A Vile Justice (6 page)

"She has no children."

"A pity." Amethu paused to watch the servant climb out of the granary and drop onto a shoulder-high platform that joined the empty structure to the one beside it. Hurrying down a stairway that descended to the ground, he knelt beside his partner, who had broken the seal that attested to the integrity of the full granary. "I've long been of the opinion that Hatnofer's problem was her failure to conceive. She was a woman of good humor and sweetness in her youth. A few years ago, as life began to pass her by, her disposition soured. Now I see Khawet traveling, the same path, and I fear for her."

From what Bak had seen of Djehuty, he was more than enough child for any woman. Or perhaps he was being unfair. "You've been with Djehuty for many years, I see."

"My father was his father's steward. I grew to manhood in this provincr, learned to read and write in the governor's villa. When my father left this worldly realm, Djehuty's father appointed me to his place, as was right and proper."

"Can you think of a reason anyone would want him dead? Would kill and kill again to plant fear in his heart?" Amethu looked distinctly uncomfortable. "He's stepped on toes What man hasn't?"

"Has he come down so hard he'd merit death?"

"He's basically a good man, Lieutenant." Amethu cleared his throat, as if the next words were caught there. "Oh, he can be thoughtless at times. Selfish and petty. Altogether a most aggravating individual. But as he intends no ill, all who know him forgive him."

Especially those who walk the corridors of the governor's villa, Bak thought. Men who wield a moderate amount of power and live in far greater comfort and style than their neighbors. Those who owe their lofty positions to Djehuty and dare not speak out lest he replace them with others more agreeable.

"If you truly believe a murderer walks these corridors, why are you not living within these walls?" Simut's voice pulsed with frustration as he tried to balance vehemence and the need to speak softly so his students would not hear his words. "Why do you not send for Medjays-not from Buhen, for the journey would take too long, but from the capital? Men with dogs who'll patrol the rooms night and day?"

"If I were to summon additional men, Djehuty might well be slain long before they arrive." Bak spoke softly, as reluctant to draw the boys from their studies as the chief scribe was. "Have you never watched a cornered animal, forced to strike rather than bide its time?"

A chunky boy of ten or so years looked up from a pottery fragment on which he had been writing and sneaked a peek in their direction. He and a dozen or so other youths ranging in age from ten to fourteen sat cross-legged on the floor of the open courtyard, scribal pallets beside them, pieces of broken pottery or slabs of limestone in their laps. A boy of about twelve sat before them, dictating from a'scroll the maxims of a long-dead sage. A younger group of boys sat beneath a shallow portico, copying words from a list of household objects. A slick-haired black dog lay in a shady corner, nursing four spotted puppies.

"Not so loud!" Simut's hiss traveled across the courtyard, drawing the eyes of all his students. "Now look what you've done."

"Boys are born to be curious," Bak said, forcing himself to exercise patience. "If you don't want them disturbed, come away with me. There's an unoccupied room not a dozen paces from here."

Simut gave him a horrified look. "Do you have any idea what would happen if I left these children alone? They'd run amok, that's what they'd do."

Remembering his own youth, Bak had to agree. Boys forced to study day after day, copying dry texts from times gone by, had far too much energy to sit still and quiet when left unattended. "I'll be brief then."

"Do so."

The scribe's attitude grated, bringing forth a question Bak normally would have approached slowly, the one that had set Amethu on the defensive. "Do you know of any reason anyone would want Djehuty dead?"

Simut gave him a sharp look. "Why ask that question of me?"

"How long have you served as a scribe in Abu?" The question was rhetorical, meant to point out Simut's long tenure in the governor's villa.

The scribe chose to take the query at face value. "I learned my profession in this very -courtyard. That's why you see me here now. I feel no end of fulfillment in teaching other boys as I once was taught. When their regular tutor ails, or has another task he must do, I freely give of my time." He paused, nodded his satisfaction-with himself, Bak assumed. "I've toiled in this building ever since. I began as a lowly apprentice writing letters for farmers, as the boys you see before you wiW most likely do, and my life has been filled to the brim from that time until now. I can climb no higher."

