“What of the time the goldsmith was slain?” Paser asked. “Have you proven your men innocent of his death, too?”
Thanking the lord Amon for giving him the opening he needed, Bak smiled. “Most are accounted for through the night. As for the rest…” Hepickedupthe scroll and package and held them out so everyone could see the seal securing the knotted cords. His voice took on a note of grim expectancy. “With luck and the favor of the gods, their whereabouts will be of no importance.”
“You can name the one who took the goldsmith’s life?” Mery asked, his eyes locked on the objects.
“Not yet, but maybe…” Bak cut himself short, letting them assume what they liked.
All four men and the one woman stared at the objects. Mery looked bemused. Nebwa’s eyes were as narrow as Azzia’s were wide. The rise and fall of Harmose’s breast ceased. Paser set his drinking bowl on the table, so unaware of his action it landed with a thud.
Nebwa jerked the scroll from Bak’s hand, glanced at the seal, and snorted. “Nakht sealed this document, and he was slain long before the goldsmith.” With a scornful smile, he tossed the scroll back. Bak barely had time to catch it.
“When I find a thing in a secret place,” he said grimly, “I must believe it contains a secret.”
“How could you…?” A startled look flitted across Azzia’s face, she clamped a hand over her mouth and stared at him, her shock apparent.
She had realized, Bak felt sure, that he suspected one of these four men of slaying her husband and was using the objects as bait in a trap. It was time to end his game. He rose from his stool, walked to the edge of the pavilion, and looked up at the stars filling the sky with a milky white brilliance. “The hour is late. I must go.”
The trill of a nightbird rang out, the sound so clear and pure the creature might have been perched directly above the courtyard. Another answered from farther away and a third from a greater distance.
He looked at Azzia. Her face was pale and drawn but composed, her glance a query. In spite of the fact that she had to know he had used her, had to despise him for it, she appeared to be waiting for his next move. His admiration increased tenfold, as did his guilt. “I suggest you all come with me. After so long a day, mistress Azzia must be tired.”
“Yes,” she said, following his lead. “I am weary, that I admit.” She offered them all a wan smile. “To be with my friends today has been a gift I value above all else, but I’ve much left to do this night.”
Bak waited at the stairwell door while they said their good-byes. Mery prolonged his farewell. Harmose hovered. Nebwa poked among the remaining dishes, collecting a handful of grapes, figs, and dates. Paser’s parting was as stiff and proper as his greeting.
They were halfway down the stairs with Bak in the rear when Hori burst through the ground-floor doorway. His face looked pale in the light of the guttering torch shining from above.
“Sir!” he shouted. “You must go to the quay at once. Two of our men have been drawn into a fight.”
Bak muttered an oath and plunged past the others down the stairs. They followed close behind, curious to know what had happened.
“Tell me!” he demanded.
“They were patrolling the harbor.” Hori’s words tumbled out in frantic excitement. “Four men, sailors I think, blocked their path. They had knives and were taunting our men. A sentry atop the fortress wall saw them clash and sent word to me.”
“I knew this would happen,” Bak snarled. He shoved the scroll and package into Hori’s hand. “Give these to Ruru. Tell him to take them to my quarters and wait for me there. Then go to the barracks, rouse Imsiba and a dozen men, and send them to me at the harbor.” Swinging around, he rushed to the outer door and the street.
Bak raced across the rooftops of the housing block where his quarters were located. Four times he had to stop to silence and reassure uneasy neighbors who had taken their sleeping pallets to the roof when darkness fell. As he approached his own building, he spotted Imsiba’s dark figure, lying on the roof, peering over the low parapet at the gray-black lane below. He scuttled to the Medjay, crouching lower with each step, and dropped down to lay prone beside him.
Imsiba flashed a quick, tense smile. “I thought never to hear Ruru’s signal. What took so long?” He spoke in a whisper but with the urgency born of anticipation.
“None of our suspects came until the sun fell below the battlements.”
“Which man walked into your snare?”
“All of them.” Bak smiled at the surprise on Imsiba’s face, but quickly sobered. “As we feared, the man we seek gave nothing away. I’ve no better idea now than I did before who he is.”
“They all heard Hori’s tale?”
“Yes, and my order that Ruru bring the scroll and package here.” Bak gave no hint of the worry crowding his thoughts. “The guilty man should follow him from the commandant’s residence. He’ll wish to strike while he thinks me at the harbor and no threat to his safety.”
The thin whistle of a nightbird sounded in the distance. A second, closer song rang out.
“Ruru’s signal! And Woser’s.” Imsiba scrambled to a sitting position. “He’s on his way, my friend.” He answered the call with a slightly different birdsong. As the last note died away, he lay back with smile. “Our wait will seem shorter if you tell me of mistress Azzia’s gathering.”
The air was still and balmy, the roof hard and unyielding. Barking dogs and a tomcat yowling for a mate disrupted the quiet, abated, began all over again. Bak spoke quickly, skimming over much of the afternoon, leaving out nothing important.
At the end, Imsiba asked, “You’re certain mistress Azzia didn’t take her husband’s life?”
“No man or woman could pretend so much hate, Imsiba.”
“She placed you in Nakht’s bedchamber. Could she not have been speaking for your ears rather than those of Lieutenant Mery?”
“Possibly,” Bak admitted, “but it matters not. If you’d seen and heard her, you’d be as convinced as I am.”
Imsiba grunted.
Bak hesitated to say more lest he reinforce the Medjay’s conviction that Azzia had addled his wits, but silence was not his way. “Later, when she realized I believe one of the four took Nakht’s life, she was not just surprised. She was shocked.”
“As I would be if I feared my secrets were known.”
“Hear me out! We’ve not much time.”
Imsiba’s sigh was long and exaggerated.
“She may’ve been disturbed because she thought I knew more than I did. I think, and here I admit I walk on marshy ground…I think she had no idea who slew her husband, and to learn that one of those four might be the guilty man was a new and shocking thought.”
Imsiba eyed him for some time. When he finally spoke, his voice reflected a deep concern. “For your sake, my friend, I pray she’s as innocent of all guile as you hope she is.”
Bak appreciated the Medjay’s solicitude, but resented the assumption that emotion controlled his thoughts. “Should not Ruru have come before now?” he asked irritably.
“He was to walk, not run as you did, but…” Imsiba looked along the dark, narrow, empty lane, and concern deepened to worry. “Yes, we should’ve heard another signal.”
A cool breeze, the breath of the lord Amon, Bak was sure, touched his back, sending chills up his spine. From the look on Imsiba’s face, he knew the Medjay had felt it, too. As if to affirm their worst fears, the frantic kew- kew-kew of a snared falcon carried through the air, the call so faint they barely heard it. A second call was stronger but no less frenzied. Imsiba shot to his feet to answer the summons. Azzia’s wine rose to Bak’s throat, soured by the knowledge that his plan had gone awry.
Bak knelt beside the dark form crumpled at the base of the single pillar in the vestibule of the commandant’s residence. In the light of the flaming torch Pashenuro held above them, Ruru’s eyes, wide open, sightless, stared at him, accused him. Unshed tears burned the backs of his eyelids, guilt ate at his heart. He was as much to blame for Ruru’s death as the man who had thrust the dagger into his heart. He had told Hori to make sure the four suspects left the building before Ruru’s departure. Never dreaming the guilty man would dare to slip back inside, he had
