Cruel Deceit lb-6

by Lauren Haney

  There! he thought, spotting the cleft a half-dozen paces ahead, midway between him and the pair. He leaped toward it.

  “Stop him!” yelled one, lunging forward.

  Bak felt the man’s groping hands just as he ducked into the passage. Blackness closed around him, with not a speck of light above-or at the far end.

  What had he gotten himself into?

  A quick glance back revealed a man at the mouth of the passage, peering inside. A rude reminder that retreat was im possible. Whatever lay ahead, he must face.

  “It’s blacker than night in there,” the man said.

  “Go in and get him, you louts.” A second voice, gravelly, irritable.

  Bak took several cautious steps deeper into the passage. It was as wide as his shoulders with no room to spare, its walls rough and uneven-bare mudbrick, he realized. The hard packed earthen floor was slick, and he smelled manure.

  Shuddering at the very thought of what he might be walking through-and into-he pressed forward.

  The men outside had begun to argue about who would en ter the passage first. The gravel-voiced leader barked out a name. A man cursed and shifted his feet, sending a pebble skittering across the lane. Bak glanced back, saw someone standing in the mouth of the passage, blocking what little light there was.

  “I can’t see a thing.”

  “Then neither can he!” the man in charge snapped. “Go on.”

  “But, sir!”

  “Get a torch, one of you,” the leader commanded.

  “Where?” another man whined. “The houses are all dark.”

  “Go find a sentry.”

  “But…”

  “If you come up behind him, he’ll never know who or what hit him.” The gravel voice paused, growled, “Now hurry up. We can’t let that accursed lieutenant get away.” He spat out the words, as venomous as a horned viper.

  Bak’s blood ran cold. If they had set their trap, meaning to snare a man at random, the first to come along, they would not have known his rank. They had planned to catch him and, if their weapons were any indication of intent, they meant to slay him.

  He walked on, trying not to rush, placing his feet with care. The last thing he wanted was to slip and fall. He moved through the darkness, his hands against the walls, thinking to find a gap, a door. He could not be sure, but he thought the lane was curving gradually to his right, which might explain his failure to see light ahead. He prayed such was the case, that he would soon find a way out.

  Something skittered across the floor. It ran over his foot, its tiny claws sending chills down his spine, and raced away toward the mouth of the passage. A rat, he thought. A yell sounded behind him, the thud of a man falling. Angry curses from gravel voice, nervous laughter from the others. As dire as his situation was, Bak could not help but smile.

  His foot bumped into something hairy. If the faint smell of decaying flesh was any indication, an animal had some time ago crawled into the passage to die. Carefully he stepped over it. His foot came down on something wet and soft that squished between his toes. He closed his thoughts to the possibilities.

  “He did it!” Bak heard behind him, the shout muted by the rough walls between him and the lane. “Look! He got the torch.”

  Bak had no idea how far he had come, probably not a great distance. One thing he knew for a fact: the light would give his pursuers a distinct advantage.

  Would this vile passage never end?

  He moved forward, two paces, four, eight. Far ahead, the walls had taken on a kind of texture, as if he could distin guish one mudbrick from another. He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them. Was the world around him growing lighter? Or was his heart so filled with hopeful thinking that he imagined an end to this nightmare journey? Flinging caution aside, he hurried on into a darkness that seemed not quite so black.

  Without warning he bumped into a low barrier, and at the same time the wall to his right came to an end. The barrier was a gate, he discovered, made of the thin branches of a tree. He scrambled over, and the space around him opened up. In the lesser darkness, he saw sheaves of hay stacked along a wall and a water trough built against a second wall.

  A pile of straw lay nearby. He was in an animal shelter. Four paces farther and he stood in a courtyard lit by the moon and a sky sprinkled with stars. Seven or eight donkeys lay on a bed of straw strewn around an acacia. One made a blowing sound, the rest were content to stare.

  Relieved beyond measure, Bak thanked the lord Amon for freeing him from the passage. Before he could form another prayer, this one asking for a way out, he spotted, beyond the tree, a door closed by a sturdy mat.

