A Vile Justice (10 page)

Swallowing a sharp reply, Bak strode between the two rows of seated men and stopped before the chief scribe. "I've not come to borrow, only to read, a task I prefer to do here."

"Well..." Simut hesitated, frowned. "Well, I'm not sure. . ."

Through an open portal off to the right, Bak spotted in a dimly lit room several wooden frames filled with large pottery storage jars lying on their sides, row upon row, their mouths facing outward for convenience. He could see scrolls within the containers closest to the door, wTlile the vessels farther away, barely visible in the gloom, had been plugged with dried mud and sealed, their contents protected from deAruction by mice and men alike.

"If you haven't the time to help me," he said, taking a ;ouple of steps toward the records room, "you need only tell ne where to look." He assumed Simut would be as appalled )y the idea of having a stranger pawing around in his files as was the chief scribe at Buhen, a fussy old man who stood guard over his domain like a mother goose defending her brood of goslings.

"Wait!" Simut scrambled to his feet and hastened to the door. "Stay right where you are. I'll get it." Not bothering with a lamp, he walked into the dusky room.

Bak bowed his head to hide a smile. He did not especially like the chief scribe, but he saw no reason to laugh aloud, to make him look the fool before his subordinates.

Within moments, Simut returned, a good-sized greenishgray jar in the crook of his arm, scrolls jutting out of its wide mouth like the emerging petals of a huge, stiff blossom. He sat down on his pallet, supported the vessel between his knees, and searched through the documents, reading notes inked on the outside of each scroll. "Ah, yes. Lieutenant Dedi." He eyed the thin cylinder, shook his head. "Poor soul. His life snuffed out at such a tender age."

Adopting an officious attitude to conceal his distress, he handed the scroll to Bak, set the container on the floor beside him, and returned to the document on which he had been writing. Standing close by, Bak untied the string binding Dedi's record and unrolled it. The information provided was as brief as the young man's life had been. About midway through, he found what he was looking for, or at least he hoped so. Dedi's father had been an officer, a lieutenant seriously injured in the line of duty, one whose meritorious career had opened the door to his son when he, too, wished to enter the army as an officer. The location and specifics of the injury were not given.

"Do you recall if a Lieutenant Ptahmose was assigned to this garrison a few years ago?" Bak asked.

Simut gavela long-suffering sigh. "Ptahmose? We had an infantry officer by that name. Why do you ask?"

The chief scribe was irascible, not easy to get along with, the kind of man who brought out the worst in Bak, making him stubbornly resistant to revealing any information demanded. But Simut had been the first to hint at the secret Djehuty harbored, a secret he had implied Bak should learn.

Bak lowered his voice so the other men in the room would not hear. "I know of the sandstorm, Simut, of the many deaths and the few survivors, and I believe I've found the link among those who've been slain during the past few weeks." He went on to explain, then asked, "Could the Ptahmose you remember have been Dedi's father?"

Without a word, Simut laid his scroll aside and stood up. Lines, of worry etched his brow. He lit the wick in a reddish pottery lamp and carried it into the records room. Bak longed to follow, but knew an offer of help would be spurned. He remained outside, watching the play of light and shadow fall across the tall wooden frames, the scroll-filled jars, and the short, plump scribe reading labels scratched on the mud plugs.

Ptahmose's file, older and harder to find than that of Dedi, was located out of the way at the far end of the room, but in no time at all Simut returned with a buff-colored jar long ago plugged and sealed. Dropping to his knees, he struck the plug with a stone, shattering the hard, dry mud, and sorted hastily through the contents. Finding the scroll he wanted, he broke the seal with a thumbnail, untied the string, and unrolled the papyrus. Bak knelt beside him; too impatient to wait for an answer, and together they began to read.

"Ptahmose came from the provincial capital of Imet," Simut said, "and there he planned to return when he left the army and Abu."

". . . after recovering from severe wind- and sunburn received during a sandstorm," Bak said, reading on ahead. Simut ran a finger down the next column of symbols, stopped near the bottom. "Five years ago, that was, as you thought."

