"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.
"Tell me, Amethu, what've you recalled?"
"Something I once heard…" The steward's eyes darted toward Bak and he hesitated. "A rumor. But even whispers in the wind ofttimes contain some truth."
"Tell me."
"I heard…" Amethu paused again, shrugged. "Exactly how long ago I don't remember, but I was told by a man I knew at the time, the garrison quartermaster, that one of the survivors of the sandstorm was whispered to be her lover. A man named Min, a sergeant. He sailed north soon after the incident, which made me doubt the tale. Would he not have taken her with him if they were close? Or did the lord Khnurn smile on him, as he did me, and allow him to escape a free man?"
"You will pay for your transgression!" Djehuty's voice thundered across the audience hall. "You've taken four men from my fields north of Abu, men whose task it was to clean the irrigation channels and rebuild the dikes, and you've set them to work on your own fields. You must free them today and send them back to me, and you must reimburse me for the time they've been within your power."
"But sir!" The man on his knees before the governor's dais, his body bent until his head touched the floor, was so frightened he trembled from head to foot. Bak, standing at the back of the columned hall beyond the reach of long shafts of midafternoon sunlight, could clearly see his fear.
"Silence!" the guard commanded, stepping forward to prod the offender with his foot.
Djehuty glared down at the prisoner, his expression dark and unforgiving. "In addition, you'll receive two hundred blows and five open wounds."
Someone gasped, then quiet descended upon those in attendance, thirty or so men scattered throughout the hall. The judgment far exceeded the norm. The kneeling man whimpered. As if released by his cries, shocked murmurs traveled through the room, rising in volume until Djehuty could not help but hear. His mouth set in a thin, hard line. Bak was as stunned as the rest. If the offense had been committed against the estate of a god, the punishment might be fitting, but this was a private matter.
"So be it," Djehuty said, rising from his chair, signaling the end of his audience.
The murmurs dwindled, the men standing among the columns stared. Djehuty stepped down off the dais and strode ' from the room. Lieutenant Amonhotep, looking unhappy but at a loss as to what he could do, hurried after him. The guard collected his wits, jerked the sobbing prisoner to his feet, and hustled him from the hall. The men who remained looked at one another, surprised, shocked. Voices rose in consternation.
"This is the third day in a row I've come in search of justice," Bak heard someone complain. "Each day the governor has left early, ignoring six or eight of us whose pleas have yet to be heard. We've no choice but to leave, our business unfinished, and come again another time."
"Justice?" someone asked. "I'd not call his judgment of Ahmose justice."
"Who does he think he is anyway?" someone else muttered.
"Not half the man his father was, let me tell you."
Bak stared at the door through which the prisoner had been taken. Amonhotep had had no opportunity to intercede before Djehuty's judgment, and the governor was too stubborn to alter his decision after the fact. By punishing the man far beyond his due, Djehuty was poisoning the hearts of the people of Abu.
He hurried from the hall, leaving through the same door the governor and his aide had taken. He hoped he would find Amonhotep alone. If so, maybe he could lure him away from the villa. Freed of Djehuty and the weight of responsibility, freed of the many tasks that fell on his shoulders, the young officer might let down his guard and be more forthcoming.
He found himself in a short, windowless corridor lit by a narrow strip of light reaching in from the room beyond. A guard stood midway, looking in the direction the governor had gone, rubbing an elbow. He heard Bak's step and swung around. Though difficult to see in the dimly lit passage, Bak recognized Nenu, the none-tbo-bright young man who had helped him search for the archer after the first attack. "Lieutenant Bak. Sir!"
"What're you doing here? Don't you usually guard Nebmose's villa?"
"My sergeant sent me with a message for Lieutenant Amonhotep. I tried to deliver it just now, but didn't get the chance." Nenu, sounding aggrieved, walked with Bak up the odor, rubbing his elbow all the while. "The governor brushed me out of his way as he would a fly, shoving me hard against the wall."
