Dashing after the steward, Bak yelled at Psuro and the two unhurt Medjays to give chase. He reached the door ahead of them and spotted his quarry on the opposite side of an inner courtyard, vanishing through the portal at the top of the stairs. Though Pahure had allowed his waist to thicken as a measure of his success, he clearly had lost none of the speed and strength honed by his life as a sailor on the Great
Green Sea.
Bak dashed across the court, passing a startled servant carrying an armload of fresh, yeasty-smelling bread, and leaped through the door. As he plunged downward, he glimpsed Pahure racing ahead down the zigzagging stair way. The way was poorly lit, the landings cluttered with large, elongated water jars and less porous, rounder storage jars. Behind, he heard the rapid footsteps of Psuro and the
Medjays. He heard a thud, a curse, the sound of a rolling jar.
A triumphant shout told him one of the men had caught the container before it could tumble down the stairs.
Pahure leaped off the bottom step, shoved an elderly fe male servant out of his way, and raced through the door that opened into an anteroom. Certain he meant to leave the house, Bak put on an added burst of speed. The steward was too far ahead to catch. He banged open the front door, raced through, and leaped into the street, which teemed with men, women, and children streaming toward Ipet-resyt.
Bak reached the exit and glanced back. He saw Psuro and the Medjays racing out of the stairwell, with Sitepehu run ning after them, an unexpected sight, decked out as he was in his priestly finery. Hori followed close behind with
Netermose.
Praying Pahure would not think to grab a hostage, Bak sped after him into the street, which was filled with the deep shadows of early morning. Above the two- and three-story houses that hugged both sides, ribbons of red and yellow spread out from the lord Khepre, not long risen above the eastern horizon. The smells of fresh bread, animals and their waste, humanity, and the river hung in the warm, sticky air.
Pahure dashed west toward Ipet-resyt. He shoved aside a man carrying a small boy on his shoulders, cursed three young women walking side by side, scattering them, and shouldered an elderly couple out of his way. Bubbling voices broke off at his rude passage, children half dancing at their parents’ heels stopped to stare. An older boy peeked out of an open doorway. Grinning mischievously, he stuck out a foot, trying to trip the steward. Instead of the good-natured laugh he probably expected, he received a cuff across the side of his head that sent him reeling.
Bak did not break his stride. Hori, he felt confident, would summon help for anyone in need.
Dashing out of the street and onto the swath of trampled grass between the houses and the open court in front of Ipet resyt, Pahure slowed and glanced around as if taking mea sure of his surroundings. He veered to the right and sped toward the northern end of the wall enclosing the court. Bak raced after him into the sunlight and he, too, took note of the world around him.
Dense crowds filled the court, awaiting the greatest of the gods and his earthly daughter and son. Those who had come too late for a prime spot from which to view the procession that would, within a short time, depart from the southern mansion were milling around the booths, seeking a better vantage point. Bak could not see the processional route be yond the court to the west, but he assumed the throng was equally large all the way to the river. There another assem blage would be massed at the water’s edge, along which were moored the royal barge, the golden barge of the lord
Amon, and the boats that would tow the two vessels and carry royalty and priests downriver to Ipet-isut. A flotilla of other vessels would be marking time on the river, waiting to accompany the procession downstream.
Pahure rounded the corner of the court, with Bak about thirty paces back. Ignoring the booths that had been erected north of the court, the men and women and children who wandered around them, more intent on a good time than adoring their god and sovereigns, the two men, one after the other, pounded across the northbound processional way along which the lord Amon had been carried from Ipet-isut eleven days earlier.
Trumpets blared, announcing to the world that the pro cession was leaving Ipet-resyt. A murmur of excitement surged through the crowded court as a dozen standard 276
Lauren Haney bearers came through the pylon gateway in the massive wall in front of the god’s mansion. Bak could see nothing over the spectators’ heads except the sun-struck golden figures mounted on top of the standards, the long red pennants swaying gently atop the flagpoles clamped to the pylon, and a cloud of incense rising in front of the gate.
Pahure swung south around the corner of the court and raced toward the crowd standing along the westbound pro cessional way along which the deity would be carried to the river. Surely, Bak thought, he would not be so stupid as to run into the crowd, attracting the attention of the many sol diers lining the raised thoroughfare. No sooner had the thought come and gone than Pahure turned westward to run up a broad strip of grass between the spectators and several blocks of interconnected houses, enclosed within an unbro ken wall of white.
As Bak made the turn, he glanced back. He saw no sign of
Psuro or the Medjays or Sitepehu. They must have tried to cut through the court and had gotten caught up in the crowd.
The grass was wet, often ankle-deep in water left by the ebbing flood. The new greenery risen out of the saturated earth was thick and luxuriant, too tempting to be ignored by residents of nearby housing blocks. A dozen or so donkeys were tied to widely spaced stakes in the ground, and an old man and a dog sat beneath an acacia, watching the crowd while tending a large flock of goats and sheep brought out to graze on the lush new foliage.
Pahure pulled up his long kilt, freeing his legs for speed, and ran toward the flock, spread out across the grass. Bak raced after him. Water erupted from beneath their pounding feet, splashing their legs. The dog began to bark, exciting the animals in the flock. A few spectators turned to look, but most were so intent on the soon to approach procession that they could not be distracted. Bak heard a second blare of trumpets and the swell of voices as the people amassed in the court greeted their sovereigns, emerging from Ipet-resyt after a week of rituals celebrating their divine birth and the renewal of their spiritual power.
A splendid white ram, the wool on his belly clumped with mud, began to trot toward the river, making the clapper tied to his neck ring, enticing his flock away from what he took to be danger. The animals bunched up to follow, forc ing Pahure close to the spectators, who stood ten-deep or more all along the processional way. The dog’s barking grew more frantic and it ran out into the grass. The old man stood and, shaking a fist, began to yell. The sheep and goats at the rear of the flock broke into a faster trot, pushing the others forward. People turned to look, but another blast of trumpets drew their gaze back to the court, where the lord
Amon was leaving his southern mansion and the standard bearers had turned west to lead the procession toward the river.
Bak prayed Pahure would remain on the grass, staying well clear of the processional way, and that he would not turn back toward the temple. He did not wish to become en tangled by priests and dancers and musicians and, above all,
Maatkare Hatshepsut, Menkheperre Thutmose, and their ret inue. The very least that would happen would be the stew ard’s escape.
The dog raced toward the flock. The old man yelled more desperately, trying to call it back. Untrained, Bak guessed, and excited by the chase, it ran on, barking wildly. As it raced in among the stragglers, making them bleat in terror, the flock broke apart, with sheep and goats trotting in all di rections, several threatening to run Pahure down. Forced into the crowd, he shoved men and women out of his way, raising a chorus of angry objections. Bak, also caught up in the melee, stayed behind the spectators, ducking around one animal after another, fearful of losing sight of his quarry.
The ram turned and, head down, charged the dog. With a sharp yelp and its tail between its legs, it raced away through the flock. Frightened and confused, the sheep and goats pushed in among the spectators, bumping bare legs and stepping with sharp little hooves on sandaled feet. The people began to scatter, the approaching procession no longer able to hold their attention. Men yelled and cursed and tried to beat back the animals, while children laughed with glee, thoroughly enjoying the commotion. The soldiers along the near side of the processional way broke their line to help.
The thoroughfare, a wide expanse of sparkling white limestone chips, empty of humanity all the way to the river’s edge, was too inviting to resist. Pahure burst out from among the spectators to run west along this easier
