A Vile Justice Read online

  Djehuty shifted on the pillows; his eyes sought Amonhotep, looking for.an answer that would blunt the point of Bak's sarcasm.

  The aide shrugged. "As I said when first we met, Lieutenant, who wants to believe in the abhorrent?"

  Bak had known many men who had mastered the art of self-deception. He disliked admitting it, but at times he stood among them, as eager to believe what he wanted to believe as the most adept. But in time the truth had to be faced no matter how hard to swallow. "Tell me of the man who was stabbed, the one whose death convinced you a murderer walked among you."

  "His name was Senmut," Djehuty said. "He was sergeant of the guard, the man who found Monta dead. A man in the prime of life, close to me in age. One who worked and played with the vigor of a youth, the strength of a bull."

  Of the three who had died, Bak noticed, this was the first the governor had praised. "You knew him well, sir?" "He grew to manhood in Abu, and so did 1. We played together as children, soldiered together as men. We wagered over anything and everything, we shared the same beer jars, we lay with the same women in houses of pleasure both here and in faroff lands." Djehuty's voice strengthened, took on a note of pride. "He was a man among men."

  Could Senmut have been chosen for death, Bak wondered, because of his friendship with Djehuty? Or was the slayer unaware they were close? "How did he die?"

  Djehuty's voice grew taut. "One morning, inside the rear gate, he was found with a dagger in his breast."

  "The dagger was his own," Amonhotep said, noting his superior's distress. "We longed to believe he was slain by someone from outside the wall, from the city of Abu, which abuts these grounds - but the gate was latched on the inside. The thrust to his breast was true, giving him no time to secure the latch. He was last seen after darkness fell the previous evening, checking the guards assigned to night duty. The guard at the front gate reported no one leaving after Senmut made his rounds, and with the rear gate latched. . ." The officer spread his hands wide, accenting the obvious. "Whoever slew him spent the night inside this compound."

  Bak whistled. No wonder Djehuty had taken fright! No wander he had asked the vizier's advice-and acted on it! Bak paced the gravel path beside the shallow pool, his thoughts flitting in every direction, probing possibilities, seeking a reason that would account for the three deaths,

  anything that might give him a path to follow.

  Djehuty, who had tired of the audience hall, had suggested they adjourn to the garden, where a gentle breeze rustled the leaves of a small, tidy grove of pomegranate, date, and sycamore trees. He and Amonhotep faced each other on two wooden benches shaded by a bower of lush grapevines. The musty scent of fresh-turned earth wafted across the pool from several newly planted garden plots. Other small plots outlined by irrigation ditches and low mud walls contained maturing lettuce, onions, and radishes, beans and chickpeas, and a long, narrow stand of melons. Cornflowers, poppies, and daisies grew among the trees, while the blossoms of the blue lily floated on the surface of the pool, perfuming the air.

  "How long ago was the youth Nakht slain?" Bak asked, pausing before the arbor.

  Djehuty glanced at Amonhotep, passing on the question. "I remember thinking when I arose this morning that Montu was slain a month ago today, exactly thirty days. As for the boy. . ." The aide stared at the pool, trying to recall. "Yes, he died ten days before the guard did, a week to the day." A sudden thought brought his head around and he gave Bak an odd look. "They both were slain on the final day of the week, and so was Senmut, ten days after Montu's demise."

  Bak stood quite still. "Today is the final day of this week."

  "You don't think ... T' Amonhotep stared, appalled. He had been absent from Abu for eighteen days, almost two weeks.

  Bak swung toward the governor. "Did anyone die on the grounds of this villa ten days ago?"

  Djehuty autontatically shook his head, then his face drained of color and he moaned. "It was an accident. It had to be. No man or woman was near the animal."

  "What are you saying?" Amonhotep looked ready to shake his superior. "Did someone meet a violent end while I was gone?"

  "Lieutenant Dedi." Djehuty's shoulders slumped, and he spoke barely above a whisper. "It happened in the stable here in the compound. He was found in a stall, trampled to death by a horse gone mad."

  "What exactly happened?" Bak demanded, his voice so harsh he frightened an approaching duck and her brood, sending them fluttering toward the nearest ditch. "Horses don't go mad without cause. And men don't walk into a stall containing an animal whose spirit is troubled." As a former charioteer, Bak could speak with authority.

