“Were you aware that Woserhet was an auditor?” Bak dropped onto the single free stool in the workshop, a rough cut rectangular affair made for straddling.
“Yes, sir.” On the floor beside his leg, Meryamon laid the long, delicate censer, shaped like an arm with an open hand at the end, that he had been inspecting. Newly polished, the gold it was made from glistened in the light like the flesh of the lord Re.
“Why didn’t you say?”
Meryamon flushed, then glanced surreptitiously at the half-dozen men scattered along the lean-to that shaded two sides of the open court. A warm breeze rustled the palm fronds spread atop the shelter. Surrounded by ritual imple ments, they were cleaning and buffing bronze and gold and precious inlays for use during this and the eight remaining days of the Opet festival. Unseen craftsmen in another part of the building could be heard hammering metal. The young priest sat cross-legged on a reed mat, surrounded by objects given him for inspection. Many were outstanding examples of the metalsmith’s craft.
“I guess I was too surprised to hear he’d been given the re sponsibility for the reversion of offerings. I had no idea he was so highly thought of.”
“Were you not told that he reported to no less a man than the chief priest?”
“I knew Hapuseneb sent him, but I thought the audit rou tine.”
Had it been routine? Bak did not know. Nor had Ptahmes been able to tell him. The aide had assumed so, at least at the beginning, but when Bak had found him in the house of life not an hour ago, before the long arm of the lord Khepre could reach into the sacred precinct, he had said, “Ha puseneb is a wily old bird; he may’ve sensed a transgression within the storehouses and brought Woserhet here without telling even him of his suspicions.”
Unfortunately, Woserhet had repeated the same mistake with his scribe Tati, telling him nothing, letting him search with his eyes blinded by lack of knowledge.
Irked at the thought, Bak asked Meryamon, “How often did you have occasion to speak with him?”
The priest shrugged. “Two or three times at most. A greet ing usually and not much else.”
“What was your impression of him?”
Another shrug, and the closed expression of a man un willing to commit himself.
Sighing inwardly, Bak wiped a film of sweat from his forehead. “Surely you thought something about him.”
The priest studied his foot, refusing to meet Bak’s eyes.
“The sacred precinct is like a village, sir. People talk and you can’t help listening. Listening and being influenced.”
Bak felt as if he were pulling an arrow driven deep within a wooden target. The man would offer nothing without it be ing dragged from him. “From what you heard, Meryamon, what did you conclude about him?”
“They said he was a plodder, a man who searched out mi nor errors like a bee eater seeks a hive, and he wouldn’t let rest the least significant matter until someone wasted the time it took to resolve the problem.”
“Is that what you saw the few times you spoke with him?”
The priest’s eyes darted toward Bak and away. A reddish stain washed up his face. “I thought it best to have as little to do with him as possible.”
Bak muttered an oath beneath his breath. Meryamon had no spine whatsoever-or so he appeared. He had managed to convince someone in authority that he was responsible enough to see that the priests were provided with the proper supplies and equipment for the various rituals. A demanding task he must be performing well or he would not be here.
Bak picked up a tall, thin, spouted libation jar. Made of gold and polished to a high sheen, it surpassed in beauty all the other objects scattered around the priest. “This was kept in the storehouse where Woserhet was found?”
Meryamon eyed the jar as if he feared the officer would drop it, marring its perfection. “Behind the records room, yes.”
“So if the building had burned, this and all the other ritual objects except those being used in the procession would’ve burned with it.” Thanking the lord Amon that such had not been the case, Bak returned the jar to the spot from which he had taken it. Such a loss would have been an abomination.
“All that remained inside would’ve been destroyed, yes, but these were safe. As is the custom, I’d gone to the store house the day before and removed everything the priests will use throughout the festival.” Meryamon gestured toward the men toiling beneath the lean-to. “The ritual implements will be used time and time again until the lord Amon returns to his northern mansion. They’re cleaned after each use.”
Bak looked at the men and the precious objects scattered around them. Many had been crafted of gold, a few of the much rarer metal silver, others of bronze or faience or glass. Each a work of art. Objects considered by User to be of insignificant value when compared to those stored in the treasury.
“Where do you keep them when they’re not in the store house?”
“Here. In this building. It’s safer than carrying them back and forth.” Meryamon smiled. “Never fear, sir. They’re well cared for.”
