by Lauren Haney
“As I said before, sir, they may no longer be among the living.”
“I’ll tell Ahmose. Never fear; they’ll be found whether alive or dead.” The commander waved away a ribbon of smoke wafting across the dais from a torch mounted on the wall. “Does Amonked know of your success?”
“No, sir. I thought to bring him with me to see you, but he was away from his home, summoned by our sovereign to the royal house. Something to do with Senenmut’s inspection tomorrow of Djeser Djeseru.”
“Ah, yes. The matter of providing additional guards. I suppose I should’ve gone to the royal house, too, but I’ve no patience with discussing over and over again a problem that’s been resolved. The guards will be provided and they’ll be on the alert for trouble. If Senenmut insists on going. And knowing him, he will.”
Maiherperi had to be very secure in his position, Bak thought, to take a summons from their sovereign so lightly.
The commander waved his hand again, breaking up the smoke. A guard grabbed a torch mounted beside the door, hastened across the room, and substituted the one for the other.
“Have you told that guard officer-Menna-that you’ve resolved his problem for him?”
“No, sir.” Bak hesitated, added, “I’d rather he didn’t know yet.”
Maiherperi gave him a sharp look. “Why not?”
Bak was not sure what he should say. He did not want to lay blame where no blame was due. “He was very resentful when first I came to Waset. His attitude has since improved and he’s readily accepted my recent suggestions, but he won’t like the fact that I’ve achieved what he has toiled so long and hard to accomplish. And now, instead of going to him and sharing the success, the glory, I’ve come straight to you.”
“He has no one to blame but himself.” Maiherperi frowned at the scribes, whose voices had risen in a mild squabble. “This so-called malign spirit. . Do you have any idea who the vile creature might be?”
“If Pairi and Humay are found alive, they can be made to point a finger. If not. .” Bak hesitated, unwilling to commit 232
Lauren Haney
himself, but finally said, “I could guess, sir, but I wish to be more certain before I name him.”
Not long after daybreak the following morning, Bak strode into the courtyard at the hall of records. There he found Hori and Kaemwaset seated on woven reed mats beneath a portico, dipping chunks of fresh, warm bread into a bowl of duck stew resting on a hot brazier. To Bak, who had spent the night in the garrison and shared with the duty officers a morning meal of hard day-old bread and cold fish stew, the mingled smells of yeast and duck were as the food of the gods. Fortunately, they had enough for three, and the respite allowed him to tell them of his previous day’s successes.
After nearly emptying the bowl, they cleaned their hands with natron and a damp cloth so they would not damage the aged documents they would be handling. No sooner had they turned away from the remains of their meal than a yellow cat and five kittens crept out from beneath a bush to lick the bowl clean. Kaemwaset lifted a scroll from a shallow basket containing a dozen or so others. The seals were broken and the strings that had once bound them had in many cases rotted away.
Unrolling the scroll, the priest held it out for Bak to look at. “You see what we must contend with.” The papyrus had turned brownish with age, was torn, riddled with holes, and dotted with splotches large and small. “This document is no worse than many others we found,” he added, tapping the basket with a fingernail.
Bak took the musty-smelling scroll from the priest and, holding the brittle papyrus carefully, studied the uppermost lines of symbols. “Not easy to read.”
“No, sir. And errors can creep in through misunderstanding of the partial lines we can read.”
“Did a plan survive of Nebhepetre Montuhotep’s temple?”
“You should see it, sir!” Hori plucked a scroll from the basket. “It doesn’t look at all like the ruined temple. You wouldn’t know it’s the same building.”
Bak had hoped for more but was not surprised. “The mansion of the lord Amon in Waset has been altered many times through many generations. Even the initial plan of Djeser Djeseru has been changed during the few years since construction began. Can we expect less from a provincial king who pulled together a fragmented land and made it into a single grand whole?”
“He would’ve wanted better for himself as his power increased,” Hori agreed.
Taking the scroll from the young scribe, Kaemwaset unrolled it across his lap.
