by Lauren Haney
He stopped chewing, his voice grew hushed. “My blood went cold, and the worm of fear crept up my spine.”
“Yet you gave chase,” Bak said, knowing well the strength of will it must have taken.
“Not because I wanted to, I tell you.” Kasaya broke off another chunk and paused, holding it in midair halfway to his mouth. “Giving myself no time to think, I raced across this terrace, passing innumerable statues and sections of columns behind which hid I knew not what. Up the ramp I went, and into the temple. The building was dark, the moon a sliver so thin and weak the unfinished colonnade cast no shadow.” He glanced at the piece of fish in his hand, returned it to its bed of leaves. “I saw no one, heard nothing. I felt obliged to search the sanctuary and the chapels to either side. I crossed the courtyard to the sanctuary, but beyond its portal lay nothing but black. As was the case in the rooms to the south. I feared greatly and longed for a torch.”
Bak could almost see the young Medjay, standing in the dark, wide-eyed and quaking with fear, trying to convince himself to step into one of those fearsome chambers.
“I heard a faint noise behind me. I spun around and spotted the light. It was near the entrance to the chapel of the lord Re. A tiny flicker that vanished in an instant.” Kasaya took a deep, ragged breath. “Thinking it had gone inside, I followed. All the while I walked around the altar, I thanked the lord Re that the chamber had no roof, that I could see my hand before my face. I found nothing; the light had vanished like the spirit it was.”
Or, more likely, a quick and agile man, Bak thought. One with a vile sense of humor. “Did you smell anything?
Smoke, for example, from an oil lamp?”
“No, sir.” Kasaya lifted the bite of fish to his mouth and ate. “I smelled nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing more.”
“The sanctuary and the southern chambers were empty?”
Kasaya flung him a guilty look. “I peeked inside, sir, but in the end I didn’t search them. They were too dark, and I could see nothing. Anyone or anything hiding there could’ve slipped past me and I’d have known no better.” Giving Bak no time for comment good or bad, he hurried on, “Instead, thinking you’d say I’d chased a man and not a spirit, I seated myself in the entrance near the top of the ramp, intending to remain until daylight, hoping to catch a man if a man it was.” He paused, frowned, offered up another point in his favor, “From there I could see Imen and go to his aid if need be.”
“He’d remained at his post?”
“Yes, sir. He told me later that he’d never have chased the malign spirit, as I did. I think he was afraid. He didn’t admit he was and spoke instead of disobeying orders, but how long has the malign spirit been seen in this valley with no guards giving chase?”
“How long did you stay at the temple?”
“I’d barely had time to settle myself when I glimpsed a light in the old temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. The spirit had flitted from Djeser Djeseru to there in the time it takes to blink an eye. I started down the ramp, but it vanished again.
I ran to the southern retaining wall and waited awhile, but it didn’t reappear. Certain no man could ever catch it, I finally decided to return to the tomb and Imen.”
Bak suspected the so-called malign spirit had lured Kasaya into the chapel of the lord Re, and had slipped out of the temple when he was safely out of the way. He also suspected, because of the light’s speedy appearance in the older temple, that more than one man had been roaming the valley floor, each carrying a small oil lamp.
He glanced across the field of partially worked stones toward the burly guard. “As far as you know, did Imen remain at his post all the while you were searching the temple?”
“I can’t swear to every moment,” Kasaya admitted, “but each time I looked, there he was.”
Bak eyed the young Medjay. By rights he should chastise him for abandoning his post at the tomb, but how could he reproach a man who had shown such courage in spite of his strong superstition, his fear of the unknown?
“Go back to the tomb and stay there,” he said. “Let me know when Menna arrives with the priest from the mansion of the lord Amon.”
Could Imen have entered the tomb during Kasaya’s absence? Probably not. Visible from the temple and assuming the Medjay might return at any moment, the guard would have had neither the time nor the freedom to do so. Nonetheless, Bak wanted to know for a fact that the body was intact, to be sure the ancient jewelry was on that bony wrist when the tomb was sealed for eternity.
