The shadows lengthened across the courtyard; the sun nudged the western battlements. A stiffening breeze cooled the air, drying the moisture on faces and backs and arms. The reeds atop the pavilion rustled as if inhabited by mice. The leaves on the potted trees danced. Azzia’s guests departed in ones and twos until none but Iry remained. She was on her feet, preparing to leave.
Bak could hardly wait for her departure and the chance to escape from this room in which Azzia had condemned him. The longer he remained alone and inactive, half-listening to the chatter in the pavilion, the more doubts he had that his plan would succeed. He knew he had no talent for subterfuge, and this plan, so fraught with opportunities for failure, seemed destined to prove it. Not one of his four suspects had come.
He paced the floor, fretting like a dog waiting for its master to throw a bone. What would he do if his plan failed? He paused at the door to Azzia’s bedchamber and scowled at the half-full chest of clothing. Maiherperi’s words came to him unbidden: If you’ve done all you can to reach the truth but have failed to grasp it, you must trust to the lady Maat to place wisdom in the heart of the man who metes out justice.
He turned his back to the room-and the thought. The day was not yet over.
“I dislike leaving you, my dear, but I must,” he heard Iry say. “You’ve no idea how irritable Tetynefer gets when his stomach is empty.”
“I thank you for staying through the day.” Azzia’s voice grew softer, wavered. “And for agreeing to care for my servants if I cannot return from Ma’am.”
“You’ll come back to us. The viceroy has but to look at you and he’ll read the truth in your face.”
“I’d rather he listened to my plea and found the truth in my words,” Azzia said, her tone wry.
“Ah, look who’s come.” Iry laughed, pleased. “I knew he wouldn’t disappoint us.”
Bak lunged toward the mat, praying the newcomer was one of his suspects. Through a slit, he saw Lieutenant Mery striding toward the two women. Bak breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief, although he had to admit the watch officer did not look like a man intent on saving his skin. His smile was broad and open. He was spotlessly clean, freshly shaven. His jet-black hair was shiny and neat, and his lithe body glistened with the oil he had used after bathing. He carried his baton of office and wore a bronze dagger on his hip, its wooden handle polished to a high sheen.
Bak studied the officer, looking for signs of the struggle in Heby’s dwelling. Mery’s knee was bruised, his right hand abraded. The ruddy stain of sandburn on face and limbs betrayed his exposure to the storm, his body protected by a cloak. The injuries were minor but promising. Other than the burns and an ugly bruise on his lower back, Bak himself had come away unmarked.
Mery glanced at Ruru, sprawled in front of the wall, eyes closed, breathing slow and deep. Dismissing the Medjay with a grin, he entered the pavilion. Ruru’s eyes flickered open, snapped shut; his fingers inched toward his spear.
Greeting Iry, Mery showed not only the respect due a mature woman of her station but also a genuine affection. From her fond smile and the way she patted the young officer’s arm, Bak could tell the feeling was mutual. Mery took Azzia’s hands and, holding them far longer than necessary, offered his sympathy and loyalty. Iry looked on with so obvious a satisfaction Bak was certain she would have tried to make a match if Azzia had not been so recently widowed. The thought rankled.
The sun dipped behind the fortress wall, enveloping the courtyard in shadow. Iry embraced Azzia, and the two women bade a sorrowful good-bye. As soon as the older woman departed, Mery reached out to Azzia as if to clasp her hands-or more. She turned away. Brushing a tear from her cheek, she suggested he take a stool.
Bak, eager to get on with his plan, hastened to a deep reed chest filled with neatly folded bed linen. Sliding his hand inside, he withdrew the items he had hidden there earlier in the day: a papyrus scroll and a linen-wrapped object the size of the thin gold ingot Azzia had given him. Each was bound with cord, its knot secured with a flat lump of dried clay stamped with Nakht’s seal. The pretense of a search was not necessary, he rationalized. All he had to do was display the objects and wait for developments.
