Djehuty sat on the dais, hands resting on the arms of his chair, posture erect. He looked down at the man on his knees before him. "Speak up, Ipy. What favor do you want this time?"
The petitioner, a man of medium height with broad shoulders and muscular arms, shiny with sweat smudged by smoke or ashes, scuttled forward half a pace. He reeked of sweat, filling the audience hall with his sour odor.
"Oh, please, most kind sir, if you deem it right and proper to give me a favorable judgment, I'll honor you more than I honor our sovereign, that I swear to the lord Khnum."
"I'm sure you will," Djehuty murmured, more to Lieutenant Amonhotep, standing beside his chair, than to the craftsman.
Bak stood near the massive double doors through which supplicants entered the audience hall, amused yet sympathetic. Men like Ipy abounded along the Belly of Stones, and from long experience he knew that dealing with them required infinite patience as well as a firm hand.
Few people remained in the hall. Most of those who had come seeking judgment or wise counsel — had gone. The scribes who were no longer needed had returned to Simut's lair to document the day's proceedings. Antef had made a perfunctory report and left some time ago, as had several other members of the governor's staff. The guard standing nearby in front of the doors, impatient to be on his way, constantly patted his bare leg, as if keeping time to a tune he alone could hear.
Ipy inched forward. "I'll go each day to the shrine of the hearing ear behind the mansion of the lord Khnum, sir, and I'll pray on bended knee for your well-being for ever and ever. I'll make offerings of food and drink, of flowers and incense. Then I'll go to the other shrines of Abu, each and everyone, seeking for you and yours all the good things of life. Health, wealth, happiness…"
"We know, Ipy." Amonhotep glanced toward Bak but made no sign of greeting. "You've vowed to pray for the governor each time you've approached this dais. You've no need to repeat the promise.',"
Scooting forward again, Ipy bowed his head. "I sometimes backslide, sir, forgetting to pray as I've said I would." His head shot up, his voice rang with sincerity. "But this time, I'll not break my word. I'll throw down my tools and leave my workshop, letting my customers wait for the pots I've promised. I'll let my wife wear rags and my little children suffer hunger. All so I can spend half of each day on my knees. So I can…"
Djehuty's eyes darted around the room, as if seeking relief. He noticed Bak, grimaced, looked back at the petitioner, and his voice turned testy. "What is it you want, man?"
"You're wise and noble beyond your years, sir. I trust you always to make a right and proper judgment, to aid all who need help, to.. "
Amonhotep stepped forward. "That's enough, Ipy. Either make your petition or leave us."
"But, sir, I was just trying to…"
"Guard!" Djehuty stood up and pointed. "Take this man away," he commanded. "I've no time to listen to foolishness." He gave Ipy a venomous look. "A few days' imprisonment should teach him the value of short and concise speech."
A guard hurried up, grabbed Ipy by the arm, and jerked him to his feet. The craftsman's sly smile faded. His eyes darted from Djehuty to Amonhotep to the guard, registering confusion and fear.
"Sir," Amonhotep said, "Ipy's been here before, more than once. You know he meant no harm. If you let me speak with him, I'm certain he'll tell me the reason he's come again, and he'll do so with no further nonsense. Why lock him up if there's no need?"
Djehuty, his mouth tight and determined, waved his hand, signaling the guard to take the craftsman away. The guard stood where he was, looking from the governor to his aide as if unsure what he should do. Bak guessed from his failure to respond immediately that Djehuty's quick anger and Amonhotep's attempt to moderate were not new to those who stood in the audience hall day after day, watching the proceedings.
Djehuty glared at the officer, the guard, and finally the craftsman. Not until Ipy began to whimper did he drop back into his chair. "Alright, Lieutenant, if you want to waste your time with this spawn of a dog, you may do so."
The guard released Ipy's arm and pivoted. As he did so, he winked at his colleague standing before the double doors, verifying Bak's guess that Amonhotep often tempered the governor's hasty decisions.
"They try my patience, Lieutenant." Djehuty closed his eyes and rubbed the lids, a man utterly exhausted by the pressure of duty. "If I could sit on this dais and judge matters of importance brought before me each day by men of substance, I'd feel my task of some use. But all too often, a week will go by-a month even-and no one comes before me with any petition more weighty than that of that dolt Ipy."
