Lauren Haney - A Vile Justice

Amonhotep sucked in his breath, horrified. "May the lord Khnum forgive me for being so trusting."

"He's thrown up a lot of the broth. He still may live." Amonhotep swung around to leave. "I must summon a physician!"

Bak grabbed his arm, stopping his flight. "There's no need. I sent Simut for one the moment I saw the truth." The aide stared down at the prone man. "Why? Why would she slay her own father?"

Bak, too, stared at Djehuty. He thought the governor one of the least worthy men he had ever known. Nonetheless, he dropped to his knees and offered a fervent prayer to the lord Amon that the man's life would be spared.

"Where did mistress Khawet go?" Bak demanded.

"I don't know, sir." The guard Kames stood as stiff as a tree, trying hard not to be buffeted by the winds of circumstance. First, his former partner Nenu had been proven untrustworthy, now mistress Khawet. "She didn't tell me. Why should she?" His voice came perilously close to a whine. "I'm only a guard, sir, a fixture of the villa. Kind of like a doorjamb with a spear."

Bak did not know whether to laugh or shake the man. "Did you overhear her say anything when she left?" "You mustn't blame me for the governor's death, sir." Definitely a whine. "How was I to know she was the slayer?"

"Karnes! The governor's not yet dead!" Bak's voice, sharp and fierce, carried across the empty audience hall, gaining a hard edge as it slammed against bare, white walls and the high ceiling. The guard snapped his eyes shut as if he feared a blow.

"What did she say when she left?" Bak repeated. Kames shook his head. "I don't remember."

"Can you at least tell me which direction she took?" "Sir?" A plump young servant girl stepped through the door near the governor's dais. "I don't know what mistress Khawet said, sir. She talked to the cook, not me. But I saw her go down to the landingplace and sail north in her husband's skiff."

"She told me she wanted to be by herself for a time." The cook, a shapeless woman with graying hair, swirled her flour, dusted hands in a large-mouthed reddish bowl filled with water and shook off the excess. "Why a woman her age needs time to herself I'll never know. And her with no children!"

An older man looked up from the brick hearth, where he was brushing oil on a half-cooked beef haunch suspended above the hot coals. "If you had to take care of that old wretch, you'd need to escape, too."

"She has servants, hasn't she?" Her look of disapproval changed to one of censure. "You'd best take care who you call a wretch. You never know who'll go running to him to pass on the tale. You know how often he orders the lash."

"If the slayer strikes tomorrow…" The man sneaked a glance at Bak. "… as the Lieutenant thinks he will, he won't be able to punish me or anyone else."

"You've no sense of respect, that's your problem."

Bak chose not to enlighten them about Djehuty's health or why he wished to find Khawet. They would learn soon enough anyway. "Does she go to any special place when she wishes to be alone?"

"To Nebmose's villa most often," the cook said. "Sometimes to the tombs of her ancestors, those old sepulchers high above the river on the west bank."

"I pray we find her at the tombs." Bak shoved the skiff off and jumped from the landingplace into the stern. "If not, we'd best go on to Nubt. I doubt she'd add Ineni's concubine and son to her list of victims, but we must take no chances."

Psuro rowed` toward deeper water and a faster current. "We know for a fact that she wasn't in the governor's compound or Nebmose's villa. We searched them both with due diligence."

"I don't know why we bothered," Kasaya grumbled. "The girl said she took the skiff."

"It doesn't do to leave one pebble unturned." Psuro gave the younger Medjay a condescending look. "How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Why would she take the skiff if she wasn't going to use it?"

Bak scowled at the pair, silencing them. Given free rein, the argument could go on through eternity. Psuro turned his attention to his task. Kasaya sorted through the weapons on the floor of the skiff: their spears and shields and the bow and well-armed quiver Nenu had abandoned on the riverbank. Most of the weapons, Bak suspected, would be of little or no use much of the time. Khawet had had a substantial head start. If she had indeed gone to the ancient tombs, she would be high above them when they approached, with a steep, sandy slope between.

"I know mistress Khawet doesn't have any use for me," Kasaya said, "and I don't like her much either, but I find it hard to believe she'd take five innocent lives."

"She's the last person in the household I'd have suspected." Psuro lifted the oars from the water and frowned. "Are you sure, sir?"

"I don't know exactly what set her off, and I've several other unanswered questions, but I'm certain of her guilt." Noticing they were drifting into the shallows, Psuro went back to rowing. His effort more than doubled the current's speed, and the small vessel raced headlong downstream toward the lower end of the island of Abu. A traveling ship, its sail aloft and swollen, swept south toward a fleet of fishing boats. Angry shouts from the smaller vessels warned of a seining net about to be breached. A dozen or so pelicans, rare so far south this early in the year, flew low over the water, waiting for the laden net to rise, bringing prey to the surface.

"Before Khawet left," Bak said, "she made sure nothing remained of the stew-I thank the lord Amon. At least she doesn't want anyone else in Abu to die."

Kasaya barked out a laugh. "Isn't it a bit late for her to show concern? How many deaths has she brought about so far?"

"We must never forget that in her own heart she believes she's seen justice done. A vile justice, to my way of thinking, but warranted to her."

"She believes the death of the child Nakht justified?" Psuro shook his head in disgust. "She has to be mad." Bak could not argue the point.

"There's her skiff!"

Kasaya, who had stood up in the prow as they rounded the northern tip of the island, pointed at a small boat drawn up on the shore of the far bank amid a thicket of tamarisks. A narrow oasis of trees and bushes followed the bend of the river around the base of a tall, steep hill cloaked in sand and crowned with rock. Two terraces girdled the mound midway to the top. Along these high promenades, dark rectangles marked the entrances to ancient houses of eternity carved into the rock. Three lengthy stairways, almost buried in windblown sand, rose from the oasis to the tombs. If others existed, they lay out of sight around the curve of the hill. Bak could see no sign of life, but the distance was great and segments of terrace were concealed behind mounds of debris excavated by ancient tunnelers.

Kasaya, eyeing the extensive golden slope, shook his head in wonder. "Funny place for a woman to go."

"A good place to be alone," Psuro said.

Manning the rudder, Bak eased the skiff through a cluster of partially submerged boulders guarding the tip of the island. He wondered why Khawet had chosen the tombs as her destination. She must have realized after talking with Amethu that he and his Medjays would be hot on her trail. Yet rather than run away in search of freedom, she had sought refuge in-the dwellings of her ancestors, a place not easy to reach, but reachable.

"I hope that skiff is hers," he said, "and if so, I hope she didn't abandon it at the river's edge to lead us astray." The words were like water thrown on a fire, quenching his companions' optimism. Psuro rowed grim-faced and with purpose. Kasaya stared at the distant craft as if willing it to keep its promise that Khawet was close by. Clearing the boulders, Bak swung their vessel diagonally across the current, his eyes on the steep, sandy incline and the terraces above. The deserted boat lay midway along the row of visible tombs, giving no clue as to which of the stairways she might have climbed.