A dozen small boats nudged the bank below an unimpres sive gate. Accompanied by the clinking of fittings and the chatter of men who knew each other well, fishermen and farmers hurried across boards spanning the narrow gap be tween boats and shore, balancing on their shoulders baskets of fruits and vegetables and fish. They passed through the gate, delivering offerings perhaps. Or simply food to be con sumed by hungry priests and scribes.
Bak and his companion turned around to walk back the way they had come.
“I recall Pahure saying he was once a sailor,” Bak said.
Netermose nodded. “He’s quite proud of the fact that as a young man he sailed the Great Green Sea.”
“Is he, too, a man of Tjeny?”
“You might call him a neighbor. He came from Abedju.
His sister dwells there yet.”
The two cities were about a half day’s walk apart. “Pentu dwells in Tjeny. It’s the provincial capital, I know, but would it not be to his advantage to make his home in Abedju in stead? It’s a larger city and far more sacred, with many sig nificant tombs and shrines, and pilgrims constantly coming from afar. I’d think his presence would be required almost daily.”
“His estate lies between the two-closer to Tjeny, I must admit. He’d rather live there than in his town house in
Abedju. The dwelling is far lighter and more spacious, and mistress Taharet prefers it to the smaller, less comfortable home.”
What mistress Taharet desires, Bak thought, mistress
Taharet receives. “With so many priests needed for the sa cred rituals, as well as the men and women who support them, does he not have many responsibilities in Abedju?”
“He goes weekly, staying several days each time. He doesn’t shirk his duty, sir.”
It must be a relief to hurry off to Abedju and wield the power he cannot exercise at home, Bak thought. “Tell me more of Pahure.”
Netermose hesitated, as he had when asked about Site pehu, but Bak’s grim expression urged him on. “He and his sister had no father and their mother toiled in a house of pleasure. Often besotted, she beat them. One day Pahure ran away. He slipped aboard a cargo ship and sailed to Men nufer, where he joined the crew of a merchant vessel bound for Ugarit. After a few years sailing the Great Green Sea, he jumped ship in Tyre, where he became a guard in the resi dence of our envoy to that city-state.”
The aide reached into the basket and threw another hand ful into the river. Birds collided in a mass of feathers and quacking. “Like Sitepehu, Pahure is a man of infinite deter mination. He taught himself to read and write and after a few years became the envoy’s steward. When he thought to re turn to the land of his birth, he sought a similar position in our household.”
“What do you think of him?” Bak asked, wondering if the aide resented the steward as he did Sitepehu.
Netermose’s smile was sheepish. “I don’t much like him, but he performs his task in an exemplary manner.”
“Sitepehu inferred that Pahure is a man who knows ex actly what he wants and always attains his goal.”
“In that respect, the two of them are much alike.” The aide’s smile broadened. “Pentu has more than once told me I should be more aggressive. Not only am I not inclined that way, but I’m convinced that to have three such men in one household would be disastrous.”
Bak laughed, but quickly sobered. He hesitated to ask his next question, but could think of no way around it, no better approach than the most direct. “Tell me of the mistresses
Taharet and Meret.”
Netermose threw him a startled look. “You can’t think one of them slew Maruwa!”
“I have no idea who slew the Hittite, but I learned some time ago that women are as capable of committing vile crimes as are men.”
“Mistress Meret is the kindest woman I’ve ever met,”
Netermose said, indignant, “and as for mistress Taharet, it’s true she’s strong-willed, but she’d never knowingly hurt anyone.”
Bak noted how carefully the aide worded his defense of
Taharet, his use of the word “knowingly.” “Would you rather tell me about them or would you prefer I ask someone else, someone who might not be as generous about Taharet’s sharp tongue?”
Looking miserable, cornered, Netermose raised the bas ket and flung the remaining contents far out into the water, causing another eruption of feathers and racket. “She’s not the most tactful woman in Kemet,” he admitted, “but she doesn’t mean to be heartless.”
“Were she and Meret also children of Tjeny?”
“Their father was a merchant in Sile, and there they grew to womanhood.” The aide glanced into the basket, found a piece of melon rind, and flung it at the squabbling birds.
“Mistress Meret wed a traveling merchant, but he was slain within months by bandits, leaving her childless and alone.
Mistress Taharet convinced their father that their lives would be wasted in so remote a town, so he sent them here to
Waset, where they dwelt with an elderly aunt. Soon after,
Pentu came to pay homage to our sovereign. He met Mis tress Taharet and in a short time they wed.”
Sile was a town on the eastern frontier of Kemet. Located on a major trade route, it had grown prosperous by provid ing weary men and donkeys with a place to stop and rest and to replenish supplies. As for Meret, he was surprised to learn she was a widow. When she had talked of a lost love, he must have jumped to the conclusion that she, like him, had never wed the individual to whom she had given her heart.
“Since Mistress Meret was a widow with no one to care for her, Pentu also brought her into his household.” Neter mose allowed himself a humorless smile. “The two sisters are very close. I’d not be opposed to taking Meret as my wife, but mistress Taharet guards her like a falcon and I stay well clear.”
Bak gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’ve a feeling mis tress Taharet wishes her to wed a man of means.” He thought of the woman’s previous interest in him, added, “Or one she believes has future prospects.” He would not have been so blunt, but the knowledge was clear on the aide’s face.
Later, as he hurried back along the processional way, he mulled over all Netermose had told him. Dig as deep as he would, twisting words and seeking hidden meanings, he could not sort one individual out from another as being more likely to have slain a man-or to become involved in the politics of Hatti. Was he wasting his time, looking at Pentu’s household? Would he be wiser to focus his attention on the sacred precinct?
Bak was not surprised at finding the Overseer of Over seers of the storehouses of Amon at the treasury, where he had found him before. Where else would a man be who was as obsessed with the wealth of the deity as User was?
“You’ve come to tell me all is well, I take it.” User, sum moned by an elderly scribe, stood in the doorway, a hand on either jamb as if to prevent Bak from entering. “I knew you’d find no irregularities in our records, no missing ob jects in our storehouses.”
“Many records were destroyed by the fire when Woserhet was slain, sir. I’m convinced they were burned deliberately so no one would know their contents.”
“Bah! You’re imagining a crime where none exists.”
“Woserhet informed the chief priest, Hapuseneb himself, that he’d found some discrepancies in the records of the storehouses of the lord Amon.”
Dismissing the charge with a wave of his hand, User walked to his armchair, plumped up the pillow, and dropped onto it. “To an auditor, a transposed symbol is a discrep ancy.”
“Hapuseneb held him in sufficiently high regard to allow him to look deeper into the matter, and I’ve found no reason why anyone would slay him outside of his task as an audi tor.” Bak paused, stressed his next words. “An auditor of the lord Amon’s storehouses where he’d found discrepancies.”
Frowning, User adjusted the pillow, fussed with the band of the kilt riding high on his ample stomach. “To steal ob jects from the lord Amon would be sacrilege, Lieutenant.”