by Lauren Haney
"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 bui
lt 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."
Chapter Six
"Nakht was all I had left." The woman grabbed the feet of the duck whose neck she had wrung and dropped onto a low stool to dunk the bird into a large gray bowl of boiling water. The stench of wet feathers filled the air. "Now I'm alone, with no husband to share my old age and no sons or daughters to ease my journey to the netherworld."
She was of medium height and bony, a woman who looked long past her middle years but was probably ten years younger. A life of toil and deprivation, disappointment and anguish, had bent her back, wrinkled her face and arms, and given her a thin-lipped, bitter demeanor.
"Was he your only child?" Bak asked.
"I lost a girl a few days after childbirth, two before they reached full term, and two older boys to a fever that swept through this city before Nakht was born." She pulled the duck out of the water and, letting it drip into the bowl, plucked a handful of grayish feathers. They fell to the ground in a sodden clump, intensifying the stench. "He came late in life, a gift of the gods, and I could have no more."
Bak stood outside the rough lean-to beneath which she sat, letting the early morning sun warm his back. The roof, palm fronds spread across long reeds, was attached to the end of a shed that sheltered seven donkeys with their wobbly newborns and three others big-bellied and ready to give birth. The straw beneath the animals was clean, the smell of manure faint. He hoped the merchant who had taken in the woman in exchange for labor cared as well for his servants as he did for his animals.
"Did he speak of his life in the governor's household?" "Often." The bitterness vanished from her smile and pride filled her eyes. "Mistress Hatnofer worked him hard and had a tongue as sharp as a scythe, but the rest more than made amends. He slept on a soft pallet and ate food left over from the master's table-all he could hold and more, he told me. He thought the house, its many rooms and rich furnishings, more beautiful than the Field of Reeds, and he looked at mistress Khawet as a goddess."
"And the governor?"
She flicked her hand, sending damp feathers flying, and gave him a scornful look. "What would a boy of the kitchens know of a man so lofty?"
He nodded, pretending he agreed the question was ridiculous. He had in fact gotten what he sought, verification of Djehuty's offhand remark that he had not known the boy.
Bak had lain awake half the night, searching in vain for a more satisfactory explanation for the fish left in his quarters. Finding none, he had turned his attention to the child, seeking a reason for what seemed a senseless death. Nakht had been eleven years of age when slain, six at the time of the deadly sandstorm-assuming the storm lay behind the murders. At that time, he had been too young to have traveled into the desert with the soldiers, too young to have provided the smallest of services to the garrison. But other possibilities existed, other connections, that needed exploring. Thus Bak had come to the child's mother.
"How did your husband earn his daily bread?" he asked. She turned the duck to pluck the soft white feathers from its breast. "He served our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut, as a scout for the garrison of Abu."
Her voice conveyed pride, but something else. Defensiveness, he thought. Several scouts had accompanied that illfated trek into the desert. Her husband must have been among those who failed to return. "How long ago did he die?"
"Four years."
"He didn't vanish in the… T' Realizing his error, he bit. off the words. Nakht's father had not marched off to his death, as had the others-or had he come back a survivor?
She looked up from the fowl, her expression dark, her voice fierce. "You don't understand, do you? How a man can come back near death, broken in body and spirit. A shell of the man he was before." She flung away a handful of feathers. Most lay where they fell in a soppy mess, but a few, dry and delicate, were whisked away by the breeze. "You think because he returned alive, because he was a scout, you can point a finger at him, making him responsible for all those many deaths. Well, let me tell you, Lieutenant! Their loss was no fault of his!"
He gave her a surprised look, perplexed by the outburst. He had made no accusation, nor had he thought to. Why was she so quick to take offense, to deny?
"First my husband and now my son." She lowered the duck into the water and swirled it around, washing off the loose feathers. Bitterness again settled on her face, and the frustration of the powerless. "This city of Abu, this province, is cursed. The day those men marched i
nto the desert, the gods ceased to smile on all who dwell here."
She clamped her mouth shut and refused to speak further, whether from superstitious fear or some more down-to-earth reason Bak could not begin to guess. He returned to the governor's villa, his thoughts awhirl. Close-mouthed though she had been, she had laid the foundation for a new idea, one that fitted in well with all he had learned thus far.
"Sure I knew Montu." The guard Kames, a wiry man of thirty or so year*, propped his spear against the high mudbrick wall that separated the garden from the well and hunkered down beside the weapon. "He talked too much, told the same tales over and over again until he put you to sleep, but I liked him."
"He was a witless old fool." The second guard, called Nenu, hefty of build, barely seventeen years of age, stood his spear with the other weapon and leaned a shoulder against the wall. He made a contemptuous face. "He acted no older than the children he allowed inside these walls. Against the specific orders of mistress Hatnofer, mind you. Talk about asking for trouble!" He shook his head, laughed cynically.
"I heard she wanted him — replaced," Bak said, hoisting himself onto the low wall that curved around the well. "So goes the rumor," Kames said, "but he managed to hang on in spite of her. Or to spite her, more likely." Nenu snorted derision. "It was the governor who kept him on."
"Djehuty?" Bak asked, hiding his interest, feigning skepticism.
"I've befriended a servant in the kitchen, a girl. We…" Nenu smirked. "Well, let's say I know her well. Very well. She once overheard mistress Hatnofer quarreling with the governor. The housekeeper wanted to get rid of the old man; he refused."
Djehuty had implied, Bak recalled, that he had not known Montu. "Did he give a reason?"
"Who knows?" Nenu shrugged. "My friend was afraid mistress Hatnofer would catch her eavesdropping, so She slipped away."
His older companion grinned. "Maybe the governor wanted to show her who was master. I would've if I'd had sufficient nerve-and the power to go with it."
