He paused again, listening to another blast of the trumpet. "I must hurry. My men will be wondering where I've gone."
He rushed around a corner, entering a narrow lane hugged on both sides by small houses buzzing with the voices of those who lived inside. A flock of ducks squawked in a derelict house, which reeked of bird droppings
"The envoy I was to escort was slow to reach Semna," Senu went on. "I was still waiting for him three days later when Inyotef sailed again into the harbor. His ship had been turned back. He gave no reason, but a rumor went around that he was not welcome in the land of Kush."
Bak's heart surged. "Do you suppose Amon-Psaro was behind the rebuff?"
"I often journeyed upriver, yet I never learned the truth."
"Did you travel often to Amon-Psaro's court?"
"Four or five times, no more." Senu stepped around two naked toddlers, wide-eyed with wonder at his magnificence. With an easy smile, he answered Bak's unspoken question. "Yes, Lieutenant, he took me to see his growing herd of horses-and he never failed to ask for Nefer's health."
Bak grinned, forgetting for an instant the gravity of his mission. "I'm still curious. How'd you manage to lay hands on the pair you gave him? Their value must've seemed enormous to a common soldier with no wealth or power."
"I raised my problem to diplomatic status," Senn laughed. "I spoke with the envoy, and when he traveled back to our capital, he in turn spoke to the vizier. That worthy politician agreed that a gift of two horses, mare and stallion, would remind Amon-Psaro of his friendship with our king, not just once, but each time a foal was born. Later, after the trade was consummated, after Nefer was mine and the animals Amon-Psaro's, I felt bound to tell him the horses were a product of my ingenuity rather than wealth. He thought my tale so amusing and my honesty so admirable that he offered me a lofty position in his court. I chose to remain in the army of Kemet."
Bak laughed heartily, as did Senu, until another blare of the trumpet reminded them of their mission. They hastened across an intersecting street, passed a block of well-kept interconnected houses, and veered into a dead-end lane bounded on one side by a serpentine wall built to hold back encroaching sand dunes. Kasaya stood before a door located near the far end of the lane. The Medjay's discouraged expression told them the house was unoccupied, and none of the neighbors knew of the pilot's whereabouts.
Senu muttered an oath.
Bak had not expected the gods to drop into his hands the solution to his problem, but his spirits dived nonetheless. "If he's gone for good, I doubt he left anything of value or interest, but I must search anyway."
"I'll leave you then. The men on the battlements will need further orders, and I must find Huy and Nebseny and warn them as well. The men they've placed on the rooftops along Amon-Psaro's route must be told."
"You must also warn Imsiba and my Medjays. I'll send Kasaya to the island to alert Pashenuro and Minnakht." "Consider it done." Senu strode a few paces up the lane, paused, turned around. "Amon-Psaro is haughty, imperious, cunning. But, he's a good man, Bak. Don't let Inyotef slay him."
Bak forced a smile. "A prayer to the lord Amon, an offering, might help."
Inyotef's hofe was much too grand for a man alone, five spacious rooms around an open court that would have better suited Senu's large family. It was neat and clean but had an air of abandonment. Two chambers were furnished, and those not well; the remainder were empty. A few stools, a couple of tables, several chests, a sleeping pallet. The basics of housekeeping a wife might bestow on the husband she was leaving, the remnants of a marriage.
Bak went from chest to chest, raising each lid and peering inside. He found a few sheets, a man's clothing, a few dishes and cooking paraphernalia. A small chest held eye paint, perfumes, and oils. A fine inlaid wooden chest contained jewelry, mostly of the beaded variety and of small value. He found no golden flies. A somewhat larger, unadorned wooden chest contained a few small weapons, including a hefty and powerful sling-the weapon used, Bak felt sure, during the initial attempt to warn him off.
Returning to the main room, he settled down to a long and tedious search, looking specifically for clues as to where Inyotef might have gone and the reason he wanted Amon-Psaro dead. Bak tried to lose himself in his task, moving systematically from one chest to another and on to the walls and floor, probing for a secret hiding place. The first room finished, he searched the next and then the next. The rich smell of braised lamb, wafted through the open doors, rousing pangs of hunger, announcing the approach of midday. He longed to quit, to leave this dreary house and walk the streets of the city, searching for the man rather than some minuscule clue he could overlook as easily as find.
Finished with the interior, he had nothing to show for his effort but a growing sense of failure. When Senu's oldest son arrived with a leaf-wrapped package of grilled fish, a cluster of plump grapes, and two jars of beer, Bak could have hugged the boy. The food and drink, the cheerful voice, and the smile were welcome indeed.
"How far away is the caravan?" he asked, ripping the flesh from the bones, gobbling it like a man starved for a week.
"They'll reach the gate within the hour."
The youth reported that his father had relayed Bak's messages to Imsiba and the others. Extra guards had been assigned to Amon-Psaro's route, and every man who could be spared was searching for Inyotef. As far as anyone knew, he had not been seen all day. Bak, his self-confidence wavering, tried not to think how foolish he would feel if someone other than the pilot attempted to slay the Kushite king.
He could see the boy longed to be on his way, afraid he would miss the upcoming spectacle, so he dismissed him and went out to the courtyard to finish his meal in a sliver of shade beside the wall.
His hunger sated, he searched the court with its round oven, large water jars, and grain silos. He was sweeping up the last of the grain he had spilled when the sounds in the distance changed. The strident call of a single trumpet was lost in the blare of several. Now and then, when the breeze blew from the right direction, the faint sound of the accompanying clappers and flutes wafted across the lower city. A rumble of drums filled in the background. Amon-Psaro's caravan was approaching the fortress gate.
Bak was on the roof, almost finished with his search, when a flourish of drumbeats announced the presentation of arms to Amon-Psaro. Soon, the king would march inside the fortress. He and Woser would lead the slow ceremonial procession down the main thoroughfare to the mansion of the lady Hathor. There they would make obeisance to her guest, the lord Amon, and to the goddess herself. Then, with the priestly contingent and the gods joining the procession, they would march back through the fortress, down the cut in the escarpment, and through the lower city to the harbor.
Bak thought Amon-Psaro fairly safe inside the fortress. It was the latter portion of the march he worried about most. The descent throligh the cut and the streets of the lower city would be lined with hundreds of civilians as well as soldiers. More worrisome yet would be the harbor, the confusion of boarding the rivercraft in a place Inyotef knew better than any other man in Iken.
Tired and discouraged, he walked to the edge of the roof and eyed the low golden dunes outside the wall. Long fingers of sand, drifts deposited through the years by winds blowing in from the desert, reached out to a distant, ruined block of buildings.