“We talked with twelve men and not one among them doubts that a malign spirit walks within this valley.” Hori laid his writing implements on the lap of a rough-finished white limestone seated statue of Maatkare Hatshepsut and bent to scratch an ankle. “They speak with certainty, but when pressed for details, they say, ‘Oh, Ahmose told me. . ’
or ‘Montu said. . ’ or ‘Sobekhotep swears he saw. . ’ ”
“You spoke with whom?” Bak asked.
“The craftsmen toiling in the sanctuary and memorial chapels. We had no time to speak with anyone else.”
Rubbing the sweat from his face, Bak dropped onto a large irregular block of sandstone lying on the terrace between the completed portion of the southern retaining wall and the ramp that led downward. He could hear the men below singing an age-old workmen’s song, its words repetitive, as monotonous as their task of relaying the final baskets of fill into the tomb where Montu had been slain.
“Interesting,” he said. “I saw no fear among them yesterday, yet the sanctuary and chapels are places of relative soli-tude. Places where a malign spirit might seek them out.”
Kasaya sat down on the base of the white statue and leaned back against his sovereign’s stone legs. “Perhaps they feel the lord Amon’s presence.”
“It’s the heart of the temple, yes,” Hori scoffed, “but it’s not been sanctified.”
The Medjay’s expression remained earnest, untroubled by the scribe’s teasing. “The spirit’s only been seen at night, and seldom up there.”
“Most of the accidents have taken place in the light of day,” Bak pointed out, “while the men were toiling at their various tasks.”
“No artists have been slain, sir.” Hori rested a hip against a limestone thigh. “One man was hurt some months ago. A scaffold collapsed when he was outlining the images high on the face of a wall. He was thrown to the floor and his arm was broken. If the malign spirit loosened the rope that bound the poles, it did so at night.”
“They now look more closely at their scaffolds,” Kasaya said.
“And each morning,” Hori added, “they bend a knee in what’s left of the temple of our sovereign’s worthy ancestors, Djeserkare Amonhotep and his revered mother Ahmose Nefertari.”
The youth pointed east toward the remains of mudbrick walls that were gradually being consumed as the terrace was extended. One outer wall rose to shoulder height, but the remaining walls were lower, their bricks carried away to be used elsewhere in construction ramps and as fill. What little remained of the lower courses and foundation was covered over as the terrace was lengthened.
Silently cursing the superstitions that made men so illogi-cal, Bak eyed the workmen’s huts clumped together like a small, impoverished village on the broad strip of sand between Djeser Djeseru and the ancient temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. The chief scribe Ramose dwelt there much of the time, though he had talked of a more comfortable home in a village at the edge of the river valley.
“Where’s this malign spirit most often seen?” he asked.
“Sometimes over there.” Hori pointed toward the ruined temple beyond the huts. “Sometimes in the old tombs on the slopes overlooking this valley.” He waved his hand in the general direction of distant colonnades visible on the hillsides. “Sometimes on this terrace among the unfinished statues and architectural elements.”
Kasaya’s eyes darted around the immediate vicinity. He tried to appear casual, tried hard not to betray his fear that the malign spirit might be hidden among the surrounding blocks of stone.
“Almost everywhere, you’re saying.”
“It’s never gone near the workmen’s huts, so they say.”
“Amazing,” Bak said, not at all amazed.
He looked upward, but could see nothing of the heart of the temple. The upper colonnade that would serve as its facade was a long way from being finished, as was the wall behind it, but the terrace on which he stood was too low to allow him to see inside. The workmen’s huts in the hollow between the two temples were considerably lower. “Where are the night guards when the malign spirit shows itself?
Have they ever seen it?”
“We’ll talk with them next, sir,” the scribe said.
“Ask them.” Bak scowled. “Also, you must find out what they do when they see it. Do they run away? Or have they tried to catch it?” He suspected they turned their backs, preferring to have seen nothing rather than risk the gods alone knew what in a vain attempt to catch a wraith.
