Stunned by the blow, Bak felt as if he had been struck on the back by the fist of a god. The impact knocked the air from him and shoved him downward. Arms and legs limp, moving where the water took them, he vaguely saw the hull slide over him. Unable to think, he sucked in a breath, filling his lungs with water.
Coughing, taking in more water, desperate for air, he came back to his senses. He knew he was sinking and the current was carrying him downstream. Terror struck. His limbs flailed, too fast, out of control. Recognizing panic and how close he was to drowning, he forced himself to calm down. He held back a cough, made his arms and legs respond, and swam upward. His body felt heavy and stiff. His chest burned. He saw light through the water, beckoning him.
He broke the surface. The water was rough around him.
Cold wind and heavy swells washed over his head. He coughed and coughed again, spewing liquid, making room for the air he needed.
Then he thought of his father and the boat that had struck the skiff.
“Father!” he yelled, looking around in all directions.
The sun had vanished, throwing a golden glow into the sky that reflected on the roiling water like broken shards of light, heaving and falling, appearing and disappearing, making it impossible to see any object as small as a man’s head.
He did glimpse a boat off to the right, making its way toward the west bank. It could have been the fishing boat that had run them down, but it was too far away for him to be sure.
He coughed hard, bellowed out, “Father!”
“Bak!”
Had to be Ptahhotep, he thanked the lord Amon. Hard to hear with water filling his ears, a strange hollow sound that made the man he heard difficult to locate. He called again, received an answer. Swimming in the direction from which he thought the response had come, he quickly found his father clinging to a long curved section of hull, all that remained of the skiff. A stub of mast was attached and a portion of the torn sail floated on the waves.
“Are you all right, Father?”
“Wet and angry but unhurt. And you?”
Bak tried a grin, but his teeth were clenched so tight it looked more like the grimace it was. “My back feels as if it’s been peeled, and I sucked in a chestful of water. Other than that, I’m ready to do battle with the malign spirit himself.” A gross exaggeration, one intended to make them both feel better.
“That boat struck us on purpose.” Ptahhotep’s eyes flashed with fury. “The son of a snake, the. .” He ranted on, spouting invectives even his policeman son had never heard.
Bak looked toward the west bank, searching for the boat he had seen. The lord Re had entered the netherworld, taking with him the glow from the sky. Darkness was falling fast.
The vessel had vanished, hidden by the gloom, probably nestled against a mudbank, its sail furled, its weathered hull blending into the background.
The waning light told him they must not tarry. He had every confidence that he could swim to the far shore, but his father was no longer a young man. “We must go, Father.
We’ve a long swim ahead of us.”
A movement caught his eye, a traveling ship coming downstream at a fast pace. The vessel he had seen earlier but had forgotten in the struggle to survive. With the light so uncertain, he feared it might pass them by, but a member of the crew spotted the torn sail. The oarsmen slowed the craft and maneuvered it close with practiced ease. Ropes were thrown and the crew hauled them on board.
Bak glanced at the lord Khepre, a sliver of gold peering over the eastern horizon. He had awakened angry and impatient to get on with the new day, but Hori and Kasaya had yet to come. The bandage his father had bound around his upper torso chafed, the musky smell of the poultice tickled his nose, and the bandage around his thigh was too tight. He untied the latter, decided the abrasion was healing properly, and threw it away. His father, called out to tend an infected foot, need never know.
When he went outside to care for his horses, he found Defender lame. A cursory inspection revealed a small stone embedded in the animal’s hoof, a problem easily fixed and best not left to the end of day. But first the team had to be fed and watered. As he finished the task, he spotted the scribe and Medjay hurrying along the path toward the house. The bandage roused their concern and questions. While the horses ate their fill, he sat with the pair beneath the sycamore, where he shared their early morning meal-bread, cheese, and dates Kasaya’s mother had provided-and told them how the fishing boat had run down his father’s skiff.
“The malign spirit,” Hori said, his face grim. “The boat had to be his. Or under his control.”