Bak unrolled the much thinner cylinder of the younger officer and glanced through its contents. "Dedi, too, came from Imet, and there his father no doubt remains." Imet was a town north of Mennufer, many days' travel downriver from Abu. Ptahmose lived much too far away for the slayer to touch. His son's arrival in Abu must have seemed a gift of the gods.

Simut noticed how slowly the pens were scratching across the scrolls, the curious looks of his minions. He stuffed the two documents into their respective containers, handed the lamp to Bak, and, carrying a jar in each hand, led the way into the file room. He did not speak until they reached the back wall, well out of hearing distance of the men outside.

"You obviously believe someone-a close relative or friend of one who died in that storm-is slaying the survivors."

"I think so, yes." The idea, which had seemed so right in the privacy of his own thoughts, sounded fantastic when aired.

"Why now, after so long a time?"

Bak waved away a wisp of smoke. "Perhaps some incident, maybe only a word or two, ignited a fire in the slayer's heart."

Simut set the gray vessel on the floor and lifted the buff jar high, meaning to slip it into the space from which he had taken it. Noticing its gaping mouth, he made an impatient sound with his tongue and set it down beside the other.

"My nephew vanished in that storm, you know, a youth as close to me as a son."

"I didn't know." Bak eyed him with interest. "Do you resent those who returned, Djehuty among them?"

"No longer, but at the time I did. To lose so fine a young man, one beloved by all who knew him. So brave, so..." Simut's voice faltered and he gave a cheerless little laugh. "Djehuty was always one who knew better than anyone else, even when we played together as children, but in this case? No, no man can be blamed for the fury of the gods."

"I rememlVr the men returning from the storm," Khawet said, pity clouding her face. "I'd gone to Nubt for a few days, to my father's estate. Most who survived wandered out of the desert near there-or farther north. Close to death, they were. Burned by the sun, thirsty, starving, so worn they could barely put one foot in front of another."

"Your father among them," Bak said.

"He survived, yes, and each day that's since gone by, I've thanked the lord Khnum."

She stood at the side of a small, square courtyard, watching four young women bent over limestone mortars sunk into the floor, pounding grain with stone pestles. Lengths of newly washed linen stretched across a dozen or so heavy rope lines shaded them from the merciless midafternoon sun but provided no relief from the heat. Sweat beaded on their foreheads and stained their dresses. The heavy odor of crushed grain failed to mask the smell of their bodies.

"Far more men died than lived," Bak said. "In a small, tight world like Abu, where most who manned the garrison at that time came from families who've lived in this province for generations, there must still exist many friends and relatives of those who were lost."

"I was most impressed when I heard of the patterns you saw in the slayings, but in this case?" She touched him lightly on the arm, then quickly withdrew her hand. "A man would have to be terribly bitter to seek revenge after so long a time."

He no longer mistook the gesture as a sign of intimacy, as he had been inclined to do before. She must habitually touch others, he thought, or in this case was merely displaying regret that her opinion differed from his. "I've found no other tie binding Nakht and the three men."

The sound of male and female laughter drew her eyes toward a wooden gate standing ajar at the rear of the court. "I must get on with my duties. The bakers and brewers toiling beyond that wall await direction." She remained where she stood, letting him know she preferred he leave so she could carry out the remainder of her tasks alone. "What of Hatnofer? How was she linked to those who survived the storm?"

"I'd hoped you could answer that question. I've been told you knew her better than anyone."

"I knew her, yes, but she never confided in me." "Did you not tell me she was a mother to you?"

Her voice grew sharp, annoyed. "She never ceased to treat me as a child, Lieutenant."

He suspected her anger was directed at the dead woman, not him. Lest he err, he attempted a smile, hoping to disarm her, but a whiff of crushed grain made him sneeze. "What of her family?" he managed, and a second sneeze overwhelmed him.

