"Where did mistress Khawet go?" Bak demanded.
"I don't know, sir." The guard Kames stood as stiff as a tree, trying hard not to be buffeted by the winds of circumstance. First, his former partner Nenu had been proven untrustworthy, now mistress Khawet. "She didn't tell me. Why should she?" His voice came perilously close to a whine. "I'm only a guard, sir, a fixture of the villa. Kind of like a doorjamb with a spear."
Bak did not know whether to laugh or shake the man. "Did you overhear her say anything when she left?" "You mustn't blame me for the governor's death, sir." Definitely a whine. "How was I to know she was the slayer?"
"Karnes! The governor's not yet dead!" Bak's voice, sharp and fierce, carried across the empty audience hall, gaining a hard edge as it slammed against bare, white walls and the high ceiling. The guard snapped his eyes shut as if he feared a blow.
"What did she say when she left?" Bak repeated. Kames shook his head. "I don't remember."
"Can you at least tell me which direction she took?" "Sir?" A plump young servant girl stepped through the door near the governor's dais. "I don't know what mistress Khawet said, sir. She talked to the cook, not me. But I saw her go down to the landingplace and sail north in her husband's skiff."
"She told me she wanted to be by herself for a time." The cook, a shapeless woman with graying hair, swirled her flour, dusted hands in a large-mouthed reddish bowl filled with water and shook off the excess. "Why a woman her age needs time to herself I'll never know. And her with no children!"
An older man looked up from the brick hearth, where he was brushing oil on a half-cooked beef haunch suspended above the hot coals. "If you had to take care of that old wretch, you'd need to escape, too."
"She has servants, hasn't she?" Her look of disapproval changed to one of censure. "You'd best take care who you call a wretch. You never know who'll go running to him to pass on the tale. You know how often he orders the lash."
"If the slayer strikes tomorrow…" The man sneaked a glance at Bak. "… as the Lieutenant thinks he will, he won't be able to punish me or anyone else."
"You've no sense of respect, that's your problem."
Bak chose not to enlighten them about Djehuty's health or why he wished to find Khawet. They would learn soon enough anyway. "Does she go to any special place when she wishes to be alone?"
"To Nebmose's villa most often," the cook said. "Sometimes to the tombs of her ancestors, those old sepulchers high above the river on the west bank."
"I pray we find her at the tombs." Bak shoved the skiff off and jumped from the landingplace into the stern. "If not, we'd best go on to Nubt. I doubt she'd add Ineni's concubine and son to her list of victims, but we must take no chances."
Psuro rowed` toward deeper water and a faster current. "We know for a fact that she wasn't in the governor's compound or Nebmose's villa. We searched them both with due diligence."
"I don't know why we bothered," Kasaya grumbled. "The girl said she took the skiff."
"It doesn't do to leave one pebble unturned." Psuro gave the younger Medjay a condescending look. "How many times do I have to tell you?"
"Why would she take the skiff if she wasn't going to use it?"
Bak scowled at the pair, silencing them. Given free rein, the argument could go on through eternity. Psuro turned his attention to his task. Kasaya sorted through the weapons on the floor of the skiff: their spears and shields and the bow and well-armed quiver Nenu had abandoned on the riverbank. Most of the weapons, Bak suspected, would be of little or no use much of the time. Khawet had had a substantial head start. If she had indeed gone to the ancient tombs, she would be high above them when they approached, with a steep, sandy slope between.
"I know mistress Khawet doesn't have any use for me," Kasaya said, "and I don't like her much either, but I find it hard to believe she'd take five innocent lives."
"She's the last person in the household I'd have suspected." Psuro lifted the oars from the water and frowned. "Are you sure, sir?"
"I don't know exactly what set her off, and I've several other unanswered questions, but I'm certain of her guilt." Noticing they were drifting into the shallows, Psuro went back to rowing. His effort more than doubled the current's speed, and the small vessel raced headlong downstream toward the lower end of the island of Abu. A traveling ship, its sail aloft and swollen, swept south toward a fleet of fishing boats. Angry shouts from the smaller vessels warned of a seining net about to be breached. A dozen or so pelicans, rare so far south this early in the year, flew low over the water, waiting for the laden net to rise, bringing prey to the surface.