A short, fleshy servant seated beneath the lean-to spat out an oath and scrambled to his feet, swatting at something too small to see, a flying insect of some kind. His fellows laughed-until the tiny assailant moved on to fly around their heads. Spitting curses, a few men waved the creature off while the remainder covered their heads with their arms.
Finally, an older, thinner man slapped the back of his neck and chortled success. Laughing at themselves, the men re turned to their task.
Bak stood up, prepared to leave. As if an afterthought, he said, “Oh yes, I meant to ask you. The day the lord Amon traveled to Ipet-resyt, I saw you walking south along the processional way. You were with a red-haired man. I thought to join you, but lost you in the crowd. I once knew a man of similar appearance, but don’t remember his name. I wonder if your friend is the one I knew.”
A frown so slight Bak almost missed it touched Merya mon’s face; he paused an instant to think. His eyes met
Bak’s and he spoke with the candor of an honest man. “I may’ve talked with such an individual, but I don’t recall do ing so.”
Bak left the workshop, convinced Meryamon had lied.
Why tell a falsehood over a trivial matter? Or was it trivial?
What message had the shard contained? Had it in some way related to Woserhet’s death?
He thought of the beautiful and valuable objects he had seen in the workshop. User might not believe them worthy of stealing, but to him-and no doubt to Meryamon as well-they were of greater value than anything he could hope to attain in a lifetime. Even when melted down and im possible to identify, as the objects would have to be in order to be disposed of in the land of Kemet, their value would be awesome.
Another telling fact to Bak’s way of thinking: Meryamon had been the first man at the scene of the murder. He had raised the alarm in plenty of time to save the storage maga zine and the valuable objects that had remained within, but had not summoned help until after many of the scrolls strewn around the body had burned. If he had been stealing from the storehouse, he would certainly know which docu ments might incriminate him.
“I didn’t hear of Woserhet’s death until yesterday morn ing.” Nebamon, overseer of the block of storehouses in which Woserhet had died, glared blame at the elderly scribe at his side. “Before I could come to Ipet-isut to look into the matter, one of the scribal overseers at Ipet-resyt fell ill and I was pressed into taking his place. There went the day.”
Bak broke the seal and swung open the door of the small room where Woserhet had been slain. “Stay near the en trance. I’m not satisfied I’ve learned all I can from this place.”
The overseer grunted acknowledgment and stepped across the threshold. His scribe followed, holding aloft a flaming short-handled torch to illuminate as much of the room as possible. Bak remained outside but watched them closely to be sure they disturbed nothing.
“Hmmm.” In the wavering light of the torch, Nebamon studied the chamber. Some men might have considered his appearance amusing, men who failed to notice how serious his demeanor was. He had a short and pudgy body, a three quarter circle of curly white hair, and bushy white eyebrows.
“The floor will need to be cleaned and the walls and ceiling repainted to cover the soot, but the damage appears to be minimal.”
“The guards were quick to act. They feared the roof would catch fire and it would spread to other magazines.”
“I’ll see their swift action is rewarded. I’m convinced they averted a catastrophe.” Nebamon shuddered. “With so few men nearby to fight a conflagration, it could’ve spread all through the sacred precinct.”
Bak thought of the multitudes standing outside the enclo sure wall, watching the procession. He was certain every man among them would have come running. “You knew of
Woserhet’s task, I’ve been told.”
“User told us.” The overseer turned to leave the building, and his scribe followed.
“Did you keep a close watch on what he was doing?”
“Close enough.” Nebamon stepped up to a ladder leaning against the front of the building and placed a foot on the lowest rung. “From what I saw inside, I doubt the roof suf fered damage, but I must look nonetheless. Will you come with me, Lieutenant?”
Bak followed him upward, while the scribe remained be hind. A large flock of pigeons, caught sunning themselves in the warm glow of the lord Khepre, took flight as the men climbed onto the roof. The vaults of the long row of inter connected storage magazines formed a series of half cylin ders butted together side by side. The smooth white plaster surface was mottled by bird droppings, and windblown dirt and sand filled the depressions between the ridges.
“You followed his progress from one storage magazine to another?” Bak asked.
“As long as he was examining this storage block, yes.”
