was a stranger who reminded them of death and a slayer still free to take another life.
Several times, ha, had surprised furtive glances from the three men sitting a few paces away surrounded by loosely woven reed baskets from which water leaked. Their task was to gut, bone, and scale the morning's catch. Another man took the cleaned fish and spread them out in the sun to dry.
A fifth crushed bones and scales and heads into a foulsmelling mess that would be worked into the soil in the garden as fertilizer.
'Alright, I'll leave these men in peace.' Laughing softly, she led the way across the roof. 'Have you had your midday meal? My next stop is the kitchen.'
He liked the way she smiled, the delicate curve of her Ups and the twinkle in her eyes. 'Each time I see you, you're either involved in some task or rushing from one to another. Do you never take time to sit and rest?'
'Not often through the day. I must admit I sleep better at night now than when I spent much of my time in idleness, letting Hatnofer have her way.' She walked ahead of him down the stairs, the same flight down which Montu had fallen to his death, and strode around the corner to the open front of the shed. 'I find the responsibility of running so large a household taxing and at the same time a wonderful test of my abilities. Why I never demanded my rightful place as mistress of the house, I'll never know.' Her expression grew rueful. 'Still, I wish she were alive and well.'
Bak stayed close, determined not to let her out of his sight until he learned what she knew of the housekeeper. 'I'd've thought that tending to your father's needs was a full-time task.'
'Only because I allowed him to make it so. Now I feel I serve him best by managing his household. Besides, he's shifted much of the load to Amonhotep's shoulders. Not merely the errands I ran, but the task of keeping him safe as well.'
'Your father's afraid, and so he should be.'
'I know. I sometimes awake in the night and imagine him in his bedchamber, too fearful to sleep, too frightened to get the rest he needs.' She paused to look into the shed, where three milk cows with calves were tethered to stones sunk into the soil. Fresh hay spilled from their mangers and covered the floor of a pen in which a half dozen milk goats lingered. 'He told me this morning you've moved out of your quarters in Abu. Too far away, should he need you.'
'He has no immediate cause for worry.' Bak followed her across the sunny yard. 'If I'm right about the slayer's pattern-and I believe I am-he won't strike again for four more days. A lot can happen in so short a time, I know, but for the present, he remains far out of my grasp. I need help, your help.'
'My father's very angry with you.' She stopped at the gate and turned to face him 'He says you're prying into the past, reopening wounds that long ago healed.'
Bak looked into dark, worried eyes, a face as delicate and vulnerable as that of a new-born lamb. 'Prying into the past? Yes. Reopening healed wounds? For that, he must blame another man. The slayer.'
She bit her lip. 'Are you sure the tie that binds all those who've been slain is that dreadful tempest which took so many innocent lives five years ago?'
'I've trod several paths, none as long and convolutedor as promising-as the one pointing to the storm.' 'Since first I talked with you about Hatnofer, I've searched my heart time and time again, trying to recall some connection. I've found none.'
She swung away, shoved the gate open, and walked on, heading toward the kitchen. Three naked and very dirty toddlers played outside the door, pushing wooden animals over mounds and ridges they had formed in the sand. Even from a distance, they smelled sour, in dire need of a dunking in the river.
Bak latched the gate and hastened to catch up. 'I've been told she was close to a sergeant named Min, the man who saved Djehuty's life.'
Khawet gave him a quick, rather surprised look. 'Sergeant 'Surely you remember him.'
'As you say, he saved my father's life.' She stopped a dozen paces from the children, frowned. 'I vaguely recall something…' Her brow cleared. 'Yes, I did hear a rumor linking Hatnofer to him. I thought it best never to mention it to her. In fact, I wasn't sure the tale was true.'
'She never confided in you? Don't women usually share their conquests with those closest to them?'
'She thought me too young and unworldly, I guess.' Khawet's smile was wry. 'I was close on twenty years then, no longer untouched or innocent, but she kept me forever in her heart as a babe.'
'I was told Min sailed north a few days after the storm. If he and Hatnofer were close, why would she not go with him?
She shrugged. 'Perhaps she didn't care enough.'
'Few women would throw away the opportunity of having a home and family of her own.'
'This was her home.' Khawet's voice carried a hint of criticism, as if no other place would serve as well and he should have recognized the fact. 'She'd spent all her life on our estate in Nubt or in this villa in Abu. My father was a brother to her and I a daughter. Why would she give up so much to travel far away, maybe never again to see us?'
Bak was surprised Khawet was so insular. As the daughter of a provincial governor, she must have journeyed to Waset and Mennufer. Djehuty would have wanted his daughter to rub shoulders with the children of other nobility, as he had done when he was a youth. Yet here she was, a mature woman with a husband of her own, behaving as if no place but Abu would do, no other form of life but this.
Now that he knew her better, now that he had seen her smile and tease, she seemed much more attractive than she had initially, more appealing by far. But to have such a blind spot was a flaw few men of means or intellect could condone. Ineni perhaps, a man who loved the land above all else, but would he thrive in the governor's villa? Would he want to stand at the head of the province, given the opportunity? Would Khawet like him any better if he occupied the seat of power?
'Do you have any idea what Djehuty has asked of us?' Simut demanded. 'He knew I'd sent as many men north to Nubt as I could spare-they're needed in the fields at this time of year, documenting land use, seeds sown, young animals dropped. And still he demands a detailed inventory. Outrageous!'
Bak eyed the two rows of men seated on the floor, shards piled beside them, scrolls spread open on their laps, reed pens scratching across the surface. None sneaked curious glances, as they had the last time he had come into the scribal office. They were too busy turning rough counts into an official report.
He kept his voice low, confidential. 'I understand he means to disinherit Ineni.'
'Ridiculous! As I pointed out when he told me.' The short, stout chief scribe shook his head in disgust. 'The estate in Nubt thrives because of that young man. Without him, it would founder.'
'Some believed Hatnofer equally indispensable.'
'In that case we erred, and I thank the lord Khnum that Khawet has proven us wrong. The estate in Nubt is quite another matter. Djehuty's lost the power of rational thought.'
'How much of his wealth is derived from his land?' Bak asked.
Simut flung him a disdainful look. 'I'm not at liberty to divulge information of so private a nature, Lieutenant. You should know better than to ask.'
If Djehuty was like many provincial governors, his land was his heritage, just as his position was, but the bounty from his fields need not contribute to any great extent to his wealth. He was, first and foremost, entitled to a portion of the taxes collected from all who lived within his domain. The province was far from being the most fertile in Kemet, but its position,(r)n the border between Kemet and Wawat more than compensated for the scarcity of arable land: he was also allowed a share of the tolls paid by traders passing through Abu.
Though the estate's contribution to Djehuty's well-being would likely be small when compared to his income from taxes and tolls, to Ineni, the man who worked the land, the drain of produce and animals no doubt seemed exorbitant. Simut glanced at the scribes toiling before him, pursed his lips, rose to his feet. 'You wish to look at a personal record, you said.'
Bak had an idea Simut would have given him a hint if they had been alone, but with so many men in the room, so many sharp ears, he would divulge nothing. 'Sergeant Min. He served in the garrison here, in what capacity I don't know. He survived the sandstorm but left Abu soon after.'
SiYnut frowned, thinking. 'Hmmm. The name's familiar, but I don't know why.'
'He was the one who saved Djehuty's life.'
'Was he?' The chief scribe shrugged, indicating his failure to remember, and walked into the records room.