"Before Khawet left," Bak said, "she made sure nothing remained of the stew-I thank the lord Amon. At least she doesn't want anyone else in Abu to die."
Kasaya barked out a laugh. "Isn't it a bit late for her to show concern? How many deaths has she brought about so far?"
"We must never forget that in her own heart she believes she's seen justice done. A vile justice, to my way of thinking, but warranted to her."
"She believes the death of the child Nakht justified?" Psuro shook his head in disgust. "She has to be mad." Bak could not argue the point.
"There's her skiff!"
Kasaya, who had stood up in the prow as they rounded the northern tip of the island, pointed at a small boat drawn up on the shore of the far bank amid a thicket of tamarisks. A narrow oasis of trees and bushes followed the bend of the river around the base of a tall, steep hill cloaked in sand and crowned with rock. Two terraces girdled the mound midway to the top. Along these high promenades, dark rectangles marked the entrances to ancient houses of eternity carved into the rock. Three lengthy stairways, almost buried in windblown sand, rose from the oasis to the tombs. If others existed, they lay out of sight around the curve of the hill. Bak could see no sign of life, but the distance was great and segments of terrace were concealed behind mounds of debris excavated by ancient tunnelers.
Kasaya, eyeing the extensive golden slope, shook his head in wonder. "Funny place for a woman to go."
"A good place to be alone," Psuro said.
Manning the rudder, Bak eased the skiff through a cluster of partially submerged boulders guarding the tip of the island. He wondered why Khawet had chosen the tombs as her destination. She must have realized after talking with Amethu that he and his Medjays would be hot on her trail. Yet rather than run away in search of freedom, she had sought refuge in-the dwellings of her ancestors, a place not easy to reach, but reachable.
"I hope that skiff is hers," he said, "and if so, I hope she didn't abandon it at the river's edge to lead us astray." The words were like water thrown on a fire, quenching his companions' optimism. Psuro rowed grim-faced and with purpose. Kasaya stared at the distant craft as if willing it to keep its promise that Khawet was close by. Clearing the boulders, Bak swung their vessel diagonally across the current, his eyes on the steep, sandy incline and the terraces above. The deserted boat lay midway along the row of visible tombs, giving no clue as to which of the stairways she might have climbed.
The river whispered beneath their speeding hull. The oars sliced through the water with barely a splash. A fish leaped in front of them and landed with a smack. Gentle swells glistened in the sunlight, reflecting the clear blue sky and the golden slope above the far shore. The hill drew closer, its incline looked steeper, its height more impressive. A falcon soared high in the sky above. The lord Horus, watching, waiting.
As they neared the beached skiff, Kasaya shaded his eyes with a hand to take another, better look. "The vessel is Ineni's," he stated. "See that broad scratch on the hull? It's his ahight."
Their prow bumped earth under the water, throwing the young Medjay to his knees, and momentum carried them onto the muddy shore. They leaped out and drew the craft up beside Ineni's. Bak distributed the weapons, giving the bow and quiver to Psuro, a more skilled archer than he or Kasaya. A path invited them into the tamarisk grove. Beyond, a patchwork of garden plots arced around the base of the hill, each plot separated from the others by irrigation channels shaded by palms, tamarisks, and acacias. An ox lowed, drawing their eyes to a faroff field. The creature, led by a small boy, was pulling a plow guided by his father, while another child walked behind, sowing seeds. Nothing else stirred, neither man nor beast, not uncommon at this time of day.
Walking on narrow ridges alongside the ditches, they hurried to the base of an ancient staircase rising up the hill. The slope was smooth, the steps blanketed with untrampled sand. From the water, they had seen two other stairways ascending to the southern end of the burial place. They hastened in that direction, walking one moment on the sand and the next on the cultivated land, sometimes with one foot in each. Insects and reptiles, frightened by their passage, darted beneath boulders that had tumbled from above to lie along the edge of the fields. Fallen giants resting.
Kasaya loped on ahead to the closest of the two stairways. "Someone's climbed up here," he called.
