hard. “That’s all it took. One bump. Without warning, the wall burst outward, stones flying. Ahotep was struck in the face by the limb and the wall collapsed around him. We pulled him free, only to discover that a smaller limb coming off the larger had gone through his eye and deep into his head. He breathed his last in my arms.”
“You told my scribe that Montu was angry when he saw what had happened.”
“Yes, sir. He believed the limb had been bent, putting it under tension, and dirt and debris thrown around it to hold it in place temporarily. He thought it was meant to spring forward and break the wall. As it did.” Sobekhotep’s mouth tightened at the memory. “Montu thought it a prank. A mean, vile prank.”
“Later, I suppose the accident was laid at the feet of the malign spirit.”
Sobekhotep nodded. “Now you say that vile specter is a man.”
“More than one, I think. It would take at least two to set up the accident you’ve described.”
The accident had been planned, without doubt. No man could have predicted Ahotep’s death, so the goal had been to damage the wall and the men’s morale. If anyone was struck down, so be it.
By day’s end Bak had interviewed almost thirty men, sorting out obvious accidents from those that were suspect.
A few lay somewhere in between, impossible to place in either category. Those he believed to be deliberate had almost all occurred early in the morning, which led him to believe the scene had been set during the night, a time when the men feared to leave their huts, when Djeser Djeseru lay deserted and the malign spirit could set the scene for destruction with little fear of discovery.
The malign spirit. He let out a cynical laugh. With few exceptions, the men he had talked with continued to cling to their belief that an evil specter was responsible for each and every accident, including the rock slide onto the northern retaining wall. The tale Hori and Ani had spread had fallen on deaf ears. Since no man had been seen on the cliff above the wall, Bak had misinterpreted the signs he found there. Or so the men believed.
Bak entered the lean-to beneath which Ramose and his scribes toiled, dropped onto a shaded wedge of sand, and set beside him the empty basket that had earlier been filled with beer jars. He was hot and tired, badly in need of a swim.
Looking up from the scroll on his lap, Amonemhab asked,
“No luck, Lieutenant?”
“The day’s not been entirely wasted.”
“Nor a complete success, I gather.”
“Did anyone tell you of the scribe who fell to his death?”
Ani asked, speaking quickly, as if wishing to silence his grandfather. “An accident, they say, but I don’t believe it.”
Amonemhab snorted. “Don’t bother the lieutenant with trivialities, boy. Huni didn’t die at Djeser Djeseru.”
“Near enough,” the youth said, a challenge in his voice.
To Bak, he added, “He was found in the canal along which barges bring hard stone and other materials from the river to the causeway.”
Bak saw skepticism on the older man’s face and utter conviction on that of the boy. “Tell me what happened, Ani.”
“As far as I know, no one saw Huni fall,” Amonemhab said, indifferent to Bak’s cue. “He was one of our own, a scribe here at Djeser Djeseru. After he died, Ramose brought me out here to take his place.”
Ani glared at his grandfather, who seemed intent on spoil-ing his tale. “He was found in the water beside a barge carrying a load of granite. It was moored at the end of the causeway, waiting to be unloaded. The back of his head was crushed in. Those who found him thought he had fallen off the barge or the bank of the canal, striking his head on some unknown object as he fell.” The boy’s face took on a stubborn look. “I don’t believe it. He wasn’t a careless man, sir, nor was he clumsy. He’d never have fallen backward unless he was pushed.”
“You seem quite certain he was slain. Did you tell anyone at the time?”
“No one would listen to me, sir, but I knew something wasn’t right. I knew it!”
Bak accepted a jar of beer from Amonemhab. While he sipped the thick, bitter brew, he thought over Ani’s tale. The boy could be mistaken in thinking the death a murder, but he could as easily be right.
Other than the accidents caused by carelessness or the whims of the gods, most had been well thought out, set up in such a way that they would be accepted as mishaps, as the wrath of the malign spirit and not the work of a man. But, assuming the scribe had indeed been slain, as he felt certain the guard Dedu had been, he had found two men whose deaths had not been so neatly planned or carried out. Two in addition to Montu, all three struck on the back of the head.
Why, he wondered, had these three deaths not been planned out as the others had been? Had the victims actually seen the malign spirit or guessed his name, making their immediate demise essential?
“When did the rumor of a malign spirit start?” Bak asked.
Ramose, Amonemhab, and Pashed looked at each other and shrugged. Their faces reflected the reddish glow of the fire around which the four of them sat. Hori, Kasaya, and Ani, though they could barely see in the growing darkness, were playing catch with a leather ball on the open stretch of sand between the huts and the ancient temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. Hori had sluffed off his veneer of a serious young man to play with the same unbridled zest as the boy.
Kasaya never lost his youthful enthusiasm.
“The tale had started before I came here,” Amonemhab said.
“Two years ago, that was. When Huni died, as we told you.”
“It started before then.” Pashed dunked a chunk of bread into the bowl setting on the fiery coals. The stew smelled of mutton and onions and tasted slightly burned. “Three years ago at least.”
Ramose nodded. “Longer even than that, I’d guess.”
“How did it get started?” With his father well guarded, Bak had decided that he and his men would spend the night at Djeser Djeseru. Through the day, he had learned a considerable amount; a few more hours might add to that knowledge.
The architect shrugged. “The men pursue an excuse for superstition and build on it. The old tombs we’ve come upon fuel the fire, so I suspect the first one we found set the rumor alight.”
“That would’ve been about four years ago,” Ramose said.
“I doubt we knew of him so long ago.”
“They’re always seeking something to fear,” Amonemhab agreed. “It gives them an excuse to leave their places of work long before dark.”
“I’ve never known them not to give fair measure,” Useramon said, coming out of the darkness. The tall, bulky chief sculptor knelt between Amonemhab and Ramose and edged sideways, making room for his small friend Heribsen, tag-ging close behind. “Talk of the mysterious brightens their lives, adds zest to an otherwise bland existence.”
Bak doubled over his bread and picked up within the fold a chunk of meat. “You speak lightly of a deadly game, Useramon.”
“He pretends indifference, Lieutenant. I, for one, can’t feign such nonchalance.” Heribsen accepted a jar of beer from Ramose and took a sip. In the erratic light of the fire, the deep furrows in his broad brow emphasized his worry. “I know you say the malign spirit is a man, and perhaps it’s true. But man or spirit, will it sit back and let you drive the fear from the hearts of men it’s so carefully made afraid? Or will it retaliate with more death and destruction? Will it reserve its vengeance for you, or for all of us who toil here? A few at a time or all at once?”
“Lieutenant Bak!” Hori, letting the ball pass over his head, pointed toward the temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep.
“Look, sir! The malign spirit!”
The youth’s call rang loud and clear across the sand. Bak leaped to his feet and looked toward the ruined structure.
The other men around the fire followed suit, as did those sitting in front of the nearby huts. He thought he glimpsed a light among the broken columns behind the terrace that faced them, but it vanished so fast he could not be sure.
“I see nothing,” Pashed said.
Ramose shook his head. “Nor do I.”
