The Buried Pyramid (33 page)

“Well, I’m going to try it,” she said. “I’ve had my palm read, and my fortune told in cards, smoke, and tea leaves, but I’ve never met anyone who claimed to channel the ancient Egyptians.”

“Through a statue, what?” agreed Stephen. “All too marvelous. I want a go at it, too.”

Uncle Neville’s air of detached amusement was perfect. One would never have guessed that they were all hoping for the solution to a mystery that had been dogging them since before they had departed England.

“Then let us all go that way,” he said. “Who knows? Perhaps I shall ask the lady what joys may lie in my future?”

“Not sorrows?” Lady Cheshire teased.

“Never,” he replied gallantly. “I refuse to admit to the possibility of sorrow.”

“I,” Jenny said, rolling her eyes, “am going. Follow as you wish, Uncle. Coming along, Mr. Holmboe, Mrs. Syms?”

The three walked ahead, followed more slowly by Lady Cheshire flanked by Captain Brentworth and Sir Neville. Eddie had melted back into anonymous servility a few paces to the rear, but Jenny felt certain that should anything happen, he would be ready.

The Sphinx’s pavilion was everything even Mrs. Syms could desire. Flame-colored silk curtains painted with curious signs and sigils adorned the sides and rose cupolalike from a center post. Inside, elaborate oriental carpets were piled, gleaming jewel-like in the sunlight.

The seeress herself was seated before a low table in the center of this splendor. She did not deign treat with them herself—indeed, she didn’t even turn her head when they approached. Instead a young man, almost a boy, ran out.

He wore his hair in the curious style called the “sidelock of youth” common in ancient tomb paintings, and, so Jenny had been told, still worn by some of the
fellahin.
His only garment was a loin cloth or kilt, remarkable mostly for the heavy triangle of stiffened fabric that hung in front, swinging as he moved. His wide brown eyes had been outlined with kohl, and he stood very stiff and straight as he inspected them.

“Someone has taken a look at a few tomb paintings,” Stephen murmured softly. “That’s an Old Kingdom style, I believe.”

Mrs. Syms hurried to meet the boy.

“We wish to consult the Sphinx,” she said formally. “Myself and my two young friends here.”

The boy looked them over, his gaze almost insolent.

“You three,” he said. “All together or private?”

He had a way of saying “private” that made quite clear that the greater revelations were reserved for such audiences.

“Oh, private, most definitely,” Mrs. Syms said.

There followed a brief negotiation over the price. Having seen what a small amount of money would purchase in the bazaar, Jenny thought the price Mrs. Syms agreed to rather steep, but she was too excited to argue.

Mrs. Syms went in first, and with great ceremony the four side curtains were rolled down. Stephen and Jenny fidgeted in listening silence, but heard nothing but the rise and fall of two voices.

After a while, Mrs. Syms came out. Her face was flushed with more than the heat, and she carried with her the heavy scent of some exotic incense.

“It was wonderful, wonderful!” she said. “The Sphinx told me ever so many interesting things, and she knew things, too, about my late husband, and about things that have been worrying me. I must go tell Audrey and convince her to give it a try.”

She bustled past, and Jenny looked at Stephen.

“You or me next?”

“You,” Stephen said. “That way if there’s anything you want me to check, you’ll be able to tell me.”

Jenny nodded. The Sphinx’s boy was waving a languidly arrogant hand.

“She will see you now,” he said.

Jenny dropped the agreed upon sum into his hand, and stepped through the curtain he held open for her. The only light within was sunlight filtered through the silk from which the pavilion was crafted. The rosy glow immediately made Jenny feel detached from the world without, a sensation enhanced by the intense fumes from the incense burners placed around the tent.

“Come here, daughter,” came a creaking, ancient voice. “Seat yourself before me and tell me what you wish to know.”

Jenny did as she had been commanded. There was a chair she didn’t recall having seen before, one more suited for European styles of dress than the heap of pillows on which the seer crouched. She settled herself carefully, for the first time getting a close look at this woman who called herself the Sphinx.

The Egyptian motif had been continued in the seer’s attire as well. Old and wrinkled as she was, the Sphinx did not sport the naked upper body that even the better class of Egyptian woman seemed to flaunt, but her striped and pleated linen robe was topped with a broad enameled collar. She wore wide disk-shaped earrings, and her head was covered with the strange vulture crown that Jenny couldn’t help but think looked rather as if a dead bird had been carefully balanced upon her head. Her eyes had been rimmed with kohl, and her wrists and upper arms were heavily burdened by wide cuff bracelets. She held a large looped cross—the Egyptian symbol for life—in one hand.

“What do you wish to know?” the Sphinx repeated.

“I don’t know,” Jenny said. “Can you really tell the future?”

“I tell what the Great Sphinx tells me,” came the reply. The old woman moved very little, only her lips and her bright eyes within their dark cosmetics seemed alive. “Shall I tell you about yourself?”

Jenny nodded.

“You come from far away, a long journey first across the cold sea, then across the warm. I see a girl weeping for lost parents, lost when she herself was far from them.”

Jenny stiffened. She realized that the Sphinx might have informants at the hotels and train stations. The Sphinx could even have learned this much from Mrs. Syms, for the woman was both talkative and credulous.

The Sphinx didn’t appear to move, but a light silk scarf that had rested over the top of the table drifted to the carpet, revealing an odd assortment of items: coins, scarabs, the bowl of a clay pipe, shards of pottery, a carved foot from a figurine, polished stones, even the lead seal from a bottle of champagne.

