Eddie only looked at Neville, “Your call, Neville.”
“By all means, let us obey our host,” Neville replied, a trace too breezily for real confidence. “After all, when in Rome…”
“Or rather,” Stephen agreed, forcing a laugh, “when in Egypt. Miss Benet?”
He made a sweeping gesture, as if offering to escort her onto a dance floor. Jenny smiled, and set her free hand lightly on the crook of Stephen’s arm. Uncle Neville followed suit, offering his own protection to Lady Cheshire. Mrs. Syms accepted Eddie’s arm. Rashid, Mischief shrilling anxiously from his shoulder, brought up the rear.
The doors were easily wide enough to admit their little party, even two abreast. They crossed the threshold into a beautiful anteroom accented by an oval pool. Delicate lilies in hues of translucent yellow, pink, and blue floated in the crystalline waters, and tiny fish darted, living flakes of gold and silver beneath the surface.
The walls were adorned with scenes familiar from many tombs, but here, as they had seen elsewhere in the complex, there was a subtle difference from any other depictions of pharaohs living or dead. Once again, the artists’ emphasis was as much on Neferankhotep’s just use of his great power as on the luxury and grandeur to which that power entitled him.
There was no doubt that their destination was a pair of doors on the other side of the pool, so they walked toward these, keeping stately measure, and taking in the elegance of the chamber as if they were indeed, as Mrs. Syms commented, visiting “the most ideal museum we have seen so far.”
“Why,” Jenny said, walking around one edge of the pool, and studying a mural depicting Neferankhotep holding court, “doesn’t this comfort me?”
“Because,” Stephen replied with such immediacy that Jenny knew he had been considering the same matter, “we’re human, and the perfection of divine justice is frightening. We want justice to see things our way—even when we know deep down inside that our sense of justice is corrupted by our desires, rather than our adherence to perfection.”
“And Neferankhotep,” Neville added, “seems to have managed divine judgment when still alive and human—I mean, even Jesus lost his temper and despaired and liked to enjoy himself with his friends. Neferankhotep is just too perfect.”
“Or rather,” Lady Cheshire said, surprising Jenny, for unless speech had been absolutely necessary, Audrey Cheshire had been morosely silent since the death of Captain Brentworth, “Neferankhotep is as perfect as we would like to believe ourselves capable of being—and since he began his life as human as we are, his perfection is a reprimand.”
As if an advertisement for what awaited them on the other side, the inner door was adorned with an elaborate painting of the judgment of the soul. An enormous scale dominated the scene, its two pans suspended from a center bar, both holding nothing but air, and so in perfect balance. Jenny had seen the twins of this scale in market places in Alexandria, Cairo, and all the way up the Nile. Its utter mundanity made the beings gathered around it also seem strangely mundane.
Thoth, his tiny ibis head mounted on broad shoulders, should have looked funny, but he did not. There was a scholarly dignity to how he held his stylus, poised in the act of taking some note or consulting some record.
Near one empty pan of the scale crouched the monster Ammit, the merging of crocodile jaws, lion forequarters, and hippopotamus hindquarters not looking at all humorous or peculiar in this context, but rather watchful and terrible.
Anubis, his jackal head making Jenny shiver with remembered terror, knelt near the scales, looking less like a god than like a workman checking his tools and feeling satisfied with their readiness.
In the background of the painting were many other figures. Osiris/Neferankhotep supervised the preparations with detached dignity. Maat, her wings outstretched in deliberate echo of the scales, stood near them, apparently waiting to take her place in one of the empty pans. Dozens of smaller figures, some distorted and horrid, also waited, their gazes fixed on the scales in dreadful anticipation.
“The Forty-Two Judges,” Stephen said softly. “Some texts imply that they can be bribed or threatened—if one has magic enough—but I doubt that such tactics will work in Neferankhotep’s court.”
