A Vile Justice

by Lauren Haney

  "I have a feeling," Bak said, turning again to Simut, "that the slayer wishes to damage Djehuty, not the province. In that respect, Hatnofer stood among you as an equal and you no longer have to fear for your lives."

  "And if you err?" Simut shot back.

  Taking care not to show how annoyed he was, praying a second death would not occur before the sun dropped below the western horizon, Bak's eyes traveled along the row of men. "Go on about your business, all of you. But go with care, extreme care, surrounding yourselves at all times with other men, giving the slayer no chance to draw near."

  * * *

  They hurried out of the audience hall, Amonhotep in the lead, Nefer whimpering a step or two behind, and Bak close on her heels. They strode through a series of chambers, all comfortably furnished with low wooden tables, stools, and chests. Rush mats covered the floors and floral paintings decorated many walls. In the larger rooms, flowers of every color imaginable were massed in pottery jars, perfuming the air. Deeper in the dwelling, a series of corridors took them past smaller, plainer chambers containing sleeping pallets and storage chests.

  Leaving the building through a rear door, they hastened across a bare patch of sand, passing a row of four tall, conical granaries built alongside the house. A gate through a waisthigh wall took them into another sandy yard, which fronted the long, low building housing the kitchen and servants' quarters. The yeasty scent of fresh bread vied with the aroma of roasting meat, reminding Bak of the midday meal he had missed. The tangy odor of manure drifted from a building hidden behind a wall; the whinny of a horse identified its occupants.

  Within another, smaller enclosed yard, he saw the well, a wide-mouthed round hole surrounded by a low wall, with a flight of steps leading downward. Beyond a higher wall, date palms whispered in the breeze and birds fluttered among the leaves of a sycamore: the garden he had seen earlier in the day.

  As they passed through yet another gate, this in a wall much too tall to see over, Nefer's feet began to drag, telling Bak they had entered the grounds of the neighboring villa. The passage had been opened between the two propertieswhether at Djehuty's command or sometime in the past he had no way of knowing-to provide a shorter path between the two dwellings, eliminating the need to walk around to the formal entrance at the front. The house, he saw, was about half the size of Djehuty's but palatial compared to most of the dwellings in a provincial city such as Abu.

  After passing four granaries and an empty stable, they stepped through a door Nefer had left open in her haste to

  get help. Beyond three small rooms filled with sealed storage jars, they entered a hall whose high ceiling was supported by two papyrus-shaped columns. The room was bright and cheerful, a place designed to please visitors of lofty rank. The musty smell of an empty dwelling underlay the odor of fresh paint.

  Another door led to a spacious room furnished with wooden chests, stools, and even a chair. Thick rush mats covered the floor. The walls were white, with a simple lily motif running around the room near the ceiling. This had once been the private reception room in the master's suite. The quarters were far too grand for Bak's purpose and taste, far too sumptuous for himself and his Medjays, and with the governor's villa so close, far less private than he liked. A problem Hatnofer's death had solved for him.

  A slender woman with hair curling around her shoulders sat in the chair, staring at nothing. An untidy pile of sheets lay on the floor nearby, bedding she or Nefer must have dropped, now forgotten. In her early to mid-twenties, she had the same prominent cheekbones and jaw as Djehuty, the same long and slim body, but the whole softened by femininity. No man would call her beautiful, nor could she be called plain.

  When Amonhotep and Bak stepped into the room, she started as if awakened from a nap. "You've come at last." She rose to her feet and walked toward them, her eyes on the newcomer. "You must be the officer from Buhen."

  "Lieutenant Bak," he said, nodding. "And you're mistress Khawet?"

  "You couldn't have come at a more opportune time." She formed a smile, but her voice trembled, - making a lie of the attempt at humor. "I'm sorry. I fear I'm not myself."

  Bak took a quick look around the room. Two open doors revealed small chambers containing folded sleeping pallets, a few stools, and woven reed chests. A third led to a far more spacious chamber containing a bed made up with fresh linen, wooden chests, and several stools standing on a carpet of woven reed mats.

  He stood in the doorway, eyeing an opening in the wall at the far end. "You found mistress Hatnofer in the bath, Nefer said."