He returned to the door and raised his hand to sweep the mat aside, but a quick peek outside changed his mind. Azzia, seated on a stool facing her guest, was pouring wine into a drinking bowl while Mery watched her with the adoring look of a lovesick puppy. Was he, after all, nothing more than an admirer, with no knowledge of stolen gold? Smothering his impatience, Bak sat down, laid the objects in his lap, and pressed his forehead to the mat.
“I yearned to come to you before today, as you must know,” Mery said, accepting the bowl, “but I could think of no way to break the wall of solitude Officer Bak raised around you.”
“The days were long and empty, yes.” A sad, rather ironic smile touched her lips. “But even loneliness can have some value. With so much time to myself, I’ve learned to accept my fate as a woman alone.”
Mery reached toward her as if to caress her cheek. She recoiled, a tiny frown touching her face, and she swung away to lift a shallow bowl of deep purple grapes from a nearby stool.
He flushed, withdrew his hand.
She looked directly into his eyes. “A woman who must go on by herself, with no man to walk beside her or share her burdens.”
Bak was confused. Was she telling a confederate their relationship was over? Or was she reminding a would-be suitor that her widowhood had just begun? As far as he could tell, she had not warned Mery they had an eavesdropper.
The watch officer’s flush deepened. “Your sorrow at what has passed is great, I know, but one day…”
“I’ll wipe this nightmare from my memory and go on as if nothing had happened?” Her voice cracked on the last few words. Visibly controlling herself, she pulled a low, baked-clay table close to Mery’s thigh and sat the bowl on it. “My husband has been torn from my arms. In one week, two at the most, I must stand before the viceroy in place of the man who took his life. Judged innocent or guilty, I’ll never forget. How can I?”
Bak was so distressed by the pain he heard that he almost missed the anger boiling close below the surface.
“You must forget!”
“My husband was life itself to me and now he’s gone.” She shook her head. “No, I’ll not forget. Nor will I ever forgive the man responsible.”
Her face, her words were filled with loathing. Bak had no doubt she spoke from deep within her heart. She had not taken Nakht’s life. He was relieved, but also troubled. She might be guilty by association.
Mery’s eyes slipped away from hers; he shifted uncomfortably on his stool. Exactly as a disheartened suitor would behave, Bak thought, or a man with a guilty conscience.
With his eyes locked on his drinking bowl, Mery asked, “When you go before the viceroy, what will you tell him?”
An odd question, Bak thought, for a man blinded by love. He shifted closer to the mat, torn between his wish to know the truth and his dread that Azzia would incriminate herself.
“What can she say?” a male voice demanded.
Mery jumped, startled. Azzia looked toward the stairwell and smiled a warm, relieved welcome at Harmose, the archer. Cursing the untimely interruption, Bak stared hard at the newcomer, who came striding across the courtyard, his powerful muscles accented by the deepening shadow, his entire being bristling with indignation. Had he barged in so abruptly because he was the guilty man instead of Mery?
Like the watch lieutenant, Harmose was neat, clean, and freshly shaven. Much of his body had been chafed by blowing sand, he walked with the heavy step of weariness, and his torso and limbs wore the fresh abrasions and bruises of a long day on the practice field. If he had been Bak’s opponent in Heby’s house, fresh marks of battle covered the old.
He knelt before Azzia to take her hands. “For you to be dragged off to Ma’am and humiliated…it’s…it’s indecent!” He released her and flung himself onto a stool. “Say the word and I’ll carry you away tonight.”
She gave him a wan smile. “I fear the desert more than the viceroy, my brother.”
Mery glared at the archer, resentful of the mild endearment-or, more likely, the offer.
“They say there are large and fertile oases many days’ journey to the south,” Harmose said. “The land is so rich it repays a man tenfold for the effort it takes to plant the fields. You’ve seen for yourself the fine cattle the people of Kush bring as tribute from far upriver.”
Azzia raised her hand to silence the dream. Or was it a dream? Bak wondered. Could Harmose seriously be thinking of fleeing with Azzia? And the gold?
“What of the Belly of Stones and the garrisons along its length?” Mery scoffed. “The soldiers who man them would stop your flight within hours, and Azzia’s guilt would be taken as fact.”
