Lauren Haney: Curse of Silence

Tearing another piece of bread from the loaf, he scanned the harbor. The central and southern quays stood empty, awaiting the return of Amonked’s flotilla. No surprise there.

But he was surprised at seeing Baket-Amon’s traveling ship still moored at the northern quay. A small herd of tan short horned cows filled the stalls. The ship’s master stood on deck near the gangplank, looking toward the fortress gate; the helmsman sat on the edge of the forecastle; and the crew meandered around the deck, trying to look busy. The vessel was ready to sail, the crew clearly awaiting the prince. Perhaps he was detained, Bak thought, by a bevy of young women at Nofery’s house of pleasure.

“Lieutenant Horhotep sounds a complete fool.” Imsiba glanced at a crow landing on the parapet a dozen paces away, eyeing the bread, squawking. “Does he not know of the commandant’s close friendship with Viceroy Inebny?”

Bak soaked more bread, pulled it from the milk, and ducked backward, saving his kilt from the dripping white liquid. “I doubt he believes anyone posted outside the cap ital is of any consequence. Including the viceroy.”

The Medjay stared dolefully at the departing vessels.

“Where do you think we’ll go, my friend, if go we must?”

He had asked the question Bak had asked himself time and time again. “Back to Waset? To Mennufer? To a re mote post on the northeastern frontier?” His gloom matched that of the sergeant’s. “I wish I could guess with authority, but I’m as much at a loss as you are.”

“I suppose we’ll all be sent our separate ways.” The words were spoken with the reluctance of one who fears the answer.

“Who’d think to keep us together? That’s not the army way.”

They ate in unhappy silence, watching the flotilla’s sails merge into the haze. The sunny terrace was warm after a cool night. The river was calm, its surface a sheet of brown ish water broken at times by a leaping fish. Ducks and geese swam around the empty quays, seeking food thrown over board by the departed sailors. Sitamon’s cargo ship had sailed north to Abu and a traveling ship had taken its space.

The sailors on board shouted across the quay at the men on Baket-Amon’s ship, their jokes vulgar, their laughter raucous.

“Do you remember the plans Commandant Nakht had for Buhen and Wawat?” Bak asked, recalling his first day within the fortress and his first conversation with the man who had preceded Thuty.

Imsiba gave his friend a surprised look. Bak seldom mentioned their earliest days on the frontier, when friend ships had been forged, love had come and gone, and they had begun to feel the fortress their home. “He wished to make Buhen into a thriving city, in which soldiers and craftsmen and traders could live in safety and contentment with their families. He wished the people of this land to live in peace and to prosper.”

“If Amonked deems the army useless, all Nakht hoped for will die.”

Regret filled the ensuing silence. Bak’s eyes strayed to ward the northern quay, and the prince’s troubled mien came back to him. Maybe all was not as it should be.

“Baket-Amon was determined to leave at first light. Let’s see what’s keeping him.” He threw the last of the bread at he crow, which hopped along the wall, head cocked, wary of the generosity.

Walking north along the terrace, Bak gave his friend a rueful look. “The thought of losing all Nakht hoped for bothers me exceedingly. The thought of leaving this place and the people I’ve come to love is almost more than I can bear.”

“I know, my friend. I, too, feel closer to Buhen than any other place, and closer to all those I’ve come to know.”

Hori burst through the northern gate, spotted them, and raced up the terrace to meet them. The chubby scribe’s face was flushed, his eyes alight with excitement. “Lieutenant

Bak! Come quickly! A man’s been found dead. Stabbed.

In the house where Amonked and his party were quar tered.”

“Baket-Amon.” Bak stared, dismayed, at the body stuffed into a storage area under the mudbrick stairway that led to the roof. He had not yet seen the face, but no one could mistake that large, heavy form for anyone other than the prince.

“I fear so, sir.” Psuro, a thickset Medjay with a face scarred by some childhood disease, looked stricken. He had been in charge of the men guarding the house through the night.

Bak would not have been surprised if the inspector of the fortresses of Wawat had been slain, but Baket-Amon?

He had asked the prince to speak with Amonked and he had refused. Now here he was in Amonked’s house and he was dead. Had that plea for help brought about his death?

Imsiba cursed in his own tongue. “The gods have surely turned their backs to us. The prince’s power was slight, with Commandant Thuty sitting in the seat of authority, but he was beloved of his people. What manner of trouble this will cause, I can’t begin to guess.”

“Go tell Thuty of this murder,” Bak said, shaking off the guilt that stood in the way of clear thinking. “Warn him.

And then bring two men with a litter so they can carry the body to the house of death.”

As the big Medjay slipped out the door, Bak knelt for a closer look at the dead man. The floor-level closet in which the prince had been hidden was almost square, about two cubits to a side, and scarcely deep enough for his broad shoulders. Psuro had rolled up and tied the woven mat that had covered the opening when he found the body. Baket Amon was seated, arms hanging down, legs drawn close, cheek resting on his knees, face turned away. He might have been sleeping-except for the blood that had drained onto the rush floormat beneath him, coloring a goodly por tion a dull reddish brown. Bending low, Bak glimpsed be tween the legs the bronze hilt of a dagger entangled by the chain of the gold pendant of the ram-headed Amon.

Back on his feet, he eyed the room, empty except for the mats that had been spread over the floor in preparation for

Amonked’s arrival. The chamber shared a wall with a room the concubine had occupied; the vague scent of perfume hung in the air, not quite masking the metallic odor of blood. The room opened onto the main hallway near the street door. Not directly connected to any other room, this chamber had not appealed to Amonked, who had left it unfurnished and empty. Thus the men who had carried off

Amonked’s belongings had not found the prince hidden in the storage space. Anyone could have entered from outside without passing through any other portion of the house, just as anyone from inside could have slipped into the room unseen.

He studied the encrustation of blood on the mat beneath the dead man and stains that spilled over two edges. Certain the prince, too heavy to move far, had been slain close by, he raised the mat nearest the body. A tiny splash of rusty brown led him to the next mat to the right. Psuro, drawing in a long, unhappy breath, lifted another mat and another, revealing a large, irregular oval discolored by blood, marked in the weave pattern of the mats that had covered it.

Bak looked again at the body. He pictured Baket-Amon as he had last seen him, with two pretty young women seated at his feet and two more awaiting him, offering music and joy. A man who had lived life at its fullest, mowed down in his prime. Shoving away the sadness, the regret, he said, “Let’s pull him out of there, Psuro.”

The mat slid with relative ease across the plastered floor, soon freeing the body from the space in which it had been confined. For some inexplicable reason, it remained upright in its seated position. Bak placed a hand under the chin and turned the head to reveal the face. Baket-Amon, as ex pected. The body was cool, but not yet clammy, nor had it had time to grow rigid. He could not be sure, but he guessed death had occurred sometime around daybreak.