Kate gave him another noncommittal nod, not wanting to sound ungrateful since he had arranged their tour. The problem was people. Fifteen million of them. That and the urban sprawl encroaching on the sandstone escarpment like some alien invasion from outer space. But the truth was that the remains of a group of people who had existed fifteen hundred years before Tashat was even born struck her as irrelevant, and with each passing day she found it increasingly difficult to contain the simmering impatience that made her feel so uneasy.
They followed Seti up the stairs to a foyer where the smaller masterpieces were on exhibit—including the wooden figure of a young Nubian girl carrying a clay jug on one hip that was Kate’s favorite—through a door marked private into a dim passageway that smelled like the nineteenth century. From there they paraded single file through a narrow hallway to a door with peeling letters. Except for the bank of fluorescent tubes overhead, the Mummy Conservation Laboratory reeked of the past, too, from the dark woodwork to the wall of glass-fronted cabinets. In the center of the room lay the mummy—the ancient physician they had come to see. Beside him stood two men wearing white coats and face masks.
“Come in, come in,” Nasry Iskander invited, pulling the mask down below his chin and extending his hand. His close-cropped white hair and bronze face made everyone else look pale by comparison, including the man beside him, who turned out to be Hosni Nabil, the museum’s chief conservator. Nabil’s hair was only graying, but his back looked as if he had spent his entire life bent over a yellowed papyrus, and it was his age that worried Kate. Was he even aware of the recent advances made in preserving textiles and paper? As Seti was performing the introductions a third man arrived, who turned out to be a photographer.
“We are ready to begin,” Iskander informed them, catching Kate by surprise, “but perhaps you would like first to look at how he came to us.” He motioned to a table across the room, drawing their attention to a mummiform coffin that was nothing like Tashat’s. The head was shaped like a nemes—the cloth headdress worn by Egyptian men—and the eyes were outlined in black, with round black irises that gave him a wide-eyed look. Other than that there was only a band of red down the center, crossed by four more bands of the same color, but the rounded curves and satin-smooth wood made Kate itch to run her hand over it, the mark of a master craftsman. Another paradox, since the quality of the wood spoke of money and position while the lack of decoration or gilt marked the deceased as a person of little consequence. Even the inscription give him no position or lineage of importance, except to Kate and Max. Sunu.
All they knew was that this body fell within the age range of the head between Tashat’s legs. Now a part of him was about to come forth to a new day, and with it, Kate hoped, the secret of what had happened to him. And Tashat.
She glanced at Max and found him staring at the banded coffin, so still he seemed to have stopped breathing. For one panicky instant she imagined he was someone else, until he glanced up and gave her a wistful smile.
The mummy itself was plainly wrapped, like those the team at Manchester had performed autopsies on, except for the Egyptian blue faience amulet sewn over the place where his heart would be.
Iskander pointed to the amulet. “That is Thoth, the god of wisdom. The inscription on the back says, ‘I hold in my hand a figure of Thoth made of tjehnet so that I will not die a second death.’ Tjehnet means brilliant, or divine light. That is what my ancient ancestors called the ware we know as faience. Of course it is not true faience at all but a nonclay material containing ground quartz, soda ash, and lime, along with copper or cobalt salts for color. It is not so difficult, I think, to believe in magic when to simply apply heat to such drab materials turns it a brilliant blue or green, colors that are reminiscent of the sky and vegetation that sustained them.”
As Iskander stepped to the head of the table to make the first cuts with a pair of scissors, Kate almost cried out for him to stop. The purr of a tiny motor sounded in the still room—the photographer, she realized, and felt reassured. At least they knew to document everything. She watched Iskander peel the bandaging back with a gloved hand, one layer at a time, keeping the cutting to a minimum until he reached the linen that had been soaked in resin to make it impervious to moisture, insects, and sand. Then he stepped back for a moment to give the photographer a clear field, before switching to a small chisel and wooden mallet. When he picked up a miniature keyhole saw, Kate mentally winced each time he pushed it forward, worried that he might cut more than the resin-hardened cloth. Then, after a few last snips with his scissors, he lifted the small flap away and laid it on the prepared sterile bandaging, and took the flashlight Nabil handed him and bent to peer into the opening.
