A Vile Justice (19 page)

Unspeakable deed, Bak thought. The words were an admission, but of what? "Need I remind you that five people have been slain?"

Djehuty closed his eyes and clamped his mouth tight, armoring himself in an impenetrable silence. Amonhotep shook his head, signaling how hopeless it was to .pelt him with further questions.

Bak glared at Djehuty, contempt filling his heart, leaving no room for pity. He thought again of all those men and women waiting in the audience hall, most of them poor, people who toiled day after day to eke out a meager living. All who believed in right and order. All who expected to stand before their provincial governor, seeking and getting justice.

"Get out of bed and clothe yourself," he commanded. "Petitioners await you in the audience hall."

Amonhotep glanced his way. Surprise that anyone should speak so abruptly to the governor gave way to a tenuous smile. "The lieutenant's right, sir. You mustn't disappoint all those who depend upon you, need you."

"They didn't need me yesterday." Djehuty stopped wiggling, pouted. "They hated me, whispered -about me behind my back."

"You're the governor of this province, sir. You must show them how strong you are, how wise."

Strong? Wise? Bak closed his eyes, grimaced. How could the aide stoop so low? .

Djehuty clutched the sheet, trying to decide. "They're awaiting me, you say?"

"You'd better get dressed," Bak said in a curt voice. "Most have fields to plow and seed to sow. They can't wait all day."

Djehuty hesitated a long time, threw back the sheet, hesitated again, and finally swung his long, thin legs off the bed. Amonhotep gave Bak a brief but grateful smile. Convinced the aide could bolster Djehuty's pride enough to get him moving, Bak slipped out of the room.

Standing at the rear of the audience hall, Bak spoke with the guard as they awaited Djehuty's appearance. A few of the people he had seen here eatlierin the day had given up and left the building, but most remained. Years of waiting had given them tenacity, though not the ability to suffer in silence. They grumbled, whined, complained, made futile threats and demands. He had no idea what he would do if the governor failed to show up. Perhaps he could search out Troop Captain Antef and try to convince him to mete out justice, at least temporarily.

A whispered warning drew his eyes to the door behind the dais. Djehuty strode into the room, silencing the aggrieved. Baton of office in hand, he stared straight ahead, his face set, defying those in attendance to utter a word against him. Amonhotep followed close behind, his grim expression betraying the ordeal he had gone through to prepare his master to do his duty.

Djehuty climbed onto the dais and took his seat. His eyes darted toward Bak and his mouth tightened. "Who will approach me?" .

The scribe brought forward the first petitioner. The young farmer Bak recalled seeing earlier in the day dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the floor.

"This is Sobekhotep," the scribe said, "a farmer of the village of . . ." He went on to give the necessary particulars, beginning with where the young man dwelt, who his parents were and his wife, and added details of his small farm.

Sobekhotep rose to his knees to present his tale, one all too common along the river. A ship had anchored near his farm one dark and moonless night. The next morning, when he and his family awoke, the ship was gone and so were his cow and calf and a dozen or so geese. "The sailors took them in the dark of night, I know for a fact." . "How can you be sure?" Djehuty demanded.

"Who else would take them? Not my family nor my neighbors, and there was no one else about."

Djehuty's mouth tightened at what sounded like impudence but was probably no more than fear. His voice turned mean. "How dare you come before me, expecting justice, when you've given no description of the vessel, leaving us with no way of finding her master and crew?"

The young man's face flamed. The men and women who were watching, listening, exchanged resentful glances. Angry murmurs swept through the room. Again the governor had failed them. Djehuty's mouth snapped shut. Naked fury showed on his face.

With shaking hands, Sobekhotep removed a folded cloth from beneath his belt. He opened the packet, revealing a grayish pottery shard, which he handed to the scribe. "I made a drawing of the symbols on the prow, sir. The vessel is moored at the quay at Swenet even now."

Someone in the audience hall tittered. Someone else sputtered, unable to contain himself. A third individual laughed outright, setting off the rest. Djehuty sat as still as a statue, his body paralyzed by anger. Amonhotep whispered in his ear. Djehuty shook his head. Looking frantic, the aide whispered long and hard. With obvious reluctance, Djehuty nodded.

Amonhotep stepped forward and spoke. "We'll summon the captain of that ship and call him to account. If your animals and fowl still live, you'll have them back. If not, the master of the vessel must repay you three times their worth."

Murmurs filled the audience hall; the people nodded approval. This was the law they believed in, not the cruel whimsical law they had seen before and feared they would see again.

For the remainder of the morning, Djehuty sat stiff and straight in his armchair, his cheeks ruddy in a pale face. Like a man suffering from shock, he merely went through the motions, too distracted to pay attention. Amonhotep listened closely to each petitioner, as his master should have. He whispered in Djehuty's ear, making those who watched believe he consulted him, and pretended he got a response. He then made wise and honest judgments, announcing them in Djehuty's name as if they were the governor's decisions and not his own.

