Lauren Haney: A Vile Justice

"And finally a lieutenant." Amonhotep's eyes slewed toward the governor. "Each man more lofty than the next." "No." Djehuty buried his face in his hands. "It's impossible! Another coincidence!"

Amonhotep's eyes met Bak's and he shook his head in dismay. "I've known men to slay in the heat of anger or to take an enemy's life on the field of battle. But this? I fear I don't understand."

"Nor do L" The question the aide had posed was important, Bak knew, but he had a more immediate problem. "Today is the tenth day of the week. If the pattern holds, someone will die today, someone of a rank higher than Lieutenant and not necessarily a soldier."

Amonhotep's voice grew weary. "You speak of all those men closest to the governor, all who toil solely at his behest. The loftiest men in the province."

"They must be warned." Bak glanced skyward. The sun, a burning yellow ball in a vivid blue sky, had risen to within an hour of midday. He prayed they were not already too late.

Djehuty's armchair stood empty on the dais in the audience hall. Filing into the room one after another were the men he had summoned at Bak's request. These were the highest officials on the governor's staff, men he depended upon for the smooth running of the province, his personal estate, and the small garrison situated on the island of Abu. Four men were standing before the dais, talking among themselves, speculating as to the purpose of the summons. Amonhotep, who stood with Bak just outside a door near the dais, had identified them as they entered: Troop Captain Antef, the chief steward Amethu, the chief scribe Simut, and Djehuty's son Ineni.

"I thank the lord Khnum they've all come," Amonhotep said. "I feared one among them would be unable to appear." Khnum was the god who guarded the sources of the river, the inundation. He was the principal god of Abu.

Bak noted the way the young officer skirted around the mention of death. He had surely realized his own situation. Or had he? "Have you thought, Amonhotep, that you're Djehuty's right hand, as essential to the smooth running of this province as any of the four we see before us?"

Amonhotep gave Bak a tight smile. "I'm not my master, Bak. I'm fully aware that I must count myself among those who might next face death."

Djehuty rushed out of a back room, swooped past the two officers without a word, and hurried to the dais. He sat on the mound of pillows padding his chair, his body stiff, his face pale and tight, and spoke with a forced composure. His staff formed a ragged line in front of him, silent, curious.

"You know as well as I of the unfortunate deaths we've suffered here in my household," the governor said. "And you know the vizier suggested 1 summon an officer from the fortress of Buhen, a Lieutenant Bak." He paused to clear his throat, hurried on. "He's come, we've spoken at length, and he's reached a conclusion I hesitate to endorse."

Bak muttered an oath. The governor had vowed to support him with no reservations. Now here he was, retreating from a positive stance.

"I'll let the lieutenant speak for himself," Djehuty added, "so each of you may judge the worth of his words." Stifling his irritation, Bak stepped through the door to stand beside the dais. After a few introductory words to identify himself, he briefly discussed the four deaths and went on to the conclusions he had reached. "I believe… No! I'm convinced an attempt will be made before the day ends to slay one man among you."

"Bah!" This from a short, portly man with a fringe of curly white hair. Simut, the chief scribe. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but I'm a busy man. I can't run away and hide simply because you've arranged the facts to fit a theory you've created in haste. A week from now, two weeks-after you've come to know this place and its people-you might have sufficient knowledge to come up with a convincing argument. But now? Too soon. Much too soon."

Could he be right? Bak wondered. Could my past successes have made me overconfident? Hiding self-doubt in a humorless smile, he said, "Sir, if I were to walk on tiptoe and clutch caution to my breast, as you suggest, I doubt your governor will be among the living beyond a week from today.

Djehuty sucked in his breath like a man struck in the stomach. Bak was hard put to sympathize. If the governor had not yet admitted to himself that his name probably lay at the top of the slayer's list, he had no one to blame but himself. "I know of no man who would wish to slay my father." The speaker was tall like his sire, but harder muscled and lacking in angularity. His hair was short, dark, and glistening with good health, his skin burnished by the sun. He was close to Bak's twenty-five years.

"You must be Ineni," Bak said. "Lieutenant Amonhotep told me you oversee your father's estate."

"Where the lieutenant is my father's right hand," Ineni said, bowing his head in mock acknowledgment, "you must think of me as his left hand."

Bak commended the quip with a fleeting smile. "You don't take seriously the possibility of another murder, this one closer to you and yours?"

"Three of the dead out of four were soldiers. Would that not make Troop Captain Antef the next most likely man to die?"

"I may be wrong, but…" Simut snorted at the admission.

"… but I believe the youth Nakht was slain not only because of his lowly status, but to pass on the message that a civilian is as likely to die as a soldier."

"What kind of swine would slay a child?" The speaker, Antef, was a large, heavy man in his early thirties. He wore the short white kilt of a soldier and the belt and sheathed dagger of an officer. "And for no better reason than to deliver a message."

"You think I err?" Bak asked.

"I pray you do." Antef's mouth tightened. "If you've read the signs right, the one you seek is no ordinary man. He does what-he wants, giving no thought to the laws of men or the wishes of the gods."

"Few men walk the earth so fearless." Djehuty's chief steward, Amethu, was a man of middle years. He had the broad shoulders and narrow hips of youth, but his stomach bulged and he was as bald as a melon. He wore the anklelength kilt of a scribe and a bronze chain around his neck, from which hung a dozen or more small colored stone amulets of the ram-headed god Khnum.

Antef gave the steward a scornful look. "Some men don't share your awe of the gods, Amethu. They hold themselves Above all creatures, mortal and immortal alike."

"Should I feel shame because I revere the gods?" Amethu asked, raising his chin high. "It certainly wouldn't hurt you to bend your knee before a shrine or in the forecourt of a god's mansion."

"I served my turn less than a month ago as web priest in the mansion of…"

"Enough!" Bak raised his hands for silence and spoke to them all as one. "You each have duties, I know. They can't be laid aside because I believe the slayer intends next to slay one of you. Go on with what you must do, but stay always in the company of other men. Don't ever walk alone. Don't…"

"Sir!" A young woman, a servant if her rough linen sheath told true, burst through the rear door. Her roundish face was whiter than her dress, her eyes wide open, horrified. "Oh, Governor Djehuty!" she wailed. "It's terrible! Oh, sir!"

Bak leaped toward the young woman, confused by her words, by her demeanor, very much aware of the men before him, all alive and well. Could another individual have been murdered? One that did not fit the patterns he had so carefully developed?

Amonhotep, a step ahead, caught her by the shoulders. "What is it, Nefer? What's happened?"

Tears flowed as if from a river and she began to tremble. "Oh, sir! Oh!".

"Speak up, woman!" Amonhotep shook her none too gently. "Tell us what's happened."

"It's mistress Hatnofer," the girl sobbed. "She's dead. Her head smashed. So much blood! Oh, so much blood!" Hatnofer? Bak thought. Djehuty's housekeeper? He spat out an oath, and another and another. From what little the governor had said about the woman earlier in the day, she had been as important to him as were the five men standing before the dais. Yet he, Bak, had failed to think of her, to summon her, and now she lay dead. If her life had been taken while he stood here warning the others, he would blame himself through eternity.