condemned him. The longer he remained alone and inactive, half-listening to the chatter in the pavilion, the more doubts he had that his plan would succeed. He knew he had no talent for subterfuge, and this plan, so fraught with opportunities for failure, seemed destined to prove it. Not one of his four suspects had come.
He paced the floor, fretting like a dog waiting for its master to throw a bone. What would he do if his plan failed? He paused at the door to Azzia’s bedchamber and scowled at the half-full chest of clothing. Maiherperi’s words came to him unbidden: If you’ve done all you can to reach the truth but have failed to grasp it, you must trust to the lady Maat to place wisdom in the heart of the man who metes out justice.
He turned his back to the room-and the thought. The day was not yet over.
“I dislike leaving you, my dear, but I must,” he heard Iry say. “You’ve no idea how irritable Tetynefer gets when his stomach is empty.”
“I thank you for staying through the day.” Azzia’s voice grew softer, wavered. “And for agreeing to care for my servants if I cannot return from Ma’am.”
“You’ll come back to us. The viceroy has but to look at you and he’ll read the truth in your face.”
“I’d rather he listened to my plea and found the truth in my words,” Azzia said, her tone wry.
“Ah, look who’s come.” Iry laughed, pleased. “I knew he wouldn’t disappoint us.”
Bak lunged toward the mat, praying the newcomer was one of his suspects. Through a slit, he saw Lieutenant Mery striding toward the two women. Bak breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief, although he had to admit the watch officer did not look like a man intent on saving his skin. His smile was broad and open. He was spotlessly clean, freshly shaven. His jet-black hair was shiny and neat, and his lithe body glistened with the oil he had used after bathing. He carried his baton of office and wore a bronze dagger on his hip, its wooden handle polished to a high sheen.
Bak studied the officer, looking for signs of the struggle in Heby’s dwelling. Mery’s knee was bruised, his right hand abraded. The ruddy stain of sandburn on face and limbs betrayed his exposure to the storm, his body protected by a cloak. The injuries were minor but promising. Other than the burns and an ugly bruise on his lower back, Bak himself had come away unmarked.
Mery glanced at Ruru, sprawled in front of the wall, eyes closed, breathing slow and deep. Dismissing the Medjay with a grin, he entered the pavilion. Ruru’s eyes flickered open, snapped shut; his fingers inched toward his spear.
Greeting Iry, Mery showed not only the respect due a mature woman of her station but also a genuine affection. From her fond smile and the way she patted the young officer’s arm, Bak could tell the feeling was mutual. Mery took Azzia’s hands and, holding them far longer than necessary, offered his sympathy and loyalty. Iry looked on with so obvious a satisfaction Bak was certain she would have tried to make a match if Azzia had not been so recently widowed. The thought rankled.
The sun dipped behind the fortress wall, enveloping the courtyard in shadow. Iry embraced Azzia, and the two women bade a sorrowful good-bye. As soon as the older woman departed, Mery reached out to Azzia as if to clasp her hands-or more. She turned away. Brushing a tear from her cheek, she suggested he take a stool.
Bak, eager to get on with his plan, hastened to a deep reed chest filled with neatly folded bed linen. Sliding his hand inside, he withdrew the items he had hidden there earlier in the day: a papyrus scroll and a linen-wrapped object the size of the thin gold ingot Azzia had given him. Each was bound with cord, its knot secured with a flat lump of dried clay stamped with Nakht’s seal. The pretense of a search was not necessary, he rationalized. All he had to do was display the objects and wait for developments.
He returned to the door and raised his hand to sweep the mat aside, but a quick peek outside changed his mind. Azzia, seated on a stool facing her guest, was pouring wine into a drinking bowl while Mery watched her with the adoring look of a lovesick puppy. Was he, after all, nothing more than an admirer, with no knowledge of stolen gold? Smothering his impatience, Bak sat down, laid the objects in his lap, and pressed his forehead to the mat.
