The City of Refuge: Book 1 of The Memphis Cycle (19 page)

“He was under my command for a time, Your Grace,” Khonsu said. “I'd be glad to do it for you.”

“No, Commander,” Nebamun sighed. “Though I thank you for the offer. Tamit, Paser's wife, was my lady's maidservant for many years, and it would be wrong to delegate the duty to another. I imagine the news will be a relief to her. But their daughter— She loved her father, and once I opened my eyes to what was happening, I saw how hurt and bewildered she was at the changes in him. She began to come to me as though I were her father instead of him. And now this has happened. If I can soften this, somehow give her back the hero that her father was to her, it would be well done.”

The Second Prophet's eyes were shadowed. His hand went to his left shoulder almost as a reflex, but he flinched away from the contact and lowered it again.

Khonsu folded his hands and waited in silence.

Nebamun said, “Why should the fathers' sins be visited on the children? What purpose does it serve to have a child go through life trailing the disgrace of its family like a banner of shame? A child's heart is so easily broken by the fall of an adored parent. If I can protect just one from such a grief, I'll do it with all my heart.”

He was silent for a long time before he finally pushed down upon the arms of his chair and gathered himself to rise. He checked the motion with a quickly suppressed hiss of pain and started to sink backward.

Khonsu hurried forward to steady him. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You're in pain! I saw it earlier in the tomb. I should have said something then. Here, sit back. Shall I fetch Sennefer?”

Nebamun was pale, but he smiled wryly. “No, Commander,” he said. “It is just that I managed to sprain my shoulder at archery practice this afternoon; I am not as young as I once was. And of course two-thirds of my personal guard were watching as I did it, which injured my dignity. I'll be fine. Now go find your tracker and make sure he's safe.”

XXX

“I'm sorry I failed you, Commander,” Ruia said, disgusted. “I followed orders the best I could, but I was nailed by someone I never even saw. I should be dead, from what I can see. It's a mark of my incompetence that the fellow—whoever he was—decided I wasn't worth killing!”

Khonsu smiled and folded his arms. Seti had been waiting for him outside Lord Nebamun's chambers with word that one of his wide patrols had encountered Ruia making his way south toward the heart of town. Since he had appeared to be injured, the officer commanding the patrol had sent him straight to Sennefer's people to be examined, and then to Seti for questioning.

Now Ruia was sitting before Khonsu and Seti, drinking cooled milk and water and devouring a small loaf of bread and some onions. A bandage slanted about his head, and his hands were bruised, but he was in good spirits and inclined to laugh at himself.

“I was tailing Paser from a distance,” he said. “He was in a temper when he left last night, but sometimes angry people hear better and see farther. It was slow work, since he dawdled. I suspect he'd arranged to meet someone at a specific time and wanted to arrive there near the hour.”

“How did you get that impression?” Seti asked.

Ruia shifted a wad of half-chewed onion to one cheek and considered. “Well, General,” he said, “it's hard to explain.” He stopped to chew and swallow. “When a man's got a purpose, he moves a certain way. When he doesn't know where he's going and what he's doing, he moves differently. You take Paser's situation, last night: he just told off the highest priest but one in Ptah's priesthood and got himself trounced and kicked out for his pains. Wouldn't he be likely to poke around thinking, 'Bastet's whiskers! What have I done?' I would, certainly. But not this fellow!”

“What did he do, then?” Khonsu asked.

“He took the donkey and the supplies and went along, taking his time. He kept looking up at the stars, and once he stopped for a long time to squint at the Lotus up there in the sky and do what sounded like some calculating. I heard him muttering to himself. It was pretty late by the time Lord Nebamun sent him away: after midnight, I guess.” He took a bite of bread and chewed, then washed the mouthful down with watered milk.

Khonsu traded looks with Seti. “That would be about right,” he said. “Lord Nebamun dismissed us to our beds not long after Paser left.”

“Sounds good, Commander,” Ruia said. “For all that time passes slowly when you're tailing someone. Any road, I followed him by side streets, always keeping him in sight. He went into some of the houses that I know he'd searched earlier, but he didn't come out with any loot. He kept working his way northward.

“It was easy work; the man was making as much noise as a herd of cattle moving through a field of dried reeds. I could have tracked him blindfolded. I got the feeling he was doing it on purpose.

“It took a good long time, and we weren't even near the northern boundaries of the city. He met a patrol or two, but I think they got the word about him: they didn't do anything except give him the hairy eyeball and then steer clear of him.”