“I’d wager my iron dagger that you’re right.” Bak did not make such a statement lightly. The weapon was a treasured gift, given to him by a woman he had met when first he had gone to Buhen, one he had never ceased to hold close within his heart.
“Who else has reason to want you dead?” Hori’s question required no answer and received none.
Bak retrieved a basket of instruments his father kept in the house in case he was called out to care for an animal and knelt before the lame horse. While he examined the gelding’s hoof, Kasaya held the rope halter and rubbed his head.
Hori hoisted himself onto the mudbrick wall, well out of the way of flying hooves should the creature strike out. He made no secret of the fact that he rued the day his father had insisted he follow him as a scribe, and he longed to be a man of action-if not a police officer, the chariotry officer Bak had been-but he did not quite trust the large, swift animals.
“I’m surprised you two weren’t attacked when you climbed the cliff,” the youth said.
“Maybe our so-called malign spirit wasn’t at Djeser Djeseru then and didn’t know we went up to investigate.” Bak probed gently around the stone, trying to see how deep it was and loosen it if possible. Defender nickered softly but stood still. “Or he may’ve been there but couldn’t get away unnoticed. Or, more likely, he feared being seen unless he took a roundabout route that would get him to the top too late.”
The gelding’s withers twitched in silent complaint.
Kasaya distracted him with a handful of grain. “I suppose a man could climb up a different crevice than the one we did, but could he cross the tops of those tower-like formations without being seen from below?”
“I don’t know, but I assume so.” Deciding the stone could easily be removed, Bak took a pair of long-nosed tweezers from the basket and pulled it free. He laid the instrument aside and examined the hoof to see how deep the injury went.
“The malign spirit must fear you greatly.” Hori held out a small bowl of salve Ptahhotep had prepared. It smelled much the same as the poultice on Bak’s back. “First he made the cliff face fall upon you and now he’s wrecked your father’s boat.”
“He’d better fear me.” Bak’s voice was harsh, angry. The horse, snorting surprise, jerked backward. “I’m a policeman, trained as a soldier. I can take care of myself. But my father’s a physician, a man no longer young and vigorous. I’m very much troubled by the fact that he’s been brought into this.”
“He was an innocent bystander, surely!”
“Was he?” Wrinkling his nose at the strong, musky odor of the salve, Bak gently rubbed it into the tender spot. “The fishing boat was moored near the quay where he always leaves his skiff. Was it waiting in the expectation that I would sail home with him? Or was it waiting for him alone and I was an added bonus? Was he meant to be injured or slain as a warning to me?”
“I want my father guarded at all times, sir,” Bak said, concluding his tale of the previous evening’s events.
“Why do you come to me?” Commander Maiherperi, a slender man of forty or so years, eyed Bak with an intensity that would have made a younger, greener man uneasy. His woolly hair and dusky skin spoke of mixed blood; the scar across his cheek told of a man who had earned his lofty position. “Amonked brought you into this. Why not go to him?”
“I did. He suggested I speak with you. You stand at the head of the men who guard the royal house; therefore, you stand apart from all other forms of military and civil authority.” A wry smile formed on Bak’s lips. “He also believes you owe me a favor.”
The commander, seated on a chair on a low dais, allowed himself a slight smile. “Because I tore you from the army to place you at the head of a company of Medjay police? Because I sent you to Buhen when our sovereign ordered you exiled? Has he not seen how you’ve thrived on the frontier?”
The chamber, central to the guards’ barracks inside the walls surrounding the royal house and grounds in Waset, was of imposing proportions. Its lofty ceiling was supported by four tall pillars, and air circulating through high windows kept the space cool. The odors of leather and sweat served as a constant reminder of generations of armed and armored men who had come to report to and receive orders from their commander. Other than two tough-looking guards flanking the wide, double doors behind him, Bak and Maiherperi were the sole men present. Their words resonated through the huge, almost empty space.
“We spent more than a month together on the Belly of Stones, sir. We came to know each other quite well.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Bak was not surprised the commander knew of
Amonked’s adventures in Wawat. The officer’s knowledge was legendary. It had to be, for he was responsible for the safety of the royal house and the well-being of their sovereign and all she held dear.
