The Right Hand of Amon Read Online Free Page B

mouth. The narrow blade, half again as long as the handle, had been plunged deep into his throat. The flattened metal at the end, sharp and ragged from long use, had torn the flesh, making him bleed inside until he could no longer breathe.
    Nebwa shuddered. "What kind of man could take another's life in so cruel a fashion?"
    "One_ filled to overflowing with hate." Bak scooted closer to the body to examine the right wrist and the left. Neither showed the bruises or chafing of a rope. "Or so filled with anger he went mad." He ran his fingers through the damp, curling' hair, but could find no lump.
    "We'll soon reach the quay," Imsiba said. "Do you wish Ptahmose and me to off-load the body and see it reaches the house of death while you report to the commandant?"
    "Off--load it, yes," Nebwa said, "but find somebody else to carry it away. We vowed to return these skiffs to Meru before nightfall, and that you must do."
    Across the prow, Bak saw the northern quay close ahead, glimpsed a sailor relieving himself over the stem of a cargo vessel nestled alongside. Farther upstream, a short distance above the southernmost quay and well out in the current, lay the place where the skiff had struck the tree. His thoughts followed the current up the river to where it flowed out of the Belly of Stones. The man had come from there, he felt sure, but from how far away? How long in those waters could a body remain intact?
    Ptahmose groaned. "I'd rather face Commandant Thuty than that old devil Meru. When he sees we've holed his skiff, his cries of woe will be heard all the way to Ma'am."
    "All men have to dance to the music of an untuned lyre once in a while," Nebwa said.
    Bak glanced toward the lord Re, hanging low on the western horizon, then weighed the commandant's summons against the need for information. "Imsiba and I will return the skiffs. We'll drop you two off at the quay and we'll sail on-with this man's body-to the place where the fishermen beach their boats. I've questions that can be answered only by men who earn their bread on the river."
    Imsiba voice$ the question in the other men's eyes. "Should you not first report to the commandant, my friend?"
    "The days are very hot, Imsiba, and unkind to the dead. This body will soon lose its color and form unless it's dealt with in the house of death. I wish the fishermen to see it now, before any further change takes place."

    "Well, Meru, what do you think?" Bak didn't know which was worse, the cloying scent of death, the reek of the grizzled fisherman hunkered on the opposite side of the body, or the rank odor of fish emanating from the half dozen skiffs beached along the shore.
    Meru, his mouth puckered in thought, rocked back on his bony haunches and scratched the inside of his thigh. "He died at the hands of another, I'd say."
    Imsiba shook his head as if unable to cope with so ridiculous a statement. Three younger fishermen, stark naked, smirked at each other over the nets they were spreading out to dry on rickety driftwood frames.
    Bak, well acquainted with the games the villagers played, implored the lord Amon to give him patience. "Your years have given you wisdom, old man, but even I, in my youth, can see how he lost his life."
    "Could've been. . ." Meru eyed the body; his torn fingernails worked their way toward his dirty, tattered loincloth. "Could've been thrown from a ship up by the Belly of Stones."
    "Don't be an ass, Meru!" Imsiba nudged the old man's shoulder with a knee, not hard enough to tip him over but with enough force to remind him that he could end up sprawled facedown on the ground. "No ships have sailed beyond Buhen all week."
    "Look at this man, Meru." Bak pointed to the blotches and tears on the waxen skin. "Read these marks on his body and tell me of his travels upriver."
    The old man leaned over his spread knees, scratched a buttock, and studied the injuries. "Came through the Belly of Stones, as I see you've guessed."
    "Surely not all the way," Bak