Kasaya came bounding up the stairs with Hori’s dog at his heels. He ducked beneath the shelter, overturned a large pot, and sat down. The dog settled beside him and eyed his young master with sad brown eyes. He knew better than to disturb the scribe when he was surrounded by scrolls.
“You’ve come back empty-handed,” Bak said to the Med jay. “Where’s Tati?”
“I couldn’t find him.” Kasaya kicked off a sandal and bent to scratch a foot. “The one workman watching the house where they dwell didn’t know where he was, and when I asked if we could come and look at the records, he refused.
Tati had told him they belong to the lord Amon, and no less a man than the chief priest can see them.” He noted Bak’s scowl and spread his hands wide, absolving himself of all responsibility.
Bak closed his eyes and began to count, seeking patience.
His inability to speak with Hapuseneb during the Beautiful
Feast of Opet was becoming more burdensome each day.
The records, he felt sure, would shorten his path to the audi tor’s slayer, and he needed Tati’s help. “Go on, Hori. Tell me what you did next.”
“I continued as before, moving from one group to an other. I have a long way to go, but I think I’ve found a pat tern. Perhaps more than one.”
“For example.” Bak’s words came out like the croak of a frog.
“Each scroll lists many objects, all of a similar type,” Hori said. “More than half the undamaged documents I’ve read so far are for the various kinds of grain stored here in Waset.
They give the date a shipment was received and the quantity placed in the warehouse and, later, the date and number of bags removed, either for use here at Ipet-isut or for shipment to one of the lord Amon’s estates.”
“I assume the other items that turn up regularly are hides and metal ingots.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Like the grain, items too heavy and bulky to move with ease.” Bak cleared his throat, smothering a cough.
Hori flung a concerned look his way, but had the good sense to make no comment. “Of the partly burned scrolls
I’ve read so far, most list items manufactured in the god’s workshops and on the various estates and sent here for stor age and use. Lengths of linen, pottery, sandals, wine, and so on. As for the scraps Kasaya managed to save, they’re really hard to read and take a lot of guesswork, but I saw the sym bols for bronze and gold. Aromatic oils. Something that might’ve been ivory.”
“Interesting,” Bak said thoughtfully. “The items listed are many and varied. The documents obviously came from more than one storage block.”
“Yes, sir. I think Woserhet himself took them into that room, at least some of them. Or someone else did. There’s certainly no grain in that storehouse.
“He couldn’t have carried very many without a basket.”
Bak’s eyes darted toward the Medjay. “I saw no burned re mains. Did you, Kasaya?”
“I didn’t notice, sir. Should I take a closer look?”
“Yes.” Bak looked across the roof at the scraps of burned scrolls the young policeman had so painstakingly saved.
“Do you think you could glue some of those broken storage pots back together? I’d like to know where they came from.”
The Medjay thought over the idea, smiled like a child fac ing a new challenge, and stood up. “I must find a basket first, then I’ll bring the pieces back here.”
“You were right about a pattern.” Bak stood up and arched his back, stretching muscles made stiff from hunching over the blackened scraps of papyrus Kasaya had saved. He walked to the pavilion, pleased with the morning’s effort.
“With few exceptions, the documents not damaged by fire list grain or some other product valuable in itself but not easy to move.”
Hori shoved aside the large basket, now filled with the in tact scrolls they had read. “You’d think the slayer would’ve thrown them into the fire, too. If for no other reason than to confuse.”
“He was probably in a hurry, afraid of being seen.”
The scribe pulled over a small basket containing, if the smell told true, fish wrapped in wilting leaves. A flat, round loaf of bread lay on top with a spray of green onions and a bundle of radishes. “As I guessed earlier, most of the partly burned scrolls list products made for the lord Amon and brought from afar.”
Bak dragged the stool into the shade, sat down, and ac cepted a leaf-wrapped packet. “User told me the storage magazines in that block contain not only vessels and prod 110
Lauren Haney ucts used during the rituals, but other objects made to adorn the god, his shrine and the sacred barque.”
The scribe broke off a chunk of bread and handed it over.
“The same items listed on the worst burned scrolls. Those few scraps we could read with certainty, at any rate.”
Kasaya laid aside the third storage jar whose inscribed shoulder he had roughly pieced together and scooted closer to the food basket. “In other words, the man who slew him threw onto the fire the documents that might point a finger at himself, calling him a thief, and added a few others as fuel.”
“We’ve not yet confirmed that Woserhet was searching for a thief,” Bak reminded him.
“I can think of no more logical an assumption,” Hori said.
“Nor can I,” Bak admitted. He opened the packet and sniffed the slab of fish laying inside, boiled so long the flesh was flaking apart. “Kasaya, how many storage pots do you think were broken?”
“I’m not sure. More than a dozen, I’d guess.”
“Meryamon said there were fifteen or twenty empty spaces on the shelves.”
Kasaya eyed the three jars whose shoulders he had recon structed. “You’ve read the inscriptions I’ve pieced together so far. They say the jars belonged in the room where we found them.”
“Both Nebamon and Meryamon have easy access to that storehouse.” Hori thought a moment, added, “But Merya mon lied about knowing the red-haired man.” He turned to
Bak, his eyes glittering with a growing conviction. “You saw with your own eyes the one pass a message to the other.”
“I admit he looks guilty, but…”
“He has a secret he doesn’t want aired,” Kasaya said. “A secret of some import. What could be more loathsome than the theft of ritual equipment?”
“Sir!” Psuro poked his head up through the opening at the top of the stairs. “A messenger has come from Amonked. He wishes you to meet him right away. A man has been found slain. A second death in the sacred precinct.”
Chapter Eight
Bak let out a long, stunned breath. “It’s Meryamon.”
“Yes.” Amonked stared down at the body, his face bleak.
“Another death much like that of Woserhet.”
Taking care where he placed his feet, Bak stepped closer to the dead man through tall, thick weeds and grasses that had sprung up on the moist earth behind Ipet-isut. “No at tempt was made to burn him.”
“No, but his throat…” Amonked’s voice tailed off and he looked away.
Bak bent low to study the body, bringing to life the dull ache in his head. The young priest lay on his back, his shoulders raised slightly on a thick clump of grass, his head hanging back to reveal a long cut across his throat. Flies swarmed around the wound and over reddish smudges on his body. He had not been slain where he lay. The vegeta tion beneath and around him was smeared with dried blood, as was a trail of bruised foliage about four paces long lead ing out to a path that ran along the base of the god’s man sion. An attempt had been made to make the bloody trail look normal. The weeds had been pushed roughly back into place and dirt had been thrown over them, probably while the blood was wet, so no one would notice. Several whose stems had broken were wilting, an anomaly that had caught the attention of the young man who had found the body.
Visibly upset, he stood on the path with Amonked, Psuro, and two Medjays from Bak’s company of policemen.
Bak waded through the weeds beside the track along which Meryamon had been dragged. As was to be expected from such a long and deep incision, the priest had bled freely. The dirt and sand thrown over the foliage in no way covered the stains, but would have concealed them from ca sual passersby.