Place of Darkness lb-5

by Lauren Haney

  “He showed no specific interest in precautions that would interfere with tomb robbers?”

  “None.” Menna’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t think he was the man I’ve been seeking?”

  Bak shrugged. “I found the shard in his office, which is suggestive, but it was in a basket of similar shards that I feel certain were collected from a trash heap at Djeser Djeseru.”

  “He was a vile man. I’d not put thievery past him.”

  Menna’s brow furrowed in thought. “In fact, now that you’ve drawn my attention to him, I can’t think of a man more likely. As an architect, he’d know better than most where to find the old tombs. I must look into the possibility.”

  His expression turned from satisfaction to consternation and he muttered a curse.

  “What problem do you see?” Bak asked, puzzled.

  A wry smile touched the guard officer’s face. “Montu’s wife’s daughter. Sitre. She’s lovely. I’ve admired her from afar for some time, but never approached her because I couldn’t bear the sight of him. Upon hearing of his death, I hoped. .” He let out a soft, cynical laugh. “If I prove him guilty of tomb robbery, I’ll humiliate her mother, and the woman won’t allow me near Sitre.”

  Bak clapped him on the shoulder. “I must admit I couldn’t tell exactly what Mutnefret was feeling, but I sensed no depth to her mourning. I suspect she secretly feels she owes the malign spirit-or whoever slew him-a debt of gratitude.”

  Menna gave Bak a sharp look. “Was he slain by the malign spirit, do you think?”

  “By the man who pretends to be a malign spirit,” Bak corrected.

  “A man? Are you certain?” Menna’s face clouded, doubt filled his voice. “I, too, have questioned its existence at times, but men who dwell in the workmen’s huts have actually seen it.”

  “Lights and shadows. Nothing more. And those far away.”

  Bak found it difficult to believe that an intelligent man such as Menna could be so naive, but he should know better by this time. Other equally intelligent men clung to the belief as a bird holds fast to a branch in a high wind. “I climbed the cliff yesterday, after the accident at the northern retaining wall, and I saw signs of a man. A two-legged, thinking creature made the boulders fall, not some ethereal being.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “I found a fresh scar where a lever was used to pry away a section of rock.”

  Menna looked thoughtful. “Could Montu have been the malign spirit?”

  “He was not among the living yesterday,” Bak pointed out.

  “The cliff face has fallen before. How do you know the scar was not made several weeks ago?”

  “It looked fresh.”

  “We’ve had no rain and no wind to speak of, nothing to make it lose its shape and color.”

  “The wind blew hard yesterday morning,” Bak said with a touch of impatience.

  “Did it not blow from north to south? Coming over the ridge as it did, would it not have left the cliff free of wind?”

  “You could be right,” Bak admitted grudgingly, “but I know in my heart that you err. The scar was fresh, as were marks we found of a man who’d brushed out his footprints.

  Montu may well have been your tomb robber, but he was not the malign spirit. Your task may be eased, but I must continue with mine.”

  As a small child, Bak had many times visited the house of life with his widowed father, who could spend hours hunting through the ancient documents for an obscure poultice or incantation or the source of some lesser known malady and its treatment. Bored with waiting, he had sometimes ventured into other parts of the vast holdings around the mansion of the lord Amon, the many storehouses, offices, and dwellings, the narrow lanes and unexpected courtyards.

  Each time, he had lost his way and some kindly priest or scribe had returned him to his worried parent.

  Years had passed and, though he found the sacred precinct smaller than he had thought it in the past, the many buildings and crowded lanes were no less confusing. Directed to one place and another by priests and scribes scurrying around like ants, preparing for an upcoming religious festival, it took him over a half hour to find Kaemwaset. As he approached the building, he realized he was no more than one hundred paces from a gate that led directly to the police compound. He could have saved himself much time and effort if he had but known.