"Yes, sir." Does the man believe justice thrives solely for those of lofty birth and position? Bak wondered.
"My father sat in this chair, as did his father before him and his before him. I often wonder if they had some special way of maintaining patience."
Bak shifted his weight from one foot to the other, unable to think of an appropriate response. In fact, he was not sure the governor expected one.
As if roused by the silence, Djehuty's eyes popped open and he looked at the younger man as a schoolmaster would a pupil he suspected of whispering behind his back. "Are you aware that my family goes back all theway to Sarenput, who was governor of the south and hereditary prince during the reign of Kheperkare Senwosret many generations ago?" He stared at Bak as if daring him to doubt. "Yes, young man, I have royal blood coursing through my body. The blood of those brave and noble men whose houses of eternity look down upon Abu from the hillside on the west bank of the river."
"I've seen them from afar,' sir." Bak longed to get on with his pursuit of the slayer, but too abrupt a dismissal of Djehuty's heritage might seal the man's lips forever. He regretted Amonhotep's hasty departure with Ipy. The aide appeared quite adept at manipulating his master.
"Sarenput had his eternal resting place excavated among other, far older sepulchers, those of men who governed this province when the land of Kemet was young and Abu stood on its southern frontier." Djehuty clutched his long baton of office, leaning against the chair beside his leg, and his expression grew wishful. "Maybe they, too, were my ancestors. Would he have chosen to dwell forever among strangers?"..Sir… "
Djehuty sat back in his chair and smiled, cheered by the possibility, unlikely as it was, of so long a regal lineage. "Fortunately, my distinguished heritage has given me a strength of character few men can claim and the fortitude to do what I must, no matter how distasteful. Take that man Ipy, for example…"
"That's why I've come to you now, sir," Bak said, leaping through the door the governor had unwittingly opened. Djehuty's eyes narrowed. "Oh?"
"If I'm to find the man who's slain five people, you must help me." Remembering Antef's admission that he had pushed Djehuty too hard, thereby sentencing his troops to unending duty at the quarries, he spoke with the honeyed tongue of a nobleman who has spent all his days in the royal house. "I realize you've a multitude of tasks, all far more weighty than you're willing to acknowledge, but if you could spare me some time and the benefit of your experience and knowledge, your insight, you might set me on a path I've up to now failed to find."
Djehuty stared at the man standing before him. Bak feared he had gone too far.
"When first I saw you at the back of the hall, Lieutenant, I looked also for a man in shackles, thinking an officer so fast to find a pattern in these crimes would be equally quick to lay hands on the slayer." Adopting a fatherly manner, Djehuty chuckled. "Now, with no prisoner in tow, your initial confidence seems to be wanting."
Biting back a sharp reply, nearly choking on it, Bak did his best to sound like a dutiful officer, not a humble servant. "I freely admit I know scarcely more now than I did at this time yesterday, when the servant Nefer came with word of mistress Hatnofer's death. Sir."
Djehuty's mouth tightened at Bak's near lapse in courtesy. "I told you all I knew when first we spoke. I've nothing more to add." He stood up, gripped his baton, and stepped down off the dais, forcing Bak backward. "Now, as you yourself have pointed out, I'm a busy man. My daughter Khawet must already have servants waiting to bathe me." He strode across the pillared hall with the same air of purpose he might have used to approach a formal dedication.
Bak kept up with him step for step. "Will you tell me, sir, anything you've done that could've set off this string of deaths? An incident that may not have seemed significant to you but was important to someone else? Possibly resulting in a threat?"
Djehuty's step faltered, but only for an instant. "I've done nothing wrong. Nothing."
"Men have hinted that you've a secret, one all who know you are either afraid or ashamed to repeat."
"All lesser men wish to tear down the stronger, Lieutenant, hinting at weaknesses that burden them alone. Surely a man as experienced as you can sort the grain from the chaff."
Bak stopped, demanded, "Do you want to die, sir?" Djehuty, his face flaming, pivoted and raised his baton, ready to strike. Realization came to him, the knowledge that Bak was another man's man, and he whipped the baton down, making it whistle through the air. "You want to know what secret I harbor in my heart, Lieutenant?" His lips twisted in a sneer. "I don't like you. Nor do I like the insinuations you're making. If I hadn't sent a message to the vizier, telling him of your arrival, I'd send you back to Buhen before nightfall."
