constitute a new avenue of study heretofore un-dreamed of. I had appealed to his scientific curiosity and professional pride and he had answered by immediately booking passage on the next ship bound for our corner of the Americas. With nothing between him and the ocean but an acre’s yield of lumber, his own mind was as pleasurably agitated as the waters of the Atlantic were placid. A strong, easy wind made for a particularly speedy passage and by the time he dis-barked on our shores, he was in a state of un-containable excitement. This happy emotion would only increase when we introduced him to Hatotep, a character as sensational as any to be found in a penny dreadful.
I confess to a weakness for the beau geste, the grander the better and I expressed it by shamelessly playing the showman for M. Seullinard; my father would have been appalled at my conduct. Hatotep was none too steady on his feet but we had dressed him in a house robe and managed to help him to a chair in the front parlour after having laid down a cloth to catch the bits of dusty debris he shed when moving, a source of constant annoyance to Madeleine the fastidious housekeeper. I arranged the caskets and funerary objects in an enfilade from back of house to front so that Seullinard could observe them, all the time working his way toward the parlour in the front of the house. Having thoroughly examined the last of the amulets we had found among the wrappings, he asked after the mummy and where it might be. At that I flung open the doors to the parlour and revealed our original group of friends and Hatotep, at the center of their attention. He was talking madly away, none of it intelligible to us.
"Mon Dieu!!!" he shouted and then again in English, "Good, God! What is this? It cannot be. But you have played the joke on me. Explain yourself Edmund."
"It's no joke Monsieur. This is Hatotep, a gentleman of the Middle Kingdom. He is a talkative chap and I know how much you love to listen. Can you help us communicate with him? We are desperate to know what he is saying."
This was too much for poor Seullinard and he fainted dead away. We revived him and after some restful moments he warmed to the idea of a parley with Hatotep. He fetched his books on Coptic and related subjects and began, just like that, conversing with the three thousand year-old man. We were greatly excited when he began his first translation into English
"He says he thought all of you quite rude. You offered him no alimentation these past weeks?"
"We had no idea he would need refreshment, or we would have offered him some of course," Madeleine said indignantly.
“He’s going on and on about the figs at his country retreat," Seullinard continued. "He’s thirsty, too and would like some beer.”
“That’s out of the question," Roderick insisted. "He has no stomach for beer, how could he possibly drink it?”
“Well, he has no vocal cords either," both Benjamin and Seullinard pointed out. "How is it that he speaks?”
“So, you believe he could drink a beverage?” Annabel asked.
“Given the circumstances, don’t you think it a distinct possibility?”
“Yes, but would he enjoy it?” Roderick wanted to know.
Enjoy it he did, as evidenced by the movements all about his mouth as the dried flesh attempted a smile. His vocal sighs indicated a deep pleasure.
That he could still, some three thousand years after being eviscerated and embalmed, enjoy life’s small, sensual pleasures had a profoundly comforting effect on us all. We basked briefly in this ben’essere, evident by the looks on our faces of a kind usually produced only by baby-gazing – in short, we looked ridiculous staring at the most appalling human remains as though the flesh was as fresh and appealing as an infant’s.
There was more tickle than terror in Hatotep at first but dark thoughts seemed to attend his dry wit. The mummy had no evil designs on the living; it was innocent of all bad intent but its rarity and fantastic nature would inflame the desires and ambitions of those it came in contact with, both in this world and beyond. And the spirit of Hatotep himself was in shadows; despite the mirth, tragedy had marked him. We would soon enough know of that tragedy as Hatotep, recognizing in M. Seullinard a sympathisant, privileged us with a sounding of the unexpected depths of his soul.
Following is the story as told by Hatotep and translated through the open mind and true pen of Mr. Alexandre Seullinard:
I must tell you a story – one that I am now to understand is more than three thousand years old – that I have never told before. It was kept lively on the speculating tongues of the men and women of my time – whispers leapt from mouth to mouth while in my presence, ears burned with my sorrow long after the deaths of my third wife and the last five that remained of the seven children she bore me. Society throws one’s tragedy in the way at every appearance; one must regard it with indifference and crush it continually under foot.
