by Lauren Haney
Maybe, Bak thought, and maybe not. Yet Mery’s tale could not be easily dismissed. Maiherperi had said: if you have the smallest reason to suspect the members of the slain man’s household are without guilt, you must cast your net wider. With a resigned sigh, he rose and walked around the room, studying the chests and stools and tables that appeared not to have been disturbed, the overturned chair, the upright table with the burning lamps, the position of Nakht’s body.
“When you entered, was the table standing as it is now?” he asked. “Were the lamps alight and placed on it?”
“Everything was just as you see it.”
“He was probably seated beside the table, and with two lamps so near…” Bak’s eyes darted toward Mery. “He must’ve been reading, but I see no scroll.”
“The one who slew him could’ve taken it. Does that not prove mistress Azzia innocent? She left this room empty-handed.”
Unless it was a fragment, Bak thought, a piece so small she could hide it in the bosom of her dress. He examined the chair, which was free of blood, and ran his fingers over the smooth, clean surfaces of the narrow table. “If there was a struggle, it was short-lived. Otherwise, this would’ve fallen over, too.”
“Nakht was not a man to give up without resisting. If he’d expected the attack, he’d have done all he could to protect himself.”
“Therefore he was caught off guard. The blow was true to its mark, giving him no more chance than a newborn lamb facing a jackal.”
Bak’s glance fell to the dagger handle, slightly longer than the breadth of a hand and carved from ebony. Below the smoky gray rock crystal pommel, it was inlaid with three narrow bands of gold. An elegant weapon, the type carried by high-ranking officers and the nobility.
“Do you recognize this?” he asked.
“I do, as you would if you’d been here longer.” Mery rose to stand over the body. “It was one of Nakht’s most treasured possessions. He brought the blade from the land of Hatti, and our commander-in-chief, Menkheperre Thutmose himself, had the handle made for him.” He shuddered. “For a man to use this dagger to take his life was an abomination.”
Reluctant to do what he knew he must, Bak sucked in his breath, gripped the handle, and jerked the weapon out of the lifeless breast. The blade, gory with blood, made the beer churn in his stomach. Chiding himself for the weakness, he strode to the table and held the dagger close to a lamp.
The blade was twice as long as the handle and tapered to a deadly point. It was made of a dull silvery gray metal so rare he had seen it only once or twice before. Surprised, excited, he swung around to Mery. “This is iron!”
Mery nodded. “A metal as common in Hatti, Nakht told me, as is gold in our own desert wadis.”
Bak gazed at the weapon with a covetous eye. “They say it’s very strong and a man who owns such a blade holds the power of the gods in his hands. I wonder if…” He shook his head. “No! If the one who slew Nakht meant to steal this dagger, he’d have pulled it out of his breast and carried it away. His life wasn’t taken for this.”
More likely, he thought, it was used simply because it was here, a convenient object for a wife to lay her hands on during a heated argument. Nevertheless, he had to look elsewhere, too, if for no other reason than to satisfy himself that he had done all he should. Laying the dagger on the table, he eyed the door that opened to the dark stairway. Obviously, the woman had smeared much of the blood, but if someone else had taken Nakht’s life, he might have been spattered and left some sign farther afield.
At Bak’s command, a spearman brought another torch and he entered the rough-plastered, rather musty stairwell, leaving Mery and the guard behind. He wanted no one to disturb any telltale signs. He worked his way downward a step at a time to the ground floor, unable to find any fresh smudges or spots of blood. The door at the bottom was closed but not barred. He made his way upward with equal care, again finding nothing, to an open trapdoor at roof level. Had the door been left open to admit the cooler night air to the rooms below? Or to admit a man Nakht had summoned?
He stepped onto the flat, empty rooftop and took a deep breath of the clean chill air. Wondering if he should look further, he gazed at the open flight of stairs that continued up the wall to the battlements. What exactly had Nakht said? “If you’d offended the gods to the extent some men have…” Men. He had made no mention of a woman. The thought spurred Bak on, but the stairs above were as free of stains as those below.
