“I’ve heard he wasn’t well liked.”
“I suppose a few men resented him, feeling he was prying-and he was. But we’re all men of experience. He’s not the first auditor we’ve met, nor will he be the last.”
Bak appreciated the overseer’s attitude, a man who ac cepted the bad with the good, making no special fuss. “What can you tell me of Meryamon?”
“We’re back to him, uh?” Nebamon grinned at Bak, then began to dig another hole. “He seems a likable enough young man.”
“I seek something more specific,” Bak said, returning the smile. “Where, for example, did he come from?”
“Somewhere to the north. Gebtu? Abedju? Ipu? That gen eral area.”
Some distance away, several days’ journey at best. No easy way of narrowing that down without asking Meryamon himself. “His task requires a man of trust and dependability.
To attain such a post, he must’ve come from a family of posi tion and wealth. Or some man of influence befriended him.”
Nebamon took a cloth from his belt and wiped the sweat from his face. “I’ve heard a provincial governor spoke up for him, but who that worthy man was, I don’t recall. If ever I was told his name.”
Vowing to dig deeper into Meryamon’s past, Bak watched the pigeons circle around and settle on the far side of the roof, their soft cooing carrying on the air. “I saw you two days ago after the procession entered Ipet-resyt, watching a troupe of Hittite acrobats. Standing beside you was a red haired man.” He disliked deceiving so likable and industri ous an individual, but the ploy had satisfied Meryamon, so why not use it again? “Many years ago, I knew someone who looked very much like him, but I don’t recall his name.
I wonder if he could be the man I knew?”
The overseer looked up from his small excavation. “I talked to dozens of people that day: friends, acquaintances, strangers.” He broke apart a lump of dried mud and studied the straw embedded inside. Nodding his satisfaction, he rose to his feet. “The roof appears undamaged. I’ll send a man up here to fill the holes and replaster, and it’ll be as good as new.”
As they walked together to the ladder, Bak asked, “Do you by chance remember the redhead? If I bump into him during the festival, I’d like to be able to call him by name.”
“I’ve no idea who you’re talking about. How can I recall one of so many?”
Was he telling the truth? Bak liked the overseer and thought him honest-at least he hoped he was. However, he could not deceive himself. As overseer of the storage block,
Nebamon had unrestrained access and was less likely to be watched closely by those in attendance than was Merya mon. Also, he was responsible not only for storing the items, but for receiving them from far and wide and distrib uting them elsewhere. To where? Bak wondered. Amonked had not explained.
Bak left the lovely limestone court in front of Ipet-isut and walked south to the partially completed gate. The sun struck pavement was so hot he could feel the warmth through the soles of his sandals. Striding through the gate, he paused at the low end of the construction ramps and looked south along the processional way toward the first barque sanctuary. There, just two days earlier, he had stood with his men, awaiting their dual sovereigns and the sacred triad.
The unfinished gate towers stood sadly neglected, the workmen released to enjoy the festival. A dozen boys, none more than ten years of age, were towing a large empty sledge up the ramp built against the east tower. One shouted out commands, pretending to be an overseer slapping his thigh with a stick, a make-believe baton of authority. The rest struggled mightily to pull the heavy vehicle. What they meant to do with the sledge when they reached the top, Bak dared not imagine.
On an impulse, he decided to climb the west ramp, bare and unoccupied except for a sledge laden with facing stones.
With no foreman to complain that he would get in the work men’s way, he could ascend unimpeded to the top. From there he would have a panoramic view of the southern por tion of the city.
The slope was not steep and soon he reached the upper end. As he had expected, the scene laid out before him was lovely. After passing the first barque sanctuary, the pro cessional way swung west around the small walled mansion of the lady Mut, then cut a wide swath south to Ipet-resyt.
Along much of the way, buildings pressed against the strips of trampled grass lining both sides of the broad thorough fare. The sea of white rooftops was dotted at times with the dark brown of unpainted dwellings and islands of dusty green trees standing alone or clustered in groves. A sizable crowd had gathered beyond the mansion of the lady Mut to watch a procession of some kind.
He waved to the boys, who had stopped to rest, and moved to the western edge of the ramp, where he looked down into the housing area outside the small gate he and
Amonked had used to reach the storehouse where Woserhet was slain. Few people walked the lanes; the day was too hot.
Donkeys stood close to the dwellings in narrow slices of shade, and dogs lay well back in open doorways. A move ment caught his eye. A man, a redhead, coming out of the sa cred precinct. Turning toward the unfinished gate and the ramp on which Bak stood, the man walked along the lane at the base of the enclosure wall.
Bak could not see his face clearly, but the fuzzy hair was the color he remembered. He raced down the ramp, entered the lane running alongside, and ran back toward the enclo sure wall. The redhead rounded the corner. He saw Bak, piv oted, and retreated the way he had come. Bak turned the corner and spotted him ahead, veering into a lane that led in among the housing blocks.
Bak raced to the point where the man had vanished, saw him turn into an intersecting lane. He sped after him. The man ducked into a narrower passage and another and an other, zigging and zagging between building blocks that all looked much alike. Each time Bak lost sight of him, the sound of running footsteps and at times the barking of an ag itated dog drew him on.
The red-haired man was fast and knew this part of the city well. He maintained his distance, twisting and turning with out a pause. How far they ran, Bak had no idea, but he had begun to gasp for air and sweat was pouring from him when his quarry dashed out from among the building blocks and onto the grassy verge lining the processional way. A short burst of speed took him into the crowd Bak had seen from atop the ramp.
He was so focused on the redhead that he was slow to re alize the procession was made up of men leading exotic ani mals imported from afar. Though not nearly as long as the procession of two days earlier, the number of spectators was large, with a multitude of wide-eyed and noisy children among equally enthralled adults. The redhead used the crowd to his advantage, letting his bright hair blend in among the many colorful banners carried by the youthful spectators. Bak lost him within moments.
Stopping to catch his breath, he paused at a booth to buy a jar of beer. He drank the thick, acrid liquid while he walked the length of the procession, searching for his quarry. His eyes strayed often to the creatures parading along the thor oughfare. He assumed they were the more manageable of the animals Maatkare Hatshepsut kept in a zoo within the walls surrounding the royal house. Except for a few special occasions, they were never seen by any but a privileged few.
Why she had chosen to show them now, he had no idea.
An elderly black-maned lion held pride of place. Behind him, carried by porters wearing the bright garb of southern
Kush, came a caged lioness and a leopard, both of which Bak might well have seen in Buhen, being transported from far to the south on their way to Kemet. A leashed and muz zled hyena led a parade of baboons and monkeys, antelopes and gazelles, each creature with its own keeper. Men carried a few caged birds that had somehow survived the long jour ney from distant lands. Last in line, occupying another place of honor, lumbered a bear from lands to the north, led by a man of Mitanni.