flesh was flaking apart. “Kasaya, how many storage pots do you think were broken?”
“I’m not sure. More than a dozen, I’d guess.”
“Meryamon said there were fifteen or twenty empty spaces on the shelves.”
Kasaya eyed the three jars whose shoulders he had recon structed. “You’ve read the inscriptions I’ve pieced together so far. They say the jars belonged in the room where we found them.”
“Both Nebamon and Meryamon have easy access to that storehouse.” Hori thought a moment, added, “But Merya mon lied about knowing the red-haired man.” He turned to
Bak, his eyes glittering with a growing conviction. “You saw with your own eyes the one pass a message to the other.”
“I admit he looks guilty, but…”
“He has a secret he doesn’t want aired,” Kasaya said. “A secret of some import. What could be more loathsome than the theft of ritual equipment?”
“Sir!” Psuro poked his head up through the opening at the top of the stairs. “A messenger has come from Amonked. He wishes you to meet him right away. A man has been found slain. A second death in the sacred precinct.”
Chapter Eight
Bak let out a long, stunned breath. “It’s Meryamon.”
“Yes.” Amonked stared down at the body, his face bleak.
“Another death much like that of Woserhet.”
Taking care where he placed his feet, Bak stepped closer to the dead man through tall, thick weeds and grasses that had sprung up on the moist earth behind Ipet-isut. “No at tempt was made to burn him.”
“No, but his throat…” Amonked’s voice tailed off and he looked away.
Bak bent low to study the body, bringing to life the dull ache in his head. The young priest lay on his back, his shoulders raised slightly on a thick clump of grass, his head hanging back to reveal a long cut across his throat. Flies swarmed around the wound and over reddish smudges on his body. He had not been slain where he lay. The vegeta tion beneath and around him was smeared with dried blood, as was a trail of bruised foliage about four paces long lead ing out to a path that ran along the base of the god’s man sion. An attempt had been made to make the bloody trail look normal. The weeds had been pushed roughly back into place and dirt had been thrown over them, probably while the blood was wet, so no one would notice. Several whose stems had broken were wilting, an anomaly that had caught the attention of the young man who had found the body.
Visibly upset, he stood on the path with Amonked, Psuro, and two Medjays from Bak’s company of policemen.
Bak waded through the weeds beside the track along which Meryamon had been dragged. As was to be expected from such a long and deep incision, the priest had bled freely. The dirt and sand thrown over the foliage in no way covered the stains, but would have concealed them from ca sual passersby.
As he neared the edge of the vegetation, he snapped from a bush a twig thickly covered with small leaves. Kneeling beside the path, he studied the dirt, which looked as if it had been disturbed by the passage of perhaps a half-dozen peo ple coming and going. Not nearly enough, to his way of thinking, for a path in constant use day in and day out, as this one was.
The footprints ended not far away, at the center back of the mansion of the lord Amon, in a jumble of smudged tracks left by individuals who had come to offer prayers at the chapel of the hearing ear. A length of white linen, stained by age, dust, and burning sunlight, covered the opening to a shallow booth that sheltered what he knew to be a deep re lief of the deity carved into the wall directly behind the sanctuary. There, he reasoned, was the most likely place to slay a man, catching him unawares while he conversed with the god.
He carefully brushed away the upper surface of dirt about a pace to the right of the spot where the body had been dragged into the weeds. He found blood. Here, too, the slayer had thrown dirt, thinking to hide all signs of the mur der-and his own footprints as well.
Bak swept away more dirt, following the trail of blood.
Although trampled by those who had come since the mur der, the track was clear enough, and soon he reached a spot directly in front of the chapel. A small brownish stain at the lower edge of the cloth told him he had guessed right. He brushed away more dirt and found a much disturbed puddle of dried blood that had flowed beneath the cloth and into the shelter. Pushing aside the cover, he revealed the relief in a niche. On both sides of the windowlike frame were the large, deeply carved ears of the lord Amon. Here, any man or woman great or small could come in times of need to pray to the god or to seek aid.
Visited by many through the course of a day, this would have been a risky place to slay a man. It was, however, iso lated and hidden from the general view, making it an ideal place to commit so heinous a crime at sunset when people were eating their evening meal and preparing for the night, or early in the morning before they began to stir.
He let the cloth fall into place and joined the others.
“Bring him out to the path. I need a better, closer look.”
Psuro nodded to the two Medjays, who carried a litter into the weeds. While they rolled the body onto it and brought it back, Bak questioned the young man who had found Merya mon. He had seen a woman and child bending a knee before the shrine and no one else. The wilted vegetation had caught his attention and the many flies had drawn his eyes to the body. He had realized right away that the blood was dry, that
Meryamon had been dead for some time. He had sent the woman for help and that’s all he knew.
Bak allowed him to leave and turned to the body. He ran his fingers through Meryamon’s hair and detected no bump or blood. He rolled him one way and then the other and found no bruises or cuts. The priest must have been down on his knees, praying to the god, when his assailant came up be hind him and slit his throat. It had probably happened so fast that he had felt nothing, simply toppled over. Not wanting him found too quickly, the slayer had pulled him into the weeds and hastily thrown dirt around, hiding him temporar ily from all but the most inquisitive.
Glancing at the chapel, Bak imagined the deeply carved image of the lord Amon, listening to Meryamon speak, pos sibly plead for… For what? What had the priest needed or desired? Had he known Woserhet’s slayer and asked for advice or absolution? Had he feared his life would be taken by the same hand? Whatever his need, the god had failed him.
Bak whisked the flies away from the wound with the twig. The insects swarmed upward. Swallowing his distaste, he took a closer look at the dead man’s neck. He muttered an oath. He had seen a similar cut before, not once but twice.
“Take him away,” he told Psuro. “To the house of death.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I must speak with Hori.”
“I’ll send a man for him.”
The sergeant, followed by the Medjays carrying the litter, hastened down the path and vanished around the corner of
Ipet-isut. Bak and Amonked followed at a slower pace.
Bak flung his makeshift brush into the weeds and wiped his hands together as if ridding them of the feel of death.
“The Hittite merchant Maruwa was slain in the same way as
Meryamon and Woserhet, and by the same man.”
“Are you certain?” Amonked asked, caught by surprise.
“I’d wager my iron dagger that they were.” Iron was a metal more rare than silver and more valuable than gold, and the dagger had been a gift from the only woman Bak had ever loved. To him, it was priceless, as Amonked knew.
“Two men slain in a similar manner over a short period of time might be a coincidence. Three such occurrences are more likely than not related.”