Bak and Psuro hurried to join him. The footprints, shapeless indentations, rose up a long and steep flight of. steps covered much of the way with sand. Enough remained bare to see that the ancient staircase consisted of two parallel flights of steps separated by a low ramp up which heavy coffins had been drawn many generations earlier. A kneehigh wall set the stairway apart from the hillside.
The three men stared upward. Psuro whistled softly between his teeth. Kasaya muttered something in his own tongue, impossible to understand. Bak stood silent and still, awed by the determination that had driven Khawet to the top. If the prints were hers.
Psuro knelt to examine the indentations. "The breeze hasn't worn away the sharp edges. I'd say they're fresh." Bak studied the terraces above. He did not like the silence, the utter lack. of life. Was Khawet standing somewhere out of sight, determined to fend off any man who approached? Or was she on her knees in some ancestor's house of eternity, making a final offering before she gave herself up? Or had she brought along a vial of poison, meaning to take her own life? He turned around to scan the oasis and added another possibility. Was she even now making her way to the two skiffs drawn up at the water's edge?
"Psuro, you must hurry to the river and set sail, towing mistress Khawel s vessel behind ours. Keep a wary eye on shore. Let no one else set out. I'd not like to be stranded here while she makes her escape."
"But, sir!" The Medjay pointed at the terraces, clearly unhappy with what he considered a lesser assignment. "You might need me up there."
"Your task is as necessary as mine. Go!"
"Yes, sir." Psuro swung around, too quick for Bak to catch his expression, and stalked away.
Bak turned to the younger Medjay, the hard look on his face brooking no argument. "You, Kasaya, will remain here, while I climb up to the terraces and look for her there. If I find her and she attempts to flee, I want you here to snare her."
Kasaya's mouth tightened in objection, but he nodded compliance.
Bak eyed his spear and shield, tempted to leave them behind and go armed with only his dagger. The heavy shield aggravated the ache in his shoulder, both it and the spear would be awkward during the climb, and the latter would be close to useless until he reached the terrace. But he had badly underestimated Khawet before, never once considering her a suspect, and he knew better than to do so again. Resigned to the discomfort, he nodded a curt good-bye to the young Medjay and headed up the stairs on the right side of the center ramp.
He was accustomed to long, steep, and arduous stairways, having climbed many in the fortresses of Wawat. Thinking the effort here no different, he started out fast and confident, treading in the footprints of the one who had gone before him and looking up at his ultimate goal more often than at his feet. A mistake, he learned at the sixth step, one that could have had grave consequences. He took a quick step up, but the stair was not there, the stone broken. His foot came down hard, jarring his teeth, pitching him forward onto a knee.
He growled a curse.
"Are you alright, sir?" Kasaya called.
"Fine." Bak brushed the grit from his skinned flesh and climbed on, his pace slower, his eyes on his feet much of the time, paying more heed to where he placed them.
The staircase was old, treacherous, the steps uneven and broken, and at times inconsistent in height. Buried in sand as they were, hidden from view, he stubbed his toes, stumbled on shattered stones that rocked beneath his weight, and stepped into holes of varying depths. The windblown sand was slippery, flowing downhill at the slightest disturbance, threatening to carry him with it. No longer trusting the earlier footprints, he began to probe the steps with the spear, using the butt end to locate irregularities.
The higher he climbed, the more conscious he became of the long way down to the bottom. With the sand as slippery as wet river mud, the gradient steep, and the hill denuded of outcrops, offering nothing to grab hold of, he could imagine himself sliding, falling, tumbling head over heels like a ball, coming to rest at Kasaya's feet, looking the fool. Worse, he might break an arm, a leg, his back.
Shaking off the thought, he plodded on, dogged in his determination. His leg muscles tightened, prelude to a cramp. Pain nagged his shoulder. The sun beat down, heating the sand beneath his feet. Sweat beaded on his forehead and rivulets flowed down his chest. He passed the halfway point, neared the three-quarter mark. Why, he wondered, had he not had the good sense to send Kasaya on this infernal mission?
Without warning, a rumbling sounded above him. His eyes, which had been locked on the next step, snapped upward. A boulder, poised on the upper edge of the stairway, pitched forward. Kasaya yelled, his words meaningless in the instant of shock. The heavy stone landed on a lower step, bounced, struck another step, bounced a second time. Another bounce and it would be upon him.
