There were prayers, with hands held up to the sky; there was anointing with oil; there was sharing of the cup.
From the second litter, two girls in white gowns were brought forward. One knelt, kissed the ground, and sang from a kneeling position. The cool high notes of her psalm rang between the vast stones, echoing in the night air. Was she a priestess? A daughter or wife of Khufu?
Strat knew the name of Khufu’s mother, Hetepheres; he was sure he could hear those syllables in the girl’s song. Now he recognized the notes. It was the song of the gold sandal, when he had held it in his hands.
As the ceremony went on, ropes were rigged. Two rock slabs were hauled across the sand, each perhaps four feet across and six or eight inches thick. Heavy, but nothing compared to the two-ton stones that made up the Pyramid. Many baskets, also containing something very heavy, were carried up.
The second girl sang nothing and did nothing, but stood motionless. She wore so much gold that she herself was scarcely visible.
Now Khufu himself spoke, and even the jackals were silent as Pharaoh expanded his voice, and his orders filled the City of the Dead.
The singer was lifted into a sort of basket on ropes and lowered gently into the tomb. The girl wrapped in gold was put into the next basket and also lowered. Torches dipped forward, in fascination or reverence. There was a great spill of light and the second girl was no longer shadow under jewels. Strat could see her features and her eyes.
It was Annie.
He had hardly begun rejoicing at the marvelous ways of Time—the miraculous conjunction of souls—the perfect meeting soon to occur in the perfect place—when the next lowering into the shaft occurred.
It was not a priest or a soldier who went down. It was the first rock-hewn slab.
Promptly, the second slab was lowered over the first, and the men began a great and dreadful warbling. They hooted like robed birds gone mad, bowing and nodding to the earth. Then, one by one, man by man, they emptied the baskets down the shaft. Sand and rock and pebble.
Filling it.
ANNIE
Annie and Renifer were in a small room with a large bed. The pile of soft pillows awaited. So did death. It was a parody of a slumber party. But they had not dressed Annie for a party. They had dressed her for eternity.
She did not speak to Renifer and Renifer did not speak to her, because they shared no language and because there was nothing to say.
Annie took off the magnificent necklace, the crown, the thick bracelets, the anklets and amulets. She laid them in a row at the foot of the bed. Gold was beautiful, but you could not, in fact, take it with you. When she slithered out of the netted gown, its bright beads tumbled onto the floor, tangled beyond hope. She slid out of the gold sandals but when her bare feet touched the stone floor, she couldn’t stand it. There might be spiders or beetles or rats down here. So she kept the sandals on and fingered the pleats in her stiff white undergown.
Time, you vicious spirit. How could you do this to me? Renifer’s torch will burn out. We will sit in the dark while we suffocate.
Annie had contemplated death, of course. All thinking people contemplate death. Her own age was particularly fascinated with it. Whenever they had a poetry assignment, half the kids wrote about death. But none of them ever expected to sit inside their own tomb with lots of time to consider the future of their own dead body.
I am going to become a mummy, she thought.
Annie had read that the Egyptians had not really needed to mummify their dead; the desert would do it for them. Egypt was so dry that bodies behaved like autumn leaves, turning color and turning crispy.
The torch had burned down too low for Renifer to hold it anymore. She set the bit of flaming wood against the stone sarcophagus, where it burned brightly, casting shadows along the incised hieroglyphs. The ceiling was quite high. Annie watched the smoke rise. Perhaps she should breathe deeply and get it over with.
It was uncommon for an American to feel helpless. Annie’s generation and country did not believe in that kind of thing. If you had character and intelligence, you did not permit yourself to be helpless. You solved everything.
Annie would not solve this.
She would not solve thirst, hunger, fear or rage. She would not teach Renifer to speak English, so they could mourn together. She would not dismantle the tomb from the inside, nor tug away granite slabs as large as picnic tables and then empty the shaft so she could climb up.
Instead, she would listen to her heartbeat and wonder what it would be like when that stopped. And then it would stop.