This is the story of revenge exacted on two of the most miserable human beings to inhabit the land of Pharaoh. I will not speak their names, for their names must never be written. The one was a woman with a bitter womb, my first wife; the other her lone surviving child, seed of another man, whose presence in my house was destabilizing from his first foot step across the threshold.
I was the lesser son of an august house and as lesser sons must, I had to some extent make my own way in the world, understanding, of course, that my way was lit by the lamps of influential personages whose connections allowed me, with no small effort on my part, to make an early claim to a good life. Eventually my orchards stretched as far as I could see – my dates and figs were asked for by name in the markets; my compound was a large one, affording shelter for several wives, many children and slaves multitudinous enough to profitably work a vast plantation.
But when I first left my father’s house, my future seemed less secure and my hunger endless. I was the jackal with nose to the wind, ready to pounce on any prey. I was a vulture of opportunity with eyes out for any carrion left to rot from which I could suck profit like marrow from the bone. I hunted frequently in the desert with my friends and any acquaintances I wanted to impress, for I was a good hunter. I knew women in numbers equal to my catch of wild animals but the hunt for a wife is a different game altogether and I vowed to exercise prudence in that endeavour. A wife must not only be fertile and mother to many children but a harmonious partner, a trusted advisor; she must be shrewd in the interests of her husband but her ambitions must run with his own and never cross him.
I resisted my family's attempts to marry me off to eligible familiars, determined that I myself would fashion a match equal to my carnal needs and my ambitions. I did just that.
I met her at the festival of Sekhmet in Thebes. I don’t know what gods prevail in this strange time and place I find myself in. You may not worship the Mistress of Dread, for such is one of her appellations, but you should know the bloody chaos that results from her displeasure - once, she nearly annihilated all of mankind. She was stopped in this by Ra the sun god who turned the Nile red, so that she was lured to slake her thirst for blood but it was not blood; it was beer mixed with pomegranate juice to resemble blood. She drank from this concoction and became quite drunk and ceased the killing. And so intoxication was seen as spiritually cleansing during her festival and tellingly, my first wife, then an alluring stranger to me, abstained.
While all about her was drunken chaos, she radiated a calm, bracing sobriety. A woman who then, having 28 years of life behind her, was at the peak of her beauty and charm, all her feminine attributes honed until they glimmered softly. Such flawless skin she had, not one blemish marred the surface as it elastically wrapped her bones and flesh. How meticulous was every piece of her costume – the jewelry, the pleated cloth, the paint on her skin – each grew out from the abundance of her body, stopped short of running into excess by the slopes of her anatomy.
The festive retching and mis-steps of those around her kept reinforcing the divinity in her. All her observances of the celebratory crowd were mild, no harsh judgments, simply a studied observation. Her willful transcending of the moment was playful and effortle
ss; her reproaches calmly assertive. And I, intoxicated but not insensate, focused my own studied observation on her.
I was obscured from her view somewhat by the architectural shade of the temple, leaning on a massive column, one which had traces of my youth carved into it – my name and that of a childhood friend worked into the feet of Toth over hours of several summer days while under nominal care of an uncle who was a priest there. She was sitting down on the steps in front of me, in conversation with another woman who presumably was an acquaintance.
I dithered, unable to decide with which approach I might gain her interest. I was a handsome fellow, present condition not withstanding, so I had that in my favour. But I sensed that more was needed with this one. She was older than me, considerably – some seven years older – and her sophistication required extra effort on my part. I was working myself into knots trying to decide what to say – something funny? Poetic? Slightly risqué? – when she began getting up and saying her goodbyes to her acquaintance. I panicked and just barely managed to strangle a shout into a loud gasp. She looked in my direction, though not at me and then turned to go. I followed her of course, becoming more and