existence of the malign spirit, yet how firmly they believed.
“Menna never returned.” Bak did not bother to hide his exasperation. The guard officer’s sense of urgency was certainly not his own.
“He said he’d be back, sir. With a priest. But they haven’t come.” Imen stood like a rock, a man untroubled by the broken promises of men more lofty than he. “I doubt they will now. The day’s too far gone.”
“What’ll we do, sir?” Hori asked.
Bak stared at the open mouth of the tomb, an invitation to robbery, and the darkness overtaking the valley. “You must spend the night here, Imen.”
“So I assumed.” The guard looked at the twin streams of men, some hurrying away from the temple to homes near the river valley, the majority walking at a slower pace toward the workmen’s huts. “I’ll need something to eat, sir.”
“Hori can bring food.” Bak looked again at the open shaft.
He recalled the thin sliver of moon he had seen in the sky the previous night and guessed how dark this valley would get.
He thought of the tale of a treasure the artisans would take with them to their homes, and how fast it would spread throughout the surrounding villages. He envisioned a man bent on theft sneaking up on a man alone.
His eyes darted toward Kasaya, who stood beside the lion-bodied statue of their sovereign. The Medjay’s expression was bleak. He had traveled with Bak often enough to guess what lay in his heart.
“I know how eager you are to go home to your mother, Kasaya, but you must remain here with Imen.”
“Yes, sir,” Kasaya mumbled without a spark of enthusiasm.
“I can stand alone, sir.” Imen nodded toward his spear and shield. “I’m well able to take care of myself.”
Hori stared wide-eyed. “Don’t you fear the malign spirit?”
Bak shot an annoyed glance at the youth. “He has far more to fear from thieves sneaking up in the night than a distant shadow or speck of light.”
After parting from Hori at the edge of the floodplain, Bak walked alone along the raised path that would take him to his father’s farm. The heat of the day had waned and a thin haze was settling over the river. Faint points of starlight were visible in the darkening sky. The soft evening air smelled of braised fish and onions, of animals and some fragrant blossom he could not see.
Why would anyone slay Montu? he wondered. The man had not been well-liked. He had, in fact, gone out of his way to anger one and all. However, his would-be victims had ignored his senseless demands, making him look the fool, a figure of fun. Who would slay a beast whose fangs and claws had been pulled?
Chapter Six
“You left Imen to guard the tomb alone?” Bak, who had hastened to Djeser Djeseru at daybreak, glared at Kasaya. He prayed the Medjay was making a poor joke, but his too-stiff spine, his guilt-ridden look, spoke of a man who had disobeyed orders. “Explain yourself!”
“I wasn’t gone for long.” Kasaya stared straight ahead, unable to meet Bak’s eyes. “Half an hour at most.” With one hand he clung to his spear and shield, in the other he held a packet wrapped in leaves, food Bak had brought for the young man’s morning meal.
“What, in the name of the lord Amon, possessed you?”
“The malign spirit.”
Bak bestowed upon him the countenance of a man sorely tried. “Spirits possess men who know no better, Kasaya.
Men of no learning who know nothing of the world beyond their field of vision. Not men who’ve traveled to the far horizon, as you have.”
The Medjay gave Bak a hurt look. “You misunderstand, sir. I saw the spirit and I gave chase.”
Bak recalled their conversation of the previous day, the comments he had made about the guards and his feelings about men who failed to do their duty. Kasaya, though superstitious to the core, had taken his words to heart, it seemed.
Irritation fleeing, he dropped onto a stone drum awaiting placement as part of a sixteen-sided column on the upper level in front of the temple. “Seat yourself, Kasaya, and while you eat, tell me what happened.”
Not entirely reassured by the milder tone, the young Medjay sat down on a similar drum. Laying spear and shield beside him, he unwrapped the packet and began to eat the braised fish and green onions he found inside. Imen, at the mouth of the tomb thirty or so paces away, was also eating.
The lord Khepre, peeking above the eastern horizon, sent shafts of yellow into an unblemished sky. A thin sil-ver mist hovered over the floodplain to the east, filtering into the faint blue morning haze lingering over the river.
The workmen, early to rise and quick to begin their day, were spread over the building site, as vociferous as men who had been parted for days rather than the few short hours of night.
“Two, maybe three hours after nightfall, Imen thought he saw a light among the columns of the upper colonnade.”
Kasaya tore away a bite-sized chunk of fish and popped it into his mouth. “At first I saw nothing, but then I, too, spotted a light. It looked to be entering the temple. Since every man who toils here fears the malign spirit. . Well, I knew none of them would go into the temple in the dead of night.”
He stopped chewing, his voice grew hushed. “My blood went cold, and the worm of fear crept up my spine.”
“Yet you gave chase,” Bak said, knowing well the strength of will it must have taken.
“Not because I wanted to, I tell you.” Kasaya broke off another chunk and paused, holding it in midair halfway to his mouth. “Giving myself no time to think, I raced across this terrace, passing innumerable statues and sections of columns behind which hid I knew not what. Up the ramp I went, and into the temple. The building was dark, the moon a sliver so thin and weak the unfinished colonnade cast no shadow.” He glanced at the piece of fish in his hand, returned it to its bed of leaves. “I saw no one, heard nothing. I felt obliged to search the sanctuary and the chapels to either side. I crossed the courtyard to the sanctuary, but beyond its portal lay nothing but black. As was the case in the rooms to the south. I feared greatly and longed for a torch.”
Bak could almost see the young Medjay, standing in the dark, wide-eyed and quaking with fear, trying to convince himself to step into one of those fearsome chambers.
“I heard a faint noise behind me. I spun around and spotted the light. It was near the entrance to the chapel of the lord Re. A tiny flicker that vanished in an instant.” Kasaya took a deep, ragged breath. “Thinking it had gone inside, I followed. All the while I walked around the altar, I thanked the lord Re that the chamber had no roof, that I could see my hand before my face. I found nothing; the light had vanished like the spirit it was.”
Or, more likely, a quick and agile man, Bak thought. One with a vile sense of humor. “Did you smell anything?
Smoke, for example, from an oil lamp?”
“No, sir.” Kasaya lifted the bite of fish to his mouth and ate. “I smelled nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing more.”
“The sanctuary and the southern chambers were empty?”
Kasaya flung him a guilty look. “I peeked inside, sir, but in the end I didn’t search them. They were too dark, and I could see nothing. Anyone or anything hiding there could’ve slipped past me and I’d have known no better.” Giving Bak no time for comment good or bad, he hurried on, “Instead, thinking you’d say I’d chased a man and not a spirit, I seated myself in the entrance near the top of the ramp, intending to remain until daylight, hoping to catch a man if a man it was.” He paused, frowned, offered up another point in his favor, “From there I could see Imen and go to his aid if need be.”
“He’d remained at his post?”
“Yes, sir. He told me later that he’d never have chased the malign spirit, as I did. I think he was afraid. He didn’t admit he was and spoke instead of disobeying orders, but how long has the malign spirit been seen in this
