noted the flush spreading across Woser's face. 'Now tell me, sir, who, as far as you know, was the last to see Puemre alive?'
'I was. I and my senior officers.' Woser's voice was as stiff as his spine. 'We met here the night he disappeared, here in this very room. We spoke of the lord Amon, discussing the duties each man would perform when they accompany the god upriver to Semna. They left long after nightfall.'
Bak stared at the older man. Woser looked drained, which in itself gave him away. He believed, Bak felt sureor perhaps he knew for a fact-that one of the officers who had attended that meeting had committed murder. No wonder he preferred to sweep Puemre's death under a floor mat!
'I blame myself,' Woser said as if he guessed Bak's thoughts. 'I should've called them together earlier in the day, made sure they left before dark. At so late an hour, only men up to no good prowl the streets.'
Bak nodded, letting him think he agreed. But he had read the monthly reports of crime in Iken, and they did not bear out the charge. 'I must talk to all who were here that night, learn what they saw, if anything.'
'I understand.' With an obvious effort, Woser met Bak's eyes. 'I'd prefer you to wait until tomorrow. I can summon them then, when they're not so busy with their garrison duties.'
Bak could see the commander wished to keep him at arm's length until… What? Until he and his officers had time to think up a collective tale designed to deceive? Bak thought it best he go along with the game, let them assume he was easily led. 'I'd prefer today, but tomorrow will do as well. In the meantime, I need quarters for myself and my men, somewhere apart from the barracks.' He stood up, preparing to leave. 'And I wish to see Puemre's quarters. Can you tell me where he lived?'
Puemre's house was in the lower city not far from the small house the chief scribe had allocated to Bak and his men. This residential sector, close to the base of the escarpment, was slowly being enveloped by the shadow of the fortress towering above it. The sole occupant of the narrow lane was a slick-haired yellow cur sprawled in an open doorway, its tongue hanging out, its thin chest heaving to catch a breath of air.
'We'll not find much here,' Kasaya said, wading through a drift of sand the serpentine wall outside the sector had failed to keep out of the lane. 'If Commander Woser is protecting one of his officers, he'd have long ago sent men to clean out anything that would point a finger.'
Bak stopped before the last house in the lane and a wooden door latched to discourage entry. 'We must begin somewhere. Besides, I want Woser to know I'll sweep up every grain of sand, if I must, to look at the dark, clean earth beneath.'
'I thought you wished him to believe you can be deceived.'
'If he knows I'm serious about this investigation, he'll fret. If he thinks I'm stupid, he may be careless.'
The young Medjay's expression lingered somewhere between confusion and skepticism.
Bak lifted the wooden latch and shoved open the door. The house was small, a single room five paces by ten, whitewashed for cleanliness, and a small kitchen at the rear lightly roofed with branches and palm fronds. Beyond a low platform covered with a sleeping pallet, a ladder led to an opening in the roof, closed now with a palm-leaf mat. A second pallet, much smaller than the other, lay on the floor in the opposite corner. A stool and three reed chests completed the furnishings. Several dried mud animals, a toy crocodile carved of wood, and a broken doll, lay clumped together on the smaller bed.
'He must've kept the boy with him!' Bak was surprised, though not sure why. 'The mute child Nofery talked about.'
Kasaya, little more than an overgrown child himself, had been intrigued by Nofery's tale. 'Maybe Puemre kept him as his servant. A boy of six or seven years can do many small tasks to ease life's path.'
'How did they manage to talk to each other?' Bak wondered. 'More important, where's the boy now?'
The two men studied the room, looking for signs of recent occupation. The brazier was cold, the pottery dishes clean and neatly stacked against the wall. Both sleeping pallets were smooth and tidy. One chest contained men's clothing: tunics and kilts of fine linen, all clean and folded. Another was filled with sandals and armor and hand weapons: dagger, mace, and sling. A smaller chest held Puemre's razors, eye paint, and other toilet articles. An examination of the contents of several pottery jars large and small disclosed a bare minimum of foodstuffs.
