by Lauren Haney
For one thing, Simut could not be the slayer. He had been at the farthest end of the province at the time of Lieutenant Dedi's death, accompanying the tax inspector.
Simut lived in Abu, in a housing block a short walk from the governor's villa. His home was similar to dozens of others Bak had seen in the crowded cities of Kemet, revealing nothing of his lofty position in the province. It was a modest single-story dwelling of five rooms laid out in a square, with an open kitchen at the back that contained a hearth, an oven, and a small conical granary.
The chief scribe spoke with Bak in the reception room, which was larger than the other chambers and whose high roof was supported on a single wooden column painted red. Windows close to the ceiling allowed light to enter and air to circulate. The household gods Bes and Taurt stood in niches along one wall, while a small ancestor bust occupied a third niche.
Simut's short kilt and lack of jewelry testified to his intent to spend the day in the comfort of his own home. "Now that that wretched inventory is complete, I thought to escape for a few hours the cares of my daily task," he explained.
His wife, short and round like her husband and as cheerful as a sparrow, hurried in with open jars of beer and a basket of sweetcakes that smelled of yeast, with bits of dates and raisins peeking through a crusty brown surface. She placed the food and drink on a low woven reed chest between the stools on which the men sat, brought out drinking bowls, and hustled away.
Simut, plucking a cake from the basket, examined his guest's bandages and bruises with an open and curious mien. "From what I hear,' Lieutenant, you put on quite a show last night. The tale's already reached near-mythical proportions."
"The men of Swenet and Abu are easily amused." Bak made no attempt to hide his irritation. "I caught my man in spite of them, but I couldn't keep him alive."
"My wife just returned from the market." The scribe handed a drinking bowl to his guest and ajar of beer. "She heard Nenu was the one who took all those. lives in the governor's household and he was attempting last night, not for the first time, to slay you. Frankly, I find it difficult to credit him with so many vile deeds. He seemed a lackadaisical sort, one without enough purpose to plan so elaborate a scheme."
"He was a tool, nothing more, one used by the governor to…"
Simut gave him a startled look. "You're accusing Djehuty of murder? Surely he's not responsible for all those deaths!" "Only for Nenu's attempts to slay me."
"Oh, come now, Lieutenant. Why would he want dead the one man who…" Simut noticed the look of conviction on Bak's face and his voice tailed off. He shook his head, utterly mystified
Pouring beer into his drinking bowl, Bak admitted, "To be quite honest, I don't know. I suspect he wanted to prevent me from learning the secret he's refused all along to divulge."
"A secret born in that fatal sandstorm five years ago." "So I believe."
"I wish I could help you, but I know almost nothing of that tempest." Simut took a bite of cake, swallowed it, added, "What little I do know I've told you."
"Have you?" Bak's voice carried an edge of cynicism. Simut frowned. "What are you implying, Lieutenant?" Bak set bowl and jar on the table, stood up, and strode to the door. Abruptly he swung around. "You told me of a nephew who died in the storm, a young man you loved as a son. Yet you neglected to mention that he was Nebmose, the man who owned the villa Djehuty claimed for the royal house and took as his own."
"I thought…" The scribe blinked, taken aback by Bak's accusing stance and tone. "Well, I… I guess I just assumed you knew."
"You told me you once resented Djehuty for returning alive, but you no longer harbor the feeling. What of Nebmose's villa? That lovely house and outbuildings now sitting idle except for an infrequent lodger. And the farmland north of this city. An estate most men would covet."
Simut gave him a pained look. "I'm satisfied with my lot, Lieutenant."
Bak walked to the niche holding the ancestor bust. A bowl for burning incense stood before the image. Someone had dropped a broken needle into the small mound of cold ashes, indicating a lack of reverence he could not imagine in the individual tending Nebmose's shrine. "Forgive my poor manners, Simut. My time is running out and I'm floundering.
The scribe acknowledged the apology with a stiff smile. "If Nebmose had lived, he'd've wed and had a son of his own. As it was, he left no one, nor did he ever document his wishes with respect to his property. Djehuty has no more right to it than I, but at least now it'll go to mistress Khawet and not a stranger."
