“Humph!” the old man said, glaring.
“Grandfather knows of what he speaks,” the apprentice said. “No one liked Montu.”
“Ani. .” Ramose scowled disapproval.
With a fond smile, Amonemhab ruffled his grandson’s hair.
“If you seek his slayer among the men who toil at Djeser Djeseru, Lieutenant, you must look at every man here.”
Thinking of corruption, of stolen equipment and false records, Bak’s eyes settled on Ramose. “Was he a man who found fault with the work of others and threatened to lay bare their mistakes?”
The chief scribe was not a stupid man. He realized what Bak was getting at and his voice grew hard, taut. “He tried to find fault, yes, but when he sniffed around here, he found nothing wrong. We allow no man to get away with what isn’t his, nor do we take more than our share. We allow no theft of supplies and equipment, nor do we condone the distribution of too much or too little in return for the effort a man makes each day. The records we keep are as accurate as men can make them, the quantities checked and rechecked.”
“Then you won’t object if my scribe Hori looks over your accounts.”
“I do object.” Ramose’s attempt at civility came close to failing. “I object wholeheartedly, but can I prevent it? No.
Nor will I make the attempt.”
“Amonked’s scribes have found no fault.” The old man gave Bak a sour look. “Do you think that boy of yours has a sharper eye?”
“Montu was a disgusting man!” Ani’s hatred burned bright on his face. “If you’re to find his slayer, look at the man himself, not us.”
Ramose hissed like a snake, trying to silence him. Which alerted Bak that another truth lay close to the surface of their hearts. He set his beer jar on the sand by his feet, crossed his arms over his breast, and stared hard at the boy. “Why do you feel so strongly about him?”
Ani looked down at the scroll in his lap, mumbled,
“Everyone hated him. Not me alone. Everyone.”
“You know as well as I that no secrets remain hidden for long, especially in a place of work such as this.” Bak spoke to the father and not the son. “I don’t know what you’re hiding, but you can be sure I’ll soon learn. If not from you, from someone else. A tale built upon by the teller’s imagination, which may or may not be in your favor.”
The boy looked one way and another, refusing to meet his A PLACE OF DARKNESS
63
father’s blame-filled eyes. Rather like a beetle caught in a deep bowl, scrabbling here and there and everywhere for a means of escape.
“All right,” Ramose said, his voice harsh, angry. “Montu made advances to my new wife. She’s young and I like to think her beautiful. That imbecile. .” He glared at his son, who looked mortified. “. . was born of my first wife, who died bearing me a daughter some years ago.”
“Montu went to our house while we toiled here.” The old man spat out the words; that he shared Ramose’s anger was plain. “He wanted the woman, said if she didn’t comply he’d send the three of us to the distant frontier. With no one in Waset to protect her, she’d have to submit.”
The boy’s gloom vanished in an unexpected grin. “He didn’t know her very well, did he, grandfather?”
A hint of a smile flickered through the old man’s anger.
“He grabbed her, tried to force her. She screamed for a servant, who came running. A mere child, but one of infinite courage. She hit him on the head with a stool, forcing him to release Ramose’s wife.”
“Paralyzed with fear at what she’d done, the servant backed off.” Ramose’s chin came up and his breast swelled with pride. “Fearing he’d not give up, my wife threw a hot brazier, which shattered on his back, throwing forth the smoldering fuel and burning him.”
“A well-deserved reward,” Bak said, “but I’m surprised he didn’t retaliate by sending you away.”
“Blackmail can go both ways.” Ramose bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile. “He thought because he was of exalted status, he could do as he wished. That same pride in his lofty position made him loath to be made to look the fool.”
Chapter Five
“We talked with twelve men and not one among them doubts that a malign spirit walks within this valley.” Hori laid his writing implements on the lap of a rough-finished white limestone seated statue of Maatkare Hatshepsut and bent to scratch an ankle. “They speak with certainty, but when pressed for details, they say, ‘Oh, Ahmose told me. . ’
or ‘Montu said. . ’ or ‘Sobekhotep swears he saw. . ’ ”
“You spoke with whom?” Bak asked.
“The craftsmen toiling in the sanctuary and memorial chapels. We had no time to speak with anyone else.”
Rubbing the sweat from his face, Bak dropped onto a large irregular block of sandstone lying on the terrace between the completed portion of the southern retaining wall and the ramp that led downward. He could hear the men below singing an age-old workmen’s song, its words repetitive, as monotonous as their task of relaying the final baskets of fill into the tomb where Montu had been slain.
“Interesting,” he said. “I saw no fear among them yesterday, yet the sanctuary and chapels are places of relative soli-tude. Places where a malign spirit might seek them out.”
Kasaya sat down on the base of the white statue and leaned back against his sovereign’s stone legs. “Perhaps they feel the lord Amon’s presence.”
“It’s the heart of the temple, yes,” Hori scoffed, “but it’s not been sanctified.”
The Medjay’s expression remained earnest, untroubled by the scribe’s teasing. “The spirit’s only been seen at night, and seldom up there.”
“Most of the accidents have taken place in the light of day,” Bak pointed out, “while the men were toiling at their various tasks.”
“No artists have been slain, sir.” Hori rested a hip against a limestone thigh. “One man was hurt some months ago. A scaffold collapsed when he was outlining the images high on the face of a wall. He was thrown to the floor and his arm was broken. If the malign spirit loosened the rope that bound the poles, it did so at night.”
“They now look more closely at their scaffolds,” Kasaya said.
“And each morning,” Hori added, “they bend a knee in what’s left of the temple of our sovereign’s worthy ancestors, Djeserkare Amonhotep and his revered mother Ahmose Nefertari.”
The youth pointed east toward the remains of mudbrick walls that were gradually being consumed as the terrace was extended. One outer wall rose to shoulder height, but the remaining walls were lower, their bricks carried away to be used elsewhere in construction ramps and as fill. What little remained of the lower courses and foundation was covered over as the terrace was lengthened.
Silently cursing the superstitions that made men so illogi-cal, Bak eyed the workmen’s huts clumped together like a small, impoverished village on the broad strip of sand between Djeser Djeseru and the ancient temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. The chief scribe Ramose dwelt there much of the time, though he had talked of a more comfortable home in a village at the edge of the river valley.
“Where’s this malign spirit most often seen?” he asked.
“Sometimes over there.” Hori pointed toward the ruined temple beyond the huts. “Sometimes in the old tombs on the slopes overlooking this valley.” He waved his hand in the general direction of distant colonnades visible on the hillsides. “Sometimes on this terrace among the unfinished statues and architectural elements.”
Kasaya’s eyes darted around the immediate vicinity. He tried to appear casual, tried hard not to betray his fear that the malign spirit might be hidden among the surrounding blocks of stone.
“Almost everywhere, you’re saying.”
“It’s never gone near the workmen’s huts, so they say.”
“Amazing,” Bak said, not at all amazed.
He looked upward, but could see nothing of the heart of the temple. The upper colonnade that would serve as its facade was a long way from being finished, as was the wall behind it, but the terrace on which he stood was too low to allow him to see inside. The workmen’s huts in the hollow between the two temples were considerably lower. “Where are the night guards when the malign spirit shows itself?