A Vile Justice (16 page)

Bak had to give credit where credit was due: Pahared had wed quite a woman. "Tell me of Hatnofer," he said to Kasaya. "Did you discover her connection to the sandstorm?"

The young Medjay scooted sideways, making room for the servant to pour dry sand on the wet floor. Beer sloshed from his bowl, spilling down her leg. The girl's mouth tightened; her eyes flashed anger. He turned to Bak, unaware. "When she was a babe, a guard found her on the doorstep, and Djehuty's father took her in. She grew to womanhood as a servant. Arguments abound among the household staff as to whether or not Djehuty took her to bed. Half say her jealousy knew no bounds, so he must've. The others swear no man would touch a woman so sour."

Psuro snorted. "What kind of woman would crawl in with a man so small in his every thought and deed?"

"They wete close to each other in age," Kasaya said, as if that explained everything. "A couple of the servants, both men, hinted that Djehuty wasn't a youth to overlook any tender young morsel, especially one who earned her daily bread in his own household."

"Admirable," Psuro said, looking scornful.

Kasaya's eyes drifted to a slim young dancer who had red ribbons woven into the long black braid hanging down her naked back. The servant, finished with her task, dribbled sand onto his pillow, across his leg, and down his spine. He yelped, swung around, glared. She turned away, triumph lighting her face.

Bak bit back a smile. "Get on with your tale, Kasaya!" The young Medjay threw a pained look at Psuro; whose face was stiff with smothered laughter. "When Hatnofer reached an age to wed, another servant, one who toiled in the gardens, took her as his wife. She had two stillborn children, the second near the time mistress Khawet was born, thus she became her wet nurse. Her husband died, and she conceived no more."

"A convenient marriage," Bak said.

"Djehuty's father arranged the match, so I was told." Kasaya grinned. "About the time Djehuty wed Khawet's mother, I suspect."

"He may've set her aside for a noblewoman," Psuro said grudgingly, "but he did well enough by her in the end. Not many foundlings rise to the lofty position of housekeeper in a governor's villa."

"So she must've thought." Kasaya drank from his bowl, licked the foam from his lips. "They seldom quarreled, though from what I've been told, he often gave her reason to burn with anger."

Bak raised an eyebrow. "Someone, I don't recall who, mentioned an argument not long ago."

"Oh, they sometimes argued. Not often; she wouldn't let him bait her. But you're right: a couple of months ago, they had a good one."

"Tell me," Bak said.

Psuro gave him a surprised look. "You don't think Djehuty slew her, do you, sir?"

Bak waved off the suggestion as unlikely. "Well, Kasaya?"

"Let's see. Around two months ago, it was. In Nebmose's villa." The young Medjay gave his drinking bowl an exaggerated frown, as if forcing himself to think. "The door was closed and no one could hear what they said, but their voices were heated and Djehuty came away with the red mark of Hatnofer's hand on his cheek."

"Good for her!" Psuro chuckled. "Can't think of a man more deserving."

"That's it?" Bak demanded, deflated. "Words led to a blow, and you can tell me no more?"

Kasaya shook his head. "No, sir."

"She didn't confide in anyone, telling what happened or giving a reason for the quarrel?"

"She was so angry no one dared ask, ever."

Bak scowled at the young Medjay. He had a good idea how a fish felt when a man dangled a worm in front of it and then jerked it away. No wonder the poor creature grabbed the hook the moment the man let it drop again. "What of the storm? Did you find any connection between her and the tempest?"

"No, sir." Kasaya wiggled around, twisting his torso, and ran his fingers under the waistband at the back of his kilt. Evidently sand had trickled inside. "Oh, she knew some of the men who died. After all, she toiled in the governor's villa for a long time, and he headed the garrison. And Abu's not all that big. But ... Well, if she was close to one, no one will speak out."

Bak set his drinking bowl on the floor, leaned back against the wall, and closed his eyes. In this, too, the gods had failed him.

Bak stumbled on a rough spot in the lane, lurching forward. Kasaya swayed toward him, resting much of his weight on Bak's shoulder. "We should've left you in Swenet," he growled at toe besotted Medjay.

Psuro, who had dunked his head in a water trough to clear away the haze, tugged at the arm across his shoulders, trying to shift some of Kasaya's weight onto himself. "I doubt he can hear you, sir."

They maneuvered their shuffling, stumbling load around the corner and into the lane leading to their quarters. Bak peered into the blackness, imagining he could see a darker rectangle near the far end. Their door seemed a long way off.

"I fear I'm getting old, Psuro. This is the second man I've half carried to his quarters in less than a week. Both times I've reached my sleeping pallet as sober as a priest, a feat unheard of in my younger days."