"Far more lofty positions are available to scribes in the capital," Bak pointed out.

Simut raised his head high so he could look down his nose at one so lacking in understanding. "Abu is my home, the home of my wife and my children and their children. The home of my father and his father before him."

The scribe, Bak noted, had begun to speak with greater ease. Talk of himself suited him. "With so many years in the governor's villa, you must've heard complaints about Djehuty, some serious enough to be called transgressions."

Simut sat quite still, then sniffed. "If you're interested in gossip, young man, I suggest you visit a few of the local houses of pleasure."

"I want the truth, not the ramblings of men besotted by beer." Bak adopted his most serious demeanor. "Need I remind you that I'm here at the vizier's request?"

"I was told he suggested Djehuty send for you." The scribe raised his voice in triumph. "That's quite a different matter."

"When a man as lofty as the vizier..." Realizing he, too, was speaking too loud, Bak glanced toward the students. All were staring, including the boy supposed to be dictating. Bak grabbed the scribe's arm and towed him through the nearest door into a short hallway. "Simut! In nine days' time the slayer will strike again, his next victim Djehuty. Do you want the governor's death forever on your conscience?"

"I've every confidence you'll soon learn what you need to know, Lieutenant, but you won't hear it from me." Simut shook his arm free and stalked back to the courtyard.

Bak passed through the unimpressive mudbrick pylon gate of the mansion of the lord Khnum and walked along a rough path that carried him toward the river. At the end, he came upon thirty or so nearly naked men, reeking of sweat, toiling on a small, dilapidated shrine that overlooked the water. Half the crew struggled with slabs of stone, laying new pavement over the old. Others were erecting sturdy stone columns in place of rotting wooden supports, while the remainder repaired crumbling walls. Good-natured banter, a man whistling a lively tune, the rhythmic beat of a mallet on stone could not silence a multitude of sparrows in the trees.

Bak walked to the edge of the steep, rocky slope. Below, several small boats skimmed the water, their sails spread

wide like the wings of birds free to fly where they wished. He longed to be down there with them, to feel the breeze stirring his hair and to hear water whispering against the hull. Shaking off temptation, he forced his thoughts back to the puzzle he had traveled so far to solve.

Djehuty had committed an offense-that much Simut had implied-and sooner or later someone would reveal its secret. What the secret was, Bak could not begin to guess, but its grievous nature was apparent. Few men would look into the face of death rather than admit a wrongdoing.

Bak had left the scribe to his students, determined to learn what Djehuty had done. Only then could he establish whether or not that particular offense could have led to five deaths, with a sixth looming. If so, he could go on from there. If not, he must search for another reason for murder. He had to smile. It sounded so easy. However, experience had taught him that a course of action that on the surface appeared smooth and direct more often than not was filled with obstacles.

After a hasty midday meal, he had hurried to the garrison, a jumble of barracks buildings and houses located near the southern edge of Abu. The old, much-repaired, and oftaltered structures blended into the city. Unlike Buhen, no high, fortified wall surrounded them. Evidently the river had been thought, in days long past, to offer sufficient protection from the enemy.

Troop Captain Antef, the sergeant on duty had told him, had gone to the granite quarries. When he would return, no one could say.

Bak had hastened back through the narrow, crowded streets to the mansion of the lord Khnum, thinking the chief priest might-like Amethu and Simut-be a long-time resident in Abu, but unlike them a man bound to speak the truth, leaving no secrets buried in silence. He had again been faced with disappointment. The priest who had greeted him was young, new to the mansion and the town. His elderly predecessor had, not six months before, departed his worldly life and gone off to the Field of Reeds. The younger man could offer nothing of value.