“I’m going to Ma’am,” Azzia said in a firm voice. “I must convince the viceroy I’m innocent. Only then can I journey to Mennufer with my husband and see him placed in his tomb with the honor and dignity he earned through his life.”
“How will you convince him?” Harmose asked irritably. “By naming the guilty man?”
“All I can do is tell the truth.”
Neither Mery nor Harmose looked happy with her answer. Bak did not know what to think. Her simple, straightforward statement could have been a subtle threat. On the other hand, if she knew nothing of the stolen gold, she might truly believe veracity would set her free. A faith that might well be misplaced.
With the thought goading him on, Bak decided to show himself-and the package and scroll. The time had come to bait his trap. At the same time, he could learn the whereabouts of Mery and Harmose during the storm. If either was in the company of others, he could be eliminated as a suspect.
He slipped out a side door and followed the servant girl along the passage connecting the kitchen to the courtyard. She carried a delicate long-necked wine jar. The octopus-and-vine design told him the vessel had been imported from the faraway island kingdom of Keftiu.
He paused at the exit and eyed the two men with Azzia. Neither Mery nor Harmose looked capable of offending the gods in any way. The watch officer appeared too ineffectual, the archer too open. Nebwa he would have thought a more likely man to steal and slay without hesitation-or Paser. Yet both men had failed to come. He doubted they would at so late an hour. Already the sky had turned from blue to pale gold, heralding the sun’s disappearance beyond the horizon.
“I know well the kind of justice meted out in the land of my birth,” Azzia said. “All my family was destroyed at the whim of a king. At least here, with the lady Maat balancing the scales of justice, I can be sure the viceroy will hear me out and judge me fairly.”
As the servant walked into the courtyard, Azzia spotted Bak at the door. Her eyes darted to the objects in his hand. Surprise, followed an instant later by bewilderment, registered on her face. She covered her reaction with a quick smile at the girl.
“Our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut, can be as whimsical as the king of Hatti,” Harmose said. “As for the viceroy…” His expression darkened and he shook his head to show how hopeless he thought her situation. “He’ll hear none but Officer Bak, who’ll stand beside you, describing the blood he saw on your hands. At best, he’ll offer no word in your favor. At worst…”
Azzia flashed him a warning glance.
He swiveled on his stool, saw Bak, and went on, “…He’ll twist his words to hide his own ineptness.”
Glimpsing Azzia’s distraught face, Bak gave the archer his best smile and dropped onto the nearest stool. Harmose glowered. Mery nodded an unenthusiastic greeting. If either noticed the objects Bak carried, or cared about them, they gave no hint. He pulled the baked-clay table close, shifted the bowl of grapes, and laid the scroll and package beside it. Azzia watched his performance, looking more mystified than ever. She caught his eye, probing for an answer to her unspoken question.
Mery glanced at the scrolls, at Azzia, at Bak. His mouth tightened; the small scar at the corner of his lip turned fiery.
Harmose eyed the objects with contempt. “I heard you planned to search this house. Was this the second time? The third? Can you think of no better way to spend your days?”
The serving girl, pouring wine into drinking bowls for him and Bak, smirked her agreement.
“What would you suggest I do?” Bak asked.
“The rumors fly that one of your Medjays took the commandant’s life and that of the goldsmith. Are you so blind you can’t see the fear and hatred growing within this city?”
“I’m neither blind nor deaf. I know very well the situation.”
“You do nothing to stop it! While your men patrol the streets of this city, risking an attack around every corner, you waste your hours here, allowing the slayer to walk free while you treat mistress Azzia as a common criminal.”
Bak let a touch of insolence creep into his voice. “Do you, a man who shares my Medjays’ blood, believe one of them would slay for no good reason?”
Harmose’s expression was cool, disdainful. “I believe an officer should stand beside his men in the heat of battle, not run away to a safe haven like Ma’am when he sees the enemy approaching from all sides.”
Bak contained his resentment. The words echoed his own thoughts. “I’ve no choice in the matter, as you well know. The chief steward, Tetynefer, has given the order.”