  She gave the open portal a haunted look, nodded. Bak could see she was as horrified by what she had found as was the servant.

  Not sure he wanted to share the experience but knowing he must, he strode across the bedchamber and slipped through the opening. Passing the toilet, a pottery seat on a mudbrick box of sand, he stepped through a second opening, offset from the first to form an alcove. Inside, a woman lay sprawled across the floor and atop a limestone slab with a slight depression to contain water. Forty or so years of age, she was small and wiry, her -skin pale, her hair coarse and unnaturally black. Disheveled tendrils had burst from a baglike linen headdress, torn partway off when she fell-or when she was struck. Her features were sharp, like those of a bird and even in death looked cunning.

  The shallow stone basin had been built into a corner whose walls were lined with two other slabs to protect the mudbrick walls. One slab was heavily splotched with blood, the second barely dotted. The woman's head, the right temple smashed and bloody, lay close beside a slim, elongated pottery jar, broken at the base, set through the wall to drain water to the outside. While still she breathed judging by the massive wound, not long, he thought-a thin stream of blood had trickled into the jar. The odor of a heavy, sweet-scented perfume hung in the air, as if her body had already been prepared for eternity.

  "May the lord Osiris take her unto himself," Amonhotep murmured. He stood beside Bak, staring at the great, ugly wound, his face Bale, appalled.

  Swallowing to rid himself of the sour taste rising in his throat, Bak knelt beside the body to feel for the pulse of life. None, nor had he expected to find one. No man or woman could have survived such a ghastly wound. Her wrist was cool to the touch, as was her bare shoulder. She had lost her life some hours ago-not long after dawn, he suspected long before he had called together the members of Djehuty's staff. Though unseemly, he offered a quick prayer of thanks to the lord Amon that she had not died because he had failed to consider her as a victim.

  He stood up and glanced around. Linen towels lay neatly folded on a mudbrick shelf built into the wall. Three alabaster perfume jars and a dark blue faience container for eye paint sat beside a bowl of natron for cleansing the skin. Four large pottery jars, all filled with tepid water, stood in a row below the shelf. She had come, he had no doubt, to prepare these rooms for use. After making up the bed, she had entered the bath, a small and enclosed space well suited for attacking and slaying a slightly built woman like her.

  Bak saw no object that might have been used to bludgeon her, nor did he see any sign that she had fought to protect herself. She had known her assailant and held no fear in her heart just as the previous victims had allowed their slayer to come close.

  When he turned away, prepared to leave, he found Amonhotep outside the door by the toilet.

  The aide looked unwell, uneasy. "I can't help seeing myself in her place, my head crushed, the breath of life tom from my body for no good reason."

  Bak laid a hand on his back and gave him a gentle push toward the bedchamber. "The slayer could as easily have chosen Antef. Or Ineni or Amethu or Simut."

  Amonhotep seemed not to have heard. "I know I shouldn't be glad she's dead..." He gave Bak a grim smile. 11... and I'm not, but ... but I feel..." He shook his head, unable to air what lay in his heart.

  Relief, Bak thought, relief that Hatnofer is lying lifeless on the floor while he remains alive and well. And who can blame him
?

  "It's my fault! My fault alone!" Khawet stared out across the river, rubbing her arms as if chilled. "If I'd only gone earlier, as I said I would!"

  "You've no need to blame yourself." Bak had suggested Amonhotep report to Djehuty, more to escape the aide's unwarranted guilt than because he thought the need pressing, and now here he was, listening to another who wished to shoulder the blame for Hatnofer's death. "The slayer would've struck somewhere else if not in the guest quarters."

  "She raised me from a babe! She was a mother to me!" Bak walked to the edge of the high natural terrace that followed the course of the river, a strip of land covered with patchy grass and wild shrubs ablaze with blossoms. A sandy path bisected the terrace, beginning at the stairway that rose from the landingplace, passing a deep, well-like water gauge, where the yearly flood was measured, and farther along, a large public well, and ending near the pylon gate of the mansion of the lord Khnum. Willow trees shaded those who walked the path or came for water or to speak with the god. A stately sycamore towered over the water gauge and an ancient grapevine clung to the wall around the deep structure. A monkey chattered in the tree, too shy to allow itself to be seen.

