Lauren Haney - Flesh of the God

He tore off a piece of bread, its crust already hard from the morning heat, and began to eat. As he untied the cord around the scroll, a chunk of dried clay dropped to the floor, a fragment of a broken seal. Just a few symbols remained, but he was fairly sure it had been impressed by Nakht. Laying the binding aside, he began to unroll the papyrus. He had revealed less than two columns when he found a second scroll rolled inside. His heart soared into his throat. Two documents doubled his chance of finding what he needed.

He separated them and glanced through the outer roll. It was a list of tribute, trade items, and other products passing north through Buhen during the past two years, including gold, copper, and stone received from the desert mines and quarries. Disappointed at finding so mundane a document, he set it aside and scanned the inner scroll. It too was a scribal record, but its subject matter was far more promising. It referred to three gold mines located in the wadis, dry watercourses, of the eastern desert.

Praying this scroll would be more enlightening, Bak read the columns with a critical eye. For the past two years, for each of the cooler months when men could toil without too much loss of life, it gave the number of miners at the three locations, the amount of rock crushed and washed, and the weight of the raw gold delivered to the smelters in Buhen. All three mines, he could see, were similar in size and were worked by nearly identical numbers of men. Their yields varied slightly from one month to the next, but he suspected that was a reflection of the irregular ore content in each vein. Like the outer document, it was nothing more than a list, naming no names, pointing no fingers.

He was baffled. He doubted Nakht would have hidden the scrolls with the gold if they had no significance, but their importance eluded him. Laying the documents on the rooftop beside him, he grabbed the bowl, nested it in his lap, tore another chunk from the loaf, and dipped it in the stew.

While he ate, he glanced often at the scrolls. What if Azzia had lied? What if Nakht had not hidden them in her bedchamber, as she claimed? Had she grabbed the first two documents she could lay her hands on and included them with the gold to confuse the issue?

Far from pleased with the thought, he quickly finished the stew, stretched out full-length in the shade, hands beneath his head, and stared at the mat above him. He recalled Azzia’s words and her face, pictured her lovely form as he had seen it in the torchlit courtyard, imagined her disrobed and lying naked in his arms. Feeling a growing need in his loins, he cursed aloud, told himself he had been too long without a woman, forced himself to think again of the scrolls.

The long night had exhausted him, the beer and stew had made him sleepy. His eyes closed of their own volition and he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Something cool and wet touched his cheek. He jerked erect, his eyes snapped open. A lean white puppy sat on its haunches beside him, head cocked to the side, brown eyes pleading for attention. Laughing at his momentary fright, Bak pulled the dog onto his lap to scratch its broad muzzle and sagging ears. Hori had found the dirty, starving creature whining piteously on the riverbank a week or so before they had reached Buhen. The boy had washed the mud from its hair, fed it, and made it his own.

Bak eyed the shadows cast by the pavilion. He had slept the morning away. He allowed the puppy to curl up between his legs and took up the scrolls. Within moments, he knew the lady Maat, goddess of truth and order, had visited him while he slept and had removed the blindness from his eyes. They flew over the documents, picking up and registering the least discrepancy. And there was a serious discrepancy. The total amount of gold leaving Buhen had remained stable over the past twenty-four months. However, during the past twelve months, a considerably larger amount of rock had been crushed and washed at one of the three mines, called the Mountain of Re, than during the previous year. Where the yield should have increased, the weights of the shipments delivered to the smelters in Buhen had not changed. The quality of the vein could have deteriorated, but the golden slab hidden in the room beneath him convinced him otherwise.

Somehow, someone had been stealing a portion of the gold brought from the mine called the Mountain of Re. From what he could see, far more had been taken than the single thin ingot Azzia had given him. He was awed by the brazenness of the act-and intimidated at the thought of pitting his wits against a man clever enough to steal so much and remain undetected for so long.

“You must say nothing of what I’ve told you, Hori. If so much as a word leaks from your mouth, the thief will wipe away all signs of himself and will never be snared.” Bak gave the chubby fourteen-year-old scribe his sternest look.

“I’ll not utter a word, sir, that I promise.” Hori tried to look as serious as Bak, but his large black eyes glittered with excitement and his feet practically danced along the lane, almost deserted at this, the hottest time of day. “I prayed to the lord Thoth that our year in Buhen wouldn’t be dull, and he’s answered tenfold.” Thoth was the god of writing.

Bak thought of his own, similar prayer to the lord Amon, greatest of the gods. He wished with all his heart that he’d been more specific and asked for action on the field of battle.

“What do you think we’ll find in the commandant’s office?” Hori asked. “The name of the one who stole the gold?”

“For that kind of luck, we’d need the prayers of every priest in Kemet, from the lowliest to the chief priest of the lord Amon himself.”

His words did nothing to dampen Hori’s enthusiasm. The boy chattered on, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper each time they met or passed another man. His happiness, usually so infectious, did little to lighten Bak’s spirits. He had decided that in all fairness he should tell Azzia of Tetynefer’s decision to send her to the viceroy for judgment.

As they walked into the commandant’s residence, Bak placed a forefinger to his lips to silence the boy. A vestibule and a long, rather dark hallway took them to the audience hall, a spacious room with a high ceiling supported by octagonal wooden pillars painted red, and white walls decorated with bright geometrical designs. Near the entrance, an archer was dictating a letter to a public scribe, a tired-looking man of middle years. Two younger scribes stood nearby, arguing with a rotund man about the amount of the toll levied on the trade goods he was shipping downriver. Near the portal to the stone stairwell leading to the second floor, a fat, older scribe was conferring with a slim gray-haired officer Bak had never seen before, a man he assumed had come from one of the fortresses located upstream on the long stretch of rapids called the Belly of Stones. Several scribes and officers could be glimpsed in the offices surrounding the hall.

Nodding to the few men he had met, Bak led Hori to a closed door off to the side. He broke the seal he had placed there the previous night, released the latch, and they entered. Scattered around the office, the largest in the building, were an armchair, several stools, and a pair of low tables on which sat a half-dozen oil lamps. At the rear, two wooden document chests shared a wall with the latched and sealed door that led to the base of the stairway to the battlements. Two more chests filled the wall to the right. All four contained row upon row of neatly stacked scrolls.

“For the love of Amon,” Hori muttered, his spirits flagging. “So much to read? It’ll take all day and far into the night.”

Bak had to smile. “Not so long, I think. Most refer to the day-to-day administration of the garrison: assignments of men and officers, weapons disbursed from the arsenal, food and clothing handed out, quarters occupied. Those reports will tell us nothing. We need only glance through them to be sure of what they are. We’ll read the rest more thoroughly, especially the entries in the garrison daybook and the reports of the caravan journeys.”