“No man or woman can change his mind,” Mery said bitterly. “I’ve tried.”
The archer’s eyes flashed anger. “How can you, a man who looks at Azzia with sheep’s eyes, speak up for this…this cur who spits dirt on her good name?”
“Enough, Harmose!” Azzia raised her bowl, smiled. “This wine is the finest I have. Will you allow harsh words to turn it sour?”
Harmose was too angry to heed her plea. “Has Bak told you he believes you have a secret lover and you took your husband’s life to gain your freedom?”
Mery gasped. Azzia stared at Bak, appalled.
Bak wanted to throttle the archer. “You exaggerate. I merely asked the question.”
“Since all who know you believe you’d never look at another man…” Harmose’s eyes shifted from Azzia to Bak. “…His own men must shoulder the blame.”
A new, deeper voice said, “No man of Kemet would take the life of Commandant Nakht. Who does that leave but a Medjay?”
Bak recognized the voice and the accusation before he glanced toward the stairwell. Lieutenant Nebwa was leaning on the doorjamb, his coarse features leaving no doubt as to the strength of his conviction. A second figure, Lieutenant Paser, stood in the shadows behind him. Bak was so surprised at seeing them both that his exasperation at Nebwa’s unfounded charge fled. He had expected the man who had taken the gold to come late in the day, but to have all his suspects here at one time was incredible.
Harmose’s curse was long and vehement. Mery muttered beneath his breath. Azzia closed her eyes and rested her forehead on her fingertips. She took a deep breath, lowered her hand, and smiled at the newcomers. Bak noticed in the fading light how drawn her face was, how tired she looked.
Nebwa strolled to the pavilion, indifferent to the furor he had raised. His hair was rumpled, his kilt askew, his sandals worn and dusty. Of far more interest to Bak were his swollen blackening eye, and arms and torso dappled with livid scratches and grayish bruises. All looked fresh in the uncertain light. Nebwa had probably spent the day training his spearmen in the art of hand-to-hand combat, a necessary task for a man who led troops on skirmishes outside the fortress, but would an experienced officer allow his men to punish him so badly?
Bak shifted his attention to Paser, trailing a pace or two behind, eyeing with distaste his companion’s back. The caravan officer was as clean and tidy as Mery and Harmose-and displayed as many signs of bodily abuse. His legs and arms were rough and chapped. He wore a linen bandage on his right hand and wrist. The arm and shoulder were badly bruised.
Sipping the heady wine in his drinking bowl, Bak eyed the four men. He felt certain that each of them, especially the one he had fought in Heby’s dwelling, had a fine tale to tell about the way he had come by his injuries.
Nebwa, looking like an unkempt bull, knelt before Azzia and took her hands. She accepted his rather clumsy offer of sympathy with her customary grace and charm. Bak could detect no special feeling between them. Paser stood while greeting her and gave her the careful smile a palace courtier might give a woman in Maatkare Hatshepsut’s retinue when unsure of her status. His words were proper, correct. Her response was as gracious as before but a shade cooler, a touch more distant. Bak wondered if they had always disliked each other or if Nakht’s death had torn asunder a close alliance.
The stool beside Bak was unoccupied, so Nebwa sat there. Watching Paser’s greeting, he raised his chin to look down his nose and made a prissy face meant as a parody of a courtier in the royal house. Mery smiled, his irritation no match for such childish humor. Bak concealed his own smile with an effort. When Paser swung around to find a place to sit, Nebwa’s face wore the innocence of a child. Neither man appeared to notice the scroll and package.
Nebwa’s glance slid past the still-fuming Harmose and came to rest on the bandages around Bak’s arm and waist. “The storm found you outside, I see.”
“I was caught in the wind, yes, but these…” Bak touched the bandages. “Oil spilled from a lamp and I was burned.” He eyed the officer’s black eye. “I see you were injured, too.”
“As were half the men in Buhen,” Paser said, reaching out with his left, uninjured hand to take a drinking bowl from the servant girl. She poured his wine and moved on to Nebwa.