The torch flickered. Annie did not think she could bear being in total dark. “Renifer,” she whispered.
Renifer took Annie into her arms and sang gently, as in a lullabye.
Rock me to sleep, thought Annie. Let me not remember in my sleep that I have been buried alive. Let me not wake, but just drift away and not have to feel what is happening to me.
And as she fell asleep, she understood what Time had done.
In 1899, Strat was going to dig up bones that had been interred for thousands of years.
And they would be Annie’s.
VI
Time to Die
RENIFER
Renifer hoped she would be the first to die. It was bad enough to lie next to an empty sarcophagus in the dark. She didn’t want to lie next to the corpse of the girl of ivory. Renifer’s mouth was dry. Thirst was not yet torture, but that would come. She and the girl of ivory would not die easily.
She could neither pray nor summon happy memories. The image of her mother shopping, her little brothers playing ball, her sister stealing her eye makeup, her girlfriends casting eyes at Pankh—none of these could she remember.
She pictured instead the hand of her father dropping a rock as his contribution to the sealing of his living daughter’s tomb. The smile of Pankh as he took his turn. How Pharaoh would honor them. How their careers would soar.
I do not mind dying for thee, O queen, thought Renifer. But to die while Father and Pankh laugh at Pharaoh! To die neither embalmed nor prayed over, while Father and Pankh are given tombs in the best part of the City of the Dead. I mind that.
Pankh had not spoken to Renifer as she was led to her fate. He had touched his forehead to the ground at Pharaoh’s feet, but he had not touched the cheek or hand of his beloved. Nor had he touched the girl of ivory. His eyes had done that for him: caressing the gold she wore. In Pankh’s eyes had been heat and excitement such as Renifer herself had never generated.
It was lust for gold.
Pankh will rob this tomb, thought Renifer.
He would wait until the girls were dead. He would wait a month or year. Until Pharaoh was busy with other affairs. Until new guards had been given new bribes. Until the gold he already possessed was not enough and he must have more.
He would empty the shaft. It would take several nights. He would remove rubble, cart it away, temporarily plaster over the cavity, open it up again the next night. Lifting the two slabs at the bottom would be easy, since the ropes still lay tied around them. He would step over the bodies, pleased that the girl of ivory had stripped off her gold and stacked it so neatly.
His wife would wear it. For Pankh would marry soon. His station required it. Possibly he would marry Renifer’s little sister, thus keeping the secrets in the family.
In the darkness, Renifer inched away from the sleeping pale girl and went to her knees and prayed.
Sekhmet! Destroy Pankh who destroys queens. Destroy him who loves gold more than love. I beg thee, in honor of my willing sacrifice, with thy power, make him suffer.
Renifer sat back on her heels, hugging her knees to her chest. Never had she been so sure that a prayer had been heard.
She sat in terrible darkness, where not even gold had value, and dreamed of what Sekhmet would do to Pankh. And then began the terror. Not for Pankh, who deserved it! For Renifer herself.
Queen Hetepheres began to open her sarcophagus from the ins
ide.
There was a creaking of bones as joints moved, and the sound of old dead laughter.
Renifer imagined the fingernails of a dead queen raking her face.
But Father had destroyed the mummy! There was no queen within that coffin.
The girl of ivory awoke and they gripped each other in the dreadful dark.
No longer did the sound seem to come from the sarcophagus. It was on all sides: above and below, left and right.
Was it the sound of a ka rejoining its mummy? But there was no mummy to find!
What rage would the ka exhibit when it learned the evil truth? It seemed to be trapped in the walls, fighting in the shaft, scrabbling on the surface. What would it do to Renifer and the girl of ivory when it got into the room with them?
Renifer prayed aloud, desperate to reach the ears of the coming ka. “No,” she prayed. “O queen, I gave myself for you. I die for you. Do not attack me in the dark. O grandmother of Meresankh, whom I served, pity me!”
