by Lauren Haney
Tetynefer placed pen to papyrus and scratched out a dozen more lines. When he finished, he gave Bak a complacent smile. “I pointed no finger at Azzia; however, I’m sure the viceroy will guess from the contents of this message that it was she who slew her husband.”
He blotted the ink, rolled the papyrus tight, and secured it with a cord. After placing a small chunk of moist clay on the knot and pressing his seal into it, he handed it to Bak. “A courier is waiting at the quay. Tell him to take this to Ma’am immediately and to wait for the viceroy’s response.”
Three days, Bak thought, only three days. What could he accomplish in so short a time? He hesitated, sorely tempted to report the gold. No, he decided, not yet. He had to look at other possibilities, at other potential suspects. Where should he start? With Mery, he decided, and Nebwa and Paser, the three officers who were on the battlements near the time of Nakht’s death. At the very least, one of them might have seen something suspicious.
Bak leaned against the open portal between the lane and the small walled courtyard fronting the unmarried officer’s quarters, a dwelling of at least a half-dozen rooms. A mudbrick bench ran along the facade of the house and several wispy tamarisks grew along the wall to his left. The night’s chill remained in the shaded court. Besides the caravan officer Paser, who was seated on the bench, the sole other occupant up and about was a reed-thin servant, a boy no more than ten years old. He squatted beside a low-rimmed pottery bowl resting on a bed of coals in a square brick hearth. The scent of onions and fish rising from the bowl made Bak’s stomach ache for breakfast.
“How can you doubt Azzia took her husband’s life?” Paser asked. “Have you reason to believe someone else was there?”
“No,” Bak admitted, “but I hesitate to accuse her until I’m certain.”
“Nakht was a true warrior, a man I admired above all others,” Paser’s voice hardened, “but he should never have wed a foreign woman.”
Bak eyed the square-bodied lieutenant, a man in his late twenties with skin burned as dark as leather from many hours in the sun. His build, his sharp features, and a cool self-confidence bordering on arrogance testified to the fact that he was first cousin to Senenmut, chief steward of the lord Amon and Maatkare Hatshepsut’s favorite. Her advisor and, if the rumors were true, her lover. Nakht had called Paser the boldest of the several officers who led the caravans back and forth between Buhen and the mines.
“I understand he lived in Hatti when they met,” Bak said, “where he was the foreigner.”
Paser’s laugh was hard, cynical. “He was younger then.”
“Are you saying he regretted the match?”
“All the world knows he couldn’t bear to be away from her,” Paser said scornfully. “Maybe he feared he’d lose her, maybe he could no longer please her in the privacy of his bedchamber.”
Bak thought of his own father, a few years older than Nakht, who every night shared his sleeping pallet with either his matronly housekeeper or a pretty young servant girl. He knew, though, that some men lost their virility earlier than others.
“Do you believe she had a lover?” he asked.
Paser stood up and walked to the fire. “I came upon them by chance a day or two ago. They were quarreling.” He knelt beside the boy, speared a fish with a pointed stick, and laid it on a small, flat loaf of bread. “Nakht made no outright accusations, but from the veiled words he used I had no doubt of his mistrust. And now…” He chuckled, insinuating the worst. “Well, she’s free, isn’t she?”
“Who’s free?” Nebwa emerged from the dwelling, yawning broadly as he tried with awkward fingers to fasten his kilt. He was tall and muscular, about thirty years of age, more tanned than Paser. His hair was untidy, his coarse features puffy, as if he had just left his sleeping pallet. He was the senior lieutenant in Buhen, in charge of the garrison infantry. His men patrolled the desert and skirmished with tribesmen bent on raiding villages and farms along the sector of river for which Buhen was responsible.
“Azzia,” Paser said shortly. “Nakht’s widow.”
Nebwa muttered a curse, glanced through the door behind him, and issued a sharp command in a tongue Bak could not understand. A slender dark-skinned woman in her late teens hurried outside to straighten his twisted belt. She wore a multicolored skirt dyed in a chevron pattern; other than a dozen or so bronze chains bearing a multitude of colorful stone amulets, her upper body was bare. She had come, Bak guessed, from one of the nearby villages.