In the brightly lit room beyond, Bak got a better look at the young guard. His right temple was skinned, his eye black, his lip swollen and cracked. An ugly and no doubt painful abrasion ran down his arm from shoulder to hand, and the knuckles of both hands were swollen and red. The strong scent of fleabane emanated from a cloth covering some type of injury to his leg.
Bak stared.", By the lord Amon, Nenu! What happened to you!"
The guard shuffled from one foot to the other, gave a halfhearted smile. "A fight, sir."
"Dare I ask who won?"
"I would've, sir, except…" Nenu refused to meet Bak's eyes. "Well, he hit me in the stomach and knocked me down. My head struck a rock. I must've lost my wits for a while, and when I came to my senses, I had these." He gingerly touched his arm and motioned toward his leg. "I guess he kicked me when I couldn't fight back and dragged me along the ground. Only the lord Set knows what else he did."
Noting how reluctant the guard was to speak of his defeat, how embarrassed, Bak promised to tell Amonhotep of the message, should he find him, and walked on.
With the help of a shy and very skittish female servant, Bak found the young aide in Djehuty's private reception room, located on the second floor. High windows admitted light and air, making the space bright and at the same time pleasantly cool. Yet instead of offering comfort and ease, the room was a disaster. It was cluttered with tables and stools, baskets brimming with scrolls, chests with lids askew, and drawers standing open. A line of ants marched across the floormats, carrying off bread crumbs. Scrolls were strewn around the dais on which the governor's armchair stood as if, of no importance, they had been flung aside. The bright, spotted skin of a leopard lay crumpled beside the chair, partially covering an elaborately embroidered pillow stained with wine. The sweetish smell emanating from a bowl of perfumed oil failed to smother the odors of stale beer and dog.
Amonhotep, his face pale and strained, knelt beside a pile of clothing and jewelry that had been thrown into a corner. He glanced up, gave Bak a forced smile. "Lieutenant. I saw you in the audience hall and wondered who you might seek out next."
"You surely guessed I'd come here. What was Djehuty thinking of? Is he trying to alienate every man and woman in the province?"
Amonhotep let out a bitter laugh. "I tried to get him to change his judgment and I failed. All I managed to do was anger him further. Ahmose will be beaten until he's a broken man, and I can do nothing to stop it."
Bak could see how upset the aide was, how greatly he blamed himself for his failure. Further talk would not console him, but a distraction might help. "I thought I might persuade you to go sailing with me."
"I can think of nothing I'd like better, but…" The aide glanced around the room, shook his head.
"I've beer in my skiff, fishing poles, and harpoons. If you've not had your midday meal, we can stop in the kitchen on our way to the landingplace."
Amonhotep, giving the matter more thought than Bak felt it warranted, sorted through the pile, removing a broad multicolored bead collar, bracelets, armlets, and anklets, and laid them on a nearby table. He took a fringed robe from the clothing that remained, stood up to shake it out, and began to fold it. "Tempting. Very tempting. Perhaps when I finish with this room."
Bak eyed him critically. "Is this not a task for servants?" "Normally, yes, but… Well, Djehuty no longer allows them to come and go as they used to. He's banned them from his rooms."
"He's afraid."
"Wouldn't you be?" Amonhotep scooped a handful of green and white playing pieces off the top of a legged game board, dropped them into the open drawer, and shut it with a thud. He laid the folded garment where the pieces had been and picked up a white linen tunic. "You yourself have seen to that."
"I doubt the slayer is a servant."
Amonhotep gave him a tight-lipped parody of a smile. "If you can convince him of that, I'll be eternally grateful." "Turn your back on this mess and come sailing with me. We both deservg a few hours' respite."
Bak saw the longing on Amonhotep's face, the desire to escape, and the decision to abandon his duty forming in his heart.
"Amonhotep will go nowhere." Djehuty burst into the room, his face ruddy with anger. "I need him here, and here he'll remain."
"But, sir…" Bak and the younger officer spoke together. "No!" Djehuty strode across the room, eyes blazing, and glared at Bak. "You and your Medjays come into my home, prying into the lives of all who dwell here, asking impertinent questions no man or woman should have to answer. I won't allow you to take my aide from his duties, drawing him away so you can question him as you've queried others who owe their loyalty to me."
