Lauren Haney - Face Turned Backward

“The lord Khepre rose above the eastern horizon while I stood on the quay at Kor. I’ve since journeyed from there to Buhen…” He reached across the bed to pinch a fat jowl.

“…just to see you.”

She slapped away his hand. “Whatever you want, you’ll have to wait until a reasonable hour.”

“Come, old woman. Drag yourself out from among your sheets and pull your wits together. I’m in dire need of information.”

Her eyes narrowed, her expression turned sly. “You’ve a murder to resolve, I’ve heard. Captain Mahu.”

Bak knew that look well, and the acquisitive nature behind it. “Don’t expect favor for favor, old woman. Not this time.

I spoke up for you with Commandant Thuty, and he let you move your place of business to this house. Your gratitude, you swore, would be never-ending.”

“I’m a poor woman,” she whined. “I work day and night…”

“Enough!” He raised a hand, staving off the spate of words, and baited the hook he hoped would set her tongue to wagging. “I’ve two murders to resolve, not one. And I’ve 102 / Lauren Haney no intention of haggling for what you know, as I would for a fat goose in the market.”

“A second murder?” Her eyes lit up. She clutched the sheet against her sagging breasts and swung her legs off the side of the bed.

Bak managed not to smile. Her curiosity knew no bounds, which added much to her value as an informer. “The hunter Intef. Surely his death didn’t escape your notice!”

“I thought it an accident,” she admitted with uncharacter-istic candor. Her glance leaped to the boy hovering beside her bed. “Go away, Amonaya. Find us some food and drink.

I’ll be dressed in an instant.”

Bak, who had no desire to look upon the mountain of sagging flesh, left the room one step behind the servant, who hurried across the open courtyard to disappear through a rear portal. Nofery’s new house of pleasure was palatial compared to the old: four rooms, a courtyard, and even a kitchen versus a small, dark two-room hovel. This building was spotless, with white-plastered walls neither scuffed nor gouged nor blackened by smoke, and hard-packed earthen floors covered with mats not yet embedded with grit.

He had heard soldiers and sailors complain that they felt the building too grand for a good time, but still they came.

Perhaps because only the setting had changed. The beer was as thick and harsh as before, the games of chance as risky and sometimes as dishonest. The music offered on rare occa-sions was as loud and raucous as in the past, and the girls as free with their favors.

Preferring not to air his business to all the world, Bak peered into the main room, which opened off the entryway through which he had arrived, to see if anyone was there. A scrawny man with white hair and a pronounced limp was wielding a rush broom, raising a cloud of dust thick enough to sting the eyes. A few stools and low tables and an open chest half filled with drinking bowls had been shoved against the wall out of his way. Loud snores drew Bak’s eyes to an alcove, an afterthought to the main room with no door to close it off. Two soldiers lay sprawled on the floor asleep.

The acrid smells of vomit and sweat hinted at a night of too much beer and pleasure.

He backed away and crossed the courtyard to another door, where he swept aside a linen curtain to look upon three young women lying on a rumpled sleeping pallet. A shapely beauty with a thick, dark braid falling over her shoulder opened sloe eyes and gave him a sultry smile. The others slept on. He was sorely tempted, but he had no time for dalliance. He blew the temptress a kiss and let the curtain fall.

Satisfied whatever he said would go unnoticed, he sat on a mudbrick bench in a shady spot outside Nofery’s door and watched the lion, stretched out in the sun, gnawing on what had once been a woven reed sandal. Six or eight three-legged stools had been shoved up against a couple of low tables piled high with drinking bowls. Thigh-high jars of beer stood against another wall, shaded by the same lean-to roof that sheltered him. “I’ve been told Mahu played knucklebones here the night before he set sail for Kor. Do you remember?”

“Mmmmm.” The rustle of fabric, heavy breathing, a curse.

“That was the last time I ever saw him.” Shuffling feet, another whisper of linen, a couple of grunts. “He enjoyed himself, I think, winning more than he lost, but playing more for pleasure than profit.”

“I must know who talked with him.”

“You know how Mahu was. Friendly. I doubt a man came through the door he didn’t say a word to.”

“A man liked by one and all,” Bak muttered, disgusted.

Aloud he asked, “Who played with him? Do you remember?”

“I’ve lost a sandal. Do you see one out there?”

Bak glanced at the lion. The creature’s attention had been drawn to a flock of chattering swallows darting back and forth over the courtyard, gorging themselves on a swarm of insects too small to see at a distance. One large paw rested firmly on what had begun to look like a bedraggled mat, with ends of reed projecting from toe and heel.

He refused to be drawn into what he knew would become 104 / Lauren Haney a lengthy tirade. “Did the same people play through the evening? Or did men come and go?”

“The players never changed.” Nofery shuffled out the door, her breathing heavy, her face flushed with effort. The white sheath covered her fleshy body. She wore one sandal, the other foot was bare. “All good men, they were, upstanding residents of Buhen.”

Her description, brief as it was, gave Bak a feel for the game. Men of substance wagering sums large enough to discourage the average soldier or sailor who might otherwise have wished to play. “Their names, old woman?”

“The trader Nebamon, as stingy a man as I’ve ever met, one too hidebound to enjoy the pleasures of life.” Barely glancing at the lion, she crossed the court and picked up a stool. “And another trader, Hapuseneb. Now there’s a man I like. He’s no great beauty, but he has that special look in his eye that sets the blood to boiling-and he’s free with his wealth.”

“So that’s why Amonaya hinted I wasn’t good enough to share your bed.” Bak’s voice broke in exaggerated dismay.

“Your heart’s been taken by another, a wealthy man with whom I can never compete.”

“Amonaya did what?” Her mouth tightened, but before he could explain, she cut him short. “Say no more. The boy’s feathers need plucking, I know.” She carried the stool into the swath of shade where he sat and plopped down. “Captain Ramose played that night.” Her annoyance melted away and her eyes slewed toward Bak, greedy for knowledge. “He summoned you to a shipwreck, they say, and there you found much treasure.”

Leaning close, Bak patted her fat knee. “Later, old woman.

After you tell me what I wish to know.”

She glared at him, at her bare foot, and at the lion, its tail whipping back and forth as it watched the birds. Evidently she did not recognize the destroyed sandal. “Userhet was in the game. The overseer of warehouses. A man as handsome as a god, but one more full of himself I doubt I’ll ever meet.”

“So Imsiba says.”

“And Lieutenant Kay. The new officer who came from Semna. I know little of him yet, but he seems a moderate man: neither generous nor mean. One who makes no great demands on the girls and treats them with kindness.”

Solid citizens one and all, as she had said. “Did you by chance hear what they talked about?”

Nofery’s manner turned indignant. “You think I eavesdrop on everyone? Well, you err. I’m bound to admit, I listen now and again. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. But I don’t hear every word.” She paused, added ruefully, “Anyway, they were playing in the alcove that opens off the main room. To hover close was impossible.”