With no time to think, barely time to react, Bak leaped to the side, hurdling the low stone wall, and landed in the sand beside the staircase. Immediately he began to slide downhill. His feet skidded-out from under him, the spear flew from his hand, and he fell on a hip. Khawet, he was sure. She had shoved the boulder off the terrace. She had meant him to die. Anger struck him and with it a rock-hard determination not to give her the satisfaction.
Aware he risked tearing his flesh to shreds, he shifted the shield from left hand to right, held it hard against his side, and flung himself toward the low wall. His sandal skidded along the stones, and the shield bumped the rough surface, making it hard to hold. Digging the heel of his other foot into the sand, using it as both brake and rudder, he brought his downhill plunge under control. Much sooner than he dared hope, he mercifully stopped.
Catching his breath and at the same time scrambling to his knees, he looked upward. Khawet stood at the top of the staircase, watching him. Slowly, deliberately, she raised a sling and lobbed a stone at him. Snarling an oath, he swung the shield up, deflecting the missile. When next he looked, she was gone.
Holding the cowhide barrier before him, he rose to his feet and took a hasty glance around, evaluating his position. He stood about halfway up the stairs, out in the open with no available shelter and the enemy above. The boulder had lodged between two others at the edge of a field of young melon plants. His spear lay at the bottom of the steps, its point glinting in the sun.
"Are you alright, sir?" Kasaya, heading upward as fast as the damaged steps would allow.
"I'm fine. Now get off those stairs! If Khawet descends this hill by another route, I want you in a position to cut her off."
"Yes, sir." The Medjay lowered his head and plodded down, sulking, Bak suspected.
Preferring to keep his dagger hand free, Bak switched the shield back to his left hand, reviving the ache in his shoulder. He stepped over the low wall and, muttering a quick prayer to the lord Amon, headed up the stairway once again. The smudged sand marking the boulder's path impressed upon him how important it was that he keep a wary eye on the terrace as well as watch his feet. In spite of the added caution, his divided attention, he climbed steadily.
He passed the highest point he had reached before. As if she had been monitoring his progress, Khawet appeared above, sling loaded, pouch of rocks slung over her shoulder.
He wondered if she had set that spot as his upper limit and planned not to allow him to advance beyond.
She stood in the open, taunting his inability to get at her, and hurled a rock at him. He swung the shield up. The missile struck hard, jolting his arm, setting his shoulder afire, and dropped into the sand at his feet. He tried to scoop it up, thinking to hurl it back, but the stone rolled away to the next lower step. She shot off another rock and another and another, launching them as fast and hard as she could, casting the missiles with uncommon accuracy and a rare strength for a woman.
Unable to retaliate, refusing to retreat, he trod on up the stairs, parrying the stones with his shield, thinking to unnerve her with a steady pace. The sling could be a deadly weapon. in the hands of an experienced warrior. As Khawet was proving herself to be.
Suddenly she turned and darted north along the terrace. He was surprised to see how close he was to the top, with only seven or eight more steps to climb. She must have emptied her pouch of stones. Or had she chosen to run rather than face him, fearing his greater strength and weight? He staved off the temptation to race upward, risking a fall, and continued to climb with as much care as before. Never once did he let down his guard lest she return with another, deadlier weapon. Seeing nothing, hearing no sound, he stepped onto the terrace. There he found the lever she had used to shift the heavy boulder. Other than that, no sign of her remained.
The slope of the hill had been cut away, he saw, providing a vertical surface for the facades of a lengthy row of tombs dug deep into the rock. A broad walkway edged with a kneehigh parapet follgwed the curve of the hill, offering a comfortable approach to these houses of eternity. He eyed the line of entryways, wondering which, if any, sheltered Khawet. Certainly not the two atop the southern staircases, for he had seen her run away from them. He scowled at the gaping portals, black rectangles that warned of the depth of darkness inside. How was he to find her without a torch?
