The Mammoth Book of the Mummy

by Paula Guran

  Let him think so, then—for now.

  III

  Five days passed. False eyes of gemstone were seated in the pharaoh’s empty sockets. His jaws and face were bound up with fine linen bandages, each finger and toe wrapped separately, then capped with wrought gold. Kamose’s minor priests wrapped his limbs and torso. The next day, a selection of precious talismans were placed on his body and then brushed over with molten resin. Tilting his head reverently back over the end of his bier, they poured more resin into his skull through the nasal passage. The following day, they bandaged the head and wrapped the entire body in further strips of fine linen. The prayers and rituals provided by Kamose, Penma’at, and old Djeseret never ceased.

  Away from the per-nefer, investigation by Kamose’s agents went on unceasingly also. Within it, he watched his subordinates with the eye of a cobra making ready to strike. By the fifth day, he felt that he knew the thief, and could even name his motive.

  It wasn’t Reni. That young roisterer had lost his swagger and indeed had difficulty, by then, in keeping his feet. Several nights with Mertseger were enough to humble the proudest, randiest he-goat. Kamose, amused, decided nevertheless that Reni’s attrition must end while the lamia still managed to restrain her more deadly lusts.

  “It will be unnecessary for you to keep any more assignations with the lector-priest,” he told her.

  “Ah,” Mertseger said without regret. “He’s virile, but—he will be no further use to me unless you permit me to slay him.” She shrugged. “I think he will be of no use to anything female for some time now.”

  “You may not slay him.”

  “Have you found the thief, then, my lord?”

  “Thieves. And I imagine they will come to find me on the morrow.” Kamose was smiling. Mertseger knew that smile; it meant that the archpriest was aware of something that others were not, that he had a fatal surprise waiting for them. It was a smile steeped in poison direr than her own. Curving her lips expectantly, she asked, “Why, O Kamose?”

  “To accuse me of stealing the emerald.”

  Mertseger’s smooth brows drew together so that two tiny upright creases showed between them; in her, the equivalent of wailing, shrieking, and tearing her garments.

  “That’s an absurd charge. Is there danger that they could succeed with it?”

  So spoke her tongue. Her thought, rather, was, Is there hope that they could succeed with it?

  “No danger at all,” Kamose replied cheerfully. He understood her very well. “I have expected for days that the scarab will appear again, in circumstances contrived to make me appear guilty. It was stolen for just that purpose. A shoddy scheme, but it might have succeeded had I not become aware of the substitution.” He laughed. “Don’t ask me how they ever supposed I would not!”

  “Yet the spurious gem now lies next to Pharaoh’s heart. Where you placed it.”

  “Surely a difficult state of affairs to explain,” Kamose agreed, “unless we recover the true emerald scarab tonight. How fortunate for me that we can. I’ll garb as an ordinary stolist-priest, you as a priestess. We leave at once.”

  “For what destination?”

  “The temple of Anubis.”

  The temple of Anubis within Pi-Rameses was little more than a chapel, though larger ones existed at other cities in the Delta. Still it boasted a gateway, courtyard, and inner shrine. The single priest serving at night duty allowed Kamose and Mertseger in when he saw the parchment letter they carried, signed with his archpriest’s cartouche. If he discerned that the man bearing the letter was his archpriest, he wisely refrained from announcing it. He hurried away to the courtyard.

  “It is here?” Mertseger asked.

  “Yes. I had the culprits followed closely enough to erase any question.

  ‘‘Not that I was sure they were the culprits—then. Others were closely followed besides them.”

  Kamose bowed deeply before the atramentous, jackal-headed statue behind the altar. Its red tongue lolled between the jaws. Both hands held daggers, and a horned viper coiled around one forearm.

  “Lord of Tombs, Announcer of Death, great seer and diviner; we come to undo sacrilege. We would set aright a perversion of the mortuary rituals by lewd and vile theft. Prosper our actions.”

  Mertseger bowed as well, fluid and supple of movement.

  “Where is the emerald?”

  “In a secret cache beneath the altar which clearly is secret no more.”