“Catch it, sir?” Kasaya asked, looking incredulous.
“If they reported to me, they’d at least try. They’d better.”
Bak left no doubt how he felt about men who failed to do their duty. To Hori, he asked, “What appearance does this spirit take?”
“It’s never seen in the daylight, as you said yourself, sir.
At night it’s either a dark and distant shadow in the moonlight or a spot of light flitting among the stones.”
Bak looked thoughtfully at the cluster of workmen’s huts.
Unpainted mudbrick. Light roofs of reed, palm frond, and mud construction. A lean-to added here and there. “The craftsmen dwell in villages outside this valley, do they not?”
“Most dwell in a village near the end of the ridge to the north.” Lieutenant Menna, who had approached so silently none of the three had heard him, came the rest of the way up the ramp and crossed to them. “It’s within easy walking distance so they can go home each night and return the next morning.”
“That’s why none have seen the malign spirit,” Bak said to Hori and Kasaya. “They’re never here during the hours of darkness when it shows itself.”
“Then that’s why they know nothing of Montu’s death,”
the scribe said. “They weren’t here the night he was slain.”
“If he was slain in the night,” Bak said.
Grimacing, Menna brushed a faint trace of dust off his kilt. “Your morning, it seems, has been as unproductive as mine.”
Bak studied the guard officer, who was almost as neat and clean as when they had first met. Dusty feet and a rivulet of sweat trickling down his breast betrayed no greater effort than walking from the river to Djeser Djeseru. He could not resist asking, “You’ve been looking for rifled tombs?”
Menna looked sincerely rueful. “Unfortunately not. I had reports to dictate. I’d barely finished when I received Pashed’s message that another tomb had been found.”
Rising to his feet, Bak looked across the blocks of stone toward Ineni, the man Pashed had assigned to watch the open shaft. The guard, a lean man of medium height with a reddish birthmark on his neck, was leaning against the reclining lion statue, talking to a dozen or so men. Telling tales of a treasure, he felt sure. Irritated, he asked, “Did you bring the priest Kaemwaset?”
“I couldn’t find him, so I thought it best I come without him. As soon as I return to Waset, I’ll look further. With luck and the favor of the lord Amon, we’ll return before nightfall.”
Bak cursed beneath his breath. “I hope the tomb is made safe before dark. I’ll sleep better tonight if it’s closed and sealed for eternity.”
“You saw jewelry on the body, Pashed said.”
“We did.”
Menna stared at the cluster of men near the reclining lion.
“Ineni is a good man, but I think it best I assign Imen to the task. He’s more responsible by far-and not nearly so talka-tive.” Looking none too enthusiastic, the officer added, “After I’ve dealt with that, I must see the tomb.”
Bak glanced around in search of Pashed, but the chief architect was nowhere to be seen. Rather than take the time to search for him, he said, “I’ll go with you.”
He did not mistrust Menna, but he was firmly convinced that no man should enter a tomb alone. Especially a sepulcher in which jewelry had been seen. At least not until the men who were robbing the dead were snared and taken away.
“You see the bracelets,” Bak said, bending over the wrapped body, his eyes on the jewelry glittering in the torchlight. “They’re of similar workmanship to those I found in Buhen. I’d not be surprised to find that they all were made in a royal workshop.”
Menna knelt for a closer look. “If the shaft hadn’t been so securely closed, the stones too heavy for a few wretched robbers to move without discovery, I’d suspect the objects you found came from this very tomb.”
Bak could understand how tempting the thought was. To conclude that one tomb was being rifled was far more palat-able than the thought that several had been robbed. Which he was certain was the case. The jewelry he had found in the honey jar had been that of royalty. The individual in this small tomb had been important, but not so exalted.
“This makes me more certain than ever that the looted sepulchers are to be found in this area.” He had no authority to tell the guard officer how best to perform his task, but he had every right to ask a few questions. “Have you begun to look again at the cemeteries in western Waset? Especially those near here, where Nebhepetre Montuhotep, his successors, and their noble followers were entombed?”