A fleeting smile acknowledged his discomfort. "She was a foundling, a babe left on my father's doorstep in Nubt. If she had a family in Abu or Swenet-or anywhere else, for that matter-she never knew them." Glancing at the gate, she ed~,ed away from him. "I must go. With Hatnofer no longer here, I've no time to linger."

"One more question," he said, stopping her flight with an upraised hand. "Of all those who have the freedom to walk through this compound, who had close friends or relatives that vanished in the desert?"

"Most of the servants lost men near and dear, as did the guards. I know Amethu, Simut, and Ineni lost someone close, and I believe Antef did. I, too, cared for men who never returned: lieutenants Amonemhab, Nebmose, Minnakht, and Neferhotep. I miss them even now, all in the prime of life, lost forever to the wind and the sand."

Again she briefly touched his arm. Turning away, she hastened across the court and out the gate, which she swung closed behind her. Bak watched her go, sympathizing with her plight. No wonder she was irritable, he thought; she had every right to be. She had, only two days before, found the body of a woman as close to her as a mother, and she was now burdened with that woman's duties in addition to her own. She was mistress of a household ruled by a man who appeared to Bak impossible to please and was wed to a husband she seemed not to love.

"Kasaya's fallen in love?" Bak chuckled. "Not again!" "This time he'll be lucky to escape a free man," Psuro said, grinning. "The girl toils in the governor's kitchen, where she's student to the chief cook-her mother. The old

woman's the best I've come upon in many a year, and she's stuffing Kasaya like a goose being force-fed for slaughter." Walking side-by-side, laughing, they turned a corner into the lane that would take them to their quarters. Failing sunshine lighted the upper edges of the taller buildings, while the deep shadow of dusk filled the narrow walkway. The odors of fish and onions, of herbs and cooking oil, wafted down from the rooftops, as did the soft voices of families enjoying their evening meal.

"Does he realize how dangerous his position is?" Bak managed.

Psuro shook his head. "He's too busy shoving food into his mouth to think of the consequences."

Stifling laughter as best he could, Bak stopped in front of their quarters and shoved aside the mat hanging over the door. The room lay in deep shadow, the objects inside losing color and definition. "Djehuty has an estate at Nubt. If you see a crisis on the horizon, I'll send Kasaya downriver, out of harm's way."

"Yes, sir," Psuro said, wiping his eyes with the palm of his hand.

"Where'd you put the lamp?" "Inside the door, to the right."

Bak spotted three palm-sized baked clay dishes on the floor, fresh wicks rising from puddles of oil. He scooped one up and handed it to the Medjay. "I saw light in a house halfway down the block."

The Medjay nodded and hurried down the lane. Rather than take the time to start a fire using a small drill and kindling, he would borrow the neighbor's lamp to light his own. Bak rolled the mat up, letting air and the meager natural light into the house, and tied it with a sturdy cord. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, he sensed that someone had entered the house during their absence. He stopped dead still, thinking of the fish he had found the night before, the warning he suspected it conveyed. The last thing he had expected was another such gift.

Psuro came up behind him, lamp flaming. "Our evening meal," he said, looking over Bak's shoulder, his eyes on the two stools Amethu had furnished, one stacked upside-down on top of the other, with a large covered basket perched atop the three legs. "I hope the old woman included some meat or fowl. I'm starving." Not overly fond of cooking, he had persuaded an elderly widow he had met at the public well to provide their meals.

Bak eyed the basket, towering above the other furnishings, safe from. mice and rats, insects, and whatever else might be tempted. Its presence failed to suppress a strong feeling of unease. His eyes darted around the room, skipping over patches of light, probing shadows, coming to rest on the lower steps of the stairway leading to the roof and an object impossible to see clearly from where he stood. With the fish foremost in his thoughts, he bounded across the room. "Spawn of Apep!" he snarled.

A clay doll hung head-down off the lowest step, an arrow with the shaft broken off protruding from its breast. The image, he had no doubt, represented Montu, the spearman who supposedly fell down the stairs and onto his own weapon.