“No, probably not,” Jenny replied. “I wonder…”
She forgot what she had been about to ask, forgot for a moment where they were, for the scene before them was coming alive. In the foreground, Thoth and Anubis completed their preparation. The Forty-Two Judges gossiped among themselves, the hissing of their voices making a muted background to the creaking of the scale pans as Anubis tested their motion, and the scratching of Thoth’s pen as he finished his notes.
The painted eyes of Neferankhotep were the last things to gain brightness and depth, and as they did so they met Jenny’s own eyes—and she knew, impossibly, that his gaze simultaneously met that of each other individual in the anteroom.
“I am Neferankhotep,” the mummy-wrapped king said, his tone polite and formal. Then he grinned, white teeth against the green of his skin. “I believe you have been looking for me.”
He laughed, and the Forty-Two Judges laughed with him, their voices mingling the cries of birds and the baying of hounds with all ranges of human mirth.
“Here I am,” Neferankhotep concluded, “and before me you will be judged.”
“Games,” Neville replied bluntly when he recovered from his initial shock, “are only amusing when you’re not one of the playing pieces. We came here seeking not you, but your tomb. I believe it is only fair that you remember this.”
“Remember that you are tomb robbers?” Neferankhotep said. “I had tried to remember otherwise.”
“Not tomb robbers,” Neville said firmly, “students of history and archeology.”
“There is a difference?”
“As we see it, there is.” Neville hesitated, then pushed ahead. “Great Neferankhotep, in life you earned a reputation for devotion to justice that was not without human kindness. We find ourselves—against all sane expectation—standing before you for judgment. Well, I ask you, sir, is playing about in this fashion reasonable or in keeping with your reputation?”
Neferankhotep’s expression became mildly amused. Neville couldn’t help but think how peculiar it was to see living moods on features that still bore more than a slight resemblance to the stylized conventions of Egyptian art.
But no more peculiar, Neville’s inner demon taunted him, than any of the rest of this.
“You say,” Neferankhotep replied, his voice smooth and soothing, “that you had no expectation that you would be brought to judgment. Surely you saw the messages written on the walls in the Valley of Dust. Surely the Protectors warned you what awaited.”
Neville blinked.
“Well, yes, but we didn’t think those warnings were serious. Old temples are full of curses and the like, and despite the stories the superstitious tell, I’ve never much believed in the power of dead pharaohs to curse from beyond the grave.”
“Yet you believed the tales of my life and burial sufficiently to let them guide you here,” Neferankhotep persisted. “How do you resolve this discrepancy?”
“I don’t,” Neville said firmly. “The one was a possibility—the basis for scientific investigation. The rest of this is an impossibility. I’m more interested in knowing what your intentions are toward myself and my companions.”
Neville knew he was being so blunt as to verge on rudeness, knew, even, that he was counting on the reputation for justice of a man with whom he didn’t really believe he was speaking. His approach seemed the only way short of groveling to handle this situation, but some part of him kept expecting a renewed burst of laughter followed by the removal of elaborate costumes to reveal the Bedouin sheik and his minions
It didn’t happen. Neferankhotep paused, clearly considering Neville’s words. The only sound was that of breathing from far more than Neville’s six companions—an eerie sound that made the back of his neck prickle.
“You have come here,” Neferankhotep said at last, “all but one sound in mind, and all rather battered in body. Some degree of acceptance of your situation must be the end result of this journey.”
“Nonsense,” Neville replied. “I could argue that those of us who remain sane do so only because we don’t believe. Mrs. Syms…”
“Yes, Sir Neville?”
“Nothing, ma’am.”
“Oh…”
“The lady in question,” Neville continued, choosing his words more carefully, for he had no desire to jolt her into awareness of their situation, “could be said to be the only one who has believed what she has seen, and that believing has made her mad. However, that is neither here nor there.”
“Sanity is not a question?” Neferankhotep asked.
“Not,” Neville said, “if you intend to pass judgment on us.”