  Light flashed into the shelter, he heard voices approaching along the passage. His pursuers were closing on him. He raced around the tree, struck the mat with his shoulder, tear ing it down, and stepped into a room as black as the passage had been. He walked forward, sliding his feet along the earthen floor, hoping not to blunder into anything.

  A man with a torch rushed through the door behind him.

  In the flickering light, Bak spotted an open doorway three paces ahead and a stairway only a pace away. Lunging to ward the stairs, he raced upward and burst out onto the moonlit roof. He swerved aside, narrowly avoiding stum bling over a family sleeping there, taking advantage of the cool night air. The man, jerked rudely from his slumber, sat up and yelled. A baby began to howl. All across the roofs of the interconnected houses, men and women and children sat up and looked around, trying to understand what had awak ened them.

  Bak sped across the open expanse, racing around flimsy pavilions and people aroused from sleep, leaping over bra ziers, baked clay pots and dishes, tools, animals and do mestic fowl. His pursuers formed a ragged line behind him, the nearest no more than three paces back. The man carrying the torch was second in line, careless of the light, letting the sparks fly where they would. Dogs barked, men cursed, women screamed threats or demanded their men act, small children whimpered while their older brothers shouted out in excitement.

  Bak angled toward the low parapet that marked the edge of the building block and looked into the lane below. The roof was so far above the ground that he would more likely than not break a leg if he jumped. The gap between the buildings was too wide.

  “Got him!” a man shouted and raised his staff to swing.

  His expression was hard and mean, revealing his deadly in tent.

  Bak danced sideways, slammed his baton across the man’s shoulder. As his would-be assailant cried out in agony and fell to his knees, Bak dodged another man’s grasp.

  Breathing hard, he swung his baton at a third man, forcing him back against a flimsy pavilion. The structure collapsed, the dry brush atop the shelter tumbled around the nearest pair. One support, a rough pole, broke free and rolled across the rooftop.

  Praying it was a good, solid piece of wood, Bak scooped it up, raced toward the parapet, and vaulted into space. He heard the wood crack beneath his weight, but momentum carried him safely over the gap between the buildings.

  Later, sitting in the courtyard of his Medjays’ quarters, watching the two men on duty playing knucklebones, Bak let his thoughts return to his near entrapment and narrow es cape. He was following two paths, that of Pentu and the trai tor in his household and that of the possible thefts in the sacred precinct. Which was the one causing the cobra to rear its ugly head? Or were the two paths converging?

  Bak went to Pentu’s house the following morning with a renewed determination to lay hands on the man he sought.

  He doubted his questions of the previous day had led to the attempt on his life, but one way or another he meant to find out.

  The governor was most unhappy when he learned Bak had come to speak with his wife and her sister. He made it clear that the sooner the police officer finished with his household, the happier he would be. After agreeing to tell the women they must cooperate, he summoned a servant to usher his unwanted guest outside the house to a small walled garden, rare in a crowded neighbo
rhood such as this. There Bak had to wait for more than an hour, sometimes sitting, sometimes pacing along neat paths that meandered through an oasis of pruned, shaped, and trained plants and shrubs, none allowed to flourish in their natural form. He thought of leaving more than once, but he, too, wanted the interviews over and done with.

  “I know nothing of that Hittite’s death,” Taharet said, sit ting down on a shaded bench beside a small fish pool. “I can’t imagine what gave you the idea that I could help.”

  “You were in Hattusa with your husband.” Bak, irritated by the long wait, spoke like a teacher enumerating important points to a callow youth. “Someone who dwelt with you in the envoy’s residence became involved in the politics of the land of Hatti. As a result, Pentu and all his household were recalled to Kemet. Maruwa’s death may well be related to that recall.”

  “We returned three years ago. If a connection exists, why was he not slain before now?”