He strode north along the sunlit terrace, peering into tombs whose doors had long ago vanished and whose contents had been desecrated and robbed, passing others whose entrances were blocked by stone or brick walls that looked untouched but had probably been defiled like the rest. On mounds of debris before several entrances, he saw fragments of bone and linen and wood, the residue of ancient robberies. These sepulchers, he assumed, were very old, dating to a time when Abu stood on the threshold of the frontier and Wawat was a place to explore and conquer, not settle and exploit as at present.
If he remembered accurately an early conversation with Djehuty, when the governor had laid claim to a long and esteemed ancestry, he had spoken of a direct line as far back as Kheperkare Senwosret, who had ruled many generations after these early kings. True, the governor had spoken with longing of a more ancient lineage, but even he had not dared press the claim as fact.
Bak had no idea what Khawet's purpose was in coming to this burial place, but if she took her heritage as seriously as Djehuty did, she would waste no time in the older tombs. She would go to the one closest to her heart.
Beyond an entrance half buried in windblown sand he approached a trio of open portals. The faint odor of incense teased his nostrils, then drifted away. Every sense suddenly alert, he crept to the nearest and peered down a short, narrow passage. A shaft of light, vague and indistinct, reached from the depths of the tomb toward the entry to blend with the faint illumination from outside. The smell of incense was stronger here, wafting out through the portal.
Bak slipped his dagger from its sheath, took a deep but quiet breath, and sidled through the passage, keeping his back to the wall. At the end, he peeked into a rectangular chamber, its ceiling supported by six square columns. Nothing stirred in the near-dark hall. A few silent steps took him to a handsome granite offering table laden with a braised pigeon, onions, cucumbers, and dates, along with a bouquet of white lilies and a pottery bowl holding the burning incense. The perfumed smoke was cloying, overwhelming the sweeter odor of the flowers and the tantalizing scent of the bird.
The vague light drew him up a low flight of steps at the rear of the hall and into a corridor where six niches, three on either side, framed rock-cut, painted figures of the deceased as one with Osiris, the lord of the netherworld. In the gloom, deep shadows hovered around the dark, shrouded figures. They and the heavy smell of incense made the corridor seem a passageway to death. Bak crept along on silent feet, chilled by the thought.
He paused at the end of the corridor, where the light was brighter. In the chamber ahead, he heard the faint whisper of a burning torch and sensed the presence of another individual. Khawet, he felt sure. Dagger in hand, he held the shield before him and took a cautious step forward. He found himself in a room too small for the four square columns that provided surfaces for drawings of the deceased, figures illuminated by the leaping flame of a torch. Khawet stepped into view at the rear, holding the light aloft, her back to a niche containing lightly carved paintings of a man and his family, her ancestors Bak assumed.
"Stay where you are, Lieutenant. I'll not let you lay hands on me." The long-handled torch, the kind carried by town guards assigned to night patrol, burned close to the ceiling. The angle of light turned the planes of her face hard and unyielding, matching her voice.
"You can't escape, mistress Khawet."
"I've done nothing worthy of condemnation. I've simply been a tool of the lady Maat, balancing the scales of justice." Her smile turned smug, irritating. "As you are."
"I've not spent the past days tracking you down only to let you slip through my fingers."
"You've earned a reward of sorts, that I concede." Her eyes flashed determination. "But you'll not have it at my expense."
He stepped forward, between the first pair of columns. She swung the torch down, pointing the flame along the central aisle, holding him off. He had to overpower her, but how? The chamber was so small and the columns were so large, there was not much room to maneuver. Even his spear would have been impossible to use in so confined a space.
"Nor will you reach your goal," he said, taunting her. "Your father still lives." Maybe.
She blinked, taken aback, but not for long. "I gave him twice the amount of poison needed to slay a man. He'll not survive the day."
He took a short and careful step forward. She thrust the flame toward him, forcing him back.
"What did he do to make you hate him so?" he asked. "Why slay all the others as well?"
"Oh, come now, Lieutenant! You spent all morning questioning Amethu and Simut. Don't try to convince me you don't know Nebmose was my beloved, my betrothed. The one man who touched me as no other will."
The torch, as long as Khawet's arm, could not be easy to hold, thrust out the way it was. She was a strong womanher use of the sling had proven that-but how long could she continue to grasp the thing at such an ungainly angle?
