The shabti-maker lived in a small mudbrick house with his wife, their three children and their pet ibis. To make room for Pirra, all but the ibis had been sent away. Pirra found it quite comforting to let Berenib take over. It took her mind off what was going to happen to Hylas.
‘First, we need to get you clean,’ muttered Berenib. She gave Pirra a reed toothbrush and papyrus-root paste, then the juice of sycomore figs to sweeten her breath. A body scrub with sacred salt was next, a thorough rinse, pellets of carob seed and incense rubbed under her arms, and finally Berenib’s ‘special mixture’ of goosefat and honey, to smooth her skin. (Berenib called most things her ‘special mixture’, and insisted on telling Pirra what went into each one.)
To add lustre to her hair, there was a ‘special lotion’ of sesame oil and juniper, then Berenib spent ages making lots of tiny plaits, with two bunches at the front, woven with purple feathers and white lotus flowers. Her ‘special perfume’ was a small pat of river-horse fat scented with jasmine. She wanted to put it on Pirra’s parting, where it would slowly melt, but Pirra refused. Berenib insisted. Pirra gave in.
After hennaing Pirra’s hands and feet, she selected a pair of finely woven reed sandals, then helped her into a narrow sheath of pleated white linen with scarlet straps, a yellow fringe that brushed her ankles, and a beaded blue sash at the waist. Instead of real jewels, there were bronze wrist-cuffs, anklets, and copper hoops for her ears, with a heavy collar of green jasper that covered her breasts, and was counter-balanced at the back by a length of turquoise beads: Berenib called this a menit.
There was a tussle over the rawhide cuff on Pirra’s forearm, which Berenib won: the cuff came off. But Pirra kept her Keftian necklace tied round her waist under her dress; and she strapped her knife to her shin.
When at last she was dressed, she tried a few steps – and nearly fell over. The narrow skirts hobbled her, and the sandals were so slippery she knew they’d never been worn. ‘Is all this yours?’ she asked.
Berenib’s laugh made her chins wobble. ‘Oh, I’d never fit a dress that size! I borrowed everything from our stores.’
‘What stores?’
Berenib seemed disconcerted. ‘Well … Some people dress their Blessed Ones before they bring them, but others leave it to us.’
‘Oh,’ said Pirra. She’d been given clothes for the dead.
Berenib gave her another little pat. ‘Have some of my special calming potion. Grated lotus root in pomegranate wine, never been know to fail. Now sit still while I do your face.’
By mid-afternoon the West Bank was at fever pitch, so it was easy for Berenib and Pirra, suitably veiled, to reach Nebetku’s workshop without being noticed. There Berenib left her. Pirra was dismayed to find Nebetku, but not Hylas. All her dread came rushing back. ‘Where is he?’ she cried.
‘With Herihor, being purified,’ said Nebetku.
‘But he will come back? I mean – before the coffin?’
‘He will. Sit. Wait with me.’ He indicated a rush mat near his.
Awkward in her new clothes, Pirra knelt.
Nebetku seemed a little better today, perhaps because he now had hope for his brother’s spirit. Pirra noticed that he’d placed a dish of water in a corner, and Echo was splashing in it. The falcon seemed more subdued than usual; maybe she’d sensed Pirra’s apprehension.
Nebetku coughed and wiped his lips, and studied her. ‘Berenib did well. In the dark, you could pass for the Lady Meritamen.’
‘I’ll have to do more than that, I’ll have to give orders in Egyptian that will fool the guards.’
‘Rensi will help … He and Herihor will go with you as your slaves. The guards would think it odd if you went alone.’
‘Good.’ But she still felt hollow with dread.
‘I made this for you.’ Nebetku held out a strip of papyrus. Wind it round your belt, for luck. I made another for the barbarian.’
The papyrus was painted with sacred signs. Pirra recognized a few. A bee, a pot and the Sun meant ‘honey’, while a tiny kneeling man with his arms tied behind meant ‘enemy’, or ‘barbarian’. All were written in red: the colour of danger.
‘This is a spell,’ Pirra said in a low voice.
Nebetku blinked. ‘How is it you know the medu netjer?’