Menna’s voice grew stiff, defensive. “I wanted first to finish the reports I spoke of earlier. Now that dreary task is complete, leaving me free to lead my men on a new search.”
He stood up, added with a stingy smile, “Never fear, Lieutenant. We’ll begin at first light tomorrow, retracing our steps once again, examining the burial places with the same diligence as before.”
With increased diligence, I hope, Bak thought.
The torch sputtered, emitting a puff of smoke. The odor of burned oil blended with the smell of decay and dry, dusty flowers.
“Don’t misunderstand me.” Bak turned away from the body and, holding the flickering torch before them, led the way down the horizontal tunnel. “I’m in no way criticizing you. I know from experience how difficult it is to snare a man whose very life depends upon remaining unknown and free.”
“I’ve had no experience in pursuing criminals of so vile a nature,” Menna admitted, “but I well know the cemeteries in western Waset, and I know even better the men who dwell here, many of whom look with a covetous eye upon the tombs and the vast wealth they believe they contain.”
“Do you have suspects?”
“I suspect them all.”
In other words, Bak thought, he has no idea who the thief is. He vowed again to keep his eyes open-wide open. And, at the first opportunity, to explore the burial places around Djeser Djeseru and the neighboring temple.
At the top of the shaft the guard Menna had selected had replaced Ineni. Imen was a man of medium height and years with ruddy weathered skin, strong muscles, and the work-hardened hands of one who had toiled in the fields or on the water for much of his life. He looked to be tough and tena-cious, a man not easily frightened. Warned not to gossip, he stood alone. Bak wondered if he would maintain his silence after they left.
“Montu was a pompous ass.” The chief artist Heribsen was either totally without guile or did not care what Bak thought. “The less I had to do with him the happier I was. I went out of my way to avoid him.”
“This temple site is large, but much of it is open to view,”
Bak said. “You surely saw him at a distance.”
The gnome-like man led him through the gap in the incomplete wall and into the temple and its unfinished courtyard. The lord Re had dropped behind the western mountain, leaving much of the building in the shade of the cliff that rose high above it. “He may’ve been slain two days ago, you say?”
“We found him yesterday, as you know. He died the night before or the previous day, I’d guess. Common sense says in the night, but. .” He spread his hands wide, shrugged.
“Who knows?”
“I did see him that day,” Heribsen admitted. “Near mid-afternoon, it was. I’d come up here to take a look at the sanctuary and I saw him on the terrace below.” He laughed-at himself, Bak felt sure. “I slipped inside, hiding from him, plain and simple.”
Bak smiled, sharing the jest, but quickly sobered. “Why did you feel so strongly about him?”
“He was critical of anything and everything. He’d strut into the sanctuary or one of the chapels, brush and pallet in hand.
He’d look around at the drawings, approach a figure already corrected and ready to carve-never one that needed altering, mind you-and he’d make some nonsensical change.”
“Always?” Bak walked into the antechamber of the chapel to the lord Re. He strolled around, looking at the lovely colored reliefs of Maatkare Hatshepsut making offerings, each image creating an ideal of royal piety. The colors were as vivid and bright as if touched by the sun. “These walls look perfect to me, blessed by the gods.”
The chief artist was too involved in his complaint to notice the compliment. “At first, I and my men were furious, which added zest to the stew, making Montu all the meaner.
He began to demand that the reliefs be changed, a far more harmful and difficult task than altering a drawing.” He ran a loving hand over a brightly painted, deftly carved image of the lord Amon. “This was one of the first, I recall. He insisted the face be identical to that of our sovereign, softened to look like a woman. I was furious and so was the man who’d carved it. You see what a marvelous job he did. What dolt would change that?”
Bak frowned, puzzled. “I don’t understand. You say Montu made ridiculous changes, yet this relief is nothing less than perfection.”