"I shouldn't have reminded him of Djehuty's cook's daughter. That's what set him off." Psuro hesitated, added, "You may have to hustle him onto a ship, sir, and smuggle him out of town."

"I know nothing about this latest fling, nor do I want to. It's time he solved his own problems."

"You, sir, are a hard man," Kasaya mumbled.

Bak would have kicked the young drunk if he had thought the effort worthwhile, but the punishment, he suspected, would fade from Kasaya's memory faster than a flame from a lamp burned empty of oil.

"Here we are," Psuro said, pausing before the gaping doorway.

"I thank the lord Amon!" Bak helped maneuver their burden across the threshold and into their quarters. The room was as black as a scribe's ink, blinding him. "Where's his sleeping pallet?"

"Does it matter? We could leave him in the lane, and he wouldn't know the difference."

"How right you are," Bak laughed.

They let their besotted companion crumple and stretched him out as best they could. Bak went outside to search for a house showing a light, while Psuro fumbled around near the door for the lamp he had left there. Not a creature stirred all along the lane, and every fire had been extinguished. The Medjay came out, lamp in hand, and went off to find a night patrol with a torch. Bak's wait was probably not long, but it seemed so.

When Psuro returned, he held the lamp in the doorway so his superior officer could enter first. As Bak stepped across the threshold, Kasaya let out a yell that must have awakened the dead. He rolled, crashed into the woven reed storage chest, and scrambled to his knees. He gave Bak and Psuro a wild-eyed look, tried to talk, could not, and pointed. The light was dim, the flame unstable, making the shadows deep and impenetrable, setting them aquiver like wraiths from the netherworld. A fitting habitat for the object they saw.

Propped against a folded sleeping pallet close to where Kasaya's head had been, the first thing he must have seen when he opened his eyes, was an egg-shaped green-andwhite striped melon about the size of a human head. Drawn in black ink were huge eyes, a long nose, and a mouth twisted as if in agony. The top and one side of the obscene head were crushed, showing the reddish interior. Sticking out of the wound was the foreleg of an animal, a goat, Bak thought.

Another unwanted gift, this representing the fourth death, that of Lieutenant Dedi trampled by a horse.

He hurried to Kasaya, squeezed his shoulder to calm him, and knelt beside the disgusting object. The foreleg was dry and bloodless, the creature from which it had come long dead. The meat inside the melon had begun to dry on the surface, but was glistening wet beneath. The ghastly thing had been left some time after midday, he guessed, after the archer had disappeared in the rapids. Even if the man had somehow managed to survive, he could not have left this awful gift.

"Will you see the governor today?" Psuro asked.

Bak knew what the Medjay really wanted to know: whether or not they were soon going home to Buhen. "I think it best we go on as before, making no reports until we've something substantial to say."

Psuro gave him a pained look. "But sir!"

Bak took the basket from the old woman and handed her a plastered wood token for the garrison quartermaster so she could collect the grain due her. As she shuffled away, he grabbed the uppermost of the two stools Psuro had stacked, one upside-down on top of the other, on which to place the food if by chance they had already gone when she delivered it. Swinging the seat upright, he sat down and lifted the lid from the basket. The aroma of fresh-baked bread wafted out, competing with the smell of braised fish, which she had wrapped in leaves and placed atop the bread.

A low moan drew his eyes to Kasaya, who was lying on his sleeping pallet, face to the wall, suffering from the previous evening's overindulgence.

"The instant I tell Djehuty about the archer, he'll send us packing. How will we account to the vizier if later, ten days from the day of Hatnofer's death, when we're well on our way to Buhen, a courier delivers a message that the governor's been slain?"

"He'd not be pleased," Psuro answered ruefully.

Bak spread open the leaves, took a flattish loaf still warm from the oven from beneath them, and laid a fish, equally warm, across the bread. Passing the basket to Psuro, he said, "We don't know for a fact that the archer's dead. I lived through worse rapids, thanks to the lord Amon. I know few men do, but..."

"Unless they know the waters well," Psuro cut in.

"If he knew the river, would he have allowed himself to be pressed so close to the island that he had nowhere to go but into the maelstrom?"

"No, sir."

Psuro took a loaf and a couple of fish from the basket. Winking at Bak, he knelt beside Kasaya and held the food close, giving the younger man 'a good, strong whiff. Kasaya moaned louder and shoved the offending hand away.

"Too much celebration," Psuro grinned. He walked to the stairs, sat down, and the smile faded. "And now you say we had no reason to make merry."

"The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the gifts we've found here, the threat they imply, have nothing to do with the archer. The goal was probably the sameto get us out of Abu one way or another-but the means of reaching it was entirely different."

"Which of the two is the slayer?"

Bak took a bite of fish, thought over his answer while he chewed, swallowed. "I think the gift-giver the more likely. He has sufficient imagination to work out the patterns I spotted when first we came to Abu. I've seen no sign that the archer is that creative."