Laying aside the document he held, Bak bent close to look at the sadly decayed papyrus, whistled. “How certain are you that this was planned for Nebhepetre Montuhotep?”
“Some doubt arises,” the priest admitted. “It contains the name of Montuhotep and was found among the other scrolls we know were prepared during Nebhepetre Montuhotep’s reign. We must face the fact that it could’ve been drawn during the reign of a different Montuhotep-the name is slightly different-and placed with the wrong documents at a later time.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“Nebhepetre Montuhotep ruled for some years and he’d have wanted to display his expanding authority. I’d be less surprised to find his temple altered than a few others I’ve seen.”
Bak stared at the plan, so different from the temple he, Hori, and Kasaya had so painstakingly searched days before. “Have you finished with the archives? Or do you have more old records to go through?”
“We’ve one more section,” Kaemwaset said, “another fifty or so storage pots that have no labels denoting their contents. I suspect they contain documents thrown asunder during the years of chaos and gathered together later in too much haste to store and label properly. Between the two of us, it’ll take much of the day to go through them all, reading a sufficient amount of each document to be certain it is or isn’t what we seek.”
Kneeling to scratch the mother cat’s head, Bak scowled at the ancient plan spread across the priest’s legs. He was not sure how helpful it would be, but it was all they had and might be all they would ever find. “Get a fresh scroll, Hori. I wish you to take time out from your search to redraw this plan. Draw as much as you can clearly see in black ink, then with Kaemwaset’s help, fill in the missing or stained places with red ink. Maybe we can discover exactly what this is.”
The priest smiled his appreciation. “A good idea, sir. If this is an early version of Nebhepetre Montuhotep’s temple, a new and complete drawing might well be worth the effort.”
“Keep a close eye on Hori.” Rising to his feet, Bak grinned at the youth, letting him know he was teasing, at least partially so. “We spent many hours searching that temple and he knows it well. He must not add parts to the new plan that fit closer to his memory than does this aging papyrus.”
“Welcome, Lieutenant. Amonked has told me of you.”
Mai, the harbormaster, a stout man with a fringe of curly white hair that surely tickled the back of his neck, ushered Bak into the room he used as his office. “He speaks highly of you, and with good reason if all he says is true.”
“He’s probably exaggerating,” Bak said, smiling.
“I’ve known him for years and I’ve never known him to embellish a tale.” Mai walked to a large rectangular opening in the outer wall and looked out upon the harbor of Waset, with its many ships moored along the river’s edge and the bustling market where townsmen exchanged local products for the exotic objects brought by seamen from faraway ports. The opening reminded Bak of the window of appearances in the royal house, which served as a stage upon which their sovereign appeared before her subjects. “Did he ever tell you he once dreamed of sailing a large and imposing seagoing ship? One that would ply the waters of the Great Green Sea to Amurru, Keftiu, the southern shores of-” He stopped abruptly, laughed. “Suffice it to say, he’s traveled no farther than the Belly of Stones.”
“I stood with him on the battlements of the fortress of Semna, looking down upon the border between
Wawat and Kush. I could see in his heart the wish to follow the river to its end.”
“So he told me.” Mai swung away from the window, motioned Bak onto a stool, and sat on a low chair that allowed him to look out at the harbor while they talked. “To what do I owe your visit, Lieutenant?”
“I’ve come to clarify something Amonked told me. Something I thought nothing of at the time.”
“I assume this involves the ancient jewelry my inspector found?”
“Yes, sir.” A harsh yell drew Bak’s eyes to the street below, where a spirited pair of chariot horses had knocked a woolly fleece from a merchant’s shoulder and trampled it.
The charioteer flung what looked like a garrison grain token at the man and drove on. “He said yesterday, when he informed me of your discovery, that you’d grown very excited when he told you, three days earlier, of the jar I found in Buhen with jewelry inside. Especially when he described the sketch around the neck, a necklace with a pendant bee.”
