Place of Darkness lb-5

by Lauren Haney

  Below, the royal guards were trotting up the path that traversed the lower slope, spreading out in a line two men abreast, with one of the pair falling back each time the path narrowed. A faint barking carried upward, and Kasaya was looking Bak’s way. Bak waved and pointed west, letting the Medjay know where Menna had gone and where he intended to go.

  Setting off again, he eyed the landscape ahead. He saw no sign of the guards stationed on top of the cliff above Djeser Djeseru, but he assumed they were there. Menna would either run into their waiting arms or, more likely, he would spot them before he reached them and try to escape, using either the trail that would take him to the Great Place or some ill-defined and seldom used track that would take him into one of the many wadis west of Djeser Djeseru and the Great Place. A desolate, barren region in which he could easily disappear until such time as he could safely work his way back to the river.

  Given time, the army would track him down, of course, but. .

  A sudden thought struck Bak. He did not want someone else to snare the malign spirit. He wanted to do it himself.

  The realization added wings to his feet and he sped along the trail, his eyes on the man ahead. The short, sharp cheeps of swallows swooping downward to their nests in the cliffs sounded above the rhythmic crunch of his sandals on the trail. Spurts of dust rose each time a foot touched the path, and the dust risen from Menna’s flying feet hung in the air, tickling his nose.

  The trail veered closer to the rim of the cliff, dropped briefly into the upper end of a wadi that ran off to the right, and went on, sometimes wandering closer to the cliff, sometimes away toward the hill-like projections atop the ridge.

  Sweat rolled from his body, a stitch formed in his side. The calves of his legs ached and the wooden staff grew heavy in his hand.

  The distance between him and Menna shrunk to forty paces, thirty, twenty. The guard officer heard his pounding feet, glanced over his shoulder, and managed an added burst of speed. Bak held his pace; the extra effort required to maintain the distance between them would tax him too much.

  The cliff grew higher, the horrendous drop to the valley floor more fearsome. A long hill, more like a ridge, rose to the right. The trail, squeezed closer to the rim of the cliff, rose with it. Bak glimpsed Djeser Djeseru below, pale and insignificant in so large a valley, a series of sharp-edged horizontals in a landscape of sand and stone blunted by time and erosion. The imposing rock face towered above the structure, torn by the elements into towers and crevices and folds and great slabs that appeared to cling by a hair to the parent rock. Its shadows had turned a deep rosy pink, the sunstruck features a multitude of golds and yellows.

  A quick glance back gave Bak a glimpse of Kasaya, Tracker and the lieutenant who had come with Senenmut running along the trail atop the cliff, followed closely by a half-dozen royal guards filing out of the trail up the escarpment.

  As he neared the top of the incline, he once again began to catch up with Menna. The officer’s energy had flagged, his pace had dwindled. Bak gradually closed the distance between them. Less than ten paces apart, close enough to hear Menna’s labored gasps, he chased his quarry along a narrow ridge that rose between the cliff to his left and a wadi that opened off to the right. Just beyond, the branch trail angled off toward the Great Place. He saw no waiting guards.

  Menna veered onto the path to the right. Bak bounded toward him, covering the gap between them in a half-dozen paces. Flinging the makeshift baton aside, he tackled the officer around the thighs and pulled him down. They rolled in the dirt, with one on top and then the other. Bak tried to get a better hold, failed. His arms were slick with sweat and so were the guard officer’s legs. Menna tried to kick free, to strike his opponent in the stomach or high between the legs, but Bak held on tight, restricting movement below the waist.

  They rolled off the trail, dislodging a small pile of rocks someone had left alongside for some unknown purpose. The heavy counterpoise at the back of Menna’s broad collar snagged on one of the stones. The collar broke and fell away.

  The officer twisted, grabbed a rock, struck Bak across the side of the head. A glancing blow that made his head ring but failed to knock him senseless. A warning blow, he took it. He let go of his opponent’s legs, rolled away, and scrambled to his feet.

