One man grabbed his feet and dropped them into the tomb robbers’ hole. The man holding his arms stepped close to the edge, letting him hang, and released him. He plunged downward. The lord Amon and the will to survive came to his aid, clearing his head. Both his arms shot out. His right elbow bumped the rim of the shaft. He flattened his arm on the pavement and caught with his fingertips a broken edge of paving stone. At the same time, his left arm slid over the rim, grating away a layer of skin. He managed to grab hold of the edge and cling with the fingers of that hand. His bottomward flight stopped with a jolt that threatened to tear his arms from their sockets.
“Lieutenant Bak!” Kasaya bellowed.
“Let’s go!” one of his attackers hissed, and they ran.
Bak offered a hasty prayer to the lord Amon, thanking the god that the tomb robbers had cut the hole small to save themselves unnecessary labor. His position was precarious, but he thought he could hang on until help arrived.
Barely aware of a frustrated oath and the pounding footsteps of his assailants racing away, he pushed his left hand hard against the side of the hole, using the pressure to hold him in place, and scrabbled on the wall below with his feet.
One foot found a minuscule ledge. With the other, he could feel slight projections, but the woven reed sole of his sandal was too slippery to allow a firm hold. He shook it off, heard it strike the stone below with a slight thunk, planted his toes on a protrusion.
“Lieutenant Bak!” Hori’s alarmed call.
“The colonnade court!” he yelled. “Come quickly!”
He heard the swift flight of his assailants, retreating through the main court toward the front of the temple, and the thudding feet of Kasaya and Hori speeding toward him.
“Sir!” Kasaya burst through the doorway and looked around, confused by the torch sputtering on the pavement, the rapidly fading sound of running feet, and what on first glance looked to be an empty court. “Where. .?”
“There!” Hori pointed. “The robbers’ hole!”
“Get me out of here,” Bak called. “Quick! They’ll get away.”
The two young men leaned their torches against a fallen column and ran to him. Each grabbed an arm and, with Bak using the rough surface of the shaft wall to help himself, they pulled him to safety.
He scrambled to his feet and picked up his torch, giving it new life. “Come on! There were two of them.”
He dashed into the main court, though he had little hope of catching the pair. They had too much of a head start and knew the temple and its environs far better than he and his men. The birds they had flushed had flown away.
“Did you see a light other than the two we carried?” Bak asked, looking up at Ani, standing on the roof of the scribes’
hut. The boy would have had the best view of the old temple.
“No, sir. I saw no one but you. The way you made the lights vanish and reappear was confusing, and if I hadn’t known there were two lamps, I’d never have guessed. But your lights were always in one small area. I saw none anywhere else in the temple.”
“We didn’t see anything either,” Pashed said, speaking for himself and everyone else within hearing distance.
A rumble of assent arose from the large group of workmen standing in the darkness around them.
Ramose, Seked, and Useramon nodded agreement. The light of the boy’s torch played on the planes of their faces and deeply defined the muscles of their arms and torsos. The sharp smell of the flame tainted the air.
“So whatever the intruders came for, they never got to it,”
Bak guessed, “or they were in some part of the temple not visible from these huts.”
“Or they can see in the dark,” Kasaya muttered.
A voice came out of the darkness: “I’d wager my month’s ration of grain that they’re tomb robbers. That they have nothing to do with the malign spirit. I bet they’ve been taking advantage of our fear of him to roam around at night, trying to find an old tomb to break into.”
“Yes,” another man agreed. “The malign spirit always makes himself seen.”
A third said, “I, for one, wouldn’t walk around this valley at night for any reason at all. Look what happened to Montu.”
The men’s faces were pale ovals in the darkness, their features ill-defined, their bodies lost among their mates, each voice one among many but speaking for all.
“Some of those old tombs are filled with gold,” yet another said. “Would it not be worth the risk?”
A grizzled oldster at the front of the crowd spoke up. “A lot are empty, too, long ago rifled by men who’ve defiled the dead to satisfy their greed.”