  The man he sought sat cross-legged on the ground beneath a portico that shaded three sides of a small, open courtyard. Ten boys of eight or so years sat in two rows before him, limestone shards on their laps, writing time-honored maxims their instructor read aloud. Spotting Bak, he assigned a boy to take his place and ushered his visitor across the court to a mudbrick bench shaded by a half-dozen date palms. The breeze had strengthened further, making the fronds rattle and sending dust and dried grasses scurrying across the ground.

  The priest, whom Bak guessed was in his late forties, explained that he had just returned from Djeser Djeseru. He had spent an hour or so praying for the dead and injured at the scene of the accident and had gone on to make offerings in the chapel of the lady Hathor, one of the few old structures still intact at Djeser Djeseru. The small but venerable mudbrick building would in a few years be abandoned, its goddess moved to the new and far more elegant chapel that would be an integral part of Maatkare Hatshepsut’s memorial temple.

  “So the workmen decided after all not to lay down their tools.” Bak was pleased. Common sense had won out.

  “Thanks to the urging of Pashed and Ramose. .”

  Kaemwaset’s lips twitched, hinting at a smile. “. . and a rumor going round-spread it seems by that scribe of yours and Ramose’s son.”

  Bak nodded his satisfaction, but made no comment.

  The priest’s smile-if smile it had been-vanished, and worry creased his brow. “Word has traveled throughout Djeser Djeseru that you found on the cliff face signs that a man set the rocks to falling. Is it true?”

  “Without doubt.”

  Kaemwaset released a long, unhappy sigh. “How could any man cause so much injury and death in so heartless a fashion?”

  “I don’t yet know, but I mean to find out.”

  No man could mistake his determination, and the priest’s quick nod, his grim expression, signaled approval. “When we spoke yesterday I aired the official rationalization for the many accidents, the reason most often uttered among our sovereign’s allies in the mansion of the lord Amon. I could see you weren’t convinced.”

  Bak eyed the priest with interest. “You use the word rationalization. Does that mean you have doubts?”

  “Politics are politics, Lieutenant. In order to satisfy those who must be made content, the tales and actions produced out of necessity or zeal seldom conform to reality.”

  The priest was a realist, a trait Bak liked. “The theory could be true to some extent-I’ll not discount it altogether-but it’s no better than any other I’ve thought of and set aside.”

  Kaemwaset shook his head as if unable to cope with the reality. “What’s becoming of this world of ours? Are the gods turning their backs to us?”

  The question was unanswerable, as they both knew.

  Childish laughter drew the priest’s eyes toward the boys.

  “Why have you come to me, Lieutenant?”

  “You often spend time at Djeser Djeseru. I’d value your thoughts, your impressions, any conclusions you may’ve reached that might help me lay hands on the man who pretends to be the malign spirit, the man who may’ve slain Montu.”

  “I fear I can’t help you,” Kaemwaset said regretfully. “My task there necessarily means I stand apart from the others.”

  Bak’s expression turned skeptical. “How long have you been priest to Djeser Djeseru?”

  “Since construction began.”

  “Five years. That’s a long time to close your eyes and ears to your surroundings.”

  The priest glanced again at his charges and scowled. The boys were rocking from side to side,
bumping shoulders and giggling as if the game were the funniest in the world. The youth sitting in front had his hand over his mouth, trying to smother laughter. “I’ve noticed bad feelings at Djeser Djeseru, and I’ve suspected Montu of being the culprit. If he was the troublemaker I believed him to be, would his slayer not stand among the many men he alienated?”

  “A possibility I’ve not cast aside,” Bak acknowledged.

  Merry laughter erupted, and Kaemwaset clapped his hands, reminding the boys he was not so far away he could not discipline them. “I’ve also noticed an uneasiness at times, and that I attributed-rightly, I suspect-to the malign spirit. I know how the poor and uneducated are, superstitious to the core, and I thought their tales the creation of their imagination. Now, it seems, I erred.”

  “To a degree. The malign spirit is real, but without doubt a man.”

  “I don’t disbelieve you, Lieutenant, but what do you hope to gain by airing the belief?”

  “The workmen must see the truth. I want none of them so angered by the deception that they’ll go out and invite injury or death, but should I need their help, I don’t want them par-alyzed by fear.”

