Bak lay wide-awake, watching the stars and the moon, overhead, worrying. He had finally narrowed his suspects to only two men-and both had vanished. Senu and his family had abandoned their house. Inyotef's house, accord ing-to Kasaya, had looked as empty and deserted as his skiff.
Which of the two was guilty? Who would reappear armed with sword or dagger or bow and arrow, prepared to slay Amon-Psaro? The time of the attack, Bak could narrow down to a few short hours, for the king would only be vulnerable from the time he marched up to the gates of Iken to his arrival at the island fortress. Tomorrow, Bak thought. Sometime tomorrow the assassin will strike.
Chapter Seventeen
"Wake up, my friend!" Imsiba, kneeling beside Bak, shook his shoulder. "Wake up!"
Bak woke with a jolt. "What is it?"
Kenamon's apprentice, a bony young man shaven bald, wearing a long white kilt and a broad multicolored bead collar, knelt next to Imsiba. "My master sent me, sir, with news you should hear."
Bak sat up, moaned. His muscles ached, his throat was sore, his knees were bruised and skinned. Souvenirs of his struggles in the river.
"A courier just came from King Amon-Psaro, carrying a message for Commander Woser. I waylaid him, saying my master needed word of the sick child. The Kushite caravan set off before first light and they'll arrive without fail by midday. The young prince's health appears improved this morning, but yesterday he suffered greatly. The king is convinced every hour's delay carries the boy closer to death."
Bak glanced to the east. The lord Re, too near the horizon to be seen front` inside the fortress, was thrusting yellowgold arms high into a cloudless blue sky. The air was surprisingly clear and cooler than during much of the previous week. If the day remained temperate, it looked a perfect time for Amon-Psaro to march into Iken. The thought was oppressive, throwing a dark and gloomy shadow over what should have been a grand and glorious day.
"I pray Kenamon can save the child." Imsiba's face and voice were as grim as Bak's thoughts.
"My master looks to each fragment of news as a piece of a puzzle." The priest spoke with the serenity of one whose belief was total. "He's had many clues; now he must see the boy. If the lord Amon chooses to smile on the child, one of several remedies he's prepared will cure his malady."
Bak hoped Kenamon's skills would live up to the young man's faith. "We'll offer a fine goose to the god."
The priest, his face flushed with pleasure, murmured his thanks and hurried away.
Hauling himself to his feet, Bak eyed the Medjays scattered around the rooftop of Kenamon's borrowed house, sitting or lying on their sleeping mats, eavesdropping. At his glance, they busied themselves with getting up, dressing, rolling away their sleeping mats, gathering together razors, body oils, fresh kilts, weapons polished to the glow of mirrors. The men, accustomed to slipping in and out of their barracks at any hour of night and day, spoke softly to one another as they would in their own quarters at Burn. Not a voice among them carried beyond the rooftop.
A nervous tension filled the air, Bak-noticed, and a multitude of emotions showed on their faces: the excitement of serving as guard of honor to a powerful king from wretched Kush; the gravity of guarding that monarch from an unknown assassin; and the hope that their officer would lay hands on the criminal before he struck-and in time to take his rightful place at their head.
Tall and straight, strong and manly, an elite company that filled Bak's heart with pride. He longed to be with them when Woser presented them to Amon-Psaro, handing them over for the duration of the royal visit to Iken, but the possibility seemed remote.
"I have to find Inyotef and Senu." He clasped Imsiba's shoulders. "You know what you must do."
"I'll not take charge of the men until the last moment. You must stand at their head if you can."
"All who live in Iken will have heard by this time that the lord Amon is to move to the island fortress, making Amon-Psaro's daily trip through the city unnecessary." Bak picked up his kilt, scowled at the torn and dirty fabric, dropped it onto his sleeping mat. Although loath to do so, he donned the second of the two garments he had brought to Iken, the kilt he had intended to wear while leading the guard of honor. "Today will be the last time he'll be this exposed, this open to an attempt on his life."
"We'll stay close on his heels," Imsiba assured him. "If we all must die to save him, we'll do so."
Bak refused to dwell on so grim a possibility. "I think I know which of my suspects is guilty, but I must look to both to be sure. If all goes well, I'll reach a satisfactory conclusion long before he can strike Amon-Psaro." The words sounded good, but could he live up to the promise?
Bak hurried down the stairs to a house empty but for two servants. Kenamon and his fellows had gone to the mansion of Hathor to perform the morning ritual. A portly man was busy packing the priests' clothing and jewelry into woven reed chests, readying them for the move to the island fortress. He handled each object no matter how mundane as if it were worthy of the same regard as the priestly accoutrements of office. The woman, as plump as her husband and far more cheerful, was bustling around the open-roofed kitchen, baking bread and hovering over a thick beef stew meant to satiate the priests' hunger after their morning fast.
Bak slipped into the room Kenamon had used as his own. The chamber had been cleared of the elderly priest's personal effects. Only the furniture remained-a bed, two woven chests, and a table-and a statue of the household god Bes standing in a wall niche. Removing the ugly, bowleg ged god, he revealed the four pieces of broken pottery he had found in the hideaway of the mute boy Ramose. He took the shards from the niche and sat cross-legged on the floor, studying the sketches in a patch of sunlight falling from a high window.
The sketches were no less confusing than they had been before, but looking at them with a fresh and more educated eye, they made a childish kind of sense. An army, men fighting on the field of battle, ships traveling downriverall images of the war twenty-seven years before, and the victorious journey back to Kemet. The embracing man and woman, Bak felt sure, depicted an incident closely related to the other images, an occurrence Ramose had believed worthy of documenting. He put the shards back where he had found them and replaced the statue, confident that if the portly servant had not found them, no one would.
Bak detoured through the kitchen, where the woman handed him a flattish loaf of bread filled with chunks of beef and onions, and then hastened outside to the street. Eating while he walked, he hurried through the fortress, out the gate, and down the path to the lower city. Thin spirals of smoke rose from a multitude of houses, spreading the odors of burning dung, cooking oil, fish, and onions. Cattle lowed, begging to be milked. A flock of pigeons took wing, whirring through the air low overhead.
Aware of how fast news could spread through a confined community such as Iken, he was not surprised at the hustle and bustle in the streets and houses along his route. Men, women, and children were rushing through their morning tasks, singing, joking, fussing, ridding themselves of duties so they. could enjoy a day of pageantry and celebration: the arrival of Amon-Psaro with his large and colorful entourage; the garrison troops presenting arms outside the gate; the procession through the streets of the lord Amon and lady Hathor, the priests, the military, and the Kushite caravan; the flotilla that would carry the gods and the king and his party across the river to the island fortress. A day never to forget.
Especially if Amon-Psaro were to be assassinated. Offering a silent prayer to the lord Amon, pleading for the god's help in preventing the king's death, Bak hurried on. He left the main street and turned down a narrow lane that took him to another lane strangely wider but not as straight. He passed the ruined warehouse, now little more than a foundation, that Senu had suggested Minnakht's men mine for mudbricks. Three small boys, chattering like sparrows, were squatting around one of many holes in the earthen floor, poking sticks down its open mouth, teasing a rat, most likely.