Maiherperi adjusted the pillow behind him and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know your father, Lieutenant, but from what I’ve heard of him, he’ll not be pleased to have an escort keeping him company day after day.”
“I can see no other way. If the man I seek thinks to hurt me through him, or to intimidate me, he and our small farm must not go unprotected.”
“I agree. The accidents at Djeser Djeseru must be stopped, and what your father desires is of no importance. He’ll have to put up with a guard until you succeed in your mission.”
Normally Bak would have urged caution, warning the commander that he sooner or later might fail to lay hands on a man he sought. Not this time, however. He would catch the malign spirit if it took all his remaining days.
“I wish you to have a lean-to set up in the old temple of Djeserkare Amonhotep and his esteemed mother Ahmose Nefertari,” Bak said to Hori. They were walking with Kasaya up the causeway that would take them to Djeser Djeseru. “You must position it in a place of privacy, where no man can come close without being seen. Equip it with a low stool, a mat upon which a man can sit, and plentiful jars of beer.”
“Yes, sir?” The question in the scribe’s voice mirrored the curiosity on his face.
“You’ve talked with many men who’ve seen or been a victim of an accident here at Djeser Djeseru. While you set up the lean-to, I’ll speak with your friend Ani. Then you must bring those men to me one after another. I wish to learn more of these mishaps firsthand.”
“Yes, sir.” Hori hurried on up the causeway and across the terrace, passing a gang of workmen towing a sledge on which lay a twice-life-size limestone statue of Maatkare Hatshepsut wrapped for eternity. How they could toil so hard on so hot a day, Bak could not begin to guess.
“Now, Kasaya, untie this bandage. It’ll draw too many curious eyes, too many questions.”
“Yes, sir. Montu was always after me to do things for him.
Run errands mostly.” Ani, seated on his mat beneath the scribes’ lean-to, poured a couple drops of water onto a cake of black ink and mixed it in with a stiff brush. “I sometimes gathered broken bits of pottery and limestone chips for him, but I’ve no way of knowing if those you found in his home were those I gave him.”
Bak, seated on the stool, was glad he had found the boy alone. He doubted Ramose would have interfered, but the garrulous old man Amonemhab would have added his thoughts, wanted or unwanted. “I was told he took them home a week or two ago.”
The boy screwed up his face, thinking. “I’m not sure, sir.
Could you describe some of the sketches? I might remember them.”
As Bak complied, a drop of sweat trickled down the side of his face. Not a breath of air stirred across Djeser Djeseru, and heat lay over the valley like a heavy pallet stuffed with wool newly cut from a sheep. His back itched, the abrasion irritated by sweat. With the bandage gone, few men had commented, and those who did had assumed his back, like his thigh, had been scraped raw during the rock slide.
The trial copies of gods and offerings were commonplace, it seemed, with few special enough to remember, but the moment Bak began to describe the comic sketches, Ani’s frown cleared and a smile broke across his face. “I remember! I took them from the trash heap between the foundation of the new shrine to the lady Hathor and the old temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep.”
Bak smiled with him, momentarily sharing the boy’s enjoyment of the rough humor, but quickly sobered. “Do you remember seeing the neck of a broken jar with a sketch of a honey bee on it? Similar to this?” With the tip of his baton, he drew in the sand by his feet a crude jar with a necklace from which hung a pendant bee.
Ani studied it, shook his head. “It might’ve been there, sir, but I didn’t notice it.”
“Tell me of the accident.” Bak sat down on the low stool and pointed with his baton at the reed mat on the ground in front of him. “Leave nothing out. The smallest detail could be important.”
The man, a workman named Mery, looked wary of sharing the shaded space with the officer, not because he feared questions, Bak suspected, but because he was unaccustomed to the company of men of authority. He was one of the multitude who toiled day after day, moving heavy and unwieldy objects from one place to another.
With visible reluctance, he ducked low and seated himself before Bak. Dust clung to the sweat on his body, making him look a part of the earth. “What can I tell you, sir, that I’ve not already told your scribe?”