“Close your eyes,” the Sphinx commanded. “Let your hand drift over the table until it is drawn down. From what you touch, from these I shall tell your future.”

Feeling both a little frightened and rather foolish, Jenny did as she had been told. She didn’t feel any particular guidance, but moved her hands and let them drop three times at random. Opening her eyes, she discovered she had touched the foot, the scarab, and the lead seal.

“You have traveled far,” the creaking voice said, “but your journeys are not ended. There is a long road ahead of you, one filled with heartache, before you find what will satisfy your soul. You will see wonders in this land and elsewhere. You will find both less and more than you desire.”

This was apparently the message from the figurine’s foot, for the Sphinx now moved to the scarab.

“I see two lives before you. One is broken by many dangers, hard and yet ultimately fulfilling. The other is full of peace and contentment, bliss without end, joy without ceasing.”

She touched the lead seal. Her voice cracked and rose, becoming shrill and hollow, echoing strangely in Jenny’s ears.

“Choices made in the Land of Egypt will decide your fate. Walk carefully in the Red Land. Watch carefully in the Black. Beware the Hand! Beware the Eye!”

The old woman’s entire body slumped forward, her vulture-crowned head clattered among the bric-a-brac on the table, scattering the scarab and a coin to the floor. Jenny leapt to her feet and was raising the old woman when the boy came in and waved her imperiously back.

“The Sphinx is well,” he said. “The power often leaves her thus. Go. I will summon your companion anon.”

Jenny went out, distinctly unsettled. She hadn’t thought the Sphinx seemed well at all. In fact, for a long moment she hadn’t been certain the old woman was even breathing. Seeing her emerge, Stephen came over, a cup of cool water in one hand.

“You look white as a ghost,” he commented. “Was she that good or was it just hot in there?”

“Maybe a bit of both,” Jenny said, accepting the water gratefully. “The air in the tent was rather close. Lots of incense, too. I can’t say I learned much useful. She puts on a good show, but whether or not she’s our correspondent . . .”

Jenny paused. She had learned enough about diagnosis from her father to know that you shouldn’t tell your patient what you hope to find lest your own comments skew the results. She stopped short of mentioning anything about how the Sphinx’s voice and manner had changed and the odd final warnings before the woman had collapsed.

“Pretty standard stuff,” Stephen said, unimpressed by this expurgated report, “except for that bit about your parents. Is there anything you want me to look for?” Stephen asked.

“You might take a look at her table and the other ornaments in there,” Jenny said. “There were hieroglyphs painted on them, but I’m not good enough to tell if they were in the same hand as our correspondent’s.”

“The ones on the tent curtains aren’t,” Stephen said with a chuckle. “They’re just monkey-copies. A few bits make sense, but most just look good. They don’t say anything.”

Jenny sighed.

“I wonder if this matter of names is just coincidence,” she said. “Still, we’re here. We may as well be as thorough as possible.”

“Right,” Stephen agreed. “Besides, I want to hear what she says lies ahead for me.”

He grinned easily, and after a time the boy beckoned him forward.

“Wish me luck,” he said.

“Luck,” Jenny replied.

She wanted to stand watching, but Mrs. Syms was crossing over, her eyes bright and eager.

“Tell me all about it,” she said.

Jenny, still suspecting that the woman might be the genuine author of those strange letters, complied, editing her account much as she had for Stephen. Mrs. Syms made a very good audience, but like most enthusiasts, what she really wanted was a listener for her own adventures.

With minimal encouragement, Mrs. Syms began a detailed account of her own audience with the Sphinx. Jenny listened with only half her attention, noting that there were similarities between the two meetings, including the selection from the odds and ends on the table. When Mrs. Syms concluded, Jenny frowned.

“She didn’t faint or anything like that?”

“Why, no,” Mrs. Syms sounded vaguely affronted. “Did she when she spoke with you?”

“Well,” Jenny paused, “it sure seemed like that, but I think,” she added, unwilling to hurt the older woman’s feelings, “I think you had a much more detailed fortune.”

Certainly, a much more intelligible one.

More than the Sphinx’s failure to provide a spectacular conclusion to Mrs. Syms’s session was troubling Jenny. After all, the Sphinx might be savvy enough to realize she didn’t need to go to such extremes to impress Mrs. Syms. What troubled Jenny was that nowhere in Mrs. Syms’s account had she said anything about any of her companions. It seemed unlikely that she had glossed over any part of her account—she had even described the furnishings.

So how did the Sphinx learn about my folks?
Jenny thought.
Could she really have some sort of second sight?

Eventually, Stephen emerged, looking flushed from being closed up in the tent, but more amused than anything else.

“How was your session?” Mrs. Syms asked eagerly.

“Right enough,” Stephen replied politely. “I have been assured that Mother and my sisters are both well. Indeed, Ida has apparently had a proposal of marriage.”

He chuckled.

Jenny had heard enough about Stephen’s acerbic spinster sister to understand his amusement. Ida’s betrothal seemed as unlikely as snow falling on the pyramids.

Mrs. Syms asked a few more questions, then trotted across to where Lady Cheshire was keeping court in the shade of some fallen masonry.

“I really
must
convince Audrey to try,” she said in parting.

Stephen let Mrs. Syms get out of earshot, then began to follow more slowly, Jenny walking beside him.