Nebamon knelt on the ridge at a spot Bak judged to be di rectly above the area where the fire had been the hottest. The overseer drew a knife from the sheath at his belt and began to dig a hole in the plaster and the mudbrick beneath. “He finished with us over a week ago, apparently satisfied, and went on to another block. I was surprised to hear he’d come back. What was he doing here, Lieutenant? Do you know?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
The overseer gave him a startled look. “Are you saying he told no one?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“It never pays to be too secretive. Never.”
Shaking his head to reinforce the thought, Nebamon dug deeper. He studied the hole as he excavated, searching for signs that the fire had crept through the straw mixed into the mud when the bricks were made. “You know, of course, that these storehouses are filled with valuables. Not merely ritual vessels but cult statues, amulets carved or molded of pre cious stones and metals, aromatic oils, incense, objects brought from far-off lands to adorn the god, the sacred shrine, the sacred barque.”
“Meryamon mentioned only objects used in the rituals.
Does he know of the other items?”
“He should. He comes here daily.”
Kneeling beside the overseer, Bak picked up a small chunk dug from the rooftop and crumbled it with his fingers.
The straw was brittle and dry but unburned. The dried mud was brown, not the red of burned brick. “Would he have an opportunity to steal?”
Nebamon’s eyes narrowed. “Meryamon? What gave you that idea?”
“I’m asking, that’s all.”
“I suppose he could steal an item or two, but why would he? He has a position few men attain at such a young age. A man would have to’ve lost his wits to risk so much.” The overseer moved to the hollow between the ridges and again dropped to his knees. “If anything had been missing, I’m confident Woserhet would’ve discovered the loss. He and his servants were very thorough. I watched them. They counted every object.”
“You respected him, I see.”
“He could be irksome at times.” Nebamon, brushing the sand from the hollow, looked up and smiled. “As are all au ditors.” Sobering, he said. “He had a task to do and he did it well. He was slow and careful and precise, as wary of mak ing a wrong accusation as he was of overlooking an offense against the lord Amon. I can’t fault him for that, now can I?”
“I’ve heard he wasn’t well liked.”
“I suppose a few men resented him, feeling he was prying-and he was. But we’re all men of experience. He’s not the first auditor we’ve met, nor will he be the last.”
Bak appreciated the overseer’s attitude, a man who ac cepted the bad with the good, making no special fuss. “What can you tell me of Meryamon?”
“We’re back to him, uh?” Nebamon grinned at Bak, then began to dig another hole. “He seems a likable enough young man.”
“I seek something more specific,” Bak said, returning the smile. “Where, for example, did he come from?”
“Somewhere to the north. Gebtu? Abedju? Ipu? That gen eral area.”
Some distance away, several days’ journey at best. No easy way of narrowing that down without asking Meryamon himself. “His task requires a man of trust and dependability.
To attain such a post, he must’ve come from a family of posi tion and wealth. Or some man of influence befriended him.”
Nebamon took a cloth from his belt and wiped the sweat from his face. “I’ve heard a provincial governor spoke up for him, but who that worthy man was, I don’t recall. If ever I was told his name.”
Vowing to dig deeper into Meryamon’s past, Bak watched the pigeons circle around and settle on the far side of the roof, their soft cooing carrying on the air. “I saw you two days ago after the procession entered Ipet-resyt, watching a troupe of Hittite acrobats. Standing beside you was a red haired man.” He disliked deceiving so likable and industri ous an individual, but the ploy had satisfied Meryamon, so why not use it again? “Many years ago, I knew someone who looked very much like him, but I don’t recall his name.
I wonder if he could be the man I knew?”
The overseer looked up from his small excavation. “I talked to dozens of people that day: friends, acquaintances, strangers.” He broke apart a lump of dried mud and studied the straw embedded inside. Nodding his satisfaction, he rose to his feet. “The roof appears undamaged. I’ll send a man up here to fill the holes and replaster, and it’ll be as good as new.”
As they walked together to the ladder, Bak asked, “Do you by chance remember the redhead? If I bump into him during the festival, I’d like to be able to call him by name.”
“I’ve no idea who you’re talking about. How can I recall one of so many?”