  Menna stood up more slowly, rock in hand, a calculating look on his face. Bak backed farther away, as respectful of the rock as he would have been of a spear. He glanced around, trying to find the baton he had so thoughtlessly flung aside. He spotted it six or seven paces from where he stood, too far. Taking advantage of Bak’s distraction, Menna jumped toward him, rock raised high, poised to smash his head. Bak leaped aside, spun around and made a fist, and hit the officer as hard as he could in the lower back. Menna’s spine arched and he groaned, but he stayed on his feet. Retreating a few paces, he dropped the rock and tore his dagger from its sheath. Legs spread wide, eyes glinting dangerously, he practically dared Bak to come and get him.

  Bak slipped his own dagger free. They faced each other about four paces apart, breathing hard, sweat pouring down their grimy faces and bodies. Bak could tell his opponent was as tired as he was, but Menna was desperate.

  Hearing the sound of running feet, Bak’s eyes flitted back along the trail. The lieutenant and Kasaya, with the leashed dog running alongside, led a long, straggly line of guards up the path two hundred or so paces away.

  Menna glanced toward the rapidly approaching men, then leaped at his opponent and struck out with the dagger. Bak ducked, felt the blade graze his arm and the warmth of blood oozing out. Menna stepped closer, pressing his advantage, backing his opponent toward the rim of the cliff. Bak eased himself sideways, hoping to change the direction of their struggle and work his way to the baton. He disliked fighting with the dagger, the closeness of it, the treacherous blade that could bleed a man to exhaustion or lay waste to an inner organ. And he feared mightily a fall over the edge of the cliff.

  The guard officer bared his teeth in a mean grin and moved in for what he clearly expected to be a kill.

  Bak leaped at his opponent, striking the hand in which Menna held his dagger, knocking it out of the way, and smashed his left fist hard against the officer’s chin. Stumbling back, shaking his head to clear it, Menna lowered his shoulders and charged like an angered bull. Bak jumped aside and retreated. His eyes darted toward the baton, no more than a couple paces away. The rim of the cliff equally close. Menna stepped forward and sidled around, trying to get between him and the weapon. Trying to force him over the edge.

  Bak threw his dagger. The blade flashed through the air and buried itself deep in Menna’s right shoulder.

  The officer stopped, raised his free hand to the weapon, felt the moisture leaking out around the haft. He looked down, stared with disbelieving eyes at the dagger, the blood seeping between his fingers, and finally at Bak. His weapon fell from his hand. He dropped to his knees, drew in air, coughed. A trace of red trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  Bak walked to him. Kasaya, Tracker, and the lieutenant came running up. A sergeant and a few men were close behind, followed by those strung out along the trail. Menna stared at the men collecting around him. Bak later imagined him looking not at them but at the fate that awaited the malign spirit.

  Menna struggled to his feet. Without warning, taking them all by surprise, he pushed Bak roughly aside and lurched toward the rim of the cliff. Before anyone realized his intent, he pitched himself over the edge.

  Stunned by the act, Bak hurried to the rim and looked down the face of the cliff. Menna lay about two-thirds of the way down on the steep slope of a tower-like formation that rose above the rear corner of the temple. His body lay twisted and torn, his arms and legs flung wide.

  Kasaya and the lieutenant came up beside him and they, too, looked down. The officer’s stunned expression changed to one close to relief. “No man could have fallen so far and lived.”

  Bak nodded. “He knew he was trapped, a man
already dead.”

  A sound of cheering carried on the breeze, softened by distance. Cheering?

  “Look at the men, sir.” Kasaya pointed downward.

  What looked like every man who toiled at Djeser Djeseru stood on the terrace among the statues and column parts, cheering the demise of the man who had, over the past few years, brought into their lives so much injury and death.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “I don’t understand how they could get away with it for so long.” Ptahhotep, standing near the paddock wall, shook his head in amazement. “Are the cemetery guards so blind?”

  “Menna was their officer,” Bak said, looking over the neck of Defender, whose long mane he was combing. “As far as I could tell, they didn’t once suspect him. As one of them said: How could they think him guilty of the very crime he was supposed to prevent?”

