Place of Darkness lb-5

by Lauren Haney

  Bak was rather intimidated. He had known that Amonked, in spite of his lofty lineage, had no wealth to speak of and that his wife, a woman of substance, had brought this dwelling to the marriage. He had not expected the unpreten-tious man who treated him as a friend and toiled daily in the storehouses of the lord Amon to live in such grand circumstances.

  A servant admitted him and the apprentice. The young scribe ushered him up a zigzag flight of stairs, across a courtyard lush with potted trees and shrubs, and into Amonked’s spacious private reception room. The Storekeeper of Amon, looking very much the scribe, waved away the youth and told Bak to be seated on a stool whose hard surface was covered by an embroidered pillow. A pillow on a stool! Unheard of in the fortress of Buhen.

  The room, cooled by a breeze wafting through high windows, was sparsely furnished, but each low table, wooden chest, and stool was a masterpiece of the furniture maker’s art. Tightly fitted woods of different colors and grains formed designs inlaid with ivory. The thickest pillow Bak had ever seen lay on the seat of Amonked’s armchair. Colorful murals adorned the walls, showing fish swimming in deep blue waters and birds flying through the emerald branches of trees. A bowl of dried flower petals on a chest near the door scented the room.

  Bak was clearly out of his element. “You summoned me, sir.” The words sounded as inane as any he could recall ever uttering.

  If Amonked thought so, he offered no sign. “Help yourself to a small repast.” He nodded toward the low table beside the stool, which was laden with bread and honey, grapes, and a jar of milk.

  Settling gingerly on the thick, soft pillow, Bak poured milk into a bowl and helped himself to a chunk of honeyed bread.

  Amonked leaned back in his chair and wove his fingers together across his thick waist. “Three days ago I had occasion to go to the harbor to receive a shipment of cedar from the land of Amurru. I spoke with the harbormaster of the jewelry you confiscated in Buhen and suggested the objects came from the same source as the pieces his inspectors have stumbled upon over the past few years.” A shadow of a smile flitted across his face. “Needless to say, he was not pleased with my use of the words stumbled upon. ”

  “I’d think not,” Bak agreed, returning the smile.

  “He was quite interested when I mentioned the jar of honey in which the jewelry was being smuggled. In fact, he summoned his inspectors then and there. They’d already begun to gather in the courtyard when I left, and he could barely wait for my departure to tell them of the sketch on the neck of the jar, the honeybee.”

  Bak noted the glint in Amonked’s eyes, a hint of excitement on his face. “Your talk bore fruit, I gather.”

  “Late yesterday.” With a smile so satisfied it bordered on smug, Amonked opened the drawer in the chest beside his chair. He withdrew a reddish pottery jar, ovoid in shape, exactly like the one found in Buhen, and handed it to Bak.

  Around the neck was a sketch of a necklace with a pendant honeybee. “This, I believe, is what we’ve been seeking. An inspector found it on board a merchant ship bound for the land of Keftiu. The drummer who maintains the oarsmen’s rhythm had it among his personal possessions.”

  Bak flashed a congratulatory smile at his host. “Did he reveal where it came from?”

  “He’s a simple man, the harbormaster told me, one who accepts what others tell him without question. He claims a youth he’d never seen before paid him to pass the jar on to a man who would meet him at the harbor at Keftiu’s capital city. The Medjay police who questioned him didn’t spare the cudgel and still he clung to his tale. They believe he told the truth.”

  Bak studied the sketch, almost identical to those he had seen before. The jar was empty, as clean as if it had never been used. “Did the inspector find honey inside? Or jewelry?”

  “There was honey, yes.” Amonked pulled from the drawer a square of linen much like the one in which Bak had carried the jewelry from Buhen. He spread wide the fabric and, with a broad smile, held out the open package. “And these.”

  Bak took one look and his breath caught in his throat.

  Laying in the palm of Amonked’s hand were two bracelets, two gold rings, and a rock crystal heart amulet. He had never seen the rings or amulet before, but the bracelets were all too familiar. Tiny inlaid butterflies adorned one, the second was a wide gold band with three miniature golden cats lying in a row along the top. Their likeness to those in the tomb he had seen opened and closed at Djeser Djeseru was too close to be a case of similarity. They were the same bracelets.