Bak tore his eyes from the small, red-painted figure and stared at Simut, barely daring to breathe. The scribe's unmistakable belief that Khawet was entitled to Nebmose's property came close to verifying the suspicion that had been growing in his thoughts all morning. An idea he. had gone out of his way to deny but must now face.
Like the young man who had lived in the adjoining villa, Khawet would have been about twenty years of age when the sandstorm occurred. Close in age, thrown together by proximity, similar in their noble heritage, they most likely would have developed a strong bond. A marriage would have been logical, a merging of the two estates.
Though certain he now knew the answer, Bak asked, "Who's leaving offerings in Nebmose's family shrine?" "She is. Khawet."
"And she's caring for the house and garden?"
"She's always kept close watch on the servants who toil there, yes."
Releasing a long pent-up breath, Bak dropped onto his stool. "The lord Amon preserve-me for being so dense!" Simut blinked, not understanding.
"I knew she wed Ineni at the age of twenty," Bak explained, "much later in life than most, but I-assumed Djehuty held her close. I should've realized by the way she treats her husband that he was second best, that another man took pride of place in her heart. Ineni himself told me so, but I let his words pass over my head as a cloud does." His eyes leaped toward Simut. "Were she and Nebmose wed when he died?"
"The marriage contract had yet to be witnessed and sealed.".
"Why wait so long past marriageable age when they dwelt so close together?" Bak could not keep the growing excitement out of his voice.
Simut, sensing the younger man's agitation, answered with alacrity. "As Nebmose approached manhood, his father sent him to the royal house in Waset to rub shoulders with his equals. Khawet now and again accompanied her father to the capital, and there she and the young man consummated their love. Or so I believe. He entered the service of an envoy to faroff Naharin, and she vowed to await his return. I, for one, thanked the lord Amon when he came back with no other wife, but he was as true to her as she was to him.
"Negotiations had been concluded and the marriage contract prepared when Nebmose's father died. They waited to wed until the period of mounting had passed. Before they could do so, Djehuty summoned his troops, and they marched off to Uahtrest to punish the desert tribesmen. Nebmose never returned, and Khawet wed Ineni instead."
"At Djehuty's insistence," Bak said in a grim voice. "Ineni knew of her love for Nebmose and wanted to wait. Djehuty issued an ultimatum."
The two men stared at each other, the scribe with a dawning awareness, Bak with growing conviction. Many of the answers he had sought for so long fell into place, even Djehuty's attempts to slay him. The governor had a secret, probably one he was hiding from Khawet, and he had feared Bak would reveal it. Perhaps he had contributed more directly to Nebmose's death than mere negligence as a commander. Khawet had learned that secret-or had a good idea what it was-probably from Hatnofer. She had decided to seek revenge. Djehuty, though a master of self-delusion, had at some point coma, to suspect his daughter of wishing him dead.
No wonder he was ill. No wonder…
"By the beard of Amon!" Bak shot to his feet. "She's with her father now! Giving him herbal broth to soothe his stomach!"
"This is only the ninth day!" Simut was clutching at air and he knew it. "She wouldn't spoil her pattern now! Would she?"
Bak leaped toward the door. "Go
summon a physician. Quickly!"
Racing up the stairs to the second story of the governor's villa, Bak spotted Amonhotep seated, head bowed, hands locked between his knees, on a stool in Djehuty's private reception room. The aide, his face drawn and pinched with worry, looked a perfect picture of dejection and exhaustion. "Where's mistress Khawet?" Bak demanded.
Amonhotep, too tired to. think clearly, failed to notice the urgency in his voice. "Amethu came not long ago, wanting to know of Djehuty's health. She spoke with him briefly. I think they talked of you and of Nebmose's villa and of Nebmose himself."
Bak muttered a curse. When he had spoken with the steward, he had seen no reason to urge silence. Now it was too late. "And then?"
"After Amethu left, she had me take a brazier out on the roof. When I had the fire going, she took the herbs I'd brought from the market, added others she already had, and made a fresh broth. She gave some to her father, which soothed his stomach, and he slept. She then went away, saying she had other tasks to perform."
Bak cursed the aide's innocence, and his own belated realization of the truth. "I must see Djehuty."
