Lauren Haney - Face Turned Backward

Imsiba meant well, Bak knew, but the promise was made.

“That farm will only thrive with much hard work. Should Ahmose break a bone or become too sick to toil, it’ll revert to the wild in a single season and he and the old woman will starve.”

Turning away, closing his heart to further criticism, he climbed to the top of the long, narrow spine of weathered rock whose lower end formed the ledge where Wensu and Roy had moored their ships. He glimpsed Ahmose on the summit of the island, staring across the water toward him and Imsiba, too curious to go on about his business. A patch of white among the brush lower down could have been the old woman, also watching.

The big Medjay climbed up to join him. “It looks a lonely life to us, but when all is said and done, Ahmose and Kefia are close neighbors.”

“Close, yes, but separated by endless toil. I doubt they see each other from one week to another.” Struck by a new thought, Bak chuckled. “Unless they’ve gossip to pass on.”

Imsiba had to smile. As old Ahmose had reminded them, rumors moved faster up and down the river than messages carried by official couriers.

In silence they walked side by side up the rocky spine. The surface was cracked and broken, sharp-edged and treacherous where it lay half buried in sand. A light breeze stirred the air, carrying to them the chirping of hundreds of sparrows massed in the tamarisks near the cove. Ahead, the sun hung close above the western horizon, tinting the sky gold.

The formation carried them up the shallow sand-swept incline, ending abruptly about halfway to the north-south ridge. To either side, the sand showed a few tracks of small animals-dogs or jackals in search of prey and the delicate prints of birds. No human footprints marked the surface.

Imsiba muttered a curse in his own tongue. “Why must the gods forever hold out a promise they fail to keep?”

Bak, too, was disappointed to find the trail had ended so abruptly. “I pray they’re not giving the headless man and Wensu an extra day or two to flee.”

“The thought is abhorrent.”

Bak studied the sweeping landscape and the long shadows of evening. A multitude of colors, gradations from the palest gold to the deepest amber, formed a map of dips and rises invisible in the harsh light of midday. The stony ridge that formed the horizon was the sole natural barrier, other than a few isolated mounds, of any significance along this stretch of the river. If one wished to remain hidden and at peace through eternity, he could think of no more isolated a place, though why any man would wish to spend eternity in this wretched land, he could not imagine.

“We’ll come again tomorrow,” he said, glancing toward the setting sun, “and then we’ll go into the desert.”

The Medjay eyed the vast expanse of sand with disapproval. “Our time would be better spent, my friend, if we summoned our suspects one by one and turned them over to a man with a stout cudgel.”

“Need I remind you that all are men of high repute?”

“To search the desert for a tomb when no tracks remain will be like looking for a boat at night on the great green sea.

We could come within arm’s length and miss it altogether.”

“How long do you think it would take them to run to the vizier with tales of unwarranted beatings and policemen no better than the men they hunt?” Bak gave a hard, sharp laugh. “I fear we’d both spend many months far from home, guarding the prisoners who toil in the desert mines.”

A cynical smile broke through Imsiba’s gloom. “It might be worth a year or two if only to see Userhet bent low beneath the stick.”

Bak eyed his friend intently. “You must truly care for mistress Sitamon.”

“What have I to offer a woman like her?” Imsiba scooped up a small, sharp stone and flung it hard across the unmarked sand.

“Few men walk as tall as you, my brother, in every sense of the word.”

With a bleak laugh, the Medjay brushed his hands together, ridding them of sand, and firmly closed the subject. “If we’re to search this wasteland, we must establish bounds.”

Bak squeezed his shoulder, showing him he understood.

“Look at that ridge, Imsiba, and tell me what you see.”

The Medjay stared. Slowly his frown dissolved and he nodded. “I see a wall of rock, unlike the rocky shelf containing the old cemetery in Buhen, and at the same time similar.”

“Exactly.” Speaking slowly, thinking out a plan as he did, Bak said, “We know where Intef was slain-on the back side of the ridge about a half hour’s walk north of here-and we know the headless man leads the ox into the desert from the cove behind us. I think it safe to begin our search 216 / Lauren Haney here, using as our southern boundary this spine of rock.

We’ll work our way north along the ridge, passing if we must the place where Intef was slain and going on as far as the place where we found his donkeys.”

“The task will be onerous, my friend.”

“But not impossible to complete.”

“And if we find nothing?”

Bak refused to dwell on the possibility of failure. “I wonder how Intef found the tomb. Did he come this far south to hunt? Did he follow the headless man from here, or did he find it another way?”

“The hunter Intef?” Ahmose looked first at Bak and then Imsiba, the wrinkles across his brow deepened by perplexity.

“Of course I knew him. He came every month or so. Camped downriver in a patch of wild grasses, a place where his donkeys could graze without troubling nearby farmers.”

“Did you ever talk with him?” Bak asked.

“Now and again.” Ahmose gave him a sharp look. “Why?

What did you find when you walked out on the desert that brought you back to me a second time?”

The old man, driven by curiosity, had hurried down the path to meet them. He squatted now on the bank near his skiff, looking down on the pair in the boat. Swallows scolded from a nearby acacia. A gray duck led her fuzzy, cheeping brood through the reeds, swimming in fits and starts, harvesting insects.

“Did you not watch us from the summit of this island?”

Imsiba asked, his voice wry. “Surely you saw that we came up empty-handed.”

Ahmose raised his chin high, indignant. “Life here is lonely, Sergeant, and one of endless toil. Am I not entitled to a time of rest?”

“The sergeant meant no offense,” Bak said, smothering a smile, the better to smooth the old man’s ruffled feathers.

“You’ve every right to take some ease. Would I have vowed to find you a servant if I didn’t think you worthy?”

Ahmose opened his mouth and closed it, the reminder sapping his resentment.

A breath of air touched Bak’s cheek, not the hot caress of daytime, but the cooler kiss of evening. They could linger no longer. To attempt to reach Kor in the dark, sailing through these hazardous waters, would be foolhardy. “Did you ever speak to Intef of the headless man?” he asked Ahmose.

“I warned him to take care, to stay far away from the cove and close his eyes and ears to any ships he might see or hear.”

“Sealing his lips like those of all who live and toil along this stretch of the river.” Imsiba’s voice was flat, his demeanor critical.

Ahmose gave the Medjay a disdainful glance. “We don’t farm this land because we’re brave men, sergeant. We stay because this was the land of our fathers and their fathers before them. We’ve no other place to go and no other way to earn our bread.”

Bak shot a warning glance at the Medjay, urging silence.

“Did Intef heed your words of caution, old man?”

“I never saw him at the cove when the headless man met the ships, but I once saw him there the following day.” Ahmose waved off a fly. “He must’ve heard a vessel come and go, and voices in the night, and decided to see what he could see. I climbed into my skiff and rowed across to the cove, where I warned him a second time to take care.”