bare skin. He felt grit in his eyes and between his teeth, the chafing of granules in his sandals and under his kilt and loincloth. He had been equally uncomfortable in the past, but memory paled in comparison with the reality.
The seventh door, Neferperet had told him. Night had not yet fallen, but the thick brownish yellow cloud sweeping across the desert had stolen the light from Buhen. The lane was murky, the doors indistinct. Bak twice heard muffled voices within, twice saw a strip of light between a doorjamb and an ill-fitting mat.
Reaching the door he wanted, he released the bottom of the mat from the bricks holding it in place and slipped inside. The room was pitch black, stiflingly hot, and reeked of sweat, cooking oils, and musty dirt. He held the mat off to the side to get some light. Near the door were an oil-filled lamp and the tools to start a fire. Thanking the lord Amon for Heby’s good sense, he dropped to his knees, set aside the mold he had brought from the workshop, and rolled the lower edge of the mat to calf height. After tying it securely, he moved the tools and lamp to the uncertain light at the threshold. Sitting with his back to the wind, he went to work. A low drift of sand had formed around his buttocks by the time he lighted the wick.
He picked up the mold and raised the lamp to look around. The light was weak but good enough for his purpose. Heby’s lean-to had been cluttered and messy; the small room he had lived and slept in was filthy. Dirty, rumpled bedding covered a mudbrick sleeping platform. A charcoal-and sweat-stained loincloth lay on the hard- packed earthen floor; a kilt with red-brown blotches had been thrown across a stool. One end of a graying frayed sheet hung from the gaping mouth of a reed chest. In the corner lay a crumpled mound of cloth with heavy stains visible among the wrinkles. Bak took a closer look. The cloth, he felt certain, had been used to staunch the flow of blood.
He walked through a door at the back of the room. Beyond an open stairway leading to the roof, its woven- mat trapdoor closed, lay the kitchen. Half the depth of the first room, it was lightly roofed with branches and straw dense enough to provide shade, loose enough to allow smoke to escape. A round oven for baking bread occupied the near corner. A brazier sat beside it, its fuel burned to a powdery gray ash. Three unwashed bowls were stacked close by, the one on top lined with the thin scum of poorly strained beer. The floor at the far end of the rectangle was littered with vessels, shards, and odd-shaped lumps of dry, discarded clay. A layer of fine sand covered everything, and more was seeping through the roof.
Bak’s eyes traveled back to the oven, a round mudbrick structure with an opening at the front to admit fuel and bread, and a smaller hole at the top to disgorge smoke. An irregular black stain rose up the grimy wall. Heby had been a man alone, with no woman to cook for him-or to bake his bread. He would have traded his services or his allotment of grain for food. Bak doubted sufficient heat could be built up inside a cooking oven to melt gold, but Heby might have used it to harden the objects he molded from clay. Or he could have used it for a hiding place. For gold? Probably not. Too many people lived in the block, too many curious children, to hide something so precious in a place so easy to peek into.
Lest he err, he knelt before the oven and looked inside. Dust covered long-neglected baked clay shelves. A thick layer of ash covered the floor. He ran his fingers through the ashes, felt nothing but a few lumps of charred fuel and baked clay. He abandoned the oven with a sigh and crossed the room to kneel before the objects on the floor. Maybe here his luck would change.
Two round bowls sat off to the left. One was filled with cloudy water, the other with a partially dried lump of grayish clay, with indentations of Heby’s fingers and thumb remaining on its surface. Next to the bowls, an empty cone with its tip broken off lay among several shards that had been part of a sturdy round-sided bowl. His eyes slid farther to the right and he smiled. There lay a cracked mold, the broken remains of at least one other, and a gray- black stone carved to the exact size and shape of a gold ingot. The stone, he guessed, was the form around which the wet clay was molded.
Eager to examine the molds, he shoved aside several fragments of rock-hard clay and set the lamp amid the clutter. As he made additional space for the mold he had brought with him, his eye fell on the cone. Why, he wondered, did Heby take it from the workshop? He picked it up, rotated it. He found no weight notations on its outer surface. It had never been weighed! With growing excitement, he licked a finger and ran it around the cone’s interior. Holding it to the light, he looked for bits of glitter. He saw none, which was disappointing but not significant. The cone could have been washed after it was emptied.
