Flesh of the God lb-7 Read online

  Bak’s smile was automatic-and stingy. Another man alone with a tale that may or may not be true. Paser threw Nebwa a look that would have shriveled a man less thick-skinned. “At least I had the good sense to stay inside the fortress. Unlike you, who walked into the desert and lost your way.”

  “You didn’t have a company of fighting men outside the walls like I did,” Nebwa retorted. “I’ve never lost a man in a storm, nor will I ever if I can help it.”

  Evidently thinking of his own failure to remain on duty, Mery flushed and stared glumly at his hands.

  Oblivious, Nebwa gave Paser an insolent look, daring him to contradict. “I didn’t lose my way, merely my sense of direction for a moment or two.”

  Paser raised a skeptical eyebrow. “An hour or two, I’d say.”

  Bak felt better about his own experience with the storm. At least he had the consolation that he had not been the sole individual to get lost. If Nebwa had indeed been lost.

  Nebwa’s eyes narrowed, his expression turned belligerent.

  “How can you two share the same quarters?” Azzia’s tone was light, teasing, designed to sap the tension between them. “You bicker like a pair of old women with nothing better to occupy your time.”

  “I thank the lord Amon I’ll be free of him soon!” Nebwa winked, as if he had been joking all along. “Ahmose’s caravan, the one we feared was lost, straggled in this morning. Paser will leave in two days’ time with fresh supplies for the miners.”

  Paser looked at Harmose. “You’ll lead the archers who come with us, I’ve been told.”

  “Is this true, Harmose?” Azzia asked, surprised.

  “Tetynefer, it seems, has no need for a man who speaks the tongue of this land.” Harmose did not bother to hide his disgust. “He believes all who enter this garrison should know the words of Kemet.”

  Nebwa twisted around and spat his contempt in the dirt of the potted plant behind him. “That overripe melon has no more sense than a stone. Only a witless civilian would place a Medjay over a unit of archers guarding a caravan.”

  Harmose glared. Mery frowned. Paser rolled his eyes skyward. Azzia, looking like a woman who had had about all she could take, told her servant to clear away the empty bowls and dishes.

  Bak wanted information, not a quarrel. With dusk turning to darkness, with Azzia’s patience coming to an end, he had no time to waste. “Harmose, I see you survived the storm unscathed.”

  The archer tore his smoldering eyes off Nebwa, saw Azzia’s pleading look, managed a stiff smile. “A mighty falcon-the lord Horus himself, I’m convinced-saved me from certain death.”

  Nebwa sputtered, but a sharp look from Azzia kept him mute.

  “To be blessed by a god is an honor above all others.” Bak hoped he sounded impressed rather than suspicious. “Where were you? In the desert, hunting?”

  Azzia’s quick smile of gratitude was tempered by…what? speculation? Had she realized his questions concerning their whereabouts held a purpose?

  “I was far out on the river,” Harmose said, “fishing from a skiff. I saw the storm approaching and sailed back this way, but too late. The river came to life, the waves washed over me.” A note of awe entered his voice. “The lord Horus swooped down and flew low overhead, guiding me to the shore. He left me there, safe, and flew away.”

  Could the tale be true? Bak wondered. Why would the lord Horus favor this half-Medjay archer when not a single god in the pantheon had lifted a finger to help identify a man who had stolen the flesh of the lord Re and taken two lives? They would not, it seemed, even bother to help eliminate any of the suspects.

  He made himself smile and congratulated Harmose on his good fortune, as did Azzia, Mery, and Paser with varying degrees of astonishment.

  Nebwa looked thoughtful. “With the lord Horus watching over you, maybe…” He scowled, shook his head. “No. Another man should lead the archers who guard the caravan. One who shares no blood with those vile savages who took Nakht’s life.”

  Leaping to his feet, Harmose balled his hands into fists. The infantry officer stared at him with the irritating innocence of a man whose thoughts were engraved in granite.

  “Enough!” Bak snarled at the incensed archer, who reluctantly returned to his stool. “Much blame has been laid at the feet of the Medjays these past few days. Ill feeling has grown like scum on a stagnant pool. I know little of the local villagers and less of the desert tribesmen, but one thing I do know: my Medjays have done no wrong.”