Bak's eyes met Djehuty's. The governor tried to hold the stare, but could not. He looked away, seeking escape, and strode rapidly to the door.
No, Bak thought, you're not worried about the message you sent to the capital. You're afraid to die. And you know of no one but me who has the slightest chance of laying hands on the slayer before he comes for you. The slightest chance? Perhaps no chance at all unless 1 can soon break down this wall of silence.
Bak followed Djehuty out the door, but turned left at the first short passage. At the end, he came upon a large room, its ceiling supported by two tall brightly painted lotus-shaped columns, with high windows admitting light. Ten scribes sat cross-legged on the floor, each surrounded by the tools of his trade. The reed pens darting across the regular columns on their scrolls sounded like birds scratching in a pile of spilled grain.
Simut, seated, on a thick linen pad in front of the lesser scribes, frowned at Bak. "May I help you, Lieutenant?" The soft scraping sound dwindled and ten pairs of eyes turned Bak's way. "I'm searching for Lieutenant Amonhotep. I've been told he came here after he finished with the craftsman Ipy."
A look of relief, quickly hidden, flickered across the chief scribe's face. "He's come and gone. There was a problem at the harbor above Swenet, where ships unload their cargo for overland transport around the rapids. A fight between caravan masters, I understand."
Bak longed to ask again what secret Djehuty held in his heart, but knew he would get nothing with so many men listening. "Have you told him of my questions?"
"What the two of you discuss is between him and his master and the gods. It's none of my affair."
The answer was oblique, but Bak gathered Simut had said nothing. In the unlikely event that no one else had warned the young officer, he would be unprepared for the difficult questions Bak meant to ask and the even harder choices he would have to make. However, unprepared did not mean compliant. Bak had learned during the voyage from Buhen to Abu that if Amonhotep deemed he should say nothing, he would remain mute.
"Your Medjay Psuro is at the landingplace, sir." The servant, a boy of about eight years, tried hard to look solemn and trustworthy, but his eyes danced with excitement at being entrusted with a message of such great import. "He has news he says you'll want to hear."
Bak thanked the boy with a smile and hurried outside. He found the Medjay a hundred or more paces downstream of the landingplace, talking to a gap-toothed old woman with spotted hands and the protruding stomach of one who has borne many children. While they spoke, she lifted sheets and clothing from the bushes and boulders across which she had draped them to dry, folded them, and laid them in a basket. Psuro might not have had the gift Kasay`a had of attracting women who yearned to mother him, but he had a way with those who eked out a living selling foodstuffs and providing minor but necessary services.
Bak stood off to the side, saying nothing, until she had gone on her way. "She'll wash our linen?"
"She has a taste for pigeon," Psuro grinned. "Though she has far too many customers, so she says, she'll squeeze our meager laundry in among the rest, and she'll mend torn articles as well. Each time, I'll give her a bird."
Bak thought the price too steep, but held his tongue. Every time he had tracked a slayer, he had come away bruised and battered, his kilts torn and filthy. If the slayer in the governor's villa proved equally difficult to lay hands on, he feared the old woman would earn a flock of pigeons.
They headed back upstream, walking close to the river's edge, stepping over rocks and around brush, slipping in patches of mud. The western sky was pale, a sheet of gold diluted with silver. To the east, tiny pinpoints barely visible so early in the evening promised a night brilliant with stars. "You've news," Bak prompted.
Psuro, looking pleased with himself, nodded. "The trader Pahared sends his regards. He remembers well the afternoon he spent with you and Troop Captain Nebwa in Nofery's house of pleasure." A studied seriousness could not quite, hide a smile. "A time of revelry and excessive drunkenness, he says."
Smiling at the memory, pleased with Psuro's success, Bak stepped over a turtle making its slow way toward the water. "I thank the lord Amon you had better luck in Swenet than in Abu."
"You must first thank my tenacity," Psuro laughed. "If I'd not searched with due diligence, I'd never have found him."
"He doesn't dwell in Swenet?"
