Curse of Silence lb-4

  Curse of Silence

  ( Lieutenant Bak - 4 )

  Lauren Haney

  Lauren Haney

  Curse of Silence

  Chapter One

  “The next one’s yours, my friend.” Sergeant Imsiba ducked around a pair of dressed geese hanging by their feet from the frame of a spindly lean-to. “Less than half the morning gone and already I’ve seen enough men dancing around the truth for one day.”

  Lieutenant Bak, officer in charge of the Medjay police at the fortress of Buhen, grinned at the tall, dark, heavy muscled man walking by his side, his stride smooth, leo nine. “You’re much too generous, Sergeant.”

  “I doubt that wretch thinks so.” Imsiba pointed toward a short, wiry man being hustled along a sandy path by two spearmen, one on each arm, heading toward the citadel gate. “Did you see the way he added weight to the balance each time he rested his hand on the upright?” The big Med jay shook his head in disbelief. “You’d think we’d have seen everything by this time, but the trick was new to me.”

  “Another lesson learned, another triumph for the lady

  Maat.” Maat was the goddess of right and order.

  Imsiba smiled at the pomposity, a mimicking of a scribe neither man especially liked.

  Bak stepped aside, letting two young women pass by.

  They giggled, flustered at the small courtesy paid by this man who was slightly taller than average, with broad shoul ders and strong limbs, carrying a baton of office. Running his fingers through his short-cropped dark hair, unaware of the stir he had caused in their breasts, he said, “Comman dant Thuty will see he cheats no one else for many years to come.”

  A grim smile played across Imsiba’s face. The comman dant of Buhen was not a man to be toyed with. His judg ments were firm, the punishments he meted out seldom forgotten by those who erred.

  The two men strolled on, following a casual path be tween lean-tos set up in irregular rows to shade sellers, buyers, and trade goods offered in the twice-weekly market located on an empty stretch of sand between Buhen’s outer wall and the citadel. They veered around men, women, chil dren, and animals; stepped over discarded garbage and ma nure piles, and tried not to bump the slender posts that supported the frail shelters. All the while, their eyes darted hither and yon, searching for a furtive look or action that hinted at a dishonest trading practice. A nod here, a good humored smile there, a wave and a shout of greeting ac companied them along the way, easing a task thankless but necessary, one they performed periodically.

  Though this was the coolest time of the year, the day was unseasonably warm. The sun beat down, wrapping them in heat, sealing them in a thin layer of sweat. A light, sporadic northerly breeze sent dust devils racing along the paths. The smells of commerce rose around them: spices, fish, livestock, fresh-cut wood, braised meat, manure, on ions, unwashed bodies, perfume. Voices ebbed and flowed, donkeys brayed in distant paddocks, and dogs barked con stantly.

  “Lieutenant Bak!” Raising his weapon, waving the bronze point above his head to catch the sun and attract attention, a husky spearman wove a hurried path toward them. “Sir!”

  Bak and Imsiba quickened their pace to meet him.

  “What’s the problem?” Bak demanded. He recognized the man as a member of the ten-man company of soldiers as signed to maintain peace in the market.

  “A rumor, sir. At least I hope that’s all it is.” They were probably of a like age-twenty-five years-but the spear man responded to the officer with the respect he would show an older, senior man. “A tale sweeping through the market even now. One I pray you can put to rest.”

  Rumors flew up and down the river faster than the swiftest wind, growing in detail as a sandstorm builds while sweeping across the desert. Bak would have smiled, but the worry he saw on the soldier’s face warned him not to take this tale too lightly. “Tell me what you’ve heard.”

  “They say the army is going to be torn from Buhen, from all the fortresses along the southern frontier. They say we’ll have to return to Kemet. That those who wish to stay in this land of Wawat-and there are many of us-will be men alone, abandoned by our sovereign and our home land.” The spearman’s voice shook with emotion. “Sir, I took as my wife a woman of this land. How can I tear her and our children from their home, their many relatives, their village? I can’t! I just can’t!”

