His eye was drawn to the base of the serpentine wall and a wedge of golden brown close against the mudbrick. The end of a board, protruding from around a curve. It looked too sturdy to discard in the desert, too valuable. With his senses quickening, he stepped off the roof and, arms spread wide for balance, walked slowly along the top of the wall, following its curve. The board, he soon saw, was the sidepiece of a ladder partly covered with sand. From the way the drift lay around it, he guessed it had been buried there and a recent stiff breeze had uncovered it. Consumed by curiosity, he dropped off the wall, letting the sand cushion his fall.
He shoved his fingers into the soft, warm sand, picked up the ladder, and stood it on end. It was almost new and tall enough to reach the roof of Inyotef's house. Had the pilot hidden it, meaning to return at a later time? Or had he used it to leave the house?
Turning his back to the wall, Bak studied the low dunes. The smooth parallel ridges were marred by the tiny footprints of birds and rodents, but no larger, deeper indentations that would indicate the recent passage of a man. A rough funnel-shaped disturbance twenty or so paces away could mean a small creature had found something of interest beneath the surface. Trying not to hope, but hoping anyway, Bak hurried to the spot, dug into the sand, and revealed a big, tightly woven reed chest. Practically holding his breath, he swept aside the sand on top, broke the seal, and raised the lid. It was filled with large pottery jars, each stoppered with a dried-mud plug to keep out prying animals and insects. A jar containing grain had cracked, inviting a mouse or rat to investigate. Elated by his discovery, Bak broke the plugs on all the other jars, revealing beer, food, clothing, small weapons, and jewelry including two golden flies.
Inyotef, he guessed, had dared not leave the chest of supplies on his skiff for fear every vessel in the harbor would be examined before Amon-Psaro set foot on the quay. So he had buried it here, intending to return after the search for him died down.
Bak saved the most intriguing item until last, a pottery cylinder plugged on both ends with mud. He broke one end away, reached inside, and pulled out a papyrus scroll. Sitting on the warm sand, praying for enlightenment, he unrolled his prize, which was stained and dog-eared, yellowing from use and age. Almost afraid to breathe, he began to read.
"To my beloved brother Inyotef," it said. "He's gone, the one I loved above all others. His many sweet words, his pledge to love me forever, were like chaff in the wind. One night he lay with me, whispering endearments; the next day he was gone. A message came, I've heard, a letter announcing his father's death. He boarded a ship for vile Kush without so much as a good-bye. I told myself he would summon me as soon as his throne was secure, but now four months have passed, and I've heard nothing. I can no longer bear the pain, my brother. The river beckons. Remember me always, dearest Inyotef, and forgive me."
It was signed "Sonisonbe."
Bak let out his breath long and slow. The words brother and sister were often used between lovers, but in this case he felt sure Sonisonbe was in fact Inyotef's birth sister. The elation he felt at finding the letter, the sense of accomplishment, vied in his heart with pity and sadness for the girl abandoned by Amon-Psaro and the dark legacy she had left Inyotef.
Chapter Eighteen
Bak stood on the northern quay, looking down into Inyotef's skiff. Nothing had changed since last he had seen the vessel. Sails, lines, oars, fishing gear were exactly as they had been the evening before. The pilot either meant to flee in another boat or intended to leave Men in a manner Bak could not begin to imagine. Surely not by way of the desert. If he chose a path close to the river, he would easily be caught. To leave the river and its life-giving water was suicide.
No, Bak thought, he's a sailor, a man of the river. He'll escape by boat. The wording was too pessimistic, so he amended the prediction: He'll try to escape by boat, and I'll be there to stop him.
Clinging to the notion, he studied the vessels moored along the quay. Other than a fishing boat with a broken rudder and a raft built of papyrus bundles so soggy it was near to foundering, Inyotef's skiff was the only small boat remaining. The rest had been claimed by their owners and moved across the harbor to the southern quay. The barge of Amon was tied close against the revetment, rocking on the gentle swells, its gilded hull glittering in the midafternoon sun. On the warship moored close by, pennants of every color fluttered from masts and lines; its wood-andbronze fittings gleamed. Sailors lounged on its deck and atop the cabin, awaiting the gods and the king, the priests and the local dignitaries. Their lively banter with the men on the decks of the two traveling ships, which would ferry the king and his party carried across the water.
Bak strode to the end of the quay and looked out over the river, its waters a reddish brown flecked with silver where the sun caressed the ripples. His abused muscles had loosened up, but he was tired and uneasy, his mood in need of continual bolstering. He had rushed from Inyotef's house to the mansion of Hathor, where he found Imsiba and the Medjays standing outside, awaiting their royal charge. Huy and the other garrison officers had been with them. He had exchanged his knowledge for theirs: Inyotef had not been seen since the previous evening.
Leaving the pageantry behind, he and six borrowed spearmen had hastened to the lower city. Kasaya, who had returned from the island to help, joined them there. The small party had swept through the homes and warehouses along the official route of march, warning the residents to invite only people they knew onto their rooftops and clearing away or blocking potential hiding places both near and as far away as an arrow could fly, praying all the while they would find Inyotef. The gods had failed to smile on them. The spearmen had gradually lost their spark and even lighthearted Kasaya had to work at a smile.
Bak eyed the southern quay, crowded with vessels of all sizes, their decks jammed with spectators. Nothing could hold the smaller boats back, he knew, after the official party sailed out of the harbor.
He hurried back to shore, passed through the line of sentries posted on the slope to keep the spectators off the quay, and stood at the lower end of the thoroughfare down which Amon-Psaro would march. The route was lined with men, women, and children, the buzz of their combined voices rising and ebbing, shattered now and again by a childish laugh, a yell, a hawker touting his wares. Soldiers dressed in ceremonial finery, their weapons polished to a fine sheen, held back the crowd. People from faraway Kemet wearing white linen and bright jewelry rubbed shoulders with poor, half-naked farmers who lived off the sparse lands along the Belly of Stones and ragged nomads who roamed the desert. Wealthy tribesmen and villagers clad in white kilts overlaid with colorful cloaks and jewelry stood among people from far to the south dressed in skins and feathers and fabrics, bejeweled and beribboned, their faces and bodies scarified or painted. Bak imagined the desert tracks and the river during the past few days dotted with people coming from afar to see the greatest of the gods and the Kushite king who had come to seek his help.
Shouldering his way through the spectators, he located a hawker selling beer and sweet bread. He negotiated a trade and, loaf and jar in hand, walked to a crumbling warehouse ten or so paces behind the people massed along the street. The spearman standing atop a ruined wall, watching the throng, jumped down to report that he had seen nothing of note. As he melted into the crowd, Bak climbed the wall and sat down, letting his feet dangle. From there, both the lower portion of the street and the harbor spread out below him. He spotted Kasaya and the other spearmen moving among the spectators, chatting, asking questions, studying faces.