“She’s free, all right, but she’s not for the likes of you and me.” Nebwa wrapped a proprietary arm around the girl’s waist and pulled her close. “She’s a lady, unlike this one, who would lie with a monkey if it fed her.”
Cupping a shapely breast in his hand, he bent to take it in his mouth. She glanced at Bak and looked away quickly as if embarrassed to be used in such a way. The boy stared at the bubbling food, his nostrils flaring, his mouth tight. Bak thanked the gods Nakht had seen fit to give him separate quarters. With only Hori sharing his house, he did not have to worry about other men’s habits or tempers.
“Must you always behave like a heated ram?” Paser snarled.
Nebwa raised his head, laughed. “Isn’t that why I keep her?” With another quick command and a slap on the buttocks, he sent her toward the hearth.
Scowling, Paser broke open his cooling fish, tore a piece of flesh from the bones, and ate it. “If I were you, Bak, I’d keep a close eye on Azzia.”
“Why?” Nebwa sneered. “She didn’t slay him. Even if she did, what do you expect her to do? Run off into the desert? Or sneak onto the first merchant ship leaving Buhen?” He flopped down on the dusty hard-packed earth. “That’d be smart, wouldn’t it? It’d be an admission of guilt. All Bak would have to do is send out a courier and she’d be picked off the ship at the next port.”
“For a price, half the captains on the river would hide anything or anyone among their cargo.”
“Bah! A couple of soldiers can go through a ship from prow to stern in less time than it’ll take you to eat that fish.”
Bak would have let them squabble if he felt he was learning anything new, but he was not. “I’ve been told you both were on the wall last night, and I wondered if you saw…”
“Officer Bak!” Mery’s voice, urgent, angry, interrupted, followed by the quick patter of his sandaled feet approaching along the lane.
Bak swiveled around.
Mery drew up before him, cheeks flushed, eyes blazing. “You left a Medjay in mistress Azzia’s home, watching her like a common criminal. How could you do such a despicable thing?”
Bak was too tired to appease him. “What would you have me do? Call her innocent when I’m not sure she is?”
“Better that than to call her guilty when you have no proof.”
“Proof!” Paser jeered. “What better proof than the blood on her hands?”
Mery swung on him, ready to strike, but a quick, hard command from Nebwa, his senior officer, broke his will to act. He slumped on the ground beside the tamarisks.
Bak’s eyes narrowed on Paser. He did not remember seeing the caravan officer’s name on the list of men who had swarmed upstairs from the audience hall. “You were there? In the commandant’s residence?”
Paser gave him a cool look. “I wasn’t, as you surely know. But I’ve been told how she looked. Everyone in Buhen has heard.”
The woman knelt beside Nebwa with several fish. He grabbed one by the tail and tore it apart. With his mouth full, he said, “I was there. I saw the blood, and I also saw her face. I’d swear before the lord Amon himself that she didn’t slay him.”
Bak asked the question that had puzzled him ever since he had seen Nebwa’s name on the list. “Why didn’t you take charge after Nakht was slain? You’re senior in rank to Mery.”
Nebwa glanced at the watch officer, shrugged. “He had the situation well in hand when I got there. I saw no reason to interfere.”
“You weren’t in the residence when mistress Azz
ia screamed?”
“I was on my way. Like everybody else, I wanted to see your Medjays bring in their prisoners. I thought they’d bring Nofery in, too, and she…” Nebwa looked up from the fish, grinned. “She can cause quite a stir when she wants to.”
“Sorry we disappointed you,” Bak said in a tone as dry as the desert sands.
“I’d have missed it anyway.” Nebwa scowled at the lost opportunity. “Before I got there, I thought I heard somebody running across the roof of the scribal office building. I went up to take a look.”
Bak’s interest quickened. “Did you see anyone?”
“I knew it!” Mery flung a triumphant smile at Bak. “Mistress Azzia didn’t slay Nakht! Someone else did. Someone who entered from the roof.”
Nebwa spread his hands wide. “I saw nothing but shadows.”