“I’d wager my father’s donkey that the malign spirit is one of the disturbed dead,” said the water boy standing beside him. “Who else would wish us ill simply because we spend our days toiling in this valley?”
The surrounding men murmured assent, their voices rising in a chorus of agreement.
Bak muttered an oath under his breath. His plan to set to rest the workmen’s belief in a malign spirit had gone badly awry. “Are you certain, Pashed, that the old shaft in which they threw me leads nowhere?”
The chief architect stood, hands locked behind his back, looking toward the ruined temple. “There is a burial chamber, I feel sure, but it’s long since been closed. The mountain above has settled through the years. It collapsed the robbers’
shaft and I’d guess the tomb itself. A man braver than I-or far more foolhardy-might venture inside with mallet and chisel, but I’ve no wish to be buried alive.”
“You’ve never been inside?”
“Perenefer has crawled to the end, but no one else, and he only the one time.”
“I suggest you send him down in the morning to be sure no new attempt has been made to reopen the tunnel. I’ll go with him.” Bak made the offer reluctantly. For a task so perilous, he could not expect another man to go alone.
He doubted they would find any sign of fresh digging. If the intruders had been excavating there, trying to reach the burial chamber, they would not have thrown him into the hole, drawing attention to the tomb and losing their chance to continue within. An inspection must be made nonetheless.
“Also, assign the crew who’ve been removing stones from the old temple to another task elsewhere. I mean to seek for signs of the intruders, and I want no fresh disturbance to destroy or hide any traces they might’ve left.”
“Who do you think they were, sir?” Hori opened his mouth wide in a deep yawn. “Tomb robbers or men pretending to be a malign spirit?”
Bak spread his borrowed sleeping mat on the rooftop of Ramose’s hut and sat down on it. He much preferred slumbering under the stars to sharing the crowded and smelly quarters of the workmen. “I’m too tired to guess, Hori.”
The scribe got down on his knees before him and wrapped a swath of linen covered with a sour-smelling poultice around his skinned arm. “If they were the malign spirit, wouldn’t they have been carrying a light to frighten the workmen?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Bak spoke through gritted teeth. The salve burned like fire.
“If they were tomb robbers, do you think they found a likely target?” Kasaya asked.
“Other than the shaft they threw me into, I noticed no signs of burials when we explored the temple today. Tomorrow we’ll look again.”
Finished with the knots that held the bandage in place, Hori plopped down on his sleeping mat, took off his broad collar and bracelets, and laid them with his scribal pallet.
“Would you recognize them if you saw them, sir?”
“I’d recognize only the one. The second man struck me from behind.” Bak heard again the words “Let’s get rid of him” and his expression hardened. “If ever we meet-and I vow we will-I’ll look forward to repaying him in kind for dropping me into that shaft.”
The next morning soon after first light, Bak returned with Hori and Kasaya to the ruined temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. They found Pashed and Perenefer there ahead of them, waiting beside the old tomb robbers’ hole. The foreman did not hesitate to let himself down into the shaft, taking a torch with him. It was no more than two and a half times the height of a man, he assured them, and so Bak found it when he allowed himself to be lowered. Which made him wonder if the previous night’s intruders had wanted him dead or had simply used him as a distraction while they made their escape.
At the bottom, the tomb robbers had cleared a rough chamber in which to stand while they excavated deeper and raised the dirt and rocks to the surface. A pitch-black hole about the size of the one above led off at a downward slope in a westerly direction. A close examination around its mouth revealed that the material through which it had been cut was the debris used to fill the tunnel after the ancient king’s burial. A slight discoloration off to one side hinted at an earlier attempt to reach the burial chamber.
