A Vile Justice (11 page)

Psuro came up beside him and held the light close. He muttered something in his own tongue, too long to be a simple oath, more likely an incantation against whatever malign force had caused the doll to be brought into their quarters.

Bak preferred a more common sense approach. He picked up the image to examine it. The eyes were mere slits, probably made with a fingernail; the nose a bit of clay pinched to stand out from the otherwise featureless face. The body was cylindrical, its stick-like arms and legs held in place with straw. The arrowhead was flint, with nothing remaining of the shaft but a japed stub of wood. The image was so recently molded it felt cool and damp to the touch, though no longer soft.

"I wish I knew what message this was meant to deliver, Psuro."

"It can only be a threat," the Medjay said, eyeing the doll with distaste.

Bak's voice turned wry. "Would not a note be more direct?"

"I doubt the man who brought it knows how to write." Bak stared at the figure, unconvinced. The fish with the stone was simple but direct, and so was the doll. The delivery of such items required imagination, not the plodding thought processes of the poor and uneducated. As before, he felt he was being teased, the slayer toying with him to prove ... what? To prove himself superior in thought and deed? Probably, but something else, too: this blatant intrusion into his quarters was meant to intimidate, to frighten.

One thing was clear: he would have to post one of his men here each evening. The thought grated. He had not sufficient manpower to waste on a task that might prove futile. If only he had more men, more Medjays from Buhen, men he trusted.

"I'm fairly certain the storm is the key to the murders, but you mustn't allow my belief to blind you to other possibilities."

"Yes, sir," Psuro and Kasaya said in unison.

Bak fastened his belt clasp over the small, neat knot holding his kilt in place and stepped into woven-reed sandals. "More than anything else, I'd like to talk to someone who came back alive, one who saw more of his fellows during the tempest than did Lieutenant Amonhotep."

"When I wandered around the caravan encampment yesterday, I talked to more than a dozen traders." Psuro, long ago up and dressed, sat down on the stairway and lifted several leaves covering a tightly woven basket brought by the old woman he had hired to cook for them. The yeasty aroma of fresh bread wafted across the room. "A few had heard of a company of soldiers lost in the desert, but in a vague sort of way. None connected the tale to Abu."

"Not surprising," Bak said, tugging down the hem of his kilt, making it even all around. "Most are outsiders, men who remain only long enough to pass on to a ship the trade goods they've brought from far to the north or south." He reached for an intricate bronze chain from which hung several faience amulets, the most prominent among them the lord Horns of Buhen and the lady Maat. "No, you must query men and women who've lived in this province for many years. Not an easy task, I warn you. Half the people I spoke with yesterday resorted to talk of the gods or demons or some other malign force when I mentioned the storm. And the two guards, Kames and Nenu, hinted that the men in the garrison may've been ordered to remain silent."

Psuro offered a round, crusty roll to Bak and threw a second to Kasaya, sitting cross-legged on his sleeping pallet. The young Medjay caught it with a grin. "If I'd come back from that storm alive and suddenly I saw my fellow survivors falling to the earth like overripe fruit, I'd turn my back on Abu and walk as fast and far as I could."

"Nakht and Lieutenant Dedi weren't survivors," Psuro scoffed. "They weren't even here then. They were both too young to march off to battle. So who would think to connect them to Montu and Senmut?"

Kasaya, not in the least miffed, shot the roll back to Psuro. "Lieutenant Bak did."

Psuro raised his arm, preparing to return the missile. Bak gave him a long, hard look. With a sheepish smile, the stocky Medjay lowered the roll, broke it apart, and took a bite.

"Go see the chief scribe, Psuro. I asked him yesterday to prepare a list of all who survived the storm. He should have their names ready and waiting." Bak glanced around, searching for the document Commandant Thuty had prepared, giving him authority in Abu. He intended to visit the garrison records center and take a look at scrolls unavailable to the average officer. If Troop Captain Antef was not there, or if he refused to give permission, Thuty's message should open the door. "Mark off those who're no longer among the living and find out what happened to the remainder."

"And pray to the lord Amon that at least one man still lives," Kasaya said. "

"And that he lives close by," Psuro added.

Garrison headquarters was located in a row of interconnected houses across a narrow lane from the two-story barracks building. The dwellings had been altered over the years by the addition or removal of walls, and doors had been cut to allow free movement throughout the block. The sole structure that remained relatively unchanged was the commander's residence, an unadorned two-story house with offices on the ground floor and living quarters above.