"His wife has a house of pleasure near the market, and they live in a villa close by. I found him in neither place but at the harbor." Psuro pulled back the branch of a bush and held it while Bak edged by. "Pahared, I suspect, is on his way to becoming a man of wealth. He's the master of a trading ship, as he was when you met him in Buhen, and he shows no outward sign of success. But he buys hay downriver, ships it south to Swenet, and sells it to caravan masters to feed their donkeys. He admits he has no competition."
"I took him to be a resourceful man." Bak climbed onto the stone landingplace, thought what best to do, crossed to the skiff. "I must speak with him, Psuro. Maybe one who dwells in Swenet, a place where men come and go, transients who owe no special loyalty to Djehuty, can unlatch a door I've failed to open."
Pahared was just as Bak remembered him: a large, heavily muscled man with an incipient paunch and a hint of gray at the temples. His knee-length kilt rode low on his belly and wide beaded bracelets accentuated the thickness of his wrists and arms. He was good-natured under normal circumstances, Bak recalled, but formidable when pushed too hard. They had greeted each other like old friends, not men who had spent a single afternoon drinking and playing games of chance.
"There's not a man or woman in this province who hasn't heard of the murders." Pahared, seated on a low stool, watched his wife break the dried mud plugs stoppering two beer jars. She was almost as tall as he, but reed-thin, and she had the dark skin and woolly hair of the peoples living far to the south of Kush. "With so many dying so fast and all in the governor's household, most whisper that a demon of the night has come to lay waste to this province. They're scared, if the truth be told. Afraid the crops will fail, their animals sicken and die, their families starve."
Bak accepted a jar with a quick smile of thanks, toed a stool away from the wall, and sat beside the trader. "If Djehuty is the ultimate goal, as I think he is, the demon resides in a man, and he's out to avenge some unspeakable deed."
"I wouldn't know about that." Pahared eyed five sailors filing in through the door, their unsteady. gait and slurred speech pointing to earlier visits to other houses of pleasure. "I'm not sure anybody knows. That's what scares them so. They don't know where to turn, which demon or genie or god to placate."
Having no patience with superstition, Bak scowled at the room in which they sat: a large, open space with a high ceiling supported by one square mudbrick column. Long shafts of the waning light of evening filtered down from high windows. A large, gangly gray monkey searched through the straw covering the floor, hunting insects. Three-legged stools and a few low tables stood around the room, while the walls were lined with beer vats, wine jars, and baskets filled with drinking bowls. The room smelled of beer and vomit; the sailors reeked of sweat and fish and garlic.
This place of business reminded him of Nofery, though it resembled neither the old hovel where she had once toiled nor her new, much grander house of pleasure. It must be the smell, l e thought, the ever-present stench of the brew and overindulgence. "You've heard no tales that discredit Djehuty?" he asked.
"I've known of more popular governors, no doubt about it, but nothing that would bring the wrath of the gods upon his head."
Bak gave the trader a wry smile. "You disappoint me, my friend. When I saw this place of business, located on the main thoroughfare running through Swenet, close to the market and within easy walking distance of the encampment where the merchants unload their caravans, I thought to myself. how ideally situated to attract patrons from all walks of life-men who ofttimes drink to excess and speak with loose and frank tongues. When I saw your wife…" He nodded toward the woman, who stood with her shoulder against the doorjamb, keeping a close eye on customers and servants alike. "… she reinforced my confidence in you. I never thought superstition would reign."
Pahared chuckled. "I hear many tales, I'm bound to admit, some less fanciful than others. Among them, complaints about Djehuty. But none unique to him, I suspect."
"Tell me. I've nowhere else to turn."
Pahared laugaed again, not taking him seriously. "They say he's indolent, a man who lives a life of luxury and ease. One who, in his youth, loved to hunt and fish and fowl, but now prefers to loll away the hours in his villa, eating sweets and drinking wine. A man responsible for meting out the law, yet one who has scant knowledge of the laws of the land. A man who, thanks to the gods, is surrounded by men of talent and knowledge who tend to the needs of this province in his stead."
Bak suspected the assessment was fair. The brief time he had spent in the audience hall had divulged no brighter side to the man. "What of the men close to him? Have any of them committed an offense that might be laid at Djehuty's feet?"
Pahared drank from his beer jar, licked his lips, shrugged. "Not that I've heard-and I would've. Most have lived here since they were babes, and their lives are as open to view as the orb of Re traveling across the sky day after day."