  "This horse went mad, I tell you." Djehuty rubbed his face as if to wipe away the problem. "Maybe the creature ate tainted food. Maybe a mouse or rat frightened him. Maybe he took a dislike to Lieutenant Dedi's smell." He shook his head, unable to come up with a satisfactory reason. "Maybe the signs of madness were there all along and Dedi failed to see them. He was young and green, new to horses."

  "I doubt his death was an accident," Bak said. "It fits too neatly into the pattern."

  "Pattern!" Djehuty sneered. "Coincidence, more likely." Bak felt like strangling him. Each time Djehuty had to face a new horror, he retreated farther from the truth. "You must see, sir, that if Lieutenant Dedi was slain exactly ten days ago, and the sergeant ten days before him, and the spearman ten days earlier, and the servant.. ." A new realization struck and his voice faltered. "By the beard of Amon!"

  "What is it?" Amonhotep asked. "What's wrong?"

  "A second pattern." Bak saw the perplexity on both men's faces and hastened to explain. "Think of the rank of each man who was slain. First a lowly servant, next a common guard, third a sergeant, and . . ."

  "And finally a lieutenant." Amonhotep's eyes slewed toward the governor. "Each man more lofty than the next." "No." Djehuty buried his face in his hands. "It's impossible! Another coincidence!"

  Amonhotep's eyes met Bak's and he shook his head in dismay. "I've known men to slay in the heat of anger or to take an enemy's life on the field of battle. But this? I fear I don't understand."

  "Nor do L" The question the aide had posed was important, Bak knew, but he had a more immediate problem. "Today is the tenth day of the week. If the pattern holds, someone will die today, someone of a rank higher than Lieutenant and not necessarily a soldier."

  Amonhotep's voice grew weary. "You speak of all those men closest to the governor, all who toil solely at his behest. The loftiest men in the province."

  "They must be warned." Bak glanced skyward. The sun, a burning yellow ball in a vivid blue sky, had risen to within an hour of midday. He prayed they were not already too late.

  Djehuty's armchair stood empty on the dais in the audience hall. Filing into the room one after another were the men he had summoned at Bak's request. These were the highest officials on the governor's staff, men he depended upon for the smooth running of the province, his personal estate, and the small garrison situated on the island of Abu. Four men were standing before the dais, talking among themselves, speculating as to the purpose of the summons. Amonhotep, who stood with Bak just outside a door near the dais, had identified them as they entered: Troop Captain Antef, the chief steward Amethu, the chief scribe Simut, and Djehuty's son Ineni.

  "I thank the lord Khnum they've all come," Amonhotep said. "I feared one among them would be unable to appear." Khnum was the god who guarded the sources of the river, the inundation. He was the principal god of Abu.

  Bak noted the way the young officer skirted around the mention of death. He had surely realized his own situation. Or had he? "Have you thought, Amonhotep, that you're Djehuty's right hand, as essential to the smooth running of this province as any of the four we see before us?"

  Amonhotep gave Bak a tight smile. "I'm not my master, Bak. I'm fully aware that I must count myself among those who might next face death."

  Djehuty rushed out of a back room, swooped past the two officers without a word,
and hurried to the dais. He sat on the mound of pillows padding his chair, his body stiff, his face pale and tight, and spoke with a forced composure. His staff formed a ragged line in front of him, silent, curious.

  "You know as well as I of the unfortunate deaths we've suffered here in my household," the governor said. "And you know the vizier suggested 1 summon an officer from the fortress of Buhen, a Lieutenant Bak." He paused to clear his throat, hurried on. "He's come, we've spoken at length, and he's reached a conclusion I hesitate to endorse."

  Bak muttered an oath. The governor had vowed to support him with no reservations. Now here he was, retreating from a positive stance.

  "I'll let the lieutenant speak for himself," Djehuty added, "so each of you may judge the worth of his words." Stifling his irritation, Bak stepped through the door to stand beside the dais. After a few introductory words to identify himself, he briefly discussed the four deaths and went on to the conclusions he had reached. "I believe ... No! I'm convinced an attempt will be made before the day ends to slay one man among you."