“It is my duty to judge those who come before me,” Neferankhotep said, and Thoth nodded solemn agreement.
“Very well,” Neville said. “Judge me and me alone. I am the one who led this expedition. I am the one who desired to find you—or rather your resting place. I am the one who hoped to benefit through my discoveries. The others acted only in accord with what I had already set in motion.”
Neferankhotep was about to reply when Lady Cheshire interrupted, speaking over half-voiced protests from the others.
“Nonsense, Sir Neville. What you say may be true enough of your niece, Mr. Bryce, and Mr. Holmboe, but I am responsible for my own part in this. Captain Brentworth met his death through his fidelity to me. Sarah and Rashid are little more than servants. If you will be judged for your people, allow me, at least to assume the weight of guilt for my own.”
Audrey’s words could have been spoken from mere bravado and pride, but nonetheless Neville thought her magnificent, with her green eyes flashing and her shoulders thrown back, straight and valiant as any soldier.
“Guilt, Audrey?” said Neferankhotep. “So you admit to being guilty?”
“I admit to some guilt,” Lady Cheshire replied, “though not toward you and your tomb. I agree with Sir Neville. We sought an archeological find, not a holy place. However, I do admit to having deceived Sir Neville, to having been less direct than I might have been, and to having hired dangerous men as a means of gaining my goals. Yes. I admit my guilt in these matters.”
“Though only,” Neferankhotep said, his dry assessment removing the glory from her defiant speech, “after being discovered and yourself deceived. Judgment will not be deferred, nor blame accepted for the actions of another. None of you who stand here came less than willingly.”
“What about Rashid?” Jenny interrupted fiercely. “He’s just a servant—almost a slave. He didn’t have any choice.”
Neville felt a surge of pride for his niece. She made no excuses for herself, but though her pale cheeks testified to her shock, she persisted in defending others.
Neferankhotep was less impressed, “And so you know the hearts and minds of men, even of a youth who cannot speak a word? You seem prepared to set yourself in the place reserved for gods. I speak only the truth, for I am vindicated and stand as and with Osiris. There is not one among your company who did not, for whatever personal reasons, join in this expedition of his own free will.”
Stephen stepped forward, bowed to Neferankhotep and spoke, his tones pedantic, “Great king, you say that none can escape judgment. However, on what terms is this judgment to be made? None of us were educated in the religion and mores of ancient Egypt. Judging us on those terms would be entirely unfair.”
“That’s right,” Jenny added. “We’re not even all of the same faith. I was raised Catholic like my papa. I think the English are all Anglican, which is the same, but different. Eddie’s a convert to Islam, and Rashid…”
The Egyptian youth gestured toward Eddie, claiming him as a coreligionist.
“So you see,” Jenny finished triumphantly. “We’re not even the same as each other.”
“Perhaps the laws of ancient Egypt would not be as unfair or unfamiliar as you think,” Neferankhotep said. “Consider the Ten Commandments as written in the Bible, a book I believe all of you—for all your other religious differences—consider revelatory of the will of your deity. Compare those commandments to the most basic elements of our own catechism—what your scholars have termed the Negative Confessions.”
“The Negative Confessions?” Stephen said. “I believe I am familiar with the text to which you refer. That’s the list that begins with ‘I have not… ’ followed by specific crimes or faults the deceased swears he has not committed. There are some similarities—though many differences as well.”
“Consider first the similarities,” Neferankhotep said patiently. “Both contain provisions against killing, stealing, lying, and sexual contact that violates the bonds of marriage. Your commandments show greater concern for refining the rights of property, while ours demonstrate more concern for the personal harmony of the individual soul in relation to society.”
“But you admit,” Neville said rather desperately, “that there are differences.”
“There are,” Neferankhotep agreed. “However, when one moves beyond these simple lists to the more detailed rulings contained in other texts in your Bible, even those differences begin to vanish. The one place we are in greatest disagreement is that none of your religions accept the existence of gods other than your strange One in All, All in One.”
