"I'd hoped you could answer that question. I've been told you knew her better than anyone."
"I knew her, yes, but she never confided in me." "Did you not tell me she was a mother to you?"
Her voice grew sharp, annoyed. "She never ceased to treat me as a child, Lieutenant."
He suspected her anger was directed at the dead woman, not him. Lest he err, he attempted a smile, hoping to disarm her, but a whiff of crushed grain made him sneeze. "What of her family?" he managed, and a second sneeze overwhelmed him.
A fleeting smile acknowledged his discomfort. "She was a foundling, a babe left on my father's doorstep in Nubt. If she had a family in Abu or Swenet-or anywhere else, for that matter-she never knew them." Glancing at the gate, she ed~, ed away from him. "I must go. With Hatnofer no longer here, I've no time to linger."
"One more question," he said, stopping her flight with an upraised hand. "Of all those who have the freedom to walk through this compound, who had close friends or relatives that vanished in the desert?"
"Most of the servants lost men near and dear, as did the guards. I know Amethu, Simut, and Ineni lost someone close, and I believe Antef did. I, too, cared for men who never returned: lieutenants Amonemhab, Nebmose, Minnakht, and Neferhotep. I miss them even now, all in the prime of life, lost forever to the wind and the sand."
Again she briefly touched his arm. Turning away, she hastened across the court and out the gate, which she swung closed behind her. Bak watched her go, sympathizing with her plight. No wonder she was irritable, he thought; she had every right to be. She had, only two days before, found the body of a woman as close to her as a mother, and she was now burdened with that woman's duties in addition to her own. She was mistress of a household ruled by a man who appeared to Bak impossible to please and was wed to a husband she seemed not to love.
"Kasaya's fallen in love?" Bak chuckled. "Not again!" "This time he'll be lucky to escape a free man," Psuro said, grinning. "The girl toils in the governor's kitchen, where she's student to the chief cook-her mother. The old woman's the best I've come upon in many a year, and she's stuffing Kasaya like a goose being force-fed for slaughter." Walking side-by-side, laughing, they turned a corner into the lane that would take them to their quarters. Failing sunshine lighted the upper edges of the taller buildings, while the deep shadow of dusk filled the narrow walkway. The odors of fish and onions, of herbs and cooking oil, wafted down from the rooftops, as did the soft voices of families enjoying their evening meal.
"Does he realize how dangerous his position is?" Bak managed.
Psuro shook his head. "He's too busy shoving food into his mouth to think of the consequences."
Stifling laughter as best he could, Bak stopped in front of their quarters and shoved aside the mat hanging over the door. The room lay in deep shadow, the objects inside losing color and definition. "Djehuty has an estate at Nubt. If you see a crisis on the horizon, I'll send Kasaya downriver, out of harm's way."
"Yes, sir," Psuro said, wiping his eyes with the palm of his hand.
"Where'd you put the lamp?" "Inside the door, to the right."
Bak spotted three palm-sized baked clay dishes on the floor, fresh wicks rising from puddles of oil. He scooped one up and handed it to the Medjay. "I saw light in a house halfway down the block."
The Medjay nodded and hurried down the lane. Rather than take the time to start a fire using a small drill and kindling, he would borrow the neighbor's lamp to light his own. Bak rolled the mat up, letting air and the meager natural light into the house, and tied it with a sturdy cord. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, he sensed that someone had entered the house during their absence. He stopped dead still, thinking of the fish he had found the night before, the warning he suspected it conveyed. The last thing he had expected was another such gift.
Psuro came up behind him, lamp flaming. "Our evening meal," he said, looking over Bak's shoulder, his eyes on the two stools Amethu had furnished, one stacked upside-down on top of the other, with a large covered basket perched atop the three legs. "I hope the old woman included some meat or fowl. I'm starving." Not overly fond of cooking, he had persuaded an elderly widow he had met at the public well to provide their meals.
Bak eyed the basket, towering above the other furnishings, safe from. mice and rats, insects, and whatever else might be tempted. Its presence failed to suppress a strong feeling of unease. His eyes darted around the room, skipping over patches of light, probing shadows, coming to rest on the lower steps of the stairway leading to the roof and an object impossible to see clearly from where he stood. With the fish foremost in his thoughts, he bounded across the room. "Spawn of Apep!" he snarled.
A clay doll hung head-down off the lowest step, an arrow with the shaft broken off protruding from its breast. The image, he had no doubt, represented Montu, the spearman who supposedly fell down the stairs and onto his own weapon.
Psuro came up beside him and held the light close. He muttered something in his own tongue, too long to be a simple oath, more likely an incantation against whatever malign force had caused the doll to be brought into their quarters.
Bak preferred a more common sense approach. He picked up the image to examine it. The eyes were mere slits, probably made with a fingernail; the nose a bit of clay pinched to stand out from the otherwise featureless face. The body was cylindrical, its stick-like arms and legs held in place with straw. The arrowhead was flint, with nothing remaining of the shaft but a japed stub of wood. The image was so recently molded it felt cool and damp to the touch, though no longer soft.
"I wish I knew what message this was meant to deliver, Psuro."
"It can only be a threat," the Medjay said, eyeing the doll with distaste.
Bak's voice turned wry. "Would not a note be more direct?"
"I doubt the man who brought it knows how to write." Bak stared at the figure, unconvinced. The fish with the stone was simple but direct, and so was the doll. The delivery of such items required imagination, not the plodding thought processes of the poor and uneducated. As before, he felt he was being teased, the slayer toying with him to prove… what? To prove himself superior in thought and deed? Probably, but something else, too: this blatant intrusion into his quarters was meant to intimidate, to frighten.
One thing was clear: he would have to post one of his men here each evening. The thought grated. He had not sufficient manpower to waste on a task that might prove futile. If only he had more men, more Medjays from Buhen, men he trusted.
Chapter Seven
"I'm fairly certain the storm is the key to the murders, but you mustn't allow my belief to blind you to other possibilities."
"Yes, sir," Psuro and Kasaya said in unison.
Bak fastened his belt clasp over the small, neat knot holding his kilt in place and stepped into woven-reed sandals. "More than anything else, I'd like to talk to someone who came back alive, one who saw more of his fellows during the tempest than did Lieutenant Amonhotep."
"When I wandered around the caravan encampment yesterday, I talked to more than a dozen traders." Psuro, long ago up and dressed, sat down on the stairway and lifted several leaves covering a tightly woven basket brought by the old woman he had hired to cook for them. The yeasty aroma of fresh bread wafted across the room. "A few had heard of a company of soldiers lost in the desert, but in a vague sort of way. None connected the tale to Abu."