“She was his wife?” Bak asked, surprised.
Mery nodded. “Azzia, she is called.”
“She speaks our tongue?”
A humorless smile formed on Mery’s lips. “Better than you and me.”
Bak eyed the lifeless commandant, who had been a healthy, vigorous man of at least fifty years. More than twice the age of the foreign woman. Not unusual for a man to desire a young wife, but a choice which often led to domestic troubles. Yet he saw no reason to keep her here.
He stood up and walked to her. “You may go to your chamber, mistress. I’ll speak with you later.”
She moved not a single muscle and her eyes never left the face of the inert form on the floor.
“You may go,” he repeated, making it an order this time.
“The shock of my master’s death has stolen her reason,” Lupaki said, his voice husky with emotion.
He placed a brawny arm around her waist, clasped one of her blood-stained hands, and led her like an un-resisting child through the door and into the courtyard. Exclamations of shock and dismay filtered through the open portal.
Bak ordered the guard posted there to stay with her. Closing the door, he turned to Mery. “Tell me what happened.”
Mery stood up, his glance accusing. “Must you treat her as a prisoner in her own home?”
“For the love of Amon, Lieutenant! She’s covered with his blood. What do you expect me to do?”
Mery glared at him, but his defiance quickly melted. “You’re right, of course, but I can explain her appearance.”
Pulling a stool away from the wall, Bak placed it a few paces from the body and motioned Mery onto it. He chose his words carefully lest he offend this officer who was his superior in rank if not in authority under the laws he had been sent to uphold.
“I see you admire her,” he said, “but you must do nothing to protect her. If I’m to find the one who committed this terrible deed, I must be led along a straight and true path.”
With an unhappy nod, Mery sank onto the stool and clasped his hands between his bare knees. Bak walked around the body and knelt on its opposite side so he could watch the officer’s face while he talked.
“I was making my rounds,” Mery said. “After checking the sentries on the battlements, I realized I’d forgotten the list of men assigned to the gates. I came here to get it. I found the audience hall filled with the rabble your Medjays had brought and your scribe Hori placing their names on a scroll. Twenty or more other men, clerks and soldiers, were standing around the chamber, watching the activity. Lupaki and Azzia’s female servants were among them.”
Not surprised but irritated nonetheless, Bak said, “In other words, instead of being almost empty as it would normally have been at this time of night, the building was filled with curiosity seekers as well as my own men and their prisoners.”
Mery hurried on, as if anxious to get his tale over and done with. “As I crossed the audience hall, I heard a scream. I ran up the stairs. From the courtyard, I saw light flowing through the open door of this room. I looked inside.” His voice thickened. “The commandant was on the floor and mistress Azzia beside him, holding him in her arms. His blood was flowing from the wound as water through an open irrigation channel. I knew no man could save him. I motioned Lupaki and all those who’d followed to stay back and I stood there, listening. I heard Nakht say, ‘Don’t cry, my beloved.’ And she said, ‘You can’t go away; you can’t leave me.’ He replied, ‘I love you more than life, my beautiful bird.’”
Mery stared at his hands. “She said, ‘How will I live without you? You’re my heart.’ Nakht raised his hand from his breast, his bloody hand, and laid it on her face. ‘I was a man when you were a babe,’ he said. ‘You’ve always known I’d die before you.’ She covered her mouth to soften a moan and said, ‘But not like this.’ Nakht drew her face to his and their mouths met in a kiss. When she raised her head, she asked, ‘Who did this to you? Why?’ He shuddered as if in terrible agony and his body went limp.” Mery paused, swallowed, and his eyes found Bak’s. “She refused to leave him until I summoned Lupaki.”
Bak was touched in spite of his better judgment. “Did she know you were standing close by when she asked who slew him?”
“I think not. She was too intent on him to see me or anyone else.”
Maybe, Bak thought, and maybe not. Yet Mery’s tale could not be easily dismissed. Maiherperi had said: if you have the smallest reason to suspect the members of the slain man’s household are without guilt, you must cast your net wider. With a resigned sigh, he rose and walked around the room, studying the chests and stools and tables that appeared not to have been disturbed, the overturned chair, the upright table with the burning lamps, the position of Nakht’s body.
“When you entered, was the table standing as it is now?” he asked. “Were the lamps alight and placed on it?”
“Everything was just as you see it.”
“He was probably seated beside the table, and with two lamps so near…” Bak’s eyes darted toward Mery. “He must’ve been reading, but I see no scroll.”
“The one who slew him could’ve taken it. Does that not prove mistress Azzia innocent? She left this room empty-handed.”
Unless it was a fragment, Bak thought, a piece so small she could hide it in the bosom of her dress. He examined the chair, which was free of blood, and ran his fingers over the smooth, clean surfaces of the narrow table. “If there was a struggle, it was short-lived. Otherwise, this would’ve fallen over, too.”
“Nakht was not a man to give up without resisting. If he’d expected the attack, he’d have done all he could to protect himself.”
“Therefore he was caught off guard. The blow was true to its mark, giving him no more chance than a newborn lamb facing a jackal.”
Bak’s glance fell to the dagger handle, slightly longer than the breadth of a hand and carved from ebony. Below the smoky gray rock crystal pommel, it was inlaid with three narrow bands of gold. An elegant weapon, the type carried by high-ranking officers and the nobility.
“Do you recognize this?” he asked.
“I do, as you would if you’d been here longer.” Mery rose to stand over the body. “It was one of Nakht’s most treasured possessions. He brought the blade from the land of Hatti, and our commander-in-chief, Menkheperre Thutmose himself, had the handle made for him.” He shuddered. “For a man to use this dagger to take his life was an abomination.”
Reluctant to do what he knew he must, Bak sucked in his breath, gripped the handle, and jerked the weapon out of the lifeless breast. The blade, gory with blood, made the beer churn in his stomach. Chiding himself for the weakness, he strode to the table and held the dagger close to a lamp.
The blade was twice as long as the handle and tapered to a deadly point. It was made of a dull silvery gray metal so rare he had seen it only once or twice before. Surprised, excited, he swung around to Mery. “This is iron!”
Mery nodded. “A metal as common in Hatti, Nakht told me, as is gold in our own desert wadis.”
Bak gazed at the weapon with a covetous eye. “They say it’s very strong and a man who owns such a blade holds the power of the gods in his hands. I wonder if…” He shook his head. “No! If the one who slew Nakht meant to steal this dagger, he’d have pulled it out of his breast and carried it away. His life wasn’t taken for this.”
More likely, he thought, it was used simply because it was here, a convenient object for a wife to lay her hands on during a heated argument. Nevertheless, he had to look elsewhere, too, if for no other reason than to satisfy himself that he had done all he should. Laying the dagger on the table, he eyed the door that opened to the dark stairway. Obviously, the woman had smeared much of the blood, but if someone else had taken Nakht’s life, he might have been spattered and left some sign farther afield.
At Bak’s command, a spearman brought another torch and he entered the rough-plastered, rather musty stairwell, leaving Mery and the guard behind. He wanted no one to disturb any telltale signs. He worked his way downward a step at a time to the ground floor, unable to find any fresh smudges or spots of blood. The door at the bottom was closed but not barred. He made his way upward with equal care, again finding nothing, to an open trapdoor at roof level. Had the door been left open to admit the cooler night air to the rooms below? Or to admit a man Nakht had summoned?