Lauren Haney: Flesh of the God

The blade was twice as long as the handle and tapered to a deadly point. It was made of a dull silvery gray metal so rare he had seen it only once or twice before. Surprised, excited, he swung around to Mery. “This is iron!”

Mery nodded. “A metal as common in Hatti, Nakht told me, as is gold in our own desert wadis.”

Bak gazed at the weapon with a covetous eye. “They say it’s very strong and a man who owns such a blade holds the power of the gods in his hands. I wonder if…” He shook his head. “No! If the one who slew Nakht meant to steal this dagger, he’d have pulled it out of his breast and carried it away. His life wasn’t taken for this.”

More likely, he thought, it was used simply because it was here, a convenient object for a wife to lay her hands on during a heated argument. Nevertheless, he had to look elsewhere, too, if for no other reason than to satisfy himself that he had done all he should. Laying the dagger on the table, he eyed the door that opened to the dark stairway. Obviously, the woman had smeared much of the blood, but if someone else had taken Nakht’s life, he might have been spattered and left some sign farther afield.

At Bak’s command, a spearman brought another torch and he entered the rough-plastered, rather musty stairwell, leaving Mery and the guard behind. He wanted no one to disturb any telltale signs. He worked his way downward a step at a time to the ground floor, unable to find any fresh smudges or spots of blood. The door at the bottom was closed but not barred. He made his way upward with equal care, again finding nothing, to an open trapdoor at roof level. Had the door been left open to admit the cooler night air to the rooms below? Or to admit a man Nakht had summoned?

He stepped onto the flat, empty rooftop and took a deep breath of the clean chill air. Wondering if he should look further, he gazed at the open flight of stairs that continued up the wall to the battlements. What exactly had Nakht said? “If you’d offended the gods to the extent some men have…” Men. He had made no mention of a woman. The thought spurred Bak on, but the stairs above were as free of stains as those below.

After identifying himself to the sentry at the top, he climbed onto the nearest tower, which rose from the northwest corner of the inner city, the administrative sector of Buhen. From there, he could see in the waning moonlight much of the outer city, a huge rectangular area enclosed by walls as high and strong as those around the citadel. The streets were crooked, the blocks irregular in shape, the buildings thrown together in random form. Within these cramped structures were the workshops and homes of craftsmen and traders. On the outskirts lay the animal enclosures, encampments for transient soldiers, and a necropolis of the ancients. No light was visible, no human stirred. Only the creatures of the night disrupted the silence: a chorus of dogs, a howling cat, the soft tweet of birds nesting in the wall somewhere below where Bak stood.

He puzzled over Nakht’s words. Had he used the word “men” as a general term, encompassing both sexes, or had he been more specific? With no ready answer, Bak watched the sentries patrolling the battlements. Besides the man who paced the sector where he stood, he could see the more distant figures of several others. They stopped at times to look over the wall and they lingered to chat when their paths happened to meet. He felt certain a cautious man could slip from one tower to the next and onto or off the stairway without their noticing.

He looked over the breastwork at the inner city, a series of grayish rectangles outlined by straight black streets and lanes infrequently traveled in the dead of night. His eyes settled on the shadowy roof of the commandant’s residence, the largest house in Buhen. It nestled in a corner with two of its walls butting against the fortress wall, its facade opening to the street. Its fourth side hugged a narrow lane-bridged by a wide board, he noticed-which separated the residence from the scribal office building and the main storehouse, easily recognized by the long parallel ridges atop its barrel-vaulted ceiling. Beyond lay the treasury and the walled mansion of the lord Horus of Buhen. The scribal offices interested Bak the most. They were empty at night, as were most of the structures in the sector, and the building had a stairway to the roof. It would take but a few moments to fly from there to the stairs descending to Nakht’s reception room.

He studied the dozen or more dark smudges visible in the torchlit courtyard, men who had been watching the Medjays when the woman screamed, and considered another, equally likely possibility. With so many people milling around the ground floor, a man intent on murder could easily have slipped into the dark, enclosed stairwell and later, after slaying the commandant, rejoined the crowd without being missed.

Three ways of reaching Nakht with small chance of being seen by members of the household. All possible but risky. Foolhardy, even.

No, the foreign woman Azzia must have slain her husband. Yet doubt nagged Bak like a hungry mosquito. He dreaded talking to her, dreaded having to accuse her of taking her husband’s life. But if she should prove her innocence, he dreaded more the idea of having to search further. How could he, a man whose sole experience was with horses, chariots, and battle tactics, find the one guilty man in a city of nearly five hundred?

Bak crossed the courtyard with heavy feet. He had dispatched Nakht’s body to the house of death and examined the slain man’s personal rooms, where he found nothing of interest. He had questioned the onlookers, who all denied having seen anyone take the stairway to the second floor, and had sent them away. And he had ordered Imsiba to go with Mery to question the men patrolling the battlements as to who and what they had seen through their night’s vigil.

The moon had sunk behind the fortress wall, the torches had burned low, and the stars above sparkled in an inky void. The dark forms of potted flowers and trees, which gave the courtyard the appearance of a miniature garden, scented the air with perfume. As he approached the only lighted doorway, he nodded to the Medjay he had posted there to guard the woman Azzia.

She sat on a low three-legged stool, her back straight, her hands clasped in her lap, her head held high. No bloodstains remained on her hands or her pale, oval face, and she wore a clean unadorned linen sheath. She must have heard the patter of his sandals, for her eyes were on the door when he entered.

“Have you come to accuse me of murder?” Her voice, which held no trace of an accent, was quiet and composed, with barely a hint of tension.

He stopped short on the threshold, caught by surprise. “Did you take your husband’s life?”

The servant Lupaki, standing by her side, laid a protective hand on her shoulder. Seated on the floor next to a large pottery basin, a dusky, nearly naked girl of no more than ten years raised her hand to her mouth to smother a sob. Beside the child, a twig-thin, wrinkled old woman glared at Bak over an untidy pile of bloodstained linen she clutched in her arms.

“No.” Azzia looked at him, her gaze steady. “Lieutenant Mery has said you believe I did.”

Bak silently cursed the watch officer for saying more than he should. The female servants must have thought his scowl meant for them, for they scurried into the next room, Azzia’s bedchamber.

“I’ve found nothing to convince me otherwise,” Bak said.

“And I was there.” It came out as a whisper, and for an instant she seemed close to breaking, but she stiffened her spine and tried to smile.

That smile, so fragile and filled with pain, pierced Bak through and through. He looked away, pretending to examine the room. It was half the size of Nakht’s reception room and furnished much the same. Rush mats covered the floor. The lower walls were painted with unsophisticated but delicate scenes of the animals of the desert.