  Below, the river surged down the broad channel between the island of Abu and the east bank. Massive black boulders rose from the depths on both sides of the channel, mighty buttresses glistening in the sun, impervious to the continual assault of the water flowing between them. To men with a strong imagination, they resembled elephants, huge ungainly animals living far to the south, creatures that seemed more mythical than real to men who had never seen them. Creatures from which much of the ivory was taken that had given Abu its name.

  The loud calls of men at work drew Bak's gaze downstream, where four fishing boats were pulling in the day's catch.. Silvery arcs flashed in the distance as fish leaped out of the water, trying to escape the closing net. Farther downstream, a small transport ship rode low in the water beneath a heavy cargo of reddish pottery jars, making slow progress against the current. Its patched red sail stood at an angle to the breeze, sacrificing speed to reach the trading village of Swenet on the opposite shore. A smaller, sleeker vessel, its sail full to bursting, swept past the transport and veered in a westerly direction toward the island and the more substantial degcity of Abu.

  The sound of laughter drew his eyes to Djehuty's traveling ship, still moored at the landingplace below the villa. Kasaya had left the vessel, he saw, and was sitting on a projecting boulder a short distance downstream, chatting with several women kneeling on the mudbank, washing clothes. He had to smile. The young Medjay, tall, hard-muscled, and goodnatured, had a way with women few other men could claim. The older among them sought to mother him, the younger to gain a caress - if not more. Information flowed from their lips like water from an overturned bowl.

  Psuro, more mature and practical, stood at the base of the stairway, haggling with an old woman holding a plucked duck and a basket overflowing with fruits and vegetables. The Medjay was planning a feast. The very thought made Bak's mouth water.

  He turned back to Khawet, who had stopped pacing to sit on a mudbrick bench in the dappled shade of a willow. "When did you last see Hatnofer, mistress?"

  "This morning. Soon after daybreak. In the room where we store linens. She was counting sheets." She bit her lip. "With so many so recently dead in this household, our supply has dropped far below the numbers we normally keep on hand. And now..." She swallowed hard, turned away so he could not see her face. Her voice trembled. "Now we must send more to the house of death. For her!"

  Bak resisted the urge to go to her, to offer sympathy, fearing too gentle a demeanor might set the tears flowing in earnest. "What did you speak of?"

  "You." She raised her hand to her eyes, most likely to wipe away tears, and turned around. "We spoke of your arrival. Today, we thought, if the gods had smiled on Amonhotep and he'd journeyed to Buhen and back as swiftly as he'd hoped."

  "Was it she who decided to quarter me in the guest villa? Or did you think to place me there?"

  "That was my father's decision."

  Bak was surprised, and he let it show. "The rooms are more befitting a vizier than a police officer fresh from the frontier. I'd have thought Djehuty would have preferred I stay in the barracks."

  She gave him a tremulous smile. "He wanted you close in case of need, but not so close you'd remind him every moment of the deaths he yearned to forget."

  "I see," he said, his voice dry. "You spoke with Hatnofer of my arrival and then ... ?"

  Khawet stared at her feet, which were protected by leather sandals little more than a sole and a couple of narrow straps. "She set aside several sheets, saying she'd take them to Nebmose's villa and prepare the rooms for your use. She was ready to leave, her arms laden with bedding, when Amethu sent a message, saying he was toiling over the household accounts and he needed her assistance right away." She plucked a flower from a nearby bush and twisted the stem between her fingers, making the fragile reddish petals shiver and dance. "She seemed so distracted, so overburdened with tasks that I took the linens from her, saying I'd prepare the rooms."

  "But you didn't."

  "No." She spoke to the flower, not to him, and her voice was tight, almost brittle with strain. "My father summoned me. He was displeased with his fan bearer and wanted him whipped. It wasn't easy to convince him the boy was too small by far to hold so long and heavy a handle high in the air. By the time I had done so, I had forgotten my promise to Hatnofer. Later ... Much later, I remembered. I summoned Nefer and we..." Her voice broke and she turned away. "I feel i1. Will you leave me now?"

