… What? A good-sized rock thrown from a sling, inflicting a stunning blow on his back. A soldier's weapon. A weapon used by most children in Kemet. A skill learned early in life to slay birds or small game. As long as he clung there, hanging in the open shaft high above the stairway, he was no safer than a duck or a hare caught in a hunter's net, awaiting execution.
He shifted his glance to the mass of vines above him, seeking a second secure handhold. Leaves, grape clusters, shadows cluttered his view. He could see wrist-thick stems and tendrils as thin as thread, but not the vine he clung to, or any other close enough to grasp and sturdy enough to support his weight.
Offering a tardy prayer of gratitude to the lord Amon, adding a quick plea for additional help, he shot his right hand upward. Tendrils snapped and the vine he clung to dropped further. His heart leaped upward, clogging his throat. Again the far end held and stopped him with a jolt. Pain flared in his left shoulder, taking his breath away. He gritted his teeth to keep from crying out, stretched his right arm high, and felt around among the leaves and tendrils. His fingertips touched rough bark. He stretched higher, sharpening the pain. A torn muscle, he suspected. He found a good-sized vine. His fingers curled around it, but he could not reach high enough to grasp it. Sweat popped out on his forehead, his upper lip. The agony was intense, his fear of falling worse.
Desperate to relieve the weight on his left arm, his back prickling with vulnerability, he shook off his sandals and probed for a foothold. The added movement kindled the fire in his shoulder, making it blaze. Just as he was certain he could hang on no longer, he located a crack between the rocks. Shifting much of his weight to the one foot, he managed to raise himself high enough to catch the vine with his free right hand.
He held on tight with both hands, swallowed hard, kept as much weight off his left arm and shoulder as possible. He looked up again at the mouth of the water gauge. As before, no one was there. His assailant must believe him dead-or was biding his time.
Aware of how exposed he was to attack, how shaky, how fast pain could further sap his strength, he knew he had to move. He had to shift his body toward the mouth of the water gauge, moving to his left a little at a time. He had to move now.
Praying the vine would continue to support his weight, praying that if it broke he would somehow survive, he loosened his grip, inched his left hand along the rough bark, caught hold. He found a new foothold with no trouble. Shifting the right hand was torture, the burning in his shoulder dreadful with much of his weight hanging from his left hand. When he once again settled into place, both hands firm around the vine, he figured he had moved at least two palm widths closer to safety. How much farther did he have to go? He estimated the distance, considered his height, judged where he had to be before he could drop onto the steps. Slightly more than three cubits, he concluded, twenty-one or — two palm widths. Not far at all, yet an alarming distance.
He forced himself to move on, inching across the rough wall, his shoulder aflame, skinned arm stinging, hands slippery with sweat. His concentration was total. Move one hand, find a fresh toehold, move the other hand. He forgot the man who had assaulted him, the stairs beneath him, the darkening wedge of sky above him. He ignored his weariness and thirst. He tolerated his aching muscles and scraped knuckles. He endured the fire in his shoulder.
After endless torment, his lead foot brushed something cold and hard He looked down, startled. A step. In his trance-like state, he had gone farther than he had to. With soaring spirits, he planted both feet on the stone and let go of the vine. His arms were so numb he could hardly feel them. Weak from effort and tension, wobbly from exhaustion, he dragged himself on hands and knees up the steep stairway.
At the top, he peered over the edge. The monkey sat on the wall, holding a bunch of grapes, eating the ripe fruit and flinging away the green. It skittered well out of his reach and scolded him, but showed no special terror. Nor did it show any interest in the surrounding landscape. Fairly certain they were alone, Bak hauled himself on up and sat, his back to the wall, inside the enclosure near the opening. He lowered his face into his dirty, scratched hands and offered a silent prayer of thanks to the lord Amon.
