Lauren Haney: Flesh of the God

Imsiba raised an eyebrow, but followed in Bak’s shadow across the courtyard.

When they entered the lighted room, Azzia was standing in its center, talking rapidly in a tongue Bak did not understand, the tongue of her homeland, he assumed. Lupaki stood before his mistress, trying to speak but unable to stop her flow. Her voice and face were positive and determined, his negative and glum.

She glanced around, saw Imsiba, and stiffened. Her eyes swung toward Bak. “Are you now convinced only I could’ve taken my husband’s life?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Bak admitted.

Her laugh held no humor. “My husband said you were a man who spoke his thoughts.”

Bak could find no appropriate response.

“Are you as honest in deeds as words?” she asked.

“I try to be,” he said stiffly.

She studied him for some time. “You were sent here in disgrace, I know, and my husband was prepared to dislike you. After he met you, talked with you, he thought you a man he could depend upon and, more important, trust.” She glanced at Lupaki. “Since I have no better alternative, I must trust you, too.”

Lupaki shook his head vehemently and rattled off a few unintelligible words, but Azzia ignored him. “First, lest you hear it from another’s lips, I must tell you…” She hesitated, then took a deep breath as if to draw strength from the air. “When my husband spoke of the problem he must face, I urged him to share his burden. He refused, insisting it was his alone. I…I accused him of taking on all the problems of the world with no thought of those around him. And we quarreled.”

A wan smile failed to steal the haunted look from her eyes. “Later, when I found him struck down, he seemed to have forgotten our harsh words, but I doubt I’ll ever forget, nor forgive myself.”

She turned to a small ivory inlaid chest, which had not been there earlier, and hurried on before Bak could comment or even sort out his thoughts. “I found something in my bedchamber, something my husband must’ve left there before…before his life was taken.”

She raised the lid. Nesting among combs, perfume jars, cosmetic containers, and a bronze mirror were a roll of papyrus and a rectangular slab of metal. The scroll was bound with cord but its seal was broken. The rough slab was six fingers’ breadth by three, and half a finger’s breadth thick. Bak was sure it was gold, the flesh of the lord Re.

He stared, unable to speak. Unworked gold was the exclusive property of the royal house, of Maatkare Hatshepsut herself. In Buhen, where the precious ore was received from the mines and melted down to ingots before its shipment to the capital, where temptation was ever-present, no man, not even the commandant, had the right to possess it.

“You can’t keep this to yourself!” Imsiba glared at his friend. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life working in the mines? Or lose your nose and ears?”

Bak forced a semblance of a smile. “I could flee to a faraway land, as Nakht fled to Hatti when he was falsely accused of treason.”

The sergeant laughed derisively. “He lived in Mennufer then, near the routes to the north, where the land is fertile and the villagers and herdsmen live and act as civilized men. You’re in Buhen, with desert on all sides, a land peopled by men who live in hovels. Would you cross the barren sands by yourself? Would you choose a hovel for your home?”

Following his shadow away from the torch mounted beside the door, Bak paced the length of the small, plain whitewashed room. Imsiba dropped onto one of two low stools setting between a small table and an oblong rush basket brimming with scrolls. Shields, spears, and other weapons of war were stacked against the wall by an open stairway leading to the roof. The tools of their scribe Hori’s trade-writing implements, paint and water pots, a neat stack of papyri-lay on the floor at the far end of the room. One door, closed for privacy, led outside to a narrow lane. Two others opened to Bak’s bedchamber and Hori’s. In addition to a sleeping pallet, Bak’s room contained two plain woven reed chests, one for clothing, the other for bed linen, and a small box for toiletries. Hori’s chamber was equally spare. Although modest, the house was clean and comfortable.

“No,” he admitted, “a hovel would not please me at all.”

“Then take the gold with you when you report to the steward Tetynefer. He holds the power in Buhen now; let him decide what to do.”

“I can’t throw her to the crocodiles, Imsiba!”

“You’ve been exiled to Buhen by no less an individual than our sovereign. Do you wish to add to your offenses in her eyes?”

A stubborn look settled on Bak’s face. “She exiled me, yes, but she surely knew I did what any responsible officer would do: I stood at the head of my men when they needed me. The lieutenant who took me before the vizier, the one whose Medjay police broke up the fight, swore we were in the right and the other men had been cheating.”

“The man you struck was the son of a provincial governor, his firstborn and favorite. You broke his nose and knocked out some teeth. He’ll never again be thought handsome.”

“Nonetheless…”

“You and the others in your chariotry company swept through that house of pleasure like wild bulls chased by jackals through an outdoor market. The end result was the same: total devastation. That establishment was frequented by some of the highest men in the land. The man who owns the building is a ranking priest, responsible for all food offerings in the mansion of the lord Amon. The man who pulls the strings of the old scoundrel who ran the place is one of the wealthiest merchants in Kemet.”

“I know, but…”

“Who carries more weight with our sovereign, Bak? Men of influence who support her hold on the throne? Or you?”

“She’s the earthly daughter of the lord Amon, the greatest of the gods. You’d think she’d have no need to bribe men like them for favors.”

Imsiba gave him a disgusted look. “You know better than that, my friend.”

Grudgingly, Bak admitted, “She wrested the power from Menkheperre Thutmose while still he was a babe. She’ll not give it back until she must.”

Menkheperre Thutmose was Maatkare Hatshepsut’s nephew and stepson. As a small child, he had inherited the throne from his father. His aunt, acting as regent, had wrested the power from him and named herself king. Many men believed the youth, now fourteen years of age, the rightful heir to the throne. Barely a man, he was rebuilding the army into a loyal and capable fighting force. If, or more likely when, he chose to take the throne for himself alone, Maatkare Hatshepsut would fall and so would the men around her.

Bak stopped before the second stool and frowned at the thin slab of gold lying on the seat with the rolled papyrus. “If I give this ingot to Tetynefer, he’ll send Azzia to Ma’am, where the viceroy will be certain to judge her guilty of murder.”

“And theft.”

“How would a woman who spends her days caring for a house lay her hands on unworked gold?” Bak shook his head impatiently. “No, she didn’t steal it. Someone else did, someone close to her. Commandant Nakht, the viceroy will say. He’ll be assumed guilty and labeled a thief in spite of the fact that this, I’m convinced, was the wrong he fully intended to right when he spoke to me.”

“You’d sacrifice the rest of your life to protect Nakht’s good name? You didn’t even know the man.” Imsiba studied Bak long and hard, as if searching deep in his soul. “Is it the woman, my friend? Has she addled your wits?”

“No, Imsiba.” Bak smiled ruefully. “The fire in my groin is but a dull ember. So it will remain. I have no intention of allowing the flames of desire, and the smoke that goes with them, to cloud my judgment.”