Psuro shivered. "I don't know which was worse: the rat or the melon."

"If the slayer still walks the halls of the governor's villa, as I believe, a dap or two more might bring forth the truth. If I err, and he died yesterday among the rapids, the worst we can do is to rouse some dormant tempers."

Psuto looked up from his meal, frowned. "I dread to think of what we'll find on our doorstep tonight."

"So far, the gift-giver has never thrown caution aside to enter the house in the full light of day. I think it safe to let you go about your business until an hour or so before darkness falls. Then I want you on the rooftop across the lane, your eyes locked on this house."

"You've only five more days, Lieutenant, and then-if your guess is correct-Djehuty will die." Amethu, seated on a low stool in the shade of a portico, glanced over the edge of the scroll open between his hands, giving Bak a quizzical look. "Are you closing on the slayer, or aren't you?"

"Perhaps." Bak stood before the steward, resting a shoulder against a slim wooden column. A yellow cat paced the floor around him, rubbing against his legs.

"Humph!" Amethu rolled the document tight and dropped it into one of three baskets lined up beside his stool. "You sound like a man who knows no more now than when these distressing events began."

"`Like the granite in the quarries south of Abu, sir, this problem I must solve is made of many tiny granules, some transparent, others opaque, all squeezed so tight together they're difficult to pry apart."

The steward gave him a sharp look, as if he suspected he was being made light of. "Have you thought to bend a knee before the lord Khnum? A plump goose or a tender young kid would make a worthy offering."

Bak vaguely recalled someone needling Amethu about religious fervor. "I fear he'll pay no heed without diligent effort on my part."

"Have you seen the shrine at the back of the god's mansion? The shrine of the hearing ear? I often go there. It's a quick way to seek the god's aid, convenient, providing solace in times of travail." Amethu's bright eyes darted toward Bak. "You, as a police officer, would find it of special comfort and worth. An image of the lady Maat is carved high on the wall, wings outspread to encompass all the world."

If the steward had not been such a staid individual, Bak would have suspected him of using talk of the gods to retaliate for his own comparison of granite with the problem of murder.

"Sir!" An earnest-faced young scribe hurried across the patch of bare earth outside the colonnade, ducked into the shaded portico, and presented a large chunk of broken pottery to the steward "Here's the inventory of linens, as you requested"

"So soon?" Amethu took the shard, glanced at the numbers, and scowled "Are you certain you counted all the uncut lengths, the sheets, the..."

"Our supply is very low, sir." The young man appeared untroubled by the implied criticism. "Over the past few weeks, we've sent a large quantity to the house of death. With so many people dying within these walls..."

"Yes, yes, yes." Amethu waved his hand, signaling silence. "The subject is one I prefer to forget. You've no need to remind me." He pursed his lips, thinking. "Go now to the men counting jars and dishes. They're certain to need your help. We've given no pottery away."

Puzzled, Bak watched the scribe hurry off. From the moment he had entered the compound, he had seen men scurrying hither and yon, writing pallets and water jars suspended by cords over their shoulders, carrying rolls of papyrus or baskets filled with limestone and pottery shards. Here, beneath the portico where Amethu sat, located at the end of three long, narrow warehouses, the activity was magnified tenfold.

"I've never before heard of anyone taking an inventory during the season of planting," he said. "Aren't your scribes needed elsewhere? Setting boundary lines, for example, or counting baskets of grain to send out to the fields as seed?"

Amethu's mouth tightened. "This was Djehuty's idea, not mine. All this work. All this interference in tasks for which he has no aptitude. The man should be taken into the fields and.. ." His mouth tightened, cutting off whatever punishment he longed to mete out.

Drowning in an irrigation ditch, Bak suspected. "From what I've seen and heard, he doesn't usually concern himself with the running of his household."

Amethu glanced around, assuring himself that no one would overhear. "Ineni," he said, lowering his voice. "It's his fault, his alone. He disobeyed his father, refusing to rid the estate of horses. Now Djehuty plans to disinherit him."

Bak, raising an eyebrow, knelt to scratch the cat's head, making it purr. "I thought he made an agreement at the time Ineni wed Khawet."

"He did, but he vows to have it set aside."

Bak's voice turned cynical. "What does the governor mean to do? Plead his case before the vizier?" A man he's known for years, he thought, one he counts among his friends. Bak's heart went out to Ineni, who stood little chance of retaining his due.

"I see you understand." Amethu eyed the shard in his hand, sighed, and dropped it into a basket. "I've known Djehuty since childhood, and I seldom question his actions. But at times he goes too far." His eyes darted toward Bak and his mouth snapped shut, as if he suddenly realized his anger had carried him into the opposing camp. "Stress. That's what's bothering him now. The reason he's being so contrary, so irrational. Must you come to this villa day after day, poking and prodding and prying as if we were all vile criminals? Must that Medjay of yours always hang around, asking impertinent questions of the household staff and guards?"