'I fear the child's run away,' Bak said. 'With so little food remaining, I doubt he'll return.' He was not unduly concerned. The boy was probably close by, living in the home of some soft-hearted, motherly woman with a brood of her own.
Kasaya hurried to the door to study the sandy lane. 'He hasn't come this way since the last strong wind. How long ago was that, I wonder?'
'Go find a neighbor.'
Within minutes Kasaya came back, bringing with him a dusky young woman of fifteen or so years holding a tiny baby to her breast. Her eyes were heavy with sleep, as if the Medjay had disturbed her afternoon nap.
'The wind blew hard three nights ago,' Kasaya said. He nodded to the woman. 'Speak up, mistress. Tell the lieutenant what you told me.'
She lowered her eyes, too shy to speak in more than a murmur. 'I've not seen the boy since the night before the sergeant came, looking for Lieutenant Puemre.'
Bak's interest quickened. 'The child was already gone before Puemre was found to be missing?'
Her eyes flickered to his face and away; she nodded. Bak's thoughts tumbled over each other, searching through the possibilities. Somehow the boy must have learned of his master's death. Was it possible that he saw Puemre die? Would it be stretching credibility to assume the murder had been witnessed by two people? One a drunk who might not remember and one a mute who could not repeat the tale? Both of whom had disappeared. 'Tell me of that night,' he urged.
'My man was on guard duty, so I lay alone on the roof. The air was hot and my baby restless. I couldn't sleep. I saw the boy climb up from this house and stand for an instant in the starlight. He carried a bundle on his back. A sheet, I thought, filled with I know not what, a burden so heavy it bent him double. He looked around like a puppy lost from its mother, searching for the terrors of the night. Finding no threat-he didn't know I watched him-he walked from roof to roof until he reached the far end of the block, where he disappeared from sight.'
'And he's not been back since.'
She hugged her baby close, gaining courage from its warmth. 'No, sir.'
Kasaya nodded in agreement. 'I found sand on the mat above the ladder, so he didn't sneak in from the roof.' Bak eyed the room, noting how neat it was, how abandoned it appeared. If the boy had seen Puemre slain, he would never come back. Nor would he be easy to find, as Bak had initially assumed. He let out a long, frustrated sigh. 'Who's come to this house since Puemre's death?'
The girl nuzzled the dark fuzz on her baby's head. 'The sergeant returned again and again, looking more worried each time. The woman came, the one heavy with child who cared for the house and cooked. Other men came, soldiers they were, but I know not how many for they all looked much alike to me.'
Bak had expected no less, but his spirits sagged even further. With so many people coming and going, any clues Puemre might'6ve left had long ago vanished. The search he must make would be fruitless.
He asked a few more questions that led nowhere and dismissed the woman. 'You may as well go, too, Kasaya. This house has been swept clean. I see no point in wasting your time as well as mine.'
The lord Re hung low in the western sky, stretching the shadow of the escarpment across the lower city. The harbor was still and quiet, its waters a sheet of molten gold reflecting a cloudless sky. A soft breeze stirred the air, rousing the city's inhabitants to their evening endeavors, giving voice to animals and fowl and men.
Bak descended the ladder from the rooftop and glanced around the room. He had yet to search the sleeping pallets, then he could leave. As he knelt beside the child's bed, he wondered what Pashenuro had managed to glean from the garrison stores. A plump duck would be pleasant, he thought, and ajar of beer, treats to counterbalance his failure to find a single clue to Puemre's death. Or life, for that matter. Puemre had lived well enough, but austere, as if trying to prove to his fellow officers-or maybe himselfthat he could turn his back on his noble heritage.
Lifting the sheet, shaking it out, he thanked the lord Amon that he would soon be finished and on his way. He had barely peeked inside the house Woser had assigned to him and his men, but it seemed ideal: two rooms, located like Puemre's house at the end of a quiet lane. He eyed the pallet on which the mute boy had slept. The pad had been doubled, making it thicker and softer, more like a nest. He raised it, looking without hope for a hiding place in the hard-packed earthen floor.
A broken piece of grayish pottery fell from the folds of cloth, clattering to the ground, a shard with some kind