Chapter Thirteen
'You were truly blessed by the lord Amon, sir.' Psuro, standing at the top of the water gauge, eyed the thick vine draped over the wall and the steep flight of stairs below. 'If you'd fallen to the bottom…' His voice tailed off and he shook his head in consternation.
Bak turned his back on a place he preferred to forget and walked outside the enclosure. He moved with care, trying not to ignite the dull ache in his shoulder. The bandage the physician in Swenet had wrapped tight around his upper torso helped some, but any wrong move seemed to tear the muscle more. Compared to the shoulder, he barely felt his skinned arm, which was covered from wrist to elbow with a second bandage stained brown by a salve whose odor was overwhelmed by the strong smell of the poultice the physician had daubed on his shoulder.
'I wish we were as close to laying hands on the slayer as he evidently thinks we are,' he said. 'Another exercise like this, and I might not survive.'
'Don't talk like that, sir!' Kasaya, standing at the base of the sycamore tree, trying to lure the black monkey with a chunk of bread, threw him a worried look. — 'Some malevolent genie might hear and turn your words around, bringing upon you the very misfortune you speak of.'
'Oh?' Bak asked, eyebrow raised.
The young Medjay flushed. 'I know you wish us to seek common everyday reasons for things that happen before we look to malign spirits as the cause. But here in Abu, with so many people slain… Well…'
'The man who took those lives has a reason, one that may never make sense to us but is most compelling to him.' 'Who do you think used the sling, sir?' Psuro asked. 'The archer? Did he survive the rapids after all?'
'I don't know.' Bak leaned back against a boulder. 'Its use puzzles me. It's not subtle, like those unwanted gifts, nor is it as direct as a bow and arrows.'
Psuro gave him a wry grin. 'I'd not call a bowl of scorpions subtle, sir.'
Bak's laugh was quick, humorless. 'Ingenious, then. I wasn't sure the insects were meant to kill, but I'm certain I was supposed to die in the water gauge.' He stared at nothing, brows drawn together in thought. 'If we leave out the archer's attempt to slay me with the bow, what do we have? A steady escalation from a small, harmless message to a serious attempt at murder.'
'Another pattern,' Psuro said. 'What kind of man toys with his victims this way?'
Kasaya, lost by so complicated a thought, tore the soft white center out of the bread and began to press it into a ball. 'Maybe the archer broke an arm when his skiff overturned. One arm's enough to use a sling.'
'A possibility, I suppose. Or maybe my death in the water gauge was meant to resemble that of Sergeant Min-if the rumor Kames heard is based on fact.' Bak watched the monkey working its way along a limb above the- young Medjay. 'Psuro, you must go again to the garrison. See if you can find anyone who remembers Min. Look to those who would've remained behind, supplying the troops or serving their needs. Qhartermaster, armorers, and so on.'
'Yes, sir.'
'In the meantime, I want another look at the garrison daybooks. I glanced through them when first we came to Abu, and nothing struck me as being of importance. Perhaps today, with a more educated eye, I'll have better luck. And it occurred to me that the governor might also keep daybooks.
Djehuty was garrison commander, as was his father before him. As such, both were obliged to make daily entries. A habit once learned is not easy to set aside.'
Kasaya, munching on the bread ball, patted his flat stomach and smiled. 'A few more days in the governor's villa and…'
The monkey dropped out of the tree. It landed on his arm and grabbed for the hollow crust. The Medjay yelped, startled, and caught the creature by the neck. It squealed, terrified. Its little hands reached out for the bread, greed taking precedence over freedom. Laughing, Kasaya broke off a bit of crust and offered it. The monkey snatched it away and stuffed it into its mouth.
Psuro gave man and beast a disgusted look, then leaned back against the wall to study the landscape from which the rock must have been slung: the small walled mansion of the lady Satet, the much larger enclosed precinct of the lord Khnum, and houses crammed together in the space between, their walls pierced by a few windows too high and narrow for a sling to be used. Near the mansion of the lord Khnum, a lane opened onto the terrace,
