A man might show anger, Bak thought, to convince himself he’s not afraid.
“The rage was at himself, and with good reason,” Neferperet went on. “He worked like a boy new at the furnace, and for a man like him who expected much of himself…” He shook his head, troubled by the memory. “Our scribe won’t soon forget the tongue-lashing he got each time he told Heby the scales didn’t balance.”
“He poured too little in the molds?” Bak asked, taking care to show no more than average interest.
“Two molds he filled weighed light, one weighed heavy. Another he overflowed, and, I know not how, he cracked it so it can no longer be used.” He shook his head in disbelief. “He dropped another and broke it to pieces. Can you imagine a man so skilled being so clumsy?”
Heby was thinking not of his day’s work, Bak was sure, but of the night ahead and the danger he faced. Of a search that could stretch for hours, with so many documents to read. Read? A craftsman who could read? Bak’s heart turned to stone.
“Could Heby read and write?” he asked.
Neferperet stared as if Bak had lost his senses. “Heby? Surely you tickle my feet with a feather. What need would a goldsmith have for learning?”
“Of course!” Bak smacked the palm of his hand hard against the crenelated wall. “Heby wasn’t alone in taking the gold. He couldn’t have been!”
Feeling somewhat foolish for speaking aloud, he glanced to right and left. No one had heard. He stood by himself atop the massive towered gate that opened onto the western desert. The nearest sentry was more than fifty paces away. Others ambled along the wall at much greater distances. Muted voices and the sound of a whiny dog drifted up from the city behind him. The odor of manure from the donkey paddocks and fowl pens came and went with the breeze.
Rubbing his stinging hand, he stared westward across the desert, an undulating landscape of sand and rocks. No creature stirred, but the earth itself appeared alive. The sand, bleached a pale beige beneath the lord Re’s baleful eye, seemed to quiver around the gray-black rocks. At irregular intervals, gusts of air lifted the finer grains and sent them hurtling across the surface like a low, vaporous blanket, which fell back to rest as each gust subsided.
He should have gone directly to Tetynefer, but he had needed time to sort out his thoughts before facing the steward, and sort them out he would now that he had come to his senses.
Heby would not have been able to tell one scroll from another; therefore, he must have gone to Nakht’s private rooms to look for the gold while another man, one who could read, had gone through the documents below. Since less than half had been disturbed, that second intruder must have fled from Nakht’s office when Azzia screamed. Bak cursed aloud, certain he had missed him by a hair when he ran up the stairway to help her.
Obviously, she had not told Heby or his accomplice the gold and scrolls were no longer in the commandant’s residence. Bak was sure she could have sent a message, even with Ruru looking on, if she had wanted to. And she had hurled the spear at Heby. Both actions proclaimed her innocence, and relief flooded through him. Another thought washed away the glow: she could have turned her back on the pair, hoping to save herself. Maybe Heby had confronted her and…
No more! he thought. Each time she enters my thoughts, they go around and around until I’m dizzy. I must plant my feet on firmer ground.
Heby, Neferperet had said, had been clever with his hands but none too bright, so the other man must have devised the scheme for stealing the gold. When they met after running from the commandant’s residence, that man must have realized the wound in Heby’s shoulder would attract too much attention, too many questions the goldsmith would sooner or later be made to answer. To protect himself, that second man had silenced Heby forever.
Using a spear from the police arsenal.
Who is he? Bak wondered. His thoughts returned to his former suspects: Nebwa, Paser, Mery, and Harmose. Which of the four-if any of them-was the guilty man, and how would he ever find proof? He stared at the desert, his expression stony. With Heby dead, the trail to his confederate was smudged, like the windswept track leading across the sands from the gate on which he stood. But wherever a man walked, traces remained through eternity. I’ll follow those traces, he vowed, until I lay my hands on the second man, Heby’s slayer and Nakht’s. No more will I think of giving up or reporting the stolen gold to Tetynefer. This task is mine alone.
“So you’ve finally come!” Tetynefer said, his tone waspish. “I expected you long ago, as soon as you returned from Dedu’s village.”
The steward was seated on a high-backed chair, feet on a low stool, baton of office in hand, giving the appearance of a petty nobleman accepting petitions in a provincial court. Moisture dotted his forehead; a rivulet flowed down his chest between drooping pads of flesh, which, in a woman, would have swollen to breasts. His writing implements and a half-dozen scrolls lay on a table to his right.
“I had to learn who the slain man was,” Bak said.
“He was a man of Kemet,” Tetynefer snapped, “a man whose life and death are my responsibility. I should’ve sent a courier to the viceroy the instant his body was carried within these walls.”
Bak’s hand tightened on the door frame, but he let no hint of irritation touch his voice. “I would’ve thought, before you sent a message, you’d want to know as much as possible about him.”
“This fortress has soldiers without number, young man, and they’re all at my disposal. I can send as many couriers as I choose, one each hour of the day if necessary.”
Bak pictured a line of messengers, one following another like beads on a cord, making the long voyage downriver. He was sure the viceroy, a seasoned commander in the army, would not be overjoyed at seeing so many fighting men so ill used.
The steward plucked a blank scroll from the table, spread it across his lap, and chose a reed pen from several stored in the slot of his scribal pallet. “Death is not uncommon in Buhen, as you well know, but always before, it’s been the result of accident, sickness, warfare, or brawl. Now, in just three days and nights, the commandant has been slain, his residence invaded by a thief, and a valued craftsman stabbed to death by a villager, a Medjay.” He aimed the tip of the pen at Bak and gave him a censorious look, as if Bak were personally responsible. “The viceroy won’t be pleased, I can tell you.”
Bak barely noticed. He was too surprised the steward had not heard the murder weapon had come from the police arsenal.
Tetynefer dipped his pen in the ink and poised it over the scroll. “Tell me all you know of this man and how he died. Be quick. A courier must leave before nightfall.”
“His name was Heby,” Bak said. “He was born in the village of Iuny. According to his personal record he, like his father before him, roamed the length of Kemet, making fine jewelry and accessories for the noble families. His skill was praised, but he was surly in temperament and not well liked. A year ago, he came here to the goldsmith’s workshop.”
If Tetynefer thought it strange a man would choose the tedious task of smelting ore over the far more satisfying task of creating beautiful objects, he gave no indication.
“He was close-mouthed,” Bak went on, “and seldom talked about himself. When he came to Buhen he claimed to be a man alone, no mother, no father, no wife. With no one to provide for his afterlife, he’ll be buried here and soon forgotten.”
“So be it,” Tetynefer said, shrugging.
Bak hoped when his own time came to go to the netherworld, his life would not be dismissed so easily. He turned the thought aside and went on with his report, describing where the body had been found and how.
“The one who slew him?” Tetynefer asked, looking up from the scroll. “Did he slink away to his wretched cousins in the desert, thinking to escape our justice?”
“No villager took Heby’s life. He was slain upstream, well to the south of where his body was found.”
The steward raised an eyebrow, chuckled. “Did you see the weapon being thrust into his breast, Officer Bak? Or have you allowed toothless old Dedu to turn your head with his lies?”
Bak struggled to suppress his resentment. “I spoke with a fisherman who knows the river and its currents. He said that at this time of year, anything dropped in the water upstream from this fortress is swept around the quay and back toward the riverbank near Dedu’s village.” Seeing doubt on the steward’s puffy face, he added, “I’ve sent
