with a royal princess before." Nefer gave him a wry smile. "Save your awe, Lieutenant. The day Senu took me from the palace was the happiest I'd ever been, and I thank the lady Hathor each and every morning for the life we have together."