The Buried Pyramid (35 page)

“I know that his poetry has been rather . . . controversial since its first appearance,” she said, pausing slightly, so that Neville had time to recall that “controversial” was a mild way of stating the matter. “Swinburne has been faulted both for his wealth of pagan allusion and for his openly sensuous imagery. I recalled from one of our discussions that you were unfamiliar with his work, and when I saw this in the bazaar, I resolved to make you a present of it. I shall enjoy having the opportunity to discuss his work with you.”

Neville gave appropriate thanks, doing his best to ignore the angry expression Captain Brentworth turned in his direction.

Jenny’s right, Neville thought. For whatever reason, Lady Cheshire does enjoy reminding the man of his place.

Shortly thereafter, they departed. A slim, dark figure darted out to their carriage. It was the Arab boy, Rashid, the monkey Mischief hanging off one of his arms. Unable to speak, the boy contented himself with a smile, then pressed a small cloth bag into Neville’s hand before vanishing into the darkness.

“What is it?” Jenny asked, leaning forward to see.

Indulgently, Neville handed it to her and let her open it. Nothing could be better than that slim volume of poetry—and the implicit promise it contained.

Jenny untied the drawstring, and with a small clattering sound the contents spilled into her palm.

“Scarabs!” she exclaimed. “Three of them. Nicely made, too, carved from stone rather than cast porcelain. There’s writing on them, but I can’t read it in this light.”

When they were back at Papa Antonio’s and enjoying a final glass of their host’s familial wine, Jenny opened the bag again and put the scarabs on the table.

“See if you can read them, Stephen,” she prompted.

Stephen slid the nearest to him.

“Lapis lazuli,” he announced, inspecting the material. “Poor quality, but genuine. I understand that modern artifacts merchants import the stone much as their ancestors did. Lapis lazuli was thought lucky, and was sacred, I believe, to the goddess Hathor.”

“She’s the one who looks like Isis except that she has cow’s ears?” Jenny said tentatively.

“That’s right.” Stephen turned a scarab over and studied the inscription. “A very ancient goddess, sometimes represented as Horus’s wife, other times as his mother—a role also held by Isis. Sometimes Hathor shares with Anubis the role of protector of the dead.”

His voice trailed off as he polished the scarab against his arm to better inspect the carving, then he resumed: “There are two hieroglyphs here—neither simply phonetic, I am happy to announce. One is the
crux ansata,
the cross with the looped top, also called the ankh. It indicates a wish for life—not only on earth but throughout eternity. The other is harder to make out. I thought at first it was the reed, but I rather think that it is a feather.”

“Feather?” Jenny repeated. “And what does that mean?”

“Drawn by itself like this,” Stephen said, “it could either mean ‘truth’ or ‘justice’ or even a wish for the same. It certainly does not indicate any ill-wishing.”

“Than I think we can rule Captain Brentworth out as the giver,” Jenny said, giving Neville a sidelong glance, but otherwise not pursuing the point. “Do they all say the same thing?”

Stephen inspected them, then nodded. “I wouldn’t doubt that the makers of ‘anteekahs’ have learned a few propitious signs, and reproduce them for the delight of the semi-educated tourist.”

His self-deprecating shrug as he set the scarabs on the table indicated that he was classifying himself with all humility as one of those obvious marks.

Jenny picked up the nearest scarab and turned it idly in her hand. “I wonder why Rashid gave them to us?”

Neville smiled, “You have been very kind to him, my dear. He probably picked the scarabs up in the bazaar with no idea of what they say or indicate, just seeing them as the type of trinkets we Europeans seem to covet.”

“And we do not even know if they are from Rashid,” Stephen added. “They could be from Mrs. Syms. Native lucky amulets seem rather more in her line.”

Jenny nodded, “I still imagine Rashid is the giver. Mrs. Syms likes explaining the occult significance of such items far too much to lose an opportunity, and she doesn’t know we are leaving in the morning. There would be ample opportunity for her to give us a gift and pontificate to her heart’s content.”

“Rashid, however,” Stephen agreed, “would need to make his little gesture whenever he could—preferably when his master would not think he was getting above himself.”

“Odd isn’t it?” Jenny mused, “Rashid is a dutiful Mohammedan, and yet he gives us pagan charms as a gift. Papa Antonio trots off to daily Mass, but in his courtyard is a fountain with a pagan god at its center. And look at Mrs. Syms and her obsession with the occult. Seems to me that the tradition that began with the Hebrews and continued into Christianity and Islam advocates one god, but there is something in the human spirit that longs for a more immediate and personal contact with the divine.”

Neville rose and stretched.

“We must rise early tomorrow,” he said. “Enough time for philosophical and theological speculation when we’re on our way.”

The
Lotus Blossom
was contracted to Cook’s, and their fellow passengers were as varied as could be. They were mostly English or American, but a fair smattering of Germans, French, and other representatives of the wealthier European nations rounded out the group. The reasons for taking the tour were as varied as the passengers themselves. Some had come to escape the European winter, others for the opportunity to view exotic sights, still others were painters or writers seeking material. There were even a few game hunters, all but panting for the opportunity to shoot crocodiles, hippos, and other exotic game.

Neville had thought Jenny might have joined the hunters at their sport, but she seemed content to take a seat where she could see the newly planted fields and picturesque ruins slipping by, her sketch pad in her lap, but her hands idle more often than not.

One afternoon, several days out of Cairo, she poked Stephen, who was dozing beneath the brim of his straw boater.

