Shechem was stumped, but realized Lamech had posed a valid question. “That is puzzling.”
“More than that, Commander. I suggest it as a possible indication you have more than a madman on your hands.”
“What do you mean?”
“Anyone sophisticated enough to plan and execute nine murders successfully in defiance of such measures isn’t insane. They’re inspired.”
Shechem was forced to consider every possibility now. If the killer was the resourceful plotter Lamech had suggested, then even tripling the patrols wouldn’t do any good. And with no link between any of the victims, attempting to predict who the next victim might be would prove just as futile. Sooner or later the killer would make a mistake and be caught in the act or be seen leaving the scene of a murder. And then they would have him.
That, or the killer would turn out to be one of his own soldiers.
Chapter 27
As Noah approached the small village his family frequented for supplies, he questioned again his wisdom in having discouraged Ham from going after Shiphrah. His pursuit of her might not only have resulted in her return, but would have also served to dispel any doubts she had about his feelings for her.
Now, even the vow he’d taken seemed trivial compared to the task of finding her. A month was a long time. And a determined person could travel a long way during this time, especially one running away.
He’d chosen to start with the merchant from whom they’d routinely obtained provisions. If anyone would have noticed a stranger in the village, it would be him. Noah estimated the man to be about his own age, between 500 and 550 years. He wore a striped tunic, and his face was drawn and weathered by the sun. He snickered when the patriarch asked if he’d seen a young woman riding a donkey pass through the village in the last month. “Lots of them,” he said. “Lots of men, too.”
“This one was pretty,” Noah said. “She had on a beige tunic trimmed in blue.
“I admit in this part of the country that narrows it down, but at my age a pretty face just doesn’t stick in my head the way it used to.” The man pointed up the street to where smoke rose from an outdoor furnace. “You might want to try the metal craftsman. He also happens to be a good farrier. There was a young woman, I think it was about a month ago, whose donkey had a problem with one of its feet.”
Noah thanked the merchant and rode up the street to the metal craftsman. He, too, recalled a woman about thirty days ago asking to have a crack in her donkey’s right front hoof repaired. He remembered she was pretty and had a nice shape. But so, too, did a number of his woman customers. In the end, he wasn’t able to provide enough information to confirm that the woman whose donkey he’d serviced was Shiphrah.
He mounted his donkey and started to pull away, only to wrench around in the saddle to something spoken by the metal craftsman. “What was that?”
“Green eyes,” the metal craftsman said.
“What about them?”
“I remember now, she had the most dazzling green eyes I’d ever seen.”
The metal craftsman also recalled the woman was in a hurry, trying to catch up with a caravan that’d passed through the day before heading west. Noah paid the man a small gratuity, then headed out of the village along the road reportedly taken by the green-eyed woman. He didn’t have much to go on.
A woman that may or may not be Shiphrah. Traveling on a road that led to any of a hundred destinations. She already had a thirty-day head start and time was a commodity he could not afford to lose.
Two hours later, he came to a fork in the road. He dismounted for a closer look even though any tracks belonging to Shiphrah or the caravan would have long since been obliterated. One road led about twenty degrees northwest of his current due west heading, the other ten degrees to the southwest. Both appeared equally well-traveled.
Which path should he take? Either path might lead to the Great Sea. Either path might prove to be a dead end. He picked up a handful of dirt, as if doing so might give him some clue about which path to take. No amount of logic or analysis could help him now. Choose wrong, and he might lose any chance to find Shiphrah.
He let the dirt strain through his fingers, climbed aboard his donkey, and took the right fork.
* * *
Shechem noticed a difference immediately when he entered the great hall to inform the governor of the latest on the killings. Malluch rose to greet him while Bohar remained seated at the table, a tomato in one hand and a full loaf of bread in the other.
“Good morning, Commander,” Malluch said. “I trust you weren’t out too late investigating this latest murder. He motioned to the table filled with bread, wine, and a variety of fruits and vegetables. “Something to eat? Some wine perhaps?”
Bohar stuffed his mouth with both hands, the juice from the tomato running down his chin. Although hungry, the thought of sitting down with this glutton destroyed Shechem’s appetite. “Thank you, no.”
“I understand our killer is becoming more brazen.”
“Indeed. Last night’s murder took place in the heart of the city, inside the man’s own home.”
“You’ve taken all the precautions we discussed?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Well then I would say it is only a matter of time before you catch him. Sooner or later he’ll make a mistake. All madmen do.”
“Yes, my lord. There’s something else. Lamech showed up at the scene of the killing.”
Malluch’s eyes narrowed. “What did he want?”
“I believe he was acquainted with the family of the victim.”
“Is that all?”
Shechem didn’t dare tell him what Lamech’s theory of the killings was, not with Malluch insisting it was a madman. “Yes.”
“Let me be clear, Commander. I’ll tolerate no interference with your investigation. Not even from an elder.”
“Understood.”
Bohar concurred with a loud belch.
“Enjoying your food, my friend?” Malluch said.
Watching him ram the remaining crust of bread into his ravenous maw, Shechem grasped what the peculiarity in the room was.
Bohar.