Bak kept his breathing shallow, measured. Mery was much in need of a swim. The faint breeze that had arisen could not clear away the smell of the man. It completely overpowered the faint musty odor of the broken mudbrick walls of the small temple of Djeserkare Amonhotep and his mother Ahmose Nefertari.
Laying his baton across his knees, he pulled a beer jar from the basket beside his stool and handed it to the workman. “I want to hear of the accident from your own lips, Mery, not from those of another man.”
“Yes, sir.” Surprised by the offering, Mery rearranged his thin buttocks on the mat, broke out the dried mud plug, and gulped noisily from the jar. “We were pulling a statue of our sovereign, a big one. Big and heavy. A twin to the one we were moving when your scribe came to get me a short while ago. Finished except for being painted. Ready to raise in its assigned place.”
“It was meant to stand in the temple?”
“Yes, sir. Outside the sanctuary door.” Mery drank again and licked the moisture from his lips. “We’d hauled it as far as the bottom of the ramp and left it there overnight. It was on a sledge, like the one we’re using today.” His hand tightening around the jar, he cleared his throat. “That morning, the morning of the accident, a man poured water on the ramp ahead of the sledge, making the slope slick, and we began to pull it. I’d guess there were twenty or so of us and we were moving right along. It happened when we were more than halfway to the top.”
“Go on,” Bak prompted. The tale was hard to tell, he could see, but he had to hear it.
“Yes, sir.” Mery moistened his mouth, but this time he took no joy from the brew. “I was one of the closest men to the sledge and I had a better look than most.” He shivered in spite of the heat. “I tell you, sir, it was. . It was awful.”
Bak thought to touch the man’s arm, but the small show of sympathy would most likely rattle him, breaking the flow of his tale. “Tell me exactly what you saw, Mery, every detail.”
“I heard a loud crack, the breaking of a dowel, I figured later. When I turned around, I saw that the front crossbeam was no longer snug against the runner on the right. I heard another crack, the dowel holding the second crossbeam breaking. The statue was heavy, the strain great, and one after another the rest of the dowels broke and the sledge collapsed. The statue, still roped to the pieces, slewed partway around on the wet slope. Dragging runners and crossbeams and rope along with it, it slid down the slope and toward the side of the ramp. We tried to stop it, but it was too big and heavy. It knocked one of our mates off the ramp, tipped over the edge, and fell on him, killing him and breaking into a dozen pieces.”
He rubbed his face as if trying to eradicate the memory. “I tell you, sir, it was awful. If not the work of the malign spirit, it was that of a malevolent god.”
No god caused the accident, Bak was convinced. Sledges were strong, made to hold extraordinary weights. This one had been tampered with, the dowels weakened.
“I tripped over a rope, sir, and fell into the quarry. Thanks to good luck and the will of the gods, I landed on a ledge not far below and suffered nothing more serious than a bump on the head.” The fresh-faced young apprentice stonemason fussed with the nail on his big toe, refusing to meet Bak’s eye. “I should’ve been watching my step, I know, but something distracted me.”
“What exactly?”
“I. .” The boy’s eyes darted toward Bak and away. “I don’t know, sir.”
Suspicious, recalling his own youthful digressions, Bak asked, “How much beer had you had that day?”
The answer was slow in coming, given with reluctance.
“The morning was hot-like today-and I was thirsty. I. .
Well, my head was spinning, sir, and an evil genie had invaded my stomach. It must’ve made me careless.”
An accident, pure and simple. A man too besotted to place one foot in front of the other.
“I didn’t see it happen, sir.” The guard Ineni stood at the edge of the lean-to, looking uncertain as to whether the tale he had to tell warranted Bak’s attention. “I can only speak of what I found.”
“His death was attributed to the malign spirit, was it not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you must satisfy my curiosity.”
Ineni brushed several small pebbles off the mat, settled down, and accepted a jar of beer with gratitude. “He was a guard, sir, his name Dedu. He was a big man, young and strong, rather like your Medjay Kasaya. Nothing less than a malign spirit could’ve caused the accident that made him fall, striking his head as he did.”
