"Yes, sir. ILe raises geese and sells the eggs, mostly to the crews of ships either readying their vessels for the voyage upriver or unloading products from faraway Kush for overland transport north around the rapids."
"Sounds an enterprising sort." Bak recalled the unwanted gifts, the threat they implied. His voice sharpened. "I hope you didn't tell him to meet us at our quarters."
The Medjay, his mouth full, shook his head emphatically. "I suggested Pahared's wife's house of pleasure."
Barely able to understand, Bak dug two jars of beer out of the basket and handed one over. "When?"
Psuro swallowed hard, clearing his mouth, and tipped the jar to his lips. "He turned me down flat. I explained at first why you wanted to talk to him, telling him of the murders. He saw right away how unhealthy Abu and Swenet have been for those who survived the storm, so he thought it best he not tarry. As soon as he traded his eggs for whatever necessities he came for, he set sail for home."
Bak applauded the man's common sense and understood his caution, but the delay was frustrating-and annoying. Just six days remained before Djehuty faced death. "How long must I wait to talk to him?"
"We're to meet in the morning on neutral ground. On an island south of Abu, a place where men have, for many generations, left inscriptions on the boulders so no one will forget their passage across the frontier. He wants us nowhere near his home, fearing the slayer will follow us and add him to the list of dead."
Does he think us so careless with other men's lives? Bak wondered. He quickly tamped down his irritation. After all, who could blame the man for an excess of caution?
Bak climbed out of the skiff and sent Psuro on to Swenet to find suitable objects they could exchange for User's knowledge. He stood briefly on the landingplace below the governor's villa, deciding where to go next, who to talk with, then plodded up the stairs. A small brown snake darted into a crack between rocks. A sparrow fluttered in an-overhanging acacia, chirping. About a third of the way up, a sound
… a whisper… something… nudged his senses and silenced the bird. He stopped, looked around, saw nothing. If not for the sparrow's continuing hush, he would have thought his imagination overactive.
He climbed on, faster, more alert. Another whisper and an arrow sped by, passing through the gap between his arm and torso, narrowly missing his ribs. He leaped off the stairway, flinging himself into the brush. The sparrow darted away. A third arrow struck the nearest step. The point snapped off; the shaft skidded across the stone and struck a spindly limb close to Bak's leg. The archer was reasonably skilled, he thought, but no expert would aim so low. Deciding a glimpse of the man worth the risk, he felt for his dagger, making sure he had it, and scrambled up the steep, rocky incline, shoulders hunched, head down, shielded by leaves that showered around him. Thin branches grabbed his hair and tore at his arms and legs. Another arrow sped by, striking the slender trunk of a tree. He thought he heard yet another, speeding through the branches whipping the air behind him.
Breathing hard, scratched and dirty, he peered through a screen of brush at the top of the slope. The arrows had come from the left, he thought, from Nebmose's villa or one of the houses in the town beyond its walls. Out of necessity, the angle had been steep, which placed the man on a high wall or the roof of a tall building.
Not a creature stirred. Not surprising. Men who attacked from ambush seldom remained in place for long. Whether their mission failed or succeeded, they dared not linger. As a result, they often left behind telltale signs of their presence.
Lest this assailant prove more foolhardy than most, Bak hunched over, darted out from among the bushes, and raced in zigzag fashion toward the governor's compound. He burst through the entryway. The guard, seated on the steps of the small gatehouse inside the wall, jerked his head up from his knees and blinked in confusion. He had been asleep. Bak doubted anyone could have passed through the gate without waking him, but he would not have been roused by an archer on the nearby wWls or rooftops.
Wasting no time on questions, he scanned likely spots for ambush. He saw neither man nor bird. Hurrying outside the portal, he trotted along the wall and turned into the lane that took him to the front gate of Nebmose's villa. The entryway was closed and barred, as he had left it several days earlier. He backed up a half dozen paces and took a running leap at the barrier, smooth-faced on the outside. The fingers of his right hand cleared the edge. He clung there for a moment, his digits cramping. Before he could fall, he thrust his body upward and caught hold with the other hand. Scrambling higher, he cleared the gate with his head and shoulders. He examined the visible structures, paying particular attention to the roofs of the taller buildings. When he was reasonably sure he was alone and safe, he heaved himself up the rest of the way, threw his legs over the edge, and dropped to the path inside, raising an impressive puff of dust.
"Hey!" someone shouted. "Stop right where you are!" Bak started, swung around. He saw no one in the shrine or the garden.
"Spread your hands and legs!" The command came from around the corner of the house.
Praying the voice was that of a guard, praying he had not unwittingly walked into the archer's grasp, Bak obeyed. A man stepped into view, spear poised. The youthful guard Nenu. His face registered recognition, his mouth dropped open, and the spearpoint tipped toward the earth.
Bak breathed a long, deep sigh of relief.
Chapter Eight
"You're lucky he didn't shoot you, sir," Kasaya said.
Bak gave the hulking young Medjay a wry smile. "I can't tell you how fervently I thanked the lord Amon that he was a guard who knew me."
"I'm surprised he didn't fire first and look later." Kasaya fussed with the sail, adjusting the braces for what must have been the hundredth time in less than an hour. No sooner did he settle down to relax than the breeze came from another quarter, emptying the heavy linen and setting it aflutter. As good-natured as the Medjay was and as even tempered, this short voyage downriver was beginning to try his patience. "None of the governor's guards have much training, I've noticed, especially newer men like Nenu. And with so many deaths you can barely count them on the fingers of one hand, they're all as skittish as gazelles being stalked by a pack of hunting dogs."
"That must be the island where we'll find Ineni." Bak, seated in the stern, pointed at a low mound of vegetation in the river ahead. From a distance, it looked like a wayward expanse of fertility broken loose from the narrow strip of farmland betweCn the water's edge and the barren sands of the adjacent desert.
"I thank the lord Amon!" Kasaya muttered, letting the sail drop. Ignoring the fabric crumpled between the upper and lower yards, he took up the oars and began to row. He aimed the vessel toward the narrow channel between the island and the west bank.
"You'd think fear would keep those guards alert and aware of all who come too close, yet Nenu swore he saw no one." Bak still seethed each time he thought of the big, dumb guard, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, plodding around as witless as the unfinished statue Antef's men had loaded onto a barge. The dolt had in fact seemed skeptical about the whole affair, merely going through the motions as if the archer had been a figment of Bak's imagination.
"He was probably sleeping, like the man at the gatehouse."
"He faithfully patrolled the grounds of that villa all morning-so he claims." Bak's voice exuded disbelief. Kasaya's face registered a similar skepticism.
"After I gave up looking for the archer," Bak said, "I searched out Amonhotep. He agreed the guards are getting careless, and he promised to impress upon them the need to remain alert."