Lauren Haney: Face Turned Backward

He had expected strong winds, but so violent a storm was rare this late in the year.

Netermose followed his glance. “My early crops,” he groaned, forgetting his own plight. “None will survive this day.”

“Let’s go!” Imsiba yelled, already on the move.

Bak took a final, quick look at the place where Penhet had fallen and the lay of the land around the spot. What had truly happened here? The answer lay close at hand, he was sure, but how could he grasp it?

The narrow windows high in the wall were covered with tightly woven mats and the doorway was protected in a like manner, yet it was impossible to escape the grit. The wind, its roar fearsome, searched out cracks and crevices, driving the sand inside, depositing dust on every surface. Oil lamps flickered in the thick and restless air, making vague shadows dance and writhe in the dusk. Grit coated sweaty flesh and worked its way beneath clothing. Mouths and noses were dry, eyes stung. Bak knew the world outside the house was far less bearable, but the urge to flee hovered at the edge of his thoughts.

The room was sparsely furnished, yet crowded. Three large woven-reed storage chests and a small chest made of a dark wood were scattered around the walls. The loom had been dragged inside and shoved into a corner. Rennefer occupied the only chair, while Bak sat on a three-legged stool.

Netermose sat on the floor, his back to the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. Near the door stood the folding stool Imsiba had spurned in favor of a step on the mudbrick stairway leading to the roof. Like the door and windows, the opening at the top was secured by a mat. Penhet lay on the white-plastered mudbrick sleeping platform, his eyes closed, his voice silenced by the drug. If not for a soft moan now 14 / Lauren Haney and again, Bak might have thought him no longer among the living.

“How could you bring that man into my home?” Rennefer demanded.

“What would you have us do?” Bak glared. “Throw him out into the storm?”

“You took him from the hut. Put him back.”

“Mistress Rennefer!” Bak stood up, wiped his face with a hand, leaving tracks of damp dirt across his cheek. His shadow loomed over the woman. “You accuse him of stabbing your husband and he swears he’s innocent. What reason do I have to believe you rather than him?”

Rennefer’s chin jutted out. “Would I have asked you to come if I held guilt in my heart?”

Netermose stared at his large, work-scarred hands, clasped between his knees. From the moment they had entered the house, the farmer had not once looked at Rennefer in a forth-right manner. He would sometimes give her a furtive glance, but that was as far as he would go. He would not, maybe could not, meet her eyes. That his conscience troubled him was apparent.

“I didn’t attack Penhet. I swear it!” Netermose’s voice turned bitter. “She’s taken what she saw and added to it, convincing herself I stabbed him.”

Bak let out a long, frustrated breath, dropped onto the stool he had so recently vacated, and scooted back against the wall, well away from the thin wisps of smoke spiraling above a sputtering wick. Three yellowish puppies, curling together in a nest of straw, watched him, an intruder, with mistrust. The contented cheeps of ducklings could be heard beneath the wings of their mother, settled in a basket nearby.

Bak closed his eyes to shut out the world and wished for a drink, a mouthful of water to wash the grit from his tongue.

He longed for the storm to end, for the air to be clean, for a solution to the puzzle he faced.

He forced himself to back up, to reconsider the tales the pair had told. He could find no fault with Rennefer’s account.

She had spoken the truth, he was sure, up to a point. But the crucial time was earlier, before she came upon Netermose and Penhet, perhaps before the farmer came upon the wounded man.

Netermose had spoken of Rennefer coming up behind him, out of the palm grove. If his tale were true, she might well have stabbed her husband and hidden among the trees and bushes when she heard the farmer’s approaching footsteps. But why, as she herself had pointed out, would she then summon a police officer from Buhen, a man experienced in righting the wrongs most offensive to the lady Maat, the goddess of right and order?

The wind moaned, rustled the doormat, blew sand through its thinnest gaps, nudged the mudbricks holding the bottom edge against the floor. Imsiba shifted to a lower step, out of the way of sand trickling through the mat above him.

Why was Penhet stabbed? Bak wondered. Why today?

Why not yesterday or tomorrow? His eyes popped open, focused on a gray-green pottery jar standing in a prayer niche beside a statue of the squat, ugly household god Bes. Several papyrus rolls protruded from the mouth of the jar. “What matter of business did you come for, Netermose?”

“I needed more land and…” The farmer sneaked a glance at Rennefer. “…Penhet had agreed to sell me a field.”

She opened her mouth, but Bak silenced her with a hard stare. “What were the terms of your agreement?”

“The usual.” Netermose’s eyes were locked on his hands, but his shoulders were hunched as if to ward off Rennefer’s tight-lipped stare. “I was to give him some livestock and various items from my land and my household. In return, he would give me the field next to the palm grove, where the main irrigation channel turns back toward the river.”

“No!” Rennefer lurched toward the edge of her chair.

“That’s our best field. It holds the water longer than all the others, and the crops grow taller.” Her eyes darted toward Penhet, her voice grew harsh. “My husband would never sell it. Never!”

Bak could have sworn he saw Penhet’s eyelids flutter. He 16 / Lauren Haney stared at the injured man, willing him to awaken. A soft moan was his only reward. He turned again to Netermose.

“Who first suggested this transaction?”

The farmer drew his knees up to his chin and hugged them close. “Penhet. He knew I wanted more land and I had…Well, several things he wanted.” He looked like a man who expected to be pelted by rotten melons-or in this case by the shrieks and claws of an infuriated woman.

“Where’s the agreement now?” Imsiba asked.

“I saw no scroll.” Netermose looked surprised and then perplexed. “He didn’t have it with him, yet we were to go…”

His voice tailed off, lost as the document seemed to be.

Could Penhet have had second thoughts about the agreement, Bak wondered, and decided to leave it behind? He walked to the prayer niche and removed the jar. Returning to his stool, he tipped it upside down. A half-dozen scrolls cascaded from its mouth to fall with a dry rustle onto the earthen floor. He sorted through them. Every document was tied and sealed, a fact that meant nothing. It would be easy enough for a man or woman to place a daub of mud over a knot and impress another’s seal in the soft mud.

Picking a scroll at random, he broke the seal with his thumbnail, and unrolled the document across his lap. As he began to read, he glanced toward Rennefer. He caught a quick impression of surprise and consternation before she wiped her features clear. She had not expected him to be an educated man. “Can you read and write, mistress Rennefer?”

“What do you take me for?” she scoffed. “A spoiled and whimsical daughter of the nobility?”

“Netermose?”

“I can count,” the farmer said, “and I’ve learned to add and subtract. I have no need for further learning.”

Bak glanced through the document, a year-old agreement to sell two cows to a farmer who lived on the opposite end of the oasis. He dropped it into the jar. “Did the scribe in the village prepare your agreement? Or does Penhet write?”