  “I applaud your intent, but I’m not entirely convinced you’re doing the right thing. Would it not be wiser to let the man you seek believe you know nothing of him? Wiser and safer?”

  “You sound like my father,” Bak said, not bothering to hide his irritation.

  Kaemwaset bowed his head, acknowledging the mild re-buke. “Forgive me, sir. I’ve taught for many years and can’t resist speaking to other young people as I do to my students.”

  A boy yelled. Bak’s eyes followed those of the priest. A small redheaded child had risen to his feet and gone down the row to strike a larger boy on the head with his scribal pallet. The youth Kaemwaset had left in charge grabbed the pallet, caught the boy by the ear, and forced him to return to his seat.

  Bak could see he was about to lose the priest to his responsibilities. “Did you know Montu well or merely in passing?”

  Kaemwaset tore his eyes from his students. “Our paths crossed at Djeser Djeseru, nowhere else. I found him a small man who believed himself large in all respects.”

  “Would he take what by rights belonged to another?”

  “Would he steal?” Kaemwaset appeared surprised by the thought. “Hmmm. An interesting question.” When Bak failed to explain further, he shook his head. “I can’t answer with certainty; I didn’t know him that well. If I had to make a guess, I’d say he would-if he believed he could get away free and clear. As I said before, he was a small man.”

  Bak left the priest, thinking of the shard he had found in Montu’s office and the new path he had been following since. Sitre had accused the architect of having a convenient honesty. Menna thought him likely enough to be a tomb robber that he had vowed to dig deeper in search of the truth.

  Kaemwaset thought him a likely thief given the proper circumstances. But had he been a thief? The shard was suggestive, but it was far from proof. True, the sketch had not been made with the same skill as the others in the basket, but that indicated only that the artist was inexperienced, not necessarily that it had been drawn by Montu.

  Even if Menna did discover that Montu had been robbing the old tombs, he might not learn the names of those who had helped him or the location of the disturbed sepulchers.

  Maybe later, when Hori had the time. . Well, it wouldn’t hurt to plan ahead, he decided.

  A quick glance at the lord Re told him he had at least another hour before his father would sail back across the river.

  He hurried around a corner, where a burst of wind caught him full force. He snapped his eyes closed and shut his mouth tight to keep out the dust blowing down the narrow lane. A few people passed him by, all rushing as he was toward a quiet and dust-free haven. Not a cat nor dog was anywhere in sight; the few donkeys allowed to stray were standing in sheltered corners, their rumps to the wind.

  Another turn and a wider street took him to a square complex of buildings that served as the house of records, where the archives were located. Stepping through the wide entry portal, he found himself in a pleasant courtyard shaded by sycamores and palms and fragrant with bright blossoms. More than a dozen scribes had brought their tasks outside so they could enjoy the breeze beneath the surrounding portico. They had, however, misjudged the growing strength of the wind. Those without the foresight to weigh their scrolls down with stones were scurrying about, collecting documents rolling before each gust. The rest were grabbing up their scribal implements, preparing to retreat inside.

  Bak scooped up several scrolls and handed them to the nearest scribe, an older man with the harried look of a minor bureaucrat.

  “I’ve a question,” Bak said. “Can you help me, sir?”

  The man dropped the scrolls into a basket and lunged to grab another rolling cylinder. “Of course I can, but be quick about it, young man. I’ve much to do before day’s end.”

  “I’m a police officer, assigned to look into a problem at our sovereign’s new memorial temple in western Waset.

  Sometime in the near future I wish to send my scribe here to search the archives for information I need. Will he be welcomed or spurned?”

  “We don’t admit just any man,” the scribe said officiously.

  “He’d need higher authority than you to gain admission.” He scurried after another scroll, diminishing the effect he had intended. “No less than the chief archivist himself.”

  Smothering a smile, Bak tapped his baton of office against his calf and spoke in an offhand manner. “Would Amonked, Storekeeper of Amon and our sovereign’s cousin, be of sufficient rank?”

  “He would, sir, yes indeed.”