"You're a master of tact," Bak said, "a man any ranking officer would be proud to have on his staff."

Amonhotep flushed. "I did what, I had to do, that's all." Bak, sitting at the edge of the dais in front of the governor's chair, scowled at the aide seated beside him. "You saved Djehuty today, making him look far more worthy than he is, but can you continue to do so?"

"If he lets me, yes."

"For his own good, he'd better." Bak stood up, paced to the nearest column and back. "I've heard tales of men so angered by unfair treatment that they traveled all the way to the capital to stand before the vizier and plead for justice. I doubt the men in this province have been pressed that hard. Not yet, at any rate. I know the vizier is Djehuty's friend, but one who's so desperate he'll go to the capital carries ten times more weight than one who seeks justice in his own province."

"Djehuty hasn't always been this erratic." The aide clasped his hands tight between his knees. He refused to meet Bak's eyes. "Fear has made him worse each day, and you're the man responsible."

"What would you have me do? Tell him he's safe and let him offer himself to the slayer?"

Looking miserable, Amonhotep shook his head.

Bak eyed the officer, wondering how far he could trust him. He had to tell someone in the governor's villa where he and his men had moved. The aide was the most logical, the man first to know of any incident requiring Bak's presence. He had been in faroff Buhen at the time of Lieutenant Dedi's death, so he could not be the slayer. But his loyalty lay with Djehuty, an unquestioning loyalty that boded ill for anyone who threatened the governor in any way. Bak's one advantage was his desire to keep Djehuty alive.

"Who told Djehuty my men and I have moved to Swenet?"

Amonhotep shook his head. "I don't know. I wasn't by his side every moment-I had tasks to perform, errands to run-and I suppose someone could've entered his rooms, but..." He hesitated, frowned. "Khawet? Did you tell her of your move?"

"We told no one." Bak thought it best to reveal the bare _minimum. If he mentioned the archer, he would have to admit the man had probably drowned. One word to Djehuty, who seemed chastened now but could quickly go on the offensive, and they might well be sent back to Buhen. "Someone left a deadly gift on our doorstep. I thought it best we move to safer quarters."

Amonhotep stared, appalled. "A gift? What was it?" "I'd rather not say. With luck, the one who left it will let slip the fact that he did so."

"I see."

From the bemused look on the aide's face, Bak doubted if he did. "I feel you should know where we've gone, but I'd like your sacred vow that you'll keep the location to yourself, not even sharing it with Djehuty."

Amonhotep appeared none too pleased with the last stipulation, but he nodded. "I swear by the lord Khnum I'll tell no one."

Later, as Bak watched the aide leave the audience hall, shoulders bowed beneath the weight of responsibility, he prayed he had trusted the right man. If he had erred, if another attempt was made on his life, he would know in which direction to look first. Or would he? Who had told Djehuty of his move?

"I can't just walk away and leave them," Khawet said. "Why not?" Bak eyed the five nearly naked men spread across the roof of the cattle shed, cleaning fish and laying them out to dry. "Not a man here is neglecting his duty, and they all know their tasks very well."

"Hatnofer always said that our servants would feel neglected if we didn't watch them closely."

"All men need supervision, but the more accomplished they are in their tasks, the greater distance you must maintain. If you don't trust their judgment, they grow lazy and resentful."

She flashed him a smile. "How profound you are today, Lieutenant!"

He returned the smile but offered no further comment. With a father as erratic as Djehuty and a substitute mother as difficult to please as Hatnofer, he was amazed her instincts were serving her so well. The servants seemed more aware of him than her, and certainly more wary. She was a familiar and comfortable figure, while he was a stranger who reminded them of death and a slayer still free to take another life.

Several times, ha, had surprised furtive glances from the three men sitting a few paces away surrounded by loosely woven reed baskets from which water leaked. Their task was to gut, bone, and scale the morning's catch. Another man took the cleaned fish and spread them out in the sun to dry.

A fifth crushed bones and scales and heads into a foulsmelling mess that would be worked into the soil in the garden as fertilizer.

"Alright, I'll leave these men in peace." Laughing softly, she led the way across the roof. "Have you had your midday meal? My next stop is the kitchen."

He liked the way she smiled, the delicate curve of her Ups and the twinkle in her eyes. "Each time I see you, you're either involved in some task or rushing from one to another. Do you never take time to sit and rest?"

"Not often through the day. I must admit I sleep better at night now than when I spent much of my time in idleness, letting Hatnofer have her way." She walked ahead of him down the stairs, the same flight down which Montu had fallen to his death, and strode around the corner to the open front of the shed. "I find the responsibility of running so large a household taxing and at the same time a wonderful test of my abilities. Why I never demanded my rightful place as mistress of the house, I'll never know." Her expression grew rueful. "Still, I wish she were alive and well."