"I know of your feelings for him, yes, and I know he was one of the many who failed to return from that deadly sandstorm five years ago."
"Do you also know that some men survived at the expense of others? They found a safe haven and turned away all who wished to share their good fortune."
"I heard a tale, yes." Bak spoke with care, refusing to admit a man still lived who had sheltered in that haven. Khawet had followed her pattern slavishly-until today. He had no wish to sacrifice User should she somehow manage to escape and go after the one man she had missed in her reign of vengeance.
"They turned Nebmose away," she said bitterly, "forcing him to go on in the face of the storm."
Bak stepped forward once more. As before, she thrust the torch toward him, forcing him back. If she had been holding him at bay with any ordinary weapon, a spear, for example, he would have grabbed it and twisted it from her hand, but not this fiery standard.
"How do you know this?" he demanded. "Did Sergeant Senmut tell Sergeant Min, who confided in mistress Hatnofer?"
She bowed her head, acknowledging the guess. "Senmut was born a braggart, and Min could keep nothing from Hatnofer."
"Your father found shelter somewhere else," he pointed out, "not with Senmut and the others."
"He and Min did, yes. And they found a donkey laden with food and water." She paused, added with a sneer, "Enough to sustain three men with ease."
"Nebmose came upon them," Bak guessed, "and did they also turn him away?"
"The shelter they'd found was- small, an overhanging boulder with a ridge of sand in front, forming an alcove. Min refused to put the donkey out, refused to make space for Nebmose. According to Hatnofer, he laughed, saying a dumb beast was of more value than a lieutenant. They fought. Min, much the stronger of the two, felled Nebmose and.. " Her voice wavered. "And my father thrust a knife in his back."
Bak was not surprised by the gravity of Djehuty's offense, only by its pointlessness. A man afraid to die, slaying one who was already down. And him a nobleman. No wonder the governor had refused to divulge his secret. The tale showed him up for what he was: a coward and a murderer, unworthy to sit in a seat of power. One who should have been taken before the vizier and been made to account for his crime. Or crimes.
No wonder he had closed Nebmose's house to all but temporary guests. No wonder he had ordered Ineni to move the horses to the estate in Nubt. Both dwelling and animals must have mocked him, reminding hire always of his weak and despicable behavior. The house, he had made into a lifeless shell. The horses, long out of sight and deliberately forgotten, he had ordered traded away when Bak began asking questions.
"Min vanished from Abu five years ago," he said. "Hatnofer surely knew all along what he and your father did. Why did you wait until now to seek retribution?"
"She'd vowed not to say a word, and she didn't. Even when Min failed to summon her to his new post, breaking her heart, she kept her word." A humorless smile touched her lips. "Until one day, about two months ago." The smile grew to a soft, cynical laugh. "That's. when she and my father quarreled. He burst out with the truth, taunting her, admitting he and Min had argued and the sergeant had fallen into the water gauge, where he cracked his head open and died"
"What really happened? Did Min demand a reward for his silence, and Djehuty could see no end to the levy?" "So Hatnofer believed." Khawet raised the heavy torch, bending her arm at the elbow for relief. "She was convinced he slew Min to get him out of the way for good, and she was too angry to remain silent. So she came to me with the tale. I could've slain my father then and there-I wanted to-but I wanted more to make him suffer. So I thought of a way, the patterns you were so quick to see."
Bak noted the sign of weariness. He took a quick step forward, forcing her again to thrust out the torch. As she expected him to, he backed off, but less than half the distance he had shifted forward. "What if Djehuty had failed to see your purpose?"
"My father's not a stupid man, Lieutenant. He saw." She sneered. "He pretended he didn't, but he did."
"Why slay Hatnofer?" He inched forward, stopped. "Was she not your ally?"
"Was I to place myself in her hands as my father had put himself in Min's?" Her laugh was sharp, hard. "No. Nor did I initially intend to slay her. She'd served my family well, and I was rather fond of her. But she guessed what I was up to, and she had to die. Fortunately, the timing was good and her death fitted into the pattern."