  “They could’ve at least kept their eyes open.” Amonked, standing beside Bak’s father, scowled his disapproval.

  “Their failure to uphold the laws of the land, to satisfy the demands of the lady Maat, is unforgivable.”

  His porters and carrying chair sat in the dwindling evening light beneath the sycamore tree, awaiting their master’s departure. Even with darkness fast approaching, he seemed in no hurry to go on his way.

  Bak thought of the men he had talked with before leaving Djeser Djeseru, hunkered around him in the shadow of their hut, crushed by their failure to do their duty and afraid of the consequences. “They must be punished, to be sure, but I’d not be too hard on them, sir. Other than Pashed, who had no time to oversee them properly, they had no one to look to for guidance.”

  “I suppose far more sepulchers are robbed than we’ll ever know-many with the help of a guard or two,” Ptahhotep said thoughtfully. “Just think of the temptation. Walking day after day among the tombs, imagining the wealth lying beneath their feet.”

  Bak caught a handful of mane and began to comb out a knot. Defender whinnied, though his master was sure he was not hurting him. “Not even priests are exempt from temptation. Kaemwaset told me a tale so appalling it would curl our sovereign’s ceremonial beard.”

  Ptahhotep shifted his stance, the better to watch Kasaya spread a thin poultice on Victory’s singed rear legs. “Did Pairi and Humay reveal all before. .?” He let his voice tail off and looked expectantly at his son and Amonked, who had not yet told him exactly what had happened.

  “Before they swallowed the poison?” Bak shook his head.

  “No, but they said enough to verify what we’d guessed.”

  “I’d not take my own life like that,” Kasaya said, looking up from his task. “I’d try to escape and take an arrow in the back rather than give myself a deadly potion.”

  Hori, seated on the wall, measured a length of linen against his arm. Using a sharp knife, he cut it off and handed it to the Medjay. “How could they escape?” he asked scornfully. “They were surrounded by royal guards.”

  Kasaya glared at his friend. “If Menna knew those desert trails, the fishermen did, too. Remember, they played together as children, hunted together as youths.”

  “You remember!” Hori demanded. “Those guards bound their arms with wooden manacles and their ankles with strong leather thongs. Then, instead of staying where they should’ve on the trail above Djeser Djeseru, they hustled them off to the workmen’s village and held them within its walls.”

  “They snared the two atop the cliff before they could do more damage,” Kasaya said, defending the guards more for the sake of argument than because he cared, Bak felt sure.

  “How were they to know the worst of the lot was running toward them?”

  Bak wondered how he would be able to tolerate the pair’s squabbling for another month or so, until Commandant Thuty and the others arrived from Buhen and they would all travel on together to Mennufer. He had not been gone long, but he missed them already: Nebwa, Imsiba, Nofery, his Medjays-everyone. “I know you must return to the city,”

  he said to Amonked, “but before you go, will you share a jar of wine to celebrate the end of the malign spirit?”

  As the three men walked to the house, Ptahhotep asked,

  “What brought the workmen onto the terrace? Did someone tell them you were chasing the malign spirit along the rim of the cliff?”

  “Pashed.” Bak had to smile. “Like me, as soon as he saw Menna run, he was certain of his guilt. I’d warned him not to reveal the wretched creature’s identity, but he couldn’t help himself. I can’t say I blame him. Would I have been able to hold my silence if I’d stood in his sandals, having watched my work crews suffer injury and death, having seen the most important task of my life being destroyed by a man bent on malicious destruction?”

  “Now tell me what you believe they’ve been doing. And get on with it!” Ptahhotep’s smile made a lie of his pretended impatience. “Do you wish Amonked’s wife to send servants out in the dead of night, fearing him attacked by ruffians?”

  Amonked, seated beside the physician on a low stool beneath the portico, appeared unworried by the possibility.

