Montu was slain a month ago today, exactly thirty days. As for the boy…' The aide stared at the pool, trying to recall. 'Yes, he died ten days before the guard did, a week to the day.' A sudden thought brought his head around and he gave Bak an odd look. 'They both were slain on the final day of the week, and so was Senmut, ten days after Montu's demise.'
Bak stood quite still. 'Today is the final day of this week.'
'You don't think… T' Amonhotep stared, appalled. He had been absent from Abu for eighteen days, almost two weeks.
Bak swung toward the governor. 'Did anyone die on the grounds of this villa ten days ago?'
Djehuty autontatically shook his head, then his face drained of color and he moaned. 'It was an accident. It had to be. No man or woman was near the animal.'
'What are you saying?' Amonhotep looked ready to shake his superior. 'Did someone meet a violent end while I was gone?'
'Lieutenant Dedi.' Djehuty's shoulders slumped, and he spoke barely above a whisper. 'It happened in the stable here in the compound. He was found in a stall, trampled to death by a horse gone mad.'
'What exactly happened?' Bak demanded, his voice so harsh he frightened an approaching duck and her brood, sending them fluttering toward the nearest ditch. 'Horses don't go mad without cause. And men don't walk into a stall containing an animal whose spirit is troubled.' As a former charioteer, Bak could speak with authority.
'This horse went mad, I tell you.' Djehuty rubbed his face as if to wipe away the problem. 'Maybe the creature ate tainted food. Maybe a mouse or rat frightened him. Maybe he took a dislike to Lieutenant Dedi's smell.' He shook his head, unable to come up with a satisfactory reason. 'Maybe the signs of madness were there all along and Dedi failed to see them. He was young and green, new to horses.'
'I doubt his death was an accident,' Bak said. 'It fits too neatly into the pattern.'
'Pattern!' Djehuty sneered. 'Coincidence, more likely.' Bak felt like strangling him. Each time Djehuty had to face a new horror, he retreated farther from the truth. 'You must see, sir, that if Lieutenant Dedi was slain exactly ten days ago, and the sergeant ten days before him, and the spearman ten days earlier, and the servant.. ' A new realization struck and his voice faltered. 'By the beard of Amon!'
'What is it?' Amonhotep asked. 'What's wrong?'
'A second pattern.' Bak saw the perplexity on both men's faces and hastened to explain. 'Think of the rank of each man who was slain. First a lowly servant, next a common guard, third a sergeant, and.. '
'And finally a lieutenant.' Amonhotep's eyes slewed toward the governor. 'Each man more lofty than the next.' 'No.' Djehuty buried his face in his hands. 'It's impossible! Another coincidence!'
Amonhotep's eyes met Bak's and he shook his head in dismay. 'I've known men to slay in the heat of anger or to take an enemy's life on the field of battle. But this? I fear I don't understand.'
'Nor do L' The question the aide had posed was important, Bak knew, but he had a more immediate problem. 'Today is the tenth day of the week. If the pattern holds, someone will die today, someone of a rank higher than Lieutenant and not necessarily a soldier.'
Amonhotep's voice grew weary. 'You speak of all those men closest to the governor, all who toil solely at his behest. The loftiest men in the province.'
'They must be warned.' Bak glanced skyward. The sun, a burning yellow ball in a vivid blue sky, had risen to within an hour of midday. He prayed they were not already too late.
Djehuty's armchair stood empty on the dais in the audience hall. Filing into the room one after another were the men he had summoned at Bak's request. These were the highest officials on the governor's staff, men he depended upon for the smooth running of the province, his personal estate, and the small garrison situated on the island of Abu. Four men were standing before the dais, talking among themselves, speculating as to the purpose of the summons. Amonhotep, who stood with Bak just outside a door near the dais, had identified them as they entered: Troop Captain Antef, the chief steward Amethu, the chief scribe Simut, and Djehuty's son Ineni.