“How thoroughly did you search the area?” Bak asked, smothering his disappointment.
“I was a pace or two from the top of the stairs when Azzia screamed. I was pretty sure nobody was up there, but just in case, I found the guard-he was in one of the storage magazines-and sent him up to take another look. He told me later he walked the roofs from one end of the block to the other and saw nothing.”
Bak muttered a frustrated curse. If anyone had been on the roof, he’d have had plenty of time to run down the stairs and out to the street while Nebwa sought out the guard. On the other hand, it would have been an easy matter for Nebwa himself to cross from one roof to another and slip down the stairs to Nakht’s reception room.
“By the time I finally got to the residence, Nakht had breathed his last.” Nebwa thought a moment then, added grimly, “If I’d found anybody on that roof, he’d be a dead man, that I can tell you for a fact.”
Paser helped himself to another fish and carried it to the bench, where he sat down. “From what I hear, Mery refused to let anyone near the commandant’s body.” He glanced at the slim young man and smirked. “For Azzia’s sake, I assume.”
Mery’s face reddened-but whether from anger or embarrassment, Bak could not tell. “I thought Bak should see the room as I found it, not disturbed by a dozen pairs of feet and hands.”
“Did he?”
“I didn’t alter the scene to make mistress Azzia look innocent, if that’s what you’re implying,” Mery snapped.
“Not at all,” Paser said so smoothly it was obvious that was exactly what he meant.
Mery glared at his accuser, lips so tight the scar at the corner vanished from sight. Paser raised an eyebrow as if surprised at the younger officer’s anger. Mery shot to his feet.
“Easy!” Nebwa boomed.
Mery pivoted and walked to the hearth. Bak eyed his back, wondering if his retreat was an admission of guilt. With the door closed to the men outside, he could have moved the furniture or smeared the blood or removed some object that would point to Azzia. Or he could have ended Nakht’s life himself. His admiration for the woman appeared to have no bounds.
As for Paser, it seemed unwise to bait a fellow officer in a frontier garrison like Buhen, especially since they shared the same quarters. Did he know for a fact that Mery and Azzia were lovers? Or had he meant to draw Bak’s attention away from his own activities?
He asked, “Where were you, Paser, when Nakht lost his life?”
Paser eyed Bak with a hint of amusement. “I believe you’re actually taking this new task of yours to heart.”
Bak smarted at the sarcasm, but gave no sign. “I know you were on the battlements for a time. Where did you go from there, and what did you see?”
Paser leaned back and stretched out his legs. “Are you aware that I have the ear of the chief steward Senenmut, our sovereign’s right hand?”
Bak smiled. Compared to what could happen if anyone discovered he had kept the gold, the implied threat seemed insignificant. “I have the ear of the commander-in-chief of our army, Menkheperre Thutmose.” It was not the truth, but Paser had no way of knowing that.
The caravan officer stared, the glint fading from his eyes. He had to know, as well if not better than most, that if Maatkare Hatshepsut lost the throne to her nephew, Senenmut would be the first among her allies to fall from power.
Nebwa slapped his thigh and laughed with delight. “What’s wrong, lieutenant? Has Bak caught you with your loincloth around your ankles?”
A flush spread across Paser’s cheeks, but he kept his eyes on Bak. “I don’t know where I was. I walked hither and yon, thinking over Nakht’s plans for providing more protection for the caravans.”
“Were you near the residence at any time?”
“Probably.” Paser threw the denuded fish bones into the fire. “In fact…yes, I saw your Medjays escorting their prisoners into the building. I had no wish to ogle a group of besotted men, so I walked on.”
“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”
“Other than the outrageously large number of prisoners you chose to take, no.”
So all three had been on the battlements during the night and, later, in or near the commandant’s residence. Any of them could have sneaked into Nakht’s room. Bak drew his thoughts up short. What am I doing? he wondered; I’ve no more reason to think these men guilty than anyone else in Buhen.
He glanced at Mery and Nebwa. “Since neither of you believe mistress Azzia took her husband’s life, can you guess who did?”