  Vipers were carved along the altar’s sides. Kamose twisted the heads of several in apparently random order. Then he thrust against one end of the altar. It pivoted smoothly around. Beneath it lay a stone-lined cuboidal hole. It contained papyri in cylindrical cases and certain other objects, including a skull. Near the skull lay a pouch of gazelle-skin, tightly filled out by something rounded and hard.

  “I believe we have it,” Kamose said. “Had this been proved missing, and then found here in my temple—by the vizier, let us say—how lamentable for me!”

  He opened the pouch. A hard green glitter flashed at him. In a moment Kamose held a huge emerald scarab between his hands. Staring down at it—at and into it, with his magician’s perceptions—he knew in a moment that it was real.

  “Good, thus far. Now return we to the per-nefer. There is much to do yet!”

  Twenty princely warriors guarded the per-nefer, posted there by Kamose himself. None was aware of the subterranean passage and hidden door which gave access to the embalming chamber through one painted wall. Soon, archpriest and lamia stood beside the pharaoh’s corpse, which was sealed within layers of linen swathing and hard-set precious gum.

  “Were you another man, I should say it had been an error to lodge the false gem within this mortal husk and then wrap it so securely,” Mertseger said with transparently false respect. “Can you open the body and close it again?”

  “I can open the very earth and then close it again, as you know, but that would be excessive and needless now. Watch the entrance very vigilantly, child of a serpent. Warn me if someone comes.”

  “Indeed,” Mertseger said coolly, “I have no more wish to be trapped here than you.”

  Kamose laid the huge emerald blazing on Setekh-Nekht’s linen-wrapped torso.

  “The spurious gem is made of malachite and gilded lead,” he explained. “To make it resemble the emerald, the thief had to place them side by side and cast a spell of similitude. A paltry matter, but it formed a sorcerous link between them, and of course they are the same size and shape precisely. To transpose them—so—without disturbing any matter in between, is an act but a little more finely skilled, slightly more subtle.”

  Kamose’s somewhat oblique eyes looked into strange dimensions. His hands moved. They seemed to slide past, not through, the layers of bandage, the shells of hardened resin, the desert-dry flesh and ribcage.

  Then his right hand was empty, the left full.

  “All is now as it should be.”

  “Not all, surely. The thieves are yet at large.”

  “They are about to walk into quicksand of their own volition. There is one more thing we must do to guide their steps. Come.”

  Sunrise came to the marshes, cities, and harbors of the Delta, its vineyards and orchards. It found Kamose in his jackal mask and regalia, a picture of somber, sepulchral dignity. Not even Mertseger knew what expression he wore behind the mask.

  A procession came to the per-nefer while dawn was still red, before they could begin the day’s embalming. A company of archers came with it as escort. A dozen scribes and priests of Thoth walked ahead. Most conspicuous and august, borne in a litter because of his arthritis, was the vizier of Lower Egypt.

  Kamose saw him, and the rotund, purse-mouthed man who rode in a second litter following him. This one clearly felt satisfaction so immense he could not keep it from showing in his face however he tried. He wore precisely the look of a glutton who had tasted something that delights the mouth as much as it gratifies the belly, and now loo
ked forward to the full banquet.

  “Beba,” Kamose said, very softly.

  “The archpriest of Thoth?” Mertseger, who knew something of Beba, sounded incredulous—with reason, Kamose thought. “Is this plot his?”

  “Beba would not have the wits or the daring. No, someone has duped him. He believes me guilty because it is his dearest wish.”

  The vizier leaned upon a staff because one leg had become twisted by his ailment. Although the pain made him irascible, his judgment had not suffered thereby. He almost personified the great principles of order, harmony, and justice which Egyptians called Ma’at, and his wisdom led him to doubt that Kamose valued these things cardinally.

  Kamose pronounced a formal greeting. The vizier advanced into the per-nefer’s antechamber with a few attendants, and Beba waddled with them. Mertseger discreetly withdrew.

  Although the vizier returned Kamose’s greeting, he did so in a bleakly formal manner; and lost no time thereafter.

  “The matter is too grave for drawn-out courtesy,” he said. “It concerns the pharaoh’s heart scarab. Has anything come to pass concerning it which ought not to happen?”