  Gripping Bak’s shoulder, Nebwa spoke as one comrade to another. “I don’t fault you for standing beside your men. I’d do the same if my troops were in trouble. But to allow an innocent woman to stand accused of their vile crime?” He shook his head, his fingers clamped tight. “No, in that you go too far.”

  Bak shook off the offending hand, the grinding pain in his shoulder. The irony of the situation did not escape him. First, Harmose charged him with abandoning his men; now Nebwa was accusing him of protecting them at the expense of the truth. “Not one man in my company could’ve taken Nakht’s life. That I know for a fact.”

  “Is that what they told you?” Nebwa asked, giving Mery a knowing wink.

  “Bak might well be speaking the truth,” Mery said. “I heard his scribe, the boy Hori, asking for men who saw them elsewhere that night.”

  “He found them,” Bak growled, rubbing his shoulder.

  He saw no need to mention Ruru, the one man who had been alone in the barracks. Except for the white bandage on the tall Medjay’s head, he was almost invisible in the deepening darkness. A reminder that night was almost upon them and he had no more time to waste listening to these men squabble.

  As if to stress the need for haste, Lupaki emerged from the house carrying two brightly flaming torches. He mounted one on the wall beside the rear door and the other at the head of the stairwell. After collecting two unoccupied stools and a table, he left as silently as he had come. In the better light, Bak saw Harmose eyeing him with a new appreciation. Azzia’s thoughts were hidden in shadow. Nebwa remained unconvinced.

  “What of the time the goldsmith was slain?” Paser asked. “Have you proven your men innocent of his death, too?”

  Thanking the lord Amon for giving him the opening he needed, Bak smiled. “Most are accounted for through the night. As for the rest…” Hepickedupthe scroll and package and held them out so everyone could see the seal securing the knotted cords. His voice took on a note of grim expectancy. “With luck and the favor of the gods, their whereabouts will be of no importance.”

  “You can name the one who took the goldsmith’s life?” Mery asked, his eyes locked on the objects.

  “Not yet, but maybe…” Bak cut himself short, letting them assume what they liked.

  All four men and the one woman stared at the objects. Mery looked bemused. Nebwa’s eyes were as narrow as Azzia’s were wide. The rise and fall of Harmose’s breast ceased. Paser set his drinking bowl on the table, so unaware of his action it landed with a thud.

  Nebwa jerked the scroll from Bak’s hand, glanced at the seal, and snorted. “Nakht sealed this document, and he was slain long before the goldsmith.” With a scornful smile, he tossed the scroll back. Bak barely had time to catch it.

  “When I find a thing in a secret place,” he said grimly, “I must believe it contains a secret.”

  “How could you…?” A startled look flitted across Azzia’s face, she clamped a hand over her mouth and stared at him, her shock apparent.

  She had realized, Bak felt sure, that he suspected one of these four men of slaying her husband and was using the objects as bait in a trap. It was time to end his game. He rose from his stool, walked to the edge of the pavilion, and looked up at the stars filling the sky with a milky white brilliance. “The hour is late. I must go.”

  The trill of a nightbird rang out, the sound so clear and pure the creature might have been perched directly above the courtyard. Another answered from farther away and a third fro
m a greater distance.

  He looked at Azzia. Her face was pale and drawn but composed, her glance a query. In spite of the fact that she had to know he had used her, had to despise him for it, she appeared to be waiting for his next move. His admiration increased tenfold, as did his guilt. “I suggest you all come with me. After so long a day, mistress Azzia must be tired.”

  “Yes,” she said, following his lead. “I am weary, that I admit.” She offered them all a wan smile. “To be with my friends today has been a gift I value above all else, but I’ve much left to do this night.”

  Bak waited at the stairwell door while they said their good-byes. Mery prolonged his farewell. Harmose hovered. Nebwa poked among the remaining dishes, collecting a handful of grapes, figs, and dates. Paser’s parting was as stiff and proper as his greeting.

  They were halfway down the stairs with Bak in the rear when Hori burst through the ground-floor doorway. His face looked pale in the light of the guttering torch shining from above.