  Bak pretended not to notice the man’s sudden obse-quiousness. “My scribe is called Hori. He’ll come when he has the time, authority in hand.”

  By the time Bak reached the small quay where his father moored his skiff, the wind was blowing hard and cold, negating the warmth of the setting sun. He found the vessel empty, Ptahhotep nowhere in sight. The light craft was bumping against the revetment, thrown cruelly at the stone by waves driven by the wind. If he had not expected to leave right away, he would have moved it, dragging it high up onto the riverbank where twenty or more vessels of all sizes were already laying, left there by men who had foreseen the heavy weather.

  Two vessels moored farther along the revetment were much larger than the skiff, better able to endure the storm. A traveling ship laden with locally made red pottery shared the space with a small cargo vessel on which every cubit of deck space was mounded with chunks of fine white limestone.

  Unlike the skiff, fenders protected their wooden hulls. Fittings rattled in the wind, a loose corner of sail flapped against a yard. Neither was manned, their crews most likely warm and snug in some nearby house of pleasure. A short way upstream an unimposing fishing vessel, weathered to a deep brown, was moored to posts pounded into the riverbank. Its hull repeatedly ground against the rocks buried beneath the mud.

  Shivering in the chill, Bak regretted that he wore no tunic.

  Nor could he buy one. The casual market that usually lined the waterfront was empty of both sellers and buyers, the lean-tos designed for shade offering no shelter from the wind. Most, in fact, had blown over and lay in scattered heaps of spindly poles and roofmats against the buildings facing the quay. Wind whistled across rooftops, a dog slunk into a dark, narrow lane. A man darted from one doorway to another and vanished around a corner.

  Bak entered the only place of business still open, a dark and dingy house of pleasure. There, as had been the case several times in the past, he found Ptahhotep awaiting him.

  The older man wore a tunic of heavy linen and carried a second one for his son. It was too snug across the shoulders, but better than crossing the open water with nothing to hold off the cold.

  They hurried out of the building and crossed to the skiff, pummeled by a gust of wind. Bak thanked the lord Amon that
the sky was clear. At least they would not be drenched to the skin by one of the rare rainstorms that struck the area.

  “Do you wish to remain in Waset tonight? The storm is sure to blow over by morning.”

  A strong, cold gust made the older man irascible. “What do you take me for? A man who’s grown cowardly in my old age?”

  Bak refrained from pointing out that, rather than sailing off by himself, his father had waited, hoping he would come so he would have someone to help with sail and rudder when he crossed the river. “You are cautious, my father, in no way a coward.”

  “What kind of physician would I be if I failed to respond when summoned to an individual who could be reached in no other way but by boat?”

  Bak knelt at the quay’s edge, caught the rope that bound the skiff’s prow to a mooring post, and pulled the bucking, tugging vessel close. His father released the stern rope. The vessel was similar to the one Bak had grown up with: sleek, fast, and practical, befitting a physician.

  “Hurry, Father. Night will fall before long and the lord Amon alone knows where we’ll touch shore on the west bank. If we’re blown too far south, we could have a long trek back home.”

  The older man, no novice at boarding a boat in bad weather, waited for the most opportune time and leaped aboard. Bak untied the rope from the mooring post and, with the prow hard against the quay, wound it around the post.

  Scrambling aboard, he jerked the cord free. Ptahhotep shoved an oar into his hands and together they pushed the craft away from the quay and rowed like madmen toward open water.

  Clear of the shore and other ships, the river ran free of ob-structions. It flowed in a northeasterly direction, while the wind and the waves came out of the north, two powerful forces vying for control of the small vessel and all it contained. Low but fierce waves raced across the surface, lifting the skiff and dropping it hard, throwing a spray of chill water over its occupants.

  Bak knew a man accustomed to sailing the Great Green Sea would say these waves were nothing, trifling bumps on the water’s surface, but to him and all who sailed on the normally benevolent river, they were harsh reminders that the lord Hapi was not always a kind and generous god. He had sailed in similar conditions and was not afraid, but he felt a healthy respect for the combined forces of wind and water.