Bak laid his baton on the ground by his feet, putting Ineni at ease. The guard needed no reminder of his authority. “He fell where, Ineni? And when?”
“About two years ago, sir. From the upper colonnade, down into the area where the new chapel of the lady Hathor is being built. He fell on a pile of stones waiting to be placed beneath its foundation.”
“You found him at first light?”
“Yes, sir. I’d gone out to take his place. He usually waited for me at the top of the ramp, but this time he wasn’t there.
So I went in search of him.”
Sipping from his jar of beer, Bak wondered why Menna had removed Ineni from the old tomb and put Imen in his place as a guard. He seemed a dependable man, and consci-entious. “You went to him as soon as you saw him there?”
“Yes, sir. I hoped to find him alive.” Seeing Bak drink, Ineni followed suit. The accident had happened too long ago for him to be upset, but he could not help but be moved by the memory. “Dedu was no longer among the living, that I saw right away. He had an ugly gash behind his left ear. His flesh held no warmth and his skin was pale and waxy looking.”
Bak gave him a sharp look. “You rolled him over to see the wound?”
“Oh, no, sir. He was lying facedown when I found him.”
How could a man strike the back of his head when he fell forward? The thought was not a question, the answer too evident. “Where was the rock he struck?”
“It was there, close by his head. I saw the blood on it.”
“Had blood pooled around his head, or was it on the one stone? How big was that stone?” The words tumbled out too fast, too insistent.
Ineni, who failed to notice Bak’s agitation, looked thoughtful. “The rock, about the size of a small melon, was stained and. . No, I don’t remember seeing blood anywhere else.” His eyes opened wide as the truth hit him. “You don’t believe he fell, do you, sir? You think someone struck him from behind.”
“I suppose you didn’t think to look for blood among the columns above.”
“No, sir,” Ineni said in a small voice.
Bak sat quite still. Montu’s murder was not the first to occur at Djeser Djeseru. Dedu had suffered a similar fate.
“We were hurrying, sir. That was the problem.”
“You picked up the ladder, swung it around, and it hit the scaffold.” Bak crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at the stout, ruddy-faced sculptor of reliefs. “Did you not think of the men toiling on top?”
“I did, sir, but by then it was too late. Ahmose had fallen and broken his wrist.”
Another accident, a simple act of carelessness.
“I was sweating, sir, and my hands were slick. When I bent over the retaining wall, my mallet slipped out of my hand. A mischievous god made it fall on Ptahmose’s head.”
Bak threw a pained look at Hori. This was the eleventh individual he had interviewed. He had never heard so much mention of spirits and genies and mischievous gods, most malevolent, a few merely playful. Not a man among them had failed to hear that he had found signs of a man on the cliff face, but for some reason he could not comprehend, it was far easier to believe in the vague and mysterious rather than the proven and ordinary.
“We’d raised that portion of the retaining wall to about shoulder height the previous day and were getting ready to lay the facing stones in front of it.”
“Why had the space between the retaining wall and the terrace been filled?” Bak asked. “Shouldn’t that have been done after the wall was nearer completion, with the facing in place to strengthen it?”
The short, muscular workman, Sobekhotep, wiped with the back of his hand the sweat from his upper lip, streaking dirt across one cheek. He smelled no better than Mery had.
“That’s right, sir. Montu warned the debris bearers many times to add the fill later.”
“Yet his instructions weren’t followed.”
“They were, sir, but we didn’t know that at the time.
When we returned to the wall that morning, we found a lot more debris behind it than had been there the day before, and we even saw the end of the limb pressing against it. We assumed he or Pashed had ordered the fill thrown in and thought no more about it.”
Bak cursed beneath his breath. Workmen were the same everywhere: accepting without question what should always be questioned. “Did you suspect the malign spirit of adding the fill?”
“Oh, no, sir.” Sobekhotep shook his head vehemently.
“The accident happened before that wretched creature made itself known.”
“To what did you attribute the mishap? You must’ve thought up some explanation.”
“We didn’t, sir. Didn’t think, that is.”