  “Sir!” he shouted. “You must go to the quay at once. Two of our men have been drawn into a fight.”

  Bak muttered an oath and plunged past the others down the stairs. They followed close behind, curious to know what had happened.

  “Tell me!” he demanded.

  “They were patrolling the harbor.” Hori’s words tumbled out in frantic excitement. “Four men, sailors I think, blocked their path. They had knives and were taunting our men. A sentry atop the fortress wall saw them clash and sent word to me.”

  “I knew this would happen,” Bak snarled. He shoved the scroll and package into Hori’s hand. “Give these to Ruru. Tell him to take them to my quarters and wait for me there. Then go to the barracks, rouse Imsiba and a dozen men, and send them to me at the harbor.” Swinging around, he rushed to the outer door and the street.

  Bak raced across the rooftops of the housing block where his quarters were located. Four times he had to stop to silence and reassure uneasy neighbors who had taken their sleeping pallets to the roof when darkness fell. As he approached his own building, he spotted Imsiba’s dark figure, lying on the roof, peering over the low parapet at the gray-black lane below. He scuttled to the Medjay, crouching lower with each step, and dropped down to lay prone beside him.

  Imsiba flashed a quick, tense smile. “I thought never to hear Ruru’s signal. What took so long?” He spoke in a whisper but with the urgency born of anticipation.

  “None of our suspects came until the sun fell below the battlements.”

  “Which man walked into your snare?”

  “All of them.” Bak smiled at the surprise on Imsiba’s face, but quickly sobered. “As we feared, the man we seek gave nothing away. I’ve no better idea now than I did before who he is.”

  “They all heard Hori’s tale?”

  “Yes, and my order that Ruru bring the scroll and package here.” Bak gave no hint of the worry crowding his thoughts. “The guilty man should follow him from the commandant’s residence. He’ll wish to strike while he thinks me at the harbor and no threat to his safety.”

  The thin whistle of a nightbird sounded in the distance. A second, closer song rang out.

  “Ruru’s signal! And Woser’s.” Imsiba scrambled to a sitting position. “He’s on his way, my friend.” He answered the call with a slightly different birdsong. As the last note died away, he lay back with smile. “Our wait will seem shorter if you tell me of mistress Azzia’s gathering.”

  The air was still and balmy, the roof hard and unyielding. Barking dogs and a tomcat yowling for a mate disrupted the quiet, abated, began all over again. Bak spoke quickly, skimming over much of the afternoon, leaving out nothing important.

  At the end, Imsiba asked, “You’re certain mistress Azzia didn’t take her husband’s life?”

  “No man or woman could pretend so much hate, Imsiba.”

  “She placed you in Nakht’s bedchamber. Could she not have been speaking for your ears rather than those of Lieutenant Mery?”

  “Possibly,” Bak admitted, “but it matters not. If you’d seen and heard her, you’d be as convinced as I am.”

  Imsiba grunted.

  Bak hesitated to say more lest he reinforce the Medjay’s conviction that Azzia had addled his wits, but silence was not his way. “Later, when she realized I believe one of the four took Nakht’s life, she was not just surprised. She was shocked.”

  “As I would be if I feared my secrets were known.”

  “Hear me out! We’ve not much time.”

  Imsiba’s sigh was long and exaggerated.

  “She may’ve been disturbed because she thought I knew more than I did. I think, and here I admit I walk on marshy ground…I think she had no idea who slew her husband, and to learn that one of those four might be the guilty man was a new and shocking thought.”

  Imsiba eyed him for some time. When he finally spoke, his voice reflected a deep concern. “For your sake, my friend, I pray she’s as innocent of all guile as you hope she is.”

  Bak appreciated the Medjay’s solicitude, but resented the assumption that emotion controlled his thoughts. “Should not Ruru have come before now?” he asked irritably.

  “He was to walk, not run as you did, but…” Imsiba looked along the dark, narrow, empty lane, and concern deepened to worry. “Yes, we should’ve heard another signal.”

