his second patient. The guard’s head was swathed in a white bandage, and he looked bleary-eyed from the medicine Ptahhotep had given him for his headache. He should have been on his sleeping mat, but had insisted instead on helping with the late night doctoring.
“This may sting, Amonemopet, so hold him quiet.” Ptahhotep knelt, lifted a hoof, dipped a soft cloth into the poultice, and daubed the burned area. “His front legs are no worse than Defender’s back ones, but the rear legs will take 210
Lauren Haney
a while to heal. You’ve no need to worry, though. Unless the gods turn their backs to him, he’ll fully recover.”
Bak watched, puzzled, while his father wrapped a soft cloth around the scorched leg and tied it in place. “You’ve always told me a burn heals best when left open to the air.
Why bandage Victory?”
“The gods will look more kindly toward him if we keep the flies away from the wound.”
Soon after daybreak the same young apprentice scribe who had summoned Bak the first time he had met with the Storekeeper of Amon hurried up the path to Ptahhotep’s small farm. Bak was preparing to go to Waset to report to Commander Maiherperi and ask that he replace Sergeant Huy, who would be in no condition to guard anyone for the next few days. Kasaya would remain with his father until the new guard arrived, then go to Djeser Djeseru.
“Amonked wishes to see you, sir,” the scribe said.
“Surely he’s not heard of the fire!” Kasaya exclaimed.
“Did he tell you why?” Bak asked the apprentice.
“Something important has turned up, he said, something you should know about.”
The scribe escorted Bak to Amonked’s home in Waset.
The dwelling was located in an even older and more desir-able neighborhood than that in which the architect Montu had dwelt. The property was larger and therefore the house more spacious. The street was as narrow and dark and had the same musty odor, but here guards stood before each entrance, holding at a distance unwelcome visitors.
Bak was rather intimidated. He had known that Amonked, in spite of his lofty lineage, had no wealth to speak of and that his wife, a woman of substance, had brought this dwelling to the marriage. He had not expected the unpreten-tious man who treated him as a friend and toiled daily in the storehouses of the lord Amon to live in such grand circumstances.
A servant admitted him and the apprentice. The young scribe ushered him up a zigzag flight of stairs, across a courtyard lush with potted trees and shrubs, and into Amonked’s spacious private reception room. The Storekeeper of Amon, looking very much the scribe, waved away the youth and told Bak to be seated on a stool whose hard surface was covered by an embroidered pillow. A pillow on a stool! Unheard of in the fortress of Buhen.
The room, cooled by a breeze wafting through high windows, was sparsely furnished, but each low table, wooden chest, and stool was a masterpiece of the furniture maker’s art. Tightly fitted woods of different colors and grains formed designs inlaid with ivory. The thickest pillow Bak had ever seen lay on the seat of Amonked’s armchair. Colorful murals adorned the walls, showing fish swimming in deep blue waters and birds flying through the emerald branches of trees. A bowl of dried flower petals on a chest near the door scented the room.
Bak was clearly out of his element. “You summoned me, sir.” The words sounded as inane as any he could recall ever uttering.
If Amonked thought so, he offered no sign. “Help yourself to a small repast.” He nodded toward the low table beside the stool, which was laden with bread and honey, grapes, and a jar of milk.
Settling gingerly on the thick, soft pillow, Bak poured milk into a bowl and helped himself to a chunk of honeyed bread.
Amonked leaned back in his chair and wove his fingers together across his thick waist. “Three days ago I had occasion to go to the harbor to receive a shipment of cedar from the land of Amurru. I spoke with the harbormaster of the jewelry you confiscated in Buhen and suggested the objects came from the same source as the pieces his inspectors have stumbled upon over the past few years.” A shadow of a smile flitted across his face. “Needless to say, he was not pleased with my use of the words
“I’d think not,” Bak agreed, returning the smile.
“He was quite interested when I mentioned the jar of honey in which the jewelry was being smuggled. In fact, he summoned his inspectors then and there. They’d already begun to gather in the courtyard when I left, and he could barely wait for my departure to tell them of the sketch on the neck of the jar, the honeybee.”
Bak noted the glint in Amonked’s eyes, a hint of excitement on his face. “Your talk bore fruit, I gather.”
“Late yesterday.” With a smile so satisfied it bordered on smug, Amonked opened the drawer in the chest beside his chair. He withdrew a reddish pottery jar, ovoid in shape, exactly like the one found in Buhen, and handed it to Bak.
Around the neck was a sketch of a necklace with a pendant honeybee. “This, I believe, is what we’ve been seeking. An inspector found it on board a merchant ship bound for the land of Keftiu. The drummer who maintains the oarsmen’s rhythm had it among his personal possessions.”
Bak flashed a congratulatory smile at his host. “Did he reveal where it came from?”
“He’s a simple man, the harbormaster told me, one who accepts what others tell him without question. He claims a youth he’d never seen before paid him to pass the jar on to a man who would meet him at the harbor at Keftiu’s capital city. The Medjay police who questioned him didn’t spare the cudgel and still he clung to his tale. They believe he told the truth.”
Bak studied the sketch, almost identical to those he had seen before. The jar was empty, as clean as if it had never been used. “Did the inspector find honey inside? Or jewelry?”
“There was honey, yes.” Amonked pulled from the drawer a square of linen much like the one in which Bak had carried the jewelry from Buhen. He spread wide the fabric and, with a broad smile, held out the open package. “And these.”
Bak took one look and his breath caught in his throat.
Laying in the palm of Amonked’s hand were two bracelets, two gold rings, and a rock crystal heart amulet. He had never seen the rings or amulet before, but the bracelets were all too familiar. Tiny inlaid butterflies adorned one, the second was a wide gold band with three miniature golden cats lying in a row along the top. Their likeness to those in the tomb he had seen opened and closed at Djeser Djeseru was too close to be a case of similarity. They were the same bracelets.
They had been stolen from the tomb right before his eyes.
A sightless man could have seen how shocked he was, and Amonked was not blind. “What’s wrong, Lieutenant?
You look like a man who’s seen a dead man walk.”
“In a sense I have,” and Bak went on to explain.
“How can this be the same jewelry?” Amonked shook his head, unable to believe, unwilling to accept. “The tomb was guarded without a break. No man could’ve entered unseen.”
Bak swallowed the last of the honeyed bread and washed it down with a gulp of milk. He wished he could wash away Kasaya’s well-meant blunder as easily. “Kasaya spotted a light, what he believed to be the malign spirit, and gave chase. Imen, the guard assigned to watch the shaft, could’ve climbed down while he was away. Kasaya thought he saw him there the whole time, but he might well have become so involved in the chase, so afraid of catching the malign spirit, that he lost track of passing time.”
“Imen. The guard. A tomb robber.” Looking dismayed, pained, Amonked shook his head once more. “I’ve heard tales that the men who cared for the old tombs, who dwelt in towns built close to the sepulchers to which they’d dedicated their lives, robbed their deceased charges during times of need. But today? In this time of prosperity? Why, Bak?
Why?”
“Many of the tombs are filled with wealth, sir, a powerful incentive to a greedy man.”
Amonked’s face clouded with anger. He dropped the jewelry into the drawer and slammed it shut. “Go find Lieutenant Menna. Take him with you to Djeser Djeseru and snare Imen before he hears we’ve found the bracelets