As Kasaya strode away, Bak walked to the southern retaining wall and looked beyond the workmen’s huts to the old temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. Had the Medjay been deliberately drawn into the new temple? If so, for what purpose? To allow the malign spirit freedom of movement in the ruined structure? No one could have predicted the young policeman would have the courage to leave Imen’s side and give chase, but if the objective was worthy enough, perhaps the risk could not be ignored. Or had the second light, that in the old temple, been meant to draw Kasaya from Djeser Djeseru? Had he interrupted someone intent on setting up another accident?
“There’s Kames, sir, the chief stonemason.” Hori, arriving at Bak’s side unnoticed, pointed toward a crew of workmen toiling at the northern end of the lower colonnade. “You said you wished to speak with him. The white-haired man looking on.”
Bak tore his thoughts from Kasaya’s adventure and tamped down a sudden, nearly overwhelming desire to explore the ruined temple. He must speak first with the living, saving until later his quest for lights and shadows.
“I found plenty to fault in Montu, but he knew what he had to do and he did it.” Kames scratched his head, making his short white hair stand on end. His body was tall and angular, very thin, a living skeleton covered in leather-like skin. “You can’t criticize a man for doing his duty, now can you?”
“You’re more forgiving than anyone else I’ve talked to,”
Bak said. “In fact, I’ve been told he shirked his duty.”
“He was critical, to be sure, and never quite satisfied with where we placed the stones. But he had every right to be.
The responsibility for the finished temple rested heavily on his shoulders.”
Kames’s eyes darted toward a man checking the four sides of a block of stone, making sure they were square to each other and the top surface. Evidently not quite satisfied with what he saw, he moved closer to watch. The stone was one of many that would be stacked to create the square columns of the lower colonnade. The sides of the stone, like that of its mates, were rough, not yet dressed to a smooth surface. The final smoothing would be done after they were installed, before reliefs were carved and painted. Other stonemasons were scattered nearby, forming blocks similar in shape and size. The tapping of mallets on chisels made Bak think of giant birds, pecking away at some equally colossal food source. Two rows of square columns would ultimately stand before the retaining wall that held back the fill beneath the upper colonnade. As Bak had noticed before, the roof over this portico would form an open terrace along the front of the temple.
For the first time, he was struck by the fact that no construction ramps marred the facade to either side of the central ramp. “You surely use a ramp to raise these blocks into position, and also the architraves and roof slabs that will sit on top. Why is none here?”
Several of the men glanced at each other and exchanged surreptitious grins. The chief stonemason’s expression turned stormy. Bak saw at once that he had poured natron into an open wound.
“The last time our sovereign visited this temple, we had to take down the ramp we had here and another at the southern colonnade.” Kames’s nostrils flared with anger. “Senenmut said she wished to see the facade unencumbered by ramps, and so it was. I thought it wise not to replace them for a while, to rough out many of the column parts so we can position them all at one time. Thus saving us extra effort should she soon come again.”
A prudent decision, Bak suspected. Much effort
was required to build or tear down a ramp. Not as much as building a permanent mudbrick or stone structure, but the number of hours expended could be better used elsewhere. “Did Pashed not shoulder more than his burden of responsibility, while Montu sought the ear of Senenmut, taking much of the credit for building this temple?”
Kames shook his head in mild disgust. “Oh, I know.
Pashed complained all the time, saying this, that, and the other. Always critical of Montu, with never a word of praise.
But you have to understand: Montu was an artist while Pashed is a mere artisan. You can’t expect an artist to take an interest in the dreary day-to-day tasks of a project as big and important as this one.”
An unexpected puff of air lifted the dust from the steep slope to the north and flung it on the men below. Bak snapped his eyes and mouth shut as grit peppered his face and shoulders. Kames’s attitude was so different from that of the others to whom he had spoken that he could not help but wonder about the discrepancy. “Were you and Montu related in any way?”
A toothy grin let him know the stonemason understood exactly what he was getting at. “We weren’t even friendly.”
