duties as a household servant.” The boy’s face took on a strained look.
“As I walked toward the back of the building, I passed the sole room that had a wooden door. I heard beyond that door a terrible cry. A woman in desperate need.” His voice broke, words merged with sobs. “I knew before I flung the door wide that it was Meretre.”
Bak placed a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. By this time, he had an idea of what must have happened.
Tears rolled down Pawah’s cheeks. “There she was, lying on the sleeping pallet, beaten and bloody, her life flowing away. A filthy, bloody rag muffled her screams. That vile beast Menu was on his knees astraddle her, his fist red with her blood, the rest of him smeared with it.” Gasping for air through his sobs, Pawah gave Bak a look wild with anger and pain. “I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t bring myself to go to her. I ran away, screaming, to the front of the building.”
“That’s all you could’ve done,” Bak said, trying to calm him. “You had to get help.”
“The ram of… the prince had just come in,” Pawah went on as if in a trance. “I don’t know what I said-I don’t remember-but he ran with me to the room where
Meretre lay helpless. He saw the state she was in and he saw that repellent creature pulling himself off her. He caught him by the arm, flung him against the wall, stunning him, and went to Meretre. She breathed her last in his arms.
Crying out that her ka had fled, he laid her on the sleeping pallet. As he turned away, his face filled with sorrow and fury, he saw Menu trying to slip out the door. He caught him, took him by the neck, and squeezed the life from him.”
The tribesmen walked by below, a broken stream of men.
A word here and there floated up, a language Bak did not understand. Although he had foreseen much of the truth, he had trouble taking in the story, the terrible reality.
“You saw it all?”
“I did,” Pawah whispered.
“Is that when you fled Thutnofer’s establishment?”
The youth nodded. “The… the prince told me to leave that low place, to run as far and as fast as I could.” The boy wiped his wet, swollen eyes. “I raced to the harbor and hid on a traveling ship moored at the quay, thinking it would carry me to some far-off place. It did. We sailed downriver to Mennufer. Sennefer, whose ship it was, caught me there, hungry and afraid, sneaking off the deck.
He took pity on me and took me to his home, where he told everyone he’d bought me.”
“Did you tell him of the slayings you witnessed?”
“I told him of Meretre and I said another man whose name I didn’t know avenged her death. That’s all.” The boy drew in a deep breath, tried to smile. “Prince Baket Amon saved my life, sir. I know he did. If I’d stayed in that accursed house of pleasure, I’d’ve died, as Meretre did.”
Of that, Bak had no doubt.
The clumps of men walking along the trail below were wider apart, the number of stragglers growing. Bak fretted.
Surely half had come and gone, possibly more. Yet no sig nal from Pashenuro. Had something happened to the Med jay? Had he been spotted and caught? Would the rabble army walk by untouched, making the final confrontation in the valley difficult, maybe impossible to win?
Recognizing his penchant to worry too soon, he asked,
“Why are you so afraid, Pawah? Do you know who slew
Baket-Amon?”
“No, sir, but you said yourself that the man who took the prince’s life is among those who came with us from
Waset. Would he not think me a threat?”
“Do you know something you haven’t told me?”
“No, sir.”
Bak doubted Pawah was in danger, but he could under stand the youth’s fear, rational or not. “Tell me of Menu.
Anything you can think of, no matter how insignificant.”
“He must’ve been a man of wealth.” The youth knelt beside Bak and stared at the men on the path below. “Each time he came to Thutnofer’s place of business, he drank the best vintage wine from the northern vineyards; wagered far too much on games of chance, whether or not he played; and used the most desirable and costly of women.”
“Did he hurt any women before Meretre?”
“They’d sometimes come away bruised, and none wanted to go with him a second time.”
“Thutnofer has much to explain.” And to answer for, Bak thought. “What more can you tell me of Menu?”
“He always wore fine clothing and jewelry. When he had nothing else to trade, he sometimes offered a bracelet or anklet or collar for a night of pleasure.”
Bak’s eyes darted toward the men on the trail and back to the boy at his side. “A man who barters away his per sonal possessions isn’t always as wealthy as he appears.
Could that be true here?”
Pawah cocked his head, thinking. “I never thought about it before, but…” His eyes suddenly widened. “Yes! The house he traded for Meretre cleared other debts to Thut nofer.”
A fragment of a recent conversation came back to Bak, words spoken by chance and regretted at the next breath.
He did not like what he was thinking, prayed he erred. “Do you recall what Menu looked like?”
“I shall never forget. I see him even in my sleep. A beast of the night who vied with the gods in appearance.” Pawah glanced at Bak, realized something more specific was needed. “He was of medium height and slender, thirty or so years of age. His eyes were blue-green and his hair red dish, but it glowed with gold in the lamplight.”
Sadness entered Bak’s heart. “Was he a man of the north?”
Pawah looked startled. “How did you know?”
“ ‘My younger brother impoverished himself in a quest for the good life,’ ” Bak said aloud, quoting Captain Min kheper. He had found the man he sought.
Light flashed into the alcove, Pashenuro’s signal that the last of the tribesmen had entered the wadi. It was time to strike.
Chapter Seventeen
“Go tell Sennefer what I’ve learned and where it’s led me,”
Bak said to Pawah. He flashed a signal to the men on the opposing, southern slope, warning them to take up arms and ready themselves for battle. “Tell him the whole tale, leaving nothing out, then you and he together must carry the word to Nebwa and Amonked.”
“But sir!” Pawah looked devastated. “I wish to stand be side you, to fight Hor-pen-Deshret’s army.”
Bak donned a leather wrist guard, scooped up his quiver and settled it on his shoulder, and picked up the bow. “The task I’ve given you is more important by far, Pawah.” He spoke with an edge of impatience. “If you and I both were slain in the fighting, no one would ever know the name of the guilty man. The others must be told. With so many men aware of the truth, at least one will surely survive.”
“You speak as if we’ll lose the battle.”
Picking up spear, shield, and staff, Bak plunged downhill to the flat rock, the boy close on his heels. “I believe we’ll win, but this is no local skirmish. Men will die.”
“Sir…”
Bak dropped everything but bow and quiver onto the rock. “I want no more argument. You must do as I say.”
