next day’s voyage to Ma’am. “…When you need your friends, those who can share the sorrow of your husband’s death.”
Her dark eyes leveled on his and a hint of a smile flitted across her face. “Can I go to them if I so desire?”
Is she teasing me, he wondered, or testing me? “You must remain here.”
She turned away and crossed her sitting room to stand in the courtyard door, her back to him, her face and thoughts hidden from him. The sun touched her shapely legs, visible to the thighs below the short belted white tunic common to her homeland. Her ivory flesh, her slender waist, the thick reddish braid hanging down her back made her seem to Bak like an exotic bird. A bird torn from faraway Hatti, pushed ever farther south by the winds of fate, and dropped finally in this vile desert of Wawat.
He prayed with all his heart that she was free of guilt. He could not bear to think of so lovely a creature ending her life in this barren, unforgiving land.
“May I send Lupaki with a message?” she asked, pivoting to face him.
“A message?” Had his thoughts drifted so far away he had missed something? Had she threatened to tell Tetynefer about the slab of gold she had given him?
“How else can my friends know they may come?”
“My scribe Hori has too few tasks to fill his days,” he managed. “He’ll spread the news.”
A spot of pink colored each of her cheeks. “While they’re here, sharing my sorrow, will your Medjays be stationed in every corner to remind them I’m soon to stand before the viceroy, accused of taking the life of the man I mourn?”
Bak felt his own face color. He yearned to set her free, to leave her in peace. But he had to go on with his deceitful game and play it through to the end. “Ruru and Pashenuro will remain. As will I.”
She studied his face for so long he feared she was reading his thoughts. “I see.”
Swinging away, she passed through the door and crossed the courtyard to sit on the floor before her loom. He followed with hesitant feet, like Hori’s puppy, he thought, when it had not yet learned to trust, and feared a harsh word. The dusky servant girl was sweeping sand across the floor. The cloud of dust she raised billowed around Pashenuro, who sat with his back to the wall, forehead resting on his knees, sound asleep. Ruru sprawled in front of Nakht’s reception room, his bandaged head bowed over the blade of his spear, which he was honing to a fine point.
“We’ll not hover,” he said, kneeling beside the loom. “Only Ruru need remain in the courtyard. With his head swathed in linen, none will take his presence to heart.”
She glanced up from the shuttle flying back and forth through the threads stretched taut across the frame. “For that I thank you.”
Rebuffed by the stiffness in her voice, he rose to his feet.
With a rigid back, her eyes locked on her work, she said, “Yesterday you brought the body of a man from Dedu’s village, I heard, a goldsmith called Heby. I understand he was slain with a Medjay spear, but had another wound in his shoulder.”
“Yes.” He was relieved the news had reached her. If she had allied herself with the thief, at least now she knew to what lengths the vile criminal would go to protect himself. “He was the man you found searching this house. The wound was the mark of the weapon you threw.”
“The man you vowed you’d find with little difficulty.”
Bak’s laugh was cynical. “I thought not to find him the way I did, with his lips sealed forever.”
She let the shuttle slide to a stop and gave him an odd, rather chilly look. “You guessed right away he’d come for the gold my husband hid. Is that not true?”
“I did,” he admitted, wondering what she was getting at.
“And did you guess at that time he was a goldsmith? One of the few men in this city who could’ve molded the bar you’ve hidden away?”
He eyed her warily. “Not then, no.”
“When did you guess his craft?”
“I had no need to guess.” He heard a tinge of irritation in his voice, moderated it. “I learned his name and the way he earned his bread from one who saw him in the house of death.”
She tamped the threads tight and went back to her task, but her attention was far away, her face clouded by her thoughts. The shuttle raced across the loom, its whisper inaudible beneath the swish of the broom and the rasp of the stone grating across Ruru’s spear point.
“What of the spear in his breast?” she asked. “They say it came from your police arsenal.”
“Mistress!” He shook his head in disgust. “If all those who speak with so much wind were to open their mouths at one time, the desert sands would blow to the farthest ends of the earth.”
“I learned the weapon was yours from the steward Tetynefer’s wife. How can you deny it?”
Suddenly he understood. Appalled, he knelt and slammed his widespread hand down on the shuttle, jamming it midway across the loom. “You think I took Heby’s life!”
She stared straight ahead. “Did you?”
He grabbed her chin and pulled her face around so she had to look at him. “I’ve slain no man, mistress Azzia, nor will I ever without good reason. To my way of thinking, that thin bar of gold you gave me is not reason enough.”
“What of the bandages you wear?”
He barked out a disbelieving laugh, jerked his hand away, and stood up. “They cover burns, not the slashes of a weapon, and it happened during the storm, many hours after Heby was slain.”
Azzia’s eyes never wavered from his face, but for the first time since Nakht’s death, she seemed unsure of herself. Does she still doubt me, he wondered glumly, or is she thinking of the man I seek?
Bak would always remember that afternoon as one of the most disagreeable in his life. Partly because he hated himself for using Azzia, partly because he felt like a common eavesdropper, listening to private, sometimes intimate conversations he had no right to hear.
Azzia’s servants had bustled about, overjoyed with their mistress’s release from loneliness, temporary though it was. The women prepared fruit, sweet cakes, and bowls of fragrant flowers. Lupaki, with Pashenuro’s help, built a reed pavilion in the courtyard and furnished it with stools and small tables. Azzia received her friends in its shade, where a lazy breeze wafted down from the rooftop. Wearing the long, unadorned white shift popular in the capital, no jewelry, and her hair braided as always, she seemed to Bak more gracious and elegant than any woman he had ever known.
Tetynefer’s wife Iry, a woman as plump as her husband, arrived ahead of the rest. Kames’s spouse came shortly after with two other women, officers’ wives, Bak gathered. All four wore long shifts and were decked out with multicolored bead collars, armlets, and bracelets. Iry’s hair was pulled back in a linen bag. Kames’s wife sweated under a heavy wig. The others wore their natural hair straight, clipped horizontally across the shoulders. A trio of senior scribes and an elderly priest appeared, the latter’s shaven head as shiny as a mirror.
Although good-natured, Bak soon realized mistress Iry had a will of iron. She appeared genuinely fond of Azzia-motherly, in fact-and guided the conversation like a commander might guide his battalion through a narrow, treacherous valley. Not a word was uttered about Ma’am or Azzia’s precarious future. No one mentioned Ruru, sitting in a shady out-of-the way corner near the stairwell leading up from the audience hall. Pashenuro they could not see in Nakht’s reception room.
While they chatted, Bak prowled the rooms behind the courtyard, glimpsing the guests from shadowed doorways, catching snatches of conversation. No matter where he went, he seemed always to be in the way of the servants hurrying to the pavilion, carrying bowls piled high with food or vessels filled with drink. His presence was a constant reminder that their mistress was not free. Their cheerful smiles faded, the looks they gave him grew tight- lipped and resentful.
Azzia was quick to notice their flagging spirits. She excused herself from her guests, hurried inside, and found him watching Lupaki pour a deep red wine from a heavy storage jar into a smaller long-necked, blue-glazed vessel. Lupaki rolled his eyes toward Bak, grimaced. She nodded her understanding, caught Bak’s arm, and aimed him toward the courtyard.
“I’ll not let you steal my happiness this day,” she said, her voice grim and resolute, “nor will I allow you to rob my servants of joy.”