Azzia said to Mery, “Iry told us a sentry atop the outer wall was blown into a gate tower and fell at least halfway to the ground. Is it true his leg is broken?”
“His leg, an arm, and some ribs.” Worry darkened the watch officer’s face. “The physician bound the bones straight and offered the necessary spells. With luck he’ll walk again.”
“With luck he’ll live, you mean,” Nebwa muttered.
“Were you on the wall when it happened?” Bak asked Mery. Nebwa’s whereabouts remained a mystery, but the watch lieutenant’s location was no less important.
“I tripped and fell not long after the wind stiffened, so I went to my quarters.” Mery’s eyes darted toward Azzia, fell away. He stared shamefaced into his drinking bowl. “I thought, since my men have been through many storms, they needed no guiding hand to keep them safe. I judged them wrong, it seems.”
Bak cautioned himself not to leap to any conclusions. Mery had been alone, yes, but what of the other three?
“Soldiers are soldiers,” Nebwa said. “Good, brave men, but they need the same attention and care you’d give a child.”
The servant girl slipped among them with a plate of sweet cakes. Bak could not resist their yeasty aroma though he had eaten well while imprisoned in Nakht’s bedchamber. As she moved on around the circle, he eyed Harmose. The archer’s scowl was directed at Nebwa, whose blanket accusation of the Medjays, had drawn his anger away from Bak.
Paser accepted a cake and took a bite from it. He favored the right arm, Bak noted, but the injury was not so serious that it crippled him.
“How did you happen to be caught in the storm?” he asked.
“I set out to inspect a new herd of donkeys. That old thief Dedu delivered them yesterday morning and I thought to use them in the next caravan I lead into the desert. I didn’t want to learn the morning we leave that half were too old or too infirm to make the journey.”
“Old and infirm!” Nebwa guffawed. “If the drovers you chose for the journey hadn’t slipped off for home as soon as the wind came up, they’d have set you straight in a hurry.” He threw a sly grin at Azzia. “Those animals are so young and frisky one of them butted him and knocked him into a wall. That’s the truth of the matter.”
Bak’s smile was automatic-and stingy. Another man alone with a tale that may or may not be true. Paser threw Nebwa a look that would have shriveled a man less thick-skinned. “At least I had the good sense to stay inside the fortress. Unlike you, who walked into the desert and lost your way.”
“You didn’t have a company of fighting men outside the walls like I did,” Nebwa retorted. “I’ve never lost a man in a storm, nor will I ever if I can help it.”
Evidently thinking of his own failure to remain on duty, Mery flushed and stared glumly at his hands.
Oblivious, Nebwa gave Paser an insolent look, daring him to contradict. “I didn’t lose my way, merely my sense of direction for a moment or two.”
Paser raised a skeptical eyebrow. “An hour or two, I’d say.”
Bak felt better about his own experience with the storm. At least he had the consolation that he had not been the sole individual to get lost. If Nebwa had indeed been lost.
Nebwa’s eyes narrowed, his expression turned belligerent.
“How can you two share the same quarters?” Azzia’s tone was light, teasing, designed to sap the tension between them. “You bicker like a pair of old women with nothing better to occupy your time.”
“I thank the lord Amon I’ll be free of him soon!” Nebwa winked, as if he had been joking all along. “Ahmose’s caravan, the one we feared was lost, straggled in this morning. Paser will leave in two days’ time with fresh supplies for the miners.”
Paser looked at Harmose. “You’ll lead the archers who come with us, I’ve been told.”
“Is this true, Harmose?” Azzia asked, surprised.
“Tetynefer, it seems, has no need for a man who speaks the tongue of this land.” Harmose did not bother to hide his disgust. “He believes all who enter this garrison should know the words of Kemet.”
Nebwa twisted around and spat his contempt in the dirt of the potted plant behind him. “That overripe melon has no more sense than a stone. Only a witless civilian would place a Medjay over a unit of archers guarding a caravan.”
Harmose glared. Mery frowned. Paser rolled his eyes skyward. Azzia, looking like a woman who had had about all she could take, told her servant to clear away the empty bowls and dishes.
