Sitepehu bestowed upon the pair a bland, unrevealing look and turned his back to them. “Before you joined us in the sacred precinct, Lieutenant, Amonked was singing your praises. You must’ve led quite a life on the southern frontier.
I’ve heard those desert tribesmen can be fierce.”
“Bak was a police officer, a most successful one.”
Amonked spoke with considerable pride, as an uncle might speak of his most favored nephew. “Understandably, a fron tier policeman must first and foremost be a soldier.”
“It appears that you’ve seen battle, sir,” Bak said, thinking to deflect attention from himself.
Sitepehu touched the scar on his shoulder, shrugged. “A skirmish, nothing more. It occurred in the land of Retenu.
You know how those petty rulers of city states can be.
Every king affects the sensitivity of a newborn lamb. The slightest insult from another king and he sets out to right what he claims is a wrong, with the further acquisition of wealth and power his real goal. My infantry company found itself between two such kings.” Suddenly he laughed. “So here I stand, marked for life.”
Bak laughed with him. He, too, had scars, but none so dramatic. “We fought few real battles in Wawat. Our ene mies were usually smugglers or a few ragged bandits out to steal from a helpless village.”
Amonked, who knew from personal experience how bitter the fighting could get on the frontier, frowned his disap proval.
Pahure slipped away from Taharet to join them. “I long ago served on a ship that more often than not sailed the
Great Green Sea. We fought pirates mostly.” He gave his companions a wry smile. “The battles I’d rather remember occurred in foreign ports, where we drank and made merry and fought for the pleasure of doing so.”
Netermose’s smile was rueful. “I fear my finest battles have been in Tjeny, convincing the landholders to pay all the taxes due my master and the royal house.” He directed the smile at Pentu. “Unlike your contests, sir, where tact and diplomacy have won the day.”
“Not always, Netermose, as you well know. I’ve…”
Taharet laid her hand on her husband’s arm, interrupting with the indifference of a woman utterly secure in her posi tion. “We’re having guests tomorrow,” she said to Amonked.
“We’d like you and your worthy spouse to honor us with your presence.”
“I regret that my wife cannot come. She’s a chantress of the lord Amon. A noteworthy honor, certainly, but a task re quiring time and dedication throughout the festival. She’ll be fully occupied for the next ten days.”
Taharet looked appropriately impressed and at the same time disappointed. “Will you not come alone?”
“I don’t usually…” Amonked hesitated, glanced at Bak, smiled. “If you’ll allow me to bring my young friend here,
I’d be glad to drop by.”
Taharet beamed at him, at her husband, and at Bak. “You will come, won’t you, Lieutenant?”
Bak had a feeling something was going on that had passed over his head. He queried Amonked with a glance. The
Storekeeper of Amon nodded and formed a smile that could have meant anything. Bak accepted.
“I’m delighted.” Taharet flung a smile at her sister. “And so is Meret. You’ll find her a most pleasing companion.”
Not until the small group had broken up and he and
Amonked were strolling through the crowded, festive court did it occur to him that Amonked and maybe Djehuty or
Pentu were trying to make a match of him and Meret. She was a lovely young woman, but if she was anything like her sister, he wanted no part of her.
“Reminds me of you, sir, when you use your baton of of fice to good purpose. Remember the time when…” Never taking his eyes off the two men who were stick fighting,
Sergeant Pashenuro related a tale Bak had long ago forgot ten.
He listened with half an ear while he, too, enjoyed the bat tle. The two fighters, one representing western Waset and the other the village of Madu, swung their long wooden sticks hard and fast, pressing each other back and forth across the small space allotted them. Each series of swings and parries was broken by one man or the other leaping free and danc ing out of the way. Each brief respite ended when one or the other imagined his opponent losing his vigilance-or when the yelling onlookers grew impatient and began to boo and hiss. Sweat poured down their oiled bodies, dust rose from beneath their feet. The onlookers shouted out wagers, yelled encouragement, groaned at each perceived loss.
“You’d do well, sir,” Pashenuro said, caught up in the bat tle. “Better than either of them. Why don’t you challenge the winner?”
Laughing, Bak moved on. He spotted three of his Med jays watching male acrobats doing backward handsprings to the rhythm of a drummer and clapping, chanting onlookers.
He looked on with admiration, wondering if he had ever been so agile. His eye caught a touch of color beyond their leaping bodies, the fuzzy red hair of the man to whom
Meryamon had passed the message. The redhead scanned the crowd-looking for someone, Bak felt sure. He doubted the man would recognize him or had even seen him walking
along the processional way, but he breathed a sigh of relief when the searching eyes slid over him as if he were not there.
The drummer changed his cadence, a servant brought out and distributed several poles. While two of the acrobats raised one of the poles ever higher, the remainder used theirs to vault over it. The red-haired man glanced to his right and his face lit up. Bak spotted a swarthy foreign-looking man shouldering his way through the onlookers. The redhead si dled toward him, the movement inconspicuous but definite.
Soon the two men were standing together, talking. Bak had no way of knowing what they were saying and could not approach lest he draw attention to himself. Their conversa tion was short and, if appearance did not deceive, quickly grew heated, with the swarthy stranger often shaking his head in denial. The redhead’s face grew florid from anger, he snapped out a final remark and hurried away.
Bak hesitated, wondering if he should follow, seeking a reason to do so. Other than the furtiveness of Meryamon’s behavior, none of these men’s actions were suspect, nor could he tie their activities in any way to Woserhet’s death.
Still, he was curious.
Bidding farewell to his Medjays, he followed the redhead to a circle of men and women urging on two wrestlers and from there to an archery contest. Nothing of note occurred at either match, and he was sorely tempted to drop the pursuit.
Except his quarry continually looked around as if he ex pected-or at least hoped-to meet someone else. Then again, he might simply be enjoying the festivities.
The lord Re was sinking toward the western horizon and the red-haired man weaving a path through the throng, head ing back toward Ipet-resyt, when Bak spotted Amonked standing in a small circle of spectators, watching a dozen desert dwellers perform a synchronized leaping dance to the hard, fast beat of a drum. The redhead stopped to watch a nearby group of female dancers, so Bak slipped up beside the Storekeeper of Amon.
“I’ve never seen such a wondrous crowd,” Amonked said.
“If my cousin could see the abundance of people, the joy on their faces, she’d be most pleased.”
“I thank the gods that I’m a mere servant, not the child of a deity. I can well imagine what she and Menkheperre Thut mose will endure inside the god’s mansion. The near dark ness. The air stifling hot and reeking of incense, burning oil, and food offerings. A never-ending murmur of prayers.
Bruised knees and an aching back from bending low before the lord Amon for hours at a time.”
“The lord Amon is a most beneficent god, my young friend. Serving him can get tedious, but one must put aside one’s physical discomforts and let piety enter one’s heart.”
Bak gave him a sharp look, but found neither censure in his demeanor nor cynicism.
The red-haired man strolled away from the dancers. Bak felt compelled to follow, and Amonked, he had learned some months earlier, could ofttimes be torn from his staid exis tence. “I’ve been following a man for no good purpose.