Bak expelled a quick, frustrated sigh. "When I press Djehuty for help, he acts like a man with guilt in his heart but denies all wrongdoing. Three men on his staff have hinted he has a guilty secret, and none will enlighten me."
Pahared frowned. "Well, whatever he's done, it wasn't here." He watched two men of middle years, merchants from the look of them, wander in from the street and pass through the room to the courtyard beyond. His wife hastened out to serve them. "He was in the army, you know. In fact, as a young officer, he spent a couple years on the eastern frontier. I wonder how he conducted himself there?"
Bak knew garrison duty could sometimes bring out the worst in a man, but the assignment seemed too long ago, the eastern frontier too distant. Especially when trying to account for the death of five other people, two of whom-mistress Hatnofer and the child Nakht-he knew for a fact had never set foot out of Abu.
A new thought struck and his eyes narrowed. Djehuty had succeeded his father as provincial governor. During the older man's tenure, a seasoned officer had probably led the garrison, keeping the troops alert and trained, but the governor had in effect been in command-as Djehuty now commanded Antef. "After he served out his time on the frontier, did he remain in the army?"
"He did." Pahared glanced at his wife, who returned to her spot in the doorway. If he noticed the tension in Bak's voice, he gave no sign. "First he served as an aide to a royal envoy, traveling north to the land of Amurru. Then, when the commander of the garrison of Abu was recalled to Kemet, his father appealed to our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut, asking that Djehuty be given the post. That was ten or so years ago, when she was new to the throne and anxious to win the loyalty of powerful provincial governors. So she agreed."
Bak smiled, satisfied with a guess proven right: Djehuty had come back to Abu as a ranking officer, one in a position to step on many toes. "Was the garrison peopled mostly with local men? Soldiers born and reared in this province?"
"It was, but no longer. Menkheperre Thutmose, when he took command of the army, assigned men from throughout the land of Kemet."
Bak, nodding his understanding, watched without seeing a three-legged white dog trot into the room and lie down at Pahared's feet. Not only had Menkheperre Thutmose, the young man who shared the throne in name only, letting the queen have her way, cleared away incompetent officers and forced new men to prove their worth, but he had made radical changes throughout the regiments and garrisons, moving men of all ranks from one post to another so their loyalties lay with him rather than with provincial noblemen or governors.
"After Djehuty came back, did anything-anything at all-happen for which blame might be laid at his feet?" Bak heard the doggedness in his voice, the refusal to let go.
Pahared shook his head, regret filling his eyes. "I'd like to help, my young friend, but I can think of nothing."
His wife stepped forward and spoke a few words in her own tongue. Pahared snapped his fingers, nodded, listened further, and sniffled his thanks. She returned to the door, obviously content with herself and his response.
"My wife understands the tongue of Kemet but hesitates to use it, fearing ridicule." The merchant gave the woman a fond smile. `=She has a better memory than I do. She reminded me of the storm. The storm that took so many young lives." His eyes darted toward Bak. "But that was long ago.
It may have nothing to do with the here and now." "Tell me about it."
"A raging tempest out in the desert." Pahared looked surprised at Bak's ignorance. "Have you never heard of it? Five years ago, it was. Over a hundred men lost in the wind and sand, never to be seen again."
Bak forced his thoughts back. He had been assigned to the garrison at Mennufer at that time, newly appointed to head a company of charioteers, full of his own importance and barely listening to rumors of an army vanished in a desert storm.
"I heard tales of an entire company of spearmen lost and…" He stiffened, gave the merchant a sharp look. "And a commander who returned alive. That was Djehuty?"
"He came back, yes." Pahared stared at the large, calloused hands clasped in his lap, saddened by the tale, by the loss of so many. "He and a handful of other men."
Bak nodded slowly, dwelling on the news. "I take it Djehuty, as commanding officer, was responsible for so grave a loss."
"In the year I've lived in Swenet, I've heard no man lay blame at his feet." Pahared snorted, derisive. "How can you fault a mere mortal faced with the might and fury of the gods?
"You can't expect_ Djehuty to speak of that day!" Lieutenant Amonhotep ran his fingers around the upper inside edge of his broad beaded collar, as if it lay too tight around his neck. "Even now he feels the weight of responsibility, though no man alive could've guessed a storm would strike so late in the year."