“That surprises you? It shouldn’t. After months of fruitless searching here and there and everywhere, we had something specific to look for. Who would’ve thought of looking inside a honey jar? None of my inspectors. Nor I, for that matter.”
“Lieutenant Menna didn’t come to you seven or eight days ago, when I told him of the sketch?”
“He did not.” Mai’s eyes narrowed. “You told him when?”
“A few hours after I arrived in Waset. He vowed he’d tell you right away.”
“Well, he didn’t.” Mai, obviously irritated, stared out the window at the many vessels moored there. The beat of a drum and the chant of the oarsmen announced the arrival of a cargo ship whose deck was divided into stalls filled with reddish long-horned cattle. Bak doubted the harbormaster saw the ship or its contents. “Menna seems a good-hearted soul, Lieutenant, rather touchy about what he perceives as the status of his assignment, but he’s not a man one can depend on.”
“Is he incompetent, sir? Or something else?”
Mai’s eyes darted from the window to Bak, his expression censorious, directed not to his visitor but to the man about whom he spoke. “I’ve heard he seldom visits the cemeteries, that he spends more time writing reports than supervising the men who guard the dwelling places of the dead.” His mouth tightened to a thin, critical line. “I’ve never seen him with a speck of dust on his kilt or sandals, and he always looks as if he’s fresh from his bath. When I visit my venerable ancestors during the Beautiful Festival of the Valley, staying on the paths as much as possible, I return to my home dripping with sweat and with myself and my clothing stained brown by dust.”
“I’ve felt he was lax in his duty, but tried to believe he had sergeants he could trust. As I trust mine.”
“Do you leave your sergeants alone day after day, letting them do what they will with no word from you, no report from them?”
Bak smiled. “No, sir.”
The smile Mai returned was stingy, weakened by censure.
“Don’t get me wrong, Lieutenant. I like him. However, I can’t condone a man’s failure to oversee the men responsible to him.”
Bak liked this gruff, outspoken man. They saw their duty much the same. “How well do you know him?”
“Not personally. Our paths seldom cross. Only when my inspectors recover an object stolen from the dead. Also, if I have the time, I drop in to see him when I visit my chief inspector, who’s housed in the same building.”
“Where’s Menna from, do you know?” Bak spoke casually, as if giving no special weight to the question.
He either failed in his purpose or Mai’s thoughts were keeping pace with his, for the harbormaster gave him a long, thoughtful look. “His forebears were men of the river, as were mine, so that question I can answer. He was born in Iunyt, the son of a fisherman who died when he was three or four years of age. His mother was daughter to a ferryman who dwelt across the river. Upon the death of her husband, she returned to her family home in western Waset, bringing the child with her.”
Bak’s heart skipped a beat. The Lates fish was held sacred in Iunyt. “So he knows western Waset well, and the people who dwell there.”
“Better than most, I’d say.”
Bak drew in a breath, then released it with a whoosh.
Though he had no proof, the tiny suspicion in his heart was rapidly turning into a conviction. “Would that I’d come to see you when first I came to Waset. Information flows from you as water from a spring, and each word more worthy than gold.”
“You must’ve asked the right questions,” Mai said, openly curious.
“As harbormaster, you must know or at least have met Pairi and Humay, two brothers who sail a fishing boat out of western Waset.”
Mai must have detected the change from suspicion to certainty, for he turned away from the window, focusing his attention on his visitor. “Broad, strong men, one most notable for a squarish head and flat face.”
“Are they in any way related to Menna?”
“Not that I’ve heard.” Mai tapped his fingers on his thigh, trying to remember. “Their father was a farmer, I’ve been told, and their uncle a fisherman. They were apprenticed to him as youths, and when he died, they inherited his boat.”
“Have you ever seen Menna with them?” Bak asked, not quite ready to reveal his thoughts.
“Not that I recall.”
Bak was willing to bet that if the three men had been together at the harbor, Mai would remember. “Have you ever seen the brothers with any of Menna’s guards? His sergeants?”
