A Vile Justice (5 page)

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."

"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."

Psuro gave him a dubious look. "This city is small, I know, and Swenet smaller yet, but to befriend everyone would take months. Can you not narrow the task to the possible?"

"Do what you can, Psuro, that's all I ask. If Hatnofer was meant to die today, as I think she was, we've only a week before the slayer strikes again."

"Yes, sir."

Bak resisted the urge to smile at the Medjay's gloomy countenance. "As you go about your task, you must seek out a man named Pahared. He once was a merchant in Wawat, one who traveled from village to village, trading the small objects needed by men and women who have close to nothing. I met him once in Nofery's house of pleasure. He'd just wed a woman of Kush and was giving up the life of a wanderer to return to Kemet. I last heard they'd settled here, but whether in Abu or Swenet, I don't know."

"He's a man we can trust?" Psuro asked, a flicker of hope shining through the gloom.

"We talked and drank long into the night. He seemed a man of good sense and honor."

Looking none too pleased with so vague an answer, the Medjay nodded. "If he's here, I'll find him."

Bak walked inside for the third jar of water.

Kasaya, immobilized by thought, knelt beside a second sleeping pallet he had just spread out on the floor, a folded sheet in his hand. "I know we're not far from the governor's villa, sir, but do you think it wise to spend the night here?

What if someone else is slain? From what you say of Djehuty, he'll be the first to lay blame-if he's not the one to die."

Bak gave the young Medjay a quick smile. "As soon as we eat our evening meal, I plan to return to Djehuty's house. I see no need to open the door to disaster."

Bak, stifling a yawn, stood in front of Nebmose's house, letting the chill morning breeze awaken him. He had gotten some sleep, thanks to Psuro and Kasaya, but not enough. The night had passed without incident; the occupants of the governor's villa had slept in peace. He doubted the police presence had made a difference. Hatnofer had died because she had been close in importance to Djehuty.

He eyed the small, neat garden that surrounded the family shrine inside the main entrance to the property. Venerable trees, thick bushes, and lush flowering plants filled the space with color. Birds chattered from on high, while tiny, fuzzy ducklings swam with their mother on a small, shallow pool and frogs sat on lily pads, soaking up the sun. Bees waded in pollen, humming an ancient tune while they harvested the sweet juices hidden inside the flowers. Bak could well imagine how impressed a distinguished visitor might be, striding through the gate after a long, wearisome voyage. The garden was like the Field of Reeds, where the justified dead spent eternity.

He followed the path to the shrine, a small, white-plastered structure with a cornice painted red and green. A narrow flight of four steps carried him to an entrance flanked by red columns. He had expected the building to be empty. Instead he found an ancestor bust on a limestone plinth. A fresh offering of flowers lay at the base of the red-painted, summarily formed figure with the head of a man. The last of the family might be gone, but someone remained to care. Leaving the shrine, he crossed the garden to the gate, which was almost as high as the wall around the compound and securely barred on the inside. He opened it and looked out onto one of the many lanes that ran through Abu. Two neighbors' gates, both on the opposite side of the lane, had been cut through walls equally tall and solid. The few windows he saw there were narrow and very high, admitting light and air, but allowing no view of the world outside. The far end of the lane vanished in a jumble of small, sometimes squalid dwellings. As was usually the case in Kemet, the poor touched elbows with the wealthy, but seldom met face-to-face.

Returning to Nebmose's- compound, he barred the gate behind him and hurried around the house. Beyond the empty stables and the granaries, he found a dusty yard in which a cluster of palms were being smothered by tamarisks. The mouth of a well gaped open in front of a squarish building containing four long, narrow storage magazines with a portico in front. Three of the chambers were empty; the fourth contained a chariot with a broken axle. He strode to a narrow gate shaded by the warring trees, lifted the pole that barred entry, and pulled it open. The lane outside was narrow, meant solely for foot traffic. Toward the south, it disappeared in a huddle of small houses. In the opposite direction,.it passed the governor's villa and dwindled to nothing among a patchwork of fields that covered the northern end of the island.

Disappointed in spite of low expectations, he swung the gate shut, dropped the bar in place, and walked back to the house. Hatnofer's slayer could have come and gone unseen through the front entrance or the back, or from Djehuty's villa. Other than the audience hall and the visitors' quarters, the rooms were all used for storage. The house had been empty of life, the woman alone-or so she had thought. Anyone could have slain her.

"It seems a terrible waste, doesn't it?"

Bak, standing in the doorway of the stable, eyeing a long row of empty stalls, started and swung around. The governor's son Ineni stood behind him, looking past him into the `shadowy building.