Bak stayed close, determined not to let her out of his sight until he learned what she knew of the housekeeper. "I'd've thought that tending to your father's needs was a full-time task."

"Only because I allowed him to make it so. Now I feel I serve him best by managing his household. Besides, he's shifted much of the load to Amonhotep's shoulders. Not merely the errands I ran, but the task of keeping him safe as well."

"Your father's afraid, and so he should be."

"I know. I sometimes awake in the night and imagine him in his bedchamber, too fearful to sleep, too frightened to get the rest he needs." She paused to look into the shed, where three milk cows with calves were tethered to stones sunk into the soil. Fresh hay spilled from their mangers and covered the floor of a pen in which a half dozen milk goats lingered. "He told me this morning you've moved out of your quarters in Abu. Too far away, should he need you."

"He has no immediate cause for worry." Bak followed her across the sunny yard. "If I'm right about the slayer's pattern-and I believe I am-he won't strike again for four more days. A lot can happen in so short a time, I know, but for the present, he remains far out of my grasp. I need help, your help."

"My father's very angry with you." She stopped at the gate and turned to face him "He says you're prying into the past, reopening wounds that long ago healed."

Bak looked into dark, worried eyes, a face as delicate and vulnerable as that of a new-born lamb. "Prying into the past? Yes. Reopening healed wounds? For that, he must blame another man. The slayer."

She bit her lip. "Are you sure the tie that binds all those who've been slain is that dreadful tempest which took so many innocent lives five years ago?"

"I've trod several paths, none as long and convolutedor as promising-as the one pointing to the storm." "Since first I talked with you about Hatnofer, I've searched my heart time and time again, trying to recall some connection. I've found none."

She swung away, shoved the gate open, and walked on, heading toward the kitchen. Three naked and very dirty toddlers played outside the door, pushing wooden animals over mounds and ridges they had formed in the sand. Even from a distance, they smelled sour, in dire need of a dunking in the river.

Bak latched the gate and hastened to catch up. "I've been told she was close to a sergeant named Min, the man who saved Djehuty's life."

Khawet gave him a quick, rather surprised look. "Sergeant "Surely you remember him."

"As you say, he saved my father's life." She stopped a dozen paces from the children, frowned. "I vaguely recall something..." Her brow cleared. "Yes, I did hear a rumor linking Hatnofer to him. I thought it best never to mention it to her. In fact, I wasn't sure the tale was true."

"She never confided in you? Don't women usually share their conquests with those closest to them?"

"She thought me too young and unworldly, I guess." Khawet's smile was wry. "I was close on twenty years then, no longer untouched or innocent, but she kept me forever in her heart as a babe."

"I was told Min sailed north a few days after the storm. If he and Hatnofer were close, why would she not go with him?

She shrugged. "Perhaps she didn't care enough."

"Few women would throw away the opportunity of having a home and family of her own."

"This was her home." Khawet's voice carried a hint of criticism, as if no other place would serve as well and he should have recognized the fact. "She'd spent all her life on our estate in Nubt or in this villa in Abu. My father was a brother to her and I a daughter. Why would she give up so much to travel far away, maybe never again to see us?"

Bak was surprised Khawet was so insular. As the daughter of a provincial governor, she must have journeyed to Waset and Mennufer. Djehuty would have wanted his daughter to rub shoulders with the children of other nobility, as he had done when he was a youth. Yet here she was, a mature woman with a husband of her own, behaving as if no place but Abu would do, no other form of life but this.

Now that he knew her better, now that he had seen her smile and tease, she seemed much more attractive than she had initially, more appealing by far. But to have such a blind spot was a flaw few men of means or intellect could condone. Ineni perhaps, a man who loved the land above all else, but would he thrive in the governor's villa? Would he want to stand at the head of the province, given the opportunity? Would Khawet like him any better if he occupied the seat of power?

"Do you have any idea what Djehuty has asked of us?" Simut demanded. "He knew I'd sent as many men north to Nubt as I could spare-they're needed in the fields at this time of year, documenting land use, seeds sown, young animals dropped. And still he demands a detailed inventory. Outrageous!"

Bak eyed the two rows of men seated on the floor, shards piled beside them, scrolls spread open on their laps, reed pens scratching across the surface. None sneaked curious glances, as they had the last time he had come into the scribal office. They were too busy turning rough counts into an official report.

He kept his voice low, confidential. "I understand he means to disinherit Ineni."

"Ridiculous! As I pointed out when he told me." The short, stout chief scribe shook his head in disgust. "The estate in Nubt thrives because of that young man. Without him, it would founder."

"Some believed Hatnofer equally indispensable."

"In that case we erred, and I thank the lord Khnum that Khawet has proven us wrong. The estate in Nubt is quite another matter. Djehuty's lost the power of rational thought."