“I fear you’ve lost me, Lieutenant. I know the Medjays assigned to guard the harbor, and I’d recognize a palace guard by his dress and weapons and shield. Other than those two units, I can’t tell one from another.”
“One of Menna’s men, a sergeant, was found dead yesterday at Djeser Djeseru. He’d been slain, struck down from behind, and a small landslide set off to make his death look accidental. I thought before we found him that he’d robbed the tomb in which I saw the jewelry your inspector found in the honey jar. I erred. Another man, the one we call the malign spirit, took the jewelry and slew the guard who helped him take it.” Bak went on to describe Imen.
“Several men answer to that description, so I can’t be sure, but I think I’ve seen him here at the harbor. Not with Menna, but talking to Pairi and Humay.”
Satisfaction erupted within Bak’s heart. The various trails he had been following had converged into one.
Mai eyed him curiously. “What are you thinking, Lieutenant?”
“I think Menna might well be the man we’ve been calling the malign spirit, his goal to steal ancient jewelry from a tomb or tombs in the valley where Djeser Djeseru is being built.”
“Menna?” The harbormaster chuckled. “He’s negligent, lazy, never follows through on a task. Does that sound like your malign spirit?”
“He could be a man of two faces. On the surface, a quiet, perfectly groomed, and rather incompetent guard officer.
Beneath the skin, a cold-blooded and vicious slayer of innocent men, one whose sole purpose is to safely rob the dead.”
Mai laughed so hard tears flowed from his eyes. “Your imagination does you credit, young man, but I fear you must look elsewhere for your malign spirit. Menna simply doesn’t have the will or competence to pursue a task as dangerous and difficult as robbing tombs.”
With Mai’s laughter ringing in his ears, Bak hurried along the busy streets to Menna’s office. The harbormaster’s certainty that the guard officer was incapable of carrying out a long-term, complicated, and difficult task had seriously placed in question his suspicion. For one thing, Mai’s impressions of Menna were much in line with his own over the past few days.
If not Menna, then who could the malign spirit be? More than one man, he had already concluded. The fishermen, certainly. They would be as likely to wear amulets of the Lates fish as a man from Iunyt. They had had Imen’s help and that of at least one other man. One who could walk unim
peded and unnoticed across the sands of Djeser Djeseru, one who knew the building site well.
No man would have had more freedom or knew the site better than Montu, and Bak had found the shard with the sketch of the bee in the architect’s office. True, Montu had expressed anger when the workman Ahotep had died while toiling at the southern retaining wall, but what better way to draw attention to an accident that was not in fact an accident than to point it out?
But Montu had been slain. Perhaps there had been a falling out of thieves and the fishermen had taken his life.
The architect would have been the leader, the one who thought and planned for the gang. Maybe he had demanded too large a portion of the spoils, thinking himself indispensi-ble. Maybe the others had disagreed. After many months of working with him, they would know exactly what to do and how to go about it, with or without him.
Lieutenant Menna was not in his office. He had gone to the garrison, a young scribe said, to arrange for a replacement for Imen. While there, Bak felt sure he would hear of the search for Pairi and Humay. If he was the vile criminal, the news might well set him to flight. Or would it? Flight would be an admission of guilt. If he thought the fishermen free and clear-or dead-would he turn his back on his life in Waset unnecessarily? Would he want to look guilty before he was certain he had been identified as the malign spirit?
Bak was torn. He wanted to go to the garrison, to question Menna right away, to satisfy himself of the officer’s guilt or innocence. But dare he? The fishermen might not be dead.
No matter who their leader, the deceased Montu or the living Menna, they could be hiding somewhere near Djeser Djeseru, planning a spectacular accident with Senenmut as a witness or, far worse, a victim. He might still have time to stop it-if it was not already too late. The barque of the lord Re had climbed halfway up the morning sky, and the inspection should be well on its way. Worse, to Bak’s way of thinking, was the certainty that Amonked, escorting Senenmut around Djeser Djeseru, was as much at risk as Maatkare Hatshepsut’s favorite.
