Amonhotep, giving the matter more thought than Bak felt it warranted, sorted through the pile, removing a broad multicolored bead collar, bracelets, armlets, and anklets, and laid them on a nearby table. He took a fringed robe from the clothing that remained, stood up to shake it out, and began to fold it. 'Tempting. Very tempting. Perhaps when I finish with this room.'
Bak eyed him critically. 'Is this not a task for servants?' 'Normally, yes, but… Well, Djehuty no longer allows them to come and go as they used to. He's banned them from his rooms.'
'He's afraid.'
'Wouldn't you be?' Amonhotep scooped a handful of green and white playing pieces off the top of a legged game board, dropped them into the open drawer, and shut it with a thud. He laid the folded garment where the pieces had been and picked up a white linen tunic. 'You yourself have seen to that.'
'I doubt the slayer is a servant.'
Amonhotep gave him a tight-lipped parody of a smile. 'If you can convince him of that, I'll be eternally grateful.' 'Turn your back on this mess and come sailing with me. We both deservg a few hours' respite.'
Bak saw the longing on Amonhotep's face, the desire to escape, and the decision to abandon his duty forming in his heart.
'Amonhotep will go nowhere.' Djehuty burst into the room, his face ruddy with anger. 'I need him here, and here he'll remain.'
'But, sir…' Bak and the younger officer spoke together. 'No!' Djehuty strode across the room, eyes blazing, and glared at Bak. 'You and your Medjays come into my home, prying into the lives of all who dwell here, asking impertinent questions no man or woman should have to answer. I won't allow you to take my aide from his duties, drawing him away so you can question him as you've queried others who owe their loyalty to me.'
'Is this his duty?' Bak demanded, eyeing the messy room with distaste.
'Who else can I trust to care for me?'
'You've lived here a lifetime. You must have at least one trustworthy servant.'
'You were in the audience hall. Not a man in attendance was a stranger, but they all turned against me when I judged that wretched Ahmose. I was fair, generous even, yet murmurs of resentment flowed from men's lips like water from a shattered bowl. How can I trust servants if I can't depend on men of greater status to stand beside me when I need them?'
The man's irrational, Bak thought. Forced to see what he wants to overlook, filled with fear and tension, his normal obstinacy has turned to a dim-witted, arrogant defensiveness.
Bak stood at the rear door of the governor's house, looking across the stretch of sand lined with conical silos. The servants who had inventoried the grain had spilled wheat and barley on the ground. Birds, domestic and wild, and a half dozen young, goats stood among the golden kernels, gorging themselves. A black dog, stretched out in the shade between two silos, raised its head to sniff the air, heavy with the scent of roasting beef smothered in onions.
Where, he wondered, was Khawet? He had stalked out of her father's reception room, seething with anger. After a half hour's swim had cooled his temper, he had gone in search of Simut. The chief scribe had told him in no uncertain terms that he was busy with the inventory and had no time to answer questions. Antef was at the granite quarry, he had learned, and Ineni had not returned from Nubt.
Bak walked along the row of silos, a thought born of his conversation with Amethu nagging. He had assumed Hatnofer had been slain because she stood close to Djehuty in importance, but maybe he erred. Her life might well have been taken because she knew too much about the past. If the steward's rumor was true, if she and Min had been lovers, the sergeant could have told her about the storm before he sailed north, leaving Abu forever. With luck, Khawet would know of their relationship.
He passed through the gate and headed toward the kitchen. The smell of beef and onions grew stronger. Raised voices issued from the structure. Women arguing.
Khawet came through the far gate. She saw Bak and, smiling, hurried toward him. 'Lieutenant! How nice to see you! Amethu told me you were here and said you might wish to speak with me.'
Warmed by a welcome rare in this household, Bak grinned. 'I wasn't sure you'd have the time. Everyone else is either tied up with the inventory or hiding out to avoid it.'
She laughed. 'How long ago did you arrive in Abu? Only six days? Yet already you've seen through us.'
'I fervently wish that were true.'
'All households are much alike. Have you never wed?' Few households were victim to a five-time slayer, he thought. 'I've never been so fortunate.'
A hint of a smile touched her lips and her voice softened. 'To share your life with one you love must be close to perfection. To be wed to another…' Her tone hardened, as did her expression. '… one who's a lesser man in every way, can be a burden difficult to bear.'
Ineni had said his wife had loved another, a man who had died far in the past. Bak could see the loss in her eyes, a grief she should long ago have pushed aside. 'I met a woman when first I went to Buhen. She was as lovely as a gazelle, gentle, kind, and generous, yet she had a strength of will that few men or women can claim. She…' He broke off, laughed softly at himself, at the warmth that never ceased to enter his heart when he thought of her. 'The time was wrong and I lost her.'
She smiled, her voice regained its softness. 'Do you think of her always?'
'I go on with my life. As I must.'
A young woman burst through the kitchen door, shrieking. A second girl followed, screaming curses, brandishing the long tongs used to stir burning charcoal.
Khawet's smile faded. 'Oh, no! Not again!'
The young woman in the lead spotted Khawet and ran toward her. 'Oh, mistress! Help me! Help!'
The girl with the tongs raced after her, shrieking. 'You! You bride of Set! You took away my beloved! You stole him!' Her body shook with fury, her face was a mask of hatred.
She swung the tongs back and, leaping forward, slashed them hard across the other woman's shoulders. Blood gushed from the broken flesh. The injured girl screeched Bak lunged at the assailant, grabbed the tongs, and tore them from her grasp. Gripping her upper arm, he shoved her roughly to the bare earth. Khawet rushed to the other young woman, helped her to the mudbrick bench against the wall a few cubits away, and went to the kitchen door to call for cloth for bandages. Several women hurried out, more to look than assist, Bak suspected. A short, barrel-shaped woman he took to be the cook brought a bowl of steaming water and strips of linen.
Khawet turned to him and smiled an apology. 'You must forgive me, Lieutenant, but this wound can't wait.'
Bak walked slowly down the lane, passing through shadows cast by the taller houses and broad strips of sunlight that reached over the lower buildings. A breeze stirred the hot, dry air and lifted dust from the hard-packed earth. He smelled oil heating over charcoal braziers, but the hour was too early for the odors of cooked food to drift down from the rooftops. Children's laughter and the rhythmic click of wood on wood told of boys playing with make-believe spears somewhere nearby.
He wondered if he would find an unwanted gift in his quarters. He had never before approached the house so early in the evening, nor had the gift-giver ever come before dusk, when shadows filled the lane and neighbors, preoccupied with their evening meal, were unlikely to be about. He glanced at the roof across the lane, but it was even too early for Psuro to have taken up his post.
He stopped before the doorway and peered inside. The room, illuminated by a lone shaft of light coming through the opening at the top of the stairs, was dim and shadowy but not dark. A round red pot three hand-widths across sat a pace or so inside the door. A white cloth, held tightly in place with string, covered the top. His first thought was food; the old woman had brought their evening meal. Then his eyes darted toward the stools he had restacked in the center of the room before leaving the house early in the day. They stood as he had left them, one upside-down on top of the other. No basket sat atop the three legs. The old woman would never have left their evening meal on the floor, where mice or rats could get to it.
This had to be another gift left by… By whom?
His next thought was not so rational; the pot might contain a human head, crushed as Hatnofer's had been. A chill crept up his spine- and at the same time he rejected the idea. The neck of the container was too small.
Chiding himself for too vivid an imagination, he stepped over the threshold and knelt before the jar. The linen cover bothered him. The fabric would admit air, where the more usual mud plug would not, leading him to believe
