“Yes, sir.” Mery moistened his mouth, but this time he took no joy from the brew. “I was one of the closest men to the sledge and I had a better look than most.” He shivered in spite of the heat. “I tell you, sir, it was. . It was awful.”
Bak thought to touch the man’s arm, but the small show of sympathy would most likely rattle him, breaking the flow of his tale. “Tell me exactly what you saw, Mery, every detail.”
“I heard a loud crack, the breaking of a dowel, I figured later. When I turned around, I saw that the front crossbeam was no longer snug against the runner on the right. I heard another crack, the dowel holding the second crossbeam breaking. The statue was heavy, the strain great, and one after another the rest of the dowels broke and the sledge collapsed. The statue, still roped to the pieces, slewed partway around on the wet slope. Dragging runners and crossbeams and rope along with it, it slid down the slope and toward the side of the ramp. We tried to stop it, but it was too big and heavy. It knocked one of our mates off the ramp, tipped over the edge, and fell on him, killing him and breaking into a dozen pieces.”
He rubbed his face as if trying to eradicate the memory. “I tell you, sir, it was awful. If not the work of the malign spirit, it was that of a malevolent god.”
No god caused the accident, Bak was convinced. Sledges were strong, made to hold extraordinary weights. This one had been tampered with, the dowels weakened.
“I tripped over a rope, sir, and fell into the quarry. Thanks to good luck and the will of the gods, I landed on a ledge not far below and suffered nothing more serious than a bump on the head.” The fresh-faced young apprentice stonemason fussed with the nail on his big toe, refusing to meet Bak’s eye. “I should’ve been watching my step, I know, but something distracted me.”
“What exactly?”
“I. .” The boy’s eyes darted toward Bak and away. “I don’t know, sir.”
Suspicious, recalling his own youthful digressions, Bak asked, “How much beer had you had that day?”
The answer was slow in coming, given with reluctance.
“The morning was hot-like today-and I was thirsty. I. .
Well, my head was spinning, sir, and an evil genie had invaded my stomach. It must’ve made me careless.”
An accident, pure and simple. A man too besotted to place one foot in front of the other.
“I didn’t see it happen, sir.” The guard Ineni stood at the edge of the lean-to, looking uncertain as to whether the tale he had to tell warranted Bak’s attention. “I can only speak of what I found.”
“His death was attributed to the malign spirit, was it not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you must satisfy my curiosity.”
Ineni brushed several small pebbles off the mat, settled down, and accepted a jar of beer with gratitude. “He was a guard, sir, his name Dedu. He was a big man, young and strong, rather like your Medjay Kasaya. Nothing less than a malign spirit could’ve caused the accident that made him fall, striking his head as he did.”
Bak laid his baton on the ground by his feet, putting Ineni at ease. The guard needed no reminder of his authority. “He fell where, Ineni? And when?”
“About two years ago, sir. From the upper colonnade, down into the area where the new chapel of the lady Hathor is being built. He fell on a pile of stones waiting to be placed beneath its foundation.”
“You found him at first light?”
“Yes, sir. I’d gone out to take his place. He usually waited for me at the top of the ramp, but this time he wasn’t there.
So I went in search of him.”
Sipping from his jar of beer, Bak wondered why Menna had removed Ineni from the old tomb and put Imen in his place as a guard. He seemed a dependable man, and consci-entious. “You went to him as soon as you saw him there?”
“Yes, sir. I hoped to find him alive.” Seeing Bak drink, Ineni followed suit. The accident had happened too long ago for him to be upset, but he could not help but be moved by the memory. “Dedu was no longer among the living, that I saw right away. He had an ugly gash behind his left ear. His flesh held no warmth and his skin was pale and waxy looking.”
Bak gave him a sharp look. “You rolled him over to see the wound?”
“Oh, no, sir. He was lying facedown when I found him.”
How could a man strike the back of his head when he fell forward? The thought was not a question, the answer too evident. “Where was the rock he struck?”
“It was there, close by his head. I saw the blood on it.”
“Had blood pooled around his head, or was it on the one stone? How big was that stone?” The words tumbled out too fast, too insistent.
Ineni, who failed to notice Bak’s agitation, looked thoughtful. “The rock, about the size of a small melon, was stained and. . No, I don’t remember seeing blood anywhere else.” His eyes opened wide as the truth hit him. “You don’t believe he fell, do you, sir? You think someone struck him from behind.”
“I suppose you didn’t think to look for blood among the columns above.”
“No, sir,” Ineni said in a small voice.
Bak sat quite still. Montu’s murder was not the first to occur at Djeser Djeseru. Dedu had suffered a similar fate.
“We were hurrying, sir. That was the problem.”
“You picked up the ladder, swung it around, and it hit the scaffold.” Bak crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at the stout, ruddy-faced sculptor of reliefs. “Did you not think of the men toiling on top?”
“I did, sir, but by then it was too late. Ahmose had fallen and broken his wrist.”
Another accident, a simple act of carelessness.
“I was sweating, sir, and my hands were slick. When I bent over the retaining wall, my mallet slipped out of my hand. A mischievous god made it fall on Ptahmose’s head.”
Bak threw a pained look at Hori. This was the eleventh individual he had interviewed. He had never heard so much mention of spirits and genies and mischievous gods, most malevolent, a few merely playful. Not a man among them had failed to hear that he had found signs of a man on the cliff face, but for some reason he could not comprehend, it was far easier to believe in the vague and mysterious rather than the proven and ordinary.
“We’d raised that portion of the retaining wall to about shoulder height the previous day and were getting ready to lay the facing stones in front of it.”
“Why had the space between the retaining wall and the terrace been filled?” Bak asked. “Shouldn’t that have been done after the wall was nearer completion, with the facing in place to strengthen it?”
The short, muscular workman, Sobekhotep, wiped with the back of his hand the sweat from his upper lip, streaking dirt across one cheek. He smelled no better than Mery had.
“That’s right, sir. Montu warned the debris bearers many times to add the fill later.”
“Yet his instructions weren’t followed.”
“They were, sir, but we didn’t know that at the time.
When we returned to the wall that morning, we found a lot more debris behind it than had been there the day before, and we even saw the end of the limb pressing against it. We assumed he or Pashed had ordered the fill thrown in and thought no more about it.”
Bak cursed beneath his breath. Workmen were the same everywhere: accepting without question what should always be questioned. “Did you suspect the malign spirit of adding the fill?”
“Oh, no, sir.” Sobekhotep shook his head vehemently.
“The accident happened before that wretched creature made itself known.”
“To what did you attribute the mishap? You must’ve thought up some explanation.”
“We didn’t, sir. Didn’t think, that is.”
Bak did not know whether to laugh or cry. The man’s sincerity was admirable, his innocence a danger to himself and all who toiled near him. “You must tell me what happened.”
“We added another course of casing blocks. Ahotep-our foreman, my father’s brother-climbed up to make sure the blocks were seated properly. He bumped against the retaining wall.” Sobekhotep licked his lips, blinked
