Face Turned Backward lb-2 Read online

  Face Turned Backward

  ( Lieutenant Bak - 2 )

  Lauren Haney

  Lauren Haney

  Face Turned Backward

  Chapter One

  “Lieutenant Bak!” The scribe Hori plunged through the portal atop the tall, twin-towered gate and raced along the walkway, oblivious to the heat, the heaviness of the air, the sentry whose duty it was to patrol that sector of the battlements.

  His attention was focused on his superior officer, a man in his mid-twenties, taller than average with broad shoulders and black hair, cropped short. “Sir! A man’s been hurt!

  Stabbed!”

  Bak, head of the Medjay police at the fortress of Buhen, swung away from the crenel through which he had been watching the men working below. Soldiers, sailors, traders, fishermen going about their business in and around the ships moored along the three sandstone quays that reached into the river. “Who? Don’t tell me the archer May went back to Dedu’s village!”

  The chubby youth wiped rivulets of sweat from his face.

  “No, sir. A night in the guardhouse cooled his temper, and his ardor as well. He had many long hours to think about Dedu’s threat to unman him. He swears he’ll avoid the old man’s granddaughter as if she were of royal blood.” He drew in air, then blurted, “It’s the farmer Penhet. His wife found him in a field, bleeding, a dagger laying in the dust beside him.”

  “Penhet.” Bak’s smile at May’s plight turned to a frown, and he searched his memory for a face. When the answer came, he glanced across the river toward the long strip of 1

  2 / Lauren Haney green on the east bank. The oasis, like Buhen, was a bastion of life in the midst of a golden desert barren of all but the most hardy creatures. “Yes, owner of a good-sized farm near the northern end of the oasis, the one whose wife has always worked the fields by his side.”

  Hori’s eyes were wide with boyish excitement. “She saw the man who stabbed him, sir. Another farmer, the neighbor Netermose. He was kneeling beside her husband when she came upon them, and he was smeared with Penhet’s blood.”

  “Netermose?” Bak’s frown deepened. “I know him from the market. He’s often here when his crops are prime, trading dates, melons, vegetables. He seemed a gentle man. Not one to show violence to a neighbor, I’d have thought.”

  Hori shrugged, his good humor wavered. “I only know what the servant told me, the one mistress Rennefer sent to summon you.”

  Bak gave the scribe a sharp look. “She wishes me to come?

  I’m amazed! The local people always want their own headman to balance the scales of justice.”

  “I asked the servant, but he could give me no reason.”

  “Never mind. I’ll find out soon enough.” Bak laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder and they walked together toward the tower. “What does Penhet say? Surely he knows who thrust the blade.”

  “The attack came from behind, I was told. He saw nothing.”

  Bak glanced at the lord Re, a golden orb veiled by dust.

  Tendrils of light filtered through the yellow haze, the god’s last ineffectual attempt to stave off the brewing storm. He set aside the questions crowding his thoughts. “Go find Imsiba. He should speak first to the servant, then meet me at the quay.”

  Hori’s eyes darted toward the sky. “You mustn’t be on the river when the wind rises, sir.”

  The crime appeared straightforward and of small significance, yet Bak could not set aside the summons. Normally he was the last to hear of an offense in the nearby oases- unless a man from the garrison was involved. Even then his help was accepted grudgingly, for he was looked upon as an outsider interfering in local affairs.

  “Each hour that passes makes the truth harder to search out, Hori, and in this case I must be doubly sure of the truth.

  If I think Netermose guilty, I’ll have no choice but to take him before the commandant, charged with attempted murder.

  How will the villagers react should I err?”

  Bak, armed with his baton of office and a sheathed dagger at his belt, hurried through the towered gate, staying well clear of the ant-like line of men, backs bent low beneath heavy sacks of grain, who were unloading a squat cargo vessel and hauling its contents to a storage magazine inside the fortress. Their dissonant voices rose and fell to the words of an age-old workmen’s song. The stench of their sweat and the earthy smell of grain tickled Bak’s nose, making him sneeze.