After identifying himself to the sentry at the top, he climbed onto the nearest tower, which rose from the northwest corner of the inner city, the administrative sector of Buhen. From there, he could see in the waning moonlight much of the outer city, a huge rectangular area enclosed by walls as high and strong as those around the citadel. The streets were crooked, the blocks irregular in shape, the buildings thrown together in random form. Within these cramped structures were the workshops and homes of craftsmen and traders. On the outskirts lay the animal enclosures, encampments for transient soldiers, and a necropolis of the ancients. No light was visible, no human stirred. Only the creatures of the night disrupted the silence: a chorus of dogs, a howling cat, the soft tweet of birds nesting in the wall somewhere below where Bak stood.
He puzzled over Nakht’s words. Had he used the word “men” as a general term, encompassing both sexes, or had he been more specific? With no ready answer, Bak watched the sentries patrolling the battlements. Besides the man who paced the sector where he stood, he could see the more distant figures of several others. They stopped at times to look over the wall and they lingered to chat when their paths happened to meet. He felt certain a cautious man could slip from one tower to the next and onto or off the stairway without their noticing.
He looked over the breastwork at the inner city, a series of grayish rectangles outlined by straight black streets and lanes infrequently traveled in the dead of night. His eyes settled on the shadowy roof of the commandant’s residence, the largest house in Buhen. It nestled in a corner with two of its walls butting against the fortress wall, its facade opening to the street. Its fourth side hugged a narrow lane-bridged by a wide board, he noticed-which separated the residence from the scribal office building and the main storehouse, easily recognized by the long parallel ridges atop its barrel-vaulted ceiling. Beyond lay the treasury and the walled mansion of the lord Horus of Buhen. The scribal offices interested Bak the most. They were empty at night, as were most of the structures in the sector, and the building had a stairway to the roof. It would take but a few moments to fly from there to the stairs descending to Nakht’s reception room.
He studied the dozen or more dark smudges visible in the torchlit courtyard, men who had been watching the Medjays when the woman screamed, and considered another, equally likely possibility. With so many people milling around the ground floor, a man intent on murder could easily have slipped into the dark, enclosed stairwell and later, after slaying the commandant, rejoined the crowd without being missed.
Three ways of reaching Nakht with small chance of being seen by members of the household. All possible but risky. Foolhardy, even.
No, the foreign woman Azzia must have slain her husband. Yet doubt nagged Bak like a hungry mosquito. He dreaded talking to her, dreaded having to accuse her of taking her husband’s life. But if she should prove her innocence, he dreaded more the idea of having to search further. How could he, a man whose sole experience was with horses, chariots, and battle tactics, find the one guilty man in a city of nearly five hundred?
Bak crossed the courtyard with heavy feet. He had dispatched Nakht’s body to the house of death and examined the slain man’s personal rooms, where he found nothing of interest. He had questioned the onlookers, who all denied having seen anyone take the stairway to the second floor, and had sent them away. And he had ordered Imsiba to go with Mery to question the men patrolling the battlements as to who and what they had seen through their night’s vigil.
The moon had sunk behind th
e fortress wall, the torches had burned low, and the stars above sparkled in an inky void. The dark forms of potted flowers and trees, which gave the courtyard the appearance of a miniature garden, scented the air with perfume. As he approached the only lighted doorway, he nodded to the Medjay he had posted there to guard the woman Azzia.
She sat on a low three-legged stool, her back straight, her hands clasped in her lap, her head held high. No bloodstains remained on her hands or her pale, oval face, and she wore a clean unadorned linen sheath. She must have heard the patter of his sandals, for her eyes were on the door when he entered.
“Have you come to accuse me of murder?” Her voice, which held no trace of an accent, was quiet and composed, with barely a hint of tension.
He stopped short on the threshold, caught by surprise. “Did you take your husband’s life?”
