A Vile Justice

by Lauren Haney

  Bak had to give credit where credit was due. Not many men would admit so freely to their youthful delusions, nor confess their gratitude for so narrow an escape. "I've heard Hatnofer harbored jealousy in her heart for Djehuty. Was that as true the day she died as when she was young?"

  "You've been talking to Ineni, I see. He's told you of his mother." Amethu noticed the cat sleeping in the basket, scowled. "No, she hadn't shown him any special affection for some years, not since. . ." His voice tailed off and a new thought registered on his face, a memory come to life.

  "Tell me, Amethu, what've you recalled?"

  "Something I once heard.. ." The steward's eyes darted toward Bak and he hesitated. "A rumor. But even whispers in the wind ofttimes contain some truth."

  "Tell me."

  "I heard..." Amethu paused again, shrugged. "Exactly how long ago I don't remember, but I was told by a man I knew at the time, the garrison quartermaster, that one of the survivors of the sandstorm was whispered to be her lover. A man named Min, a sergeant. He sailed north soon after the incident, which made me doubt the tale. Would he not have taken her with him if they were close? Or did the lord Khnurn smile on him, as he did me, and allow him to escape a free man?"

  "You will pay for your transgression!" Djehuty's voice thundered across the audience hall. "You've taken four men from my fields north of Abu, men whose task it was to clean the irrigation channels and rebuild the dikes, and you've set them to work on your own fields. You must free them today and send them back to me, and you must reimburse me for the time they've been within your power."

  "But sir!" The man on his knees before the governor's dais, his body bent until his head touched the floor, was so frightened he trembled from head to foot. Bak, standing at the back of the columned hall beyond the reach of long shafts of midafternoon sunlight, could clearly see his fear.

  "Silence!" the guard commanded, stepping forward to prod the offender with his foot.

  Djehuty glared down at the prisoner, his expression dark and unforgiving. "In addition, you'll receive two hundred blows and five open wounds."

  Someone gasped, then quiet descended upon those in attendance, thirty or so men scattered throughout the hall. The judgment far exceeded the norm. The kneeling man whimpered. As if released by his cries, shocked murmurs traveled through the room, rising in volume until Djehuty could not help but hear. His mouth set in a thin, hard line. Bak was as stunned as the rest. If the offense had been committed against the estate of a god, the punishment might be fitting, but this was a private matter.

  "So be it," Djehuty said, rising from his chair, signaling the end of his audience.

  The murmurs dwindled, the men standing among the columns stared. Djehuty stepped down off the dais and strode ' from the room. Lieutenant Amonhotep, looking unhappy but at a loss as to what he could do, hurried after him. The guard collected his wits, jerked the sobbing prisoner to his feet, and hustled him from the hall. The men who remained looked at one another, surprised, shocked. Voices rose in consternation.

  "This is the third day in a row I've come in search of justice," Bak heard someone complain. "Each day the governor has left early, ignoring six or eight of us whose pleas have yet to be heard. We've no choice but to leave, our business unfinished, and come again another time."

  "Justice?" someone asked. "I'd not call his judgment of Ahmose justice."

  "Who does he think he is anyway?" someone else muttered.

  "Not half the man his father was, let me tell you."

  Bak stared at the door through which the prisoner had been taken. Amonhotep had had no opportunity to intercede before Djehuty's judgment, and the governor was too stubborn to alter his decision after the fact. By punishing the man far beyond his due, Djehuty was poisoning the hearts of the people of Abu.

  He hurried from the hall, leaving through the same door the governor and his aide had taken. He hoped he would find Amonhotep alone. If so, maybe he could lure him away from the villa. Freed of Djehuty and the weight of responsibility, freed of the many tasks that fell on his shoulders, the young officer might let down his guard and be more forthcoming.

  He found himself in a short, windowless corridor lit by a narrow strip of light reaching in from the room beyond. A guard stood midway, looking in the direction the governor had gone, rubbing an elbow. He heard Bak's step and swung around. Though difficult to see in the dimly lit passage, Bak recognized Nenu, the none-tbo-bright young man who had helped him search for the archer after the first attack. "Lieutenant Bak. Sir!"