Bak wanted information, not a quarrel. With dusk turning to darkness, with Azzia’s patience coming to an end, he had no time to waste. “Harmose, I see you survived the storm unscathed.”
The archer tore his smoldering eyes off Nebwa, saw Azzia’s pleading look, managed a stiff smile. “A mighty falcon-the lord Horus himself, I’m convinced-saved me from certain death.”
Nebwa sputtered, but a sharp look from Azzia kept him mute.
“To be blessed by a god is an honor above all others.” Bak hoped he sounded impressed rather than suspicious. “Where were you? In the desert, hunting?”
Azzia’s quick smile of gratitude was tempered by…what? speculation? Had she realized his questions concerning their whereabouts held a purpose?
“I was far out on the river,” Harmose said, “fishing from a skiff. I saw the storm approaching and sailed back this way, but too late. The river came to life, the waves washed over me.” A note of awe entered his voice. “The lord Horus swooped down and flew low overhead, guiding me to the shore. He left me there, safe, and flew away.”
Could the tale be true? Bak wondered. Why would the lord Horus favor this half-Medjay archer when not a single god in the pantheon had lifted a finger to help identify a man who had stolen the flesh of the lord Re and taken two lives? They would not, it seemed, even bother to help eliminate any of the suspects.
He made himself smile and congratulated Harmose on his good fortune, as did Azzia, Mery, and Paser with varying degrees of astonishment.
Nebwa looked thoughtful. “With the lord Horus watching over you, maybe…” He scowled, shook his head. “No. Another man should lead the archers who guard the caravan. One who shares no blood with those vile savages who took Nakht’s life.”
Leaping to his feet, Harmose balled his hands into fists. The infantry officer stared at him with the irritating innocence of a man whose thoughts were engraved in granite.
“Enough!” Bak snarled at the incensed archer, who reluctantly returned to his stool. “Much blame has been laid at the feet of the Medjays these past few days. Ill feeling has grown like scum on a stagnant pool. I know little of the local villagers and less of the desert tribesmen, but one thing I do know: my Medjays have done no wrong.”
Gripping Bak’s shoulder, Nebwa spoke as one comrade to another. “I don’t fault you for standing beside your men. I’d do the same if my troops were in trouble. But to allow an innocent woman to stand accused of their vile crime?” He shook his head, his fingers clamped tight. “No, in that you go too far.”
Bak shook off the offending hand, the grinding pain in his shoulder. The irony of the situation did not escape him. First, Harmose charged him with abandoning his men; now Nebwa was accusing him of protecting them at the expense of the truth. “Not one man in my company could’ve taken Nakht’s life. That I know for a fact.”
“Is that what they told you?” Nebwa asked, giving Mery a knowing wink.
“Bak might well be speaking the truth,” Mery said. “I heard his scribe, the boy Hori, asking for men who saw them elsewhere that night.”
“He found them,” Bak growled, rubbing his shoulder.
He saw no need to mention Ruru, the one man who had been alone in the barracks. Except for the white bandage on the tall Medjay’s head, he was almost invisible in the deepening darkness. A reminder that night was almost upon them and he had no more time to waste listening to these men squabble.
As if to stress the need for haste, Lupaki emerged from the house carrying two brightly flaming torches. He mounted one on the wall beside the rear door and the other at the head of the stairwell. After collecting two unoccupied stools and a table, he left as silently as he had come. In the better light, Bak saw Harmose eyeing him with a new appreciation. Azzia’s thoughts were hidden in shadow. Nebwa remained unconvinced.
“What of the time the goldsmith was slain?” Paser asked. “Have you proven your men innocent of his death, too?”
Thanking the lord Amon for giving him the opening he needed, Bak smiled. “Most are accounted for through the night. As for the rest…” Hepickedupthe scroll and package and held them out so everyone could see the seal securing the knotted cords. His voice took on a note of grim expectancy. “With luck and the favor of the gods, their whereabouts will be of no importance.”
“You can name the one who took the goldsmith’s life?” Mery asked, his eyes locked on the objects.