  They had been stolen from the tomb right before his eyes.

  A sightless man could have seen how shocked he was, and Amonked was not blind. “What’s wrong, Lieutenant?

  You look like a man who’s seen a dead man walk.”

  “In a sense I have,” and Bak went on to explain.

  “How can this be the same jewelry?” Amonked shook his head, unable to believe, unwilling to accept. “The tomb was guarded without a break. No man could’ve entered unseen.”

  Bak swallowed the last of the honeyed bread and washed it down with a gulp of milk. He wished he could wash away Kasaya’s well-meant blunder as easily. “Kasaya spotted a light, what he believed to be the malign spirit, and gave chase. Imen, the guard assigned to watch the shaft, could’ve climbed down while he was away. Kasaya thought he saw him there the whole time, but he might well have become so involved in the chase, so afraid of catching the malign spirit, that he lost track of passing time.”

  “Imen. The guard. A tomb robber.” Looking dismayed, pained, Amonked shook his head once more. “I’ve heard tales that the men who cared for the old tombs, who dwelt in towns built close to the sepulchers to which they’d dedicated their lives, robbed their deceased charges during times of need. But today? In this time of prosperity? Why, Bak?

  Why?”

  “Many of the tombs are filled with wealth, sir, a powerful incentive to a greedy man.”

  Amonked’s face clouded with anger. He dropped the jewelry into the drawer and slammed it shut. “Go find Lieutenant Menna. Take him with you to Djeser Djeseru and snare Imen before he hears we’ve found the bracelets and tries to flee. I wish that vile thief to stand before the vizier as quickly as possible. We must make an example of him.”

  Bak picked up the honey jar he had set on the floor by his stool. An unexpected thought welled up in his heart, a suspicion. “Does Menna know of this discovery?”

  “He does. I sent a messenger to him the instant the harbormaster brought the objects to me-as darkness was falling yesterday.”

  “He saw the bracelets in the tomb, sir. I pointed them out to him. I can’t believe he didn’t recognize them.”

  “Rest easy, Bak. I provided no details about the jewelry, and he’s had no opportunity to see the pieces.”

  Bak let out a long sigh of relief. He had come to like Menna and was not happy at suspecting him of stealing and worse.

  “Imen.” Menna, striding up the causeway beside Bak, appeared bewildered by the guard’s duplicity. “I’ve known him for years. I’d have trusted him with my life.”

  “You can never tell what lies within another man’s heart.”

  Bak hated cliches, but could think of no words more appropriate.

  “Still, the deceit hurts. I thought him an honest man, not one to rob the dead.”

  They veered around a sledge on which a twice-life-size, rough-cut limestone statue of Maatkare Hatshepsut in the guise of the lord Osiris was being pulled up the causeway.

  Moisture rolled down the faces and bodies of the men pulling the sledge beneath the harsh midday sun. The bitter odor of sweat lingered in Bak’s nostrils long after they passed by.

  “What will people think of me?” Menna asked. “How will this affect my future?”

  “You’ll look no worse for Imen’s deception,” Bak said in a neutral voice.

  “I should’ve seen a problem. I should have.”

  Bak could find no words to set Menna’s heart at
rest. His first inclination was to blame the officer for not being more aware of his men’s inclinations. If he walked in the guard officer’s sandals, he would tour the cemeteries each day to see that the men were at their assigned posts and remained alert.

  He doubted Menna left Waset more than once or twice a week. Would such diligence have mattered, though? Would he, Bak, spot a dishonest man among his Medjays or would he turn a blind eye to one he knew and liked, as Menna had done?

  “Caught at the wrong time, he could have a foul temper,”

  Menna said. “Do you think he slew Montu? A falling out of thieves?”

  “We’ll soon know.”