  "Bah!" This from a short, portly man with a fringe of curly white hair. Simut, the chief scribe. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but I'm a busy man. I can't run away and hide simply because you've arranged the facts to fit a theory you've created in haste. A week from now, two weeks-after you've come to know this place and its people-you might have sufficient knowledge to come up with a convincing argument. But now? Too soon. Much too soon."

  Could he be right? Bak wondered. Could my past successes have made me overconfident? Hiding self-doubt in a humorless smile, he said, "Sir, if I were to walk on tiptoe and clutch caution to my breast, as you suggest, I doubt your governor will be among the living beyond a week from today.

  Djehuty sucked in his breath like a man struck in the stomach. Bak was hard put to sympathize. If the governor had not yet admitted to himself that his name probably lay at the top of the slayer's list, he had no one to blame but himself. "I know of no man who would wish to slay my father." The speaker was tall like his sire, but harder muscled and lacking in angularity. His hair was short, dark, and glistening with good health, his skin burnished by the sun. He was close to Bak's twenty-five years.

  "You must be Ineni," Bak said. "Lieutenant Amonhotep told me you oversee your father's estate."

  "Where the lieutenant is my father's right hand," Ineni said, bowing his head in mock acknowledgment, "you must think of me as his left hand."

  Bak commended the quip with a fleeting smile. "You don't take seriously the possibility of another murder, this one closer to you and yours?"

  "Three of the dead out of four were soldiers. Would that not make Troop Captain Antef the next most likely man to die?"

  "I may be wrong, but..." Simut snorted at the admission.

  ". . . but I believe the youth Nakht was slain not only because of his lowly status, but to pass on the message that a civilian is as likely to die as a soldier."

  "What kind of swine would slay a child?" The speaker, Antef, was a large, heavy man in his early thirties. He wore the short white kilt of a soldier and the belt and sheathed dagger of an officer. "And for no better reason than to deliver a message."

  "You think I err?" Bak asked.

  "I pray you do." Antef's mouth tightened. "If you've read the signs right, the one you seek is no ordinary man. He does what-he wants, giving no thought to the laws of men or the wishes of the gods."

  "Few men walk the earth so fearless." Djehuty's chief steward, Amethu, was a man of middle years. He had the broad shoulders and narrow hips of youth, but his stomach bulged and he was as bald as a melon. He wore the anklelength kilt of a scribe and a bronze chain around his neck,

  from which hung a dozen or more small colored stone amulets of the ram-headed god Khnum.

  Antef gave the steward a scornful look. "Some men don't share your awe of the gods, Amethu. They hold themselves Above all creatures, mortal and immortal alike."

  "Should I feel shame because I revere the gods?" Amethu asked, raising his chin high. "It certainly wouldn't hurt you to bend your knee before a shrine or in the forecourt of a god's mansion."

  "I served my turn less than a month ago as web priest in the mansion of . . ."

  "Enough!" Bak raised his hands for silence and spoke to them all as one. "You each have duties, I know. They can't be laid aside because I believe the slayer intends next to slay one of you. Go on with what you must do, but stay always in the company of other men. Don't ever walk alone. Don't. . ."

  "Sir!" A young woman, a servant if her rough linen sheath told true, burst through the rear door. Her roundish face was whiter than her dress, her eyes wide open, horrified. "Oh, Governor Djehuty!" she wailed. "It's terrible! Oh, sir!"

  Bak leaped toward the young woman, confused by her words, by her demeanor, very much aware of the men before him, all alive and well. Could another individual have been murdered? One that did not fit the patterns he had so carefully developed?

  Amonhotep, a step ahead, caught her by the shoulders. "What is it, Nefer? What's happened?"

  Tears flowed as if from a river and she began to tremble. "Oh, sir! Oh!".

  "Speak up, woman!" Amonhotep shook her none too gently. "Tell us what's happened."

  "It's mistress Hatnofer," the girl sobbed. "She's dead. Her head smashed. So much blood! Oh, so much blood!" Hatnofer? Bak thought. Djehuty's housekeeper? He spat out an oath, and another and another. From what little the governor had said about the woman earlier in the day, she

  had been as important to him as were the five men standing before the dais. Yet he, Bak, had failed to think of her, to summon her, and now she lay dead. If her life had been taken while he stood here warning the others, he would blame himself through eternity.