  Bak knelt on the opposite side of the pool so he could see her face, which was cool, composed, a picture of studied re finement. Like the garden and the pond, where not a leaf marred the water’s surface, her appearance was faultless. He eyed a small green frog sunning itself on a lily pad and won dered how it dared invade a place of such perfection. “Do you have any idea who in your household might’ve wished to foment trouble in Hatti, and for what reason?”

  “My husband is a man of integrity, Lieutenant. I suspect he made the Hittite king look and feel small. I think that king accused someone in our household, offering no name or proof of wrongdoing because none existed, and had us withdrawn so he wouldn’t have to be reminded day after day of his own petty nature.”

  “An interesting theory.”

  “You sound skeptical, Lieutenant.”

  Bak thought her idea absurd. “Did you ever meet Maruwa?”

  “I did not.” Her voice was firm, the statement absolute.

  Rising to his feet, he said, “While you dwelt in Hattusa, mistress, Pahure obtained for you and your sister several small but desirable items imported into Hatti from the land of Kemet. Did you ever meet the merchant he purchased them from? Zuwapi is his name.”

  “What reason would I have to talk to a Hittite merchant?

  Or a merchant in Kemet, for that matter. That’s Pahure’s task, one he performs well enough.”

  Bak walked a few paces along a path he had trod many times over the past hour. He had to admire the steward, who must surely have the patience of a deity to put up with this woman. Was she the daughter of a nobleman, reared to look down upon all others? Or did she come from baser stock and thought to prove her superiority by belittling all who drew near?

  “Do you ever meet priests or scribes who toil in the sa cred precinct of the lord Amon?” Walking back to the pool, he made a silent guess as to her answer. She did not disap point him.

  “I’ve met the chief priest and a few of his closest advisers on social occasions.” She flashed a bright smile. “Ha puseneb is such a wonderful man. I’m sorry we won’t see him during the Beautiful Feast of Opet, but as you may or may not know, he’s much too involved with official rituals to celebrate with good and companionable friends, as the rest of us do.”

  Before he could congratulate himself on his perspicacity, she added, “You’re not interested in Hapuseneb, are you?

  You want to know if I was acquainted with the men who were slain in the sacred precinct.”

  “Your husband told you I’d ask,” Bak said, trying not to sound annoyed. Of course Pentu would have warned her; carrying the tale might have earned him a pat on the head.

  “We keep few secrets from each other, Lieutenant.”

  “And you keep no secrets from your sister, I’d wager.”

  She smiled, bowed her head in acknowledgment. “We’re very close, yes.”

  Bak snapped a large yellowish blossom from a vine that climbed the wall of the one-story dwelling that abutted the garden. The flower gave off a heavy, slightly musty scent.

  “Did you know either the priest Meryamon or the scribe

  Woserhet?”

  “No, Lieutenant, I didn’t. Neither was of sufficient rank to accompany Hapuseneb.”

  Bak dropped the blossom into the pool, earning a scowl from Taharet. “I’ve no further questions, mistress, at least not at the moment. Perhaps later my quest will take me down a different path and I’ll have a need to make additional inquiries.”

  She rose gracefully to her feet, formed a gracious but not especially sincere smile. “I’ll have a servant see you to the door.”

  “Before I go,” he said, his smile matching hers, “I must speak with your sister.”

  She paused, raised an eyebrow. “Oh, didn’t I tell you?

  She’s ill, unable to talk with anyone.”

  “When will she be well enough to see me?”

  “I’m not a physician, Lieutenant. How can I predict the course of an illness?”

  Walking away from the dwelling, thoroughly annoyed,

  Bak thought over his interview with the woman. Her atti tude, once warm and friendly, had changed completely.

  Why? he wondered. Did she feel his investigation threatened her husband and therefore her comfortable existence?

  Meret’s illness, he felt sure, was a lie. Had Taharet decided to hold him and her sister apart, fearing they might grow fond of each other?

  “I’m sorry, sir, but they’ve all gone.” The haggard-looking woman stood with one thrust-out hip straddled by a naked child about two years of age. The boy, his thumb in his mouth, stared wide-eyed at Bak.

