'That's it?' Bak demanded, deflated. 'Words led to a blow, and you can tell me no more?'
Kasaya shook his head. 'No, sir.'
'She didn't confide in anyone, telling what happened or giving a reason for the quarrel?'
'She was so angry no one dared ask, ever.'
Bak scowled at the young Medjay. He had a good idea how a fish felt when a man dangled a worm in front of it and then jerked it away. No wonder the poor creature grabbed the hook the moment the man let it drop again. 'What of the storm? Did you find any connection between her and the tempest?'
'No, sir.' Kasaya wiggled around, twisting his torso, and ran his fingers under the waistband at the back of his kilt. Evidently sand had trickled inside. 'Oh, she knew some of the men who died. After all, she toiled in the governor's villa for a long time, and he headed the garrison. And Abu's not all that big. But… Well, if she was close to one, no one will speak out.'
Bak set his drinking bowl on the floor, leaned back against the wall, and closed his eyes. In this, too, the gods had failed him.
Bak stumbled on a rough spot in the lane, lurching forward. Kasaya swayed toward him, resting much of his weight on Bak's shoulder. 'We should've left you in Swenet,' he growled at toe besotted Medjay.
Psuro, who had dunked his head in a water trough to clear away the haze, tugged at the arm across his shoulders, trying to shift some of Kasaya's weight onto himself. 'I doubt he can hear you, sir.'
They maneuvered their shuffling, stumbling load around the corner and into the lane leading to their quarters. Bak peered into the blackness, imagining he could see a darker rectangle near the far end. Their door seemed a long way off.
'I fear I'm getting old, Psuro. This is the second man I've half carried to his quarters in less than a week. Both times I've reached my sleeping pallet as sober as a priest, a feat unheard of in my younger days.'
'I shouldn't have reminded him of Djehuty's cook's daughter. That's what set him off.' Psuro hesitated, added, 'You may have to hustle him onto a ship, sir, and smuggle him out of town.'
'I know nothing about this latest fling, nor do I want to. It's time he solved his own problems.'
'You, sir, are a hard man,' Kasaya mumbled.
Bak would have kicked the young drunk if he had thought the effort worthwhile, but the punishment, he suspected, would fade from Kasaya's memory faster than a flame from a lamp burned empty of oil.
'Here we are,' Psuro said, pausing before the gaping doorway.
'I thank the lord Amon!' Bak helped maneuver their burden across the threshold and into their quarters. The room was as black as a scribe's ink, blinding him. 'Where's his sleeping pallet?'
'Does it matter? We could leave him in the lane, and he wouldn't know the difference.'
'How right you are,' Bak laughed.
They let their besotted companion crumple and stretched him out as best they could. Bak went outside to search for a house showing a light, while Psuro fumbled around near the door for the lamp he had left there. Not a creature stirred all along the lane, and every fire had been extinguished. The Medjay came out, lamp in hand, and went off to find a night patrol with a torch. Bak's wait was probably not long, but it seemed so.
When Psuro returned, he held the lamp in the doorway so his superior officer could enter first. As Bak stepped across the threshold, Kasaya let out a yell that must have awakened the dead. He rolled, crashed into the woven reed storage chest, and scrambled to his knees. He gave Bak and Psuro a wild-eyed look, tried to talk, could not, and pointed. The light was dim, the flame unstable, making the shadows deep and impenetrable, setting them aquiver like wraiths from the netherworld. A fitting habitat for the object they saw.
Propped against a folded sleeping pallet close to where Kasaya's head had been, the first thing he must have seen when he opened his eyes, was an egg-shaped green-andwhite striped melon about the size of a human head. Drawn in black ink were huge eyes, a long nose, and a mouth twisted as if in agony. The top and one side of the obscene head were crushed, showing the reddish interior. Sticking out of the wound was the foreleg of an animal, a goat, Bak thought.
Another unwanted gift, this representing the fourth death, that of Lieutenant Dedi trampled by a horse.
He hurried to Kasaya, squeezed his shoulder to calm him, and knelt beside the disgusting object. The foreleg was dry and bloodless, the creature from which it had come long dead. The meat inside the melon had begun to dry on the surface, but was glistening wet beneath. The ghastly thing had been left some time after midday, he guessed, after the archer had disappeared in the rapids. Even if the man had somehow managed to survive, he could not have left this awful gift.
Chapter Ten
'Will you see the governor today?' Psuro asked.
Bak knew what the Medjay really wanted to know: whether or not they were soon going home to Buhen. 'I think it best we go on as before, making no reports until we've something substantial to say.'
Psuro gave him a pained look. 'But sir!'
Bak took the basket from the old woman and handed her a plastered wood token for the garrison quartermaster so she could collect the grain due her. As she shuffled away, he grabbed the uppermost of the two stools Psuro had stacked, one upside-down on top of the other, on which to place the food if by chance they had already gone when she delivered it. Swinging the seat upright, he sat down and lifted the lid from the basket. The aroma of fresh-baked bread wafted out, competing with the smell of braised fish, which she had wrapped in leaves and placed atop the bread.
A low moan drew his eyes to Kasaya, who was lying on his sleeping pallet, face to the wall, suffering from the previous evening's overindulgence.
'The instant I tell Djehuty about the archer, he'll send us packing. How will we account to the vizier if later, ten days from the day of Hatnofer's death, when we're well on our way to Buhen, a courier delivers a message that the governor's been slain?'
'He'd not be pleased,' Psuro answered ruefully.
Bak spread open the leaves, took a flattish loaf still warm from the oven from beneath them, and laid a fish, equally warm, across the bread. Passing the basket to Psuro, he said, 'We don't know for a fact that the archer's dead. I lived through worse rapids, thanks to the lord Amon. I know few men do, but…'
'Unless they know the waters well,' Psuro cut in.
'If he knew the river, would he have allowed himself to be pressed so close to the island that he had nowhere to go but into the maelstrom?'
'No, sir.'
Psuro took a loaf and a couple of fish from the basket. Winking at Bak, he knelt beside Kasaya and held the food close, giving the younger man 'a good, strong whiff. Kasaya moaned louder and shoved the offending hand away.
'Too much celebration,' Psuro grinned. He walked to the stairs, sat down, and the smile faded. 'And now you say we had no reason to make merry.'
'The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the gifts we've found here, the threat they imply, have nothing to do with the archer. The goal was probably the sameto get us out of Abu one way or another-but the means of reaching it was entirely different.'
'Which of the two is the slayer?'
Bak took a bite of fish, thought over his answer while he chewed, swallowed. 'I think the gift-giver the more likely. He has sufficient imagination to work out the patterns I spotted when first we came to Abu. I've seen no sign that the archer is that creative.'
Psuro shivered. 'I don't know which was worse: the rat or the melon.'
'If the slayer still walks the halls of the governor's villa, as I believe, a dap or two more might bring forth the truth. If I err, and he died yesterday among the rapids, the worst we can do is to rouse some dormant tempers.'
Psuto looked up from his meal, frowned. 'I dread to think of what we'll find on our doorstep tonight.'
'So far, the gift-giver has never thrown caution aside to enter the house in the full light of day. I think it safe