The aide had been brought by Psuro to Pahared's house of pleasure, expecting a companionable evening with Bak. Instead, he had been ushered out to the courtyard, which was lighted by a torch mounted in a bracket by the door, and pressed for information. Now he sat on a stool, drinking bowl in hand, offering nothing, admitting a bare minimum.
Bak leaned over to pet the three-legged dog, now curled up at his feet. Merry laughter and the clatter of knucklebones reminded him of the good time to be had beyond the door, doubling his regret that he must probe and poke. "I was told he was so filled with shame he stepped down from his post as garrison commander, turning his back on the army forever." Pahared had said no such thing, but exaggeration might free Amonhotep's power of speech.
"I suppose to some it looked that way." The aide's voice was as stiff as his spine. "In reality, he left the army to take his father's place as provincial governor-his right as sole heir."
"Did you serve with him while still he was an officer?" "Since my thirteenth birthday." Amonhotep did not look reassured by the change of subject.
"You, like so many others who toil in the governor's villa, must've been born and reared in Abu."
"I grew to manhood in Nubt, on Djehuty's estate." "And he took you into this garrison ten years ago…" Bak queried the aide with a glance, received a nod. "… when he came back to the province."
"He made me his herald, yes."
No wonder Amonhotep was loyal to a fault, Bak thought. He had Djehuty to thank for his rank and position. And possibly his life. Whether herald or aide, the young officer would have accompanied Djehuty on that fateful journey into the desert.
"What was he when he returned? A troop captain like Antef?" Bak's voice took on an edge of cynicism. "Or was he handed the lofty rank of commander?"
Amonhotep's eyes flashed indignation. "Djehuty may have his faults, Lieutenant, but he's always been an honorable man. This 7garrison is small, warranting no more than a troop captain at its head, and so he was when his father died and he took his seat as governor. While still he served in the army, I pointed out more than once that some men travel to the capital, seeking advantage. He refused to do so."
A refusal to seek preferment did not sound like the Djehuty who had summoned Bak from Buhen but refused to help him, nor the Djehuty he sensed behind the compliments and complaints of the men on the governor's staff. "He had no black marks against him as an officer?"
"None."
Bak raised an eyebrow. "No blame was laid when he lost more than a hundred men in a sandstorm?"
"His record is clean, I tell you."
Again Bak veered away from the point, hoping to unsettle the aide. "Why would a garrison commander lead a company of men out onto the desert? Would that not be a task for an officer of lower rank? A lieutenant like you or me?"
"Normally, yes. But Djehuty was no laggard. He wanted to stand tall and proud at the head of his men." "Instead…" Bak made his voice cool, deliberate. "… a storm struck, decimating the column and leaving few survivors."
Amonhotep, eyes flashing with anger, gulped down the last of his beer, set the bowl on the floor, and stood up. A mouse flitted into the shadows behind several pottery storage containers. "The storm was unfortunate. No, worse. It was catastrophic. A cruel whim of the gods."
Bak rose, blocking the aide's path to the door. "Nine days from now, Lieutenant, Djehuty may well be dead. Slain by a man I've failed to lay hands on because no one close to him will speak with a frank and open tongue."
"The storm, those many deaths, can't be laid at his feet! He came close to losing his own life!"
"Convince me!" Bak sensed men at the door, attracted by the raised voices. He waved them away, urging them to mind their own business, and spoke more softly. "Tell me what happened, Amonhotep." -
The aide dropped onto his stool, fumbled for his drinking bowl, found it empty. Bak strode to the door, signaled to Pahared's wife for two more jars, and returned to his seat. The dog, its attention focused on the shadows between the pottery jars, rested its chin on his sandaled foot.
Amonhotep lowered his head and rubbed his eyes. He spoke in a tired, defeated voice. "I don't enjoy talking about that storm, or remembering. No man does who lived through it."
Bak nodded, offering no words of sympathy, his understanding limited by a lack of experience he in no way wished to gain.
The aide looked up, his mouth tight and resolute. "Desert tribesmen — thirty, maybe forty men from the western oasis of Uahtrest-had been raiding caravans carrying trade goods past the rapids and attacking outlying farms in the province. The garrison was short-manned. To send sufficient troops to protect the caravans strained us beyond our limit; to guard the farms was impossible."