“Not yet, but maybe…” Bak cut himself short, letting them assume what they liked.
All four men and the one woman stared at the objects. Mery looked bemused. Nebwa’s eyes were as narrow as Azzia’s were wide. The rise and fall of Harmose’s breast ceased. Paser set his drinking bowl on the table, so unaware of his action it landed with a thud.
Nebwa jerked the scroll from Bak’s hand, glanced at the seal, and snorted. “Nakht sealed this document, and he was slain long before the goldsmith.” With a scornful smile, he tossed the scroll back. Bak barely had time to catch it.
“When I find a thing in a secret place,” he said grimly, “I must believe it contains a secret.”
“How could you…?” A startled look flitted across Azzia’s face, she clamped a hand over her mouth and stared at him, her shock apparent.
She had realized, Bak felt sure, that he suspected one of these four men of slaying her husband and was using the objects as bait in a trap. It was time to end his game. He rose from his stool, walked to the edge of the pavilion, and looked up at the stars filling the sky with a milky white brilliance. “The hour is late. I must go.”
The trill of a nightbird rang out, the sound so clear and pure the creature might have been perched directly above the courtyard. Another answered from farther away and a third from a greater distance.
He looked at Azzia. Her face was pale and drawn but composed, her glance a query. In spite of the fact that she had to know he had used her, had to despise him for it, she appeared to be waiting for his next move. His admiration increased tenfold, as did his guilt. “I suggest you all come with me. After so long a day, mistress Azzia must be tired.”
“Yes,” she said, following his lead. “I am weary, that I admit.” She offered them all a wan smile. “To be with my friends today has been a gift I value above all else, but I’ve much left to do this night.”
Bak waited at the stairwell door while they said their good-byes. Mery prolonged his farewell. Harmose hovered. Nebwa poked among the remaining dishes, collecting a handful of grapes, figs, and dates. Paser’s parting was as stiff and proper as his greeting.
They were halfway down the stairs with Bak in the rear when Hori burst through the ground-floor doorway. His face looked pale in the light of the guttering torch shining from above.
“Sir!” he shouted. “You must go to the quay at once. Two of our men have been drawn into a fight.”
Bak muttered an oath and plunged past the others down the stairs. They followed close behind, curious to know what had happened.
“Tell me!” he demanded.
“They were patrolling the harbor.” Hori’s words tumbled out in frantic excitement. “Four men, sailors I think, blocked their path. They had knives and were taunting our men. A sentry atop the fortress wall saw them clash and sent word to me.”
“I knew this would happen,” Bak snarled. He shoved the scroll and package into Hori’s hand. “Give these to Ruru. Tell him to take them to my quarters and wait for me there. Then go to the barracks, rouse Imsiba and a dozen men, and send them to me at the harbor.” Swinging around, he rushed to the outer door and the street.
Bak raced across the rooftops of the housing block where his quarters were located. Four times he had to stop to silence and reassure uneasy neighbors who had taken their sleeping pallets to the roof when darkness fell. As he approached his own building, he spotted Imsiba’s dark figure, lying on the roof, peering over the low parapet at the gray-black lane below. He scuttled to the Medjay, crouching lower with each step, and dropped down to lay prone beside him.
Imsiba flashed a quick, tense smile. “I thought never to hear Ruru’s signal. What took so long?” He spoke in a whisper but with the urgency born of anticipation.
“None of our suspects came until the sun fell below the battlements.”
“Which man walked into your snare?”
“All of them.” Bak smiled at the surprise on Imsiba’s face, but quickly sobered. “As we feared, the man we seek gave nothing away. I’ve no better idea now than I did before who he is.”
“They all heard Hori’s tale?”
“Yes, and my order that Ruru bring the scroll and package here.” Bak gave no hint of the worry crowding his thoughts. “The guilty man should follow him from the commandant’s residence. He’ll wish to strike while he thinks me at the harbor and no threat to his safety.”
The thin whistle of a nightbird sounded in the distance. A second, closer song rang out.
