two of my men up the river to look for signs of a struggle. With luck, they’ll find blood and the broken shaft of the spear we found in Heby’s breast.”
Tetynefer drew a square of linen from his belt and patted the sweat from his face. “I’ve been told that a Medjay spear was used. It may not be apparent to you, young man, but it’s very clear to me. A villager slew the craftsman, and are not the villagers Medjays?”
“It was a spear made in Kemet,” Bak said doggedly. “After I chased Heby from the commandant’s residence, I believe he met another man who lives within the walls of this city, and that that man took his life.”
“Heby was the man Mistress Azzia wounded?”
“Yes. His shoulder was gashed to the bone.”
The steward patted his neck and his bald head, saying nothing, deep in thought. Bak shifted from foot to foot, dreading the time when he must admit the spear was from his own arsenal.
At last, Tetynefer nodded, and a smile spread across his face. His eyes found Bak’s. “Good. Very good.”
Bak was certain the man had lost his senses.
Tetynefer tucked a corner of the damp linen into his belt, took up his pen, and began to write. “With mistress Azzia shortly to appear before the viceroy for taking her husband’s life, and with the man who broke into the commandant’s residence dead at the hands of an unknown Medjay who used a spear he pilfered from…yes, from one of our caravans, while the men lay sleeping…” He paused and tilted his head to admire the wet black ink glittering on the creamy papyrus. “Yes, the viceroy will be pleased indeed at our speedy resolution of these vile crimes.”
“Heby was slain,” Bak said in a hard, stiff voice, “with a spear stolen from my police arsenal. A rumor is spreading through Buhen that his life was taken by one of my men.”
Tetynefer sat rigid in his chair, the good humor draining from his face. A tight smile formed on his lips and he dipped the pen into the ink. “At the moment, I see no reason to distress the viceroy with petty details. The spear was stolen; it matters not from where it was taken.”
Bak felt uncomfortable with the lie, but bowed his head in acceptance. Better to let the steward make himself look good to the viceroy than to insist on the truth and put his men in jeopardy.
Tetynefer raised his pen and pointed it at Bak. “However, you must get the truth from your wretched Medjays and bring forth the one who slew Heby. Waste no time lest I be forced by circumstance to report all I know.”
“None is guilty of murder, that I swear to the lord Amon.”
“Hear me out!” Tetynefer snapped. “I want the guilty one’s name before you take mistress Azzia to Ma’am. He must not be given time to slay half the men posted to this garrison.”
Chapter Eight
Seething from his interview with Tetynefer, Bak hurried along a series of narrow, congested lanes that took him through the outer city. The gusting wind had grown stronger. Dust seeped into every nook and crevice. The thick air made it hard to breathe. The sun hanging above the western battlements was a fiery orange, its form made indistinct by the fine sand blown high into the sky. Men, women, and children scurried through the lanes, trying to finish their day’s tasks and reach the shelter of their homes before the storm worsened.
Two hard-muscled, stern-faced spearmen guarded the workshop of the goldsmiths. One stood at the entrance, another rushed up when Bak appeared.
The taller of the two stepped into the portal, barring it with his bulk. “This workshop is closed to all men, sir. You cannot enter.”
Bak controlled his irritation. The soldier was doing the task he had been assigned; he could not be blamed for Tetynefer’s stupidity. “I’m here to see Neferperet.”
“None too soon,” the chief goldsmith called, hurrying to the entry with a welcoming smile. “We’re almost ready to load the furnace.”
The guards refused to budge until Neferperet explained Bak’s mission to find the man who had slain Heby. After stepping aside so he could enter, they continued to watch him. He felt as if he had come to steal and would at any moment be exposed.
The workshop was rectangular in shape, open to the sky, and surrounded by a mudbrick wall higher than Bak’s head. He thought he had never been in a place so hot. Lean-tos covered with palm fronds ran along two walls, providing relief from the sun but none from the heat. Two furnaces occupied the long shelter to the right, one stood in the shorter lean-to at the far end. The furnaces were constructed of large round-bottomed pottery containers held above the hard-packed dirt floor by a ring of bricks. Four goatskin bellows, two on either side, lay on the ground outside each ring. Three men wearing dirty loincloths hunkered in the shade beneath the longer lean-to. They chatted, joked, and laughed while they shared the yellow flesh of a large melon.
Bak turned his attention to a square pavilion roofed with reed mats which stood before the long unprotected wall to the left. The light structure shaded the scribe, a fleshy young man with thick, curly brown hair. Seated on a stool before a low table on which stood a bronze scale, he placed stone weights in a pan suspended from one arm of the device to match the weight of a pottery cone lying in the pan hanging from the opposite arm. The cone’s broad end was plugged with dried clay. Four glittering gold ingots lay on a low mudbrick platform beside his right leg.
Bak’s eyes lingered on the ingots, the same width and breadth of the one hidden in his bedchamber but at least two fingers thicker. The wealth they represented took his breath away. “Why weigh the cone?”
“It’s filled with ore,” Neferperet said. “It comes that way from the mines.”
The scribe pointed to three identical numbers inked on the baked clay and spoke in the same offhand manner as men who weighed nothing more precious than grain or lentils or onions. “These are the weights recorded when the cone was filled, when it was handed over to the caravan officer, and when he delivered it to the treasury here in Buhen. The weight I find now should be the same.”
“What of the ingots?” Bak prompted. “Have they been weighed?”
“After they cooled.” The scribe waved away a fly that had settled on a pristine bar. “They’ll be weighed again when we deliver them to the treasury before nightfall.”
And the weight found there, Bak thought, is verified over and over until the gold is safely stored in the royal treasury in Waset. Which means these weights are accurate, just as Kames said. How then could Heby have taken gold? Minute quantities, perhaps, but not the large amount indicated in the scrolls Nakht left with Azzia. With an imperceptible sigh, he looked from one furnace to another. Maybe the answer lay in the smelting process.
“So few men work here?” he asked.
“I’ve three times the number,” Neferperet said. “I sent the others home. After we finish today, we’ve nothing more to do until another caravan delivers more ore. One was expected before now but…”
A wind-driven cloud of dirt rolled across the workshop, catching everyone by surprise. Bak clamped his eyes shut and covered his mouth and nose. The lean-tos crackled, the scribe coughed, a craftsman swore. The finer particles clung to sweaty faces and bodies.
The air stilled. Neferperet looked up at the dull yellow sky and his expression grew worried. “I hope, for the sake of man and beast alike, the officer in charge can find a sheltered spot before this storm reaches them. If they’re spread out along the trail and become separated, not one in ten will return.”
Bak shuddered. He had heard of the raging sand-storms on the open desert and the dire consequences of getting lost.
One of the craftsmen swallowed the last of his melon, threw the rind aside, and wiped his hands on his loincloth. Picking up a long pair of tongs, he walked to the nearest furnace and poked the gently flaming charcoal mounded inside the container.
“It’s ready,” he announced.
Neferperet hurried to the lean-to to sort through a pile of rectangular baked clay molds, each slightly smaller than an outstretched hand. Finding two he liked, he set them side-by-side on a row of bricks not far from the burning furnace. The other two craftsmen stuffed the last of the melon into their mouths.
Bak looked inside the adjacent furnace. A few pieces of charcoal glowed red each time the breeze coaxed them to life, but they would soon burn out. The third furnace, located at the center of the shorter lean-to, stood