  Chapter Three

  Djehuty sat as if turned to stone by the gods, his face pasty white, his hands clutching the arms of his chair.

  "No!" Someone-Ineni, Bak thought-breathed the denial.

  ` The portly chief scribe Simut stared at the servant, blinking like a man unable to comprehend. Troop Captain Antef muttered a curse, calling the lord Khnum for strength, and groped for the handle of his dagger as if seeking its protection. The chief steward Amethu's lips began to move, but no words came out-a prayer of some kind, most likely.

  "I must see her," Bak said, his voice sharp above the girl's sobs.

  Amonhotep, still grasping her shoulders, shook his head as if waking from a dream-or a nightmare. "Where is she, Nefer? You must take us to her."

  "I can't look at her again!" Sobbing, shaking her head, she tried to back away, to free herself. "Oh, sir, please don't ask it of me!"

  Bak laid a hand on her arm. His touch was gentle, his demeanor kind, yet he felt her cringe. "We ask only that you show us where you found her, Nefer. Nothing more."

  She gave him the look a drowning man would give one who had thrown out a lifesaving rope, but the tears continued to pour, the sobs to break the flow of words. "We went into the master's quarters in Nebmose's villa. We thought to prepare the rooms for you, sir. That's where we came upon her. Mistress Khawet and I."

  "Nebmose's villa?" Bak threw Amonhotep a puzzled glance. "She wasn't slain within this compound, as the others were?"

  "Our walls surround both houses." The aide kept his eyes on Nefer, spoke to her, calming her with facts she surely knew well. "This has long been the governor's villa, occupied by Djehuty's family for many generations, since a longdead ancestor was made governor of the south by Kheperkare Senwosret. The other house and its outbuildings belonged to a family as old as Djehuty's, probably descended from the same ancestor. When the last of the line, Nebmose, lost his life and no man or woman remained to inherit, Djehuty took the property in the name of our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut, and made it a part of his own. The rooms once occupied by the master of the house we now use to shelter visiting dignitaries, the remainder for storage."

  Normally, property that reverted to the royal house was handed over to a god's mansio
n to be used for income or was given to a private individual as a reward for services. Had Djehuty simply taken the villa as his due? Or had he performed some worthy act?

  "Hatnofer lies where we found her," Nefer sobbed, "in the master's bath. I dared not touch her, but mistress Khawet knelt by her side and sought the pulse of life in her neck." "Mistress Khawet?" Bak asked.

  "My daughter," Djehuty croaked.

  "My wife," Ineni said at the same time. His eyes flitted toward Djehuty and he added in a caustic voice, "She serves as mistress of this household for her father."

  Bak gave him a sharp look, but Ineni's expression gave nothing away. Any message he had meant to convey had been for Djehuty's benefit, not for an outsider, a police officer.

  Bak turned to the servant, smiled. "We must go, Nefer." He waited for her nod, then glanced at Amonhotep. "I'll need you, too, Lieutenant."

  "Of course." Amonhotep released the young woman's shoulders and stepped back, but not so far that he could not stop her should she attempt to flee.

  "What of the rest of us, Lieutenant?" Simut demanded. "The wretched woman was a housekeeper, important to this household but of no appreciable worth to the affairs of the province. On the surface, her death appears to verify your theory, but does it?"

  Was the scribe always so irascible? Bak wondered. Or was he using irritability to shield himself from grief-or fear? Simut undoubtedly knew the power a housekeeper could wield, as did he. Bak's father, a physician highly regarded for his skills, had been unable to save his mother, who had died in childbirth. He had grown from a babe to manhood in the care of a woman who had ruled the servants with an iron hand - and himself and his father with the tact and skill of a royal envoy.

  "In a large establishment such as this, the mistress of the house ofttimes serves as a hostess, leaving the housekeeper to oversee the servants and see that no task is forgotten and all are done well. Was that true here?"

  "It was." Amethu, who had ceased his prayer, stepped forward. "But now and again, when Hatnofer complained of drowning in a flood of duties, mistress Khawet eased her path by helping."