  Bak yearned to probe further, but he could not in all conscience do so. He was too new on the trail of the slayer to limit his questions only to those that were necessary, for he had no idea which were essential. And she was too upset to tolerate questions that had no obvious purpose.

  " `How will I explain to Djehuty?' " Bak said, imitating as best he could Amethu's harried expression and voice. `He wanted you close-within the walls of this compound, not in some empty house in the city.' "

  Psuro gave the duck a quarter turn on the makeshift spit he had erected over the mudbrick hearth. Grease dripped into the fire, filling the air with smoke. The cloud billowed upward, passing through the light roof of branches and straw, leaving in its wake a tantalizing aroma. "How'd you convince him you wanted none of it, sir?"

  Fanning away a tattered ribbon of smoke, Bak grinned. "I told him you Medjays are a superstitious lot and you'd get no rest in a place so recently defiled by murder."

  Psuro gave him a doubtful look. "He believed that?"

  "I don't know," Bak admitted. "He was so startled by my wish to keep you by my side, he could do nothing but sputter."

  "I thank the lord Amon you held out, sir." Kasaya, carrying a folded sleeping pallet over his shoulder, peered through the door of the tiny house the steward had found for them on a narrow lane a few streets away from the governor's compound. Over the rear wall, they could hear the laughter of neighborhood children. "It's one thing to walk into a house, eyes wide open, in search of a murderer, and another to sleep there."

  "I doubt we'd be in any danger," Bak said. "Not yet, at any rate. If I've read the signs right, the slayer has set his sights higher than us."

  "Governor Djehuty." Psuro picked up a stick and stirred a steaming bowl of lentils and onions cooking at the edge of the coals. "From what you've said of him, sir, he seems a weak man, one too preoccupied with the small world around himself to step hard on another man's toes."

  "He'd have to step very hard to anger a man so much he'd slay time after time to make his point," Kasaya said. "He would indeed." Eyes smarting, Bak stood up and joined the younger Medjay at the door. "But maybe Djehuty's not what he seems. We know too little of him. Nor do we know enough about those who've died thus far. We must look for a tie that binds them. Something more than the mere fact that they all earned their bread in the governor's villa."

&nb
sp; "Where shall we begin, sir?" Kasaya asked.

  Psuro scowled at his younger companion. "You can start by laying out our sleeping pallets and unpacking the rest of our gear. Unless we hear tonight of another death, l, for one, mean to eat my fill and sleep like a babe held close to its mother's breast."

  Bak drew Kasaya into the front part of the house, a single room with an open stairway to the roof, where a spindly wooden frame was all that remained of a lean-to. Two stools, a small table, and a reed chest, all provided by Amethu, stood near a door that opened onto the lane. Scattered around were the baskets and bundles they had brought from Buhen and jars of grain and other foodstuffs the Medjays had drawn from the garrison stores at Abu. Spears, shields, bows and arrows, and smaller hand weapons had been stacked against the wall. One side of the room held a mudbrick sleeping platform on which lay bedding the steward had provided. A wall niche, empty of the image of the household god it once had held, broke the starkness of the opposite wall.

  Bak lifted one of four large, heavy water jars, carried it out to the kitchen, and leaned . it against the wall beside a round oven, long unused from the look of it. Going back inside, he said, "Tomorrow, Kasaya, you must go to the governor's villa, familiarize yourself with the grounds and buildings, and make yourself useful to the servants. The sooner they accept you as one of them, the sooner they'll feel free to speak with an open and frank tongue."

  "Yes, sir." Kasaya pulled the sleeping pallet off his shoulder, shook it out, and laid it on the floor. "Would it suit your purpose, sir, if I took special pains to befriend the guards? We may need men we can trust."

  "Good idea." Bak clapped him on the shoulder and crossed the room for another jar, which he carried outside to stand with its mate.

  "What am I to do, sir?" Psuro asked, looking up from ,fis cooking.

  "I know of no better measure of the man than the way his people think of him. Walk first around Abu, getting to know the city and befriending its residents, both military and civilian. When you feel you've gleaned all you can-by the end of the day tomorrow, I hope-take the skiff Amethu loaned us and sail across the channel to Swenet. There, too, you must learn the streets and lanes and get to know the people."