"How much of his wealth is derived from his land?" Bak asked.

Simut flung him a disdainful look. "I'm not at liberty to divulge information of so private a nature, Lieutenant. You should know better than to ask."

If Djehuty was like many provincial governors, his land was his heritage, just as his position was, but the bounty from his fields need not contribute to any great extent to his wealth. He was, first and foremost, entitled to a portion of the taxes collected from all who lived within his domain. The province was far from being the most fertile in Kemet, but its position ,(r)n the border between Kemet and Wawat more than compensated for the scarcity of arable land: he was also allowed a share of the tolls paid by traders passing through Abu.

Though the estate's contribution to Djehuty's well-being would likely be small when compared to his income from taxes and tolls, to Ineni, the man who worked the land, the drain of produce and animals no doubt seemed exorbitant. Simut glanced at the scribes toiling before him, pursed his lips, rose to his feet. "You wish to look at a personal record, you said."

Bak had an idea Simut would have given him a hint if they had been alone, but with so many men in the room, so many sharp ears, he would divulge nothing. "Sergeant Min. He served in the garrison here, in what capacity I don't know. He survived the sandstorm but left Abu soon after."

SiYnut frowned, thinking. "Hmmm. The name's familiar, but I don't know why."

"He was the one who saved Djehuty's life."

"Was he?" The chief scribe shrugged, indicating his failure to remember, and walked into the records room.

Bak followed as far as the door. "I know how proud Djehuty is that he's one of a long line of men who've governed this province. Until now, until he decided to disinherit Ineni, he must've bent a knee daily before the lord Khnum, praying his son would take his seat, and his son's son after him. On through eternity."

Simut chuckled. "He did for a fact.."

The decision, then, was serious, one not lightly made. Was Ineni's refusal to get rid of the horses so important to Djehuty that he would end his family's long tenure'as provincial governors? Or had he concluded for some reason that his adopted son was the man who wanted him dead? Or did he believe he could convince his daughter to divorce her husband and wed another, a nobleman, perhaps, who might give him a grandson worthy of his ancestors?

Simut pulled a reddish jar from the wooden frame, broke the plug that sealed it shut, and sorted through the documents. "Ah, here it is. Min. Sergeant of a company of spearmen."

Bak hastened to intercept him, to herd him toward the single lamp that'burned at chest level atop a tall reed tripod at the back of the room, where privacy reigned. "Should Djehuty die today, would Ineni petition our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut, to take his father's seat as governor?"

"He'd accept the task if she gave it to him. What choice would he have? He wouldn't seek it. He wants nothing more than to walk the fields of that estate in Nubt." Simut chuckled, but with a minimum of humor. "Ironic, isn't it? Djehuty adopted a son to succeed him and carry on the family line, but all the prayers in the world could neither give Khawet a child nor mold Ineni in his own image."

For the latter, all who dwell in the province must be thanking the lord Khnum, Bak thought.

"Unfortunately," Simut went on, "not another man in Abu is well enough known in the capital to get a nod from -the queen." His expression turned gloomy, and he shook his head. "No, if Ineni is disinherited, our next governor will be a stranger, one who knows nothing of this province and its needs."

"Does Djehuty?" Bak asked.

Simut gave him a wry smile. "Lieutenant Amonhotep does. As you saw for yourself this morning."

Bak grinned. He had never expected to like this irascible little man, but he found himself warming to him. Then he chided himself for a fool. He had begun to like or respect every man on the governor's staff, men he had to consider as possible slayers. The only one he could not warm up to was the governor himself, the man he must keep alive.

The chief scribe broke the seal with his thumbnail, released the string and unrolled the scroll, and held it close to the lamp. Aloud he said, "Min came as a young man from Wawat, I see, the fortress of Kubban. Son of a soldier." His finger moved slowly down the right-hand edge of the column. "Hmmm. Rose through the ranks. Attained the level of sergeant."

Bak craned his neck, trying without success to read the document for himself. "Does it say anything about his surviving the storm?"

Simut unrolled the scroll a bit farther, adjusted it so he could see better, and his eyes darted to the top of the next column and downward. "Hmmm, here we are. Caught in a sandstorm. Returned from the desert more dead than alive.

Saved his commanding officer's life. Recommended for the gold of honor for ... Yes, for behaving in an exemplary manner."

"Where've I heard that before?" Bak asked in a dry voice. The statement was oft used, worn and frayed with age, a way of saying nothing when something needed to be said. "Did he ever get the fly?" The golden fly was a coveted award given to soldiers who distinguished themselves above all others.

"I see nothing here."

"Maybe he received it after he left Abu." Bak tried again to read the document, but Simut held the scroll closer to the lamp, not about to lose the upper hand. "What does it say of his speedy transfer north?"