There were grunts and scrabbles. Scrapes and moans. A trickle, as of many pebbles; and a cry, as of pain.
I would rather have been impaled in the desert in the sun, thought Renifer. At least I could see and understand my death.
Beloved gods! Do not allow the fingers of the dead to feel the skin of my face.
PANKH
Pankh was permitted the honor of escorting Pharaoh back to the royal barge. The royal hand lay upon Pankh’s forehead; the royal blessing bestowed upon Pen-Meru. But already Pharaoh’s mind was elsewhere. His mother was safe and now He must get a good night’s sleep.
Pankh did not consider Pharaoh a fool. The Lord of the Two Lands was as strong a king as Egypt had known. But He believed too much in His own people. He believed in loyalty.
It was Pankh’s experience that men were more loyal to gold than to kings. A hundred men had gasped at the sight of that gold. Chains of gold, circles of gold, hanks of gold, crowns of gold—draped upon the girl of ivory, who neither bent nor sagged, but stood white and flawless, a statue of marble, carrying it into eternity.
Or … as long as it took for tomb robbers to relieve her of the burden.
Pharaoh went to His chamber. The procession dispersed. Torches were doused. Priests went to their beds. Soldiers changed watch. Pen-Meru was rowed to Memphis, his arms full of treasure to replace his daughter.
Pankh, however, drifted toward the docks and piers. He knew the waterfront well. The dark was his friend. Half a mile upstream, he eased out into the desert. Silently and carefully, he circled the City of the Dead, keeping to the shadows, more uneasy about jackals than tomb police. He would approach the girls’ tomb from the vacant western desert instead of the busy Nile.
Pankh would not be the only one who wanted that gold, but he was definitely the only one bold enough to take it the very same night Pharaoh dedicated it. In Pharaoh’s own procession had been at least one tomb guard and one priest known to assist robbers. But did these men know there was a second shaft? That it had not been filled? Did they know the exact location? Or would it take them years of poking to locate the spot?
Pankh had purchased the architect’s plans for the tomb of Princess Nitiqret of Blessed Memory. But that did not mean the plans had been sold only once.
He must retrieve the gold before dawn. At the sun’s first rays, the next police shift would arrive. Priests would be performing morning ablutions, tourists gawking, families picnicking. Acolytes would be anxiously reporting for their first day and vendors setting up their tables to sell cheap straw hats. The girl of ivory had worn so much gold! But if she could wear that much, he could carry or hide that much.
Pankh slipped among the minor pyramids to find the second shaft.
He regretted that the girls would not yet be dead.
In a way, he reasoned, it would be an act of generosity to speed them on their way. Less suffering. Yes, he was being kind.
ANNIE
Annie and Renifer were holding each other so tightly she could not tell whose heart was pounding so loudly: her own, Renifer’s, or the intruder’s.
It was the dark that was so very terrible. Although she had looked around carefully when there was still torchlight, and knew how small was the room in which they were trapped, higher than it was wide, now that it was utterly dark, she did not know. She could not bring herself to reach forth in the pitch black and touch a wall or a floor and the ceiling was far too high to be touched.
And then, through her fear, she became aware of something most odd. She felt a strong draft. There should not be fresh air in a sealed tomb, let alone a breeze.
Somehow, somewhere, an airway had been opened. Only the hand of man could move rocks and let in a draft. So … the scrapes—could those be rocks as they were dragged away? The grunts—from a living man’s chest? The rasping—soles of shoes sliding down stone?
Could this be rescue?
But who would rescue them?
She understood now that Pharaoh had ordered their deaths. His soldiers would not march back to retrieve the sacrifice. The priests had been proud to participate. In the faces of all assembled, Annie had seen reverence.
That left Pankh and Pen-Meru. Had Annie misjudged them? Were they good people after all? Helpless to act when surrounded by Pharaoh’s finest soldiers? Had they returned, at hideous risk to themselves, to save Renifer?
If it is them, thought Annie, they’ll save Renifer, but they won’t save me. I’m the sacrifice. They’ll leave me here.
