Lauren Haney - Face Turned Backward

Children’s bows, arrows, spears, and shields lay shoved against a wall with their father’s weapons. The drawer of a game board had been pulled open and the green and white playing pieces were strewn across a rush floormat. A woven reed box overflowing with scrolls sat on top of a basket full of wrinkled linen. A stool lay on its side between two wooden chests. A side door, open to allow the flow of air, offered a glimpse of the long stairway that climbed the wall of the citadel from the ground floor to the battlements. Bak glimpsed in the semidarkness a ball and a pull toy on a step.

He shuddered to think what would happen should the fortress be attacked, with archers racing upward to man the walls.

“You’re convinced Mahu knew nothing about the tusk.”

The comment jerked Bak’s thoughts abruptly to the here and now. “Not long before the attack, he pleaded with me to prove his innocence. I vowed I would.”

Thuty frowned at the younger officer. “Without his conniv-ance, I don’t see how an object so large and ungainly could’ve been taken on board unseen.”

Bak tamped down the urge to remind the commandant of the tusk that had made its way to faroff Byblos. How had it traveled so great a distance without attracting attention?

“Imsiba’s questioning the crew now.”

“I always liked Mahu.” Thuty’s voice turned wishful. “I don’t suppose Captain Roy could’ve had a hand in it?”

“If he did, another man acted for him.” A sour smell drew Bak’s eyes to the door, where a naked baby was crawling across the floor, its pudgy face, hands, and chest smeared with dirt. “Mahu sailed into Kor six days ago. The helmsman told me they took the sail down right away, as soon as they learned they’d be carrying livestock. The task was easier 74 / Lauren Haney with the deck bare and open, before they built the pens. They folded it and stowed it in the hold close on nightfall.

Throughout that day, Roy was moored here at Buhen, and he sailed north before Mahu came back.”

Thuty must have seen the baby crawling toward Bak, drooling, but he paid the child no heed.

Bak inched sideways, away from those filthy, probably sticky fingers. “Much of Roy’s cargo was contraband made legitimate by the false manifest. Once he’d sailed away from Buhen and Kor, leaving behind the many men who could attest to his rightful cargo, the false document would’ve deceived all but the most critical of inspectors. He’d have had no need to slip the tusk onto another man’s ship, where he’d lose control over it.”

The commandant let the silence grow, reluctant to voice the unspeakable. “Are we faced now with two groups of smugglers, both carrying contraband across the frontier on a large scale?”

“Thuty!” His wife Tiya, a short, stocky woman midway along in her fourth pregnancy, burst through the door, saw the baby. “Oh, there you are, little one!” Never taking her eyes off her husband, she scooped the child off the floor and balanced it on a hip. “Is it true that Captain Mahu has been slain?”

Thuty gave her a look blending fondness with sorely tried patience. “How did you hear so soon?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” she asked Bak.

He glanced at Thuty, whose resigned shrug permitted him to give her a quick version of the captain’s death. She spoke not a word, but he could see the news distressed her. When he finished, she righted the overturned stool, plopped down, and laid the baby on the floor.

“Has anyone told Sitamon?” she asked.

Bak looked at Thuty. “Sitamon?”

Thuty gave his wife a blank stare.

“Mahu’s sister.” Tiya, seeing how mystified they were, bit her lip. “She came to Buhen not a week ago. Newly widowed, she is, with a child. As Mahu had no wife, and as she had no liking for her husband’s family, nor they for her…” She shrugged. “You know how that goes. So he summoned her, asking her to live here with him and tend to his household.”

Thuty looked so uncomfortable it was obvious he had paid no heed to Sitamon’s name in the garrison daybook, where all newcomers were entered upon arrival. “She’s not been told.”

“Oh, my!” Tiya grabbed the baby, who was crawling again toward Bak, and turned it around, aiming it at the door. “She mustn’t hear by chance…”

“I’ll go,” Bak said.

“…or from someone she doesn’t know.” Tiya might well have been talking to herself. “That poor woman. Alone in a strange city. What will she do now?”

Bak knew Tiya was kind and gentle, but he ofttimes wondered how Thuty maintained his patience. “Has anyone befriended her? Someone who can break the news?”

“I’ll go.” She stood up. “We’ve had no time to grow close, but we’ve talked often during the past few days.” Her eyes focused on Bak. “Now tell me what I’m to say. She’ll want the truth, I know.”

Bak offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon. He disliked breaking bad news, and no news could be worse than that of an unexpected death.

“Tiya left then and there, fearing someone else would stumble in and break the news before she could.” Bak tore a chunk of bread off the oval loaf and dunked it in the bowl of stew. Fish stew. The fifth time in a week. He could almost smell the roasted lamb in the commandant’s residence. “We’ll not add to Sitamon’s pain tonight, but we must see her early tomorrow without fail.”

Imsiba licked the juice from his fingers. “Will she know her brother’s business, do you think?”

“I pray she does. Where else have we to look?”

“Not on board his ship, I suspect.”

Bak set his bowl on the rooftop on which they sat. A large, 76 / Lauren Haney droopy-eared white dog-Hori’s pet-scooted closer, dragging his belly across the plaster. Bak rescued the stew before it could vanish in one quick gulp. Resting his broad muzzle on his front paws, the dog stared at the bowl with dark, yearning eyes.

Streaks of red and orange flared across the western sky, the lord Re clinging to the dying day as his barque carried him into the netherworld. Most of the structures within the citadel lay deep in shadow. The single exception was the wall that enclosed the mansion of Horus of Buhen. Built on a high mound and towering above the single-story guardhouse, the wall caught the pinkish-gold light of sunset and cast its glow over the two men and the dog.

“How did Mahu’s crew account for themselves?” Bak asked, fishing for solids in his bowl.

Imsiba spoke in the monotonous voice of a courier repeating a verbal message. “When and where the tusk was loaded is a puzzle, so they say. During their journey upstream from Abu, their cargo of grain was unloaded at Ma’am. The ingots and jars of oil were loaded there, as were the stones used for ballast. The livestock was taken on board at Kor, along with feed and hay. The men saw nothing out of the ordinary at Ma’am, at Kor, or here in Buhen. No strangers came on board, to their knowledge, and not a man who ascended the gangplank at Kor or Buhen left the deck to go below.”

“Did the crew ever leave the vessel all at the same time?”

“Mahu never failed to post a guard, they say.”

Finding nothing of substance in the stew, Bak tipped the bowl to his mouth and drank, swallowing mushy bits of fish, celery, chickpeas, and onions. A cold, wet nose nudged his thigh, a large sloppy tongue licked him. Giving the dog a wry smile, he set the bowl on the roof, scratched the animal’s thick neck, and stood up. “They had nothing on board that could be transported with ease except a few items in the deckhouse. I’ll wager the guards curled up inside and slept.”

“I’ll not argue with you, my friend, but they say no.”

The dog cleaned the bowl with a few loud smacks of his tongue. Barely pausing for breath, he swung half-around and dropped to his belly in front of Imsiba. A cat yowling in the street below failed to distract him.