Standing fifteen cubits away, he realized for the first time ever he couldn’t smell him—at least not the odor he was used to smelling. And his hair, although still scraggily and unkempt, appeared as if it had been cleansed of a good hin of its oil. Even his tunic looked new, marred only by the stream of fresh tomato juice staining the front.
“What’s this, another bath?” he said. “That’s two in a month, isn’t it?”
Bohar didn’t speak, reaching instead to his groin in a gesture of obscenity. Shechem and Malluch laughed.
With the air free of smells to ruin the taste, Shechem relented and reached for an apple.
He couldn’t wait to inform Claudia about Bohar’s sudden change in hygiene habits. She wouldn’t believe it, but seeing the look on her face would make it worth the telling. What was Bohar up to? Had he finally found himself a woman, one he didn’t have to take by force? Or had Malluch had enough of him stinking up the palace?
Regarding Claudia, Shechem had seen her in the market this morning talking to the son of one of the richest elders in Eden. It was all quite innocent, at least in appearance, with the two exchanging little more than a smile and some conversation. But then Claudia wasn’t foolish enough to do anything publicly that would leave herself open to gossip. On the other hand, something had affected her attitude toward him, and he was determined to find out what it was.
* * *
Shechem watched from a shadow across the courtyard while Claudia, her head covered with a veil, closed the door to their home behind her. She paused for a moment to scan the square before walking briskly past the palace and turning right onto the street. He followed at a safe distance wearing a hooded tunic.
He was eager and saddened at the thought of catching his wife with the lover he’d long suspected. Tonight might be the night he’d prove
his theory.
He’d told Claudia he wouldn’t be home tonight, expecting, if not hoping, she would take the bait. Now, following her down the street, it only brought him heartache to think his suspicions about her over the years had been founded.
Last night, Eden suffered through its first multiple victim evening when two men were found with their throats slashed. One of the men had been a son to another of Eden’s elders. Shechem tried to head off the additional scrutiny the killing would bring for Malluch by taking extra security measures.
Shortly before dark, he’d addressed one thousand of Eden’s finest soldiers gathered below him in the garrison courtyard. Four companies of 250 men, one assigned to each of the four quadrants, would flood the city in an overwhelming show of force. His strategy wasn’t designed so much to catch the killer as it was to deter him from striking again, at least for this one night.
While Claudia continued north along Eden’s main street, Shechem managed to stay within two hundred cubits of her. Close enough not to lose her, but far enough away not to be detected. And with soldiers on every corner, the streets were filled with an intrepid populace dense enough to provide him cover.
She slowed her pace, stopping before the next intersecting street to look behind. He backed into the alcove of a building. Her suspicions allayed, she turned right and disappeared around the corner. He moved quickly to regain sight of her.
Would she be brave enough to roam the streets if not for the presence of his soldiers? Was her lover, if more than a figment, worth the risk of getting her throat slit? Shechem had to laugh inwardly at the irony of the situation. It was his strategy to saturate the city with soldiers. But had that strategy also served as the catalyst to embolden his wife to go out tonight?
He rounded the corner in time to see her turn left at the next street. Knowing the streets in this area grew shorter the farther they were from the palace, he burst into a jog to keep from losing her. At the next intersection, he peered cautiously around the corner.
Claudia crossed the next street and headed into an area where the only light cast on the road emanated from the windows of houses. He scurried along, hugging the house walls to stay up with her. For a moment, he thought he’d lost her, until the light from a window caught her veil-covered head passing by.
When she entered the next intersection, a man looking over his shoulder bumped into her from the street on her left. The man, dressed in a dark cloak, stumbled past her up the street while Claudia quickly composed herself and continued east.
Shechem started across the same intersection, but his feet froze at the sound of a woman’s terrifying scream coming from his left. He turned to the sound of the disturbance. A woman kneeled over the body of a young man lying in the street. Shechem looked back in time to see his wife’s shadow disappear in the darkness.
For an instant, he wrestled with his decision. Continue following his wife to learn if his long-held suspicions were correct, or come to the aid of a possibly injured citizen. He surprised himself with the ease with which he made the choice and sprinted toward the woman.
The woman had her hand pressed against the young man’s throat, blood pouring through her fingers from a severed artery. The commander estimated the boy to be no more than twelve years of age. His breathing was labored and irregular.
The woman looked at Shechem with pleading eyes. “Help him,” she said. “He’s my son. Please, help him.”
He threw off his tunic, kneeled, and covered the boy’s body from the neck down, then turned to several bystanders and pointed down the street. “Find soldiers. Tell them to come right away. If they hesitate, tell them Shechem commands it.”
The bystanders, three men, ran down the street.
Blood continued to flow from the boy’s neck. “Try not to worry, madam. Help will be here soon.” He didn’t like giving the woman false hope, but it was the only thing he could do. Even if a physician was around the corner, he doubted he could do anything to stop the bleeding in time to save the boy’s life.
The bystanders returned shortly with four soldiers. Shechem pointed to the closest. “You, take these three men and find a physician. If you can’t locate one, go to the palace and bring Malluch’s physician.”
