Lauren Haney - Curse of Silence

He spun around and walked into the rectangular en campment Nebwa had organized within an incomplete fence of shields, the gaps to be filled later with shields borrowed from Askut. The donkeys, freed of their loads, were being led twenty or so at a time to the river for a bath and a drink. Their eager braying could be heard in the dis tance. Other drovers were organizing baskets and bundles and jars for quick loading, but also in piles strategically placed to serve as obstacles should the tribesmen attack.

Archers and guards formed islands of activity around make shift hearths. Sentries had taken up their posts, with two men hidden partway up the wadi, watching the tribesmen who were watching the caravan. Food and beer were being distributed, and the yeasty aroma of baking bread wafted through the air. The camp was like an anthill, with innu merable small tasks quickly done and gotten out of the way, each man anxious to go on with his training and to help make weapons. Only Nefret, her maid, and Amonked’s rac ing dog had nothing to contribute.

After a much-belated midday meal of bread and dried fish, Bak walked, beer jar in hand, across a camp abuzz with activity. He found Sennefer seated on a low stool sur rounded by stacks of Amonked’s possessions, including the tent Thaneny had given Nefret when the pavilion had been dismantled. The nobleman was knapping flint for use as a cutting edge on some type of weapon. Nefret stood before him, looking annoyed. Probably because he went on with his task, striking the stone with hard, crisp taps all the while she spoke.

“They’ve destroyed the pavilion and what little privacy

I had. I suppose next they’ll want my tent poles.” Seeing

Bak approach, she tossed her head in high dudgeon and stalked off, Mesutu at her heels.

Sennefer stopped his task to watch her retreating figure.

Amonked’s dog, tied close to prevent it from running with the feral dogs, rested its muzzle on his knee and stared up at him, its great dark eyes pleading for affection.

“Nefret’s a beautiful woman,” Bak said, drawing another stool close and sitting down.

“She is that.” Sennefer tore his gaze from her and quickly rearranged his features to hide a sadness Bak barely glimpsed. “She needs a good spanking-or a half-dozen children. Or both. Unfortunately, her father doted on her and Amonked wouldn’t lift a hand against a mosquito. And she’s unable to conceive.”

Bak broke the plug out of the beer jar and took a drink of the thick, bitter liquid. “She loves you, you know.” He disliked revealing personal secrets, but a desperate man must take desperate measures.

“And I love her.”

Bak stared, taken aback not so much by the content of the admission as by the admission itself.

“Yes, it’s true,” the nobleman said with a mocking smile.

“I’ve loved her for years. She doesn’t know, of course, nor will she ever.” He struck the hammerstone against the other, sending a flake flying. “My father urged me to marry a woman of royal blood, and I took too long in deciding I wanted Nefret instead.” A sharp rap and another flake flashed through the air. “By then it was too late. Amonked had taken her as his concubine with my sister’s blessing.”

The dog ducked away from the flying stone and, tail tucked between its legs, came to Bak. Whimpering softly, it nudged his hand with its nose. He scratched its head.

“Did you know of Baket-Amon’s attempt to buy her?”

“I’m one of the few people in this world in whom my brother-in-law confides. As he doesn’t know of my feelings for Nefret, he speaks freely about their relationship.” Sen nefer paused, struck off another flake, added ruefully, “Of ten to my regret.”

Bak sympathized; such a position would be untenable.

“Did you feel any animosity toward the prince for pursuing her to such an extent?”

“Why should I? He was unsuccessful. If he’d per sisted…” Sennefer struck the flint hard, too hard, ruining the flake. “… I’d’ve felt different. But he didn’t. He had no need. He had but to beckon and beautiful young women came running in numbers too plentiful to count.”

“As when you allowed Amonked and other favorites of our sovereign to host hunting parties on your estate?”

“The prince had to show restraint there.” Sennefer flashed a quick smile. “He’d have risked bad feelings if he’d moved onto someone else’s territory, and he was too intelligent a man to allow an enmity to develop between himself and some lofty bureaucrat or nobleman or military man.”

“Was he as careful when he was your personal guest?”

“One of my servants seemed to satisfy him.” Sennefer dropped onto his lap the stones he had been working and picked up a goatskin waterbag lying on the sand beside his stool. “He more than satisfied her. She’ll feel his death acutely.”

“If not during hunting parties, you saw him at his most

… expansive, shall we say… Where?”

“I spent a few evenings with him in the capital, visiting various houses of pleasure.” The nobleman drank from the waterbag, smiled. “I must admit, I couldn’t begin to keep up with him. Women hanging all over him, desirous of his attention. At first I felt inadequate, as if I’d aged before my time, but I finally concluded I’d not like to be so driven.”

“I know of what you speak. I saw him in a house of pleasure in Buhen two nights before his death.” Bak looked back on that night with sadness, but had second thoughts.

Baket-Amon had been happy, and what more could one ask than to end one’s life glad of heart. “The proprietor said he was always greatly in demand because, and I’ll quote her:

‘He was a brilliant lover and not rough like some men are.’ ”

“That I can believe. For a man so absorbed by the pleas ures offered by women, he was singularly prudish. He’d drawn a line beyond which he’d never go.” Sennefer frowned, thinking back. “I can only guess from a few things he said… Nothing specific, but… Well, you once asked if I knew of anything in his past that might have come back to haunt him.”

To taunt, Baket-Amon had said, but Bak feared a cor rection would break the nobleman’s thought.

“In truth, I know nothing. I’ve no more than a feeling, a conclusion based on a few insignificant words. I believe something happened in the past that badly upset him, caus ing him to fear the harsher excesses of the bedchamber.

What the incident was, I’ve no idea.”

Later, walking back through the encampment in search of Minkheper, Bak tried to tamp down a surge of excite ment. The incident Sennefer had mentioned more likely than not had nothing to do with Baket-Amon’s death. Yet instinct told him he had come at last to the path he sought.

Instinct. Amonked would disapprove.

“Hit him hard!” Minkheper yelled. “Don’t addle his wits!

Disable him!”

The young, heavy-muscled guard backed up a couple paces, raised his arm high, leaped at the thick post driven into the ground, and struck hard at the top with a short, stout length of wood cut from a pole that had supported

Amonked’s pavilion. If the post had been a man, the club would have crushed his skull.

“That’s the way it’s done!” Minkheper looked around the ring of men, twenty or so guards, Sergeant Roy, and Lieu tenant Merymose. All had come to learn the rough-and tumble fighting practiced by men of the sea. “Remember, each time you strike with too little force, you’ll soon find your foe back on his feet, ready to fight again. Why not save yourself the added effort? Make each blow count.”

The men looked at one another and nodded, seeing the sense in his words.

Spotting Bak, Minkheper raised a hand in greeting.