A Vile Justice by Lauren Haney Read Free Book Online

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