He took a slow, careful step forward "If you hadn't slain her, who would've died in her place? Lieutenant Amonhotep?"
"He did no wrong." She spoke as if she could hardly credit Bak with so ridiculous a question. "He, too, would've been turned away to die in the storm if he'd followed Nebmose's path." She formed a cruel smile. "No. I planned to slay my father next."
Bak gave her a surprised look. "You would've taken his life the day I arrived?"
"Why not? You were new to Abu, a frontier policeman. A man praised by the vizier for stumbling upon a smuggling operation. One of limited imagination and skill." She gave an ironic laugh. "Or so I thought."
"That's why you left those unwanted gifts on my doorstep?"
"By then, you'd spotted the patterns to the slayings and I no longer underestimated you." A smile flitted across her face. "I wasn't sure I could frighten you off, but I thought it worth a try. And I wished also to tease you."
He thought her arm trembled, but so slightly he could not be sure. He took another slow step forward. "You must've been disappointed when we moved to Swenet. Or had you delivered all your messages?"
"I thought one more after my father's death, his baton of office perhaps." Her voice turned cool, no longer playful. "Now you've forced my hand a day early, making me act out of necessity, not according to plan."
"With us so close behind, why did you take the time to come here?"
"I wanted to make one last offering to Sarenput, to seek his aid should I live or die."
"Why take so, great a risk? I see by the inscriptions that he's not the ancestor your father so greatly values, that he lived a generation or so later."
"During the reign of Nubkaure Amonemhet," she said with a nod. "This man and his wife were Nebmose's ancestors as well as mine. My betrothed and I were of the same blood, you see, destined to be together through eternity."
Bak realized she did not care if she lived or died. If she could get away free and clear, she would do so, but death was equally acceptable. "You surely don't expect to join your beloved in the Field of Reeds after all you've done to tilt the scales of justice."
Her eyes flashed anger. "I've punished where punishment was due, Lieutenant, balancing the scales, not tilting them." Seeing her distracted, he leaped forward, swinging his shield, thrusting aside the torch. Her hand struck the pillar to her right, the fiery staff sent sparks racing up the painted figure of Sarenput. Fire licked the cowhide shield, singeing the hair, giving off an odor sharper than the incense. Bak lunged at her, going in low, thinking to shove her into the niche at the back of the chamber, where she would have no space to move. As agile as a cat, she freed the torch, ducked away from the niche, and slipped behind the nearest column.
"Leave me in peace, Lieutenant. I've slain no one who didn't deserve to die. What purpose will it serve to stand me before…" She gave him an ironic smile. "Before who? My father metes out justice in this province, and he's a dead man.
Bak had had enough. Her conviction that she had done no wrong was an abomination. "Did the child Nakht deserve death? Or Lieutenant Dedi?" He snorted, making his contempt clear, hoping to goad her into a rash act. "Both were innocent of Nebmose's death, probably had no idea how he died. You slew the boy because he was easy prey, the officer because you didn't have to stand up to him. The horse took his life for you."
Incensed by his disparagement, she leaped out from behind the pillar, raised the torch high, and swung it at his head. Fire spewed. He parried the blow with the shield and lunged at her. She ducked around the next column and darted into the niche-lined corridor. Sparks flew behind her racing figure, tiny stars pricking the swathed images of Osiris. Bak chased after her, dagger in hand. He had never used a weapon to fell a woman and was not sure he could bring himself to do so. A weakness he had no intention of letting her know.
He caught up in the larger columned court. As he was about to grab her, she swung around, the flame traveling with her in an arc. He ducked back, narrowly missed being scorched, the heat so close he felt it pass his face. She stood in the central aisle, her back to the exit, holding the torch toward him as before, keeping him at a distance. Her breathing was quick, harsh, her smile tight. He stood facing her, close enough to pose a threat, far enough to leap away, his body shielded, dagger poised for use. His weapon was the more deadly of the two, but hers allowed a longer reach. If only he had his spear! It would make all the difference.
They stood there for some time, catching their breath, each seeking an edge over the other, neither able to find a breach in the enemy's defense.