"When last I looked, he was sleeping."
Bak strode to the door. "We must awaken him." "Khawet said sleep is the best medicine a man can have." "Lieutenant!" Bak barked out the word, gaining the young officer's full attention. "Mistress Khawet is the slayer I've been seeking."
"But… But she's Djehuty's daughter!"
"Are you going to sit here in this room, immobilized by disbelief, while he lies dying not twenty paces away?" With doubt plain on his face, Amonhotep led the way to the governor's bedchamber. To his credit he did not tarry.
The room was dark, with most of the windows covered with reed mats; and smelled strongly of sweat and vomit.
Bak tore down the mats, admitting light, and hurried to the bed. Djehuty lay on his back, covered to the waist with a sheet. His right shoulder and the side of his face were bathed in vomit where he had half turned to throw up. His forehead was beaded with sweat, his pallid body hot to the touch and so wet the sheet clung to him. His breathing was loud and hoarse, the pulse of life in his wrist irregular.
Amonhotep sucked in his breath, horrified. "May the lord Khnum forgive me for being so trusting."
"He's thrown up a lot of the broth. He still may live." Amonhotep swung around to leave. "I must summon a physician!"
Bak grabbed his arm, stopping his flight. "There's no need. I sent Simut for one the moment I saw the truth." The aide stared down at the prone man. "Why? Why would she slay her own father?"
Bak, too, stared at Djehuty. He thought the governor one of the least worthy men he had ever known. Nonetheless, he dropped to his knees and offered a fervent prayer to the lord Amon that the man's life would be spared.
Chapter Seventeen
"Where did mistress Khawet go?" Bak demanded.
"I don't know, sir." The guard Kames stood as stiff as a tree, trying hard not to be buffeted by the winds of circumstance. First, his former partner Nenu had been proven untrustworthy, now mistress Khawet. "She didn't tell me. Why should she?" His voice came perilously close to a whine. "I'm only a guard, sir, a fixture of the villa. Kind of like a doorjamb with a spear."
Bak did not know whether to laugh or shake the man. "Did you overhear her say anything when she left?" "You mustn't blame me for the governor's death, sir." Definitely a whine. "How was I to know she was the slayer?"
"Karnes! The governor's not yet dead!" Bak's voice, sharp and fierce, carried across the empty audience hall, gaining a hard edge as it slammed against bare, white walls and the high ceiling. The guard snapped his eyes shut as if he feared a blow.
"What did she say when she left?" Bak repeated. Kames shook his head. "I don't remember."
"Can you at least tell me which direction she took?" "Sir?" A plump young servant girl stepped through the door near the governor's dais. "I don't know what mistress Khawet said, sir. She talked to the cook, not me. But I saw her go down to the landingplace and sail north in her husband's skiff."
"She told me she wanted to be by herself for a time." The cook, a shapeless woman with graying hair, swirled her flour, dusted hands in a large-mouthed reddish bowl filled with water and shook off the excess. "Why a woman her age needs time to herself I'll never know. And her with no children!"
An older man looked up from the brick hearth, where he was brushing oil on a half-cooked beef haunch suspended above the hot coals. "If you had to take care of that old wretch, you'd need to escape, too."
"She has servants, hasn't she?" Her look of disapproval changed to one of censure. "You'd best take care who you call a wretch. You never know who'll go running to him to pass on the tale. You know how often he orders the lash."
"If the slayer strikes tomorrow…" The man sneaked a glance at Bak. "… as the Lieutenant thinks he will, he won't be able to punish me or anyone else."
"You've no sense of respect, that's your problem."
Bak chose not to enlighten them about Djehuty's health or why he wished to find Khawet. They would learn soon enough anyway. "Does she go to any special place when she wishes to be alone?"
"To Nebmose's villa most often," the cook said. "Sometimes to the tombs of her ancestors, those old sepulchers high above the river on the west bank."
"I pray we find her at the tombs." Bak shoved the skiff off and jumped from the landingplace into the stern. "If not, we'd best go on to Nubt. I doubt she'd add Ineni's concubine and son to her list of victims, but we must take no chances."
Psuro rowed` toward deeper water and a faster current. "We know for a fact that she wasn't in the governor's compound or Nebmose's villa. We searched them both with due diligence."