  “Do you have any idea where they went?” Bak stepped out of the house where the scribe Tati and the four workmen had dwelt and toiled for Woserhet. He had found the build ing empty of furnishings and life.

  “They came without a word, and that’s the way they left.”

  Bak muttered an oath. Why had he not sent Kasaya back another time? He needed to speak with the man, needed to look through the auditor’s records. “Did the scribe leave with the others?”

  She snorted. “Do you think they’d make a move without him?”

  “My Medjay came three days ago, searching for him.

  When he didn’t find him, he left a message that I wanted to see him.” Bitterness tinged Bak’s voice. “Now I find he’s been here all along.”

  “No, sir. He’s been gone.” She grabbed the child by its bare bottom and heaved it higher on her hip. “I hadn’t seen him for several days, then he returned this morning and in less than an hour they’d all moved out.”

  Why such a hasty departure? Bak wondered. Was Tati afraid for his life for some reason? Were they all frightened?

  Or had they merely been given another assignment? Where had Woserhet’s files been taken?

  “They’re not here, sir.”

  Bak frowned at the mat covering the door of the house where Ashayet dwelt with her children. “Have they gone for an hour or a day?”

  The girl, roughly eight years of age, the tallest of the six children barring Bak’s path, kept her expression grave. He guessed she was an older sister, caretaker of her smaller sib lings. “Mistress Ashayet’s husband, Woserhet, has been slain, sir. He’s in the house of death. As he’ll be there for some time, she thought to go away, to stay with her mother and father until she must place him in his eternal resting place.”

  Recalling the modest way in which Woserhet had dwelt,

  Bak doubted the widow had sufficient wealth to have his body preserved in the most elaborate and lengthy manner.

  What little she had, she must use to care for her children.

  “When does she plan to return?”

  “Not for a long time, sir.”

  “They’ll be gone for at least a week,” said a small boy in a chirpy voice.

  “Shush!” the girl commanded. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, sir. They went to Abu. They’ll be gone close to two months.”

  A voyage to Abu? An extended stay? “Wos
erhet will re main in the house of death that long?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.” A bright, excited smile lit up the girl’s face.

  “A priest named Ptahmes came and he spoke for no less a man than the chief priest Hapuseneb. He told mistress

  Ashayet how highly regarded her husband had been and said the lord Amon himself would see that he received the best of care in the house of death. He’ll also be given a resting place befitting his upstanding character.”

  Bak whistled. The smaller children nudged each other and giggled, delighted their sister had impressed him so.

  “If the chief priest can take the time to provide Woserhet with more in death than he had in life, why can’t he spare a half hour or so to tell us of the auditor’s mission?”

  Bak had to smile at Hori’s disgruntled expression. “I sus pect Ptahmes took upon himself the task of rewarding

  Woserhet without a word from Hapuseneb. Which tells me that, though he might not know what Woserhet was doing, he had no doubt of the auditor’s importance to the chief priest and the lord Amon.”

  The young scribe laid the last fragment of charred scroll on top of all the others, carried them into the shade beneath the pavilion, placed them on top of the rolled scrolls in the basket, and weighted them down with a rock. “What a waste of time this task was! I didn’t find a thing that would lead us to Woserhet’s slayer.”

  “I doubt your search was all in vain.” Bak told him of the auditor’s visit to Tjeny and his request to see Pentu’s files.

  “Evidently Woserhet wasn’t interested in any of the gover nor’s records except those that list the items he sent as offer ings to the lord Amon. Which leads me to believe he was tracking objects from their point of origin to the god’s store houses and maybe on until they were consumed or shipped elsewhere or reverted back to the priests or the people for or dinary use.”

  “We can’t very well follow in his footsteps.” With a clat ter, Kasaya dropped a handful of baked clay shards and chips onto a pile of similar fragments for which he had no use. “We’ve no authority to inspect all the governors’ rec ords, and even if we had, we’d have to travel the length of the river from the Great Green Sea to Abu. To visit so many provinces would take several months.”