‘I don’t, just a few signs. Userref taught me …’ She broke off, remembering lessons in the House of the Goddess. Never let your pen hand touch the papyrus, Pirra … And don’t look at the tip, look at where you want it to go …
‘I always wanted to draw birds,’ she said shakily. ‘I used to get cross because my owls didn’t look like owls. Userref said birds are the hardest. “Start with the breast,” he’d tell me, “because that’s where its mind is, then down to the feet, then the tail, and the rest. Do the beak last: pull it out from the ink with a little flick. That’s when it becomes a bird …” ’
Nebetku tried to swallow. ‘I told him that. I didn’t think he remembered.’
Echo finished her bath and began tidying her feathers.
‘He remembered everything,’ said Pirra. ‘He taught me how to care for falcons, too. He said you taught him that. He never stopped missing you, or wanting to go home.’
Tears were sliding down Nebetku’s wasted cheeks.
Pirra willed herself not to cry. No sense in Berenib having to repaint her face. ‘I have to ask you something. If your tomb is so secret, why don’t you mind telling Hylas how to find it?’
He wiped his face with his fingers. ‘He asked me that too.’
‘So why is it? Don’t you expect him to survive?’
‘Of course I do, I need him to replace the Spells.’
‘And afterwards? How will he survive a tomb full of curses and shabtis and ghosts?’
‘He will have enough air until about midnight. If he gets out by then, he lives. If not …’
‘What then?’
He coughed and went on coughing. ‘All I care about,’ he panted, ‘is saving my brother’s ba. I have no strength for anything else.’
Outside, a flock of crows settled raucously in a tree. Echo flew off to chase them away.
All this suffering, thought Pirra, because of the Crows.
She thought of Telamon at the heb: a handsome warrior now, but secretly terrified that he wasn’t enough of a man to be a leader. And she thought of Alekto, with her perfect face and her beautiful black eyes, as empty of humanity as two holes cut in marble.
Pirra’s grief hardened to anger, and she made a silent promise to Userref: Whatever happens, your death will be avenged.
To Nebetku she said: ‘I need you to help me make another spell.’
Herihor had returned Hylas’ knife, and Hylas had persuaded him (with Nebetku translating) to give him two sheaths: one for his own knife, strapped to his arm like Kem’s, and another at his belt, to hold the dagger of Koronos.
The embalmer had gone to fetch them, leaving Hylas alone in the outer workshop, when Pirra appeared in the doorway.
He was stunned. She looked highborn and haughtily beautiful. But then, he reminded himself, she is highborn. Her disguise works because she was born to it.
Her face was a painted stillness, her eyelids green, her eyes thickly rimmed with black, with a short line descending from her lower lids, like a falcon’s teardrop. He guessed she’d done that herself, to give her courage.
‘How did you get on with Herihor?’ she said quietly.
He glanced down at the new kilt which the embalmer had forced him into. His skin was still burning from being scrubbed all over. ‘Not that good. He wanted to shave me all over. We settled for plaiting my hair.’ He gave her a lopsided smile.
She didn’t smile back. ‘All those braids. You look like a warrior.’
‘Well I’m not.’
‘Hylas, I need you to do something for me.’ She held out Userref’s wedjat amulet. ‘Put this in his coffin. He thought I was dead. Tell him I’m not and I miss him. Tell him – to be at peace.’
‘I will.’ He wanted to say something more: to tell her that if this didn’t work, not to try and find his body, just run away, Rensi and Herihor would look after her … Instead he blurted out, ‘You look good, Pirra. You’ll have no trouble getting past the guards.’
Her mouth twisted. ‘Do I look like her?’
He thought she looked better than Meritamen, but Pirra mistook his hesitation, and put her hand to her scar.
‘Forget about your scar,’ he told her. ‘It doesn’t matter. The Moon has scars, but it’s still beautiful.’
Pirra blinked. Then she gave an uncertain smile, as if she couldn’t quite believe what he’d just said.
At that moment, Rensi and Herihor appeared in the doorway. Hurriedly, Pirra pressed a strip of papyrus into Hylas’ palm and closed his fingers over it. ‘Nebetku made this for you. Wear it as a headband to protect you.’
He nodded but couldn’t speak.
Herihor said something in Egyptian, and Pirra’s eyes widened. ‘It’s time,’ she said.