The smile, the flippant tone, promised a game of words Bak refused to be drawn into. A stream of curses drew his eyes to the northern retaining wall, where a crew of workmen were dragging a sledge laden with stone blocks up a construction ramp. Given time, Kames would explain himself, he felt sure. “You know Amonked has bade me look into the many accidents that have occurred since construction began on this temple.”
The stonemason’s smile was swept away by an inexplica-ble bitterness. “I wish you luck, Lieutenant.”
Bak eyed him closely. That he had struck a sensitive spot was apparent. “You and your men work with the stone, sometimes placing heavy blocks high above a man’s head.
Have you lost anyone to an accident?”
Kames glanced at the men scattered in front of what would one day be the colonnade, beckoned Bak to follow, and walked far enough away that none could hear. “A man died. Ahotep. A foreman.” He spat out the words, his voice hard, rough with emotion. “Seven months ago, it was. We’d just begun to raise the columns at the northern end of the portico, the end nearest the southern retaining wall.”
“How did it happen?”
“A part of the cliff broke away, sending stones plummet-ing down the slope and onto the temple.” Kames stared bale-86
Lauren Haney
fully at the cliff and went on with obvious effort. “Ahotep had gone up the ramp along which we were raising the blocks. We’d reached no higher than the second course, so the ramp was low. He was checking the placement of stones, making sure they were seated properly. An enormous boulder came hurtling down from the face of the cliff, bringing others with it and tearing away lesser rocks and earth. The retaining wall collapsed and he was struck down. Buried.
We dug him out, but could do nothing for him. His back was broken. He lived an hour that seemed a day, unable to move, helpless.” The stonemason cleared his throat, but could not clear away the grief on his face. “His death was a gift of the gods.”
Laying a gentle hand on Kames’s shoulder, Bak said, “He was close to you, I see.”
“He was my firstborn son.”
Bak muttered an oath. No wonder the old man ached.
“Were any other men injured?”
Another puff of air, this stronger than the first, blew dirt across the terrace. Bak swung away and raised his hands to his face, protecting eyes and mouth. As the breeze abated, he saw Kames wiping tears from his cheeks, tears of anguish, he felt sure, not moisture caused by the grit.
“Four were hurt,” the stonemason said. “Two will never toil again as once they did, their limbs too damaged to regain strength. The others are now raising the walls of a set of chambers our sovereign is having built in the mansion of the lord Amon in Waset.”
A bitter blow, Bak thought. Most of the work crews were men who had toiled together for years. To lose so many would not only upset the smooth functioning of the crew, but would rend the survivors’ hearts for months to come. “Do you, like most of the men toiling here at Djeser Djeseru, believe a malign spirit responsible for the accident?”
“I’d like to think not. I’d like to believe that one day I’ll lay hands on the one who loosed the rocks and break his back as my son’s back was broken. A vain hope, I’m forced to admit. How could a man make a cliff face fall?”
Eyeing the cliff looming above the northern retaining wall, Bak made a silent vow to climb up and see if he could find an answer to that question. Unfortunately, four months was a long time. Too long, he suspected, to find telltale signs of a man-if a man had indeed been responsible. The cliff face and the tower-like formations that had formed at the front of it were high and steep, cracked and pitted, scarred where rock had broken away and fallen. The slide might well have been a natural occurrence. “Does the accident have anything to do with your dislike of Pashed, your sympathy with Montu?”
Kames flung Bak a quick, smoldering look. “Pashed allowed us no time to mourn, no time to make peace within ourselves. He sent the crew back to this northern end of the portico. The men feared another rockfall above all things, but what choice did they have? They returned and here they remain. Montu faced Pashed, saying no men should be put to such a test. His words struck deaf ears.”
Bak had always heard that if a man came close to drowning, he should immediately go back into the water. If such was the case, and he had no way of knowing the truth of the matter, Pashed had done the right thing. “Was Montu sincere, or did he wish to make himself look good in your eyes and Pashed look bad?”