“Malluch’s physician, for a peasant boy?” the soldier said.
Shechem grabbed the soldier’s shirt at the neck. “Do as I tell you.” The soldier led the three men down the street. He moved out of earshot of the woman tending her son to speak to the remaining soldiers. “I think I may have seen our killer. He was wearing a dark cloak with a hood. Not too tall. I’d say about a handbreadth under four cubits. He ran up that way.”
The three soldiers drew their swords and hustled up the street. Just as they disappeared from view, the boy went into convulsion, his pupils rolled up inside his eyelids and his body shook violently.
“No, no, no.” His mother wept. The boy’s body thrashed two more times before going still, while the blood pouring through the mother’s fingers slowed to a trickle.
Shechem sensed that queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, similar to what he’d experienced at Enoch. Eden’s killer had sunk to a new low, his murderous rampage taking a sickening turn. Tonight, he’d added children to the list of those within reach of his blade.
He jumped up, drew his sword, and cursed into the darkness so loud his throat hurt. “You miserable coward! I’ll cut your heart out.” He cursed once more, this time impugning the existence of the killer’s father.
Chapter 28
Noah didn’t know the name of the city he’d entered, only that it was a full two days west of the last village he’d passed through. A merchant there remembered a woman fitting Shiphrah’s description because of the attention she’d attracted—admiration from the men, envy from the women. According to the tradesman, the woman was still a half day’s journey behind the caravan.
About half the size of Eden, the city had a vibrant trade, with patrons bustling about the marketplace near its center in the heat of the day. Once again, he chose the merchants there as the best prospects for a lead. He tied his donkey next to several others at a small post at the near end of the market and made his way up the street.
Five hundred forty parts and eight merchants later, no one could recall having seen a woman fitting Shiphrah’s description. Not until reaching the far end of the marketplace did he receive a morsel of hope. “What about a caravan?” he said.
“Now that I remember,” the merchant selling melons and cabbages said. “Just over a month ago. Six carts and around twenty to twenty-five people. Sold almost double that in melons to them. Don’t remember seeing a woman with green eyes, though.”
“Headed west?”
“Yes. Said they were journeying to the Great Sea.” The merchant paused. “Wait a part. You said she was riding a donkey?”
“Yes.”
“I did hear of a woman who passed through here shortly after the caravan. Never saw her myself, but I overheard some of the men talking about how attractive she was. I remember thinking how foolish it was for her to be on the road by herself. I hope she’s all right.”
“What—”
The sound of a large group of horses entering the square grasped Noah’s attention and all those nearby. Fifty or more soldiers dismounted and made their way toward them. Some visited the vendors in the market, others entered buildings along either side of the roadway where liquid refreshment was offered for sale.
The merchant pulled as many melons and cabbages from his cart as he could and placed them in baskets behind him. He then covered the produce in the baskets with straw. “Soldiers from Eden.” The merchant snarled and spat on the ground.
“What about them?”
“Soldiers take and do not pay.”
Noah pulled the hood to his tunic over his head. Although he might draw suspicion in this heat, he couldn’t chance being recognized. Either way, he had an even bigger problem. His donkey was at the far end of the street, tied to a
post in the middle of fifty horses belonging to the soldiers of Eden. A small group of them milled about standing guard.
The merchant, noticing him cover his head, gave a nod and a grin, indicating he understood the situation. “Do you need a place to hide?”
He nodded.
“Don’t speak, and do exactly as I tell you. Turn and walk swiftly, but don’t run, up the street to the houses on the left. Go into the second door, through the large room and into a smaller room on the right. Climb out the window in the back, then run across the melon field into the wooded area where you can hide until nightfall.”
He nodded again.
“If you’re spoken to, don’t stop, don’t turn, just act like you didn’t hear. By tonight, these vermin will be so drunk you could march your donkey right over their sleeping carcasses. Now go.”
He did as the merchant instructed. A hundred cubits from the merchant’s cart, a voice called out. “Hey you!” He didn’t respond to the one calling him, but assumed it was a soldier. “Hey you, get back here. What are you hiding under that hood?”
“He can’t hear you,” the merchant said. “He’s a deaf mute.”
“Stop!” the voice said. “By order of the soldiers of Eden.”
“I told you he’s deaf!”
Once Noah hit the door, he sprinted through the house, out the window, and across three hundred cubits of melon field before reaching the woods. There, cloaked by the foliage, he kneeled several cubits from the margin, watching while several soldiers poked their heads out the window.
After seventy-two parts, eight soldiers brought the merchant around to the rear of the house for a search of the area. Though unable to hear what was being said, Noah grew concerned for the merchant when his discussion with the soldiers grew heated. At one point, a soldier shook a knife under the merchant’s nose just before they all returned to the street side. Whatever the merchant said must have satisfied them, because fifty-four parts later he appeared at the window and threw a wave to Noah across the field.
With several hours of daylight remaining, he was anxious to move on. Instead he settled for the stout trunk of a tamarisk tree to lean against. Just before dark, he ventured into the field to retrieve a melon but returned to cover before cracking it. The melon was warm, but refreshing.
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