“Your praise is appreciated-and well-founded.” Heribsen’s sudden smile was like night turning to day. “This is the original figure, which he told us to alter and we failed to do.”
Bak eyed the little man with interest, the bright twinkling eyes, the laughter that threatened to bubble forth at any moment. “Explain yourself, Heribsen. Your good spirits tell me you won a battle Montu never realized he lost.”
“You’re a perceptive man, Lieutenant.” The chief artist rubbed his hands together in delight. “We knew Montu wouldn’t return for a couple of days, so we went on with the work as originally drawn, praying he’d forget, agreeing we’d all pay the price if he remembered.” A chuckle bubbled out.
“He did forget! He went instead to another relief, demanding changes there.”
“How often did this happen?” Bak asked, smiling.
“Regularly.” Heribsen had trouble containing his laughter.
“His stupidity became a joke the width and breadth of Djeser Djeseru. I’ve been told that the other craftsmen, all of whom he plagued as often as he did us, adapted the ploy to their own situations.”
“Your good humor does you credit, Heribsen. Pashed does not speak so lightly of Montu.”
The chief artist grew serious. “He bore the weight of Montu’s indolence and haughty attitude. He could not so easily shrug him off.”
“Amonked told me Montu was an accomplished architect, and Pashed agreed.”
“He was, yes, but he was not an artist.” Heribsen led him out of the antechamber, into the unfinished court. “He knew where a column should be placed to best advantage and he could tell us to place reliefs of offerings in a chamber where offerings were to be made, but he knew nothing of drawing the human face or figure.”
With the sun’s bright rays unable to reach the open court, the mirrors could throw no light inside the surrounding rooms. The artists who toiled within the sanctuary, the first chamber to be so deprived, were hurrying down the ramp to the terrace. Other men were filing out of the southern antechamber, preparing to leave.
Bak raised a hand to stop them. “I know how eager you must be to go to your village and your homes, but I’m sorely in need of help.”
The eight men bunched together outside the door, query-ing each other with looks that ranged from fear to curiosity.
“Yes, sir?” a tentative voice piped up from among them.
“We’ve never seen the malign spirit,” a tall, thin man said.
“Never,” said a grizzled old man, “and so we told your scribe and the Medjay.”
Heribsen glared. “Malign spirit! Bah!”
“I’ve another, different question,” Bak said, giving them a smile he hoped would reassure them. “One my men failed to ask.”
Heribsen’s glowering countenance brooked no refusal to comply. They nodded in reluctant accord.
“When did you last see the chief architect Montu?”
To a man, the men relaxed, preferring to speak of the dead rather than the unknown.
A short man with paint-stained fingers stepped forward.
“He came two days ago, sir, shortly before we lost the sun.
He went from one wall to another, examining the painting we’d done and the carving of reliefs. We thought he’d never finish.”
“When he finally left, we waited a few moments and then followed him down the ramp,” the older man said. “The last we saw of him was down there. .” He pointed vaguely to ward the end of the southern retaining wall. “. . near the white statue of our sovereign.”
“Did he seem happy? Angry? Expectant? He was apparently in no hurry. Did he seem to be awaiting someone?”
Again the men looked at each other, trying to decide. Bak suspected they had all been so eager to go home, they had noticed nothing but the passage of time.
“He criticized, as always, but not with his usual scathing tongue, and he demanded no changes.” The bald man who spoke glanced at his fellows, seeking agreement. Several nods drove him on. “We joked later, saying he must be looking forward to a night of pleasure.”
Well satisfied, Bak thanked them with a smile and sent them on their way. He had narrowed the time of death considerably. Montu had been slain sometime in the evening or, more likely, early in the night, a time when the malign spirit was said to appear.
Following the men down the ramp, he said, “Tell me of the malign spirit, Heribsen.”
“I’ve never seen it, nor do I expect to.”
“You don’t believe it exists?”
“I don’t.”