“That's true enough,” Seti said. “I told my patrols that he was to be allowed to pass. They all knew him by sight, so they wouldn't have stopped him. Although,” he said, eyeing Ruia, “they had orders not to let anyone else by.”

Ruia grinned at him.. “If you know what you're doing, General, you can get past anyone. It just takes patience and practice. Your fellows are all business, but they never saw me.”

“Is that so?” Seti asked.

“I told you he was good,” Khonsu said. “Go on, Ruia. How did you lose track of Paser?”

Ruia drained his cup and set it down. “By the time we started to get into the northern suburbs, I though Paser might finally be getting some speed up. That could have been a problem, because the buildings thin out and there's open land just beyond the city for about a half-mile before you reach the hills and cliffs. I was trying to figure out how I could follow him without him knowing about me when suddenly I was hit from behind—pow!—and knocked out.”

Khonsu frowned at Seti. “Do you think this was long after Paser left?” he asked.

“Yes, Commander.”

“I see. Did you suspect someone might be following you?”

“Not at all, Commander,” Ruia said. “He was good, whoever he was. He must have known the city like a native.”

“You have no clue as to who he may have been? No sight of him?”

“None, Commander,” Ruia said with a rueful smile. “One moment I was watching Paser, the next I was opening my eyes to a bad headache.”

“Well,” said Khonsu. “Tell me the rest. When did you come to?”

“It's hard to say,” Ruia replied. “I think it was daylight, but I'm not sure what time. I have a memory of awakening maybe once before, groggy, and closing my eyes to sleep again. When I came full awake, I could see some light, but not much. It may have been just before sunrise, but I'm not sure. I stood up and looked around. I was in a place built with a lot of stone, thin, high windows up near the ceiling. The windows were actually grilles made of stone, from what I could see, and they seemed to be facing east, from the sort of light that was coming in. I'd never been there before, but the decorations were rich, and I thought it might have been a royal building. Turns out I was right. There was no way out, the doors were wood, edged with bronze. The walls had stone along them, near the bottom. Above the stone was smooth, painted plaster, and it felt solid and thick when I hit it with my fist. I thought I could try to dig my way through the plaster, but then I saw my knife had been taken from me when I was knocked out.”

Khonsu traded wry looks with Seti. “I see,” he said.

“I had some notion of trying to dig out with my fingernails, but I decided I wasn't that stupid,” Ruia continued. “I shouted, but I didn't think anyone could hear. I thought maybe I could climb the walls, but they were smooth and I couldn't get any purchase on them, and when I calmed down enough to think steadily I realized that I wouldn't be able to crawl out of the openings at any rate, so it was useless.”

Seti nodded. “That's fair enough,” he said. “I can't fault you. How were your hands bruised?”

Ruia looked down at his hands. The edges of the palms were discolored and scraped. “I tried pounding on the door and shouting,” he said wryly. “Didn't do much good. I figured myself a goner. I couldn't hear anything, couldn't see anything at first. I thought my attackers meant to kill me when they came back. But then it occurred to me that if they were planning to kill me, they'd have done it when I was out.”

Ruia was silent for a moment, frowning. “You know, Commander,” he said, “I just remembered something odd. I think I awoke the second time because I heard the door shutting again, quietly. Maybe my attacker came back to check on me...”

He puzzled over it for a few seconds, then dismissed it with a shrug. “I didn't remember that at the time,” he said. “I thought maybe I'd been put in that room to starve, but I didn't think anyone would be that vicious—or no one around here that I knew of. I didn't know what to think, so I sat down and took a deep breath and tried to decide what to do.”

Khonsu nodded. “What happened then?”

“There was an inner bolt on the door,” Ruia said. “It could be set into brackets in the jamb, and it'd keep the door from opening outward. I didn't think it any use to bolt the door so people couldn't come in, since I'd just be making myself a prisoner, but the beam itself was a handy size for a club, so I yanked it out of its pivot-bolt and kept it by me. I decided that if someone did try to kill me, I was going to make it as hard as I could for him. And then, since there wasn't anything else to do, and I sensed no danger, I curled up in a corner with the club by me and fell asleep.”

“Once again, Ruia,” Khonsu said, “Do you have any idea of time?”

Ruia sat back and considered. “When I fell asleep, no,” he said. “Though it was broad daylight by then, so I'd guess it was after mid-morning. I must have slept till late afternoon, because a chill was setting in and the light was changed when I awoke again.”

“What woke you up?” Seti asked.

