they sought.
Amonked had not quite caught him on his sleeping pallet, but had come close. “Am I to actively search for the man who brought about Pentu’s recall or can I only look for a po tential slayer among them?”
A hint of a smile touched Amonked’s lips. “Discovery of the traitor would be an added bonus, so the vizier said.”
Bak frowned. “He gave no definite instructions to seek the snake?”
“He merely inferred, but I see no need to burden Pentu with that small bit of information.”
“Nothing was ever proven.” Pentu ran his fingers through his thick white hair, betraying his distress. “I felt cruelly used and still do. To accuse a man in such a way, to tear him from a task he knows he’s doing well… It was uncon scionable. Utterly unconscionable.”
Amonked exchanged a quick glance with Bak, who stood in a thin rectangle of early morning sunlight, facing the dais on which the Storekeeper of Amon had been invited to sit with the governor of Tjeny. “You yourself were not accused, surely.”
“Not as such, no. But to lay blame on anyone in my household is to blacken my good name.”
Letting pass a statement so clearly true, Amonked scooted his armchair half around so he could see Pentu without al ways turning his head. The dais occupied the end of the re ception hall, the room Bak had seen four days before bright with laughter, good food and drink, and beaming guests. A servant had placed a camp stool in front of the dais for his use, but he had opted to stand rather than lower himself to the level of the two noblemen’s knees.
“What were you told when you were recalled?” Amonked asked.
“No reason was offered.” Bitterness crept into Pentu’s voice. “Not until I reported to the royal house was I given an explanation. And then a poor one.”
Amonked’s tone turned hard, brutal almost. “Someone in your household had taken an active interest in the poli tics of Hatti. Was that not sufficient reason to withdraw you?”
A stubborn look came over the governor’s face. “I refuse to believe any man close to me guilty of so foul a deed.”
“Word was brought to our sovereign in an unofficial man ner, carried by the Hittite merchant Maruwa. Later, after you were withdrawn, your successor verified the accusation at the highest levels of power in Hattusa.”
Pentu’s mouth tightened, sealing inside a rebuttal.
“Forgive me, sir,” Bak said, “but did you ever seek the truth? Did you question those who accompanied you to the
Hittite capital?”
“I spoke with them, yes. Each and every one denied his guilt.”
“You believed them.”
“They are honorable men, Lieutenant.”
Bak wondered at the governor’s apparent blindness. Was he really so trusting? Or did he know they were innocent be cause he was the man who had dipped a finger into Hatti’s politics? Amonked appeared to take for granted Pentu’s in nocence, but perhaps he erred.
“Exactly who accompanied you?” Amonked asked, for
Bak’s benefit rather than his own, Bak suspected.
The governor spoke with reluctance, though he must have known the names were readily available to all who chose to inquire. “My aide Netermose. My steward Pahure.
My friend Sitepehu, who served at the time as my chief scribe.”
A fat black dog carrying a bone in its mouth waddled around the nearest brightly painted pillar. It scrambled onto the camp stool and settled down to gnaw its prize. The dubi ous treat smelled as strong as the animal did, overwhelming the stringent scent emanating from a huge bowl of flowers beside the dais.
“Your wife accompanied you, did she not?” Bak asked.
Pentu released a long, annoyed sigh. “As did her sister
Meret. Also with us were a dozen or so servants, men and women important to our comfort while we dwelt in that land of strange customs and abominable food.” His head swiveled around and he gave Amonked a long, hard look.
“What’s this all about? Why bring up a subject long dead and most distasteful to me?”
Amonked rose from his chair and stepped off the dais. Ig noring the dog, he stood beside Bak, lending the weight of his authority to the younger man. “Maruwa has been slain.”
Pentu expelled a humorless laugh. “Have you come to ask that I mourn him, Amonked?”
“Some months before his death, while preparing to travel to Hattusa, he told a friend he expected to bring back to
Waset the name of the traitor in your household. Upon his return, he had not yet set foot on the good black earth of this city when he was slain. I think it unlikely that the two events are unconnected. The vizier agrees and has ordered Lieu tenant Bak to investigate the charge that brought about your recall, beginning with the members of your household.”
“Is the identity of the traitor-if one ever existed-now so important? A matter thought at the time to be worth dismiss ing?”
“That individual’s interference in the politics of Hatti was perceived as posing a threat to the king and might well have caused a breach between him and our sovereign. A serious matter should he have decided to march south and attack our allies, thereby bringing about a war.”
“Nothing of the sort happened.”
“Solely because the Hittite king, being a reasonable man, chose not to suspect Maatkare Hatshepsut of being a party to the problem and passed the word along informally, and be cause she acted without delay.”
Amonked glared at Pentu, daring him to rebut the charge.
The governor remained mute.
“Lieutenant Bak is to report directly to me and I to the vizier.” The implication was clear: the matter had the atten tion of the second most powerful individual in the land, and
Pentu had no choice but to cooperate, to treat Bak with the same deference he would show Amonked.
The governor slumped back in his chair, scowled at Bak.
“What do you wish, Lieutenant?”
“I wish to speak to the members of your household, first to Netermose, Pahure, and Sitepehu, each man alone. Before
I see them, you must tell them of my purpose and urge their cooperation.”
Bak watched the servant slip through the doorway to go in search of the three men who had accompanied Pentu to Hat tusa. Amonked had previously taken his leave. “Did you know Maruwa, sir?”
Pentu’s expression darkened at the very mention of the trader’s name. “I’d never heard of him until I learned, upon reporting back to Waset, that he’d carried the message that brought about my recall.”
“Did he never come to you in Hattusa? Was he not re quired to obtain from you, as envoy to the land of Hatti, a pass each time he wished to travel within the land of
Kemet?”
“Sitepehu dealt with such routine matters.”
Bak had no reason to doubt the governor, or to believe him, either. “Do you have many dealings with the priests and scribes who toil in the sacred precinct of the lord Amon?”
“On the rare occasions when I come to Waset, I usually meet the chief priest and a few acolytes at various social oc casions. Not during the Beautiful Feast of Opet, when they’re fully occupied, but at other times throughout the year.” Pentu eyed Bak, visibly puzzled. “What does my so cial life have to do with the death of that wretched Hittite merchant?”
“Have you ever met the scribe Woserhet or the priest
Meryamon?”
“Aren’t they the two men who were slain in the sacred precinct?”
Bak was not surprised the governor had heard of the mur ders. Word of one death in the sacred precinct would not have gone unnoticed. News of a second killing would have spread throughout Waset at the speed of a falcon diving to earth to catch a rodent.