“What of the many deaths and injuries at Djeser Djeseru?
Do you believe them accidents and nothing more?”
A long silence carried them to the base of the ramp. The chief artist stopped and offered a smile, but it was off center, lacking his usual good humor. “How can I speak of accidents when thus far my crew has remained untouched?”
“A scaffold fell, I’ve been told, and a man injured.”
“It fell within the sanctuary while we were painting an upper wall. A binding had come loose, a knot that didn’t hold. We inspect them more carefully these days.”
“Did the malign spirit make the scaffold unsafe? Or was it done at the hands of a man?”
Heribsen looked pained. “Would a man come up here in the dead of night to loosen a binding when all who toil here know a malign spirit inhabits this valley?”
“But you don’t believe in a malign spirit.”
“I don’t. Nor would I risk my life to come in the dark to do damage to a scaffold.”
Bak gave up. Heribsen did not believe, but he feared. The contradiction confounded him.
“They say the tomb contains a treasure.” Useramon, the chief sculptor responsible for the army of statues that would one day adorn Djeser Djeseru, stared toward Imen across the many blocks of stone lying on the terrace. The guard stood alone; the priest had not arrived. “Is that true?”
Bak had known the news would spread, but it irritated him nonetheless. “The sepulcher is small,” he said, avoiding an outright lie, “and contains a few wooden models and some pottery as well as the wrapped body.”
“From what I heard. .”
“I’m here to speak of Montu, Useramon.”
The large, heavily muscled sculptor nodded, unperturbed by the implied reproach. “Heribsen and I spent many an hour complaining about him, I can tell you.” He sprinkled a soft piece of leather with water and dabbed it in a bowl of silica powder, collecting a thin layer of the shiny abrasive.
“For all the good it did us.”
“You spoke to Senenmut?”
“To Pashed, who had problems of his own.”
Bak seated himself on the legs of the colossal red granite statue of Maatkare Hatshepsut he had found the sculptor polishing with loving care. The image lay on its back, Useramon on his knees beside it, toiling on its right shoulder.
When standing to his full height, Bak guessed the craftsman would be two hands taller than the diminutive chief artist.
They must be quite a sight when walking together, he thought.
“Heribsen told me of his complaints. What were yours?”
“We’re artists, too, and he treated us as such. He never ceased to criticize our work or failed to alter the patterns drawn on the stone. At first he was content with that, but during the past year or so, he waited until the sculpting began, the early stages too far along to reasonably change the image.” Useramon placed the gritty leather on the statue’s arm and began to rub the surface. “If he’d not been so friendly with Senenmut, so quick to tell tales, I’d have waylaid him in a dark and empty lane and. .” He looked up, laughed softly. “Well, he’d think the malign spirit gentle in compari-son.”
“You didn’t let him think you’d changed the design when you hadn’t, as Heribsen’s crew did?”
“We did, but the need to pretend was as vexatious as making the changes.” Useramon grinned. “Well, not quite. At least we had the satisfaction of producing a respectable piece of sculpture.”
The whisper of the abrasive, the methodical back and forth movement, could easily put a man to sleep, Bak thought. “Didn’t you enjoy making him look the fool?”
“I’d have enjoyed it more if he’d had the wit to see what we were doing. My one regret is that he was slain before this temple was finished. I planned to tell him on the day of its dedication how foolish we’d made him look.”
Bak glanced toward the tomb where Imen stood. The sun was sinking behind the western peak, casting a bright red af-terglow high into the sky. If Kaemwaset did not soon arrive, the tomb would remain open through the night. “Has your crew been involved in any of the many accidents that have occurred on this project?”
“We don’t invite trouble, Lieutenant. When a statue must be lowered to the ground or raised, when it must be moved, we summon ordinary workmen to do the task for us.”
“The malign spirit has struck no one toiling for you? Neither sculptor nor workman?”