Was he telling the truth? Bak liked the overseer and thought him honest-at least he hoped he was. However, he could not deceive himself. As overseer of the storage block,
Nebamon had unrestrained access and was less likely to be watched closely by those in attendance than was Merya mon. Also, he was responsible not only for storing the items, but for receiving them from far and wide and distrib uting them elsewhere. To where? Bak wondered. Amonked had not explained.
Bak left the lovely limestone court in front of Ipet-isut and walked south to the partially completed gate. The sun struck pavement was so hot he could feel the warmth through the soles of his sandals. Striding through the gate, he paused at the low end of the construction ramps and looked south along the processional way toward the first barque sanctuary. There, just two days earlier, he had stood with his men, awaiting their dual sovereigns and the sacred triad.
The unfinished gate towers stood sadly neglected, the workmen released to enjoy the festival. A dozen boys, none more than ten years of age, were towing a large empty sledge up the ramp built against the east tower. One shouted out commands, pretending to be an overseer slapping his thigh with a stick, a make-believe baton of authority. The rest struggled mightily to pull the heavy vehicle. What they meant to do with the sledge when they reached the top, Bak dared not imagine.
On an impulse, he decided to climb the west ramp, bare and unoccupied except for a sledge laden with facing stones.
With no foreman to complain that he would get in the work men’s way, he could ascend unimpeded to the top. From there he would have a panoramic view of the southern por tion of the city.
The slope was not steep and soon he reached the upper end. As he had expected, the scene laid out before him was lovely. After passing the first barque sanctuary, the pro cessional way swung west around the small walled mansion of the lady Mut, then cut a wide swath south to Ipet-resyt.
Along much of the way, buildings pressed against the strips of trampled grass lining both sides of the broad thorough fare. The sea of white rooftops was dotted at times with the dark brown of unpainted dwellings and islands of dusty green trees standing alone or clustered in groves. A sizable crowd had gathered beyond the mansion of the lady Mut to watch a procession of some kind.
He waved to the boys, who had stopped to rest, and moved to the western edge of the ramp, where he looked down into the housing area outside the small gate he and
Amonked had used to reach the storehouse where Woserhet was slain. Few people walked the lanes; the day was too hot.
Donkeys stood close to the dwellings in narrow slices of shade, and dogs lay well back in open doorways. A move ment caught his eye. A man, a redhead, coming out of the sa cred precinct. Turning toward the unfinished gate and the ramp on which Bak stood, the man walked along the lane at the base of the enclosure wall.
Bak could not see his face clearly, but the fuzzy hair was the color he remembered. He raced down the ramp, entered the lane running alongside, and ran back toward the enclo sure wall. The redhead rounded the corner. He saw Bak, piv oted, and retreated the way he had come. Bak turned the corner and spotted him ahead, veering into a lane that led in among the housing blocks.
Bak raced to the point where the man had vanished, saw him turn into an intersecting lane. He sped after him. The man ducked into a narrower passage and another and an other, zigging and zagging between building blocks that all looked much alike. Each time Bak lost sight of him, the sound of running footsteps and at times the barking of an ag itated dog drew him on.
The red-haired man was fast and knew this part of the city well. He maintained his distance, twisting and turning with out a pause. How far they ran, Bak had no idea, but he had begun to gasp for air and sweat was pouring from him when his quarry dashed out from among the building blocks and onto the grassy verge lining the processional way. A short burst of speed took him into the crowd Bak had seen from atop the ramp.
He was so focused on the redhead that he was slow to re alize the procession was made up of men leading exotic ani mals imported from afar. Though not nearly as long as the procession of two days earlier, the number of spectators was large, with a multitude of wide-eyed and noisy children among equally enthralled adults. The redhead used the crowd to his advantage, letting his bright hair blend in among the many colorful banners carried by the youthful spectators. Bak lost him within moments.
Stopping to catch his breath, he paused at a booth to buy a jar of beer. He drank the thick, acrid liquid while he walked the length of the procession, searching for his quarry. His eyes strayed often to the creatures parading along the thor oughfare. He assumed they were the more manageable of the animals Maatkare Hatshepsut kept in a zoo within the walls surrounding the royal house. Except for a few special occasions, they were never seen by any but a privileged few.
Why she had chosen to show them now, he had no idea.