“Uh-huh,” he murmured. “It may come without enlarging the opening any farther. At least it is worth a try.” He paused long enough to allow the photographer in for a better angle, then, using a long tweezers to grasp the cloth-wrapped object Max and Dr. Hamid had discovered during the scan, Iskander tugged until he met resistance. He pulled gently, testing to see if the bundle was stuck to something or had met an obstruction, then asked for another tool, this one long and thin but with a blunt tip. While he probed around the bundle, trying to free it by using the forceps to vary the tension on the cloth, Kate put her hand under Max’s elbow, then slid it down to clasp his, and found it as clammy as her own. So much for the cool, detached physician, she thought, as she hugged his hand to her side. He squeezed her fingers, but didn’t say anything. Neither did Seti.
“Aahhh, now it will come, I think,” Iskander murmured. Finally. A minute more and the bundle was out. Iskander handed it to Nabil, who held it out with both hands—his attitude that of an ancient worshiper offering his most prized possession to his god.
The photographer raised his camera to record Nabil’s prayerful stance, then the older man carried his precious bundle to another table and began picking at the cloth with his gloved fingers, searching for where it might come loose. The torn, discolored edges fell away easily, revealing a thick roll of papyrus. He touched it with one finger, testing for flexibility, then slipped a thin piece of plastic under one curling corner.
“It appears to be in very good condition,” he concluded. “There is little sign of brittleness, but I must apply a backing for support before going any further. Only then will it be safe to lift the edge a bit more, perhaps enough to tell what we have.” Kate sighed with relief as Nabil looked to Iskander for instruction.
“Our friends have come a long way for this,” Iskander pointed out. “Perhaps you could put aside your other work for a time?”
“Of course.” Nabil seemed eager to please. He turned to the photographer. “Ashraf will record everything just as it appeared upon recovery. Also to work with.” He gave Kate an apologetic smile. “The ancient papyri are too fragile to handle more than is absolutely necessary. I cannot say what difficulties we may encounter, but I will work as quickly as possible.”
Kate thanked Nabil and then Nasry Iskander, though she doubted any of this would have happened except for Seti Abdalla. And his mother. They were the real reason she and Max had not been left to cool their heels for a week or two, waiting for an appointment to talk with some minor functionary. But it wasn’t until they were leaving the museum that Kate had a chance to mention her—obtusely, by way of thanking him.
“I showed her everything,” Seti was quick to confess, “not only the photographs of the cartonnage and your head, but also your drawings. I knew my mother would become involved the instant she saw them, but perhaps you know of her work. Her name is Danielle duPré.”
Kate went still, unable to put one foot in front of the other, then stammered something about being familiar with his mother’s books. In fact she owned every one of them, because Danielle duPre was an authority on ancient Egyptian art with a reputation as a maverick who didn’t run with the herd. Yet she had survived with her scholarly virtue intact.
“Of course, but I—I didn’t know she li
ved here.”
“She came to Cairo fresh from the Sorbonne to work with the French Archaeological Mission, never intending to stay so long. But within one month of arriving she met my father.” He smiled and lifted his shoulders in a typically Gallic shrug.
“How long do you think it will take Iskander’s man to unroll that scroll?” Max asked, impatient with their small talk.
“It is difficult to know. I will call him tomorrow to learn how it goes, but surely you will stay a few more days?”
Max nodded. “I think we’ll go to Luxor for a couple of days, though Kate’s afraid that seeing it might displace the picture she carries in her head—of what it was like three thousand years ago.”
“The temple at Karnak?” Max nodded. “Then you have only to stay away from the sound and light shows,” Seti advised. “In ancient times Amen’s great temple slept while Re sailed his boat below the horizon of this world, so there would have been no more than a torch here and there to light the way of a watchman.”
He dug a card out of his European-style wallet, wrote a number on the back, and handed it to Max. “Call me at home, tomorrow night. Anytime after seven. Perhaps I will have something to tell you by then.”
