I'd brought from the market, added others she already had, and made a fresh broth. She gave some to her father, which soothed his stomach, and he slept. She then went away, saying she had other tasks to perform.'
Bak cursed the aide's innocence, and his own belated realization of the truth. 'I must see Djehuty.'
'When last I looked, he was sleeping.'
Bak strode to the door. 'We must awaken him.' 'Khawet said sleep is the best medicine a man can have.' 'Lieutenant!' Bak barked out the word, gaining the young officer's full attention. 'Mistress Khawet is the slayer I've been seeking.'
'But… But she's Djehuty's daughter!'
'Are you going to sit here in this room, immobilized by disbelief, while he lies dying not twenty paces away?' With doubt plain on his face, Amonhotep led the way to the governor's bedchamber. To his credit he did not tarry.
The room was dark, with most of the windows covered with reed mats; and smelled strongly of sweat and vomit.
Bak tore down the mats, admitting light, and hurried to the bed. Djehuty lay on his back, covered to the waist with a sheet. His right shoulder and the side of his face were bathed in vomit where he had half turned to throw up. His forehead was beaded with sweat, his pallid body hot to the touch and so wet the sheet clung to him. His breathing was loud and hoarse, the pulse of life in his wrist irregular.
Amonhotep sucked in his breath, horrified. 'May the lord Khnum forgive me for being so trusting.'
'He's thrown up a lot of the broth. He still may live.' Amonhotep swung around to leave. 'I must summon a physician!'
Bak grabbed his arm, stopping his flight. 'There's no need. I sent Simut for one the moment I saw the truth.' The aide stared down at the prone man. 'Why? Why would she slay her own father?'
Bak, too, stared at Djehuty. He thought the governor one of the least worthy men he had ever known. Nonetheless, he dropped to his knees and offered a fervent prayer to the lord Amon that the man's life would be spared.
Chapter Seventeen
'Where did mistress Khawet go?' Bak demanded.
'I don't know, sir.' The guard Kames stood as stiff as a tree, trying hard not to be buffeted by the winds of circumstance. First, his former partner Nenu had been proven untrustworthy, now mistress Khawet. 'She didn't tell me. Why should she?' His voice came perilously close to a whine. 'I'm only a guard, sir, a fixture of the villa. Kind of like a doorjamb with a spear.'
Bak did not know whether to laugh or shake the man. 'Did you overhear her say anything when she left?' 'You mustn't blame me for the governor's death, sir.' Definitely a whine. 'How was I to know she was the slayer?'
'Karnes! The governor's not yet dead!' Bak's voice, sharp and fierce, carried across the empty audience hall, gaining a hard edge as it slammed against bare, white walls and the high ceiling. The guard snapped his eyes shut as if he feared a blow.
'What did she say when she left?' Bak repeated. Kames shook his head. 'I don't remember.'
'Can you at least tell me which direction she took?' 'Sir?' A plump young servant girl stepped through the door near the governor's dais. 'I don't know what mistress Khawet said, sir. She talked to the cook, not me. But I saw her go down to the landingplace and sail north in her husband's skiff.'
'She told me she wanted to be by herself for a time.' The cook, a shapeless woman with graying hair, swirled her flour, dusted hands in a large-mouthed reddish bowl filled with water and shook off the excess. 'Why a woman her age needs time to herself I'll never know. And her with no children!'
An older man looked up from the brick hearth, where he was brushing oil on a half-cooked beef haunch suspended above the hot coals. 'If you had to take care of that old wretch, you'd need to escape, too.'
'She has servants, hasn't she?' Her look of disapproval changed to one of censure. 'You'd best take care who you call a wretch. You never know who'll go running to him to pass on the tale. You know how often he orders the lash.'
'If the slayer strikes tomorrow…' The man sneaked a glance at Bak. '… as the Lieutenant thinks he will, he won't be able to punish me or anyone else.'
'You've no sense of respect, that's your problem.'
Bak chose not to enlighten them about Djehuty's health or why he wished to find Khawet. They would learn soon enough anyway. 'Does she go to any special place when she wishes to be alone?'
'To Nebmose's villa most often,' the cook said. 'Sometimes to the tombs of her ancestors, those old sepulchers high above the river on the west bank.'
'I pray we find her at the tombs.' Bak shoved the skiff off and jumped from the landingplace into the stern. 'If not, we'd best go on to Nubt. I doubt she'd add Ineni's concubine and son to her list of victims, but we must take no chances.'
Psuro rowed` toward deeper water and a faster current. 'We know for a fact that she wasn't in the governor's compound or Nebmose's villa. We searched them both with due diligence.'
'I don't know why we bothered,' Kasaya grumbled. 'The girl said she took the skiff.'
'It doesn't do to leave one pebble unturned.' Psuro gave the younger Medjay a condescending look. 'How many times do I have to tell you?'
'Why would she take the skiff if she wasn't going to use it?'
Bak scowled at the pair, silencing them. Given free rein, the argument could go on through eternity. Psuro turned his attention to his task. Kasaya sorted through the weapons on the floor of the skiff: their spears and shields and the bow and well-armed quiver Nenu had abandoned on the riverbank. Most of the weapons, Bak suspected, would be of little or no use much of the time. Khawet had had a substantial head start. If she had indeed gone to the ancient tombs, she would be high above them when they approached, with a steep, sandy slope between.
'I know mistress Khawet doesn't have any use for me,' Kasaya said, 'and I don't like her much either, but I find it hard to believe she'd take five innocent lives.'
'She's the last person in the household I'd have suspected.' Psuro lifted the oars from the water and frowned. 'Are you sure, sir?'
'I don't know exactly what set her off, and I've several other unanswered questions, but I'm certain of her guilt.' Noticing they were drifting into the shallows, Psuro went back to rowing. His effort more than doubled the current's speed, and the small vessel raced headlong downstream toward the lower end of the island of Abu. A traveling ship, its sail aloft and swollen, swept south toward a fleet of fishing boats. Angry shouts from the smaller vessels warned of a seining net about to be breached. A dozen or so pelicans, rare so far south this early in the year, flew low over the water, waiting for the laden net to rise, bringing prey to the surface.
'Before Khawet left,' Bak said, 'she made sure nothing remained of the stew-I thank the lord Amon. At least she doesn't want anyone else in Abu to die.'
Kasaya barked out a laugh. 'Isn't it a bit late for her to show concern? How many deaths has she brought about so far?'
'We must never forget that in her own heart she believes she's seen justice done. A vile justice, to my way of thinking, but warranted to her.'
'She believes the death of the child Nakht justified?' Psuro shook his head in disgust. 'She has to be mad.' Bak could not argue the point.
'There's her skiff!'
Kasaya, who had stood up in the prow as they rounded the northern tip of the island, pointed at a small boat drawn up on the shore of the far bank amid a thicket of tamarisks. A narrow oasis of trees and bushes followed the bend of the river around the base of a tall, steep hill cloaked in sand and crowned with rock. Two terraces girdled the mound midway to the top. Along these high promenades, dark rectangles marked the entrances to ancient houses of eternity carved into the rock. Three lengthy stairways, almost buried in windblown sand, rose from the