"In days gone by, when I served as a charioteer with the regiment of Amon, I dreamed of a stable like this each time I had leave to go home." Bak gave the young nobleman a wry smile. "My horses, a worthy team but creatures of no discernment whatsoever, were content with the lean-to where my father housed his donkey."

A brief smile lit Ineni's face. He stepped around Bak and led the way down the dimly fit corridor. Each stall, built of mudbrick with an arched ceiling, would have held two horses. Now the wooden gates were gone, as were the leather trappings that had hung from the walls and the chariots that had stood in the yard outside. The building had been swept clean and nothing remained but a few bits of straw, traces of grain, and dark stains on the hard-packed earthen floor, which still gave off a faint odor of manure. A waste it was, agreed Bak, an abomination to allow so useful a building to lie idle.

"I came here often as a child," Ineni said. "The horses were some of the finest in Kemet, the stallion from the faroff land of Hatti. They were beautiful, spirited, the stuff of dreams. I longed to become a charioteer." He stooped, picked up a straw, and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. "But the gods stepped in, and now I'm a farmer." He laughed-at himself, Bak felt sure. "Don't misunderstand. The life of a farmer suits me. I manage my father's fields with a skill not many men can claim."

Bak was surprised. Not because Ineni's family had an estate, perhaps more than one, at a distance from Abu. Most noblemen lived off the labor of those who toiled on land far from the cities where they spent most of their days. Not one in a thousand would call himself a farmer.

"What happened to the horses?" he asked.

"When my father took this villa as his own, he had me move them to our estate in Nubt, a half day's sail north of here. They're there yet, as are their descendants."

Bak paused in front of an empty stall and asked with reluctance, fearing the answer, "What happened to the horse that took Lieutenant Dedi's life?"

"I ... " Ineni hesitated, then evaded the question. "My father ordered me to have it slain."

Bak eyed the young farmer closely. "Did you obey?" Getting no answer, glimpsing defiance in Ineni's downcast eyes, he said, "Horses were my life for more than eight years, Ineni. I cherished my team, and if anyone had suggested I slay them, I'd've cut off my hand first, the hand I use to thrust my spear."

Ineni's eyes darted to Bak's face, searching for a lie. Evidently satisfied, he glanced toward the open doorway and lowered his voice lest anyone hear. "As soon as I took the poor, terrified beast out of the stall, away from the scent of death, he quieted. My father had insisted he was mad, but I could see he'd simply been consumed by fear. I had him taken that night to our estate in Nubt, and there he will remain, alive and well. My father need never know."

Bak nodded approval. "He'll not hear the tale from me." They reached the end of the corridor and turned back, sharing the silence and a vision of the stable as once it had been. Somewhere in the dark, a cat growled. A half-grown rat shot out of a stall and down the passageway a pace ahead of a huge orange tomcat. As the rodent raced into the sunlight outside the door, the cat leaped with a ferocious snarl. Clamping its teeth into its kicking and squeaking prey, it trotted off.

"Why, do you believe, was Hatnofer slain?" Bak asked. Ineni gave a short bark-like laugh, rending their brief camaraderie. "You surprise me, Lieutenant. You told us yesterday, did yoW not, that the next to die would be one who walked close to my father. Have you since decided you erred?"

Bak chose to ignore the sarcasm. "She died because of her importance in this household, of that I've no doubt, but you are equally important. As are Amonhotep, Antef, Simut, and Amethu. Why was she chosen over the rest of you?"

"I see no mystery there. She was small and no longer young. And she walked alone into an empty building, easy prey."

Bak opened the gate to the govemor's compound and glanced into the yard containing the well. Two young women, servants he had seen in the kitchen at daybreak, stood chatting near the top of the steps leading down to the water. One balanced a large, heavy jar on her head, the second held an empty container by the neck. Glimpsing Ineni, the former hurried toward the kitchen and the latter hastened down the steps to fetch water.

Bak made no comment until he and Ineni were midway along the row of granaries, when the servants were too far away to hear. "Was the sergeant who died, Senmut, small and no longer young?"

"He was as tall as you," Ineni admitted with a crooked smile, "and he prided himself on his strength."

"Yet there was no sign of a struggle." "None."

Bak stopped in the shade near the rear door of the house, and gave his companion a curious look. "You seem unmoved by Hatnofer's death. Wasn't she a mother to you, as she was to Khawet?"

