Lauren Haney: A Vile Justice

Djehuty sat as if turned to stone by the gods, his face pasty white, his hands clutching the arms of his chair.

"No!" Someone-Ineni, Bak thought-breathed the denial.

` The portly chief scribe Simut stared at the servant, blinking like a man unable to comprehend. Troop Captain Antef muttered a curse, calling the lord Khnum for strength, and groped for the handle of his dagger as if seeking its protection. The chief steward Amethu's lips began to move, but no words came out-a prayer of some kind, most likely.

"I must see her," Bak said, his voice sharp above the girl's sobs.

Amonhotep, still grasping her shoulders, shook his head as if waking from a dream-or a nightmare. "Where is she, Nefer? You must take us to her."

"I can't look at her again!" Sobbing, shaking her head, she tried to back away, to free herself. "Oh, sir, please don't ask it of me!"

Bak laid a hand on her arm. His touch was gentle, his demeanor kind, yet he felt her cringe. "We ask only that you show us where you found her, Nefer. Nothing more."

She gave him the look a drowning man would give one who had thrown out a lifesaving rope, but the tears continued to pour, the sobs to break the flow of words. "We went into the master's quarters in Nebmose's villa. We thought to prepare the rooms for you, sir. That's where we came upon her. Mistress Khawet and I."

"Nebmose's villa?" Bak threw Amonhotep a puzzled glance. "She wasn't slain within this compound, as the others were?"

"Our walls surround both houses." The aide kept his eyes on Nefer, spoke to her, calming her with facts she surely knew well. "This has long been the governor's villa, occupied by Djehuty's family for many generations, since a longdead ancestor was made governor of the south by Kheperkare Senwosret. The other house and its outbuildings belonged to a family as old as Djehuty's, probably descended from the same ancestor. When the last of the line, Nebmose, lost his life and no man or woman remained to inherit, Djehuty took the property in the name of our sovereign, Maatkare Hatshepsut, and made it a part of his own. The rooms once occupied by the master of the house we now use to shelter visiting dignitaries, the remainder for storage."

Normally, property that reverted to the royal house was handed over to a god's mansion to be used for income or was given to a private individual as a reward for services. Had Djehuty simply taken the villa as his due? Or had he performed some worthy act?

"Hatnofer lies where we found her," Nefer sobbed, "in the master's bath. I dared not touch her, but mistress Khawet knelt by her side and sought the pulse of life in her neck." "Mistress Khawet?" Bak asked.

"My daughter," Djehuty croaked.

"My wife," Ineni said at the same time. His eyes flitted toward Djehuty and he added in a caustic voice, "She serves as mistress of this household for her father."

Bak gave him a sharp look, but Ineni's expression gave nothing away. Any message he had meant to convey had been for Djehuty's benefit, not for an outsider, a police officer.

Bak turned to the servant, smiled. "We must go, Nefer." He waited for her nod, then glanced at Amonhotep. "I'll need you, too, Lieutenant."

"Of course." Amonhotep released the young woman's shoulders and stepped back, but not so far that he could not stop her should she attempt to flee.

"What of the rest of us, Lieutenant?" Simut demanded. "The wretched woman was a housekeeper, important to this household but of no appreciable worth to the affairs of the province. On the surface, her death appears to verify your theory, but does it?"

Was the scribe always so irascible? Bak wondered. Or was he using irritability to shield himself from grief-or fear? Simut undoubtedly knew the power a housekeeper could wield, as did he. Bak's father, a physician highly regarded for his skills, had been unable to save his mother, who had died in childbirth. He had grown from a babe to manhood in the care of a woman who had ruled the servants with an iron hand — and himself and his father with the tact and skill of a royal envoy.

"In a large establishment such as this, the mistress of the house ofttimes serves as a hostess, leaving the housekeeper to oversee the servants and see that no task is forgotten and all are done well. Was that true here?"

"It was." Amethu, who had ceased his prayer, stepped forward. "But now and again, when Hatnofer complained of drowning in a flood of duties, mistress Khawet eased her path by helping."

"I have a feeling," Bak said, turning again to Simut, "that the slayer wishes to damage Djehuty, not the province. In that respect, Hatnofer stood among you as an equal and you no longer have to fear for your lives."

"And if you err?" Simut shot back.

Taking care not to show how annoyed he was, praying a second death would not occur before the sun dropped below the western horizon, Bak's eyes traveled along the row of men. "Go on about your business, all of you. But go with care, extreme care, surrounding yourselves at all times with other men, giving the slayer no chance to draw near."

They hurried out of the audience hall, Amonhotep in the lead, Nefer whimpering a step or two behind, and Bak close on her heels. They strode through a series of chambers, all comfortably furnished with low wooden tables, stools, and chests. Rush mats covered the floors and floral paintings decorated many walls. In the larger rooms, flowers of every color imaginable were massed in pottery jars, perfuming the air. Deeper in the dwelling, a series of corridors took them past smaller, plainer chambers containing sleeping pallets and storage chests.

Leaving the building through a rear door, they hastened across a bare patch of sand, passing a row of four tall, conical granaries built alongside the house. A gate through a waisthigh wall took them into another sandy yard, which fronted the long, low building housing the kitchen and servants' quarters. The yeasty scent of fresh bread vied with the aroma of roasting meat, reminding Bak of the midday meal he had missed. The tangy odor of manure drifted from a building hidden behind a wall; the whinny of a horse identified its occupants.

Within another, smaller enclosed yard, he saw the well, a wide-mouthed round hole surrounded by a low wall, with a flight of steps leading downward. Beyond a higher wall, date palms whispered in the breeze and birds fluttered among the leaves of a sycamore: the garden he had seen earlier in the day.

As they passed through yet another gate, this in a wall much too tall to see over, Nefer's feet began to drag, telling Bak they had entered the grounds of the neighboring villa. The passage had been opened between the two propertieswhether at Djehuty's command or sometime in the past he had no way of knowing-to provide a shorter path between the two dwellings, eliminating the need to walk around to the formal entrance at the front. The house, he saw, was about half the size of Djehuty's but palatial compared to most of the dwellings in a provincial city such as Abu.

After passing four granaries and an empty stable, they stepped through a door Nefer had left open in her haste to get help. Beyond three small rooms filled with sealed storage jars, they entered a hall whose high ceiling was supported by two papyrus-shaped columns. The room was bright and cheerful, a place designed to please visitors of lofty rank. The musty smell of an empty dwelling underlay the odor of fresh paint.

Another door led to a spacious room furnished with wooden chests, stools, and even a chair. Thick rush mats covered the floor. The walls were white, with a simple lily motif running around the room near the ceiling. This had once been the private reception room in the master's suite. The quarters were far too grand for Bak's purpose and taste, far too sumptuous for himself and his Medjays, and with the governor's villa so close, far less private than he liked. A problem Hatnofer's death had solved for him.