Bak did not know whether to laugh or cry. The man’s sincerity was admirable, his innocence a danger to himself and all who toiled near him. “You must tell me what happened.”
“We added another course of casing blocks. Ahotep-our foreman, my father’s brother-climbed up to make sure the blocks were seated properly. He bumped against the retaining wall.” Sobekhotep licked his lips, blinked hard. “That’s all it took. One bump. Without warning, the wall burst outward, stones flying. Ahotep was struck in the face by the limb and the wall collapsed around him. We pulled him free, only to discover that a smaller limb coming off the larger had gone through his eye and deep into his head. He breathed his last in my arms.”
“You told my scribe that Montu was angry when he saw what had happened.”
“Yes, sir. He believed the limb had been bent, putting it under tension, and dirt and debris thrown around it to hold it in place temporarily. He thought it was meant to spring forward and break the wall. As it did.” Sobekhotep’s mouth tightened at the memory. “Montu thought it a prank. A mean, vile prank.”
“Later, I suppose the accident was laid at the feet of the malign spirit.”
Sobekhotep nodded. “Now you say that vile specter is a man.”
“More than one, I think. It would take at least two to set up the accident you’ve described.”
The accident had been planned, without doubt. No man could have predicted Ahotep’s death, so the goal had been to damage the wall and the men’s morale. If anyone was struck down, so be it.
By day’s end Bak had interviewed almost thirty men, sorting out obvious accidents from those that were suspect.
A few lay somewhere in between, impossible to place in either category. Those he believed to be deliberate had almost all occurred early in the morning, which led him to believe the scene had been set during the night, a time when the men feared to leave their huts, when Djeser Djeseru lay deserted and the malign spirit could set the scene for destruction with little fear of discovery.
The malign spirit. He let out a cynical laugh. With few exceptions, the men he had talked with continued to cling to their belief that an evil specter was responsible for each and every accident, including the rock slide onto the northern retaining wall. The tale Hori and Ani had spread had fallen on deaf ears. Since no man had been seen on the cliff above the wall, Bak had misinterpreted the signs he found there. Or so the men believed.
Bak entered the lean-to beneath which Ramose and his scribes toiled, dropped onto a shaded wedge of sand, and set beside him the empty basket that had earlier been filled with beer jars. He was hot and tired, badly in need of a swim.
Looking up from the scroll on his lap, Amonemhab asked,
“No luck, Lieutenant?”
“The day’s not been entirely wasted.”
“Nor a complete success, I gather.”
“Did anyone tell you of the scribe who fell to his death?”
Ani asked, speaking quickly, as if wishing to silence his grandfather. “An accident, they say, but I don’t believe it.”
Amonemhab snorted. “Don’t bother the lieutenant with trivialities, boy. Huni didn’t die at Djeser Djeseru.”
“Near enough,” the youth said, a challenge in his voice.
To Bak, he added, “He was found in the canal along which barges bring hard stone and other materials from the river to the causeway.”
Bak saw skepticism on the older man’s face and utter conviction on that of the boy. “Tell me what happened, Ani.”
“As far as I know, no one saw Huni fall,” Amonemhab said, indifferent to Bak’s cue. “He was one of our own, a scribe here at Djeser Djeseru. After he died, Ramose brought me out here to take his place.”
Ani glared at his grandfather, who seemed intent on spoil-ing his tale. “He was found in the water beside a barge carrying a load of granite. It was moored at the end of the causeway, waiting to be unloaded. The back of his head was crushed in. Those who found him thought he had fallen off the barge or the bank of the canal, striking his head on some unknown object as he fell.” The boy’s face took on a stubborn look. “I don’t believe it. He wasn’t a careless man, sir, nor was he clumsy. He’d never have fallen backward unless he was pushed.”
“You seem quite certain he was slain. Did you tell anyone at the time?”
“No one would listen to me, sir, but I knew something wasn’t right. I knew it!”
Bak accepted a jar of beer from Amonemhab. While he sipped the thick, bitter brew, he thought over Ani’s tale. The boy could be mistaken in thinking the death a murder, but he could as easily be right.