"Is this his duty?" Bak demanded, eyeing the messy room with distaste.
"Who else can I trust to care for me?"
"You've lived here a lifetime. You must have at least one trustworthy servant."
"You were in the audience hall. Not a man in attendance was a stranger, but they all turned against me when I judged that wretched Ahmose. I was fair, generous even, yet murmurs of resentment flowed from men's lips like water from a shattered bowl. How can I trust servants if I can't depend on men of greater status to stand beside me when I need them?"
The man's irrational, Bak thought. Forced to see what he wants to overlook, filled with fear and tension, his normal obstinacy has turned to a dim-witted, arrogant defensiveness.
Bak stood at the rear door of the governor's house, looking across the stretch of sand lined with conical silos. The servants who had inventoried the grain had spilled wheat and barley on the ground. Birds, domestic and wild, and a half dozen young, goats stood among the golden kernels, gorging themselves. A black dog, stretched out in the shade between two silos, raised its head to sniff the air, heavy with the scent of roasting beef smothered in onions.
Where, he wondered, was Khawet? He had stalked out of her father's reception room, seething with anger. After a half hour's swim had cooled his temper, he had gone in search of Simut. The chief scribe had told him in no uncertain terms that he was busy with the inventory and had no time to answer questions. Antef was at the granite quarry, he had learned, and Ineni had not returned from Nubt.
Bak walked along the row of silos, a thought born of his conversation with Amethu nagging. He had assumed Hatnofer had been slain because she stood close to Djehuty in importance, but maybe he erred. Her life might well have been taken because she knew too much about the past. If the steward's rumor was true, if she and Min had been lovers, the sergeant could have told her about the storm before he sailed north, leaving Abu forever. With luck, Khawet would know of their relationship.
He passed through the gate and headed toward the kitchen. The smell of beef and onions grew stronger. Raised voices issued from the structure. Women arguing.
Khawet came through the far gate. She saw Bak and, smiling, hurried toward him. "Lieutenant! How nice to see you! Amethu told me you were here and said you might wish to speak with me."
Warmed by a welcome rare in this household, Bak grinned. "I wasn't sure you'd have the time. Everyone else is either tied up with the inventory or hiding out to avoid it."
She laughed. "How long ago did you arrive in Abu? Only six days? Yet already you've seen through us."
"I fervently wish that were true."
"All households are much alike. Have you never wed?" Few households were victim to a five-time slayer, he thought. "I've never been so fortunate."
A hint of a smile touched her lips and her voice softened. "To share your life with one you love must be close to perfection. To be wed to another…" Her tone hardened, as did her expression. "… one who's a lesser man in every way, can be a burden difficult to bear."
Ineni had said his wife had loved another, a man who had died far in the past. Bak could see the loss in her eyes, a grief she should long ago have pushed aside. "I met a woman when first I went to Buhen. She was as lovely as a gazelle, gentle, kind, and generous, yet she had a strength of will that few men or women can claim. She…" He broke off, laughed softly at himself, at the warmth that never ceased to enter his heart when he thought of her. "The time was wrong and I lost her."
She smiled, her voice regained its softness. "Do you think of her always?"
"I go on with my life. As I must."
A young woman burst through the kitchen door, shrieking. A second girl followed, screaming curses, brandishing the long tongs used to stir burning charcoal.
Khawet's smile faded. "Oh, no! Not again!"
The young woman in the lead spotted Khawet and ran toward her. "Oh, mistress! Help me! Help!"
The girl with the tongs raced after her, shrieking. "You! You bride of Set! You took away my beloved! You stole him!" Her body shook with fury, her face was a mask of hatred.
She swung the tongs back and, leaping forward, slashed them hard across the other woman's shoulders. Blood gushed from the broken flesh. The injured girl screeched Bak lunged at the assailant, grabbed the tongs, and tore them from her grasp. Gripping her upper arm, he shoved her roughly to the bare earth. Khawet rushed to the other young woman, helped her to the mudbrick bench against the wall a few cubits away, and went to the kitchen door to call for cloth for bandages. Several women hurried out, more to look than assist, Bak suspected. A short, barrel-shaped woman he took to be the cook brought a bowl of steaming water and strips of linen.
