“Not adept enough, it seems.”
Ignoring the mild sarcasm, Amonked rested his backside against the balustrade wall that rose up the outer edge of a broad but shallow stairway giving access to the older of the two chapels. “I fear I wasn’t entirely forthright when I stopped to chat with you earlier today. I’d received a disturb ing message from Woserhet and thought to have you go with me when I met him. Unfortunately, with the procession up 36
Lauren Haney permost in my thoughts-and in everyone else’s, I as sumed-I saw no need for haste.”
Bak gave him a sharp look. “You’d never met him and yet he wrote to you?”
“Hapuseneb must shoulder many tasks through the length of the Beautiful Feast of Opet. As a result, he’ll be unavail able much of the time. He told me he’d given Woserhet a special assignment and asked me to be available should he need me. He said Woserhet would explain if necessary.”
Amonked glanced at the kitten, his expression troubled. “I agreed and thought no more of it. Much to my regret now that we’ve found him dead.”
Bak leaned against the low outer wall of the beautifully symmetrical building, indifferent to its rich reliefs of the an cient king and the lord Min. The colors, though no longer as vibrant as they once had been, were still lively enough to please the eye and lighten the heart of a man far less preoc cupied than he. “Can you tell me what the message said?”
Amonked released a long, unhappy sigh. “It was short and direct, and I fear it deepens the mystery surrounding his death. He said he’d learned something quite shocking and requested a private meeting before nightfall this day.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.” Amonked stood erect and signaled that they must leave. “I feel I’ve let Hapuseneb down, and I don’t like to think of myself as a man who fails to live up to his prom ises.” He paused, obviously reluctant to speak out. “I hesi tate to ask you, as you must be looking forward to the festival as much as everyone else. But I wish you to discover what the message refers to and to snare Woserhet’s slayer.
Hopefully before the end of the festival when the lord Amon returns to Ipet-isut and you must travel on to Mennufer.”
Chapter Three
“Like the priest said, most were headed out of the sacred precinct. They were all in a hurry; didn’t want to miss the start of the procession.” The older guard, Tetynefer, glanced at his two companions, who nodded agreement. “Like us, they heard him yell and came running. None of us wasted any time talking. That fire had to be put out.”
“The well is close, I see.” Bak looked over the waist-high wall that protected the broad, round mouth of the well. In side, a spiraling stairway led down to a platform that encir cled the top of a narrower shaft up which water was drawn.
“Still, it takes a lot of water to put out a fire-and it must be delivered fast.”
“You see the problem,” Tetynefer said, eyeing the officer with respect. “Water alone would never have done the task.”
A tall, sturdy young guard whose accent marked him as a man of the north grinned. “Tetynefer sent me off in search of something to smother it. The lord Amon smiled on me, and right away I found a heavy woolen cloak.”
“I led the rest off to the well.” Tetynefer looked upon the young man with considerable pride. “By the time I got back with a jar of water, he’d shoved well out of the way all the scrolls that weren’t burning and had quenched the fire lick ing the ends of others.” He motioned toward the young man’s sandals, which were black and charred. An angry red burn ran up the side of his right ankle. “Look at his feet. No common sense at all but the courage of a lion.”
Trying without success to look modest, the young guard said, “As soon as they brought the water, it was all over.”
“We didn’t get a good look at the dead man until the fire was out.” The third guard, a shorter and stouter man, stood his shield against the wall and knelt beside it. “We saw the wound in his neck and sent the boy for the Overseer of Over seers. Instead he brought you and the Storekeeper of Amon.”
Bak turned away from the well and sat on a mudbrick bench shaded by a half-dozen date palms. Fronds rustled above his head, stirred by the light breeze, and the sweet song of a hoopoe filled the air.
“Since most men would give their best kilts to see the pro cession, I assume you were ordered to stay,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” Tetynefer hunkered down in the scruffy grass in front of him. “I’ve seen enough processions to satisfy me through eternity, and these two,” he nodded toward his com panions, “grew to manhood in Waset. Our sergeant thought to give men new to the capital the opportunity to watch.”
The sturdy guard looked up from the dirt in which he was drawing stick men. “He’s vowed to assign us to the court yard in front of Ipet-isut when the lord Amon returns from his southern mansion. We’ll get to see him close up, closer than we ever would standing alongside the processional way. And the other gods and our sovereigns, too.”
A fair exchange of duties, Bak agreed. “Amonked and I saw no sentry when we came through the gate, and unless
I’m mistaken, no one’s on duty there now. Aren’t the gates guarded?”
“Yes, sir. At least in a manner of speaking.” The tall guard leaned back against the wall of the well, raised his spear, and shoved it hard into the ground, making it stand erect. “Our task is to keep an eye on the gate and at the same time patrol the streets and lanes within this sector of the sacred precinct, making sure no one roams around who has no right to be here.”
His shorter companion nodded. “With so many people come to Waset from afar, you never know who might allow his curiosity to lead him inside to explore.”
“Or to take something of value,” Tetynefer added.
Bak was not especially surprised at so casual an attitude toward guarding the sacred precinct. Few people would risk offending the greatest of the gods. “Did any of you happen to see Woserhet arrive?”
“I did,” Tetynefer said. “He came from the north, as if from the god’s mansion. I wouldn’t have noticed him-there were too many others hustling and bustling around, per forming tasks related to the festival-but he was so deep within his thoughts that he stumbled over a blind dog that lays in the lane every morning, warming his tired old bones.
He felt so bad he gave me a food token, telling me to get meat for the cur. After that he went into the storage maga zine where Meryamon found him.”
“Did you go then to get the meat?” Bak asked.
“I didn’t have time.” Tetynefer’s eyes narrowed, fearing
Bak might be questioning his honesty rather than his where abouts. “Never fear, sir. I’ll not take food from a dog’s mouth.”
Bak reassured him with a smile. “The three of you never left this sector after Woserhet came?”
“No, sir,” they said as one.
“After he entered the storehouse, how much time passed before Meryamon smelled smoke?”
“A half hour.” Tetynefer’s eyes darted toward the younger guards. “I told you right away about the token. Would a half hour be a fair guess?”
The stout one nodded; the other looked doubtful. “Closer to an hour, I’d say.”
“Did you notice any strangers wandering around after he came?”
The three guards laughed.
“One man in three, maybe one in four, was a stranger,” the taller guard explained. “During this busy time, the regular priests need all the help they can get.”
Bak listened to the chatter of birds in the otherwise silent sacred precinct and imagined how full of life it must have been so short a time ago. The mansion of the god and the many buildings crowded around it, literally a city within the city of Waset, had been alive with people and activity. Then almost everyone had gone, leaving the streets and lanes de serted, the buildings empty, the scrolls and sacred vessels abandoned. The slayer could have struck at any time, but the most opportune time would have been those last few confus ing moments when everyone was preparing to leave, too busy to notice and too eager to get away.