The haze from Berenib’s calming potion cleared, and Hylas woke up.
He heard muffled flutes and wailing. The heb was still outside the tomb. He had to stay where he was.
He was lying in darkness so thick he could taste it. The heat was stifling, his breath horribly loud, the lid of the coffin almost touching his nose. Rensi had bored airholes, hidden by garlands heaped on top. It didn’t feel as if he’d made enough.
The coffin was so narrow Hylas couldn’t move: his legs were clamped together, his arms pressed to his sides. Against his thigh lay Nebetku’s scroll of spells. He tried to concentrate on that.
It didn’t work. The mat on which he lay was scratchy with myrtle, strewn by Herihor to prevent him defiling what was beneath. Under the mat, garlands of blue lotus released their overpowering scent, and from beneath came the sour tang of the Wrapped One: the sacred crocodile waiting to begin its journey to the Duat.
Fighting panic, Hylas prayed that the procession would leave now, so that he could climb out. Nebetku had said to listen for the sound of breaking pots: smashing the jars of the funeral feast meant the rites were over, and the tomb would be sealed.
All he heard were more wails and muffled chants. He couldn’t stand it much longer.
‘Don’t climb out too soon,’ Nebetku had warned. ‘They will hear you, and all will be over!’
To distract himself, Hylas went over the plan of the Crocodile Tomb in his head. Nebetku had scratched it in sand, then swiftly smoothed it out. ‘The black cat marks the opening to the tunnel. Once through it, you will be in the chamber of my ancestors. Beyond that is the burial chamber where my brother lies.’ He’d paused. ‘The tunnel might be a problem, your shoulders are broader than an Egyptian’s. Try not to get stuck …’
Stuck? In a tunnel deep underground in a sealed tomb?
Stop it, Hylas. Think about afterwards, when you’ve swapped the scrolls, got the dagger, and Pirra has let you out …
A sharp pain in his temples made him wince. Lights flickered behind his eyes. The veil shrouding the world of the spirits was blowing aside. Well, of course. He was inside a tomb.
Something tickled his ankle. A spider? An ant?
Something else touched his knee: a feather-light scratch of tiny claws.
Spiders and ants don’t have claws. He thought of the little sacred signs that covered the inside of the coffin, and his heart began to pound. They’re going to come alive in the tomb …
In Itineb’s village, Pirra had shown him a sign of a trussed duck waiting to be killed: she’d said it meant fear. At the time, he’d laughed. He wasn’t laughing now.
He heard faint scrabblings and gnawings. His hands brushed the sides of the coffin. Things skittered away from his fingers. He thought of tiny vipers and wasps, vultures and knives and bodiless feet and hands, scorpions …
As he lay battling panic, the whole coffin lurched. No – not the coffin itself: what lay within. Beneath the myrtle-strewn mat and the crushed lotus, the Wrapped One itself was beginning to move.
Rigid with horror, Hylas felt the snakelike swish of its great tail undulate from side to side. The crocodile was setting off on its final journey. It was swimming upriver to the Duat.
And taking him with it.
It was dark by the time the heb came down from the cliffs and headed back across the River – and Pirra was sick with dread. No one really knew if Hylas would have enough air.
Rensi and Herihor appeared, dressed as her slaves: Rensi without his wig, Herihor having shaved off his grey hair; he looked more like a skeleton than ever. Nebetku watched from his workshop as they set off for the Houses of Eternity.
‘I’ll do the talking,’ muttered Rensi. ‘The guards will expect this. All you need to do is confirm what I tell them, just say: “It is so.” ’
‘It is so,’ repeated Pirra. But surely the guards would hear that she wasn’t the Hati-aa’s wife?
Rensi moved fast on his short legs, and Herihor loped beside him, carrying the offerings ‘the Lady Meritamen’ was taking to her family tomb: a basket of pomegranates and sycomore figs, a jar of wine and a big nodding fan of lotus flowers. Pirra hissed at them to slow down. She couldn’t stride in her narrow dress, and her sandals were still slippery, even though she’d roughened the soles with grit.
Rensi led them by shadowy back ways, past fields of stubble. He hadn’t told Pirra the whereabouts of the Crocodile Tomb, and she didn’t ask now. Better she didn’t know, in case she was caught.