The servant Lupaki, standing by her side, laid a protective hand on her shoulder. Seated on the floor next to a large pottery basin, a dusky, nearly naked girl of no more than ten years raised her hand to her mouth to smother a sob. Beside the child, a twig-thin, wrinkled old woman glared at Bak over an untidy pile of bloodstained linen she clutched in her arms.
“No.” Azzia looked at him, her gaze steady. “Lieutenant Mery has said you believe I did.”
Bak silently cursed the watch officer for saying more than he should. The female servants must have thought his scowl meant for them, for they scurried into the next room, Azzia’s bedchamber.
“I’ve found nothing to convince me otherwise,” Bak said.
“And I was there.” It came out as a whisper, and for an instant she seemed close to breaking, but she stiffened her spine and tried to smile.
That smile, so fragile and filled with pain, pierced Bak through and through. He looked away, pretending to examine the room. It was half the size of Nakht’s reception room and furnished much the same. Rush mats covered the floor. The lower walls were painted with unsophisticated but delicate scenes of the animals of the desert.
“I did not take his life, that I swear. He was my…” She paused and her thoughts turned inward. Then she shuddered as if to free herself of memories and looked directly at Bak. “Mery said that though you believe I’m guilty, you looked beyond my husband’s room for signs of another person.”
“That’s right.” Bak’s tone was brisk, covering his annoyance that he had allowed her to move him. He grabbed a stool from its place near the door, set it in front of her, and sat down. “Tell me what happened this evening.”
Lupaki slipped forward, dropped to his knees before Bak, raised his hands in supplication. “Don’t ask this of her, sir. You must give her time to compose herself.”
“Be silent, Lupaki,” Azzia said firmly. “It must be now.”
“Mistress…”
“Would you have me punished for the death of my husband? Would you allow the one who slew him to go free?”
Bak was taken aback by the blunt questions and by the depth of anger her voice betrayed. The anger of innocence, he wondered, or of guilt?
Lupaki uttered a strangled denial and hauled himself to his feet, his face flushed with shame.
Briefly, Azzia’s gaze dropped to her hands, clasped so tightly together her fingers were nearly bloodless. “We took our evening meal in the courtyard where we could enjoy the breeze. While we ate, we talked about our day, as we always do.” She gave an odd little laugh, or was it a cry? “As we always did.”
“What exactly did you talk about?” Bak asked, hurrying her on before she had a chance to think too deeply.
“I told him about the market, the gossip I’d heard from the other women. Nothing important. He told me he’d met with several officers, Mery, Nebwa, Paser, and others, no doubt to discuss the attacks on the caravans bringing ore from the mines, the need to send out troops to hunt down the raiding tribesmen. He said he told them of suggestions you’d made based on tactics you learned with the regiment of Amon.”
Bak made no comment, but he was surprised the commandant would share so much of his official day with his wife.
“He was pleased Commander Maiherperi had sent you and the Medjays.” A fleeting smile touched her lips. “He felt sure your presence here would put an end to much of the wild carousing and petty crime. And then…” She paused, her voice trembled. “Then he looked troubled and said…he said, ‘But they can do nothing to help me now. I must personally deal with…’”
Bak leaned toward her, his pulses quickening. “Go on.”
“He never finished the thought. I urged him to explain, but he said he’d do so later, after the problem was resolved.” She closed her eyes tight, took a deep, ragged breath.
Bak did not know what to think. Her grief appeared genuine, but she could as easily be playing on his sympathy to learn if Nakht had confided in him.
She hurried on. “He left me soon after and went to his bedchamber. I helped the servants take the remains of our meal to the kitchen and spoke with them while they cleaned the bowls. When I returned, my husband was waiting for me in this room. He said he had something he must do and suggested I retire. He said…” Her voice grew tight. “He said he would come to me later.”
With the wild panicked look of a snared fawn, she sprang to her feet and rushed out the door. Bak hurried after her, but stopped short when he saw her standing, head bowed, her back to him, in the center of the courtyard. The Medjay guard, already on his feet, threw him an uncertain look. Bak signaled him to remain where he was and walked toward her. In the dim light, the clinging white sheath accented every graceful curve of her lovely body. Bak, who had known many women in his twenty-three years, was drawn to her like a wasp to water.
