“He didn’t say,” Harmose admitted, “but I think he spoke of your suggestions for outwitting tribesmen who raid the caravans.”
“Why talk to each man alone?”
“Men resist change, especially when it comes from the lips of an outsider.” His eyes held Bak’s and he went on smoothly, “Particularly an outsider who was banished from Waset at our sovereign’s command.”
The words pricked like a thorn, but Bak was careful to give no sign.
“When Commandant Nakht wanted a task done but knew it would meet with resistance, he separated those he needed to convince.” The archer’s gaze drifted toward the empty chair. “That was always his way. He spoke with one man and then another, persuaded each in turn, and in the end, the task was done as he wished.”
The tactic was good and Bak vowed to use it should the occasion arise. “Who did he speak with after the officers left?”
“No one. He read the garrison daybook and the dispatches he’d received from Ma’am and from the forts along the Belly of Stones. After filing them away, he bade me and others he met in the audience hall good evening and came upstairs to his quarters.”
“He never explained why he asked you to keep your weapon near to hand?”
“Never. At the time, I thought…well, he enjoyed using the bow and we sometimes went outside the walls late in the day to shoot at targets. Later, after he was slain, I was sure the lord Amon or another god had visited him in a dream, had warned him to take care lest someone…” Harmose bowed his head, stared at his clasped hands. “He should’ve warned me, should’ve allowed me to stay by his side.”
Bak stood up, paced to the door and back. Nebwa, Mery, Paser-and Harmose. All in or near the building when the commandant was slain, all summoned to his office at a time when he clearly expected trouble. If Nakht had suspected one of the four of stealing gold, he could have taken advantage of the solitary interviews to confront the guilty man.
“How did Nebwa, Paser, and Mery leave Nakht’s office?” he asked. “Angry? Content? Or something in between?”
“In their usual way.” Harmose rubbed his hand over his face as if to wipe away his sorrow. “Nebwa growled like a lion, Paser’s lips were sealed as tight as the planks in the hull of a ship, and Mery looked like a small boy who’d been spanked.”
A niggling thought surfaced in Bak’s heart. “Of all the officers in Buhen, why would Nakht speak of my suggestions with those three and no one else?”
“The tribesmen most often attack the gold caravans. Nebwa, Paser, and Mery have the most knowledge and experience and are the best men to judge your suggestions. Another officer, Ahmose, is equally capable, but he’s away, leading a caravan across the desert from a mine farther upriver.”
Bak stood quite still, his interest multiplying ten times ten. “I thought Mery had always served as watch officer and Nebwa just with the infantry.”
“Before Commandant Nakht came to Buhen, Mery, Paser, Nebwa, and Ahmose took turns leading the gold caravans. The same was true of the officers who led caravans to and from the copper mines and the quarries.” Harmose, noticing Bak’s surprise, explained, “Our previous commandant rotated the officers because he thought the trip too strenuous for one man to make every time.” His expression turned cynical. “Of course, he failed to think of the rest of us-archers, spearmen, and drovers who walked the same trail time after time with no complaint.”
“You’re one of the men who guards the gold caravans?”
“I am,” Harmose said, nodding. “Commandant Nakht was less impressed by a man’s status and rank, and more concerned with his skills. When first he came to Buhen, he watched the officers, learned each man’s good points and bad. Nine or ten months ago, he gave them the more permanent assignments they now have, based on what they do best.”
Bak’s thoughts tumbled. Paser, Mery, Nebwa, and Harmose had all traveled to the mines. None but Paser continued to do so. Did that mean he was the guilty man? Not necessarily. Any of them could have placed an ally there to steal the gold and pass it in secret back to Buhen. And all of them spent a considerable amount of time in this building, the heart of the garrison. Azzia’s home.
Irritated by the thought, he swung back to Harmose. “How long were Nakht and Azzia wed?”
“Eight years. She was fourteen when he took her as his wife, but he’d soldiered with her father for many years and watched her grow to a woman.”
“Was the marriage a happy one?”
“He worshipped her. She was as the stars and the moon and the sun to him, and he the same to her.”
“Yet they had no children.”
Harmose’s voice grew bitter, his expression filled with scorn. “In the land of Hatti, failure to please the king brings death not only to a man, but to all he holds dear. When the old king of Hatti died, the man who took the throne thought Azzia’s father loyal to another man. He judged him a traitor and sent soldiers to slay the family. None lived but Azzia, who was left for dead.” His glance strayed to the empty chair and his expression softened. “Nakht and his servant Lupaki found her, hid her, brought her back to life. They could do nothing to make her whole. She can have no children.”
Bak’s heart grew heavy with compassion. If the tale was true, Azzia had suffered more in her youth than most men or women in a lifetime. Would she, could she, have slain the man who pulled her from death? He wanted to think it impossible, but Maiherperi had said: Any man can slay another; all he needs is a weapon and the passion to strike the blow. As a child of that cruel and unforgiving court, she would have the passion.
“I’ve been told she has a lover,” he said.
“It’s not true!” Harmose sprang from his stool, his face dark with anger. “Who told you such a vile thing?”
“Do you know her so well you can say for a certainty she was never unfaithful to her husband?”
Harmose controlled his anger with a visible effort. “I’ve trusted her with my most secret thoughts, and she confides in me. I’d swear to the lord Horus himself that she’s never looked at any man but Nakht. She loved him too much.” He stared over Bak’s shoulder toward the door of Azzia’s empty sitting room. Worry clouded his face. “I fear for her. Without him, she has no one.”
His sincerity was disquieting. So was the envy Bak felt. He quashed the unwelcome emotion. The archer’s every word could be a lie, as was most certainly the case if he was the man who stole the gold and gave it to Azzia for safekeeping.
Bak hurried along the empty street, the rapid pat of his sandals loud and distinct on the stone pavement. Light filtered down from myriad stars spread thickly across a clear, cloudless sky. A faint glow beyond the battlements hinted of the rising moon. The aromas of fresh bread, onions and leeks, beans and lentils, fish and fowl, lingered in the air. Hushed voices drifted from the rooftops of the married officers’ quarters somewhere to his left. He pictured the men lounging atop their houses, finished with their evening meal, playing with their children, lying with their wives. The air would be cooler there, fresher, not so still and heavy. He seldom regretted his unmarried state, but for an instant, he paused, listened, wished.
He stopped at the door of the commandant’s residence, grasped the heavy wooden latch. His mission was simple, he told himself. All he had to do was question Azzia about her intimate life and tell her of Tetynefer’s decision to send her to Ma’am.
To invade a woman’s privacy was an abomination; to tell her she must stand before the viceroy, accused of slaying her husband, would take all the courage he possessed.
He raised the latch. A dog let out a long, mournful howl. He shoved the door wide and crossed the threshold. Another cur answered the first one’s call. A third and a fourth joined in, and a dozen more took up the dirge, each echoing the others all across the city. He closed the door, muting their voices, and leaned back against it. He stood there for several moments, steeling himself to face her.
The vestibule and hallway were vague gray spaces, seemingly alive, otherworldly, in the light of a flickering torch mounted somewhere in the audience hall, too far away to share much light, too close to allow total darkness. The stone stairway, walled off from the light, was a series of broad shadowy lines, black and blacker alternating, steps and risers. The sole sound was the soft rustle of mice.
A scream shattered the silence. He started, stiffened. A second cry reached down the stairwell and reverberated through the empty rooms on the ground floor. A woman’s voice. Azzia!