Other than the sandal Bak had let fall the night before and Perenefer’s footprints, the light sprinkling of sand on the floor showed no sign of intrusion. Both men were convinced no one had been inside the shaft since the foreman’s last ex-pedition, but they agreed that one of them should go on to the end while the other remained behind to call for help if he became stuck or if the tunnel collapsed. Perenefer, who had been there before and knew what to look for, was the most suitable of the pair to enter the hazardous tunnel, and he took for granted that he would be the one to do so. Bak made no secret of his relief.
“If the tunnel’s as it was when last I saw it, it’s not very long. Only six or eight times the height of a man.” Perenefer handed a coil of stout rope to Bak and tied one end around his own waist. “If I yell, pull as if the lord Set himself was after you. If you can’t pull me out, call for help. I’d not enjoy spending my last moments buried alive.”
The thought made Bak’s skin crawl.
Taking an oil lamp with him, Perenefer got down on hands and knees and crawled head-first into the dark, con-fined passage. Bak knelt at the entrance, paying out the rope as the foreman moved forward. All the while, he prayed to the lord Amon that the tunnel would not collapse.
The chamber where he waited was hot and smelled musty.
The torch sputtered, giving off the noxious odor of rancid oil. At times bats would squeak somewhere within the tunnel and several would fly out, their daytime slumber disturbed by the man who had invaded their dwelling. Bak could not begin to imagine how uncomfortable Perenefer’s passage must be, how many other denizens of the darkness he must be encountering.
The time seemed endless, but finally Bak heard Perenefer’s muffled words. “I’m coming out. Keep the rope taut.”
Bak had not realized how long he could hold his breath until the foreman backed out of the tunnel and he allowed himself to breathe once again. Perenefer rose to his feet.
Neither he nor Bak said a word; they just looked at each other and grinned.
“Has the tunnel been extended?” Bak asked.
Perenefer shook his head. “No, as you thought. You’ll have to look elsewhere for whatever those men were after.”
Pashed and the foreman returned to their duties at Djeser Djeseru. Bak, Hori, and Kasaya spent the morning searching the ruined temple, repeating their previous day’s effort, but looking now for signs of a tomb and for minute traces of the intruders. In the end, they summoned Perenefer and Seked, who brought a team of men to help. They found nothing.
Whatever the two men had been doing the night before, they had left no visible sign. If a tomb other than that of the long dead king had been dug beneath the temple, it was too well hidden to find.
“If the malign spirit always makes himself known, as the workmen believe, either carrying a light or somehow making himself look. .” Lieutenant Menna paused, frowned.
“What did the artist say his friend Huni saw? A white ghost-like figure?”
Bak walked with the guard officer along the river’s edge, looking at the dozen or so skiffs drawn up on the narrow beach. “He’s probably wearing a white tunic. Made of a sheer linen, I’d guess. Something that picks up the light of the moon and makes it appear to glow.”
“Here’s the skiff I thought your father might like.” Menna stopped in front of a nearly new boat much like the one the fishing boat had destroyed. As usual, he looked superb, making Bak wonder how he managed to stay so neat and clean on so hot a day. “One man should be able to sail it easily.
Ideal for a physician, I’d think.”
Bak walked around the small vessel, pleased with what he saw. Most of the men and women who summoned his father with ailments or injuries dwelt on the west bank of the river within easy walking distance of his home, but six or eight times a week he was called to aid someone who lived across the river in Waset or far enough north or south to make sailing a necessity.
He thanked the lord Amon that Menna no longer resented his help. The officer had actually expressed appreciation when he had come with his tale of the nighttime intruders in the old temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. If this skiff proved to be acceptable, their friendship would be sealed.
“What could your intruders have been doing there?”
Menna asked. “Searching for a tomb to rob? Robbing one they’d already located?”
Bak spread his hands wide and shrugged. “We found no sign of an open sepulcher-or any other tomb, for that matter-and we searched that temple from one end to the other.”
“It seems a likely source of the jewelry you confiscated at Buhen. The objects are of a style from that period and once adorned a woman of royal blood. But surely you’d have found some sign of digging or a similar disturbance.”
