Lauren Haney: Face Turned Backward

On the eastern side of the river, the golden desert was tinted with brown, the landscape harsher and more rocky.

Squeezed between the higher land and the river, a few stingy pockets of soil were emerging from the flood. A wadi opened up ahead, a narrow triangle of water-logged fertility lying between the high, stony banks of an ancient river, luring ibises, cranes, and egrets. Much of the oasis was shaded by palms, while grapevines flourished on a natural terrace just out of reach of all but the highest inundation. A couple dozen buildings built of stone and mudbrick perched on a sandy shelf overlooking the arable land.

“We’re nearing the wreck,” Tjanuny said. “It lies in the next wadi after this village.”

With quickening interest, Bak studied the small cluster of drab houses. This, he suspected, was where he would find the cargo, and the crew as well if any had survived the storm.

The village looked no different than all the others in this poor land. In narrow, crooked lanes, ducks and geese scratched in patches of mud and dogs squabbled halfheartedly. Naked children stared out at the passing skiff while their mothers washed clothing at the edge of the turbid waters. Two men sat in the shade playing a board game, waiting for the flood to subside. If the people here had been the first to come upon the wreck, they would have made it their own, as would most others along the river.

Bak’s divided attention spurred Tjanuny to get on with his tale. “We walked around the ridge and ahead was the wrecked ship. It was hard to see so late in the day, shadowed as it was by the cliff. One man hurried back to tell our cap-38 / Lauren Haney tain, while the rest of us hastened to the vessel. It lay broken and battered, with no man standing guard.”

“You didn’t notice the missing cargo?” Imsiba’s voice was sharp, holding less patience than Bak’s.

Tjanuny swung around, giving the Medjay a quick look as if to see how far he could go. Not far at all, he must have concluded, for he came straight to the point. “A few items remain on deck, so we thought the cargo skimpy but intact.

It was the captain, when he came, who climbed aboard to look around.” He turned again to Bak. “It was he who found the deckhouse empty and nothing stowed below. That’s why he sent me to Buhen, to summon you.”

Belowdeck cargo served as ballast. No responsible captain would sail far without a load-even if he had to haul rocks.

The shallow-keeled, round-bottomed vessels were top-heavy, easily capsized, especially when traveling upstream under an enormous spread of sail, but also when voyaging north, propelled by the current and a crew of oarsmen. As few men would take so great a risk, Ramose’s assumption that the cargo had been carried off was most likely correct. Unless Ramose himself had salvaged it and, like Rennefer, hopped to cloud Bak’s eyes with a pretense of innocence.

Bak studied the village and a path rising up the natural terraces that walled in the wadi. Above, he could imagine the desert, golden sand too hot to cross bare-footed and out-cropping rocks shading the small creatures who lived there: lizards, scorpions, snakes. “The path leads to the wreck?”

“An easy walk beyond the village, yes.”

Bak pressed the rudder, guiding the skiff closer to shore.

“And it’s from here you stole this boat?” The words slipped out as smooth as a dagger from a well-fitted sheath.

Tjanuny tensed for an instant, then relaxed. His face took on a wide-eyed look of honesty and candor. “I borrowed it.”

Imsiba sputtered, a sound falling somewhere between a laugh and a snort. The oarsman’s expression froze. Bak formed a scowl, squelching a laugh.

Tjanuny dredged up some indignation. “If I’d traveled on foot, sir, I’d not have reached Buhen until after nightfall. I thought it best to get a boat-to borrow one-so you could reach the wreck in a timely manner. Captain Ramose wishes to be on his way north, but as I told you when first I saw you, he feels obligated to help. To carry any survivors back to Buhen-should they summon the courage to appear at a ship that’s been plundered-and to haul back any salvageable goods.”

Bak gave the oarsman a stern look. “Later, after I talk with Ramose, you can row me back to this village. There you can explain that it was you who stole-borrowed-the skiff.”

A look of dismay flitted across Tjanuny’s face.

Bak relented. The man’s offense was minor, easily set right.

“I doubt you’ve cause to worry. If we find they’ve taken the cargo, they’ll be too busy explaining their own actions to complain about your misdeed.”

“Was it truly an accident?” Bak waded closer to the overturned ship, taking care not to stir up the mud beneath his feet, clouding the water more than it already was. He bent low to get a better look at the hull. “Or could the vessel have been deliberately run aground?”

Captain Ramose, his ruddy face taut with suppressed anger, stood close by. “You’re overly suspicious, Lieutenant.”

He was referring to his own vessel as much if not more than the wreck. He had looked on in tense silence when Imsiba had swum out to his ship and climbed aboard.

Though not a word had been uttered, he had guessed the sergeant’s purpose: If he and his crew had removed the cargo from the wrecked ship and hauled it to some secret place nearby, the Medjay would learn the truth.

Bak remained mute, admitting only in the privacy of his own thoughts that he might sometimes err on the side of caution.

Ramose pointed to the broken keel-plank running down the ship’s spine. “You can see for yourself, its back is broken.”

40 / Lauren Haney

The vessel, probably seventy paces long from stem to stern, lay hard against a large sandstone boulder that in the distant past had been washed down the wadi when one of the rare but vicious rainstorms in the eastern mountains had sent floodwaters crashing down the dry waterway. Not merely the keel-plank, but several boards on the port side of the hull had been splintered as if struck by a gigantic arrowhead. The ship lay skewered, half on its side, its hull washed in water as high as a man’s thigh.

“I know too little of ships and sailing to hazard a guess as to what happened,” Bak admitted, standing erect and splashing backward. “You’ll have to enlighten me.”

“Only the gods could’ve driven this ship so far inland and thrown it so hard against the boulder.” Ramose eyed the mud surging up in Bak’s wake, then waded along the hull, running his hand over wood darkened and grainy from years of service. At the bow, he ducked low beneath the finial and stared out toward the wadi mouth and his own ship. His voice took on an edge. “I’d say they were caught unawares by the storm. Captain Roy must’ve seen this wadi and thought it a godsend. Instead, they were blown into the shallows and onto the boulder, with no chance to save themselves.”

The theory made sense, and yet…“You think all the crew perished?” Bak eyed the ship, the deck atilt but unharmed.

A school of tiny fish swirled around his legs, tickling him.

“Other than the fatal wound, the damage is so slight and the water so shallow it seems impossible.”

“The storm was fierce, yet…” Ramose scowled, thinking back. “Most of the men probably made it, but I’d not be surprised to learn that one or two were swept overboard before they left the open river. I saw for myself the water washing the upper terrace at Buhen. And after the storm I saw fish there, lying with dead and injured birds carried on the wind.”

Bak thought again of the village to the south, so tempting to men seeking shelter, so convenient for men burdened by salvaged items. But where, he wondered, was the captain?