After spending over a year within the high, fortified walls of Buhen, Bak had trouble reconciling himself to the idea of a garrison without walls, one surrounded by places of business and crowded residential blocks. Especially since Abu had once been the southernmost city in the land of Kemet, a frontier city from which armies set off for what were then wild and untamed lands farther south, paving the way for trading expeditions led by the stout-hearted governors of the province. Men Djehuty wanted very much to claim as ancestors.

A guard posted in the entryway of the commander's residence directed him through the columned audience hall to a rectangular chamber in which a half dozen scribes toiled. There he introduced himself to the chief scribe, who sat on the floor facing the others. The lesser scribes studied him furtively, any stranger a welcome distraction.

"I understand Troop Captain Antef has gone to the quarry," Bak said.

"That's right, sir. He left soon after daybreak. There was an accident. A heavy section of stone fell on a man's leg." The chief scribe, a slight man of medium height with a small birthmark on his neck, scowled in a vain effort to conceal his distress. "If the tale the messenger told was accurate, the limb is crushed and he'll lose it."

And probably his life, Bak thought with a shudder. Such injuries were almost impossible for a physician to treat. Only the gods.could intervene. "I'll speak with Antef later, then. In the meantime,.i'd like to look at several documents you're sure to have filed away among your records."

The scribe shook off his distraction over the injured soldier and frowned. "I'm sorry, sir, but without the troop captain's approval, you can see nothing."

Bak handed him the scroll prepared by Thuty. The clerk read the document and read it again a second time. With an almost imperceptible sigh of resignation, he rolled it up and gave it back. "What do you wish, sir?"

"First, the daybook containing entries about a sandstorm that occurred five years .ago, the storm from which most of the men in this garrison failed to return. I'd also like to see the official report of the catastrophe. And I wish to look at the daybooks for the past two months." Those would include the entries made on the days the deaths occurred in the governor's household and any related items of interest.

The scribe allowed himself a brief, curious glance. "If you'll wait in the audience hall, sir, I'll bring them right away."

Bak followed his suggestion, seating himself on a wooden bench built against one wall of the hall. Scribes came and went, sergeants reported to junior officers, the chief armorer came in to complain about the poor quality of spears received from the capital. Most glanced Bak's way and dismissed him, thinking him just another officer passing through Abu.

In a surprisingly short time, the chief scribe presented him with a basket containing several scrolls and hastened back to his flock. Bak thumbed through the documents until he found the official report of the tempest, labeled year five of the reign of Maatkare Hatshepsut, harvest season. Djehuty, as garrison commander, had prepared the scroll more than a week after the storm, after the last of the survivors had returned to Abu. It went into considerable detail, a bland, sometimes officious accounting, giving away nothing that would discredit Djehuty or his troops. No surprises there.

He took up the appropriate daybook and scanned its entries. References to the storm were short acid succinct. The loss of over one hundred men and more than sixty donkeys was dealt with in a cursory, almost offhand manner that angered him in its easy dismissal of their lives.

Setting aside the documents related to the storm, he pulled the remaining scrolls out of the basket and sorted them by date. They proved to be disappointing, to say the least. Since none of the victims were assigned to the garrison and none of the murders had occurred there, the incidents were not referred to in any way.

Bak climbed a gradual slope, a rolling stretch of golden sand softened by the passage of many feet and warmed by the morning sun. Ahead, a hump of reddish stone protruded from the barren landscape, breaking the horizon to the left and right for at least two hundred paces. Men reduced to stick-like figures by distance and heat waves toiled on the face of the outcrop, one of several granite quarries located in the desert south of Swenet. A smaller assemblage, stripped down to loincloths, clustered on the sand at the base of the rock face, surrounding a large object impossible to see with so many men shielding it from view. Two stood slightly apart-Troop Captain Antef, Bak assumed, and a scribe.

As he drew near, plodding ankle-deep through the sand, another man, a sergeant most likely, emerged from among the workmen-troops from the garrison pressed to do duty at the quarry. Striding toward Antef, the man spotted Bak and pointed. The troop captain swung around, placed his hands on his hips, and shook his head. Bak could not see his features, but disgust was apparent in his stance.