An elderly black-maned lion held pride of place. Behind him, carried by porters wearing the bright garb of southern
Kush, came a caged lioness and a leopard, both of which Bak might well have seen in Buhen, being transported from far to the south on their way to Kemet. A leashed and muz zled hyena led a parade of baboons and monkeys, antelopes and gazelles, each creature with its own keeper. Men carried a few caged birds that had somehow survived the long jour ney from distant lands. Last in line, occupying another place of honor, lumbered a bear from lands to the north, led by a man of Mitanni.
The red-haired man, Bak concluded, had eluded him. Not one to give up easily, he turned back toward the sacred precinct.
“No, sir.” The thin elderly scribe, whose dull white hair hung lank around his ears, dipped the end of his writing brush into a small bowl of water and swished it around, cleaning the black ink from it. “At least I don’t think I know him. Your description lacks…” His voice tailed off, the si lence saying more emphatically than words that his inter rogator could have been describing almost anyone with red hair.
Bak was painfully aware of the deficiency of his spoken portrayal. The red-haired man had been too far away to de scribe properly. Bak would know him when he saw him, but to create a recognizable verbal image was close to impossi ble.
“Do you know all the redheads who toil within the sacred precinct?”
The scribe touched the tip of his wet brush to an ink cake and dabbed up a slick of red ink, letting Bak know he was a busy man and must get on with his task. “Not all, but I can tell you where to find one or two.”
Bak walked into a large room whose ceiling was sup ported by tall columns. Light flooded the space from high windows, shining down on twenty or more men seated cross-legged on reed mats, writing beneath the sharp eye of their overseer. Near the front sat a youth with flame red hair.
Curly but not fuzzy. A closer look revealed a body pale from spending most of the time indoors. The man Bak was look ing for had the ruddy skin of one accustomed to the sun.
“Try Djeserseneb,” the youth said after Bak had explained his mission. “His hair is red, about the color of a pomegran ate. You’ll find him at the goldsmith’s workshop.”
Had the man he chased had hair the color of the succulent fruit? Bak wondered. He would not have called it so, but dif ferent men saw things in different ways.
“Roy might be the man you’ve described.”
The metalsmith, a muscular man whose hair was truly the color of a pomegranate and as straight as the thin gold wire his neighbor was forming, paused to adjust the tongs clamped around a small spouted bowl. Satisfied he would not drop the container, he poured a thin rivulet of molten gold into a mold on the floor in front of him. Bak could not tell what the finished image would be.
“He’s a guard, one who watches over the sacred geese.”
The craftsman glanced upward to see the sun’s position in the sky. “About this time of day, they open the tunnel and let the birds out for a swim. You’ll find him awaiting them at the sacred lake.”
A guard. A promising occupation. The red-haired man he had followed through the lanes had looked well-developed of body and had certainly been fast on his feet.
The guard’s hair was bleached by the sun, strawlike and dry. Unlike the man Bak had chased, it had no spark of life and could be mistaken for brown from ten paces away.
“Sounds like Dedu,” Roy said. “He’s a sandalmaker.
You’ll find him in a workshop behind the house of life.”
“And so my search went.” Bak sat on a stool beneath the newly erected pavilion on the roof of the building where his men were housed. Hori had needed a shaded place to unroll and read the scrolls, so the Medjays had built the light struc ture before leaving to partake of the day’s festivities. “I’m confident I met every red-haired man who toils within the sacred precinct. The man Meryamon denied knowing was not among them.”
“If he’s not there, where can he be found?” Kasaya asked.
The ensuing silence was filled with birdsong, children’s laughter and adult voices, the barking of dogs and the bray of a donkey.
Hori glanced ruefully at the scrolls spread across the rooftop, unrolled and held in place with stones. “Our day’s been more productive, but I can’t say we’ve learned any thing.”
Bak left the pavilion to look at the documents, making his way down one narrow aisle after another. The lord Re hov ered above the peak beyond western Waset, offering plenty of light to see by. Many of the scrolls were in the condition he would have expected after Hori’s initial sort: wholly in tact or damaged at the edges with the ends burned away. The remainder, those he would never have guessed could be un rolled, were in various stages of destruction. Large segments remained of a few. Of the rest, patches of decreasing size had been salvaged, some little more than a few charred scraps.
He whistled. “I’m amazed you recovered so much.”
“We’ve Kasaya to thank, sir.” Hori grinned at the young
Medjay. “He has the patience of a jackal sniffing out a grave.