"Did you not send word to the police at Uahtrest?" Amonhotep gave a short, bitter laugh. "Twice we did, and neither messenger ever returned. Either they were waylaid in the desert or those men assigned to uphold the law in Uahtrest handed them over to the raiders." He glanced toward the door, where Pahared's wife stood, a beer jar in each hand. Not until she had delivered the brew and gone back to her other customers did he continue. "Djehuty and his officers agreed: the raiders must be stopped and we must do it. The best way, they decided, was to march to Uahtrest, taking all available spearmen, and ambush them. Decimate them."
Bak nodded his understanding. "By making an example of them, they hoped to discourage other tribesmen from future raids."
"Yes." Amonhotep filled his drinking bowl and took several deep swallows, bolstering his will to go on. "A company of spearmen-a hundred strong-set out, as did their officers and a half dozen scouts who knew the desert well. Each man led a donkey, some burdened with food, some laden with water, all carrying weapons. Djehuty marched at their head." "And you with him," Bak guessed.
Amonhotep gave an odd, strangled laugh, nodded. "We were four days out when the breeze stiffened and the air grew thick with dust. The world turned black. I could see nothing. Not Djehuty before me or the donkey whose rope I held." He paused, swallowed hard. "Over the roar of the wind, I heard shouts, contradictory orders, donkeys braying. Sand clogged my nose, crept beneath my eyelids and under my clothing, abraded my flesh. I tied the rope around my wrist, caught hold of the bridle, and held on as if my very life depended upon the donkey I led. And it did."
The aide took another deep drink. Bak could see how hard it was for him to go on, how dreadful the memory. He wished he could put an end to the tale, ease the officer's pain, but to do so would be foolhardy, might even cost Djehuty his life.
"The creature turned its back to the wind," Amonhotep said, "letting the storm blow us where it would, and I stumbled along beside him. It was I who fell, not him, and I pulled him down with me. He struggled to rise, but I clung to him, burying my face in his neck, burying his head in my lap. The sand built up around us and I…" He paused; a faint, humorless smile touched his lips. "I felt sure we would die, the donkey and I together."
Another pause, a soft laugh. "The wind stopped blowing. In a world as silent as a tomb, I stood up and so did my four-legged companion. His back was bare, I saw; he no longer carried the water jars we had set out with that morning. We shook off the sand and looked around, thinking other men and animals would show themselves. None did."
Amonhotep's breathing had grown heavy, labored, revealing the torment of memory. "I panicked, running first in one direction and then another, digging into every small mound of sand until my hands bled, desperate to find other survivors. At last, exhausted and thirsty, I faced the truth: we-my donkey and I-were alone. We spent the rest of the day hiding from the burning sun in the-shade of a low ridge. As darkness fell, we set out, using the stars to guide us. It was cold; our stomachs were empty and our mouths dry. So very dry."
He swallowed hard again. "As dawn broke, my donkey brayed. In the distance, we heard another and a second one, both somewhere beyond a stony ridge. When finally I realized the sound was real, not an illusion born of thirst, we hurried toward them, I thinking we'd find the rest of our troops." His laugh this time was short, cynical. "We found instead a dozen or so donkeys. Most, like my own, had lost their loads, but two carried water and another food. After that, we had only to ration our supplies, stay out of the sun as best we could, and travel eastward at night, using the stars to point the way. We found other donkeys scattered across the desert, none carrying food or water. We came upon no men."
Bak could well imagine the hot, burning sands, donkeys left to make their lonely way back to the river or to die, the utter absence of men. A dry and desolate land, eerie in its emptiness and silence.
'13y doling out water in ever smaller portions," Amonhotep went on, "I managed to get myself and the donkeystwenty-eight at the end-to the black land of Kemet. I thought never to see so beautiful a sight: fertile green fields, the life-giving river, and men who took us in, fed us, doctored our injuries. Other survivors straggled off the desert a day or two later, sick from too much sun, weak from little or no food and drink. Djehuty, I learned later, had arrived ahead of me. Like me, he'd found a donkey laden with water."
The dog at Bak's feet moaned in its sleep. He reached down to scratch the creature's ears. Pahared was right; Djehuty could not be blamed for the onset of the storm. Why then, he wondered, did his instincts tell him there was more to this incident than the obvious? Amonhotep had clearly told the truth as far as he knew it, but how much of the truth could he know? He had been separated from Djehuty and everyone else from the onset of the storm.