  “We’ve heard no such rumor.” Imsiba, Bak noticed, looked as concerned by the tale as he was-and as skep tical. The very idea was unthinkable.

  Commandant Thuty would have been the first to hear and pass on news of such import. Thuty had said nothing; therefore, the rumor must be just that: a rumor. A tale that must be laid to rest before everyone along the river, military and civilian, grew worried and afraid. The army consumed not only grain shipped from Kemet, but large quantities of produce grown and supplied by farmers who dwelt along the river. Without the army, the farmers would not only be vulnerable to raiding desert tribesmen, but they would have no ready market for their crops. Their farms would decline, the land would die.

  But oft times even the most outrageous of rumors carried a grain of truth. “I doubt the tale is true,” Bak reassured, “but I’ll look into the matter before nightfall.”

  “He’s trying to cheat me, sir!” The thin, dark man, whose knee-length kilt made of soft cowhide, dyed red and worn shiny from use, identified him as a man of the southern desert, glared at the pudgy trader seated on the sand in front of him.

  The trader sniffed his indignation. “He errs, Lieutenant.

  Have you ever known me not to give fair measure?”

  Bak, who had never before seen the trader, walked among a dozen or so long-haired white goats milling around the tribesman. A yellow dog held them close, nip ping the flank of any who dared stray. Ignoring the fine, soft hair brushing his bare legs, Bak placed his hands on his hips and eyed the objects spread out in front of the trader: a basket filled with stone beads and amulets, a dozen sacks open at the top to show the grain inside, fifteen or so baked clay jars of beer and honey and oil, and a stack of hides stinking of the acrid solution in which they had been tanned. Beads of all colors, strung to make them more de sirable and coiled for maximum effect, and seven stone amulets on braided cords lay on a strip of white cloth.

  Nothing out of the ordinary; an indifferent offering at best.

  “I can count as well as the next man,” the tribesman said,

  “and I know what’s right and what’s not.”

  “You people are all alike.” The trader raised his chin high and looked scornfully at his accuser. “You come off the desert, bringing the most pathetic of your animals, and expect to get in exchange half the wealth of the land of

  Kemet.”

  The tribesman’s eyes flashed anger. “He tried to give me five jars of oil, lieutenant, not the six he promised. The rock crystal amulet is cracked, and none of the bead neck laces look as long as he claims they are. I’d bet my only daughter that the wheat has been weighted with stones.”

  The trader scooped the bright necklaces off the cloth, flung them into the basket of beads, and sprang to his feet.

  “Look at those creatures!” he said, sweeping his arm in an arc over the goats. “They’re as poor and lean as the ears of grain in a dessicated field, unfit for slaughter for at least two months.”

  The abrupt removal of the strung beads told Bak they would not stand up to close examination. Nor, he suspected, would the trader’s other wares. Smothering a sigh, he glanced up at the lord Re, a yellow orb in a pallid sky.

  Barely midday with at least an hour before buyers and sell ers began to drift away. He prayed to the lord Amon for sufficient patience. He wanted very much to speak with

  Commandant
Thuty, to set his heart at rest about the rumor he had heard time and time again since talking to the spear man.

  Wiping the sweat from his brow, rubbing his hand on his damp kilt, he knelt among the goats. He caught the nearest, whose alarmed bleat frightened the rest and set them to flight. With short, sharp barks, the dog turned them back. Bak ran his hands over the captive animal’s back, stomach, legs. The hair was as soft and curly as that of a nobleman’s pampered concubine. Freeing the animal, he went on to the next and a third.

  “They could use some fattening,” he said, “but are oth erwise in good condition.”

  “You see!” The trader swung toward the tribesman, his expression gleeful. “They’re not worth full price. As I told you.”

  The tribesman flashed Bak a look of frustration and dis illusionment. He obviously believed that, as so often hap pened, a man of authority had here again taken the side of the man with the smoother tongue.

  Muttering an oath at the nomad’s unfounded fear, Bak rose to his feet. With a quick step forward, he lifted the strings of beads from the basket. The trader sucked in his breath, reached out to grab, pulled back at the last moment.