He was surprised Antef would show disregard for a fellow officer in front of his men. He felt sure the aversion was not directed at him but at the task he must perform, the questions he must ask. Nonetheless, he resented being the recipient of such a display. Feigning indifference, he narrowed the gap between them. The men on the outcrop paid no heed to his approach; those close by sneaked glances his way; curious.

"Troop Captain Antef," he said. "May I have a word?" "Lieutenant Bak," Antef said, aping the police officer's tone. "A word,-yes. I've no time for a lengthy discourse." Bak looked pointedly at the men on the outcrop, all going about their business under the expert direction of a half dozen chief quarrymen, and the men standing nearby, idling around what looked like a greater than lifesize, unfinished statue of the lord Osiris or, more likely, Maatkare Hatshepsut as one with Osiris. Details of face and figure had not yet been carved and it lacked the final polish, both of which would be done when it reached its final destination in faroff Waset.

Antef's mouth twitched, as if he realized how pompous he had sounded, but he maintained his cool and serious demeanor. "Djehuty has promised this accursed statue will sail today. I'm here to see that it does."

"One of your men suffered an accident, I was told. I assume it wasn't as serious as I was led to believe."

Antef glowered at the' statue. "This wretched image rolled onto him. Thanks to the lord Khnum, the sand beneath him was soft and he suffered only a blow to his pride and a bruise big enough to earn him softer duty in Abu for a few days."

Relieved the man was unhurt, Bak said, "My questions may distract you now and again, but they'll not keep you from your duty."

Again Antef's mouth hinted at a smile. Bak had a feeling he would enjoy this man's company under different circumstances.

"Ask what you like." Antef's eyes darted toward two men hurrying up the slope, carrying wooden shovels on their shoulders. "If I find you in the way, you'll leave, like it or not."

"As the man responsible for this garrison, would it not be to your advantage to see the scales of justice balanced as soon as possible?"

Without a word, Antef strode away. He slipped through the line of men encircling the statue and walked around the rough-cut head to meet the pair who had brought the shovels. Bak followed at a distance, staying outside the ring of men. A sledge, two low runners connected by sturdy crosspieces, lay on the far side of the statue. The fresh-worked granite had taken on the pinkish-red hue especially desired by the royal house of Kemet. Clear crystals embedded among the colored granite glittered in the sunlight.

"You know what you must do. You've done it often enough." Antef looked around the circle. "Move that thing out of the way. . ." He pointed at the sledge. ". . . and dig a long, shallow trench alongside the statue. Bury the sledge up to the crosspieces, and we'll drag the image onto it." He strode through the circle and drew Bak away, where they could speak without being heard. "Yes, Lieutenant, I am responsible for this garrison. 1, not you, should've been entrusted with finding the slayer."

"I've no doubt you're a worthy officer," Bak said, trying to balance tact and honesty, "but you've had no experience looking into the hearts of men who turn away from the lady Maat, taking what they will, including other men's lives."

Antef eyed him with scorn. "I've served in the army since I was a youth of fifteen years. I've spent my nights in the barracks and my days on the, practice field. If ever we should march off to war, I'd dwell in a tent on the field of battle. I know men, Lieutenant."

"Ordinary, god-fearing men have little in common with the vile criminals I've tracked and snared."

Antef's mouth tightened. "Men are men, I tell you." Bak could see that no amount of persuasion would convince him otherwise. "Did you give any thought to the ten-day intervals between deaths?" he demanded. "Or the progressively higher rank of those who were slain?" "No," Antef growled. "Too many of the deaths appeared accidental to add up details."

"Did it ever occur to you that two of those who died were survivors of the sandstorm that decimated the garrison five years ago, and two others were the sons of survivors?"

"I knew Montu and Senmut lived through the storm." Antef's expression grew thoughtful. "And Nakht's father ... Well, yes, I knew he did, too." His eyes darted toward Bak. "Dedi's father as well?"

"He was a 13eutenant here in Abu." Bak went on to relate what he had learned from Simut's records.

"Troop Captain Antef!" the sergeant called.

Antef shook his head as if to clear it of all he had just learned and strode toward the men gathered around the statue. Bak stayed well back, out of the way of those who would shift the heavy stone figure.

A couple of men got down on hands and knees to clear sand from beneath the statue. They bared five wooden blocks that had been placed under the image as it was freed from the parent stone, leaving a gap through which they slipped four heavy ropes. These were tied around the statue and laid parallel to each other across the sledge and the sand.