a cry ing baby, sidled around donkeys and several women barring the path while they argued, and stopped to allow a pack of snarling dogs to race around him. Crowding in to either side were the walls of small, single-story interconnected houses from which grimy white plaster flaked. The lane, untouched by the early morning sun, smelled of manure, rancid oil, un washed humanity, and, strangely enough, of flowers. The poor of the city loved the delicate beauty of the blooming plants they had neither the space nor the leisure to grow and, during the reversion of offerings, would ofttimes choose blossoms over food.
This and several neighboring building blocks, though less than two hundred paces from the sacred precinct of Ipet-isut, seemed a world away. According to the chief priest’s aide,
Woserhet and his scribe and workmen had been given a house here for that very reason. In this private place, with no one the wiser, the lord Amon’s servants could dwell on the premises, the auditor could study untroubled the documents they had taken from the storehouses, and they could keep their records.
Bak reached the twelfth doorway on his right and walked inside. The main room was fairly large, an irregular rectan 70
Lauren Haney gle with the wall to the right longer than the opposing wall.
Two rooms opened off to the left. Light and fresh air entered through high windows at the back. A quick glance told him this was the dwelling he sought. Rather than a loom or signs of other household industry, he saw sleeping pallets rolled up along one wall and several small woven reed chests and baskets containing personal belongings.
Footsteps sounded, drawing his eyes to a short, squat, and muscular man descending the mudbrick stairway built against the rear wall. “Who are you?” the man demanded.
Bak gave his name and title, saying he represented
Amonked. “And you are…?”
“You’ll be looking for Tati.” The man dropped off the bot tom step and pointed upward. “He’s on the roof, sir. He’s ex pecting you. Or someone like you.”
He looked no different from any other workman in the land of Kemet and wore the same skimpy kilt, but he spoke with the accent of the people of the western desert and car ried the brand of a prisoner on his right shoulder. Bak guessed he had been taken in a border skirmish and offered by Maatkare Hatshepsut to the lord Amon in gratitude for the victory. “You’ve been told of Woserhet’s death?”
“We have,” the workman nodded. “May the gods take him unto themselves and may the one who slew him burn through eternity.”
Bak was not quite sure what family of gods had given birth to the words, but he could see the sentiment was heart felt. “You liked him, I see.” He smiled, hoping to draw the man out.
“He could be as sour as an unripe persimmon, but he was always fair and made no unreasonable demands.” The work man hesitated, then blurted, “What’ll happen to us now, sir?
Has anyone said?”
“With so many men in authority participating in the Beau tiful Feast of Opet, I doubt if a decision has been made.”
The workman nodded in mute and unhappy understand ing.
Bak headed up the stairs. He sympathized with this man and the others. As servants of the lord Amon, their fate rested in other men’s hands. The scribe would probably be kept at
Ipet-isut or be sent to another god’s mansion, but the odds were weighted heavily that the four workmen would be taken to one of the lord Amon’s many estates to toil in the fields.
At the top of the stairs, a long expanse of white rooftop baked in the morning sun, with no line marking where one dwelling ended and another began. A half-dozen spindly pavilions had been erected to expand the living and work space of the houses below. North-facing airshafts projected here and there, and stairways led downward to each home.
Lines had been strung from which dangled strips of drying meat or newly dyed thread or yarn. Fish lay spread out to dry. Sun-baked dung had been piled in neat mounds for use as fuel; hay was spread in loose piles; baskets, tools, and pottery lay where they had been dropped.
Beneath a rough pavilion roofed with palm fronds, he found a small, elderly man seated cross-legged on the rooftop. His upper back was so stooped his head projected from between his shoulders like a turtle peering out from its shell. His brand, different from that of the workman, had faded, speaking of many long years as a servant.
“You must be Tati,” Bak said.
“Yes, sir.”
The scribe motioned him to sit in the shade. While Bak explained who he was and why he had come, Tati made a tiny mark on the scroll spread across his lap and another on the limestone flake on the roof beside him. Noting the cu riosity on Bak’s face, he explained, “The scroll contains the official list of all the faience statuettes and dishes thought to be in a storage magazine we inspected last week. The shard shows all we found.”
“Do the two match?” Bak had expected an accent, but could detect none.
“Well enough.” Tati sat up as straight as he could and for an instant a cloud of pain passed over his face. “We rarely find a perfect match when the items are small. Woserhet never failed to insist that we count each and every one, while the men who originally store them are always far too impa tient to take care.”
Bak shifted forward and brushed away a small stone dig ging into his backside. “The workman in the dwelling below said you were expecting me.”
“Our task was one of great import, given to us by the chief priest, Hapuseneb himself. We doubted Woserhet’s death would be allowed to go unnoticed. Or unpunished.”
Again Bak noted the lack of an accent. “You’re a man of
Kemet, an educated man, and yet you carry a brand?”
“I was born far to the north in the land of Hatti.” The scribe smiled at Bak’s surprise. “I left as a callow youth, ap prenticed to my uncle to become a trader. While traveling through Amurru, Maatkare Hatshepsut’s father Akheperkare
Thutmose marched through the land with his army. I was taken prisoner and brought here.”
“You speak our tongue very well.”
“I learn with ease the words of other lands. For many years I served as a translator, journeying with our sover eign’s envoys to distant cities. A most satisfying and happy time that was.” His smile was sad, regretful. “But alas. The years have caught up with me. With this deformity…” He touched his shoulder. “… and the pain that sometimes be sets me, I can no longer travel. So our sovereign gave me as an offering to the lord Amon.”
“And you were loaned to Woserhet.”
“A good man. I shall miss him.”
“We all will.” The workman who had greeted Bak had come up the stairway unheard. He brought several jars of beer, two of which he handed to Bak and Tati. The rest he placed in a basket before going back downstairs.
Bak broke the dried mud plug out of his jar. “Evidently he told Hapuseneb he’d found some discrepancies in the rec ords of the storehouses of the lord Amon. Other than that vague statement, no one seems to know what he was doing.”
“That was our task, sir. To search out discrepancies. Not the small ones like those I’ve found here…” Tati tapped the document on his lap. “… but significant differences.”
“Woserhet surely wouldn’t have troubled the chief priest with talk of something insignificant.”
“No, he was not a man to worry others needlessly.” Tati let the scroll curl up and set it on the rooftop beside the shard. “He seemed to think he’d found some irregularities, but he wouldn’t tell me what or where they were.” He sipped from his beer jar, frowned. “He often left me puzzled like that, saying if I couldn’t find anything wrong, he might well be mistaken. I appreciated his reasoning, but found the prac tice most annoying.”
“As would I.” Bak glanced at a woman who had come onto the roof at the far end of the block. She got down on her knees and began to turn over the fish drying in the sun.
“You’ve found nothing thus far?”
“No, sir.” Tati smiled ruefully. “I’ll continue to search un til the chief priest or one of his aides remembers us. After that… Well, who knows what the lord Amon has planned for us?”
Bak had no way of setting the scribe’s anxiety to rest, so he made no comment. “Woserhet’s wife, mistress Ashayet, said he’d been troubled for the past few days.”
“Yes, sir.” Tati looked thoughtfully across the cluttered rooftop. “Something bothered him, but what it was