  Bak held up the bright lengths of color and measured them against his arm. No two strings were the same length and all were shorter than they should be. Picking up the amulets suspended from cords, he examined each in turn. The rock crystal was cracked, as the tribesman had said. The others were poorly carved and inferior, the stones more often than not faulted.

  Flinging beads and amulets into the basket, Bak knelt before a bag of wheat. The trader muttered an obscenity.

  Bak dug his fingers deep into the bag and fished out a pebble the size of a radish. Exploring further, he retrieved a half-dozen similar stones and two roughly the size of duck eggs. A goat came close, nudging his elbow, inching to ward the open bag and the grain inside. The trader stood tight-lipped, plainly aware that no excuse would serve. The tribesman looked torn, his satisfaction at being proven right mingled with mistrust of the outcome.

  Bak stood up, having seen enough, and motioned the nomad to remove his goat before it could eat any of the wheat, altering the weight and thus destroying the evidence.

  He waved an arm to catch the eye of the sergeant in charge of the ten-man patrol. The soldier came running, two spear men close on his heels.

  “Take this man and his trade goods to the guardhouse.

  Have my scribe Hori inventory everything, making special note of the weighted bags of grain, inconsistent lengths of beads, and whatever else he finds amiss. I’d not be sur prised if the beer is diluted, and he’ll probably find pebbles in the honey and oil.”

  “Lieutenant.” The trader sidled close to Bak and lowered his voice. “I enjoy my freedom, sir, as you enjoy yours.

  There must be something I can do for you, or some object

  I can give you that you’d not ordinarily get for yourself.

  Something of value, something worthy of a man of good taste, a man willing to overlook one small mistake.”

  The tribesman edged closer, suspicious, trying to eaves drop.

  “Small mistake?” Bak asked, accenting the word small.

  The trader failed to notice the dangerous glint in the of ficer’s eye. “I’ve a servant, a pretty thing of fourteen years.

  She’s no longer pure and chaste, but the better for it. A gift well worth accepting.”

  “Are you offering me a bribe, sir?”

  The trader paled. “No! No, sir. You misunderstand me, sir.”

  “Take him away,” Bak said.

  With the indifference of a man who had repeated the task many times, the sergeant ordered his men to collect the objects spread out on the sand while he clamped his pris oner’s arms together with wooden manacles and led him away.

  The tribesman watched, dumbfounded.

  Bak laid a hand on his shoulder. “He’ll not cheat you or any other man for many months to come-if ever again.”

  The man, made shy by the kindness, stared at the animals milling around his legs. “I could not sacrifice my goats for items so shoddy. They’re like children to me and my woman, brothers and sisters to our boy and girl.”

  “Most men who trade at this market are honest, many of them farmers who give value for value.” Bak knelt among the goats and scratched several eager heads. “Has no one ever told you that the value of these animals is in their fine hair, not their meat?”

  “I sometimes trade the yarn my wife spins from their hair, and I know its worth. But to live, we must eat their flesh as well as take their milk and their warm coats.”

  Bak rose to his feet. The goats pressed close against his legs, trusting, innocent. As tame and gentle as household pets. He glanced around the market, his eyes darting from one lean-to to another, seeking a farmer who often came to sell his produce. At last he found, seated in the shade be neath a woven reed roof, surrounded by fruits and vegeta bles, the large sturdy body of Netermose, a warm-hearted and considerate man who loved his land and animals above all things.

  “I know a man, a farmer who’d value these goats more alive than dead. Let me take you to him.”

  “Hor-pen-Deshret.” The caravan master Seshu made the name sound like a curse. “They say the swine has come back.”

  Troop Captain Nebwa scowled. “He wouldn’t dare.”

  “Who?” Bak, standing at the edge of the market, tore his eyes from the fluctuating stream of people walking toward the citadel gate, hastening home with produce, live animals, and innumerable other necessities of life.