  "What're you doing here? Don't you usually guard Nebmose's villa?"

  "My sergeant sent me with a message for Lieutenant Amonhotep. I tried to deliver it just now, but didn't get the chance." Nenu, sounding aggrieved, walked with Bak up the odor, rubbing his elbow all the while. "The governor brushed me out of his way as he would a fly, shoving me hard against the wall."

  In the brightly lit room beyond, Bak got a better look at the young guard. His right temple was skinned, his eye black, his lip swollen and cracked. An ugly and no doubt painful abrasion ran down his arm from shoulder to hand, and the knuckles of both hands were swollen and red. The strong scent of fleabane emanated from a cloth covering some type of injury to his leg.

  Bak stared. ",By the lord Amon, Nenu! What happened to you!"

  The guard shuffled from one foot to the other, gave a halfhearted smile. "A fight, sir."

  "Dare I ask who won?"

  "I would've, sir, except. . ." Nenu refused to meet Bak's eyes. "Well, he hit me in the stomach and knocked me down. My head struck a rock. I must've lost my wits for a while, and when I came to my senses, I had these." He gingerly touched his arm and motioned toward his leg. "I guess he kicked me when I couldn't fight back and dragged me along the ground. Only the lord Set knows what else he did."

  Noting how reluctant the guard was to speak of his defeat, how embarrassed, Bak promised to tell Amonhotep of the message, should he find him, and walked on.

  With the help of a shy and very skittish female servant, Bak found the young aide in Djehuty's private reception room, located on the second floor. High windows admitted light and air, making the space bright and at the same time pleasantly cool. Yet instead of offering comfort and ease, the room was a disaster. It was cluttered with tables and stools, baskets brimming with scrolls, chests with lids askew, and drawers standing open. A line of ants marched across the floormats, carrying off bread crumbs. Scrolls were strewn around the dais on which the governor's armchair stood as if, of no importance, they had been flung aside. The bright, spotted skin of a leopard lay crumpled beside the chair, partially covering an elaborately embroidered pillow stained with wine. The sweetish smell emanating from a bowl of perfumed oil failed to smother the odors of stale beer and dog.

  Amonhotep, his face pale and strained, knelt beside a pile of clothing and jewelry that had been thrown into a corner. He glanced up, gave Bak a forced smile. "Lieutenant. I saw you in the audience hall and wondered who you might seek out next."

  "You surely guessed I'd come here. What was Djehuty thinking of? Is he trying to alienate every man and woman in the province?"

  Amonhotep let out a bitter laugh. "I tried to get him to change his judgment and I failed. All I managed to do was anger him further. Ahmose will be beaten until he's a broken man, and I can do nothing to stop it."

  Bak could see how upset the aide was, how greatly he blamed himself for his failure. Further talk would not console him, but a distraction might help. "I thought I might persuade you to go sailing with me."

  "I can think of nothing I'd like better, but. . ." The aide glanced around the room, shook his head.

  "I've beer in my skiff, fishing poles, and harpoons. If you've not had your midday meal, we can stop in the kitchen on our way to the landingplace."

  Amonhotep, giving the matter more thought than Bak felt it warranted, sorted through the pile, removing a broad multicolored bead collar, bracelets, armlets, and anklets, and laid them on a
nearby table. He took a fringed robe from the clothing that remained, stood up to shake it out, and began to fold it. "Tempting. Very tempting. Perhaps when I finish with this room."

  Bak eyed him critically. "Is this not a task for servants?" "Normally, yes, but ... Well, Djehuty no longer allows them to come and go as they used to. He's banned them from his rooms."

  "He's afraid."

  "Wouldn't you be?" Amonhotep scooped a handful of green and white playing pieces off the top of a legged game board, dropped them into the open drawer, and shut it with a thud. He laid the folded garment where the pieces had been and picked up a white linen tunic. "You yourself have seen to that."

  "I doubt the slayer is a servant."

  Amonhotep gave him a tight-lipped parody of a smile. "If you can convince him of that, I'll be eternally grateful." "Turn your back on this mess and come sailing with me. We both deservg a few hours' respite."

  Bak saw the longing on Amonhotep's face, the desire to escape, and the decision to abandon his duty forming in his heart.