  “No, excellent vizier. It has not.”

  “A lie!” Beba said impatiently.

  “But there has assuredly been an attempt at something which ought not to happen. Someone has essayed to steal the heart scarab by exchanging a worthless copy. My report of this sacrilege was sent by my ablest courier to your greatness at Hikuptah. It was dispatched—yes, two days gone.”

  “No!” Beba’s chagrin pleased Kamose. “No! The worthless copy of which the—the archpriest—speaks was placed beside Pharaoh’s heart. It rests there now!”

  “If that were true,” Kamose said austerely, “it would mean that you know a great deal about it. Yet that is not true. Nor do you flatter me. Who supposes that such a thing could be done and I not know? All that passes in my Temple is known to me, august Beba. Some of my subordinates, like some of yours, I dare say, are crafty.”

  Beba glared up at his rival. “ There are witnesses of high character who will swear the scheme to filch the emerald scarab was yours!”

  “Then name them.”

  “The Third Prophet of your own temple, Djeseret, and a lesser priest, Ib!”

  “Djeseret? Ah.” Kamose’s voice came muffled and unctuous through the jackal-mask’s black muzzle. “Sad. He’s reaching his dotage.”

  The Third Prophet, summoned, gave much support to his archpriest’s comment. He decried Kamose as a creature of utterest evil, one who blasphemed the gods and had contrived the late pharaoh’s death. Since the vizier knew the precise circumstances of Setekh-Nekht’s death, that accusation gained no credence. Djeseret then averred that Kamose had tried to steal the heart scarab to deny the pharaoh joy in the Afterworld. Clearly he had believed for some time that his archpriest was less reverentially pious than he ought to be, and someone had worked on that belief through the decline of Djeseret’s superannuated mind. Worked upon it with skill. Kamose soon observed that Djeseret believed all he was saying.

  “He stole the gem! He! It lies beneath the altar in the temple of Anubis!”

  There was one thing Djeseret could not possibly believe was true. Not even in his dotage. He could not believe it because, as Kamose had concluded days before, he was the thief himself.

  Kamose removed his mask at last, to show a face set in lines of vast patience.

  “What lies concealed there,” he said, “is a false copy I discovered before I penned my report to you, O excellent vizier. The true emerald scarab is where it ought to be, within the sacred body of Setekh-Nekht. If Prince Rameses or yourself orders, I shall open the mummy and prove this, but I should view it as woeful desecration. Perhaps the most skilled augurs and diviners in Egypt—outside my own Temple—should test the matter. I leave it in your hands and those of truth.”

  That ended it, in effect. The vizier looked as though he considered Kamose’s response too glib and knew there was more in the business than appeared, but the scarab had not been stolen, and the funeral must proceed without scandal. He conscientiously took possession of the false scarab, followed Kamose’s suggestions, and had two of his own trusted scribes supervise all further proceedings. Setekh-Nekht’s mummy remained closed, and Kamose presided at his obsequies.

  Beba, the archpriest of Thoth, presented a picture of incarnate woe while these events unfurled.

  Epilogue

  “Djeseret stole the scarab?” Mertseger marveled. “He?”

  Kamose nodded. “To blame me. The dotard never thought of it as rascality. He persuaded himself—primed by someone else, I think—that I was spiritually unfit to be archpriest of the temple he had served lifelong. It’s easy to make a righteous man commit acts of vile treachery if you only convince him they are his distasteful duty. The same person must have had Beba make the accusation, and so I infer that he ranks high in the priesthood of Thoth. I suspect he hoped to diminish me, if the plot succeeded, or Beba if it failed, and in either event to add to his own consequence.”

  “How that capon Beba slavered with joy to accuse you! Why did you let him off so lightly, my lord? You might have brought him down over this. Yet you assured the vizier his motives were honest, and that Beba had been deceived.”

  “And how it mortified him to accept his status back from my condescending hand! I have no wish to bring him down. Having an incompetent at the head of my fiercest enemies is much to my advantage. My troubles will increase on the day an able man rises to lead that priesthood!”

  “Such as the one who conceived this plot and used Djeseret and Beba as his cat’s-paws. Do you know his name?”