“Uh?” Stephen said, sitting up straight, his book sliding to the deck.

“I was wondering,” Jenny said, as if picking up an interrupted conversation, “if the people who live here along the Nile still feel some respect for the old gods, and that’s why they haven’t broken up the temples for building stone.”

“That’s a nice, romantic notion,” Stephen replied, “but from what I’ve read, the fellahin are perfectly willing to sell their heritage for whatever they can get for it. You know that it wasn’t until fairly recently that there were any controls on the sale of antiquities, and those were mostly imposed in response to pressure from without.”

Neville stopped trying to get his pipe to draw long enough to add, “It helps that archeologists themselves are growing increasingly jealous of their rights to their finds. The Egyptian Museum, although administered by the French, works in cooperation with the Egyptian government. One of its jobs is to issue
firman
—that is, permits—for excavation, and to make certain the artifacts are properly cared for afterward. Modern competition for permission to dig is quite intense.”

Jenny raised the elegant twin arches of her eyebrows. “Do we have a firman, Uncle Neville?” she asked softly.

“We aren’t excavating,” Neville replied brusquely, “merely exploring.”

“Ah,” Jenny said.

“Your uncle is right about the competition for firman,” Stephen said, his tone implying that he thought Neville had been right to avoid bureaucracy until it was unavoidable. “The system has its advantages, though. Any peasant who finds a site and sets about looting finds himself in a great deal of trouble with the authorities. I understand the fellahin find it very annoying. For some of the fellahin, tomb robbing is an old family business.”

“And has been,” Neville said, “since the earliest days of the pharaohs—the Great Pyramid can testify to the truth of that.”

Jenny gave a rueful smile, “An ancient if not honorable profession.”

“True,” Stephen agreed. “Rather like . . .”

He stopped in mid-phrase, his fair skin blushing ruddy, even beneath its sunburn. Apparently his intended jest had not been appropriate for a lady’s ears.

“So why are there still so many ruins?” Jenny asked, a twinkle in her eye suggesting that she knew perfectly well what Stephen had just saved himself from saying. “If respect for the old gods and the old ways hasn’t kept them intact, what has?”

Stephen looked at the tumbled heap of sandstone blocks and laughed. “First I would have to disagree that ‘intact’ is a fair definition for the condition of most remaining monuments.”

“Oh, do agree,” Jenny said, “for the sake of argument, if not just to humor me.”

“Very well. The most practical reason that so many monuments remain intact is that those blocks of stone take a tremendous amount of labor to move. The fellahin have very little incentive to do so much work to build their own homes—especially when mud and straw are lighter, and make perfectly practical building materials.

“Most obelisks and statues that have been moved are moved during the Inundation, when the fellahin cannot farm and so are eager to hire out as labor. I don’t think any study has been done, but I believe that were you to inspect any area near where a nobleman’s residence or other grand structure has been built, you would find a notable paucity of ruins.”

Neville nodded his agreement. “Think about the destruction we saw at the Gizeh. Most of the sheathing stone from the pyramids was removed for use in Cairo.”

“I do think,” Stephen said, “that superstition might have played some role in preserving the monuments of ancient Egypt, but I take that as something different from religious respect.”

“Indeed,” Jenny agreed.

“In my day,” Neville said, “that is, when I was a dashing young captain with a gift for translation and an interest in archeology, many of the fellahin considered the archeologists sorcerers. They greatly distrusted their ability to read hieroglyphs, and their apparent intimacy with the secrets of ancient peoples.”

“And today?” Jenny asked with a laugh. “In these far ages into the future?”

“Have more respect for my advanced years,” Neville protested. “Sometimes those days do seem farther away than the ages when the pharaohs reigned, but I do think the attitude has changed some. Worldwide interest in Egypt’s archeological treasures has created work for the fellahin. I suspect that instead of magicians, these days they see archeologists as bank accounts.”

“Good for them, then,” Jenny said, “but I do feel rather bad for the old pharaohs. They went to so much trouble to ensure that they would rest in peace, and peace seems to be the last thing that anyone will grant them. All that work for nothing.”

“Now, Jenny,” Stephen said. “I don’t think several additional centuries of secure burial is nothing. Remember, the worst thing those pharaohs could contemplate wasn’t being dug up—it was being forgotten. Modern archeology assures that they will never be forgotten—that they will have a new life in modern memory.”

Jenny’s pensive expression did not change.

Neville said softly, “It’s our own plans that bother you, isn’t it?”

Jenny nodded. “I can’t help but feel like what we’re doing is sacrilege or something. And what will we do if we find the Valley of Dust? Will we go out and get a firman for excavation? Grab a few treasures and take them home as mementos? Leave it all behind, and try to be satisfied that we’ve solved the puzzle?”

She spoke very softly, but her words seemed to ring in Neville’s mind rather than merely in his ears. Here, unavoidably spoken, were the protests and objections he had struggled not to face. He shrugged, and chose not to face them now.

“Egypt certainly has her claim,” he admitted, “but the people of a land are often the last ones to appreciate her history and treasures. Worry over it if you must, Jenny, but don’t fret too much. After all, we still have no guarantee that we will find anything at all.”

The
Lotus Blossom
’s route up the Nile was punctuated by regular stops at the most popular ruins. Memphis and Sakkarah, forty-some miles outside of Cairo, were the first stop. They were satisfyingly spectacular, possessing sufficient pyramids, temples, tombs, and colossi to delight even the jaded heart.