“Why would he wish me to think well of him? I’m a lowly stonemason, a man of no wealth or influence.”
Uneasy about the open tomb, Bak stood at the rim and looked into the darkness below. Would Menna never bring the priest? Did the guard lieutenant have another report he felt more important than seeing that the shaft was filled before nightfall?
He eyed the long palm trunk that had been removed from the opening and laid alongside after he and Menna had returned to the surface the previous day. The urge to go down again, to have another look around, was difficult to resist, but in the end he decided to wait. However, if Menna failed to bring the priest by mid-afternoon. .
“Here they come, sir.” Kasaya pointed eastward toward the causeway. “Lieutenant Menna and the priest.”
Relieved, Bak watched the guard officer weave a path among the worked and unworked chunks of stone scattered across the terrace. A slight older man and a boy of ten or so years trailed in his wake. The man’s hair was close-cropped and he wore a knee-length kilt. He had to be the priest. The youth carried a basket containing, Bak assumed, a censor, water jar, incense, and everything else required to purify the tomb. The wind gusted, raising the dust around their naked limbs and the stone images among which they walked.
As the trio drew near, Bak smiled. “I thank the lord Amon that you’ve arrived, Lieutenant. I was making ready to go into the tomb to check its integrity.”
“Why?” Menna gave him a sharp look. “I’ve every confidence that Imen remained on guard through the night.”
“As did Kasaya,” Imen said. “Lieutenant Bak thought I shouldn’t stand watch alone.”
Menna’s mouth tightened. “Do you not trust my judgment, Lieutenant?”
Bak did not appreciate being placed on the defensive, but he smiled pleasantly anyway. “I do, but a man alone looked to be fair game should a gang of men come to rob the tomb.
How would you have felt if we’d found Imen at the bottom of this shaft, his neck broken in the fall, and the tomb desecrated?”
“As I believe I told you earlier,” Menna said in a stiff, un-yielding voice, “I know well the men who dwell in this area, those who thrive at the expense of the dead. They’d never take a life merely to rifle one small burial place such as this.
There are, without doubt, other tomb
s easier to enter, tombs isolated enough that they could be robbed at will, with small risk of being caught.”
If you know them so well, Bak thought, why haven’t you laid hands on those who took the baubles I found in Buhen or the jewelry found on ships in the harbor at Mennufer? He was being unfair, he knew, too quick to judge. Menna had admitted he was not a seasoned investigator, and his resent-ment of a man usurping his authority was understandable.
The priest stepped forward, filling the uncomfortable silence. “I’m Kaemwaset and you must be Lieutenant Bak.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Amonked told me of your many successes as a hunter of men. He has every confidence that you’ll not only bring a halt to the accidents here, but will lay hands on Montu’s slayer.”
“I pray I won’t disappoint him.”
“He’s an excellent judge of character, young man. I’m sure you’ll live up to his expectations and reach beyond them.”
Bak was jolted by such supreme confidence. He had thought, when he left Commandant Thuty in Buhen, that he was free for a time of the burden such conviction added.
Another gust forced mouths and eyes closed and added a sense of urgency to the priest’s demeanor when finally the dust fell away. “Shall we enter the tomb, Lieutenant Menna?
After midday, I must teach this boy. .” He laid a hand on the youth’s shoulder. “. . and seven more as witless as he to understand the sacred writings of the lord Ptah.”
“Move the palm trunk across the shaft,” Menna said, including Kasaya as well as Imen in the order. “Bring the rope and light a torch.” His eyes darted toward Bak. “We won’t be in the tomb for long. You need not wait.”
Though annoyed by so curt a dismissal, Bak kept his expression untroubled, his tone amiable. “I’ve a slayer to lay hands on, Lieutenant. I wish to speak with Kaemwaset after he performs the necessary ablutions.”
The guard officer swung around without another word, watched Imen and Kasaya position the palm trunk and light the torch, and prepared to descend. When all was ready, he turned to the apprentice who had come with Kaemwaset.