The draft lifted her hair. Whoever was coming had opened a considerable airway.
And I’m climbing up it, she told herself. Pankh buried me alive; I have the right to smash him in the head.
She still wore the gold sandals. She slid one off and gripped it firmly in her hand. It was a good solid weapon. She’d knock him out in the dark and shinny out of her tomb.
There was a long scraping drag as stone was pulled over stone.
Trembling, the girls waited. Annie had lost any sense of direction in the little room and did not know where to look to find the shaft down which they had been lowered. But light, when she saw it at last, did not appear in the wall where the shaft had been. It was in the ceiling. A stone was being dragged away and slowly a slit was appearing. Fingers gripped the edge of the stone and shifted it more. Grunts and gasps followed. The fingers vanished, and returned gripping a torch.
Behind the murky smoke that swirled up to fresh air and life was a dark and half-seen face.
If Pankh can get down, I can get up, she said to herself. She had not a moment to waste. Lifting the magnificent sedan chair on which Queen Hetepheres had once rested, she hauled it onto the high bed and propped it against the headboard.
Above her, the torch was set on the edge of the hole. Pankh could not both hold the torch and lower himself. He sat on the edge of the hole above her and came down feet first. Annie tightened her grip on the sandal and climbed up onto the sedan chair. She was high enough to break Pankh’s kneecaps, but not high enough to smash in his skull. Perhaps she should just break his fingers off.
Annie had never had impressive upper arm strength. She prayed adrenaline would give her enough kick so she could haul herself up into the hole.
The soiled shoelaces of Pankh’s scratchy old leather boots had come undone.
I could grab him by the feet and yank him down, she thought. If I’m lucky, he’ll break his spine on the floor.
She drew her arm back, preparing to whack him with all her might.
An inch of bright red sock showed at the top of the boots. The legs were encased in khaki trousers with frayed hems. She had not seen Pankh in anything but bare legs and a little white kilt.
The body lowered.
Annie held her sandal at the ready.
A waist appeared, and its belt. A shirt appeared, and its buttons. Elbows unfolded. Hanging from his fingers was Strat.
“Don’t hit me,” he said.
She could not speak. She could neither laugh nor cry.
She could not even touch him, because with one hand she held her weapon and with the other was steadying herself against the wall.
“You’re beautiful,” he said to her.
She nodded. “Fit for a king,” she told him.
“I was there. I saw. It was Khufu, wasn’t it?”
“Who cares about him? Oh, Strat! How did you get here? Where did you come from! I was scared of death and pain and darkness and then there was all that noise and I thought you were a mummy coming out of the sarcophagus.”
“In 1899 when we open that sarcophagus,” said Strat, “there is no mummy. It’s something of a mystery. I can’t hang here much longer, Annie. It’s either let go or haul back up.”
“If you let go, you’re going to spike yourself on the bedstead. I’ll hop down from the sedan chair and move the furniture.”
It didn’t work that easily. She broke the arm of the chair by stepping wrong and fell backward onto the mattress. Strat kicked the sedan chair off the bed and fell onto the mattress with her.
She felt his face, every inch of it, to be sure this was her Strat, the one she remembered so vividly, the one she had wanted so very very much. He caught her long hair in his knotted fist and kissed her. “Oh, Annie. Of all the terrible things that happened, the worst was losing your lock of hair. All this time, I have cherished it. And this afternoon, my father threw it into the wind and it vanished in the desert.”
They clung to each other.
“You got away, then?” Annie said to him. “You escaped Dr. Wilmott and all the dangers that pursued you? I never knew. I could only guess and hope.”
“Oh, Annie, it was just so for me. Did you suffer after we parted? Did I behave wrongly? I have agonized over it,” he said. “It was a terrible decision, and so little time in which to make it. But I had to save Katie. You were strong and could survive. Katie was fragile and could not.” He kissed her cheeks and lips, her throat and hair.
Even now he cannot overstep the bounds of propriety, thought Annie.