  He turned right onto the stone terrace that paralleled the river and hastened along the base of the fortress wall, white-plastered mudbrick, strengthened at regular intervals by projecting towers. Heat waves rising from plaster and stone had driven away the children who usually played along the water’s edge. Near the northern quay, he found his Medjay sergeant Imsiba waiting beside their skiff, beached on the stone revetment that defended the riverbank from erosion.

  Bak vaulted the wall and dropped onto a lower terrace, jumped a second wall, and landed on the revetment.

  “You spoke to Penhet’s servant?” he asked, tossing his baton into the shallow-keeled boat. It struck Imsiba’s black cowhide shield with a thunk and rolled off the edge to lay between the lowered mast and the Medjay’s long, bronze-pointed spear.

  “Barring infection, he thinks his master will heal. Other than that he told me nothing.” Imsiba’s eyes flashed contempt. “He’s a cowardly creature, afraid of his own reflection in a pool, I’d guess, so he pleaded ignorance.” The 4 / Lauren Haney sergeant was half a hand taller than Bak and a few years older, a dark, heavy-muscled man with a firm jaw and a le-onine grace of movement.

  Bak leaned against the prow and together they put their weight behind the push. “Did you threaten him with the cudgel?”

  “Even that wouldn’t loosen his tongue.”

  Bak was neither surprised nor disappointed. He mistrusted the use of force as a means of learning the facts. Too often the man who was beaten voiced whatever the man with the stave wished to hear.

  The skiff slid into the river, making barely a splash, and they clambered aboard. Bak scrambled aft to the rudder and Imsiba took up the oars to row out past the vessels moored at the quay. A sailor fishing from the high prow of a sleek, brightly painted traveling ship shouted a warning when they ventured too close to his lines.

  “What do you know of Penhet, Imsiba?”

  “I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard talk. I sometimes stop for beer in a house of pleasure near his farm.”

  Beyond the quay, the current caught the skiff and swept it downstream. Bak adjusted the rudder, setting a course that would carry them across to the oasis. The river was high, its life-giving waters not long returned to its banks. Its surface was mirror-smooth, a glistening reflection of the sun and the torrid golden sky. Now and again a fish broke the calm, leaping high and falling with a splash. A flotilla of six fishing vessels raced downstream along the far shore, making for home before the storm struck.

  Using an oar, Imsiba pushed away a floating branch torn from an acacia tree. “All who live within a day’s march know of his wife’s devotion, and most know of the trouble he’s caused among his neighbors.”

  “Trouble?” Could something as simple as a neighborhood squabble be the reason for Rennefer’s summons? Bak wondered. Perhaps she thought only a man indifferent to local quarrels would see justice done.

  A breath of air touched his cheek, a hint of a breeze so hot it dried the sweat it sucked from his flesh. He prayed the storm would hold off until after they saw the field where the attack had taken place.

  The Medjay, spurred to action by the wakening breeze, set to work with the oars. His muscles bulged; sweat beaded on his torso. His powerful strokes, aided by the current, sent the vessel scuddi
ng across the water. “Though Penhet was to blame, none held him at fault.”

  Bak eyed a dozen or so vultures circling above the northern end of the oasis. Could the injured man have succumbed to his wounds? “You contradict yourself-and confuse me.”

  “He’s a likable man, cheerful, congenial, and generous, but a man seldom inspired to diligent effort.” Imsiba must have noticed the birds, too, for he dug the oars deeper. “They say his land thrives only because its previous owner tended it with love and understanding-and because mistress Rennefer works the fields by his side and keeps a firm hand on the servants who toil with them.”

  “You mentioned trouble with his neighbors,” Bak prompted, his eyes on a dark smudge off to the left, a mud-bank lurking just below the water’s surface, awaiting a careless sailor.

  “Last year, close to the end of the growing season, when the days were hot and the land burned dry, he ordered his servants to dam the main irrigation channel that passes his farm and to open the ditches to his own fields. The crops on the farms farther along the channel went dry, while his crops thrived. Within a day the dam was found and dug away, but not before several neighboring fields were ruined and others were harmed, giving half-measure when they were harvested.”