  A cool breeze, the breath of the lord Amon, Bak was sure, touched his back, sending chills up his spine. From the look on Imsiba’s face, he knew the Medjay had felt it, too. As if to affirm their worst fears, the frantic kew-kew-kew of a snared falcon carried through the air, the call so faint they barely heard it. A second call was stronger but no less frenzied. Imsiba shot to his feet to answer the summons. Azzia’s wine rose to Bak’s throat, soured by the knowledge that his plan had gone awry.

  Bak knelt beside the dark form crumpled at the base of the single pillar in the vestibule of the commandant’s residence. In the light of the flaming torch Pashenuro held above them, Ruru’s eyes, wide open, sightless, stared at him, accused him. Unshed tears burned the backs of his eyelids, guilt ate at his heart. He was as much to blame for Ruru’s death as the man who had thrust the dagger into his heart. He had told Hori to make sure the four suspects left the building before Ruru’s departure. Never dreaming the guilty man would dare to slip back inside, he had posted no Medjays in the offices surrounding the hall.

  Imsiba squatted next to him, examining the long, bronze blade he had pulled from Ruru’s breast. A pool of fresh blood painted the floor beneath the body a bright, glittery red. Kasaya stood in the shadows by the door, his back to them, his head bowed between hunched shoulders. He had found the body. As the first of a dozen Medjays hidden along the path Ruru should have taken, he had been the first to suspect something was wrong. He had heard Ruru’s signal, waited, realized too much time had gone by, and hurried to the residence.

  Imsiba, who looked as defeated as Bak felt, pointed to the symbol close to the handle. “The mark of the garrison arsenal. Every spearman and archer in Buhen carries a weapon like this.”

  “The scroll and package are gone, Imsiba. No ordinary soldier did this.” Bak stood up abruptly, made a fist, and slammed it against the pillar. “We must not let him outwit us again. He must pay for this death.”

  Imsiba hauled himself to his feet and stared at Ruru with a dismal face. He transferred his gaze to Bak, and worry overshadowed unhappiness. “When he sees the scroll is blank and finds a bar of lead rather than gold, he’ll fear you greatly, I think-and hate you. If we don’t snare him soon, my friend, he may well snare you instead.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Why did you not summon me to the river?” Nofery complained. “Why come here where all the world can see?”

  She swung the rush broom, driving a roiling cloud of dust across the hard-packed earthen floor. The flesh hanging from her upper arms swayed, her sagging breasts rolled from side to side beneath her sweat-damp white shift.

  Bak, standi
ng at the open door of her house of pleasure, filled his voice with honey. “You said my swimming place was too far away, too long and hot a walk. Can I never please you, old woman?”

  “Some can; some can’t.” Her tight-lipped scowl told him he fell in the latter group.

  He had no time to spar, so caught the broom handle in midswing, forcing her to be still, and added a woebegone smile. “I thought to find a friend when I passed through your door, not one so heartless she’d sweep me out with the dust.”

  “I welcome no man into my house whose presence could lead to the end of my business.”

  She sounded gruff, too gruff. His smile broadened and soon a twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed her enjoyment of the banter. She jerked the broom from his hand and propped it across the doorway, barring entry. Pulling a stool out of a corner so he could sit, she placed it well off to the side where he would not be seen from the lane.

  Ignoring the seat, he walked deeper into the room, which looked bleak and shabby in the dim early morning light. The stench of beer and sweat lingered; dust hung in the air. The large beer jars stacked against the scarred walls, the stools and tables shoved together in the corner, the chipped and stained drinking bowls, gave the place a look of abandonment. At the rear door, he brushed the curtain aside and peered into the back room. Three naked young women, two light-skinned, the other dark, lay curled together on a lumpy sleeping mat. One snored so softly the sound was like a whisper. Their satiny flesh glowed with youth; their faces in repose looked childlike, innocent. The delight their comely bodies promised threatened to rob him of his purpose.

  “So it’s pleasure you came for,” Nofery said, sidling up to him with a knowing smirk.

  Her words snapped him back to reality. He let the curtain fall, put a finger to his lips to soften her voice, and drew her away from the door. “Not today, old woman.” He cleared his throat, cleared away a last image of those three inviting bodies. “The steward Tetynefer has summoned me. I must know the latest rumors before I cross his threshold.”