Very well aware of his weakness for an attractive woman, he stopped a few paces away and forced himself to think of her not as a lovely young widow but as the one most likely to have slain her husband.
She raised her head and turned to look at him. “Nakht went to his reception room. His distress had worried me, and I couldn’t rest. I waited and waited-too long, I thought-so I dressed and went to him.” She paused, swallowed. “He lay bleeding on the floor. I tried to stop the flow. He said it was too late and asked me to raise his head and shoulders. I asked who had done this to him, but he spoke of personal matters. Again I asked who…” She closed her eyes, shook her head. “He never answered.”
She turned away and walked slowly toward the lighted door of her sitting room, where Lupaki waited. Bak watched the two of them go inside, his mind a jumble of contradictory thoughts. Is she bravely holding her sorrow at arm’s length, as she appears to be? he wondered. Or is her every word and action a lie?
“Is she telling the truth?”
The question, so closely matching his own, startled him. He swung around and spotted Imsiba emerging from the shadows of the landing atop the stairway that connected the private quarters to the audience hall. The sergeant, a dozen years older than Bak and half a head taller, walked as lithe and graceful as a leopard. His shoulders were broad, his hips narrow, his muscles solid and powerful.
“I wish I knew,” Bak admitted. “Did you hear it all?”
“Merely the last few words.”
Bak cursed his bad luck. Imsiba’s uncanny ability to read another’s thoughts might have pulled his wits from the sodden marsh they seemed to have fallen into. “What did you learn from the sentries?”
“No one saw anyone on the battlements who should not have been there, and no one noticed anyone on the roof of this house.”
“None but officers and guards are allowed on the wall at night.” Bak gave the Medjay a sharp look. “I know Lieutenant Mery was there. Are you saying others were, too?”
“Three men,” Imsiba said. “Nebwa, the senior lieutenant in this garrison who commands the infantry, had to speak with the watch sergeant. As he was busy, Nebwa waited for some time. The second man was Paser, the lieutenant responsible for escorting the gold caravans. He climbed the stairs near the quay, walked briefly along the p
arapet, and returned to the ground.”
“What of the third man?” Bak asked.
Imsiba looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Harmose, an archer who shares the blood of my people and yours and speaks both tongues. He translated for the commandant, who valued his judgment, so I’ve been told, and treated him like an officer.”
“What was he doing up there?”
“He often walks the wall, looking at the ships moored at the quay, the river, and the desert sands where his mother was born. He did so tonight.”
“The commandant’s life was taken when the moon was at its highest point. Did the sentries notice any of the three-or Mery-near the stairway to this house at that time?”
Imsiba snorted. “They think of the moon as nothing more than a measure of the hours they must remain on watch. They know it passed overhead and they know those men were on the wall sometime during its passing. That’s as specific as they can be.”
Bak stared with a gloomy face at the door to Azzia’s sitting room. That Nakht had spoken during the afternoon to the three officers, and possibly to his translator as well, and they had all been atop the wall near the time of his death, meant almost nothing. He had no good reason to free her from suspicion. Common sense told him she was guilty, but doubt remained in his heart. Was it because her words and behavior had played on his sympathies? Or because her youth and beauty had warped his judgment?
What he needed, he decided, was an impartial observer, and he could think of none better than a man who could sense another’s thoughts.
“Come with me,” he said.
Imsiba raised an eyebrow, but followed in Bak’s shadow across the courtyard.
When they entered the lighted room, Azzia was standing in its center, talking rapidly in a tongue Bak did not understand, the tongue of her homeland, he assumed. Lupaki stood before his mistress, trying to speak but unable to stop her flow. Her voice and face were positive and determined, his negative and glum.
She glanced around, saw Imsiba, and stiffened. Her eyes swung toward Bak. “Are you now convinced only I could’ve taken my husband’s life?”