Seti turned to Kate for a parting word. “Florence Nightingale recommended to see Egypt in solitude and by night, with the stars as lamps. A hundred and fifty years ago, Africa’s angel of mercy found ‘the savages of the present in the temples of the past.’ But who is to say there were no savages in the temples back when your ancient physician lived? That, I think, is what we are about to find out.”
In my hand I took the sword I was given and I learned to use it.
—Normandi Ellis, Awakening Osiris
24
Year Twelve in the Reign of Horemheb
(1336 B.C.)
DAY 23, SECOND MONTH OF INUNDATION
Perhaps to cast his eyes on my daughter was enough to renew the High Priest’s faith in eternal life—the promise of his God—for the withered muscles in his legs grow stronger each day. Pagosh says he turns more and more of the running of the temple over to his underlings, to spend his remaining time with her and Aset.
While we were away Nefertiti took up residence across the river with her sister, after Pharaoh ordered Amen’s Sacred Council enlarged and reorganized—to lessen the power and influence of the High Priest—then packed it with men of his own choosing.
“The war between chaos and order is never-ending, but this time the battle for the throne of Horus will be like nothing we have seen before,” Ramose predicted today. “Already any word of Pharaoh falling ill, true or not, sends people to the temple in panic, because Horemheb refuses to name an heir. ‘Let the one who is strongest take the throne, as I did,’ he says. But what if to do so that man must sell his soul?”
“Or woman,” I added as a reminder.
His eyes sought mine. “That much, at least, I share with Horemheb. They are tahuts, both of them.” Queen Mutnodjme has long been known for her lascivious behavior, but I never thought to hear Ramose call his wife a whore, as Pagosh does.
“My mother’s eyes were blue, too, did you know that?” Ramose asked as we sat watching Aset and Meri splash each other with water from the garden pool. “One of the few times he spoke of her, Uzahor told me they were like the sky Re leaves behind as he descends toward the western horizon.” That we are willing to risk surprising the other is a measure of how far Ramose and I have come to trust each other, now that I no longer fear he will take from me what I care for more than life itself.
“You have no memory of her yourself?” I asked.
“She went to Osiris two days after giving me life. All I have is a gold necklace and a wisp of her hair.” He grasped the carnelian scarab hanging from the gold chain around his neck and pried it open with his thumb, to show me a curl of reddish brown hair. “According to my father, she was a woman of infinite beauty, of unusual stature and coloring.”
“I find that easy to believe,” I replied, for Ramose is still a handsome man. At fifty-nine he looks no older than most men of forty-five, though his eyelids are a bit heavier than before. If his hair and brows have gone white like Mena’s, no one can tell it, for he still keeps his body clean-shaven as well as his head. It is only when he tries to rise from a chair that his age shows.
“Flattery from you, sunu?” he asked with a wry smile.
“The truth,” I denied.
“Then tell me why a son repeats the sin of his father, even when he is duly warned and can see for himself the grief it caused everyone around him?”
“Some things can be learned only by doing, from making our own mistakes.”
“You have always been too generous, Tenre.” Whether he complimented or insulted me I cannot say. “She was the daughter of a merchant from a land north of the Great Green Sea, whose mother had recently died. Her father could not bear to leave her behind, so he brought her with him to Waset, where he was taken by some pestilence, leaving her alone among strangers. I tell you this now only because my father’s blood is joined with your father’s, in your daughter. And my father was a fool! Whether I have been one as well I leave to you, but that was how Uzahor judged himself for abandoning my mother while she carried his son in her belly.”
So I had guessed right about Uzahor being Aset’s grandfather.
“I have little memory of my early years, by choice I suspect,” he continued, “since the life of a street dog is better forgotten. But I do not blame him. There was little to be gained by marrying a woman with no standing or property but her father’s ship. Aren’t we advised that ‘A woman of strange parts, like an eddy in deep water, is of unknown depth’”? I recognized the warning from the old Book of Wisdom. “So he married another. To Uzahor’s credit, he could not forget her. But he waited too late. When he learned she had departed this world he began another search, this time for a boy of five who bore her mark.” He paused so long I thought he was finished.
