Heart Of Darkness

by Maggie Shayne

  Tameri did her best to forget what he…what they had done at Maye House. She tried to go about her usual routine, but found her thoughts constantly drifting to Leo’s lean, passionate face, the insistent warmth of his lips. She was constantly distracted by questions: what had happened just before the kiss? What had she said or done to provoke Leo to such an action? Why had it seemed so important to show him her beloved collections, all in hopes of convincing him that her beliefs were real?

  Why was she so terribly drawn to him when she knew her destiny, as yet unrevealed though it was, demanded that she remain pure and committed to the cause?

  Alastair had warned her, in the vaguest terms, not to have anything more to do with Leo Erskine, though he had avoided telling her why he offered such advice. Perhaps he knew something she did not. Perhaps he had been right.

  Troubled and bewildered, she failed to respond to invitations or answer calls. The housekeeper and maids and footmen flitted about like shadows. Her chef, an Egyptian trained in both European and Asian cuisine, attempted to consult her in vain.

  Three days after the incident, Clara Pickering, Frances, Lady Selfridge and Lillian, Lady Meadows, called upon her. Their grave faces almost convinced her that they had guessed exactly what had happened.

  “How are you?” Clara asked, searching Tameri’s eyes. “We did not see you at Lady Loving’s ball.”

  “Lady Loving was quite disappointed,” Frances said dryly, smoothing her tailor-made jacket. “You have seldom been known to pass by an invitation.”

  “I think she was relieved,” Lillian said. “She can be quite pleasant, but she is also very envious of your beauty.” Her round face wore an uncharacteristic frown. “Why didn’t you come, Tameri?”

  “We heard that you were a little out of sorts,” Clara said.

  Tameri sat quietly in her high-backed chair, meeting each inquisitive gaze in turn. Since she had founded the Widow’s Club, she had been the nominal leader of the group, though it was otherwise an entirely egalitarian organization. None of her fellow members had ever had cause to worry about her before; they had never questioned her past or her way of living.

  “You need not be concerned,” she said as the tea was brought in. “The Season seems very tedious this year, and I merely wished more time to myself.”

  The women exchanged glances. Tameri poured the tea and, in a moment of inattention, spilled a scalding drop on her hand. Lillian was quick to produce a handkerchief to dab at the burn.

  “It is nothing,” Tameri said, continuing to pour. “Tell me, what is the real reason you have come?”

  “Are you quite sure you aren’t ill?” Lillian burst out.

  “I cannot imagine where you might have heard such a rumor,” Tameri said, “but it is quite false.”

  “Of course,” Clara murmured. They let their tea cool a little and sipped in silence. After the requisite time for the call had passed, the three ladies rose and made their farewells.

  Tameri retreated to her bedroom and tore off her diadem. Who could have made such a ridiculous claim and worried her friends?

  The answer was plain enough: Leo Erskine. Yet she was not in the least bit ill. She might not be able to account for her behavior with him—and the humiliation had been acute—but surely he would not broadcast his unseemly conduct to Society. Why should he approach members of the Club and suggest that her health was a matter for concern?

  She set about reassuring her fellow widows by attending a number of social events, playing her usual role without difficulty. But he continued to watch her as if he felt no shame whatsoever. And she could not bring herself to confront him.

  Even more disturbing was the unusual attention of the Widows, especially Clara and Lillian. Their keen eyes seemed to mark out her deliberate evasion of Mr. Leopold Erskine, and she became certain that he had approached them with some tale she could not openly refute.

  He is still attempting to label me an impostor. He had never intended to let her convince him. He had named her a spoiled woman who hired grave-robbers to please her own vanity. A woman of precarious morals, who would give herself to a man so evidently her inferior.

  The first fortnight passed without another disturbing incident between them. The Season went on as it always did: young girls desperately seeking eligible husbands, young men reluctantly recognizing their own duty to wed, all whirling about in a froth of balls and operas and visits to the theater. Tameri had always stood above the marital fray. No man would ever own her again.