"I don't know why we bothered," Kasaya grumbled. "The girl said she took the skiff."
"It doesn't do to leave one pebble unturned." Psuro gave the younger Medjay a condescending look. "How many times do I have to tell you?"
"Why would she take the skiff if she wasn't going to use it?"
Bak scowled at the pair, silencing them. Given free rein, the argument could go on through eternity. Psuro turned his attention to his task. Kasaya sorted through the weapons on the floor of the skiff: their spears and shields and the bow and well-armed quiver Nenu had abandoned on the riverbank. Most of the weapons, Bak suspected, would be of little or no use much of the time. Khawet had had a substantial head start. If she had indeed gone to the ancient tombs, she would be high above them when they approached, with a steep, sandy slope between.
"I know mistress Khawet doesn't have any use for me," Kasaya said, "and I don't like her much either, but I find it hard to believe she'd take five innocent lives."
"She's the last person in the household I'd have suspected." Psuro lifted the oars from the water and frowned. "Are you sure, sir?"
"I don't know exactly what set her off, and I've several other unanswered questions, but I'm certain of her guilt." Noticing they were drifting into the shallows, Psuro went back to rowing. His effort more than doubled the current's speed, and the small vessel raced headlong downstream toward the lower end of the island of Abu. A traveling ship, its sail aloft and swollen, swept south toward a fleet of fishing boats. Angry shouts from the smaller vessels warned of a seining net about to be breached. A dozen or so pelicans, rare so far south this early in the year, flew low over the water, waiting for the laden net to rise, bringing prey to the surface.
"Before Khawet left," Bak said, "she made sure nothing remained of the stew-I thank the lord Amon. At least she doesn't want anyone else in Abu to die."
Kasaya barked out a laugh. "Isn't it a bit late for her to show concern? How many deaths has she brought about so far?"
"We must never forget that in her own heart she believes she's seen justice done. A vile justice, to my way of thinking, but warranted to her."
"She believes the death of the child Nakht justified?" Psuro shook his head in disgust. "She has to be mad." Bak could not argue the point.
Kasaya, who had stood up in the prow as they rounded the northern tip of the island, pointed at a small boat drawn up on the shore of the far bank amid a thicket of tamarisks. A narrow oasis of trees and bushes followed the bend of the river around the base of a tall, steep hill cloaked in sand and crowned with rock. Two terraces girdled the mound midway to the top. Along these high promenades, dark rectangles marked the entrances to ancient houses of eternity carved into the rock. Three lengthy stairways, almost buried in windblown sand, rose from the oasis to the tombs. If others existed, they lay out of sight around the curve of the hill. Bak could see no sign of life, but the distance was great and segments of terrace were concealed behind mounds of debris excavated by ancient tunnelers.
Kasaya, eyeing the extensive golden slope, shook his head in wonder. "Funny place for a woman to go."
"A good place to be alone," Psuro said.
Manning the rudder, Bak eased the skiff through a cluster of partially submerged boulders guarding the tip of the island. He wondered why Khawet had chosen the tombs as her destination. She must have realized after talking with Amethu that he and his Medjays would be hot on her trail. Yet rather than run away in search of freedom, she had sought refuge in-the dwellings of her ancestors, a place not easy to reach, but reachable.
"I hope that skiff is hers," he said, "and if so, I hope she didn't abandon it at the river's edge to lead us astray." The words were like water thrown on a fire, quenching his companions' optimism. Psuro rowed grim-faced and with purpose. Kasaya stared at the distant craft as if willing it to keep its promise that Khawet was close by. Clearing the boulders, Bak swung their vessel diagonally across the current, his eyes on the steep, sandy incline and the terraces above. The deserted boat lay midway along the row of visible tombs, giving no clue as to which of the stairways she might have climbed.
The river whispered beneath their speeding hull. The oars sliced through the water with barely a splash. A fish leaped in front of them and landed with a smack. Gentle swells glistened in the sunlight, reflecting the clear blue sky and the golden slope above the far shore. The hill drew closer, its incline looked steeper, its height more impressive. A falcon soared high in the sky above. The lord Horus, watching, waiting.