Behind her lay the dark sprawl of the workshops, and the pale glimmer of the Hati-aa’s stables. To her left, a gorge cut through the hills: she heard the sinister cackle of hyaenas out in the desert. To her right, the villages of Tjebu and Gesa were bright with cooking fires. Across the River, more fires: she caught the distant music of the heb. It would go on for another seven days, until the Flood was well under way.
The Moon rose. They left the fields and climbed a rocky hill, the path snaking up towards the cliffs. The ground on either side was pocked with hollows, some with little clay platters and dishes of water and bread.
‘The graves of the poor,’ murmured Herihor. ‘A hole in the sand and the body wrapped in palmcloth. Ugh!’
‘They do their best,’ said Rensi.
‘Where are the Hati-aa’s guards?’ said Pirra uneasily.
‘Higher up,’ said Rensi. ‘Nothing to steal down here, so no tomb-robbers, real or imagined.’
As they climbed higher, the tombs became grander: doorways cut into the hillside, and further up, wider ones with terraced courts in front. Some were still being dug; several had carts and baskets of rubble left by tomb builders. Pirra glimpsed lintels carved with sacred signs. On one, a goddess with the head of a cow stretched out Her arms to greet the rising Sun.
Behind one of these doorways lay the Crocodile Tomb. Had Hylas already found his way to Userref’s coffin? Or was he lying unconscious, already suffocating?
Herihor had given him a fine linen kilt and a wide red belt. He’d looked good, but Pirra hated that the embalmer had treated him like a Wrapped One, and made him handsome for his coffin.
Not his coffin, she corrected herself. It belongs to the crocodile. That small error felt like the worst of omens.
She touched the little pouch tied to her sash. It held the charm Nebetku had helped her make. If all else failed, she would find some way to avenge Userref. But for Hylas it would be too late.
She must have spoken out loud, because Herihor cast her a questioning glance. ‘Are you sure you drilled lots of airholes?’ she said. ‘What if he can’t breathe?’
Herihor didn’t reply. His concern was for those who never breathed: he was far more worried about his crocodile.
Rensi hissed at them to be quiet, it wasn’t far now.
They rounded a bend, and there were the guards: six men squatting by a fire beneath a clump of acacias, cooking their evening meal. Pirra smelt beer and onions, saw spears propped against eac
h other and long curved bronze knives. It is so, she thought. That’s all you’ve got to say.
Rensi waddled forwards. ‘Stand aside for the Lady Meritamen,’ he said briskly, ‘we bring offerings to the shrine of her ancestors.’
Pirra opened her mouth to confirm the order. Before she could speak, a veiled figure emerged form behind the trees.
‘It is so,’ said Meritamen.
‘Don’t speak,’ said Meritamen in Akean, ‘just listen and remember that a word from me and the guards will take you all.’
Pirra, Rensi and Herihor stood rooted to the spot.
‘What do you want?’ croaked Pirra.
‘You know what I want. Lord Tel-amon believes the dagger is in a tomb. I see from your faces that he is right.’
Swiftly, she ordered the guards to remain at their post, then led Pirra and the others out of earshot. ‘We must be quick,’ she said in Egyptian. ‘Tell me in which tomb the dagger lies.’
‘I don’t know,’ lied Pirra.
‘But they do – I can see it.’ Sharply, Meritamen addressed Rensi and Herihor. ‘Take me there at once!’
They didn’t move.
She turned to Pirra. ‘You must do this! It’s the only way, I’ll go in your place and let him out! Oh yes, I know Hy-las is in the tomb, my spy overheard you just now. He seeks the dagger, yes?’
‘He’ll never give it to you,’ said Pirra.
‘Can’t you understand, I’m trying to help you!’
‘Help?’ spat Pirra. ‘Stealing from Userref’s coffin? Putting his spirit in danger? You call that help? Why are you doing this? How do I know Telamon isn’t already here?’
Meritamen hissed in frustration. ‘Hy-las saved my sister’s life! Because of this, I wish to save his life – and because I hate Tel-amon! Is that not enough? We must be quick! I have kept Tel-amon in Pa-Sobek by telling my boatmen to delay – but that won’t work for long! If you do not do as I say, he will catch you and torture it out of you – and by then Hy-las will be dead!’