Determined to break the stalemate, Bak displayed the dagger, letting the light play on its blade, and took a step toward her. She thrust the flame his way. Teeth clenched tight with determination, he took another step forward. Feinting a thrust at his head, she lunged off to the side, slipped the torch past the shield, and brought it down hard on his hand. He ducked too late. Fire seared his fingers. The dagger flew into the shadows.
Driven by a sudden look of exultation on Khawet's face, Bak leaped at her, swinging the shield to shove the torch aside, and grabbed the arm holding the fiery brand. They struggled for possession. She clung as if her life depended on it-as it did. He squeezed her wrist, felt her fingers give, and jerked the torch away. He swung her around with her back to him, meaning to shove her arm high up between her shoulder blades. She twisted free and ran.
He raced after her, no more than two steps behind. She cleared the last pair of pillars and darted into the entrance passage. He grabbed for her, felt her linen shift beneath his fingers, but she was too far ahead to catch. She darted out onto the sunlit terrace. He followed her through the passage, raced into the light, lost much of his vision. Flinging the shield to his left, the torch to his right, he leaped at her in a flying tackle. His arms went around her waist, his momentum carried them forward. He glimpsed something passing beneath them, the low wall along the terrace. Khawet screamed, and they fell forward.
He released her, giving them both the freedom to save themselves, and tumbled into the sand beyond the wall. He struck with a good solid thump that jarred his shoulder. The steep slope grabbed him; the loose, slippery sand carried him down. Face forward, chest in the sand, he slid out of control toward the base of the hill. Like a sledge, he thought, broken loose and hurtling unrestrained
He remembered the boulders below, pictured himself ending his flight against one, bones broken, body battered. Keeping mouth and eyes tightly shut, he flailed out with his arms and legs, trying to slow himself and turn over. The bandages peeled off his torso and arm, the sand dislodged the fresh scab from the wound on his side, his skin burned. Grit collected in his hair and burrowed beneath his kilt. With a mighty heave, he rolled over onto his back and swung his body around, feet formost. He half sat up, saw a boulder not far ahead, dug in his elbows and heels. His speed began to drop.
He smashed into the boulder feetfirst. One knee came up hard under his chin, making his head spin, his world turn dark.
"Lieutenant Bak! Sir! Are you ahight?"
He came to his senses flat on his back, his legs buckled up between him and the boulder. Opening scratchy eyes, he looked in the direction from which the voice had come. Kasaya was half running, half sliding diagonally down the slope. The tracks he left behind came from midway up the staircase Bak had climbed, betraying the Medjay's failure to obey orders.
Bak's thoughts flew to the terrace, the plunge over the parapet, the prisoner he had caught and released. Khawet! Where was she? Slowly, carefully, straightening his legs one at a time, checking for breaks and finding none, he pushed himself away from the boulder and hauled himself into a sitting position. She lay a few paces to his right, partly on her side, facing away, unmoving. She must have struck a boulder even harder than he.
"Sir!" With barely a glance at Khawet, Kasaya dropped shield and weapons in the sand and knelt beside Bak. He stared at the bedraggled bandage, the newly reopened and bleeding wound, the burned hand, the skin scraped red and raw. His face clouded over. "Do you think… Can you stand up, sir? Can you walk?"
Bak formed a crooked smile. "It's not as bad as it looks, Kasaya. Help me up and let's see to mistress Khawet." The big Medjay offered an arm and, as gentle as if he held a new-hatched duckling, lifted his superior to his feet. Bak stood- quite still, letting a wave of dizziness pass, while Kasaya picked up the shield and two spears.
He offered one of the weapons to Bak. "Your spear, sir." Bak stared, taken aback. "This is the reason you climbed the stairs?"
"I know you told me not to go up there, sir, but…" Kasaya shifted his feet, flushed. "I thought you might need it."
Bak bit back a laugh. Of all the understatements he had heard, that was the best, or worst.
They walked to the woman crumpled on the sand and knelt beside her. Bak knew the instant he saw the pallor of her face that she was badly injured. He took her shoulder, damp from exertion and gritty from the tumble downhill, and rolled her onto her back, taking care not to hurt her further. Her body was limp, her head lying at an impossible angle. He felt for the pulse of life, found none. She was dead, her neck broken.