Lauren Haney: Face Turned Backward

“Penhet was to compose the document.” Netermose glanced uneasily at Rennefer. “To be certain all was right and proper, we meant to ask the scribe to look it over.”

“You’ll never set a plow to that land,” Rennefer sneered.

As if in response to her pronouncement, the wind rattled the mats covering door, roof opening, and windows. Dust and grit filtered inside, thickening the haze. The lamp nearest the door blew out, expelling a ribbon of acrid smoke that mingled with the dirt. Bak glanced at Imsiba, whose barely perceptible nod told him that he, too, had seen the triumph on her face, heard the exultation in her voice.

Bak picked up another scroll and broke the seal. As he spread the document across his thighs, he glanced toward the man on the sleeping platform. He could not be sure in the flickering light, but he thought Penhet’s eyes snapped shut. Keeping his face expressionless, he began to read. After a few moments, he looked again at the injured man. This time he was sure: Penhet was peeking out through narrowed eyes. A man unwilling to face the truth-or one afraid the truth would kill him.

Feigning an interest in the document, Bak sorted through the facts and explored the possibilities, narrowing the field to the most likely theory-one not entirely to his liking, one that left an open question. Could a single parcel of land raise the emotions to such a high pitch? Or had something else, a small but significant detail, prompted the attack? Abruptly, he stuffed the scrolls into the jar and stood up. “I must know more of your agreement, Netermose. Can you give me the specifics?”

Like many men who had never learned to read, the farmer had an exceptional memory. He related every particular of the long and complicated bartering process the scroll had documented: each and every object, where it originally came from, and how great or little its value. For the parcel of land, which he described in detail, he had agreed to give foodstuffs, lengths of linen, a few bronze vessels and tools, items of female clothing, and some frivolous objects such as bits of jewelry, an ivory comb, and a bronze mirror. The more 18 / Lauren Haney costly items the farmer reserved until the end: cattle, goats, and a household servant named Meret, a female fourteen years of age.

Bak sat quite still, certain he had the key at last. “Meret,” he said, glancing at Rennefer.

She tensed, her chin shot upward.

“Who is this servant Meret?” he asked Netermose.

“She helps my wife with the household tasks. Her father was a farmer who gave her to me in payment of a debt long before we came to the land of Wawat.”

“Is she pretty?”

Netermose shrugged. “Some say she is.”

Imsiba was quick to see the path Bak was following. Taking care not to look at Rennefer, he said, “I’ve heard of a household servant called Meret. A succulent bird, they say.

One ripe for the plucking.”

“Did Penhet want her as a servant or a concubine?” Bak made the question as bald as he could, as jarring to Rennefer as possible.

The injured man groaned.

“He longs for an heir, he told me, and he thinks her beautiful.” Netermose stared at the floor, refusing to look at Rennefer. “The girl is young and healthy, one who could fill a man’s house with children and his later years with happiness and comfort.”

“You talk nonsense,” Rennefer snapped. “He’s told me many times that my failure to conceive is a gift of the gods, drawing us closer, not tearing us apart. He’d never sacrifice so much as a square cubit of this land for a simple-minded calf to share his bed.”

Bak eyed the spare and hard-working woman, one neither warm nor likable, who had given her youth and whatever beauty she may have possessed to make the farm thrive.

Somehow-maybe Penhet himself had told her-she had learned he meant to trade away a portion of that land for a young and pretty woman. Who could blame her for fearing she too might become disposable?

The moaning of the wind ceased. The flames of the lamps burned tall and untroubled. The reed mats covering doors and windows hung straight and quiet. Sand trickled through a hole in the mat atop the stairs, the whisper of its fall audible in the silence. The storm had passed.

Bak crossed the room to stand before the woman. “I must take you to Buhen, Mistress Rennefer, and there you’ll stand before the commandant. Your husband was not as steadfast and devoted as your years together warranted, but you had no right to try to take his life.”

She stood up to face him, her eyes flashing defiance. “Do you think me so foolish I’d stab him in broad daylight? If I wished him dead, I’d slip poison in his stew and all the world would think he died a natural death.”

The injured man moaned again, louder than before, a cry from deep within. His eyes were open, Bak saw, and he was staring at his wife with the same horrified look he would give a rearing, hissing cobra.

“I understand your sense of betrayal, but you went too far.

You tried to destroy Netermose as well as Penhet to punish him for his unwitting part in your husband’s treachery.” Bak’s voice turned hard, angry. “And you summoned me from Buhen, thinking me gullible, easily tricked, too much a man of the army to see into the heart of a farm woman.”

“I love my husband, Lieutenant.”

His laugh held little humor. “A man who would sell the land you’ve nurtured so he might lie in the arms of another.”

She glanced toward Penhet and saw for the first time that he was awake. She saw the way he was looking at her, the fear in his eyes, the horror. Her defiance melted; her expression became a warped version of his, reflecting an equal horror and a dawning fear. She buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

Bak suddenly realized, just as Penhet must have, that she had never intended him to awaken from his drug-induced sleep. Surprised by the knowledge yet not surprised, he backed off, giving her her moment of realization. Imsiba, always distressed by tears, dropped off the stairway and bus-20 / Lauren Haney ied himself brushing the dust from his spear and shield.

Netermose looked shaken by guilt, as if he shared the responsibility for all that had occurred-and in a way he did.

Bak walked to the doorway. He kicked the mudbricks off the mat and swept it aside. A cool and gentle breeze greeted him, a soothing gift after so harsh a storm. Dust still hung in the air, but soon it would settle, leaving the evening as soft and delightful as a winter’s day back home in Kemet.

He stared across the fields toward the river, looking forward to a cooling, cleansing swim.

“Lieutenant Bak!” A tall, wiry sentry trotted up the quay, his bronze spearpoint reflecting the last red-gold rays of the setting sun. “Commandant Thuty wants to see you, Lieutenant. Right away.”

Bak scrambled onto the quay, pulled the skiff in close, and snugged the vessel to the mooring post. “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know, sir. A courier came from the north, and not long after we were told to intercept you.” The sentry tried not to stare at Rennefer, seated in the skiff, her hands in her lap, wrists tied together. “Troop Captain Nebwa is with him now.”

A courier from the north, Bak thought. Probably a message from the viceroy. And Nebwa summoned as well. Another storm was brewing, he sensed, this one created by man rather than the gods.

“If Penhet had told her about Meret, in time she might’ve come to accept her,” Bak said. “But she learned by chance.

From one of Netermose’s field hands.”

“I dislike making judgments against women. Especially in cases like this where the only right and true punishment is death.” Commandant Thuty leaned back against the waist-high breastwork overlooking the buildings within the citadel.