He’d sit there for an hour, bent over a charred scroll, un rolling it a bit at a time. You’d think the whole document a total loss, but sooner or later he’d find something inside I could read.”
Bak smiled his appreciation at the hulking young Medjay, whose hands looked too large to manage any kind of deli cate effort. “You’ve done very well, both of you. I couldn’t have asked for more.”
Hori and Kasaya exchanged a pleased smile. “We decided that if the slayer took Woserhet’s life to hide the fact that he’s been stealing from the lord Amon, he’d probably have thrown any documents that might point a finger at him into the fire. If that was the case, the worst burned would be the most useful.”
“I guess you know what you must do next,” Bak said, his eyes sliding over the display.
“See if we can learn what the culprit was stealing.”
“Should we concentrate on items Meryamon would’ve handled?” Kasaya asked.
Bak thought over the idea and shook his head. “No. Let the throwsticks fall where they will. If he’s been stealing, signs of his activity should appear naturally, without making an effort to find them.”
“But, sir,” Hori said, clearly puzzled, “you told us the red haired man ran when he saw you. Wouldn’t that indicate guilt?”
“Guilt, yes, but for what reason we don’t know. Also, I chased him, not Meryamon. One man’s guilt is not necessar ily that of another, and Meryamon’s lie about knowing him doesn’t make either man a thief.”
“Can we help in any way, sir?” Sergeant Pashenuro reached into the pot of lamb stew and withdrew a chunk containing several ribs. “None of us can read, and it sounds to me as if that’s what you need, but we’d like to be of some use.”
“Never fear, Sergeant. When I require help, I’ll summon you.” Bak tore a piece of bread from a round, pointed loaf so recently taken from the heated pot in which it had been baked that it stung his fingers. “Until I do, let the men play.
The festival won’t last forever, and when it ends we’ll set off for Mennufer. The lord Amon only knows when next they’ll have time to relax.”
Sergeant Psuro, a thickset Medjay whose face had been scarred by a childhood disease, swallowed a bite of green onion. “You don’t seem too worried about laying hands on
Woserhet’s slayer.”
“The more I learn, the more straightforward his death ap pears. He was probably slain because of a problem he un earthed in the lord Amon’s storehouses. The trick is to learn exactly what that problem is-theft, no doubt-and to search out the man responsible.”
Pashenuro looked across the courtyard, illuminated by a single torch mounted on the wall. The two men assigned to remain on watch were playing knucklebones with a marked lack of enthusiasm, both having returned after a long, hard day of revelry. Deep shadows fell around them, and around
Bak and the sergeants, accenting the sporadic reddish glow beneath the cooking pot, dying embers stirred to life by the light breeze. Hori’s dog lay with his back against a row of tall porous water jars, snoring and twitching.
A small boy came through the portal from the street.
“Lieutenant Bak?”
“I’m Bak.”
“I’ve come with a message, sir.” The child spoke rapidly, running his sentences together in his eagerness to pass on what he had to say. “A man named Amonked wishes to see you, sir. He asks you to meet him at a grain warehouse near the harbor. Right away, he said. I’m to take you there.”
The three men looked at one another, their curiosity aroused.
“Shall we go with you, sir?” Psuro asked.
“What did this man look like?” Bak asked the boy.
The child shrugged. “Like a scribe, sir.”
“You could be describing any one of a thousand men,”
Pashenuro said, disgusted.
“Wouldn’t Amonked send a note, sir?” Psuro asked.
“He may not have had the time or the means.” Bak scooped up his baton and rose to his feet. “I suspect we’re making too much of a simple summons. Lest I err, I’ll send the boy back after we reach the warehouse. If I don’t return by moonrise, he can lead you to me.”
The building they approached looked like all the other warehouses strung along the river, especially in the dark, and the slightly ajar door before which they stopped opened into one of countless similar storage magazines in the area.
A strong smell of grain greeted them, making Bak sneeze.
He shoved the door wider and peered inside, expecting a light, finding nothing but darkness and an empty silence.
Amonked was not there. Disappointed, Bak turned to speak to the boy. The child was halfway down the lane, run ning as fast as his legs could carry him. Something was wrong!
Bak sensed movement behind him, started to turn. A hard object struck him on the head, his legs buckled, and his world turned black.