“Where are the other kings of that period buried?” Bak asked, aware that there was a slight chance the jewelry had been taken from an earlier or later king’s tomb.
“Most were laid to rest in a cemetery at the north end of western Waset. We may not know of them all, but of those we do, their burial places were robbed and desecrated many generations ago.”
No surprise there. Bak studied the skiff, which was half lying on its side, with much of its keelless hull visible. The bare wood glowed with oil painstakingly rubbed in. A bou-quet of flowers with intertwined stems had been painted on its prow. He thought his father would like it.
“Tell me again what the men looked like,” Menna said.
“The one I saw was slightly taller than I am and heavier.
His face was broad, his hair short, his voice deep and grating, although the harshness may’ve been because he was angry.”
“Would you recognize him again?”
“Without a doubt.”
“Do you think they were deliberately trying to slay you?”
“I thought so at the time, but when we went down into the old robbers’ shaft, I wasn’t so sure. It’s not very deep.” Bak walked to the stern and knelt beside the rudder. Cool rivulets of water splashed against his heels. “Of course, they may not have known its depth. They may never have gone inside.”
“I doubt tomb robbers would turn their backs on the promise of wealth,” Menna chided, “especially the vast amount likely to be found in the sepulcher of a king.”
Bak smiled, accepting the teasing for what it was: good-natured and well meant. “Pashed assured me that every workman at Djeser Djeseru knows how dangerous it would be to dig deeper. If they know, you can be sure everyone who dwells along the west bank knows.”
“I’ve been told,” Menna admitted. “More than once.”
“I’d not like to dig down there.” Bak walked around to look into the open hull, to examine the crossbeams. “Perenefer knows the tunnel well, and I could see the relief on his face when he came out. He was truly afraid.”
“The sail’s practically new and so are the lines.” Menna pointed to the tightly furled white canvas and to various places where the ropes usually wore out first, demonstrating how free of wear they were. “If your intruders were indeed tomb robbers, perhaps they were involved with Montu.
Maybe he kept the source of his spoils a secret, and now that he’s dead, they’re searching for it.”
“Have you unearthed anything new to indicate he was the man you’ve been seeking?”
“I haven’t,” Menna admitted ruefully. “I made the mistake of telling mistress Mutnefret what I sought and why. She’s adamant that he wasn’t a tomb robber and refuses to cooper-ate in any way. Each time I go to their dwelling, she watches me as if I were a mouse and she a falcon ready to swoop down and eat me.”
Bak flashed a sympathetic smile. “There goes your chance to pay court to Sitre.”
“I fear you’re right,” Menna said unhappily.
“I hope the woman’s annoyance with you doesn’t extend to me. I mean to go today to her country estate in western Waset. If she’s there, I want no confrontation.” Bak reached inside the boat and pulled out the oars, which were not new but showed few signs of wear. “I think that a good place to begin my search for the men we disturbed last night.”
“So you’re coming around to my way of thinking, eh?”
“That Montu was a tomb robber? I’m not entirely convinced, no, nor will I be without further proof, but I’d be re-miss if I didn’t look there for last night’s intruders.”
“I wish you luck,” Menna said fervently. “I’d like to clear this problem away once and for all. Each time a new piece of jewelry surfaces, I feel like a man having a nightmare that occurs again and again and again.”
“One day you’ll lay hands on the thief-or find proof that Montu was rifling the old tombs.” Bak clapped the officer on the shoulder. “Now tell me of the owner of this skiff. My father must see it, of course, but it looks to be exactly what he needs.”
“Montu was a lot of things, Lieutenant, not all of them appealing, but he was not a man who would steal from the dead.” Mutnefret stood in the courtyard of her country house. Her greeting had been neither warm nor cool. Impatient, rather, typical of a woman distracted from a busy day.
Six women sat before tall vertical looms protected from the sun by a heavy linen awning. A seventh loom stood idle, testifying to the task Bak had interrupted when he had asked to speak with the mistress of the house. Doors leading into the dwelling, which was of considerable size, opened off all four sides of the court. Mutnefret seemed not to care what her servants heard.