  “Not yet. One day I shall know, and deal with him. I am patient.”

  “You were lenient with Djeseret and Ib, also.”

  “Sending them to maintain a shrine in the western desert for the rest of their days is scarcely lenient. The Libyans may murder them. Certainly, if they ever take one step beyond the precincts of the shrine, I shall have them crushed like frogs between the stones.” Kamose played with his pointed chin-beard. “Like our sagacious vizier, I wish no scandal.”

  “And now you retreat to your mansion at Abdu for a time, with the prince’s leave.”

  “After he becomes pharaoh, formally.”

  “May I accompany you?” The request came like poison mingled with honey.

  Kamose rubbed his chin once more. Leaving her to her own malign devices would be madness! Mothers would wail for their infants again, and wives for their young husbands, throughout the Delta. Kamose had enhanced his fame greatly by ending Mertseger’s reign of terror, and allowing it to begin anew would have the reverse effect.

  “Abdu is a long, safe distance from Pi-Rameses. No doubt there are malefactors there, or in Thebes, who would be improved by your attentions, and I did promise you some diversion for your patience.”

  “Then I may come?”

  Like unto a breathless little girl hoping for a gift, Kamose thought wryly. Knowing the risk, he said assessingly, “I believe you must, daughter of a serpent.”

  There are hundreds of books about mummies and ancient Egypt published for children. The British Museum, the Children’s University of Manchester, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and other institutions have colorful “how to make a mummy” features online. Mummy exhibitions, reconstructed tombs, and funereal artifacts are big draws for museums and science centers, and often well attended by the kiddies. Helen Marshall’s “The Embalmer” may be fiction, but . . .

  The Embalmer

  Helen Marshall

  Henry didn’t think of himself as an embalmer, not really; embalming was a sort of hobby for him, nothing serious, nothing more than a pastime. If someone asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up he would not have said an embalmer. He would have said an astronaut on most days because most days what he wanted to be was an astronaut.

  He sometimes wondered if anyone ever got embalmed in sp
ace. He read once that if you went into space without a space suit then you would asphyxiate and suffer from ebullism, which he had to look up and it turns out it meant a “boiling away” of water vapor from the body. If you stayed in space long enough you would freeze into a giant chunk of ice. The embalmer thought that sounded an awful lot like embalming. Space was the biggest embalmer of them all.

  Henry was not interested in modern-day embalming involving chemicals and such. He learned about embalming from a big book about Egypt that his mother had bought him after they went to the museum to see the mummies. The book said that Egyptians were made into mummies because they wanted to live forever. That made sense to the embalmer. The embalmer wanted to live forever too. The book said that it wasn’t just people who were mummified. Sometimes it was people’s pets. It was cats, dogs, mongooses, monkeys, gazelles, and birds. People didn’t want to leave them behind. The embalmer thought this made good sense too. Those people were good people. They were responsible pet owners.

  Sometimes the embalmer would dream that he had died. He dreamed that he was in Heaven and he got to take all the cats and dogs that he mummified with him. He wanted a legion of cats and dogs, so in the next life he would look like one of those dog-walkers, those college girls with a thousand leashes roped around their wrists. They looked like horizontal balloon artists holding strings attached to all sizes and shapes of furry balloons. That was what he wanted for himself when he died. Lots of cats and dogs. Hordes of them. He wasn’t so sure about the mongooses, monkeys, gazelles, and birds. They sounded pretty unruly. Maybe that would just be overkill.

  The embalmer was struck by love suddenly; love seized him up, it entered through his nostrils as he breathed in Dahlia’s smell, it liquefied his insides and hardened his skin. She was fourteen years old, two years older than the embalmer was, and that was the perfect age gap. She was beautiful. She smelled beautiful. Her skin was light and lustrous, it positively glowed with warmth. Her teeth were straight. She had a little mole above her lip but the mole didn’t have any hairs sticking out of it. It was a perfect mole. She had perfect skin. Her smell was luscious and sweet. It wasn’t just all that though, the smell and the skin and the mole, it was the sadness she wore like a second skin, a second smell, a second perfect beauty spot right above her lip.