  Bak whistled. “No wonder he’s been attacked!”

  “When he saw the damage he’d done, he was filled with shame.” Imsiba’s voice was as dry as the dust-filled air. “He offered to make good the losses, but his own crops in no 6 / Lauren Haney way covered the total. His neighbors, excusing him for a congenial fool, took what little he was able to repay and went on to other matters.” The Medjay gave Bak a wry smile.

  “A few wondered if mistress Rennefer had whispered in her husband’s ear, advising him to redirect the water, but most are convinced she’s too honest and innocent for so unsavory an act.”

  Bak’s thoughts leaped to the obvious. “Netermose, I assume, was one whose farm suffered?”

  “He was among those few who wanted Penhet punished, but with the rest so quick to accept less than they lost, what could he do?”

  What indeed? Bak wondered. The incident had happened half a year ago, the crops long since harvested and new crops even now being planted in their place. A long time to harbor a grudge-unless Penhet had tried the same foul trick again.

  “You gave your husband root of mandrake.” Bak, dropping onto a low three-legged stool in the open court of Penhet’s house, kept his voice flat, his irritation contained. He saw no reason to add to Rennefer’s unhappiness, but the urge was strong.

  “I wanted him to rest. To be free of pain.” Her eyes darted toward Bak’s, challenged him to contest her right to protect what was hers.

  She sat on the hard-packed earthen floor, her legs drawn up beneath her, her hand on the sleeping man lying on the makeshift litter on which he had been carried to the house.

  She was tall and thin, sinewy. Her face was plain, uncared for rather than unattractive, and her hands were rough, the knuckles swollen. The portly body of her husband lay on its stomach, face turned to the right, swathed from neck to waist in bandages. Blood stained one side, a rich red seepage drying to a brownish crust.

  The courtyard was a whitewashed rectangle roofed at one end with palm fronds spread over a spindly wooden frame.

  A faint rustling marked the passage of a mouse. A loom and a grindstone lay in the patch of shade with three round- bottomed porous water jars standing against the wall. Shoved up next to the jars to make room for the wounded man was a sheaf of long, tough river grass and a half-woven mat.

  Seven large reddish pots containing herbs and vegetables were scattered around the sunny, unroofed area. An orange cat lay sleeping on the cool, damp earth in which a rosemary plant thrived.

  “You’d have done better to use a more moderate dose,” he said, “giving me the chance to speak to him.”

  “Why? You know who tried to slay him! That wretched Netermose!” Her voice grew louder, more strident with each word.

  He forced himself to be patient. “Mistress Rennefer, you say you summoned me to look into this matter with a clear and unbiased eye. If such is truly your desire, you’ll place no obstacles in my path.” He paused, waited for her nod of agreement, resentful though it was. “Now where’s the dagger you found?”

  “Out there.” Her eyes darted toward the door and the general direction of the field Bak had yet to see. “I couldn’t stand the sight of it, so I threw it away. It’s in the weeds somewhere close to where he fell.”

  Tamping down the urge to shake her, he studied the woman, who was close to forty, as was her husband. Where the corners of Penhet’s eyes had wrinkles of laughter, her brow was lined with a lifetime of anxiety. Where his plump body spoke of an enjoyment of the good things in life, her spare figure told of toil and sacrifice. Her spine was stiff, her mouth thin and tight, the flesh below her eyes smudged by worry. Bak pitied her, but he did not like her.

  He must not allow his antipathy to influence his search for the truth, he cautioned himself. “Did you actually see Netermose thrust the dagger into Penhet’s back?”

  “I saw him on his knees, bent over my husband, looking at what he’d done.” She swallowed hard, as if to dam a flood.

  “When he heard me behind him, he scrambled to his feet to run. I saw the blood on him…so much blood!..and I screamed, drawing my servants from the house and the 8 / Lauren Haney fields. They caught him and bound his hands and threw him in the hut where still he sits.”

  A short, squat woman waddled through a rear door. She saw Bak with her mistress, gave a startled little squeal, and scurried away. She should have been with Imsiba in the servant’s quarters, he thought, not wandering around the house.