  At the beginning of the third week, a new antiquities collection was acquired by the British Museum. Two dozen fine Egyptian artifacts had recently been donated by a prominent collector, and his generosity was to be celebrated with an exclusive reception.

  There was never any question that the dowager Duchess of Vardon would be invited. She knew the likely consequence of her attendance would be another meeting with Leo Erskine, in much closer quarters than she would prefer, but as long as he was content to observe her from a safe distance, she had no reason for concern. And she would by no means surrender any of her usual pleasures because of him, or what he thought of her.

  The reception was crowded, replete with ladies of the highest fashion and their gentleman escorts. Most of the attendees were mere dilettantes who were interested in any new fad. They would look their fill, make the usual appreciative noises and move on to the next diversion. They were quick to acknowledge Tameri with smiles, simpers and bows.

  The men who had acquired the new collection, the fine and learned scholars who considered Tameri such a nuisance, were far less effusive in their welcome. They knew better than to offend her, but their air was patronizing when they answered her inquiries or attempted to counter her arguments pointing out the many errors in their assumptions and conclusions about the past.

  Erskine was not among them. Perhaps he had finally grown weary of studying her. She searched the crowd surreptitiously, but found no tall, long-legged gentleman with an affable smile and the marks of spectacles on the bridge of his nose.

  She should have felt relief. She could now put him from her mind entirely. But an implacable inner voice insisted that he was not through with her, nor she with him.

  My love.

  Tameri started from her reverie, excused herself to the enthusiastic young gentleman who fancied himself such an expert in matters he knew nothing about, and made a quick circuit of the main exhibition room. The objects were well-preserved and respectfully displayed, but they had nevertheless been stolen from those for whom they had held a far deeper meaning.

  A single extraordinary sculpture had been given pride of place: a woman’s elegant head, long-necked, serene and beautiful. The limestone still held traces of the original color in the lips and eyes. Her crown marked her as royalty. She might almost have been a mirror-image of Tameri herself.

  “It is rather uncanny.”

  Tameri turned sharply. Leo Erskine stood at her shoulder, examining the sculpture through his unfashionable spectacles.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said stiffly.

  “The resemblance. Quite remarkable.”

  Tameri twitched her skirts aside and began to walk away.

  “Lady Tameri.”

  She stopped, shivering at the gentle insistence of his voice. “Mr. Erskine.”

  “There is no need for us to go on this way. We are not children.”

  A pair of elderly women, leaning on one another’s arms, nodded to Tameri and passed on. The crowd had thinned as the hour grew later, and there was a pocket of stillness around her and Erskine that seemed to suspend the moment out of time.

  She turned again. “No,” she said. “We are not children. Neither are we friends, Mr. Erskine, despite the mistakes we have made.”

  “Was it a mistake, Tameri?”

  His use of her name without the usual title steeled her resolve. “Even a princess is not perfect, Mr. Erskine. Good day.”

  “Have you had another seizure?”
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  The room gave an uneasy turn. “I do not know to what you are referring. But if you have approached my friends and given them to understand that I am ill, I demand that you cease.”

  “You are unwell.”

  A tremor started in her legs and worked its way up her spine. “Good day.”

  She walked away, hardly knowing where she went, and found herself in front of a closed door. She plunged through it without thinking and entered a tiny, dark room, scarcely more then a closet, that had clearly not been intended to welcome the general public. There was but one object in the room: a painted cedar chest, perched on legs carved in the shape of strange animals, displayed on a raised platform. As if in a dream, Tameri moved to the chest and laid her hand on its smooth, cool surface.

  “It has a secret chamber,” Erskine said, entering behind her. “No one has been able to determine how to open it.”