  "Amonhotep will go nowhere." Djehuty burst into the room, his face ruddy with anger. "I need him here, and here he'll remain."

  "But, sir . . ." Bak and the younger officer spoke together. "No!" Djehuty strode across the room, eyes blazing, and glared at Bak. "You and your Medjays come into my home, prying into the lives of all who dwell here, asking impertinent questions no man or woman should have to answer. I won't allow you to take my aide from his duties, drawing him away so you can question him as you've queried others who owe their loyalty to me."

  "Is this his duty?" Bak demanded, eyeing the messy room with distaste.

  "Who else can I trust to care for me?"

  "You've lived here a lifetime. You must have at least one trustworthy servant."

  "You were in the audience hall. Not a man in attendance was a stranger, but they all turned against me when I judged that wretched Ahmose. I was fair, generous even, yet murmurs of resentment flowed from men's lips like water from a shattered bowl. How can I trust servants if I can't depend on men of greater status to stand beside me when I need them?"

  The man's irrational, Bak thought. Forced to see what he wants to overlook, filled with fear and tension, his normal obstinacy has turned to a dim-witted, arrogant defensiveness.

  Bak stood at the rear door of the governor's house, looking across the stretch of sand lined with conical silos. The servants who had inventoried the grain had spilled wheat and barley on the ground. Birds, domestic and wild, and a half dozen young, goats stood among the golden kernels, gorging themselves. A black dog, stretched out in the shade between two silos, raised its head to sniff the air, heavy with the scent of roasting beef smothered in onions.

  Where, he wondered, was Khawet? He had stalked out of her father's reception room, seething with anger. After a half hour's swim had cooled his temper, he had gone in search of Simut. The chief scribe had told him in no uncertain terms that he was busy with the inventory and had no time to answer questions. Antef was at the granite quarry, he had learned, and Ineni had not returned from Nubt.

  Bak walked along the row of silos, a thought born of his conversation with Amethu nagging. He had assumed Hatnofer had been slain because she stood close to Djehuty in importance, but maybe he erred. Her life might well have been taken because she knew too much about the past. If the steward's rumor was true, if she and Min had been lovers, the sergeant could have told her about the storm before he sailed north, leaving Abu forever. With luck, Khawet would know of their relationship.

  He passed through the gate and headed toward the kitchen. The smell of beef and onions grew stronger. Raised voices issued from the structure. Women arguing.

  Khawet came through the far gate. She saw Bak and, smiling, hurried toward him. "Lieutenant! How nice to see you! Amethu told me you were here and said you might wish to speak with me."

  Warmed by a welcome rare in this household, Bak grinned. "I wasn't sure you'd have the time. Everyone else is either tied up with the inventory or hiding out to avoid it."

  She laughed. "How long ago did you arrive in Abu? Only six days? Yet already you've seen through us."

  "I fervently wish that were true."

  "All households are much alike. Have you never wed?" Few households were victim to a five-time slayer, he thought. "I've never been so fortunate."

  A hint of a smile touched her lips and her voice softened. "To share your life with one you love must be close to perfection. To be wed to another . . ." Her tone hardened, as did her expression. ". . . one who's a lesser man in every way, can be a burden difficult to bear."

  Ineni had said his wife had loved another, a man who had died far in the past. Bak could see the loss in her eyes, a grief she should long ago have pushed aside. "I met a woman when first I went to Buhen. She was as lovely as a gazelle, gentle, kind, and generous, yet she had a strength of will that few men or women can claim. She..." He broke off, laughed softly at himself, at the warmth that never ceased to enter his heart when he thought of her. "The time was wrong and I lost her."

  She smiled, her voice regained its softness. "Do you think of her always?"

  "I go on with my life. As I must."

  A young woman burst through the kitchen door, shrieking. A second girl followed, screaming curses, brandishing the long tongs used to stir burning charcoal.

  Khawet's smile faded. "Oh, no! Not again!"

  The young woman in the lead spotted Khawet and ran toward her. "Oh, mistress! Help me! Help!"

  The girl with the tongs raced after her, shrieking. "You! You bride of Set! You took away my beloved! You stole him!" Her body shook with fury, her face was a mask of hatred.

