Bak had a feeling something was going on that had passed over his head. He queried Amonked with a glance. The
Storekeeper of Amon nodded and formed a smile that could have meant anything. Bak accepted.
“I’m delighted.” Taharet flung a smile at her sister. “And so is Meret. You’ll find her a most pleasing companion.”
Not until the small group had broken up and he and
Amonked were strolling through the crowded, festive court did it occur to him that Amonked and maybe Djehuty or
Pentu were trying to make a match of him and Meret. She was a lovely young woman, but if she was anything like her sister, he wanted no part of her.
“Reminds me of you, sir, when you use your baton of of fice to good purpose. Remember the time when…” Never taking his eyes off the two men who were stick fighting,
Sergeant Pashenuro related a tale Bak had long ago forgot ten.
He listened with half an ear while he, too, enjoyed the bat tle. The two fighters, one representing western Waset and the other the village of Madu, swung their long wooden sticks hard and fast, pressing each other back and forth across the small space allotted them. Each series of swings and parries was broken by one man or the other leaping free and danc ing out of the way. Each brief respite ended when one or the other imagined his opponent losing his vigilance-or when the yelling onlookers grew impatient and began to boo and hiss. Sweat poured down their oiled bodies, dust rose from beneath their feet. The onlookers shouted out wagers, yelled encouragement, groaned at each perceived loss.
“You’d do well, sir,” Pashenuro said, caught up in the bat tle. “Better than either of them. Why don’t you challenge the winner?”
Laughing, Bak moved on. He spotted three of his Med jays watching male acrobats doing backward handsprings to the rhythm of a drummer and clapping, chanting onlookers.
He looked on with admiration, wondering if he had ever been so agile. His eye caught a touch of color beyond their leaping bodies, the fuzzy red hair of the man to whom
Meryamon had passed the message. The redhead scanned the crowd-looking for someone, Bak felt sure. He doubted the man would recognize him or had even seen him walking
along the processional way, but he breathed a sigh of relief when the searching eyes slid over him as if he were not there.
The drummer changed his cadence, a servant brought out and distributed several poles. While two of the acrobats raised one of the poles ever higher, the remainder used theirs to vault over it. The red-haired man glanced to his right and his face lit up. Bak spotted a swarthy foreign-looking man shouldering his way through the onlookers. The redhead si dled toward him, the movement inconspicuous but definite.
Soon the two men were standing together, talking. Bak had no way of knowing what they were saying and could not approach lest he draw attention to himself. Their conversa tion was short and, if appearance did not deceive, quickly grew heated, with the swarthy stranger often shaking his head in denial. The redhead’s face grew florid from anger, he snapped out a final remark and hurried away.
Bak hesitated, wondering if he should follow, seeking a reason to do so. Other than the furtiveness of Meryamon’s behavior, none of these men’s actions were suspect, nor could he tie their activities in any way to Woserhet’s death.
Still, he was curious.
Bidding farewell to his Medjays, he followed the redhead to a circle of men and women urging on two wrestlers and from there to an archery contest. Nothing of note occurred at either match, and he was sorely tempted to drop the pursuit.
Except his quarry continually looked around as if he ex pected-or at least hoped-to meet someone else. Then again, he might simply be enjoying the festivities.
The lord Re was sinking toward the western horizon and the red-haired man weaving a path through the throng, head ing back toward Ipet-resyt, when Bak spotted Amonked standing in a small circle of spectators, watching a dozen desert dwellers perform a synchronized leaping dance to the hard, fast beat of a drum. The redhead stopped to watch a nearby group of female dancers, so Bak slipped up beside the Storekeeper of Amon.
“I’ve never seen such a wondrous crowd,” Amonked said.
“If my cousin could see the abundance of people, the joy on their faces, she’d be most pleased.”
“I thank the gods that I’m a mere servant, not the child of a deity. I can well imagine what she and Menkheperre Thut mose will endure inside the god’s mansion. The near dark ness. The air stifling hot and reeking of incense, burning oil, and food offerings. A never-ending murmur of prayers.
Bruised knees and an aching back from bending low before the lord Amon for hours at a time.”
“The lord Amon is a most beneficent god, my young friend. Serving him can get tedious, but one must put aside one’s physical discomforts and let piety enter one’s heart.”
Bak gave him a sharp look, but found neither censure in his demeanor nor cynicism.
The red-haired man strolled away from the dancers. Bak felt compelled to follow, and Amonked, he had learned some months earlier, could ofttimes be torn from his staid exis tence. “I’ve been following a man for no good purpose.
Would you care to join me?”
“I don’t think…” Amonked eyed askance the many peo ple circulating around them. “Well, yes. Yes I would. But in this crowd? How is that possible?”
“Come. I’ll show you.” Bak pointed at the redhead, who was sauntering past a row of booths offering bright amulets and trinkets, mementos of the festival. “You see the man with fuzzy red hair? Not one in a thousand has hair so con spicuous. He’s not tall, so it’s easy to lose sight of him, but a diligent search will never fail to reward you with another glimpse.”
“Let’s hurry,” Amonked said, leaping into the spirit of the chase. “We don’t want to lose him.”
Grinning, Bak motioned the older man to precede him.
Amonked took the game seriously, seldom taking his eyes off the man ahead. Of equal import, he was not one to draw attention to himself and, in spite of the fine jewelry and wig he wore, readily merged into the crowd.
Their quarry led them into a smaller, more festive version of Waset’s foreign quarter. Here, the food offered for sale looked and smelled and tasted different from the usual fare of Kemet. The entertainers wore unfamiliar costumes; the music was more strident with an unusual beat and timbre.
The games and sports were similar, but differed in rules and manner of play. Many of the people strolling through the area were foreigners, men and women from far to the north and south, the east and west, strangely garbed, often odd in appearance, speaking words impossible to understand.
The red-haired man stopped behind a semicircle of people watching a troupe of Hittite acrobats performing to the beat of a single drum. One man was climbing a pyramid of stand ing men to take his position at the top. The redhead studied the spectators, then headed purposefully in among them to stop beside a short, dumpy man wearing the long kilt of a scribe.
“Do you know the man beside him?” The question was foolish, Bak knew. Hundreds of scribes daily walked the streets of Waset, and hundreds more had come from throughout the land of Kemet to participate in the festival.
However, Amonked had surprised him before and would again with the vast amount of knowledge stored within his heart.
The beat of the drum swelled to a climax. The acrobat reached the top of the human pyramid and stood erect. The crowd roared approval.
“He’s called Nebamon,” Amonked said. “He’s overseer of a block of storehouses in the sacred precinct of Ipet-isut, in cluding the storage magazine in which Woserhet was slain.
He’s responsible for many of the valuable supplies and ob jects used during the rituals: aromatic oils, fine linens, bronze and gold vessels.”
“The same items handed over to the priests by Merya mon.”
“Those and many more.” Amonked poked a stray lock of his own hair back beneath his wig. “Nebamon’s task