Other than the accidents caused by carelessness or the whims of the gods, most had been well thought out, set up in such a way that they would be accepted as mishaps, as the wrath of the malign spirit and not the work of a man. But, assuming the scribe had indeed been slain, as he felt certain the guard Dedu had been, he had found two men whose deaths had not been so neatly planned or carried out. Two in addition to Montu, all three struck on the back of the head.
Why, he wondered, had these three deaths not been planned out as the others had been? Had the victims actually seen the malign spirit or guessed his name, making their immediate demise essential?
“When did the rumor of a malign spirit start?” Bak asked.
Ramose, Amonemhab, and Pashed looked at each other and shrugged. Their faces reflected the reddish glow of the fire around which the four of them sat. Hori, Kasaya, and Ani, though they could barely see in the growing darkness, were playing catch with a leather ball on the open stretch of sand between the huts and the ancient temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. Hori had sluffed off his veneer of a serious young man to play with the same unbridled zest as the boy.
Kasaya never lost his youthful enthusiasm.
“The tale had started before I came here,” Amonemhab said.
“Two years ago, that was. When Huni died, as we told you.”
“It started before then.” Pashed dunked a chunk of bread into the bowl setting on the fiery coals. The stew smelled of mutton and onions and tasted slightly burned. “Three years ago at least.”
Ramose nodded. “Longer even than that, I’d guess.”
“How did it get started?” With his father well guarded, Bak had decided that he and his men would spend the night at Djeser Djeseru. Through the day, he had learned a considerable amount; a few more hours might add to that knowledge.
The architect shrugged. “The men pursue an excuse for superstition and build on it. The old tombs we’ve come upon fuel the fire, so I suspect the first one we found set the rumor alight.”
“That would’ve been about four years ago,” Ramose said.
“I doubt we knew of him so long ago.”
“They’re always seeking something to fear,” Amonemhab agreed. “It gives them an excuse to leave their places of work long before dark.”
“I’ve never known them not to give fair measure,” Useramon said, coming out of the darkness. The tall, bulky chief sculptor knelt between Amonemhab and Ramose and edged sideways, making room for his small friend Heribsen, tag-ging close behind. “Talk of the mysterious brightens their lives, adds zest to an otherwise bland existence.”
Bak doubled over his bread and picked up within the fold a chunk of meat. “You speak lightly of a deadly game, Useramon.”
“He pretends indifference, Lieutenant. I, for one, can’t feign such nonchalance.” Heribsen accepted a jar of beer from Ramose and took a sip. In the erratic light of the fire, the deep furrows in his broad brow emphasized his worry. “I know you say the malign spirit is a man, and perhaps it’s true. But man or spirit, will it sit back and let you drive the fear from the hearts of men it’s so carefully made afraid? Or will it retaliate with more death and destruction? Will it reserve its vengeance for you, or for all of us who toil here? A few at a time or all at once?”
“Lieutenant Bak!” Hori, letting the ball pass over his head, pointed toward the temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep.
“Look, sir! The malign spirit!”
The youth’s call rang loud and clear across the sand. Bak leaped to his feet and looked toward the ruined structure.
The other men around the fire followed suit, as did those sitting in front of the nearby huts. He thought he glimpsed a light among the broken columns behind the terrace that faced them, but it vanished so fast he could not be sure.
“I see nothing,” Pashed said.
Ramose shook his head. “Nor do I.”
Kasaya scooped his spear and shield from the sand. “Shall we go after it, sir?” He stared at the temple, apparently seeing nothing. Each word he spoke was more uncertain than the one before.
“I didn’t see anything,” Ani said.
His grandfather scratched his neck. “I don’t know if I did or not. These old eyes sometimes play tricks on me.”
Bak stared at the ruin, its broken stones and fallen columns vague shadows in the sparse moonlight. By shouting so loud, Hori had unwittingly warned whoever was there-and he was fairly certain someone was there. He was equally sure the man would not be caught-not this night, at any rate. If his light had been seen in the valley as often as the workmen claimed, the man knew every square cubit far better than he.
That deficiency must be corrected.