“I found a woman I wished to wed, but I lost her.”
“To death?”
“To a lost life, yes, but not her own.”
When he failed to explain, she said, “I sorrow for you,
Lieutenant.” A woman’s laughter drew her glance to the peo ple milling around them, and she lowered her voice. “I, too, once shared my heart with another.”
He beckoned a servant, who exchanged their empty wine bowls for fresh ones. Taking her elbow, he steered her to ward one of four tall, brightly painted wooden columns sup porting the high ceiling. With the pillar at their backs and a large potted acacia to their right, they could speak with some privacy. “What tore the two of you apart?”
She stared at the noisy crowd. “He left me one day and never returned.”
Bak could guess how she must feel. He had heard nothing of his lost love since she had left Buhen. Like him, he as sumed, Meret had no idea whether her beloved lived or died, whether he had wed another or remained alone. “I assume
Pentu shared with Amonked the wish that you and I become friends. More than friends. Does he know of your loss?”
“My sister told him. Together they decided I must forget.
I must find someone new and wed. When Amonked sug gested to Djehuty that you needed a wife, the four of them thought to bring us together.” She looked up at Bak, a sud den smile playing across her face. “Now here we are…”
He eyed her over the rim of his drinking bowl and grinned. “Thrown at each other like a boy and girl of twelve or thirteen years.”
They laughed together.
“Mistress Meret.” Pahure stood beside the potted tree, looking annoyed. “A servant tripped while carrying a large storage jar filled with wine. When it broke, it splashed most of the other servants. The few whose clothing remains un stained can’t possibly serve so many guests. You must come with me and see that those with soiled clothing change as quickly as possible.”
“Tripped!” Meret looked dismayed. “The floor in the ser vants’ quarters is perfectly smooth, and all obstacles were placed against the walls. What could he have stumbled over?”
“His feet, I suspect.”
She shot an apologetic glance at Bak. “I fear I must leave you, Lieutenant. I may not return before you go, but do come again. We have more to talk about than I ever thought possible.”
He gave her his most charming smile. “I’ll see you an other time, that I vow.”
“You like her, I see.” Bak’s father, the physician Ptah hotep, leaned against the mudbrick wall of the paddock and looked with interest upon his son.
Bak poured two heavy jars of water into the trough and stepped back. Victory and Defender, the fine black chariot horses he had been unwilling to part with when he had been exiled to the southern frontier, paid no heed. They had drunk their fill from the first jarful he had carried from the over flowing irrigation channel outside the paddock.
“She seems not at all like her sister. I thank the lord
Amon. If I’d found her to be manipulative, I’d have greeted her and no more.”
“Amonked wouldn’t do that to you.” Ptahhotep’s features were much like those of his son and he was of a similar height and breadth. The years had softened his muscles and turned the brown of his eyes to a deep gold, but no one could have thought him other than the younger man’s sire. “Would you make a match with her?”
Bak knew Ptahhotep hoped to see him settle down with wife and family. “How can I say? I must spend more time with her, get to know her. But first, I must lay hands on the man who slew Woserhet.”
Chapter Six
“Were you aware that Woserhet was an auditor?” Bak dropped onto the single free stool in the workshop, a rough cut rectangular affair made for straddling.
“Yes, sir.” On the floor beside his leg, Meryamon laid the long, delicate censer, shaped like an arm with an open hand at the end, that he had been inspecting. Newly polished, the gold it was made from glistened in the light like the flesh of the lord Re.
“Why didn’t you say?”
Meryamon flushed, then glanced surreptitiously at the half-dozen men scattered along the lean-to that shaded two sides of the open court. A warm breeze rustled the palm fronds spread atop the shelter. Surrounded by ritual imple ments, they were cleaning and buffing bronze and gold and precious inlays for use during this and the eight remaining days of the Opet festival. Unseen craftsmen in another part of the building could be heard hammering metal. The young priest sat cross-legged on a reed mat, surrounded by objects given him for inspection. Many were outstanding examples of the metalsmith’s craft.
“I guess I was too surprised to hear he’d been given the re sponsibility for the reversion of offerings. I had no idea he was so highly thought of.”
“Were you not told that he reported to no less a man than the chief priest?”
“I knew Hapuseneb sent him, but I thought the audit rou tine.”
Had it been routine? Bak did not know. Nor had Ptahmes been able to tell him. The aide had assumed so, at least at the beginning, but when Bak had found him in the house of life not an hour ago, before the long arm of the lord Khepre could reach into the sacred precinct, he had said, “Ha puseneb is a wily old bird; he may’ve sensed a transgression within the storehouses and brought Woserhet here without telling even him of his suspicions.”
Unfortunately, Woserhet had repeated the same mistake with his scribe Tati, telling him nothing, letting him search with his eyes blinded by lack of knowledge.
Irked at the thought, Bak asked Meryamon, “How often did you have occasion to speak with him?”
The priest shrugged. “Two or three times at most. A greet ing usually and not much else.”
“What was your impression of him?”
Another shrug, and the closed expression of a man un willing to commit himself.
Sighing inwardly, Bak wiped a film of sweat from his forehead. “Surely you thought something about him.”
The priest studied his foot, refusing to meet Bak’s eyes.
“The sacred precinct is like a village, sir. People talk and you can’t help listening. Listening and being influenced.”
Bak felt as if he were pulling an arrow driven deep within a wooden target. The man would offer nothing without it be ing dragged from him. “From what you heard, Meryamon, what did you conclude about him?”
“They said he was a plodder, a man who searched out mi nor errors like a bee eater seeks a hive, and he wouldn’t let rest the least significant matter until someone wasted the time it took to resolve the problem.”
“Is that what you saw the few times you spoke with him?”
The priest’s eyes darted toward Bak and away. A reddish stain washed up his face. “I thought it best to have as little to do with him as possible.”
Bak muttered an oath beneath his breath. Meryamon had no spine whatsoever-or so he appeared. He had managed to convince someone in authority that he was responsible enough to see that the priests were provided with the proper supplies and equipment for the various rituals. A demanding task he must be performing well or he would not be here.
Bak picked up a tall, thin, spouted libation jar. Made of gold and polished to a high sheen, it surpassed in beauty all the other objects scattered around the priest. “This was kept in the storehouse where Woserhet was found?”
Meryamon eyed the jar as if he feared the officer would drop it, marring its perfection. “Behind the records room, yes.”
“So if the building had burned, this and all the other ritual objects except those being used in the procession would’ve burned with it.” Thanking the lord Amon that such had not been the case, Bak returned the jar to the spot from which he had taken it. Such a loss would have been an abomination.