He laid it down and took a quick look at the shards lying with it. The bowl had been thick-walled, unadorned, most likely a container Heby had used for carrying clay. A narrow gap visible at the broken edge of one piece indicated it had contained a fault when it was fired. A bubble must have formed in the wet clay.
He picked up the cracked mold. It looked no different than the others he had seen through the day, but…Was it a little deeper? He reached for the mold he had brought from the workshop and held the two side-by-side over the light.
He heard a sound behind him, a whisper of movement. He stiffened, every sense alert. Again he heard something; he had no idea what. He spun around, glimpsed a figure looming over him, a glittering dagger poised to strike.
Chapter Nine
Bak ducked and swung his right arm high to ward off the blow. The weapon sliced off to the side, but the force of the thrust toppled him onto the tools, shards, and bits of hardened clay. The lamp tipped over. Tongues of flaming oil flowed among the objects beneath him, licking his rib cage and arm. He dropped the molds and tried to roll away from the fire and the red-hot pain. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed his assailant, arm raised, ready to strike again. Bak groped for something to throw, felt the rounded side of a bowl. He grabbed the rim and heaved it at the dark form of the other man. Water showering from the vessel hissed as it quenched the fire searing Bak’s side. The bowl crashed into his assailant’s shoulder, driving him backward with a grunt. Bak rolled across the sputtering fire, smothering the remaining flames. In the last flicker of light, he spotted the dagger arcing toward him.
He rolled forward, ramming his assailant’s legs. The man fell heavily, cursed. Though wary of the dagger invisible in the pitchy darkness, Bak rose to a crouch and lunged. His foot slipped on the oily floor and he fell full- length on the other man, forcing the air from him. Bak found the hand clasped around the dagger’s handle and tried to twist the weapon free. His own hands were so oily he could barely maintain his grip.
The man thrashed from side to side, punching Bak’s lower back with his free hand, trying to shake him off. Bak swung his right fist. The blow was deflected by a hard round object, which skittered across the floor. Heby’s unwashed dishes, he thought, sweeping them aside with a curse. His other hand slipped from the dagger to his opponent’s wrist. He feared losing what little control he had of the weapon, but how could he prevent it?
The fist thudded against his lower back so hard it jarred his teeth. He rolled onto his side, pulling his opponent with him, pinning the flailing arm to the floor. Something solid tilted beneath his shoulder; a gritty, dusty substance poured out. The brazier, he thought, and the oven is just behind it. Holding the man close, Bak rolled hard and fast onto his back, slamming the hand holding the dagger against the oven. The blow jolted his arm to the shoulder, the man yowled, the dagger clattered to the floor.
Bak had not the leisure to feel relief. His opponent lay heavy on top of him. He tried to shove him off, but the man grabbed him around the chest. They rolled one way and another, locked so close together neither could get in a serious blow. They bumped the walls, the oven, the stairway. They smashed pottery and tumbled over shards and tools and bits of hardened clay. They spread a thin slick of oil across the floor and coated themselves with sandy particles. Bak’s muscles ached, his lower back felt numb, the burns on his side and arm were fiery. Every breath was a struggle. His sole consolation was his opponent’s ragged breathing.
The man suddenly relaxed his hold, twisted free, and rolled away. Bak heard him bump something, a few raspy breaths, silence. He rolled in the opposite direction to lose himself in the dark as his opponent had and hauled himself to a crouch. Hovering there, stifling his gasps, he listened for any tiny sound that would give away the other man’s position. He heard nothing.
He stood up and moved his hand through the blackness, trying to find a wall, the oven, anything he could use to orient himself. His fingers slid through empty air, touched a wall not far to his right. He heard a faint scuffing noise, a sandal moving across the gritty floor. He stepped to the wall. A bit of baked clay crunched beneath his foot. Cursing mutely, he stood statue-still and listened. The silence was as thick as the darkness.