  She swung the tongs back and, leaping forward, slashed them hard across the other woman's shoulders. Blood gushed from the broken flesh. The injured girl screeched Bak lunged at the assailant, grabbed the tongs, and tore them from her grasp. Gripping her upper arm, he shoved her roughly to the bare earth. Khawet rushed to the other young woman, helped her to the mudbrick bench against the wall a few cubits away, and went to the kitchen door to call for cloth for bandages. Several women hurried out, more to look than assist, Bak suspected. A short, barrel-shaped woman he took to be the cook brought a bowl of steaming water and strips of linen.

  Khawet turned to him and smiled an apology. "You must forgive me, Lieutenant, but this wound can't wait."

  Bak walked slowly down the lane, passing through shadows cast by the taller houses and broad strips of sunlight that reached over the lower buildings. A breeze stirred the hot, dry air and lifted dust from the hard-packed earth. He smelled oil heating over charcoal braziers, but the hour was too early for the odors of cooked food to drift down from the rooftops. Children's laughter and the rhythmic click of

  wood on wood told of boys playing with make-believe spears somewhere nearby.

  He wondered if he would find an unwanted gift in his quarters. He had never before approached the house so early in the evening, nor had the gift-giver ever come before dusk, when shadows filled the lane and neighbors, preoccupied with their evening meal, were unlikely to be about. He glanced at the roof across the lane, but it was even too early for Psuro to have taken up his post.

  He stopped before the doorway and peered inside. The room, illuminated by a lone shaft of light coming through the opening at the top of the stairs, was dim and shadowy but not dark. A round red pot three hand-widths across sat a pace or so inside the door. A white cloth, held tightly in place with string, covered the top. His first thought was food; the old woman had brought their evening meal. Then his eyes darted toward the stools he had restacked in the center of the room before leaving the house early in the day. They stood as he had left them, one upside-down on top of the other. No basket sat atop the three legs. The old woman would never have left their evening meal on the floor, where mice or rats could get to it.

  This had to be another gift left by ... By whom?

  His next thought was not so rational; th
e pot might contain a human head, crushed as Hatnofer's had been. A chill crept up his spine- and at the same time he rejected the idea. The neck of the container was too small.

  Chiding himself for too vivid an imagination, he stepped over the threshold and knelt before the jar. The linen cover bothered him. The fabric would admit air, where the more usual mud plug would not, leading him to believe the container held a liming creature. Hearing nothing inside, he examined it for signs of cracks, thinking it might break in his hands, releasing a viper or something equally dreadful. The container looked solid enough, undamaged.

  Sucking in his breath, he reached out with both hands and lifted it. Nothing happened. He brought it closer to his face, his ear, and shook it gently. Again nothing. He thought of untying the string, but common sense prevailed; such a precipitous move would be foolhardy. He shook the pot again, much harder. Inside he heard a soft but frenzied rattling sound. His mouth tightened and he nodded, fairly sure he knew what was inside.

  Carrying the container with outstretched arms, he hurried outdoors and around the nearby corner. A short, dead-end lane took him to a low mudbrick wall. Beyond lay an open field. The broken walls of houses built and abandoned many generations before protruded from a heavy blanket of windswept sand littered with garbage, items of no value whatsoever, unwanted by the most impoverished of Abu's residents.

  Bak set the container on the wall. Glancing around, he spotted a rock that would fit nicely in his hand and he picked it up. He slipped his dagger from its sheath and held it at arm's length, point down, over the linen.

  "Sir!" Psuro hurried up behind him. "What're you doing?"

  "The gift-giver arrived ahead of us, leaving this. I suspect it's lethal."

  Psuro's eyes widened. He spat out a curse and stepped back a pace. "Do you wish me to open it, sir?" he asked with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

  Bak drove the dagger into the fabric and slashed to right and left, enlarging the hole. The soft rattling sound erupted. Psuro muttered a quick incantation designed to hold at bay poisonous reptiles and insects. Bak sheathed his dagger, shoved the pot over the wall, and threw the rock with a mighty heave, smashing the baked clay into a dozen or more rough-edged pieces. Yellow scorpions, their tails raised in fury, darted in all directions.