question was prompted more by his own sorrow over leaving Buhen than by his quest to find a slayer.
“Waset has far more to offer than that wretched town,”
Taharet snapped.
“You’ve a fine dwelling here in the capital,” Bak said,
“but you spend much of the year on a country estate near
Tjeny. A far quieter place than Sile, I’d think.”
Meret smiled at her sister, silencing what looked to be an angry retort. “I miss Sile, yes. I miss the many opportunities to speak with people from other lands, to see the beautiful objects they bring to trade in the land of Kemet, to get to know…”
“Mistress Meret.” Pahure’s voice.
Both sisters started. Their heads snapped around, their eyes leaped toward the doorway.
“Pahure!” Meret flung an angry look his way. “Must you skulk around like a common thief?”
Pahure crossed the threshold and walked along the row of colorful blooming potted plants lining the terrace. His mouth was tight with annoyance. “You must come immedi ately, mistress. Two of the servants have quarreled. One has been hurt. Your presence is required in the kitchen.” He paused, added emphatically, “Right away, mistress.”
An odd look passed over her face, and with visible reluc tance she rose to her feet. “Very well.” Forming a smile for Bak’s benefit, adding warmth to the chill in her voice, she said, “I’m delighted you came, Lieutenant. I hope you’ll visit us here again before we return to Tjeny.”
“I must go, too.” Taharet stood up, smiled at Bak with an insincerity born of dislike. “I assume you can find your way out. You’ve been here often enough.”
Leaving the dwelling, Bak hurried along the processional way toward the sacred precinct of Ipet-isut, hoping to catch
Hori and Thanuny before they left the storehouse archives.
Meret’s invitation was uppermost in his thoughts. He liked her, appreciated her candor, her quiet and straightforward manner, a total absence of the anger boiling within her sister.
Given the chance, could Meret fill the void in his heart left by the woman he had thought never to forget?
Thanks to the lord Amon, Bak found the scribe and audi tor where he had hoped they would be. A young apprentice ushered him into the main room of the storehouse archives, vacated so late in the day by the men who normally toiled there. The room was long and narrow, its ceiling supported by tall columns, with high windows lighting a space large enough to accommodate at least twenty seated scribes.
The two Medjays welcomed Bak with the broad smiles of men expecting an early release from an onerous task. He guessed they wanted very much to join the hordes of merry makers filling the city.
“You were right, sir.” Hori scrambled to his feet and stretched his weary muscles. “With two of us searching the records, one far wiser than the other in the ways of vile crim inals…” He grinned at Thanuny, seated cross- legged on the linen pallet normally occupied by the chief scribe. “… it didn’t take long to find a discrepancy.”
Thanuny swished a writing brush around in a small bowl of water, cleaning red ink from it, and slipped it into the slot in his scribal pallet. A reflected shaft of late evening sunlight brightened the water to the color of blood. “It took over a half hour, Lieutenant, but once we found that initial discrep ancy, it told us what to look for. After that, the rest leaped out like gazelles startled by a pack of hunting dogs.”
“They weren’t that obvious,” Hori said. “If they had been,
Woserhet and Tati would’ve found them.”
“I’d bet my wife’s best cooking bowl that Woserhet hadn’t yet inspected the records we looked through today.” Tha nuny eyed the twenty or more baskets scattered around him, each containing a half-dozen reddish storage jars filled with scrolls. “He was too competent and thorough a man to have missed all we found. And surely he’d have told his scribe if he’d verified his suspicions.”
Taking in the large number of jars, Bak’s expression turned grim. “Exactly how serious is this crime which has been perpetrated against the lord Amon?”
“Very serious indeed.” The auditor’s expression was grave. “I know theft is commonplace in the markets and the fields, on shipboard and on caravans. Even within the royal house, men steal. Who can resist taking some small object should the opportunity arise? But here in the sacred precinct? Stealing from the lord Amon himself? On such a large scale?” Thanuny shook his head as if unable to believe such greed, such audacity.
Bak dropped onto the woven reed mat beside the auditor.
“Tell me what you found.”
Thanuny withdrew a scroll protruding from the mouth of one of the storage jars. “We’ve marked the documents that contain erroneous entries,” he said, pointing to a conspicu ous red dot near the edge. “They’ll have to be corrected, or a note made on each of which items have vanished. Have been stolen,” he added sadly.
As he untied the knot in the cord binding the scroll, Hori sat down on the floor beside him. The two Medjays ex changed a dejected look and hunkered against the wall to wait.
“We began by picking out a few specific examples of val 218
Lauren Haney uable items commonly used during the sacred rituals,” Tha nuny said. “Aromatic oils, incense, lustration vessels and censers, amulets, and the like. We tracked them on the ap propriate documents from the time they were received in
Waset and stored in the sacred precinct until they were either consumed or were sent to another of the god’s holdings or to the storehouses of our sovereign.”
“You’ll never believe what first drew our attention.”
Hori’s eyes danced with excitement. “An amulet. A simple stone scarab. Dark green, mounted on gold.”
Bak whistled. “Not at all simple, I’d think.”
Thanuny smiled at his young colleague. “Fortunately for us, it was offered to the lord Amon far enough in the past that all the records had been turned into the archives. It should have been recorded on a continuous string of docu ments from arrival to disposal.”
“But it wasn’t,” Hori broke in. “According to the records, it was delivered by ship from Mennufer, dropped off at the harbor here in Waset, and sent on its way to the storehouse where Woserhet was slain. However, the record of the store house contents failed to mention it. It either vanished some where between the harbor and the sacred precinct, or was never recorded when it arrived at the storehouse, or was stolen from there and the record altered.”
“Altogether, thirty amulets were listed as having been brought from Mennufer at the same time.” Thanuny pulled a brush from his writing pallet and, using the top end, reached around to scratch his back. “We found that four others of somewhat lesser value had also vanished-on papyrus at any rate. We sent that young apprentice who brought you to us out to the storehouse to look for the missing items. He didn’t find them, of course.”
“What other types of items have vanished?” Bak asked.
“Anything of value,” Hori said.
“I fear our young friend isn’t exaggerating,” Thanuny said. “Several methods were used to conceal the thefts, depending upon the items taken and how they were recorded.
The shorter records were copied, we believe, omitting what ever was taken. As for the longer lists too time- consuming to copy, we found signs of erasure, with other objects inserted in the spaces.”
“I must see some specific cases. Amonked will wish to know.”
A long-suffering sigh burst forth from one of the Med jays. Bak ignored the hint. Their task as guards would be over by sunset, when the inside of the building grew too dark to read. The men would have plenty of time to play af ter escorting Thanuny home. Hori, he assumed, would re main with them.
Bak, having decided to spend the night across the river with his father, bade good-bye to the two scribes and their
Medjay guards and left the storehouse archives with his head reeling. So many numbers, so much of value stolen over the past two years. And for how many years before?
Passing through the gate that took him outside the sacred precinct, he looked to right and left to be sure no one lay in wait, thinking to attack him. The lord Re had passed over the western horizon, leaving behind a reddish glow in the sky and deep shadows in the narrow lane, making it hard to see.
He heard sounds of revelry to the west, where merrymakers would be seeking out food, drink, and