Bak stumbled down the dark, narrow lane, not as sure as he would have liked that the unfamiliar route would take him to his temporary quarters. His torch, which Pahared's wife had urged him to borrow from her courtyard, sputtered and flickered, threatening to go out, its fuel nearly burned away. Each time he lowered it to examine a suspicious shadow or raised it high to illuminate the lane farther ahead, the sudden movement threatened to extinguish the flame. He muttered an oath, directing it at himself. He should have sought out a member of the night patrol and asked for a better light, but he had not wanted to tarry after half carrying the besotted Amonhotep home to the governor's villa.
He turned a corner; the torch spat sparks. A cat, yowling fear, shot down the lane and vanished in the dark. He followed, counting doors as he walked, praying he was in the right street. Like all older cities in Kemet, Abu had grown at the whim of those who lived there, with villas built and smaller houses built in between, one against another. Now the old single-story dwellings, like the one he and his men had been assigned, were being enlarged upward, many two or even three stories high, to make the best possible use of the confined space. Every lane, every house was different, yet each looked much like the rest to a stranger. Especially in the dark.
Approaching the sixth door and a corner, he heard Kasaya's deep-voiced curse on the rooftop above and Psuro's laugh. He relaxed, smiled. With luck, the odors he smelled of braised lamb and onions came from their roof, not that of a neighboring household, and they had saved some for him. He had had plenty of beer through the evening, but nothing solid since midday.
He brushed aside the mat covering the door and stepped into the house, holding the torch low and to his right, well away from the dry, flammable woven reeds. As he let the mat drop and raised the flame higher, a shower of sparks fell from the torch. He glimpsed a long, fish-like object on the floor beyond his foot, and the torch sputtered out.
"Where's a lamp?" he called, edging sideways, trying to avoid the object he had seen.
"Up here." Psuro looked down from the top of the stairway leading to the roof, a black silhouette outlined by stars. "I'll light it from the brazier."
He disappeared from view, but soon returned. Carrying the lamp in one hand, shielding the flame with the other, he plunged down the stairs. Bak stood where he was, trying to see through the blackness beyond his feet.
Kasaya looked down from above. "We saved some lamb for you, sir, and stewed vegetables. I hope you're hungry." Psuro dropped to the floor with a thud and drew his hand away from the blaze. The flame rose tall and straight, free of smoke, illuminating the floor, the few pieces of furniture, and the baskets of supplies, casting shadows against the walls and into the corners. A large fish, its head pointed toward the door, its scales vaguely iridescent in the uncertain light, lay a couple of paces inside the door, outlined by its own shadow. A perch, Bak saw, an arm's length from nose to tail. That the creature was dead there could be no doubt. Its head was crushed. The weapon, a chunk of black granite sized to fit in the hand, with bits of scale clinging to its rough edges, lay beside it.
"What in the name of the lord Amon… " Psuro's voice tailed off; puzzlement clouded his features.
"Must be a joke," Kasaya said, staring down.
Bak was as perplexed as they were, as dumbfounded. "Who came to this house tonight? Did you see anyone approach?"
"It is a joke, isn't it, sir?" Kasaya asked, seeking reassurance.
Psuro shook his head. "We've been on the roof since nightfall, eating, playing senet, talking. We paid no heed to the lane."
Bak knelt beside the perch, forcing himself to think. A lack of blood on the floor told him the creature had been slain elsewhere, probably pulled from the water and bludgeoned before it suffocated. If the fish had been intended as a gift of food, the donor surely would have brought it gutted and cleaned, and would have placed it out of reach of scavenging cats and dogs. Since that was not the case, why had it been left? Could it have something to do with his mission in Abu? With the murders in the governor's villa?
A thought surfaced; a chill ran up his spine. This could well be a reminder of the first victim. The child Nakht, who could swim like a fish. His head had been crushed. Was the slayer teasing him? Challenging him? Or could the fish be a warning?
"We'll say nothing of this to anyone," he said. "Not Djehuty, Amonhotep, or anyone else in the governor's household. With luck, curiosity will eat at the one who left it, and he'll give himself away."