Lauren Haney: Face Turned Backward

Imsiba laughed softly and set to work, helping to remove the bags of grain. With Hori and the guards looking on, amazed, they bared not one but two elephant tusks. The heavier, thicker ends lay together near the center of the coffin, with one tusk curving to the left, its point at the head of the container, the other curving to the right with its point at the feet.

Bak stared at his prize, delighted, and offered a second prayer, this of gratitude. How many tusks, he wondered, had traveled down the river and across the great green sea to lands far to the north of Kemet? How many were even now in transit? The thought cast a shadow over his joy and his smile faded. “Do you realize, Imsiba, that we must open every coffin passing through Buhen until we’re sure no more tusks will be found? And we must send word north so every inspector along the river, throughout the lands of both Wawat and Kemet, will do the same.”

Imsiba moaned. “I hope the praise we get for finding the tusks will outweigh the resentment we’ll arouse.”

“Only the most senior officers and the most powerful princes will be presented to the vizier.” The officer, barely old enough to shave, one of several eager-to-please young men in the vizier’s entourage, stood stiff and straight, full of himself.

“Then your turn will come. Commandant Thuty will present you.”

“I understand,” Bak said.

When Thuty had announced that the vizier wished to meet the men who had put an end to large-scale smuggling across the frontier, only Nebwa had taken the order in stride. Bak had cringed at the idea of being presented in so public and formal a way. As had Imsiba, and Mery most of all. Bak had gritted his teeth, expressed gratitude, and searched out his best kilt. The boy had come to the party with his parents, prepared to enjoy the occasion. Imsiba, always so depend-able, had vanished.

“Congratulations, sir.” The officer clapped Bak on the shoulder as if he were equal in age and rank. “I hope one day to match you in deed and courage.”

If not surpass, Bak read in his eyes. “I find this land of Wawat stretches one’s capabilities.”

“Uhhh…I’m sure it does.” The officer, who had probably never served a day of duty outside the royal house, hurried away to join several other men crossing the audience hall in the vizier’s wake.

Bak scanned the room, hoping to find Imsiba, yet certain the Medjay had not arrived. He’ll turn up, he told himself.

He has to.

The vizier, a tall, portly man with receding gray hair, strode slowly across the room, chatting with Commandant Thuty and the viceroy of Wawat, parting the sea of guests who stood in their path. Like Thuty, the viceroy was a man of medium height, but thinner, with a prominent nose and large ears.

Thuty and the viceroy-and most of the other men accustomed to the intense heat of Wawat-wore simple thigh-length kilts, broad multicolored bead collars, and bracelets, armlets, and anklets. The commandant had opted, much to his wife’s dismay, to leave his ceremonial wig in its basket, preferring comfort to style. The vizier and the men he had brought with him from Kemet, letting courtly vanity outweigh commonsense, wore ankle-length kilts, shifts with elbow-length sleeves, and sheer wraps around their shoulders. Sweat ran from beneath massive wigs and elaborate jewelry.

The vizier’s goal was Thuty’s armchair, which had been padded with thick pillows and covered with an embroidered linen throw, and now stood in regal splendor at the end of the audience hall. Officers and scribes from the garrisons along the Belly of Stones and local princes and chieftains stood talking among the columns that supported the ceiling, circulating among the men from the capital.

The women of Buhen, far fewer in number but with their ranks swollen by ten or twelve wives and concubines who had come south from Kemet, sat on low stools in an adjoining hall normally occupied by scribes. At a smaller, less official affair, they would have mingled with the men, but Thuty had elected to make the occasion as grand as was possible in a frontier garrison like Buhen, as memorable to the vizier.

While the men talked of affairs of state, the women spoke of more intimate affairs.

Nofery, Bak noticed, was seated with the commandant’s wife Tiya and the vizier’s lovely young concubine Khawet, their heads together, chatting like long-time friends. The boy Amonaya stood behind them, stirring the air above their heads with an ostrich feather fan. Bak had never thought of Nofery as a woman befriended by other women. Perhaps he had erred.

The ebb and flow of voices, laughter, and now and again a good-natured oath filled the audience hall, overwhelming the softer voices of the women. Servants bearing large plates walked among the guests, offering roasted meats and vegetables, honey cakes and sweetened breads, dates, figs, and grapes. Wine flowed freely, adding a heady perfume to the sweet scent of flowers and the more astringent smell of the small cones of perfume evaporating atop the many wigs.

Musicians were gathering at one end of the room, along with four female dancers and acrobats. The air lay still and heavy, drawing the moisture from the crush of bodies, adding a sourness to nostrils already too much assailed.

“Well done, Bak.” Nebwa bowed his head, showing deep respect. “Spoken with a tact I could never muster, but pointed enough to penetrate even the thickest of skins.”

With his thoughts still on Imsiba, it took Bak a moment to realize Nebwa had overheard his conversation with the young officer from the capital. “I doubt he’s ever served a day in a regiment, but I don’t envy him his present duty.

From what I’ve heard of the royal house, the perils one faces in the corridors of power are more frightening than those on the practice field.”

Nebwa laughed. “Give me Buhen any day.”

“Now there’s a man I doubt would agree with you.” Bak pointed his baton of office at Lieutenant Kay. “Each time I see him, he’s talking with a different officer, none from the garrisons of Wawat. He looks to me like a man seeking a new, more northerly post.”

Nebwa beckoned a servant carrying a large round-bottomed jar and held out his drinking bowl. The youth poured into the container a deep red, musty smelling wine. “I’d hate to lose Kay, but I wish him luck. He served long and well as an inspecting officer at Semna. He’s earned a reward.”

The lead harpist ran his fingers across the strings of his instrument. A second harpist, a lutist, two oboe players, and a woman with a lyre joined in. Residents of Buhen, they now and again struck a false note, but no one seemed to care-or even notice.

Nebwa eyed the contents of his bowl with approval. “Have you talked yet to that young spearman I suggested you see?”

“I did.” Bak found the wine pleasantly heady. “His wife’s a local woman, as you said, and she’s heavy with child. They long to stay in Wawat near her family, not return to Kemet where he must toil in the fields of a nobleman’s estate. When I told them of Ahmose and the island, they thought it a gift of the gods.”

Sergeant Pashenuro slipped up beside Bak, drinking bowl in hand, a fixed smile on his face.

“You look like a man with a toothache,” Bak grinned.

The stocky Medjay clung to the smile as if to life itself.

“I’ve made an appearance, sir, as you suggested. But I much prefer beer to wine, and I know not how to talk to men of quality and wealth. Can I now go back to the barracks?”

“You’ve done well to stay this long,” Bak said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Go if you like. You’ve made your presence known, and I can ask no more.”

The sergeant thrust his nearly full bowl into the hand of a startled servant and hurried through the crowd toward the exit.