men who were guarding the cargo. As he approached the vessel, he saw in the distance several men coming toward him. Taking them for sailors, he paid no heed.
He reached the gangplank and headed upward. Captain
Antef stood at the bow, watching him with an obvious lack of enthusiasm, understandable since he rightly blamed Bak for the harbormaster’s decision to hold his ship in Waset.
At the top of the gangplank, Bak ate the last bite of fish and threw the leaves overboard. He caught another glimpse of the sailors, paused, looked at them harder. The three in front were walking side by side, while the fourth was slightly behind. It took but an instant to register the laggard’s appearance, his swarthy complexion. He was the foreign looking man who had argued with the red-haired man to whom Meryamon had passed a message.
Bak hurried down the gangplank and walked at a good fast pace toward the approaching men. The swarthy man abruptly veered aside and strode swiftly into the nearest lane, vanishing between two building blocks. Bak broke into a run, sped past the sailors, and darted into the mouth of the lane. He spotted the swarthy man at the far end, running full out. The man vanished into an intersecting street. By the time Bak reached the corner, he had disappeared. He searched the nearby lanes, but the man had gone.
The exercise, though futile, had been informative. The swarthy man knew who he was and did not wish to be ques tioned. Could he be Zuwapi? A man supposed to be in
Mennufer?
Chapter Twelve
“I’m beginning to worry, Imsiba.” Bak leaned against the rail of the cargo ship, a broad, sturdy vessel spotlessly clean but badly in need of overall maintenance, and shook a peb ble from his sandal. “The day Woserhet lost his life,
Amonked said he hoped I’d find the slayer before the festi val ends.”
The Medjay sergeant whistled. “You’ve only four and a half days, my friend. Not a lot of time.”
“Soon after-two or three days, I’d guess-we’re to sail to Mennufer with Commandant Thuty.” Bak’s voice turned grim. “I’d not like to leave behind a vile criminal unaccount able to the lady Maat.”
The two men walked up the deck. Imsiba’s eyes darted here and there and everywhere, seeking faults in the ship his wife might purchase. A northerly breeze made bearable the heat of the harsh midafternoon sun. The vessel rocked gently on the swells. Fittings creaked, ropes thunked against the mast, a crow perched on the masthead called to two others on a nearby rooftop. Sitamon, as delicate as a flower, stood at the forecastle with the vessel’s grizzled owner and the tall, rangy man who had served as master of the cargo ship she had owned while in Buhen. As he would captain the vessel she ultimately chose, his questions were sharp and percep tive, designed to reveal the craft’s good points as well as its flaws.
Imsiba knelt to examine a large coil of graying rope lying on the deck. “Do you have any idea who the slayer might be?”
“If valuable objects are being stolen from the storehouses of Amon, as I believe, practically anyone who toils within the sacred precinct might be guilty of taking Woserhet’s life and that of Meryamon. If governor Pentu’s withdrawal from
Hattusa was the reason for their deaths, someone in his household is probably the slayer.”
“Do I detect uncertainty, my friend, a lack of confidence?”
Bak grinned. “Simple confusion. I’ve too many loose ends, making me mistrust both theories. And neither meshes well with the other.”
Imsiba lifted the coils, one or two at a time, and looked closely at the rope. About midway through, he revealed a long segment that was so frayed and worn it looked ready to pull apart under the least bit of strain. Scowling, he laid the coil so the worn part was visible and continued the task.
“How can I help?”
Though sorely tempted, Bak shook his head. “No, Imsiba.
Sitamon needs you more than I do.” He saw doubt on the
Medjay’s face, smiled. “Look at the large number of ships moored here in Waset and likely to remain throughout the festival. Seldom does such an opportunity arise. She needs you by her side.”
Bak thought to go to the sacred precinct, but decided in stead to speak with Netermose, a man who would know well those who dwelt in Pentu’s household and the one he felt would more readily divulge that knowledge.
The aide was not an easy man to find, but thanks to a ser vant who had toiled for Pentu’s family for a lifetime and knew her betters as well as she knew herself, Bak found him at the river’s edge. He was carrying a basket from which he threw kitchen leavings, a handful at a time, into the river.
Twenty or more ducks bobbed on the swells, competing for fish heads, wilted lettuce, and melon rinds.
Finding Netermose away from the house was a gift of the gods. Here he might speak more freely than when under the roof of the man to whom he owed his livelihood.
“It’s hard to believe the festival is almost over,” the aide said, eyeing a dozen or so men adding fresh white limestone chips to the short length of processional way along which the lord Amon would travel from Ipet-resyt to the river for his homeward bound voyage to Ipet-isut.
“Other than the first day and one night, I’ve had no oppor tunity to take part in the revelry,” Bak admitted.
“Have you found the man who slew Maruwa?” Looking embarrassed, Netermose laughed. “Of course you haven’t.
You’d not have searched me out if you had.”
Bak reached out, palm up, signaling that they should walk south along the river. The ducks swam along beside them, squawking for another handout. “When I asked you yester day which member of Pentu’s household might’ve hoped to cause trouble in the land of Hatti, you said the tale was un true. You spoke with utter conviction, yet you surely know that an envoy is not lightly recalled. And you must’ve been told that Pentu’s successor, when he arrived in Hattusa, ver ified the charge.”
“Your presence has brought back much that I’d hoped to forget.”
They strolled past a mooring post sunk deep into the moist, grassy bank and swerved around an acacia hanging out over the river, bowing toward the lord Hapi and his beneficent floodwaters.
“Three men have died, Netermose. The incident in Hat tusa may or may not be linked to their deaths. If it is, any in formation you offer may help snare the slayer.” Bak saw a denial forming on the aide’s face and raised his hand for si lence. “If those who dwell in Pentu’s household prove inno 182
Lauren Haney cent, the sooner I learn the truth and put aside my suspi cions, the sooner I’ll turn down a more fruitful path.”
A long silence, an unhappy sigh. “I was appalled at the very thought that someone in our household had been in volved with Hittite politics.” Netermose, his face gray and strained, shook his head as if denying a thing he knew to be true. “According to Hittite law, if a man is caught plotting against the king, he and everyone in his family are slaugh tered. That might also have held true if a member of an en voy’s household were found guilty of plotting against the throne. I consider myself and all who served Pentu in Hat tusa to be lucky that we were withdrawn before the traitor was identified.”
“Who do you think would take such a risk? You must’ve given the matter some thought.”
Netermose looked truly puzzled. “I never reached a con clusion. Each and every one of us is a man or woman of
Kemet, loyal to our sovereign and the land she governs. Why any one of us would do such a thing is beyond me.”
To stir up trouble in the land of Hatti-or any other land, for that matter-did not necessarily mean a man was not loyal to his homeland. The true test of loyalty depended on whom he was backing and how that individual meant to deal with Kemet. “You grew to manhood on Pentu’s estate, I be lieve you once said.” Or inferred.
The aide did not blink an eye at the more personal ques tion. “Yes, sir.”
“Have you always toiled for the governor and his family?