Khawet turned to him and smiled an apology. "You must forgive me, Lieutenant, but this wound can't wait."
Bak walked slowly down the lane, passing through shadows cast by the taller houses and broad strips of sunlight that reached over the lower buildings. A breeze stirred the hot, dry air and lifted dust from the hard-packed earth. He smelled oil heating over charcoal braziers, but the hour was too early for the odors of cooked food to drift down from the rooftops. Children's laughter and the rhythmic click of wood on wood told of boys playing with make-believe spears somewhere nearby.
He wondered if he would find an unwanted gift in his quarters. He had never before approached the house so early in the evening, nor had the gift-giver ever come before dusk, when shadows filled the lane and neighbors, preoccupied with their evening meal, were unlikely to be about. He glanced at the roof across the lane, but it was even too early for Psuro to have taken up his post.
He stopped before the doorway and peered inside. The room, illuminated by a lone shaft of light coming through the opening at the top of the stairs, was dim and shadowy but not dark. A round red pot three hand-widths across sat a pace or so inside the door. A white cloth, held tightly in place with string, covered the top. His first thought was food; the old woman had brought their evening meal. Then his eyes darted toward the stools he had restacked in the center of the room before leaving the house early in the day. They stood as he had left them, one upside-down on top of the other. No basket sat atop the three legs. The old woman would never have left their evening meal on the floor, where mice or rats could get to it.
This had to be another gift left by… By whom?
His next thought was not so rational; the pot might contain a human head, crushed as Hatnofer's had been. A chill crept up his spine- and at the same time he rejected the idea. The neck of the container was too small.
Chiding himself for too vivid an imagination, he stepped over the threshold and knelt before the jar. The linen cover bothered him. The fabric would admit air, where the more usual mud plug would not, leading him to believe the container held a liming creature. Hearing nothing inside, he examined it for signs of cracks, thinking it might break in his hands, releasing a viper or something equally dreadful. The container looked solid enough, undamaged.
Sucking in his breath, he reached out with both hands and lifted it. Nothing happened. He brought it closer to his face, his ear, and shook it gently. Again nothing. He thought of untying the string, but common sense prevailed; such a precipitous move would be foolhardy. He shook the pot again, much harder. Inside he heard a soft but frenzied rattling sound. His mouth tightened and he nodded, fairly sure he knew what was inside.
Carrying the container with outstretched arms, he hurried outdoors and around the nearby corner. A short, dead-end lane took him to a low mudbrick wall. Beyond lay an open field. The broken walls of houses built and abandoned many generations before protruded from a heavy blanket of windswept sand littered with garbage, items of no value whatsoever, unwanted by the most impoverished of Abu's residents.
Bak set the container on the wall. Glancing around, he spotted a rock that would fit nicely in his hand and he picked it up. He slipped his dagger from its sheath and held it at arm's length, point down, over the linen.
"Sir!" Psuro hurried up behind him. "What're you doing?"
"The gift-giver arrived ahead of us, leaving this. I suspect it's lethal."
Psuro's eyes widened. He spat out a curse and stepped back a pace. "Do you wish me to open it, sir?" he asked with no enthusiasm whatsoever.
Bak drove the dagger into the fabric and slashed to right and left, enlarging the hole. The soft rattling sound erupted. Psuro muttered a quick incantation designed to hold at bay poisonous reptiles and insects. Bak sheathed his dagger, shoved the pot over the wall, and threw the rock with a mighty heave, smashing the baked clay into a dozen or more rough-edged pieces. Yellow scorpions, their tails raised in fury, darted in all directions.
Bak stared at the creatures, his face grim. A single scorpion's sting would be painful but not deadly. Could a man live if stung by so many? "I think it best we spend the night in the barracks, Psuro. And tomorrow we must find new quarters.