A skiff speeding northward caught Bak's attention. The sail was down and two men were rowing, adding thrust to the current's downstream pull. Troop Captain Antef was one of the pair. Just the man Bak wished to see-and he appeared to be heading for the landingplace.

Bak had no idea how long Antef had dwelt in Abu, but few professional soldiers remained in one place for long. The queen's nephew and stepson Menkheperre Thutmose, who shared the throne but not the power, had begun to rebuild an army long neglected by the royal house. Ranking officers of proven incompetence were being removed and men could no longer inherit positions of authority from their fathers. Newly reorganized regiments were led by men who moved from place to place, proving themselves proficient and versatile.

He also assumed that, although required to report to Djehuty, Antef's real master resided elsewhere, probably in the capital. With little or nothing to lose, he might well divulge Djehuty's secret-if he knew it.

Bak trotted along the path above the river, praying the officer could-and would-help. Several women who had gathered at the well to gossip eyed him with curiosity, as did a pair of lovers lying deep in the shadows of a willow tree. He reached the stairway at the landingplace as Antef's skiff bumped stone. The troop captain leaped ashore and shoved the boat back into the current. His companion rowed on downstream.

Spotting Bak at the top of the stairs, Antef raced upward. "Lieutenant!" He clapped Bak hard on the-'back. "Have you come to greet me in friendship? Or to shackle my wrists and carry me off to the desert mines?"

Slipping out of arm's reach, Bak forced a smile. "Have you committed an offense deserving of so drastic a punishment?"

The troop captain's good humor evaporated, his eyes flashed anger. "I've kept my men so long at the granite quar-

ries they no longer know how to soldier. If they'd ever have to stand on the field of battle, they'd not last a half hour. That's not an offense; it's an outrage."

They passed through the gate, nodded to the guard standing before the gatehouse, his spear raised in salute, and strode up the path toward the governor's villa. Antef walked fast, his anger driving him forward.

"You deserve no punishment for that," Bak said. "Unless I'm mistaken, mining the stone is Djehuty's responsibility." "As is the well-being of the garrison." Antef expelled a cynical snort. "The granite travels north on a barge, bound for the capital, while our troops stay here. Which is the most likely, Lieutenant, to gain the attention of those who walk the corridors of power?"

Bak well understood the problem. Their sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut, cared for nothing but the smooth flow of products traveling downriver to the royal house. Like Antef's soldiers, the men who manned the fortresses on the frontier, making sure trade objects continued to move north, were of no importance. Only when the flow was disrupted did they attract attention-and angry messages from the capital.

"You don't like Djehuty," he said.

"He has no more common sense than the granite we ship north." Antef shoved open the door of the governor's villa and strode into the anteroom, a light and bright chamber with two lotus-shaped columns supporting a high ceiling. "Unfortunately, for this enforced labor at the quarry I can blame no one but myself. If I'd had sufficient wit when first I came to Abu..." He paused, gave a low, bitter laugh. "Amonhotep can usually talk him around, but not in this case. I pushed too hard, spoke when I should've remained silent. The swine'll diver forgive. More important, he won't forget. And my men are made to suffer."

Could this be Djehuty's offense, Bak wondered, the reason so many people had been slain? Surely not. Ordering the army to continuous service at the quarries was a decision the governor could justify, for the stone would be shipped to the most important building projects in Kemet, the mansions of the gods, in most cases. Bak sympathized with Antef and his troops, as would any soldier, but he could offer no way out. "Five people have died and the next, I feel sure, will be Djehuty. Do you know of any tie that might've bound the victims together? Anything Djehuty might've done to warrant their deaths as well as his own?"

Antef hesitated a long time and finally said, "You'd best ask Amonhotep."

Bak gave him a long, thoughtful look. His answer was more forthright than those of Amethu and Simut but came down to the same thing: he had an idea what might have brought about the murders, but he would not be the first to step forward with the information. "If he won't tell me what I need to know, Troop Captain, I'll come back to you. And I'll expect the truth."