  They strode past a second sledge, this one carrying two large rectangular blocks of pinkish granite, and hurried onto the terrace. A crowd of men standing at the unfinished end of the northern retaining wall immediately caught their attention. Pashed had stopped all work on the wall after the rock slide and had vowed to keep the men away until the malign spirit was snared. Something had to be wrong.

  “Hurry,” Bak said, breaking into a run.

  Menna put on a burst of speed to catch up. “Another accident?”

  So Bak feared. Side by side they sped across the terrace, swerving to left and right around rough-finished statues and architectural elements. Someone at the edge of the crowd spotted them and called out. Men stepped aside to let them through.

  They found Pashed and Kasaya standing at the leading edge of a small landslide. The prone form of a man lay on his back on the pavement between them, covered below the shoulders by rocks and debris that had rolled down off the slope. A spear point and part of the shaft lay uncovered to his right, while a red and white spotted cowhide shield lay well clear of the debris. Perenefer knelt near the head, concealing the man’s identity. As the two officers came forward, he turned around, shifting his position, revealing the face of Imen.

  Snapping out an oath, Bak knelt beside the foreman. He touched the body, seeking warmth, though its pallor told him Imen was dead. A bloody mess on the side of the head was covered with flies in spite of Perenefer’s efforts to wave them off. “When did this happen?”

  “Sometime in the night,” Pashed said. “His body has grown stiff.”

  “If only I’d seen the jewelry,” Menna muttered to himself.

  “If only I’d gone to Amonked’s house the moment I heard of its discovery.”

  “Who found him?” Bak asked.

  “We did,” Perenefer said. “A few of my men and I. We spotted the slide at first light and came right away to clear it.

  This is what we found.”

  “It wasn’t a big slide,” Pashed explained, “but enough of the slope had fallen to remind the men of the last one. Of the injured and dead. They didn’t need another reason to fear.”

  Bak studied the disturbed hillside and the fallen stones and debris that nearly covered the remains of the wall that had partly collapsed a few days earlier. From the hole left higher up the slope, about halfway to the base of the cliff, a large boulder had come loose and begun to roll, setting off the slide. He could see its upper surface behind the fallen wall, which had stopped its descent and that of the debris that nearly covered it. He was willing to bet his best beaded collar that the slide had been no accident.

  “Get rid of these flies,” he said to Kasaya. “Water will do.”

  A boy stepped forward with a goatskin water bag and flooded the wound, washing away the insects. They rose in a swarm and buzzed around all who were close, refusing to abandon so tasty a meal. Waving off the most persistent, Bak bent close to inspect the wound. Or wounds, he discovered.

  Above Imen’s right ear he found a shallow injury that had broken the skin. A bit lower and farther back was a much deeper indentation that resembled the injury to Montu’s head. The guard had first been struck down and had later been slain.

  Without a word but with an expression so grim every man in the crowd understood, Bak circled the end of the half-collapsed retaining wall and climbed the slope. Kasaya, unbidden, went with him. When they reached the hole where the boulder had been, they saw right away that it was too deep for the huge block of stone to have come away without the help of a man.

  “Someone’s tried to cover his tracks,” the Medjay said, pointing to what looked like a fresh layer of dust, sand, and pebbles on the uphill side of the hole.

  Bak brushed away the loose dirt. Beneath, he found the normally hard-packed sand and rocks greatly disturbed, as if the man who had loosed the boulder had dug up the ground to conceal all signs of himself and the lever he had used to pry it loose.

  “What do you think happened, sir? Someone struck Imen on the head, then tried to make his death look like an accident?”

  “He got away with murdering Huni and Dedu, and no one the wiser. Or so he believed.” Bak rose to his feet and looked down the slope at the dead man. “I guess he thought to try his luck a third time.”

  “He must’ve come here right after he tried to slay you.”

  Bak’s smile held not a trace of humor. “He’s worried, Kasaya. He’s covering his tracks in the hope of getting away free and clear, with no suspicion touching him. We’d best move quickly before he slays all who can point a finger at him.”