  Only half-aware of Erskine’s presence, Tameri ran her fingers over the engraved hieroglyphs and the painted figures at the center of the chest’s lid. She knew the goddess who posed with hands raised against her enemies: Isis, Aset, Lady of Heaven, Great of Magic. Before her stood Osiris, Asar, bound in his funeral wrappings. And across from both the good gods stood the one who hated them above all others: Set, Sutekh, brother of Asar. God of chaos, god of storms. His head was that of a strange beast, flat-topped ears upright, curving snout like that of no other creature.

  “He lusted after the Lord Asar’s throne,” she murmured. “He desired to rule all the Black Land, and killed the Good God. He cast his coffin into the Nile.”

  “When Aset found it,” Erskine continued softly, “and Sutekh learned that she might restore Asar to life, he tore his brother’s body into fourteen pieces.”

  “But Aset found the pieces and put them back together. For a little time she restored him from death. Before he returned to the Underworld, he gave her a son.”

  “Horus. Heru of the Horizon, who battled Sutekh and won.”

  But Asar and Aset were never reunited. Asar remained in the Underworld, Aset in the land of life and fertility. Always to remain apart…

  Tameri pressed her hand to her forehead. Warm, strong hands caught hers.

  “Come,” Asar said. “Come away from this place.”

  She looked up into his face. How beautiful it was. Just as it had been before Sutekh had wreaked his havoc. She smiled, touched his cheek and looked again at the chest. With a pass of her fingers she found the hidden catch and lifted the top.

  Within lay the sacred scroll, just as she had remembered. She heard a low sound as if of astonishment, but it held no meaning. The scroll was light and fragile in her hand. She unrolled it carefully.

  The answer was here. The answer she had forgotten.

  She raised her eyes to her husband. “The time has come,” she said. “The waiting has ended at last.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LEO SAW THE UNFAMILIAR light in her eyes and knew it was happening again. The very fact that she had been able to open the chest was proof enough. He moved closer, casting his consternation aside, and made ready to catch her should she begin to fall.

  “The waiting?” he repeated.

  Her gaze was clear, certain and bright with love. He had no other word to describe the way she gazed at him.

  Yet it really wasn’t him she was looking at, but someone else. Someone who wore the face and name of a god.

  “Show me,” he said gently.

  She gave the papyrus to him with a formal bow, palms flat. The ancient paper, remarkably preserved, creaked as he unrolled it and began to read.

  The text was crisp and clean, as if it had been set down yesterday. Each glyph seemed to stand above the surface of the papyrus, imbued with an almost magical luminescence.

  It was a prophecy. Couched in the ritual language of the ancients, it revealed the story of Isis and Osiris and Set. It described a world in which the gods were very real, their pain as genuine as that of any mortal.

  Leo read, unrolling the scroll a little at a time until he reached a section set apart from the rest. The hieratic writing was utterly different than any he had seen. He looked into Tameri’s face. Her eyes were still dreamy, still fixed on him as if she saw in him her only salvation. A shiver of entirely irrational excitement—or fear—left him paralyzed.

  Osiris and Isis reborn. Reunited in this world, in this plane, through the willing sacrifice of two chosen believers. Two who would give up their own bodies and souls to the god and goddess, so that the realm of mortals would be safe from Set for all time.

  She thinks she is one of them.

  He had no time to grasp the enormity of the implications. Nausea clenched his stomach, and the room went black…

  Maahes stood beneath an awning, feeling the hot desert wind on the bare skin of his legs and chest. This was a quiet place, a private place, forbidden to all but the most devoted followers of those who knew the true purpose of the ceremony. Who knew how vital was the outcome of the mating and transformation to come.

  Before him lay the mouth of the tomb, the place readied for him and his bride. It was a portal, not to death, but to joy. As the priests chanted and rattled their sistra, calling upon the Great Ones, waking them from their long sleep, the only coolness came from the lady beside him.