  “Menna was a cousin to Pairi and Humay. The fishermen have been robbing tombs since they were children-or so the mayor of western Waset believes-and Menna probably went with them as often as he could.” He took a sip of the deep red wine, which smelled of fresh grapes, and smacked his lips in approval. “An uncle who dwelt in one of the local villages used them to crawl through holes too small for a man.”

  “When the uncle died, they struck out on their own.” Bak dropped onto the earthen floor beside his father. “Thanks to his years of instruction, they knew the types of tombs most likely to contain riches and where best to locate them. They found enough treasure to satisfy them, but as their market was local, they had to break up all objects of worth and melt down the gold. Which decreased their gain considerably.”

  “Pieces of value would be suspect throughout the land of Kemet,” Ptahhotep agreed, “especially when offered by mere fishermen.”

  Amonked plucked a small salted fish from a bowl beside his feet. Tracker, lying a pace or so away, opened an eye but scorned the contents so temptingly set before him. “They could easily have made an honest living on the river, but chose also to defy the lady Maat. Why they pursued so dangerous a path is beyond me.”

  Bak, caught with his mouth full, swallowed. “The same could be said of Menna, who’d been schooled to read and write and entered the army at an early age. He had every opportunity to lead an honest and honorable life, but chose instead a quest for riches.”

  “Perhaps thieving was in their blood,” the physician said, looking thoughtful.

  “One never knows of course, but Menna, at least, might’ve turned his back on a life of crime if the lord Set hadn’t smiled upon him.” Amonked took a sip of wine, added, “He served as scribe to several envoys to various city states at the eastern end of the Great Green Sea, and there he met men who coveted the baubles of the noble and royal personages of Kemet.”

  “Potential customers,” Ptahhotep commented.

  Nodding, Bak said, “About six years ago he came back to Waset. He was posted initially in the garrison, serving as one of several scribes in the commandant’s office.” His tone turned dry, cynical. “Again the lord Set favored him. His first assignment was to organize the older files and take them to the hall of records for storage in the archives. He immediately recognized the possibilities and ingratiated himself with the chief archivist. Within a short time he learned how to search the records and was given free rein to do so.”

  Ptahhotep picked up a large, cylindrical jar with a tall, thin neck and refilled their drinking bowls. “So he had available to him the same documents Kaemwaset and Hori found.”

  “Others as well.” Amonked released a long, unhappy sigh.

  “We’ve no idea how many scrolls he destroyed.”

  The physician’s mouth tightened. “Any man who would do such a thing. .”

  Bak laid a hand on his fa
ther’s shoulder, quieting him.

  “Thanks to a document he found a little over four years ago, they located a royal sepulcher, the ultimate goal of every tomb robber in the land of Kemet. This was the final resting place of Nebhepetre Montuhotep’s Great Royal Wife Neferu, which is in the valley where Djeser Djeseru is presently being built.” He glanced at Hori and Kasaya, approaching the house through the gathering darkness, cutting short the call of a night bird. “The sepulcher had long ago been rifled, its contents stolen or destroyed, but they found a few pieces of jewelry hidden in a cleverly concealed niche. Very valuable pieces. Never before had they entered a royal tomb, and this made them hungry for more royal trinkets.”

  “The pieces we found in Buhen came from her tomb,”

  Hori said, plopping down beside the dog and rubbing the top of its head vigorously with a knuckle. A low growl warned against such rough treatment and the youth snatched his hand away.

  “At that time, the valley was a lonely and empty place.

  They had it to themselves much of the time.” Amonked ate a fish, washed it down with wine. “Thinking Neferu’s tomb a good omen, pointing to further riches in the area around her husband’s temple, they dug and dug again. They found and rifled several tombs beneath the valley floor and in the surrounding hillsides, but none were royal. According to the men who questioned them, Humay bragged of walking into and out of the sepulchers in the light of day with no one the wiser.”

  “Suddenly, Senenmut descended upon the valley,” Bak said, breaking into a smile. “He claimed it for Maatkare Hatshepsut and she announced her plan to build her memorial temple there. Surveys were taken, foundation deposits laid.