  “Hor-pen-Deshret.” Nebwa spat on the ground in a show of contempt. “Self-styled Horus of the Desert.”

  The tall, bulky officer, a coarse-featured man in his early thirties with unruly hair that always needed cutting, was

  Commandant Thuty’s second-in-command. Having come from the practice field outside the walls of Buhen, where he had been overseeing the training of new recruits, he was covered with dust streaked and mottled by sweat.

  “The wiliest and most ferocious of all tribesmen,” Seshu said. “A man who knows no fear.”

  Nebwa’s scorn was evident. “For years he dreamed of ruling this segment of the river, making himself rich by collecting tolls from all who pass through.”

  The caravan master nodded. “A dream he’s never lost, so they say.”

  Seshu was of medium height with the rangy muscles and sun-darkened skin of one who had spent many of his forty years marching beneath the sun. His eyes were sharp and quick, his cheekbones prominent, his nose aquiline, testi fying to ancestors who trod the sands of the eastern desert.

  Bak, who vaguely recalled hearing of Hor-pen-Deshret, stepped into the thinning stream of people. With Nebwa and Seshu on either side, he strode toward the citadel gate and the commandant’s residence. Compared to the rumor that the army might be leaving the frontier, the return of a desert bandit seemed of minor significance.

  “He and his followers raided caravans, farms, villages, even small units of troops when he deemed the risk worth the gain,” Nebwa explained. “They made off with food, animals, women, weapons-anything they could lay their hands on. All who dwelt along the river feared him. Finally, five or six years ago-long before you came to Buhen,

  Bak-Thuty’s predecessor, Commandant Nakht, had all he could take of the miserable snake. He took out a company of troops to destroy him, personally leading the column, with me at his side. We never managed to lay hands on the wretch, but we slew many of his followers and chased him far into the desert. I’ve not heard of him for several years and thought never to see him again.”

  “I dared hope he’d died.” Seshu, his face rueful, stopped at an intersecting path that would take him to the animal paddocks. “It seems the gods have chosen not to bless us.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Nebwa’s voice was hard, his ex pression resolute, the troop captain at his most stubborn.

  “He wouldn’t have the nerve to come back.”

  Flinging
a skeptical look Bak’s way, Seshu turned around and walked up the path.

  A spate of laughter drew Bak’s eyes to a party of soldiers cleaning windblown sand out of the sunken road which abutted the terrace that ran along the base of the citadel wall. He did not envy them. The sun beat full-force on the tall towered wall, which rose stark white above the desert sand, catching the heat and holding it close, turning the deep-set road into an oven. High above, a sentry patrolling the battlements walked out onto a projecting tower to look down upon the rapidly emptying market.

  “Whether true or not,” he said, “we must tell Comman dant Thuty of the rumor, along with the tale that the army’s to be torn from Wawat. And we must go now, before he hears from another source.”

  “He won’t thank us for passing on such nonsense.”

  “Nor will he thank us if we tell him nothing and the rumor gets out of hand.”

  “Lieutenant Bak! Sir!”

  Bak’s eyes darted forward to where his scribe Hori was trotting toward them along the path, dodging men and women laden with trade goods and a couple panting dogs too tired and hot to bark.

  The pudgy youth of fifteen or so years swung in beside his superior officer. “Commandant Thuty has summoned you, sir. You and Troop Captain Nebwa.”

  “What now, I wonder?”

  “The scribe who brought word to the guardhouse said a courier came from Ma’am, bringing a message from the viceroy.” Hori licked beads of sweat off his upper lip.

  “Soon after, he heard the commandant yelling at mistresses

  Tiya and Meryet, ordering them to silence the children and keep them out of his way.” Tiya was Thuty’s wife and

  Meryet his concubine. The many small children of the household were always underfoot, usually ignored by their unabashedly tolerant father.

  “Oh-oh,” Nebwa murmured.

  Bak muttered an oath. Thuty could be erratic at times, but he was basically a fair man. What could the viceroy’s message have contained that would make him strike out at those closest to him?