“I pray not.”
They strode to the southern end of the unfinished colonnade and tried to see where Pashed had gone. Thanks to the vagaries of construction, they could look down upon a new shrine to the lady Hathor and the four men laying foundation stones, but the incomplete segment of wall that would close off the end of the colonnade blocked their view of the area along the base of the retaining wall. They saw a dozen or so workmen standing about, looking toward the wall and talking among themselves, but Pashed was nowhere to be seen.
With Amonked unwilling to intrude unless summoned, Bak resigned himself to waiting.
Standing on the edge of the terrace, he looked across the workmen’s huts to the ruined memorial temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. It was as he remembered it, yet vastly different. The mound of rubble in the center was lower, the remaining columns had decreased in number and fewer were standing, none to their original height. Two men scrambled among the ruins, and even from a distance he could see they were searching for stone that could be recut and reused. A small crew of workmen levered the blocks the pair selected onto wooden rockers, which they used to raise the stones onto sledges. These were towed by another team of men from the old temple to the new.
Amonked pointed toward the center of the ruin. “You see the mound of stones that might once have been a pyramid-
or whatever it was? The three rows of fallen and broken columns that once formed a covered walkway around the mound? The wall enclosing those columns?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That, my young friend, is exactly the plan Senenmut started with. Same size, same shape, but set well forward of the older temple. Clearly his inspiration was not unique.”
Bak had the distinct impression that Amonked did not share his cousin’s affection for Senenmut.
“Was the building ever started?”
“Over a hundred men toiled here for several months.
When they went home to harvest their crops, he altered his plan. I’m not sure why. My cousin came out here, and perhaps she suggested something more worthy, more unique.”
“Sir!” The same workman who had come for Pashed stood among the columns below. “Pashed wishes you to come right away, sir. You and Lieutenant Bak. The matter is urgent, he said, most urgent.”
“Bata found a body in an ancient tomb.” Pashed flung a hasty look at a reed-thin workman who was shaking so badly another man had to hold a beer jar to his lips. The architect was standing in front of a rough hole in the sand that opened near the end of the incomplete retaining wall. He looked gray around the mouth, beleaguered. “A man struck down from behind.”
Bak knew no man long dead and buried would rouse such strong reactions. “The body is fresh?”
“So it looked to me.”
“Who is he?” Amonked demanded.
“I don’t know. I didn’t draw close. Nor did Bata, so he says.”
Bak thanked the lord Amon. With luck he might find some sign of the slayer. Or maybe he should thank the so-called malign spirit for holding back all who would otherwise have trampled over the scene.
“I’ll need a good, strong light,” he said, eyeing the dark opening.
The short, stout foreman responsible for building the wall, Seked by name, sent a workman off to get a fresh torch. The foreman’s grim expression and a tendency to rub the ugly scar running across his forehead betrayed his outward calm as a sham.
Bak glanced at the onlookers standing well back in a loose half circle: Bata’s fellow workmen, a dozen or more sweat-stained men, whose faces registered equal measures of excitement and alarm. Coming at a fast pace across the sand were the men he had seen removing stones from the ancient temple. Others were gathering along the top of the retaining wall. By end of day, every man at Djeser Djeseru would have told the tale over and over again, each time embellishing it. Bak took care to conceal his annoyance; if he was to resolve the problem of the malign spirit, he would need their goodwill.
He walked close to the hole into which he must go and looked into the black void. Located at the edge of the mound of dirt and debris that formed the terrace, it was directly in the path of the retaining wall. The sand around it was hard-packed. He guessed the tomb had been open for some time and the men had concluded they had nothing to fear from whatever was inside.
“Why did Bata enter the tomb?” he asked.
Seked stepped forward. “We needed to go on with the retaining wall, sir. We thought to fill the shaft today so we could build over it.”
“I gave them permission,” Pashed said. “The tomb was never completed or used, so we had no need to summon a priest to offer prayers.”
The foreman flung a bleak look at the dark opening. “I thought it best that we send a man down before we filled it. I feared some lazy workman might’ve slipped inside to take a nap.”
Bak nodded. He, too, would have wanted to be sure no man was trapped below. “Someone must go down with me,”
he said, giving Pashed a pointed look, “one who knows by sight most of the men who toil within this valley.”
Pashed nodded slowly, reluctantly.
The workman hurried back with a flaming torch. Bak took the light and strode to the tomb. No hesitation for him. No time to let grow within his heart the tiny grain of apprehension he felt. No time to give the onlookers the satisfaction of thinking he might share their superstitious fears.
Holding the light before him, he picked his way down a steep flight of irregular steps, keeping his head low so he would not bump the rough-cut ceiling. He could hear Pashed’s heavy breathing behind him. The tunnel at the bottom, its roof so low he had to hunch down, leveled out and turned gradually to the right. It was less than two paces wide, the air close and hot. He held the flame near the floor, looking at the footprints in the thin layer of fine sand that covered the stone. Two sets of prints coming and going, one shod, the other bare, those of Pashed and Bata, he felt sure.
If any other prints had been left, they had unwittingly destroyed them. At times, he glimpsed short straight indenta-tions near the walls. At first they puzzled him but then he realized they were the remains of tracks left by the wooden runners of a sledge.
At least two dozen paces beyond the steps, he saw the body, a man lying on his side, facing the rough wall that marked the far end of the shaft. The back of the head was matted and bloody, dark and glistening in the torchlight. The smell of death, though not strong, was pervasive. Bata’s prints and those of Pashed ended where Bak stood, where they had glimpsed the dead man and fled.
He walked slowly forward, examining the floor. Except for one indentation no longer than his hand left by the sledge, the sand was smooth and unmarked. The slayer had brushed away his tracks. Kneeling beside the body, he looked back. Pashed hovered several paces away, sweat streaming down his face. The shaft was hot, but not that hot.
The architect was afraid.
Turning back to the dead man, Bak’s eyes fell on the head, the crown crushed and broken, a mass of dried blood and flesh crawling with flies. The body was limp, the pallid flesh beginning to swell. The man had been dead for some time, or had he? In the warmth of the tomb the process of decay would be faster. He could have been slain as recently as the night before.
“Who is he?” Pashed whispered.
Sucking in his breath, Bak laid his hands on the lifeless form and rolled the dead man onto his back. Flies rose in a cloud. Bak swallowed hard and forced himself to concentrate on the man’s appearance. He was of medium height and of middle years, with fading good looks and muscles going to fat. He wore the long kilt of a scribe and elaborate, probably costly, multicolored bead jewelry.
“Come forward, Pashed. You must tell me his name.” After a long silence, he heard the whisper of sandals approaching across the sand.
The architect bent over, stared. “May the gods be blessed.
It’s Montu.”
What a strange thing to say, Bak thought. “Are you sure?”