“I’ve tried and tried,” Mery said, looking up from the fish from which he was carefully stripping the bones. “I can think of no one. He was a good man, highly respected by all. Even the local people living along this stretch of the river held him in high regard.”
“Deep wounds heal slowly,” Bak said thoughtfully. “The army of Akheperenre Thutmose marched through this land twenty-five years ago with a vengeance. His soldiers took many lives among those involved in the uprising, and left many widows and orphan children. Do you think one among them carries sufficient hate in his heart to have slain Nakht?”
“Those savages?” Nebwa snorted, contemptuous. “There’s not a man among them smart enough to slip past the guards and inside the walls.”
Bak glimpsed the face of the girl, huddled within Nebwa’s encircling arm, an instant before she lowered her head. He saw shame there and hurt. The boy’s black eyes glittered with hate.
Mery placed a hand on the child’s bony shoulder. “These people saw the might of our army and they’ve never ceased to fear it. None would risk having his village burned and his family and livestock carried off to the holy mansions of Kemet. The men of the desert, on the other hand, those who raid the caravans, have nothing to lose.”
“The caravans are slow, our soldiers vulnerable,” Nebwa explained. “Easy prey for the murderous jackals who know the best places to attack and the fastest routes to run away. But to enter Buhen to slay one man and take away no booty?” He expelled a hard, scornful laugh. “No, Bak. You must look inside the walls, not outside.”
Bak nodded, certain Nebwa was right. The one who had entered Nakht’s room with murder in his-or her-heart had not been a stranger. “Who do you suspect?”
Nebwa’s eyes met his with no hesitation. “Those cursed Medjays you brought from Waset. Who else? The building was full of them.”
Bak swallowed a curse. “No.”
“They were taken to Kemet as boys. They speak like us and act like us, but their hearts belong to this vile land of Wawat. If you look at each of them in turn, you’ll find one, maybe two or three, maybe all, who believe that to sever the head of the garrison is to weaken its body.”
Chapter Four
“The man is abhorrent to the gods!” Imsiba growled. “For a single grain of emmer, I’d slice out his tongue and throw it to the crocodiles.”
“I’d help if I thought it would do any good,” Bak said grimly, “but it wouldn’t. Nebwa’s father soldiered in Wawat and so did his father’s father. As victors, they planted contempt in his heart, and the seed has grown far out of proportion to his own experience.”
He stepped out of his kilt and untied his loincloth, threw both on a black granite boulder protruding from the river’s edge, and waded into the water until it lapped around his thighs. It cooled his tired legs, soothed his knotted calves.
Several hundred paces downstream, the walls of Buhen, stark white in the hot, brilliant sunlight, rose high above the river. The closest of the three stone quays jutting into the smooth brownish water was lined with small boats, the fishing fleet from nearby villages. A half dozen soldiers were carrying most of the morning’s catch to the garrison cook; a few officers’ wives and servants stood among the fishermen, haggling over the price of their evening meal.
“Will Nebwa go to Tetynefer with his vile accusation?” Imsiba asked.
“I think not. At least not yet.” Bak splashed water over his shoulders. “He knows he must have something more solid than words to accuse our men of murder. But he’s a rash man, so we must be prepared in case he does.”
“What can I do, my friend?”
Bak glanced at the tall Medjay who knelt in the shade of a row of acacias lining the riverbank. “You must learn the location of every man in our company at the time Nakht lost his life. Where possible, you must find witnesses who saw them, preferably men of Kemet.”
Imsiba nodded his approval. “If we can prove they were elsewhere, they’ll be above reproach.” He hesitated, asked, “Shouldn’t you approach the witnesses? They may not speak freely to me.”
A broad-beamed military transport, sail lowered, oarsmen paddling to the cadence of a drummer, swung across the current to dock. This, Bak guessed, was the vessel on which he and Azzia would travel to Ma’am.
“Take Hori with you. His youth and innocence can be most disarming-and persuasive.”
Imsiba smiled. “The boy could charm water from a stone.”
“He’ll not like having his sleep disturbed, but when you explain what we need, his complaints will fade like mist in the breeze.”
“Yes, he yearns to be a policeman, and he thinks of our men as brothers.”