  “I must go back to Waset to report to Amonked.” Bak stood with Kasaya within the ruined mudbrick temple of Djeserkare Amonhotep and his esteemed mother Ahmose Nefertari, with no one else nearby to hear. “While I’m gone, and for as long as it takes, I wish you to search out the source of the jars of honey containing the smuggled jewelry.”

  “But sir! You said yourself the sketch of the bee was most likely a symbol to attract the attention of the man destined to receive the jewelry. One jar in a hundred might be so marked, one in a thousand, and those not seen by the multitudes.”

  The plea had some merit, but Bak could no longer justify his failure to follow up on the symbol. “The fishing boat that ran down my father’s skiff vanished from view on this side of the river. Therefore, you must begin here, going from one farm to another, one village or hamlet to another, one place of business to another.” Bak handed the young Medjay the upper portion of a broken jar similar to the one he had found in Buhen. On it he had sketched a necklace with a pendant honeybee. “Take this with you and show it to every man and woman you meet.”

  Kasaya groaned. “You ask the impossible of me, sir.”

  “You know how country people are, Kasaya. They tend to each other’s business. Someone will have seen a jar with that symbol around its neck.”

  “Hori would be much better at this.”

  Bak agreed, but did not wish to hurt the young man’s feelings. The scribe would be far more subtle in his questions, far less likely to attract undue attention. “Can you search the archives in his place?”

  The Medjay hung his head in defeat. “You know I can’t read, sir.”

  “Do you have any idea who slew that guard?” Amonked, seated on a stool beneath a portico in front of a storehouse that reeked of newly tanned hides, looked as frustrated as Bak felt.

  No thick pillows on this stool to soothe the noble backside, Bak noticed. “I feel confident the malign spirit took his life.”

  “The malign spirit.” Amonked snorted. “Could not Imen have been your so-called malign spirit?”

  Bak, leaning a shoulder against a wooden column, eyed the long line of sweating men carrying the large, unwieldy bundles of hides from the cargo ship moored at the quay. Beneath the portico, they dropped the hides, which exuded a strong odor of the urine in which they had been cured, and went back for more. Scribes counted the individual hides within each bundle and called out the total to the chief scribe, seated on a stool near the storehouse door. Other men carried the counted bundles into the building. He marveled at Amonked’s ability to move so easily between his luxuri-ous household and the everyday world of a senior scribe.

  “The malign spirit, I feel certain, is several men. Imen may’ve been one of them, but more likely h
e served as their lookout.”

  “So he was but a tool of the man who slew him.”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “And he was slain because he could name that man.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bak rubbed his nose, trying to banish a tickle brought on by the stench of the hides. “I’ve sent Kasaya out in search of the source of the honeybee symbol. We must lay hands on any other men who may be involved before they, too, are found dead.”

  “Leaving behind who? Their leader?”

  Bak nodded. “A man who walks among those who toil at Djeser Djeseru. A face so familiar no one would ever suspect him of the vile deeds he’s committed.”

  “Can you name him?”

  “No, sir,” Bak said, unwilling to acknowledge the tiny suspicion that had begun to lurk in his heart.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bak hurried back across the river, reaching his father’s house shortly after midday. He found Sergeant Huy there, but not Ptahhotep. The physician and a new guard assigned by Maiherperi had gone to a nearby village to tend to the aged headman, who suffered from a painful stiffening of the joints in his hands and upper limbs. They also planned to visit several other patients in the general area. Huy, though he swore he was fully recovered, had been left behind to stay quiet and see that no harm came to the house and animals.

  Assured Ptahhotep would not be needing his new skiff, the one Lieutenant Menna had found for him, Bak hurried to the river and borrowed the small vessel. He shoved it into the current, raised the sail, and began a quest he suspected was no less challenging than that on which he had sent Kasaya.

  He had not gotten a good look at the fishing boat that had run down his father’s skiff, and had paid no attention to the one moored at Waset, so was not even sure they were one and the same. But if he was right, if the head of the tomb robbers was slaying all who could name him as a thief, the fishermen who had manned that boat must be found before they met a fate similar to that of Imen. With uncommon luck and a benevolent smile from the lord Amon he might locate the vessel and therefore the men.