by C T Cassana
The men lowered their eyes while Senre vented his anger on them.
“If this fool of a child has managed to reach the royal chambers, it wasn’t by her powers, but because of your negligence,” he fumed. “The pharaoh will call for the heads of the ones responsible, and I swear by Aten that I would deliver them up to him gladly.”
The soldiers began to shift uncomfortably; the fear they’d felt only moments before over the intruder now turned to fear for their own lives. Some of them forgot that they were in formation and couldn’t help but raise their hands to their necks, as if fearing they might lose their heads at any minute.
“For many moons now you have been under my orders, and I know that you are good soldiers,” continued the captain, softening his tone of voice as if he were trying to level with them. “I know that you’re brave and I understand that this girl’s strange appearance might perhaps have blinded you. I will do what I can to save your lives, and I will try to present this whole incident as a matter of no importance.”
A few of the soldiers let out sighs of relief while others smiled hopefully.
“I shall go at once to see the Chief of the Pharaoh’s Guard, and shall speak to him on your behalf. Everything will be taken care of, for you know that he trusts what I tell him. But, if another mistake like this should occur, I myself will have your heads.”
The men nodded and Captain Senre turned to leave.
“One more thing,” he said, turning back toward them. “Throw the intruder in the holding cell and let no one see her or talk to her. Two men shall stand guard at the main door to the cell block, and none of you will talk about what happened today to anybody, not even to the woman with whom you share your bed. If the pharaoh got wind of this, there would be nothing I could do to save your lives.”
The captain left the room and the men carried out his instructions at once. The one who had looked the most frightened of the prisoner now approached her and led her into the cell, giving her a rough push and laughing cruelly when he saw the girl fall to the floor.
. . .
Charlie sat down on the floor next to the Egyptian girl and spread the map of the city out before them. The servant remained standing a few yards back, watching them attentively.
“We’re here,” said Charlie, pointing to a place on the map with the solemnity of a field marshal. “We have to find Lisa before that brawny bloke does anything to her.”
The princess looked at him with an inquisitive expression, making an effort to understand him.
“Lisa, you know, the girl who was with me. I don’t know why, but the bald guy with the big necklace looked mad at her and I’m worried he might hurt her,” the boy explained, while trying to act out what he was saying with his hands.
The girl continued to stare at him in bewilderment and Charlie realized that she wasn’t understanding him. Resolutely, he picked up his backpack and took out his sister’s notebook. Finding the pen, which was down at the bottom under everything else, proved a little more complicated than he’d expected, so he pulled out a few objects and placed them on the floor. One of them was the book that Miss Rotherwick had lent them.
“We’re looking for Lisa,” he went on, while on a page of the notebook he sketched a figure with long hair and a shirt with something on it that looked more like a cave painting than a puma logo.
Charlie looked at his artwork with satisfaction, convinced that the girl would recognize it to be Lisa. But when he looked at the girl, he saw that she was staring entranced at the cover of the book; she had stopped paying attention to him the moment she saw the picture of the statue of Nefertiti. She had never seen it before, but she knew that it must have been a portrait made by a sculptor of the court. She also recognized at once the beautiful face of her mother, dressed up in her gold necklace and royal headdress.
“It’s your mother, isn’t it?” asked Charlie.
The girl only answered in her language, so the boy tried to confirm his suspicion. He remembered seeing a bas-relief where the queen appeared with the pharaoh and their daughters, so he thumbed quickly through the pages of the book and showed the girl the picture.
“Is that your family?” Charlie asked again, while pointing to the members of the royal family. “Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and...”
“Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten,” the girl continued, pointing to the pharaoh’s daughters in the picture.
“Are you here?” asked Charlie, pointing to the girl and then down at the photograph.
“Ankhesenpaaten,” she replied, pointing at the girl who appeared sitting on the queen’s shoulder, gently stroking her face.
“You? Ankhe...”
“Ankhesenpaaten,” nodded the girl.
“Would it be alright if I just called you Anki? It’s shorter,” said Charlie apologetically. “You Anki, me Charlie.”
“Charlie,” repeated the girl with a smile.
She then picked up the book gingerly and looked at it, turning the pages and studying the writing and images that appeared on them. It was obviously some kind of divine object, made with a material forbidden to men, much softer and shinier than papyrus. Inside it there were windows through which the gods could see the old pyramids, sculptures and other belongings of the pharaohs, their jewels and even their mummies naked and stripped of their grave goods, because the gods did not value a man’s position or wealth, but only the purity of his heart. There were also a lot of hieroglyphs, the sacred writing, but the gods also seemed to have another type of writing, for themselves alone, which they did not wish to share with men.
Charlie saw the girl staring in a daze at Miss Rotherwick’s book and decided to give her a few more minutes, understanding that she might need to get her thoughts in order before joining him on his adventure.
It was then that Ankhesenpaaten understood everything that had happened that afternoon. Her mother had told her the truth: there were other gods apart from Aten; gods that had been offended by being proscribed and having their worship forbidden throughout Egypt; gods that were punishing the royal family because of it, taking its members one by one until the pharaoh gave in and restored their right to be worshiped. Gods who, in spite of everything, were generous and prepared to forgive them. It wasn’t these gods that she should fear, but the fanatical ire of the king.