  She, who was so far above him in every way. She, who had accepted the call to become Aset-in-Breath. When first they had met, she had looked upon him as if he were no more than the cattle in the fields or one of the slaves who carried her litter. He was a common soldier in service to Pharaoh, chosen for reasons he could not guess to become her husband for this one night.

  Lady Tameri’s eyes found his. They were as green as the Nile in flood, like the eyes of the palace cats. They had not lost their haughtiness, nor did they find favor with him, though he had been told he was not uncomely. Once again he resisted the urge to fall at her feet. Once again he reminded himself that he, in this place and time, was her equal.

  And he pitied her. He, born in a mud hut in the poorest quarter of the city, pitied this beautiful woman because beneath her contempt lay fear. Fear of losing herself. Fear of becoming a goddess.

  He, too, was afraid. But he held out his hand to clasp hers, finding it cold despite the heat, and her fingers stiffened. Still she did not withdraw. She gazed ahead at the portal, her profile flawless and still.

  You will not despise me when we are together again, he thought. There would be only eternal union, and a long battle against the Evil One. A battle they would share in hope.

  The priests finished their invocations. Two of the highest among them, one vowed to Asar and one to Aset, took their places at either side of Maahes and the Lady. No words were spoken. All had been explained. Defying her fear, Tameri entered the long passageway. Maahes joined her, gripping her hand the more tightly. At the entrance of the tomb, the gods, illuminated in bright hues by the finest artisans, opened their arms in welcome.

  Only a single lamp brightened the interior. The surface of every wall was covered with writings describing the story of Aset, Asar and Sutekh, and the tale of Heru’s defeat of his murderous uncle. It spoke of Sutekh’s desire to regain mastery of the world, to leave his exile in the desert and reclaim the kingdom he had lost.

  A couch had been laid for Maahes and Tameri, the finest furnishings arranged for their comfort. Bread and honey, beer and fruit, fresh and plentiful, had been provided to break their long fast. Tameri removed her hand from his and watched as the priests set the door in place.

  They had done their part. The rest was up to the chosen ones.

  Tameri sat on a cedar chair inlaid with ebony and ivory, her gaze still fixed on the black square of the door. Though her posture was that of the princess she was, she did not deceive him.

  “My lady,” he said, kneeling beside her. “It will pass.”

  She looked at him, her face an elegant sculpture in the lamplight. “Yes,” she said in a flat voice. “Soon we shall be no more.�
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  “It is not an ending, but a beginning.”

  She laughed as if she had heard a trained monkey speak. “You have great faith, peasant.”

  “I believe that Sutekh will rise again. He must be stopped.”

  “Spoken as a good soldier.” Her fists clenched in the folds of her fine pleated apron. “You have little to lose.”

  “You regret your choosing.”

  “I do my duty for love of my goddess. But I…” She closed her eyes.

  “Was there one you favored, Lady?” he asked softly. “One with whom you would have shared your life?”

  She turned and struck him. It was not by any means the worst pain he had felt, but his temper rose.

  “We are here together,” he said. “Let us enjoy what time is left.”

  Her green eyes were dark as ebony. “Do you desire me, peasant?” She stood, displaying the supple curves of her body beneath the sheerest linen of her sheath and apron. Her nipples had been rouged with henna, rising to peaks under the wide straps of her dress. The secret shadow between her thighs made him harden.

  Maahes rose. “How could any man not desire you?”

  She trembled, crossed her arms over her breast and walked to the murals on the nearest wall. One wide panel dominated the rest: surrounded by flowering lotuses and still waters, Asar and Aset lay together, the goddess impaled upon the god’s erect member.

  Maahes came up behind Tameri and laid his hands on her shoulders. “You are beautiful,” he whispered. “More beautiful than the lotus flower.”

  “Such speech from a soldier,” she said, attempting to mock him. But her breath caught as he ran his palms over her arms and cupped her elbows.

  “Your skin is bathed in honey,” he said, touching her neck with his lips. “New wine it is, to hear your voice.”