Dry laughs, quickly muffled, came from the associated gods.
“However,” Neferankhotep continued, frowning sternly at his fellow deities, “we are willing to grant that your actions in coming hence are in keeping with fidelity to your monotheist creed, for surely you would not have acted as you did if you truly believed that divine vengeance would be the end result.”
“So we’re off the hook?” Eddie asked, his words hopeful, but doubt in every line of his face.
“Not in the least,” Neferankhotep said. “There remains the question of those commandments you did violate: lying, killing, stealing…”
Eddie stepped closer to Neferankhotep, and Neville saw rising in his friend the fire of the convert who followed his religion not through habit nor even through expedience. Eddie might have begun his conversion to Islam out of love for Miriam, but clearly he had worked his way toward devotion to Islam through long intellectual exercise.
Neville felt a momentary flutter of pity for the mullahs who had been forced to deal with the stolid reason of this English farmer’s son, yet they must have felt their labors worthwhile in the end. Eddie was a Mohammedan of whom any teacher could be proud.
“Even those commandments that may have been violated,” Eddie said to Neferankhotep “are open to interpretation. Consider the case of a man who steals to feed his child. He has without a doubt committed theft. However, if he does not steal and the child dies, then is he guilty of murder through his inaction? Some scholars say that the commandment is against murder, rather than mere killing, but where is the line drawn? Is the soul of a commander who sends soldiers into the field or that of a king who hires an assassin free from complicity? Equally, is the one who kills or steals because so commanded free from guilt because he was only following orders?”
“I cannot argue that there are not subtleties,” Neferankhotep replied, his tone without rancor. “Yet equally, you cannot argue that here there is a question of a child needing food, or of a king commanding either army or assassin—unless you are stating such as a means of being excused for your own actions.”
“No!” Eddie retorted hotly. “Not in the least. I am merely trying to show that reviewing a list of commandments and deciding which have and have not been violated is not always the best course toward justice.”
“Yet,” Neferankhotep said, “you must admit it is an equable approach.”
“I must do no such thing,” Eddie replied.
He was obviously about to launch into another instructive example when a new
voice entered the debate. It was a sweet, feminine voice, that for all its sweetness was not without strength and decisiveness.
“Great Osiris living,” said the goddess Maat, “you were known both in life and after death as a man who reigned in keeping with maat. These before you appeal to you to continue to rule thusly. Why else would they argue, if they did not believe you were one who would listen? To the end of serving both your reputation and their desire, I beg leave to put a proposal before you.”
“Great goddess before whom even gods are judged,” Neferankhotep replied, bowing his head, “I listen.”
“Let each individual here be judged,” Maat said, “only for those deeds that directly relate to their coming before you.”
“Interesting,” Neferankhotep said. “Why not? I have no desire to be unreasonable.”
“Moreover,” Maat continued, “judge them by the conventions we share—those you have already explained with such eloquence and grace. However, let all of those judged be given an opportunity to explain themselves, so that no injustice is done. As Edward Bryce has stated, neither truth nor justice are understood in the same fashion, even through the eyes of those who share a code.”
“I will agree to these amendments to our usual procedure,” Neferankhotep said. “However, each and every member of this company must submit themselves to judgment alone and without assistance. They must accept the penalty if they fail to be found vindicated and in balance with maat.”
“This seems reasonable,” Maat agreed.
“And what is the penalty?” Neville asked.
The pharaoh indicated the monster Ammit.
“Being thrown to Ammit is traditional.”
The monster snapped her jaws in agreement.
“Right,” Neville said.
“And our reward when we are judged vindicated?” Jenny asked defiantly, tossing back her hair and thrusting out her chin. “I seem to recall there were rewards for passing judgment. Seems only right we have something good to look forward to for putting up with all this.”
“Rewards,” Neferankhotep said, “will be discussed if and when you are so judged.”
The Buried Pyramid Page 44