The shuttles whispered softly as they shot back and forth, creating fabric of exceptional quality. Fabric to be traded, he felt sure, rather than used within the household. An additional source of income. No wonder the estate appeared so prosperous.
“Your daughter must’ve told you of the neck of a broken jar I found in his place of work.”
“The honey jar. Yes.” She put her hands on her ample hips and scowled at him. “He could’ve picked that up anywhere.”
“All the other shards in the basket in which I found it came from Djeser Djeseru.”
“There!” She flashed a triumphant look. “You see? You’ve proven my point.”
Bak gave her a genial smile. “As I told Lieutenant Menna earlier today, I’m not as convinced as he that your husband was robbing the old tombs.”
Mention of the guard officer’s name brought the frown back. “How convenient for him if he could lay blame on a dead man!”
He ignored the sarcasm. “I’ll need more proof than a broken bit of pottery before I blacken Montu’s name-or that of anyone else. Nevertheless, I must see the men who toil on this estate.”
The shuttles grew silent; the servants turned around to stare, their hostility clear. Their husbands, brothers, and sons would be among the men he had asked to see.
Mutnefret flung her chin high, cool and haughty. “I can assure you, Lieutenant, that my servants spent the whole of the night sleeping peacefully with their wives and families.”
The servants muttered a resentful agreement.
“You must see that I can’t accept your word for their whereabouts. Were you not in this house, in your own bedchamber, while they slept elsewhere?”
“I didn’t see them with my own eyes, I must admit, but the women you see here. .”
“Devoted mothers and wives and sisters, women who would say what they must to protect those dear to them.” He softened his voice. “If I don’t see a familiar face, you’ll be done with me.”
She had no choice but to acquiesce, and she knew it. “Oh, very well.”
To be certain he missed no one, he asked, “Have any of your servants moved away since your husband’s death?”
She flung her head high. “None have left, nor will they.
They toiled on this estate for my first husband and for his father before him. This is their home, Lieutenant, and so it should be.”
Mutnefret summoned the scribe who managed the estate.
Teti was a rangy man of thirty-five or so years, with the deep tan of one who spent more time beneath the sun than indoors with his writing implements and scrolls. Bak saw right away how quick the household servants were to obey him and the high degree of respect they showed him.
The scribe listened to his mistress’s order that Bak should see all the male servants. Stifling a visible curiosity, he took him outside the walled compound to a mudbrick bench, where a slight breeze stirred the air beneath one of four sycamore trees that shaded several outbuildings built against the wall. He told a boy of ten or so years-his son, Bak suspected-to summon the men of the estate. The boy hurried off, racing across a field of yellow stubble to speak with two men who were tending a mixed herd of cattle, sheep, and goats.
While they waited, Bak explained that he had been attacked and assumed the assailant dwelt on the west bank. He provided no specific details.
“My mistress told true, sir. Our servants were here through the night.”
“I must see them nonetheless.”
“Yes, sir.” Teti wove his fingers together and laid his hands in his lap. His thumbs chased circles around each other. He looked like a man uncomfortable with the silence but at a loss for words.
“What did you think of your master, Teti?”
“I thought our previous master the finest of men. As for Montu. . Well, they say if you’ve nothing of note to say about a man, it’s best to say nothing.”
“I’ve been told he shirked his duty at Djeser Djeseru.”
Bak smiled, inviting confidence. “I’ve yet to see a black goat turn white overnight.”
A faint smile touched Teti’s lips, but still he chose his words carefully. “I’ve thanked the lord Thoth many a time that our mistress trusts me to manage her properties. Hers and mistress Sitre’s.”
Bak eyed the scribe thoughtfully. “Are you inferring that Montu would’ve taken what was theirs and used it for his own purpose?”
“Not at all,” Teti said with conviction, “but he would’ve liked to control their holdings.”
