Lauren Haney - Place of Darkness

To the south and on lower ground, broken columns and a tumbled mound of stone stood atop a sandswept terrace, the ancient ruined temple of Nebhepetre Montuhotep. Bak had

played among those columns as a child, brought into the valley by his father’s housekeeper, who had come sometimes to bend a knee at a shrine to the lady Hathor. The valley had been quiet during that long ago time, a place of adoration. If the rising dust ahead told a true tale, he would find no peace and tranquillity now.

“Does Senenmut come here often?”

“As I said before, my young friend, he’s a busy man.”

Amonked’s mouth twitched. “A very busy man.”

Bak, letting out a long, slow breath of relief, barely noticed the humor. Senenmut was no more a friend of his than was Maatkare Hatshepsut.

“As you can see, the sanctuary is nearly complete.”

The senior architect, Pashed, stood aside so Bak could look the length of the long, narrow chamber that had been dug into the hillside. The enclosed space smelled of the four men inside, sweating in the heat, toiling in sunlight reflected from outside by means of a mirror. They barely glanced at the newcomer. They were too preoccupied with adding color to the shallow reliefs that adorned the walls, images of Maatkare Hatshepsut making offerings to various deities.

Bak did not tarry. He would have plenty of time to see details later.

“The same may be said of the memorial chapels to our sovereign and her father,” Pashed said, hurrying on with his admittedly perfunctory tour of the construction site. He was a short, slight man of forty or so years whose brow was stamped by the deep wrinkles of an individual perpetually harried by life.

“Where’s Montu?” Amonked asked. “I want Lieutenant Bak to meet him.”

The architect slipped around a ramp of rubble at the end of an unfinished segment of portico, which when finished would surround the open court at the heart of the temple.

Several architraves and roofing slabs lay at the foot of the ramp, waiting to be positioned atop twin rows of sixteen-sided columns. About half the portico was complete. Large limestone drums that would be stacked to form additional columns were scattered around the open floor in the center.

Wall niches to either side of the sanctuary door stood empty, awaiting the placement of statues of Maatkare Hatshepsut.

The work lay dormant, with not a man in sight. Bak could not understand the lack of activity.

Pashed’s voice grew taut, censorious. “I haven’t seen him today.”

“I spoke to him last week.” Amonked made no attempt to hide his irritation. “Apparently my warning did no good.”

Bak glanced at the two men. Anger and discontent were far more likely causes of accidents than malign spirits, and Amonked wanted him to meet Montu. Did he suspect the missing architect of disrupting the work, not with intent, but out of neglect?

Mouth clamped tight, Pashed stalked through an open portal on the south side of the courtyard. Bak found himself in an as yet unadorned anteroom off which two doorways opened. A pair of carefully placed mirrors caught the sunlight reflected from a mirror outside and sent it into two inner rooms.

“Maatkare Hatshepsut’s memorial chapel and that of her father,” the architect told Bak, his tone waspish.

Ignoring the anger, aware it was not directed at him, Bak dutifully peeked into the two chambers. Inside the smaller room, three men were painstakingly carving delicate reliefs of food offerings on the walls, while five painters were toiling in the larger, applying bright colors to carved proces-sions of servants bearing offerings of fruits and vegetables, beef and fowl. Though Bak appeared indifferent to the discussion in the anteroom, he missed not a word.

“Montu claimed his country estate takes up much of his time,” Amonked said.

“The property isn’t his. It belongs to his wife, inherited from a previous husband.” Pashed sniffed. “The sole task that occupies him is ordering her around. Her and her daughter and the scribe who’s managed the estate since long before they were wed. They’re the ones who toil alongside the servants, not him.”

“His duty is here, and here he must come each day. And so I told him.”

Noticing Bak standing at the chapel door, waiting to move on, Pashed beckoned. “Come. I’ll take you to the shrine of the lord Re.”

He led them outside and along the incomplete wall at the front of the court. A break in the center wide enough to admit the large sledges on which stones were hauled would someday be made into a portal. A granite lintel and jambs lay nearby, waiting to be installed. Bak eyed the broken wall and half-finished portico, astounded that the court was not a beehive of activity. Why was the task not proceeding?

“I’m tempted to have Montu sent north to toil on the shrine of the lady Pakhet,” Amonked said. Pakhet was a fierce lion-headed provincial goddess, and the new building was located in the desert west of the province’s very rural capital. Not a place a man accustomed to life in sophisti-cated Waset would wish to go.

Pashed’s laugh carried an edge of meanness. “I can think of no task more fitting.”

Passing through a doorway at the north side of the court, the architect hurried them through an anteroom whose roof was supported by four sixteen-sided columns and into a large chamber in which ten steps rose up the side of a high altar dedicated to the lord Re. The room was open to the sky, allowing the priests to commune freely with the deity. Here again Maatkare Hatshepsut, depicted in fine, brightly colored reliefs, was shown making offerings.

“This shrine is complete except for statues of our sovereign that will be placed here and in the anteroom,” Pashed said.

The trio returned to the courtyard, where Bak stopped to look around. “Djeser Djeseru has been under construction for five long years, Pashed, and still this upper level is in-38

Lauren Haney

complete. Why do you not have men here, finishing the portico?” Bak spoke more sharply than he intended, but Amonked’s nod of agreement told him he had not stepped beyond the bounds expected of him.

“The workmen. .” Pashed hesitated, glanced at Amonked, said, “All right, you’ve come to learn the reason for our many unfortunate accidents, so you may as well hear the truth.” He paused, screwed up his face to show distaste.

“The men fear a malign spirit. They spend more time looking over their shoulders and listening to whispered tales of lights in the dark and shadows where none should fall than in performing the tasks for which they receive their daily bread.”

“They believe this part of the temple more fearful than the rest?”

Pashed flung his head up in a superior manner. “If that were the case, neither artists nor sculptors would toil here, would they?”

“There’s some truth in what Pashed says,” Amonked told Bak, “but he’s failed to mention another obstacle in the way of progress. Senenmut has several times changed the plan.

He’s thinking now of making this open court a columned hall. Thus the work has stopped, awaiting his decision.”

Looking distinctly uncomfortable, Pashed clamped his mouth tight, refusing to admit he had skirted around a part of the truth rather than lay blame on the man to whom he owed his well-being.

Amonked, his thoughts masked, eyed the architect briefly, then turned away, led his companions out of the building, and stopped at the top of the mudbrick and debris ramp up which materials and equipment were hauled to this upper, most sacred part of the temple.

The view was glorious: the hot, sunny bay nestled at the foot of the cliffs and, in the distance, a patchwork of brown and golden fields, of green garden plots and palm groves, marking the broad strip of farmland along the river, made in-distinct by the heat haze.