With mock severity, he said, “Did Imsiba never tell you to lead with your spear, not your head, when you face the enemy?”
Ruru gave him a sheepish grin. “Tonight, I should have paid no heed.” He gingerly touched the bandaged wound. “The man who did this came up from behind.”
“You didn’t see him?”
“One moment I was standing at the reception room door, the next I woke with a bandaged and aching head.”
Bak rose to his feet, frowned. “How did he get into the courtyard without your knowledge?”
Ruru stared at his feet, mumbled, “I took my evening meal in the kitchen at the back of the house.”
“That was my doing,” Azzia cut in quickly. “Rather than bring his food out here, I suggested he eat with my servants and me.” Her voice grew cool. “Did you not tell him to watch me rather than my home?”
Much to Bak’s chagrin, that was exactly the impression he had left with Ruru.
“He was meant to watch from afar,” he snapped, “not share your bed.” He saw with satisfaction a flush spreading across her face and was gratified he had finally stolen the gift of speech from her.
“What brought you here, to this spot where you fell?” he asked the Medjay.
“I saw a movement, the branches of the tree, I thought. The air was still, so I walked this way to find the reason.” Ruru gave Bak a shamefaced glance. “I expected to find a cat and took no care.”
Bak nodded. With no forewarning of a possible break-in, he might have thought the same. Tame cats and feral prowled the city at night, hunting rats and mice, which, if not controlled, would gnaw their way into the storehouses and consume more food than the garrison troops.
“No matter,” he said, clasping Ruru’s shoulder. “His wound will lead us to him.”
The Medjay lay back on the floor, satisfied.
Bak entered Nakht’s reception room and slumped onto a stool, weary from the chase and too little sleep, but content. He had been so sure Mery, Paser, Nebwa, or Harmose had stolen the gold and taken Nakht’s life, and now it seemed another man had done both. He thanked the lord Amon he had had the good sense to keep his suspicions to himself.
He hunched over, elbows on knees, chin resting on clasped hands, and stared at the overturned furniture and the objects strewn about, vaguely aware of Lupaki’s arrival with the camp bed and Ruru’s transfer to Azzia’s sitting room. Why, he wondered, had the intruder searched less than half the documents in Nakht’s office? Why was he so neat there and so disorderly here in Nakht’s personal rooms? Had he grown impatient with the search below and come upstairs to ask Azzia for the gold and scrolls? Had the two of them quarreled? A man hot with anger might throw things halfway across the room.
He heard footsteps and looked up to see Azzia coming across the courtyard. She stopped on the threshold, her back rigid, her expression cool.
“May I straighten this room?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She hesitated as if reluctant to begin, took a deep, ragged breath, and stepped inside. She was genuinely upset, he was sure, and had not expected her home to be violated. Maybe he was trying too hard to tie her to the break-in, the stealing of the gold.
“How did you come upon the intruder?” he asked.
She knelt beside a senet board, set it upright, and began to search for the widely scattered playing pieces. “I brought a sweet cake for Ruru. I didn’t see him, but I noticed light along the edge of the closed door. I thought you’d come back and he was in here with you.” Her laugh was sharp, cynical. “I knew you’d not told Tetynefer about the gold and thought you were looking for more.”
Her assumption nettled, but Bak said nothing.
“No man, not you or anyone else, had a right to be here, and I meant to send you away.” She moved a small table and found another playing piece, this one broken. She closed her hand tight around it. “I stumbled over Ruru and fell against the door. It flew open. I glimpsed a lighted lamp on a chest, my husband’s writing implements on the floor around it, and that man.” She must have heard the tremor in her voice, for she paused, spoke more calmly. “He was heavier than you, lighter skinned than a Medjay. I realized my mistake and screamed for help.”
“Didn’t he look around to see who you were?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I needed a weapon, and it wasn’t easy to tug Ruru’s spear from beneath his shoulder. That’s when the man quenched the lamp. He ran at me, knocked the spear from my hand, and grabbed me. I tried to break free, but he was very strong. What he meant to do with me…” She shuddered. “We heard you coming up the stairway. He flung me away. I picked up the spear and threw it.”
“And I mistook you to be the aggressor.”
Her eyes lifted to Bak’s and she managed a crooked smile. “I don’t know what he’d have done if you hadn’t come when you did.”
Her gratitude was disquieting. “Your screams drew Lupaki as well as me.”
“I know, but…” She studied him briefly, shrugged, and turned away to busy herself with sorting through the objects on the floor.
Bak had the disconcerting feeling she wanted to trust him, as he wished he could open his heart to her. No, he thought, impossible! She’s no more sure of me than I am of her. To ease his frustration, he left the stool and strode around the room, standing upright each piece of furniture he came to. The broken table he carried out to the courtyard. On his return, he lifted the inlaid cedar chest and stood it where it belonged beside the door. He located the iron dagger and its sheath on the floor and stooped to retrieve them.
As he stood erect, she bent to pick up Nakht’s writing pallet. Her firm round breast nudged the low vee-neck of her sheath, threatened to fall free.
“Will you stay the night?” she asked.
Bak almost dropped the dagger. His eyes leaped to her face, but he saw no tenderness, no seductive smile, just anxiety.
“Or summon another Medjay?” She dropped the pallet in her lap, reached for a pen. “If that man comes back…” She shivered. “Ruru is ill. He could do nothing to stop him.”
Bak chided himself for a fool. She was a recent widow, mourning her husband. How could he think she would invite him into her bed? Even if she had cared nothing for Nakht, had taken his life, in fact, she would do no such thing. An offer of her body would make a lie of the sorrow, the hurt she had displayed since her husband’s death. The scent of her perfume must be clouding my wits, he thought.
He shoved the dagger into its sheath and dropped them in the chest. “Summon Lupaki. I’ll send him to my sergeant with a message to assign another guard. I’ll stay until he comes.”
Chapter Six
“We should’ve found him by now.” Bak slapped the calf of his leg with his baton of office. “Half the morning is gone.”
“With so many men helping, we’ll have him before midday.” Imsiba nodded toward the lane outside the door, where Hori’s puppy lay sprawled and panting in a sliver of shade cast by the opposite house. The Medjay’s eyes glinted with anticipation. “Thanks to the lord Re, he’ll not be able to hide his wound under a tunic. It’s too hot today.”
“Did Nebwa resist?”
Imsiba chuckled. “I could see he wanted to, but when I reminded him that four of his men were in the brawl at Nofery’s house, he could think of no excuse. I asked for thirty spearmen and I got them.”
“I thought he’d help, out of curiosity if for no other reason.” A smile flitted across Bak’s face, but quickly gave way to worry. “If we don’t find the man we seek-and get the truth from him-there are many who’ll never believe he took Nakht’s life.”
Imsiba’s good humor vanished. “Nebwa, you mean, and all those men who think Medjays the enemy.”
Nodding, Bak walked to the door to look outside. The sun, a golden ball well above the outer wall, had bleached the sky blue-white. The buildings, the lanes, the walls shimmered in the still air. No dog barked, no cat