Her mother had told her about all of them, teaching her their names, their powers and their identifying features so that she could recognize and differentiate them. Amun, the sun god, depicted wearing a headdress with two feathers and the solar disk; Isis, mother of all the gods, who embodied a mother’s unconditional love for her husband and children; Horus, the falcon god, responsible for bringing souls before Osiris, the god of the dead; Sobek, the crocodile god who created the Nile, god of fertility but also of danger and disorder. And Bastet, the goddess with the head of a cat and the body of a woman.
It was clear that these two beings who had appeared in her room were envoys of Sobek and Bastet, if not reincarnations of the gods themselves. What she couldn’t understand is why they had chosen to appear in the form of children, stripped of all solemnity and with only a simple symbol of their divine identity on their garments: a crocodile and a black cat leaping forward. At least Sobek had shown something of his powers; Bastet had allowed the soldiers to capture her without the slightest resistance. Perhaps they were testing her faith; and she had almost failed them. But now that she had understood the situation, it wouldn’t happen again.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t wait any longer,” said Charlie, pointing once again to the portrait of Lisa he had drawn a few minutes earlier. “You have to help me find my sister.”
Ankhesenpaaten looked at the drawing and nodded. She turned to the map of Amarna, and after studying it for a moment she pointed to a spot on the page. Charlie looked at the caption written at the place she pointed to.
“‘Police Headquarters’,” he read aloud. “Wow, these Egyptians really were organized!”
. . .
/> Lisa ran her hand over her neck until she found the place where Captain Senre had placed his knife. She found that she didn’t have a cut there, but even so she felt that fear and helplessness were overpowering her, and her eyes welled up with tears. After a few minutes, she breathed deeply and dried her cheeks. She had to calm down at once and work out a plan that would get her out of there, or at least buy her some time until her brother found her.
She wondered fleetingly whether Charlie would be able to do it or whether the guards would capture him easily, but she chased the thought out of her mind and forbade herself from thinking about it again. Now was not the time to be doubting her brother’s abilities; instead, she should have been working out what she would do the next time the soldiers opened the door of her cell.
The chief of the guards seemed to have been in a hurry to go, but first he had given his soldiers a stern reprimand, as if wanting to make sure that everything would work like clockwork in his absence. Lisa had noticed the fear that the men had felt toward her and that none of them had dared even to touch her until the chief had arrived. He was the only one who didn’t seem afraid of her, so she had to do something before he came back.
She searched in her pockets and laid out the weapons she had one by one: a pack of mint-flavored bubblegum, a flashlight and her parents’ old cell phone with no signal. And her only ammunition: her ingenuity.
. . .
Ankhesenpaaten went to her servant and spoke for a moment with her. The girl looked at her and nodded, although her expression left no doubt as to the worry that plagued her. When the princess finished talking, they embraced one another.
The servant then left the room and came back a moment later. She shook her head as she said something to Ankhesenpaaten, while pointing toward the door she had just gone out through.
The princess listened with a worried look and then turned to Charlie.
“We can go,” she said. “Taheri will know what to say if someone comes looking for me. But we have to think about how to get rid of the soldiers outside my door.”
Charlie didn’t understand a word, but he did understand the situation. Ancient Egypt wasn’t so hard to comprehend after all.
He also felt that it wouldn’t be wise to go strolling around the palace, as everybody would be on the alert after the discovery of an intruder. This meant that the best option would be to go straight out to the street. He took out Lisa’s notebook and set the coordinates for the avenue where the bridge was. He then turned to Ankhesenpaaten and put his arms around her, with an apologetic smile.
“Don’t think I go hugging every girl I meet,” he explained, blushing. “I don’t know why, but with Lisa this was easier.”
Ankhesenpaaten opened her eyes in surprise and couldn’t keep from stiffening up. No stranger had ever dared to touch her, much less embrace her, even if they were an envoy from the gods.
“You have to hug me back,” said Charlie, placing the girl’s hands around his waist. “It’s the only way for this to work.”
The girl became even tenser and Charlie hurriedly turned the clasp on the bracelet. Although it happened to James Bond quite often, he wasn’t keen on the idea of getting a slap on the face in the middle of a secret mission.
. . .
Lisa listened to the “Crazy Cat” tone one more time before adjusting the alarm and putting her cell phone on maximum volume. She then went over her plan in her mind to make sure that she had calculated the times right and remembered the sequence she had to follow.
She took a few deep breaths. Then she focused on smoothing down her hair and clothes, trying to shake out her nerves, although she didn’t succeed entirely.
“It doesn’t matter,” she thought. “I can hold them at bay.”
Finally, she went over to the door and knocked on it twice with all her might.
. . .
Charlie and Ankhesenpaaten appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the avenue, a mere few yards away from the bridge with the paintings of the royal family and the ponds.