“Malign spirit.” Useramon’s hand stopped moving, he looked up from his task and barked out a laugh. “A statue did roll off a sledge on which it was being moved, and a workman’s ankle was broken. That was sheer bad luck, nothing more. The rope with which it was secured was faulty. I saw for myself the weakened fibers.”
“Did Heribsen not tell you of the scaffold that collapsed beneath one of his men?”
“He told me. We both agreed that a malign spirit had nothing to do with either accident. As I said before, it was bad luck. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“He failed to discount altogether the idea of a malign spirit.”
Useramon returned to his task. “All the world knows such spirits exist. The question is: why would one inhabit this valley? A shrine to the lady Hathor has existed here since the beginning of time. The ancient temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep has been a place of deep respect for many generations. The temple of our sovereign’s illustrious ancestor Djeserkare Amonhotep and his beloved mother Ahmose Nefertari, the remains of which can still be seen at the end of this terrace, has been a place to bend a knee for many years.”
“A new shrine has been started for the lady Hathor, making the old one useless,” Bak countered. “Stones are being taken from the ancient temple to be used in the new. And the old temple of Djeserkare Amonhotep and his mother will vanish beneath this terrace. Maybe a man and not a spirit is annoyed that Djeser Djeseru is supplanting so much of the past.”
The whisper of grit on stone stopped. Useramon looked up. “I’ve several times asked my village scribe to write a message on the side of a bowl, pleading that such was the case. I’ve filled the bowl with food offerings and left them at the temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep, where the spirit most often has been seen.”
Unable to think of an appropriate response, Bak rose to his feet, bade good-bye to the sculptor, and headed toward the newly opened tomb and the guard Imen. He marveled again at how quick the men were to deny the existence of the malign spirit, yet how firmly they believed.
“Menna never returned.” Bak did not bother to hide his exasperation. The guard officer’s sense of urgency was certainly not his own.
“He said he’d be back, sir. With a priest. But they haven’t come.” Imen stood like a rock, a man untroubled by the broken promises of men more lofty than he. “I doubt they will now. The day’s too far gone.”
“What’ll we do, sir?” Hori asked.
Bak stared at the open mouth of the tomb, an invitation to robbery, and the darkness overtaking the valley. “You must spend the night here, Imen.”
“So I assumed.” The guard looked at the twin streams of men, some hurrying away from the temple to homes near the river valley, the majority walking at a slower pace toward the workmen’s huts. “I’ll need something to eat, sir.”
“Hori can bring food.” Bak looked again at the open shaft.
He recalled the thin sliver of moon he had seen in the sky the previous night and guessed how dark this valley would get.
He thought of the tale of a treasure the artisans would take with them to their homes, and how fast it would spread throughout the surrounding villages. He envisioned a man bent on theft sneaking up on a man alone.
His eyes darted toward Kasaya, who stood beside the lion-bodied statue of their sovereign. The Medjay’s expression was bleak. He had traveled with Bak often enough to guess what lay in his heart.
“I know how eager you are to go home to your mother, Kasaya, but you must remain here with Imen.”
“Yes, sir,” Kasaya mumbled without a spark of enthusiasm.
“I can stand alone, sir.” Imen nodded toward his spear and shield. “I’m well able to take care of myself.”
Hori stared wide-eyed. “Don’t you fear the malign spirit?”
Bak shot an annoyed glance at the youth. “He has far more to fear from thieves sneaking up in the night than a distant shadow or speck of light.”
After parting from Hori at the edge of the floodplain, Bak walked alone along the raised path that would take him to his father’s farm. The heat of the day had waned and a thin haze was settling over the river. Faint points of starlight were visible in the darkening sky. The soft evening air smelled of braised fish and onions, of animals and some fragrant blossom he could not see.
Why would anyone slay Montu? he wondered. The man had not been well-liked. He had, in fact, gone out of his way to anger one and all. However, his would-be victims had ignored his senseless demands, making him look the fool, a figure of fun. Who would slay a beast whose fangs and claws had been pulled?