“Uzahor warned me that I deluded myself if I thought retribution for the sins we commit in this world is delayed until we stand before Osiris. He said the gods punished him every time he looked at me and saw her eyes, reminding him of all he had lost. And for what? A fine house, more gold than any man needs?” Ramose’s voice trailed off while he wandered through his childhood, when the lessons he learned must have been bitter indeed. “He placed me in the home of a childless friend to see that I was educated, but Uzahor from then on was a presence, a friend of the family I thought, until my sixteenth feast day, when he told me about my mother.” He heaved a tired sigh. “But nothing in my entire life prepared me for what I would feel when my daughter slipped her small hand into mine.”
Like a streak of light from the sun, I heard his confession to Uzahor just before the old man died—that given the chance to live his life again he would do the same. “Never to have pitted myself against her quick wit, or watched her eyes light up when she laughs? Never to feel the touch of her hand in trust, or love? The rush of pleasure that comes with knowing she is mine?” It was Aset he had spoken of, not her mother.
“We are more alike than you think,” I admitted. “I cannot imagine what my life would have been without her.” I described to him the time she had waited for me with her Jackals and Hounds, and afterward, when I took her to the roof, how I thought to entertain her by pointing out the sights around us. “Instead of a field of blue lotus, Aset saw a herd of elephants waving their ears to create a breeze.”
He smiled. “You thought the fever had taken her wits?”
“Not after she twice whipped my Jackals with her Hounds. No, I shaded my eyes and looked again. She was right. They could as well have been elephants … with blue eyes. So Aset has been my tutor as much as I have been hers, from the start. By the time we came down from your roof I was caught in the web of a girl whose eyes sparkled like sunlight on running water. All it took was one word. Why?” Ramose gave me a startled look, so I hastened to explain why I told him the st
ory. “I just thought you might like to know the real reason I accepted your offer.”
He actually laughed at that, giving me another glimpse of the man behind the priestly facade.
DAY 18, FOURTH MONTH OF INUNDATION
“If you wish to return to Aniba you have only to say so,” I said, watching Aset work a wooden comb through her tangled curls. “Why go about it like a thief in the night?”
“Say what you mean, Tenre. I am too tired for riddles.”
“Do you consider it an adventure, having to leave everything we own behind, fortunate to escape with our lives?”
“Sarcasm does not suit you.”
I felt an urge to shake her, physically to tear away the veil of complacency she wore—that would, in the end, offer her no protection. “Nor deceitfulness you,” I replied. “Do not pretend ignorance with me. Or innocence, as if you believe me to be an addled old fool!”
She turned, her yellow robe flaring open over her thighs. “If I hurt you in some way, my love, I am sorry. Truly. It was not by intent.”
“Then perhaps you can explain what you do intend.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her with me out the doorway. In the room where I keep my medical scrolls, I touched the flame of the lamp from a wall niche to the standing lamp beside my writing table, one of those we brought from Aniba. Aset has placed them in every room, because the fish-shaped bronze bowl is supported by a tall wooden column, putting the twisted linen wick above eye level so the flame illuminates the ceiling and fills the entire space with light. I pointed to the two scrolls spread open across my writing table. “Look at those and tell me they do not say what I think they do.”
Before Aniba she crowded everything onto one piece of papyrus, coiling a snake around a chair leg or half a cat behind a tree. Now the pictures follow one after another for the length of a cubit rod or more, and tell a more intricate story. In one a fat gray tabby held audience for a parade of mice carrying bread and fruit, as if they made offerings to some goddess—obviously the Queen from the two identical vervet monkeys. As the mice passed before her, each stood on his hind legs to expose himself, and so offered to lie with her even though he held a lotus to his nose to ward off the foul odor emanating from the object of his desire. In case anyone should miss her point, the tabby’s chair carried the symbol for coitus in the sacred language of the gods—the female pudenda crossed with the male penis and testicles.
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