Still in something of a daze, the princess pulled away from Charlie. When she looked around she understood that the divine envoy had used his powers to transport them out of the palace. She realized that they were now out on the street that she would see whenever she crossed the bridge leading to the Great Temple of Aten, or when she looked out the palace window to wave to the people with the other members of the royal family. But this was the first time she had ever walked on that street.
Charlie pulled out his map and tried to get his bearings.
“We have to go that way,” he said, pointing to a small lane that led off to the right.
They began walking in the direction he had indicated.
“I’m really sorry that we’ve frightened you,” he said apologetically. “We didn’t know you were in the room; otherwise, we would have introduced ourselves. Lisa didn’t want to poke around in your things or steal them or anything; it’s just that we thought they were your mother’s.”
Ankhesenpaaten didn’t understand the divine envoy’s words, but his tone of voice sounded sincere and relaxing. Apart from Taheri, she had never spoken with anyone so calmly and without the feeling that her interlocutor wanted something from her. She used to be able to do it with her mother or with her sisters Meritaten and Meketaten. But those happy times were gone forever.
“I’m eleven years old,” Charlie went on, pointing to himself and then holding up all ten fingers, followed by one finger on its own. “And you, Anki? How old are you?”
“Eleven,” she said in her language, holding up ten fingers and then one on its own.
“I think there are a lot of scorpions around here, and the black cobra that spits venom in your eyes when it feels threatened,” continued Charlie. “I’d love to see one of them, although I don’t think you’re wearing the right shoes for it. I’d also like to see a desert fox, the ones with the really big ears. I’ll bet those mountains over there are filled with them. But I wouldn’t want to bump into a hippo; in all the National Geographic articles they say they’re very moody, and when everyone says the same thing, it must be for a reason...”
Ankhesenpaaten smiled while she listened to the words of the boy-god and their cheerful sound, although she didn’t understand a word he was saying. The cool night breeze was a welcome relief after the heat of the day. In the distance, dogs were barking in a noisy conversation and the song of the crickets stopped wherever they stepped.
. . .
Two dull thuds like the pounding of a mallet broke the silence of the night. The soldiers keeping guard by the main door to the cell block looked at one another, uncertain how to react. Another two thuds, this time louder, unsettled them all the more.
“Pentu, go down and see what the prisoner is doing,” one guard ordered.
The other guard hesitated. After the captain’s lecture he couldn’t show that he still feared the intruder, and they had been warned that one more mistake would not be tolerated.
“Go on, go to her cell and see what she’s doing,” his companion insisted. “Or are you afraid of a simple girl?”
Pentu opened the door and entered the passageway to the cells. Another two thuds rang out from inside the cell where the prisoner was being held.
The soldier peeked in through the bars of the door, trying to see her, but it was too dark inside.
“What are you doing? Don’t make me come inside or you’ll get what’s coming to you!” he shouted so that his companion would hear him clearly.
There was no answer, but the banging stopped. Pentu stood for a moment longer at the door and then turned around to go back to his post. He had barely made it halfway down the hall when he heard two more thuds.
“Shut that fool of a girl up!” spat out the other soldier.
Pentu was furious. He cursed his fate and the girl for deciding to cast her spells just when he happened to be on duty. He pulled back the bolt on the door slowly and opened it cautiously. Without daring
to enter, he looked around for the prisoner, but his torch barely lit up half the cell. Trembling, he gripped his weapon and stepped inside, leaving the door open behind him, while he tried to get his eyes accustomed to the darkness.
Suddenly he heard the sweet meowing of a cat. He tried to control his panic as he realized that his fears had not been unfounded fantasies. He had been right all along. On the way from the palace, he had warned his companions that the girl was a priestess of the goddess Bastet, if not the goddess herself. Her eyes were green like a cat’s, the like of which they’d never seen before; her skin was ghostly white and her features were feline. But worst of all was her strange yellow tunic, the color of bad luck, which bore a black cat leaping forward in what was clearly an attack position.
He also had warned them of the goddess’ character: peaceful in appearance but fierce and destructive if she were made angry. And everybody in Egypt knew that the goddesses had been angry for a long time, as they had shown with the droughts and epidemics of recent years which they had used to punish the people.
The meowing became fiercer until finally it turned into a shriek. At that very moment, a light appeared out of nowhere, illuminating only the face of the prisoner from her chin to her forehead. Pentu froze with fear and silently begged the goddess not to unleash her wrath on him.
Then she began speaking very slowly in a language he could not understand, but in a tone that was threatening and sinister. Finally, she stopped speaking and a green ball began to emerge from her mouth, growing larger and larger until it covered half her face.
Terrified, Pentu managed to find just enough strength to turn around and run out of the cell screaming. It was obvious that the goddess was just about to tear his heart straight out of his chest.
. . .
Charlie and Ankhesenpaaten were right in front of the police headquarters when they heard a great commotion inside the cell block and saw a group of men come running out. But the screams coming from inside didn’t stop; in fact, they grew louder, and Charlie had a feeling that it all had something to do with his sister. The two children sneaked over to the main door and slipped inside, taking advantage of the fact that it had been left wide open and unguarded. On the other side there was a courtyard with stables to the right and a building on the left. Charlie guessed that would be where they had his sister held prisoner.