“Ruru’s signal! And Woser’s.” Imsiba scrambled to a sitting position. “He’s on his way, my friend.” He answered the call with a slightly different birdsong. As the last note died away, he lay back with smile. “Our wait will seem shorter if you tell me of mistress Azzia’s gathering.”
The air was still and balmy, the roof hard and unyielding. Barking dogs and a tomcat yowling for a mate disrupted the quiet, abated, began all over again. Bak spoke quickly, skimming over much of the afternoon, leaving out nothing important.
At the end, Imsiba asked, “You’re certain mistress Azzia didn’t take her husband’s life?”
“No man or woman could pretend so much hate, Imsiba.”
“She placed you in Nakht’s bedchamber. Could she not have been speaking for your ears rather than those of Lieutenant Mery?”
“Possibly,” Bak admitted, “but it matters not. If you’d seen and heard her, you’d be as convinced as I am.”
Imsiba grunted.
Bak hesitated to say more lest he reinforce the Medjay’s conviction that Azzia had addled his wits, but silence was not his way. “Later, when she realized I believe one of the four took Nakht’s life, she was not just surprised. She was shocked.”
“As I would be if I feared my secrets were known.”
“Hear me out! We’ve not much time.”
Imsiba’s sigh was long and exaggerated.
“She may’ve been disturbed because she thought I knew more than I did. I think, and here I admit I walk on marshy ground…I think she had no idea who slew her husband, and to learn that one of those four might be the guilty man was a new and shocking thought.”
Imsiba eyed him for some time. When he finally spoke, his voice reflected a deep concern. “For your sake, my friend, I pray she’s as innocent of all guile as you hope she is.”
Bak appreciated the Medjay’s solicitude, but resented the assumption that emotion controlled his thoughts. “Should not Ruru have come before now?” he asked irritably.
“He was to walk, not run as you did, but…” Imsiba looked along the dark, narrow, empty lane, and concern deepened to worry. “Yes, we should’ve heard another signal.”
A cool breeze, the breath of the lord Amon, Bak was sure, touched his back, sending chills up his spine. From the look on Imsiba’s face, he knew the Medjay had felt it, too. As if to affirm their worst fears, the frantic kew-kew-kew of a snared falcon carried through the air, the call so faint they barely heard it. A second call was stronger but no less frenzied. Imsiba shot to his feet to answer the summons. Azzia’s wine rose to Bak’s throat, soured by the knowledge that his plan had gone awry.
Bak knelt beside the dark form crumpled at the base of the single pillar in the vestibule of the commandant’s residence. In the light of the flaming torch Pashenuro held above them, Ruru’s eyes, wide open, sightless, stared at him, accused him. Unshed tears burned the backs of his eyelids, guilt ate at his heart. He was as much to blame for Ruru’s death as the man who had thrust the dagger into his heart. He had told Hori to make sure the four suspects left the building before Ruru’s departure. Never dreaming the guilty man would dare to slip back inside, he had posted no Medjays in the offices surrounding the hall.
Imsiba squatted next to him, examining the long, bronze blade he had pulled from Ruru’s breast. A pool of fresh blood painted the floor beneath the body a bright, glittery red. Kasaya stood in the shadows by the door, his back to them, his head bowed between hunched shoulders. He had found the body. As the first of a dozen Medjays hidden along the path Ruru should have taken, he had been the first to suspect something was wrong. He had heard Ruru’s signal, waited, realized too much time had gone by, and hurried to the residence.
Imsiba, who looked as defeated as Bak felt, pointed to the symbol close to the handle. “The mark of the garrison arsenal. Every spearman and archer in Buhen carries a weapon like this.”
“The scroll and package are gone, Imsiba. No ordinary soldier did this.” Bak stood up abruptly, made a fist, and slammed it against the pillar. “We must not let him outwit us again. He must pay for this death.”
Imsiba hauled himself to his feet and stared at Ruru with a dismal face. He transferred his gaze to Bak, and worry overshadowed unhappiness. “When he sees the scroll is blank and finds a bar of lead rather than gold, he’ll fear you greatly, I think-and hate you. If we don’t snare him soon, my friend, he may well snare you instead.”