Ineni's laugh was harsh, derisive. "My mother was a servant, Lieutenant. She was young and beautiful, I've been told, and he took her as his own the day she walked into this villa. Hatnofer hated her from that time forward, and she had no more use for me. When my mother died giving birth to a stillborn daughter, I was sent to our estate at Nubt. There I was raised by a houseful of servants, all of whom I think of as parents."

The tale was not unusual, but moved Bak nonetheless. "Do you go often to Nubt?"

"I'd be there now if my father hadn't summoned me." Ineni snorted. "Sometimes I think he fears his own shadow."

Bak eyed him curiously. "Aren't you yet convinced he has reason to fear? Five people have died thus far."

Ineni walked to the door and lifted the latch. "If I'd been so inclined, I'd have slain Hatnofer many years ago. Sergeant Senmut was a braggart, a man who believed himself above all others in any endeavor he chose to pursue. The guard Montu ... Well, he seemed a nice enough fellow, but he drank to excess and he loved to talk. He could say more about less than any man I ever met."

"What of Lieutenant Dedi? And the boy Nakht?"

"Dedi was young and full of himself, not one to take too seriously, I'd have thought. But who knows? Maybe someone resented his ... His enthusiasm." Ineni lifted the latch and shoved the door open. "Nakht is a puzzle. The child was small and slight, gentle. An innocent. Why he had to die, I can't begin to guess."

Nor could Bak. If Hatnofer had been slain because she was small and vulnerable, the child's death could be explained in the same way. However, neither Senmut nor Montu had been small men, and both had been stabbed without a struggle. Five deaths, with not a man or woman or child offering resistance to the assailant. Bak could think of no way to accomplish such a feat unless the man who slew them had blinded them with magic. Or, more likely, with familiarity.

"I must admit my relief when I learned another had been slain and I could rest easy." Amethu hiked up his long white kilt, bunching the fabric over his bulging stomach, and dropped onto a portable stool. "Does that sound heartless, Lieutenant?"

"You're not the first to voice the thought," Bak said, "and I doubt you'll be the last."

The steward gave him a fleeting smile, his thoughts on the task before him: the weekly distribution of grain to those who toiled in the governor's kitchen.

Bak knelt beside him in a strip of shade cast by Nebmose's villa-how quickly he had come to accept the local name for the dwelling-watching servants empty one of the granaries. One man knelt before an opening twice the size of a man's head located at the base of the tall conical tower. Another man, who had climbed down an interior ladder, swept the remaining wheat into a basket and poured a golden stream through the hole, gradually filling the larger basket his companion held. Dust billowed from the cascading grain, making the man outside cough. Amethu noted the amount on a bit of broken pottery. Later, Bak knew, he would total the various quantities and record them on a scroll.

"I'll miss Hatnofer," the steward said. "She was one of the few people in this household to know the value of keeping accurate accounts. The rest of them . . ." He gave a longsuffering sigh. "They just don't seem to care. They take an item from a storage room, don't bother to note its removal or to tell anyone, and then complain when they go in search of another like item and find none."

"Was she as diligent in managing the household and its many servants?"

"To a fault, some would say." Amethu frowned. "I don't mean to be critical, but you'll find out soon enough. She was not well liked. Too stem and unforgiving. Too demanding. But she kept the household running as smooth as a welloiled chariot wheel. She'll be greatly missed."

"What of mistress Khawet? Can she not oversee the servants?"

"Enough!" Amethu scrambled to his feet and hurried to the man kneeling at the base of the granary. He reached into the basket, withdrew a handful of wheat, and let it trickle from one hand to the other. His mouth pursed in disapproval. "We can't distribute this. It's full of sand. We'd have a rebellion on our hands."

He flung the grain to the ground and took a fresh handful. Sifting it through his fingers, he shook his head. "Unacceptable. Set this basket aside and move on to the next granary. After you've gathered enough wheat for today's needs, come back here, sweep this one out, and pour all this dirty grain into the storage chamber where we're saving the seed for planting."

"Yes, sir," said the man outside, his voice echoed from within.

Amethu returned to his stool and bowed his head in what Bak took to be a prayer. When at last the steward raised his eyes, he again shook his head, this time in vexation. "They never learn. Never. A foreman should sit out here, not me, but the last time I entrusted this task to another man, we had sand in our bread for a week."

Bak held his tongue. Gritty bread- was endemic to the army. "We were speaking of mistress Khawet, of her ability to take over Hatnofer's duties."

"Khawet is a nice woman. I've known her from a babe. The question is: can she oversee a large and busy household in addition to satisfying her father's many demands? Not to mention the demands of a husband."