  “Why would he wish to take Penhet’s life?”

  Rennefer tossed her head in defiance. “How can I know what festered in his heart and drove him to such madness?

  I didn’t ask him. I couldn’t bear to look at him.”

  She was, he saw, a woman who wished always to hold the offensive. “Don’t you see an obvious reason for anger when one man takes the water entitled to another?”

  “My husband made a mistake.” She swallowed again, blinked. “He…he isn’t much of a farmer. And he sometimes acts without thinking, but never with malice.”

  “In what other way has he harmed Netermose?”

  “Do you seek to blacken his name?” she demanded.

  A trickle of sweat ran down his back, driving him to his feet. “Must I hear it from your neighbors, mistress?”

  Her mouth tightened, her eyes glinted resentment. She knew as well as he did that there was no such thing as a secret in any community along the river. Whoever he asked would give the answer-and add Bak’s questions to the tale when next it was told. “Once Netermose accused my husband of moving boundary stones, and another time he said our cows crossed a ditch and trod on a field of new onions.”

  “Were the charges true?”

  Her eyes fluttered to his face and away, but her spine remained as stiff as the trunk of a dom palm. “I fear the cattle did some damage,” she admitted. “As for the boundary stones, we’ll know when next our fields are surveyed.”

  Bak eyed her long and hard. “You seem an intelligent woman, mistress, and all the world knows you toil each day by your husband’s side. You can’t have been blind to his wrongdoing.”

  “He has many admirable qualities, Lieutenant. He’s kind and generous and loving. His heart is filled with laughter.”

  She caressed her husband’s cheek with the back of her fingers and a smile touched her face, a tenderness that vanished in an instant. “I take him for what he is and close my eyes to his faults. That’s what makes a marriage, and ours is a good one.”

  Her voice caught on the last words and a low, eerie moan rose from deep within her throat. She bowed her head, a single tear swelled to a flood, and sobs rocked her body.

  Bak found Imsiba outside, exploring the animal lean-to and a paddock enclosed by
a low mudbrick wall. A dun-colored cow, big-bellied and soon to give birth, shared the shelter with a sow and her sleeping piglets. Four donkeys stood in the sun, munching straw, swishing flies with their tails. One brayed for no apparent reason; another answered from a distant farm. Geese and ducks scratched in the wet earth where water had spilled from a red pottery bowl in which five downy yellow ducklings swam in erratic circles.

  Sparrows fluttered around sheaves of grass drying on the lean-to roof, chirping, searching for seeds and insects. Two male servants hurried across a freshly cultivated garden plot that smelled of manure, heading toward a mixed herd of cattle, sheep, and goats competing with a flock of pigeons for the gleanings of a field soon to be plowed and planted.

  The oasis spread out to the south, a long expanse of fresh-turned brown fields; plots of new, tender green crops; and yellowish stubble mottled with weeds. The open land was broken at intervals by the dusty green of palm groves or lower, leafier acacias and tamarisks lining the banks of irrigation channels. Dust-laden leaves clung to the branches of bushes; dry grasses rose in brittle clumps above thick mats of fresh young grass. An unseen dog barked, rousing his brethren, setting off a chorus. An arc of tawny sandhills enclosed the oasis to the east, their sharp edges dulled by haze.

  “Penhet may not have been much of a farmer,” Imsiba said, looking around, “but someone knew how to get the most from this land.”

  “Mistress Rennefer would be my guess.” Bak glanced at 10 / Lauren Haney a lesser building behind the house. “What did the servants say?”

  Imsiba laughed. “They admire her greatly. They think highly of her husband. They’ve always been treated well and have never wanted for food or shelter. They consider themselves the most fortunate of men and women.”

  “Sounds like the Field of Reeds,” Bak grinned, referring to the paradise aspired to by all who would one day enter the netherworld, “not an ordinary farm in this land of Wawat.”

  He paused, letting a donkey have its say. When the braying stopped, he asked, “Do they speak from fear or do they wish to protect their mistress?”