Bak took a seat on a mudbrick bench that ran along the wall. He doubted the questions were rhetorical, but he chose to take them as such. "You must've heard by now of my interest in the soldiers who vanished in the sandstorm five years ago."

"I've heard you seek to blame Djehuty for their loss." The steward scratched his prominent belly, frowned. "Well, let me tell you, young man, he came as close-to death as any man can and still survive. He owes his life to the gods, to the lord Khnum. They alone saved him. Those of us who stayed behind in Abu knew not what was happening out on the desert or how greatly our prayers were needed."

"I was told you lost someone in that storm."

Laughter sounded through a door leading into the rightmost storage magazine, scribes finding humor in the most mundane of tasks. The cat jumped into a basket of scrolls and curled up for a nap.

Amethu failed to notice. "You probably don't realize, Lieutenant, but the residents of this household talk to me. They confide in me as they would a respected uncle. I know you suspect one of us closest to Djehuty of slaying all who've died thus far, and I've been told you're aware that we each lost someone dear in the storm. You yourself have made it clear you think Djehuty's death the ultimate goal." He paused to get his breath.

Bak bowed his head in acknowledgment. "Go on." "From what I've been told, you've caught several of us at a time when our shoulders were bowed beneath the weight of anger or resentment. As a result, you've unearthed a multitude of personal reasons for wishing Djehuty dead." "None of which would've resulted in the death of five innocent people," Bak pointed out.

"Exactly!" the steward said, smiling triumphantly. "Unless the one who slew them believed the storm a path that would lead me astray. Or unless the dead are bound by some other tie I've failed to discover. Or unless the slayer's wits are so addled he's developed a taste for murder." Amethu's smile faded. He opened his mouth as if to disagree, but could think of no opposing argument.

"Did you lose someone close in the storm?" Bak repeated.

"My only brother perished in the desert. He was much younger than I, but a man I held in high esteem. To this day, I miss him." Amethu hastened to add, "Let me assure you, I don't blame Djehuty. If I thought blame was due, I'd be the first to accuse. But I know him. I know him well." His eyes probed the area outside the colonnade, searching again for an eavesdropper, and he lowered his voice to a murmur. "Djehuty is usually a man of strong will, but he can sometimes be manipulated. I'm convinced someone offered poor advice and he, rattled by the tempest, heeded words he should've rejected."

Bak could see he was getting nowhere. Amethu either sin cerely -liked Djehuty and could find no wrong or feared for his lofty position-or he was an accomplished liar. "Because your tasks meshed with those of Hatnofer, you must've been as close to her as anyone. Other than mistress Khawet, of course."

"Me?" Amethu shook his head. "I'd not use the word `close.' Nor, I suspect, would Khawet. The woman ran this household in an admirable fashion, but she was as cold as a night can get on the desert."

"As the confidant of all who toil in this villa day after day. . ." Bak could not help smiling. ". . . you've surely heard that I'm seeking a connection between her and those who died in the storm, or those who survived."

"She was a foundling-as I believe you already knowand her husband died many years ago, leaving her childless."

Bak allowed impatience to enter his voice. "Few men or women exist alone, Amethu, and Hatnofer was no exception. She was mistress Khawet's wet nurse, which would've drawn them together as close as mother and daughter, at least when Khawet was a child. And I've heard rumors that many years ago Djehuty took the woman into his bed."

"He did, yes. As did I." Noting Bak's surprise, Amethu gave a wry smile. "It's difficult to imagine, I know, but I had hair then. . ." He patted his bald pate and his paunch. . . . and the lithe body of one who spends his days at sports and hunting."

Bak tried to picture a well-built and handsome Amethu; the task was formidable.

"She was cold even then." Amethu surprised Bak with another smile, this filled with humor. "I thank the lord Khnum she held no warmth. I was young and ardent at the time, tempted by lust and a dream of home and family. If she'd offered the slightest encouragement. . ." He shuddered. "It was my good fortune that she remained aloof. I soon wed another, a good-hearted, gentle woman who showed me the true meaning of love and marriage. She filled my life to the brim, and she's with me yet."

Bak had to give credit where credit was due. Not many men would admit so freely to their youthful delusions, nor confess their gratitude for so narrow an escape. "I've heard Hatnofer harbored jealousy in her heart for Djehuty. Was that as true the day she died as when she was young?"

"You've been talking to Ineni, I see. He's told you of his mother." Amethu noticed the cat sleeping in the basket, scowled. "No, she hadn't shown him any special affection for some years, not since. . ." His voice tailed off and a new thought registered on his face, a memory come to life.