“Footsteps, General,” Ruia answered. “Approaching my door. They were moving slowly, like whoever it was wanted to disguise the sound of his stride so I couldn't recognize him that way. The footsteps paused outside the door and then there was silence for a long time.”

Khonsu lifted his eyebrows.

“Not a breath, not a word. I got a sense of someone frowning at the door, weighing things, making up his mind what to do. Then I heard the bar at the outside of the door being shifted.

“I figured things were going to happen pretty quickly, so I took up the beam in both hands and got ready to strike. It made a slight noise. All movement stopped at the other side of the door for the space of a few heartbeats before it started again. This time the sounds were different.

“The bar on the outside of that door's an odd one, Commander,” Ruia said. “I looked at it after I got out. Right in the center's a bolt that the bar pivots on. When the door's unfastened, the bar hangs straight down. When you want to bolt the door, you pivot the bar in a circle, and it fits into two brackets, a wooden one on the door, and a stone one carved into the jamb itself. It's secure. Well, looking back at what happened from what I now know, the fellow on the other side of the door carefully lifted the bar until it was just past perpendicular, so if it fell, it would fall away from the brackets, leaving the door free. I think it cost him some pain, because I heard the sound of his breath whistling in through his teeth.” He fell silent, frowning.

“And then?” Seti said.

“And then nothing,” Ruia said. “I didn't hear the footsteps, I didn't hear breathing, the door just sat there, and I sat there too and stared at it, just about as lively as the door. I finally got tired of staring and decided to try a surprise attack. I yelled and leaped for the door with my club in my hands. The door swung wide, the bar came crashing down on the opposite side from its brackets, and the door banged back against the wall behind it and came swinging forward again and would have whacked me on the kneecap if I hadn't stopped it with the club. And then I paused with the club raised over my head and looked up and down an empty hallway. I felt like a fool.”

“No one was there?” Khonsu said.

“Not a sight of anyone,” Ruia answered. “Oh, I'm sure I could have found someone if I'd lingered. There were doors opening off the hallway, and some nooks around, that I could see, but I was without a knife, my mission, following Paser, was a failure, and I didn't want to get bashed on the head again, so I chose a direction and followed it until I was outside.”

“Did you happen to see anything unusual as you were leaving?” Khonsu asked.

Ruia frowned into space for a moment. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I did see something, Commander, that you wouldn't expect to find in a building that's been deserted for years: spots of fresh blood on the ground. A spot here, a spot there…

Actually, I have seen it before, when I was following someone who was hurt and bleeding and had managed to get a rough bandage in place. This fellow, whoever he was, was in no danger of bleeding to death from what I saw, but he needed some attention. He probably got it before he came back to let me out.”

“Do you think the blood was no longer fresh, then?” Seti asked, frowning.

“That's near enough, General,” Ruia said after thinking things over. “It was dry, but it had been fresh within maybe half a day. I said I thought I heard the door shut once. That would have been early morning: the blood would have been fresh then.”

“Thank you,” Khonsu said.

Ruia sighed and touched the bandage. “I'm sorry I let him get away, Commander,” he said.

Khonsu, caught in reflection, blinked. “Let him?” he began. “You mean Paser?” He paused and then asked, “How was Paser when you saw him last?”

“Hale and hearty,” Ruia said without hesitation. “Moving comfortably. Why, Commander? Have you heard anything of him since he left?”

“Yes, Ruia, we have,” Khonsu said. “He didn't get far. Paser was killed at some point last night.”

Ruia stared and then shook his head. “Well, well, well,” he said, “it couldn't have happened to a nastier piece of work!”

**   **   **

“Which means, Commander,” Seti said later, “That Paser was killed shortly before dawn, I'd estimate. And it isn't too far a stretch to say that whoever gave Ruia that clout on the head probably was the one to kill Paser.”

“I won't argue with you,” Khonsu said. “But the conclusion raises a lot of questions that I'm not prepared to answer at the moment.”

“Such as?” Seti said.

“Such as this: why would someone, wanting to kill Paser without witnesses, take the time and trouble to disable and not kill a potential witness, check on him in the course of the night to see that he's all right, and then finally release him unhurt, probably at the cost of a lot of trouble and a lot of pain?”

“As to that,” Seti said, “I can only say that the killer was either squeamish—”

“Yes?”

“Or kindhearted,” Seti finished.

“Yes,” said Khonsu. “He must be one who knows and likes everyone here and is unwilling to hurt them. Which brings us back to the question of what Paser was up to. There is someone among us who knows that better than we do: and the odds are that that person is the killer.”