“I don’t understand. If he didn’t want their wealth for itself, why would he. .?” Even as he formed the question, Bak remembered the way Montu had demanded that the paintings and sculpture at Djeser Djeseru be altered. “I see.
He wanted to be in authority and to demonstrate how important he was.”
“Yes, sir.” Teti seemed surprised by Bak’s perspicacity, and pleased that he understood. “When first our mistress wed him, she let him make a few decisions concerning the running of her estate. He used no common sense whatso-ever. She recognized the failing and saw how dangerous he could be to the well-being of all that was hers and her daughter’s. She said nothing to him, but quickly guided his interests elsewhere and told me to continue as before.”
Bak smiled. In her own way, Mutnefret had used a tactic similar to that of the craftsmen at Djeser Djeseru.
He shoved the thought aside as the first of the farmhands approached. While he and Teti had talked, he had seen the boy running from field to palm grove to field to pigeon cote to paddock, sending men striding toward the house. One man came to stand before Bak, followed by the rest in rapid succession. As on any prosperous estate, they were men of all ages who carried on a multitude of duties. He spoke a few words to each, letting them know they had no reason for fear, then allowed them to return to their tasks. The man with whom he had fought at Djeser Djeseru was not among them.
Where the intruders’ presence on the estate might have suggested Montu was a tomb robber, the fact that they were not to be found here told him absolutely nothing.
As the last man walked away, Bak said, “Are you aware, Teti, that Lieutenant Menna suspects Montu of being a tomb robber?”
“So my mistress has said.” The scribe shook his head. “I don’t believe it. He was indolent and authoritarian and thought far too much of himself, but I truly believe he was no thief.”
Bak described the shard he had found among Montu’s possessions, the sketch.
Teti laughed. “He could’ve picked that up in a dozen different places. A neighboring farm. A village garbage dump.
A vacant plot of land in Waset.” He paused, struck by a thought. “If the jar was from olden times, he may’ve found it in one of the old cemeteries on the ridge north of our sovereign’s new temple. I saw him two or three times, walking among the hillside tombs and those on the plateau just above the floodplain.” He spotted Bak’s sudden interest, smiled.
“Those tombs are empty, sir, with nothing left to steal. No-mads sometimes camp in them when they bring their herds to the river.”
Were those the same tombs Menna mentioned? Bak wondered. Tombs long ago plundered, the guard officer had said.
“Isn’t that a bit farther afield than you normally travel, Teti?
Especially after toiling here from dawn to dusk. What were you doing? Did your mistress tell you to follow him?”
“Oh, no, sir.” The scribe looked sincerely surprised by the question. “When he didn’t come home as expected, she always assumed he was visiting a house of pleasure he frequented, amusing himself with a young woman whose company he enjoyed.”
“I’ve an idea that you’re a man who’d go out of your way to look after her interests, if you felt the need.”
“In this case, sir, I was looking after my own interests.”
Teti spoke with an indignation that melted away as fast as it had formed. “You see, sir, I lost my wife last year, and I’ve three children to raise. Oh, they’ll get plenty of mothering 190
Lauren Haney
from the women who dwell on this estate, but they need a true mother and I need someone to share my sleeping pallet.
I’ve found a young woman, daughter to an artist who dwells in the village below the ridge. My mistress has given me leave to visit her there.”
Bak gave the scribe a long, speculative look. “What’s the artist’s name?”
“Heribsen, sir.”
Bak could not help but smile. “Was he the man who gave your mistress-or, more likely, you-the idea of letting Montu believe he was the master of her estate when in reality you manage her affairs quite well?”
A quick smile flitted across the scribe’s face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”
Poor Montu, Bak thought. Could a man of such arrogance that he allowed himself to be made a fool of be clever enough to rob the old tombs and dispose of the jewelry in complete safety? Would he have had the patience to smuggle jewelry out of the land of Kemet a few pieces at a time over an extended period? Or had Montu been smart enough to make himself look the fool?