'I thank the lord Khnum they've all come,' Amonhotep said. 'I feared one among them would be unable to appear.' Khnum was the god who guarded the sources of the river, the inundation. He was the principal god of Abu.
Bak noted the way the young officer skirted around the mention of death. He had surely realized his own situation. Or had he? 'Have you thought, Amonhotep, that you're Djehuty's right hand, as essential to the smooth running of this province as any of the four we see before us?'
Amonhotep gave Bak a tight smile. 'I'm not my master, Bak. I'm fully aware that I must count myself among those who might next face death.'
Djehuty rushed out of a back room, swooped past the two officers without a word, and hurried to the dais. He sat on the mound of pillows padding his chair, his body stiff, his face pale and tight, and spoke with a forced composure. His staff formed a ragged line in front of him, silent, curious.
'You know as well as I of the unfortunate deaths we've suffered here in my household,' the governor said. 'And you know the vizier suggested 1 summon an officer from the fortress of Buhen, a Lieutenant Bak.' He paused to clear his throat, hurried on. 'He's come, we've spoken at length, and he's reached a conclusion I hesitate to endorse.'
Bak muttered an oath. The governor had vowed to support him with no reservations. Now here he was, retreating from a positive stance.
'I'll let the lieutenant speak for himself,' Djehuty added, 'so each of you may judge the worth of his words.' Stifling his irritation, Bak stepped through the door to stand beside the dais. After a few introductory words to identify himself, he briefly discussed the four deaths and went on to the conclusions he had reached. 'I believe… No! I'm convinced an attempt will be made before the day ends to slay one man among you.'
'Bah!' This from a short, portly man with a fringe of curly white hair. Simut, the chief scribe. 'I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but I'm a busy man. I can't run away and hide simply because you've arranged the facts to fit a theory you've created in haste. A week from now, two weeks-after you've come to know this place and its people-you might have sufficient knowledge to come up with a convincing argument. But now? Too soon. Much too soon.'
Could he be right? Bak wondered. Could my past successes have made me overconfident? Hiding self-doubt in a humorless smile, he said, 'Sir, if I were to walk on tiptoe and clutch caution to my breast, as you suggest, I doubt your governor will be among the living beyond a week from today.
Djehuty sucked in his breath like a man struck in the stomach. Bak was hard put to sympathize. If the governor had not yet admitted to himself that his name probably lay at the top of the slayer's list, he had no one to blame but himself. 'I know of no man who would wish to slay my father.' The speaker was tall like his sire, but harder muscled and lacking in angularity. His hair was short, dark, and glistening with good health, his skin burnished by the sun. He was close to Bak's twenty-five years.
'You must be Ineni,' Bak said. 'Lieutenant Amonhotep told me you oversee your father's estate.'
'Where the lieutenant is my father's right hand,' Ineni said, bowing his head in mock acknowledgment, 'you must think of me as his left hand.'
Bak commended the quip with a fleeting smile. 'You don't take seriously the possibility of another murder, this one closer to you and yours?'
'Three of the dead out of four were soldiers. Would that not make Troop Captain Antef the next most likely man to die?'
'I may be wrong, but…' Simut snorted at the admission.
'… but I believe the youth Nakht was slain not only because of his lowly status, but to pass on the message that a civilian is as likely to die as a soldier.'
'What kind of swine would slay a child?' The speaker, Antef, was a large, heavy man in his early thirties. He wore the short white kilt of a soldier and the belt and sheathed dagger of an officer. 'And for no better reason than to deliver a message.'
'You think I err?' Bak asked.
'I pray you do.' Antef's mouth tightened. 'If you've read the signs right, the one you seek is no ordinary man. He does what-he wants, giving no thought to the laws of men or the wishes of the gods.'
'Few men walk the earth so fearless.' Djehuty's chief steward, Amethu, was a man of middle years. He had the broad shoulders and narrow hips of youth, but his stomach bulged and he was as bald as a melon. He wore the anklelength kilt of a scribe and a bronze chain around his neck, from which hung a dozen or more small colored
