Would you care to join me?”
“I don’t think…” Amonked eyed askance the many peo ple circulating around them. “Well, yes. Yes I would. But in this crowd? How is that possible?”
“Come. I’ll show you.” Bak pointed at the redhead, who was sauntering past a row of booths offering bright amulets and trinkets, mementos of the festival. “You see the man with fuzzy red hair? Not one in a thousand has hair so con spicuous. He’s not tall, so it’s easy to lose sight of him, but a diligent search will never fail to reward you with another glimpse.”
“Let’s hurry,” Amonked said, leaping into the spirit of the chase. “We don’t want to lose him.”
Grinning, Bak motioned the older man to precede him.
Amonked took the game seriously, seldom taking his eyes off the man ahead. Of equal import, he was not one to draw attention to himself and, in spite of the fine jewelry and wig he wore, readily merged into the crowd.
Their quarry led them into a smaller, more festive version of Waset’s foreign quarter. Here, the food offered for sale looked and smelled and tasted different from the usual fare of Kemet. The entertainers wore unfamiliar costumes; the music was more strident with an unusual beat and timbre.
The games and sports were similar, but differed in rules and manner of play. Many of the people strolling through the area were foreigners, men and women from far to the north and south, the east and west, strangely garbed, often odd in appearance, speaking words impossible to understand.
The red-haired man stopped behind a semicircle of people watching a troupe of Hittite acrobats performing to the beat of a single drum. One man was climbing a pyramid of stand ing men to take his position at the top. The redhead studied the spectators, then headed purposefully in among them to stop beside a short, dumpy man wearing the long kilt of a scribe.
“Do you know the man beside him?” The question was foolish, Bak knew. Hundreds of scribes daily walked the streets of Waset, and hundreds more had come from throughout the land of Kemet to participate in the festival.
However, Amonked had surprised him before and would again with the vast amount of knowledge stored within his heart.
The beat of the drum swelled to a climax. The acrobat reached the top of the human pyramid and stood erect. The crowd roared approval.
“He’s called Nebamon,” Amonked said. “He’s overseer of a block of storehouses in the sacred precinct of Ipet-isut, in cluding the storage magazine in which Woserhet was slain.
He’s responsible for many of the valuable supplies and ob jects used during the rituals: aromatic oils, fine linens, bronze and gold vessels.”
“The same items handed over to the priests by Merya mon.”
“Those and many more.” Amonked poked a stray lock of his own hair back beneath his wig. “Nebamon’s task is more wide-ranging and on a higher level of authority. He receives items shipped to Waset from throughout the land of Kemet and oversees their distribution.” Amonked stared hard at the redhead and the scribe. “Are they talking, or did our red haired friend just happen to stand beside him?”
Bak shrugged. “I can’t tell. Men who speak together usu ally make gestures, and I haven’t seen any.” Nor had he seen a message being passed from hand to hand.
The acrobats broke formation. A servant approached with a tall, wide-mouthed jar containing an efflorescence of lit torches. Each of the performers grabbed two. Holding them high, they began to dance, whirling round and round to the ever faster beat of the drum in a frenzy of flying braids and sparks.
Bak’s eyes drifted over the watching men and women, paused on a man standing slightly off to the right. “Speaking of Meryamon, there he is.”
The priest stood at the end of the semicircle, watching the acrobats, seemingly indifferent to any other person or activ ity. From where he stood, he might or might not have spot ted Bak and Amonked, but he could not have failed to see
Nebamon and the red-haired man. Yet his face revealed no hint of recognition.
Was this another furtive act? Or had the young priest seen the other men when first they had joined the spectators and dismissed them from his thoughts? Had following the red haired man been an exercise and no more? Or had some im portant act occurred that Bak had failed to recognize for what it was?
Fresh hordes of spectators flowed in among the onlookers and around the nearby booths and performers. The cere mony inside the sacred precinct had ended. Offering ritual
completed, the lord Amon and his mortal daughter and son would have entered Ipet-resyt, leaving the spectators free to eat and play through the remainder of the day and far into the night.
Amonked grabbed Bak’s arm to draw him close and shouted in his ear that his wife would soon be free to return home and he had promised to meet her there. Bak bade him good-bye. When he turned around, the flood of humanity had swept away the men he had been watching.
“I don’t like it.” Commandant Thuty scowled at the hot, red coals lying in the mudbrick hearth Bak’s Medjays had built in the courtyard.
“The dead auditor?” Nebwa asked. “Seems simple enough. He learned something to someone’s discredit and that someone slew him.”
No longer hungry, but tantalized by the rich smell of fowl and onions and herbs, Bak reached into the large pot setting on the coals and withdrew a piece of well-cooked goose, a feast bestowed upon them by the lord Amon to celebrate the opening day of the Beautiful Feast of Opet. This and other foods richer and more luxurious than their usual fare had been given them during the reversion of offerings, the task
Woserhet would have performed if he had been allowed to live.
“Someone must lay hands on his slayer,” he said, “and
Amonked trusts me to do the best I can.”
Thuty transferred his frown from the fire to Bak.
“Amonked knows, Lieutenant, that you never fail to accept the challenge when faced with a crime and an unknown criminal. And he likes you. He provides you with murdered men as a shepherd provides his flock with grass.”
“Bak’s probably the one man he knows who hasn’t be friended him because he’s cousin to our sovereign.” Nebwa spat on the hard-packed earthen floor, showing his contempt for men who hoped to gain through another man’s position.
Knucklebones rattled across the floor. The Medjay who had thrown snarled a curse and the three men playing with him burst into laughter. A man called out a bet. Another re sponded and another. Bak looked their way, smiled. The torch mounted on the wall flickered in the light breeze, mak ing their features appear ill-formed and indistinct, but he knew each as well as he would know a brother.
From the day his men had set foot in Buhen, until the day they left, throughout the voyage north he had been told, and here in their temporary quarters, the game had never ceased.
Their bets were small, their enjoyment large, so he refused to interfere. Two had been assigned to guard the dwelling and their belongings, but why the other two remained when they could be out making merry, he could not imagine.
Imsiba laid a hand on the thick neck of the large, floppy eared white dog curled up against his thigh, a cur Hori had long ago adopted. “Do you fear Amonked will steal Bak from us, sir?”
Growling an affirmative, Thuty picked up his beer jar, took a deep drink, set it down with a thud. “This is the sec ond murder he’s asked him to investigate since he arrived in the capital. Waset has plenty of police officers. Surely one of them would serve equally well.”
“Bak has a talent few men have.” Nebwa tore a chunk from a thin round loaf of bread, dipped it in the stew. “But that’s of no import. We can’t let him stay here when we jour ney on to Mennufer.”
“Would you two stop speaking of me as if I’m that dog…” Irritated, he glanced at Hori’s pet. “… unable to understand a word you’re saying. I will snare the man who slew Woserhet, and I will go with you to Mennufer.” To close the subject, he plucked another piece of goose from the pot and took a bite off the bone.