“I yearned to come to you before today, as you must know,” Mery said, accepting the bowl, “but I could think of no way to break the wall of solitude Officer Bak raised around you.”
“The days were long and empty, yes.” A sad, rather ironic smile touched her lips. “But even loneliness can have some value. With so much time to myself, I’ve learned to accept my fate as a woman alone.”
Mery reached toward her as if to caress her cheek. She recoiled, a tiny frown touching her face, and she swung away to lift a shallow bowl of deep purple grapes from a nearby stool.
He flushed, withdrew his hand.
She looked directly into his eyes. “A woman who must go on by herself, with no man to walk beside her or share her burdens.”
Bak was confused. Was she telling a confederate their relationship was over? Or was she reminding a would-be suitor that her widowhood had just begun? As far as he could tell, she had not warned Mery they had an eavesdropper.
The watch officer’s flush deepened. “Your sorrow at what has passed is great, I know, but one day…”
“I’ll wipe this nightmare from my memory and go on as if nothing had happened?” Her voice cracked on the last few words. Visibly controlling herself, she pulled a low, baked-clay table close to Mery’s thigh and sat the bowl on it. “My husband has been torn from my arms. In one week, two at the most, I must stand before the viceroy in place of the man who took his life. Judged innocent or guilty, I’ll never forget. How can I?”
Bak was so distressed by the pain he heard that he almost missed the anger boiling close below the surface.
“You must forget!”
“My husband was life itself to me and now he’s gone.” She shook her head. “No, I’ll not forget. Nor will I ever forgive the man responsible.”
Her face, her words were filled with loathing. Bak had no doubt she spoke from deep within her heart. She had not taken Nakht’s life. He was relieved, but also troubled. She might be guilty by association.
Mery’s eyes slipped away from hers; he shifted uncomfortably on his stool. Exactly as a disheartened suitor would behave, Bak thought, or a man with a guilty conscience.
With his eyes locked on his drinking bowl, Mery asked, “When you go before the viceroy, what will you tell him?”
An odd question, Bak thought, for a man blinded by love. He shifted closer to the mat, torn between his wish to know the truth and his dread that Azzia would incriminate herself.
“What can she say?” a male voice demanded.
Mery jumped, startled. Azzia looked toward the stairwell and smiled a warm, relieved welcome at Harmose, the archer. Cursing the untimely interruption, Bak stared hard at the newcomer, who came striding across the courtyard, his powerful muscles accented by the deepening shadow, his entire being bristling with indignation. Had he barged in so abruptly because he was the guilty man instead of Mery?
Like the watch lieutenant, Harmose was neat, clean, and freshly shaven. Much of his body had been chafed by blowing sand, he walked with the heavy step of weariness, and his torso and limbs wore the fresh abrasions and bruises of a long day on the practice field. If he had been Bak’s opponent in Heby’s house, fresh marks of battle covered the old.
He knelt before Azzia to take her hands. “For you to be dragged off to Ma’am and humiliated…it’s…it’s indecent!” He released her and flung himself onto a stool. “Say the word and I’ll carry you away tonight.”
She gave him a wan smile. “I fear the desert more than the viceroy, my brother.”
Mery glared at the archer, resentful of the mild endearment-or, more likely, the offer.
“They say there are large and fertile oases many days’ journey to the south,” Harmose said. “The land is so rich it repays a man tenfold for the effort it takes to plant the fields. You’ve seen for yourself the fine cattle the people of Kush bring as tribute from far upriver.”
Azzia raised her hand to silence the dream. Or was it a dream? Bak wondered. Could Harmose seriously be thinking of fleeing with Azzia? And the gold?
“What of the Belly of Stones and the garrisons along its length?” Mery scoffed. “The soldiers who man them would stop your flight within hours, and Azzia’s guilt would be taken as fact.”
“I’m going to Ma’am,” Azzia said in a firm voice. “I must convince the viceroy I’m innocent. Only then can I journey to Mennufer with my husband and see him placed in his tomb with the honor and dignity he earned through his life.”
