The Buried Pyramid (67 page)

Neferankhotep’s expression turned grim.

“Did you know that he died as a result of his wounds?”

“He did?” Jenny felt herself grow pale.

“Later that night.”

Jenny said nothing.

“Did you intend to kill him?” Neferankhotep asked.

“Yes. I was scared of what he’d do if I didn’t.”

“Even though your own commandment warns against killing, and he had not yet harmed you?”

“If I’d given him the chance he would have,” Jenny said.

“And you have trained to kill,” Neferankhotep pressed, as if certain he must close off every escape—or perhaps provide one.

“I have learned to shoot,” Jenny said, “both for hunting and protection. Just because I believe killing another person is wrong doesn’t mean everyone else is going to feel that way.”

“Do you not believe that publicly displaying your willingness to do violence—as you do when you wear those remarkable weapons—invites violence in return?”

“No, sir, I don’t,” Jenny replied with intensity. “Many a time I’ve seen a quarrel in a shop or bar get settled without violence because the reminder of the possibility of violence is there out in the open. Folks know they can walk away from a shouting match, but it isn’t so easy to walk away from a bullet.”

“Yet you are a healer,” Maat said, joining the discussion, her wings rising and falling as if the question made her nervous. “You do not find this a contradiction that violates your personal truth?”

“Ma’am, I’d be happier if no one ever shot another gun for as long as the human race walks this sorry Earth, but as long as they’re going to do so, where there’s a chance of trouble I’ll wear my shooting irons and know how to use them.”

“Would you ever use your knowledge of weapons not for defense, but to prevent another from doing harm?”

“I guess I’ve already done so,” Jenny said, “when I stopped that man who came into my room from shooting me. I figure I’d shoot first and ask questions later to stop someone I thought was going to harm Uncle Neville or Stephen or Eddie, or whoever . . . It’s hard to know exactly what you’ll do until you’re there.”

Maat frowned, “This readiness to kill is dangerous in you—especially combined with a healer’s skills. You claim to feel justified in your action, yet I sense the guilt within you. Guilt combined with the ability to provide justification for killing is very dangerous. How long would it take to cross the boundary between healing and killing—first, perhaps, for mercy but, later . . . ?”

Jenny heard her own death sentence in those words. She wanted to pretend she didn’t understand, but she understood all too well. She’d helped her father patch up rough men, bad men, men who would doubtless go out once they were strong, and harm the weak. She’d wondered even then at the wisdom of helping such men, and had asked Papa why he did it, but he’d only said, “The Hippocratic Oath forbids doing harm, Genevieve,” and she’d known that for him harm extended even to inaction.

Was she as good a woman as Pierre Benet had been a good man? She doubted it, and knew in her own doubt that she understood why Maat would condemn her, why she would fail in any appeal.

There were no more questions. Neferankhotep looked stern and slightly sad. Maat seemed pale and ill. The Forty-Two Judges muttered to each other, while Thoth took notes and Anubis stood ready. Only Ammit looked pleased, and Jenny could hardly blame her.

“Step onto the scales, Genevieve Benet,” Neferankhotep said, “and be weighed against Maat.”

Almost blindly, Jenny turned to obey. Either she’d gotten smaller or the scales had gotten larger, because she had no trouble fitting into the polished bronze pan. Maat fluttered across the room, settling into the other pan. Jenny rose slightly, but still the level of her side of the scales remained fair heavier than Maat. “Anubis,” Neferankhotep said, “Genevieve Benet has been weighed against Maat and found wanting. Treat her according to our ancient protocols.”

Anubis stepped forward, and Jenny pressed her lips together, determined at least not to scream. The jackal-headed god laid a cool, almost leathery hand on her shoulder, pulling Jenny to her feet. Ammit snapped her jaws eagerly, and the Forty-Two Judges crowded forward to better see the execution.

A single mew halted the purposeful progress. Anubis stopped, his hand still resting on Jenny’s shoulder. Mozelle leapt up onto Neferankhotep’s lap.

The pharaoh lifted the kitten in his wide green hands, and held her before his face. He appeared to be listening to whatever it was the kitten told him with tiny mews and lashings of her small, bristly tail. He listened, and then he set the kitten on the floor where she ran to Jenny and clawed her way into the young woman’s lap.

“Oh, sir, will you watch her for me?” Jenny said, finally giving way to tears. “I may be wrong in how I think about things, but I don’t want any harm to come to Mozelle.”

Neferankhotep rose from his throne and his dark green lips frowned. Hestood stiffly, and Jenny noticed that his feet were bound like those of a mummy.

“Maat,” he said, turning to address the winged woman, “I have received a plea from this little cat that we spare her human. Mozelle says that the girl is not murderous by nature—only that the challenges Genevieve faces are such that there is no way one can live in the world she has known and not both desire the idea of peaceful coexistence and recognize the reality of violence. Can we act in accord with this appeal?”

Maat bent her lovely face into her hands, folding her wings around her as if making a physical curtain for her thoughts. Jenny held her breath, stroking Mozelle, and taking comfort in the tremendous force of the tiny kitten’s purr. If so little a thing could make so big a rumble . . . If a kitten could also be a lioness who could carry off the head of a sun-swallowing serpent . . . If all of these things were possible, then maybe . . .

Maat unfolded her wings, her features serene, and, just possibly, a touch amused. She addressed her words to the pharaoh.

“I recognize that justice is not unchanging,” she said, “nor is truth the same to all peoples. However,” and here she turned her gaze solemnly upon Jenny, “I cannot ignore that this girl is capable of creating great harm. We might spare her life, but do the world a great favor by keeping her here with us. Failing that, her death might save others.”

Jenny bit back an urge to beg, to promise to be good. Live or die, she wanted to do it with dignity. But what was this mention of keeping her here? They hadn’t said anything like this before. Had they?

Neferankhotep replied to Maat, “I acknowledge that you put yourself in the balance in all cases, oh Maat. You feel the lightness of right thinking and the weight of wrong action. Gods and men alike can only try to abide by truth and justice. You are these things. Being so, can you grant this girl her life and her freedom?”

Slowly, as if still not certain she was doing the absolutely correct thing, Maat nodded.

“I will do so, being guided by the wisdom of this small cat who, after all, is an aspect of Sekmet, who is a goddess of both peace and war, and of Bastet, who both battles demons and guards women in their time of greatest vulnerability. May she guide Genevieve to right action.”

“Then,” Jenny asked, poised on her knees in the scale, “I can go?”

Neferankhotep raised one arm, parting the air to make a doorway into a light and pleasant room.

“Go, and Mozelle with you. Remember always what you have learned here, even when you have forgotten all else.”

Jenny bowed. Her knees were shaking too hard for her to even attempt a curtsey. It had been close, so close. She clutched a still purring Mozelle to her, and stepped through the doorway into a room that offered hints of the promise of paradise. There were pools of cool water, palm trees casting dappled shade, and furnishings worthy of a king. Set upon the tables were beaten brass trays piled high with delicacies.

A winsome young woman clad in little more than a jeweled belt was sitting on Stephen’s lap, dabbing oil onto the fair-haired young man’s sun-ravaged skin. Uncle Neville was seated in an elaborately carved and gilded chair. His trouser leg was pulled up to expose his injured ankle, and a long-jawed, long-nosed physician knelt before him, inspecting the swollen flesh and making tut-tutting sounds.

Had it not been for their rather awkward positions, both men would have leapt to their feet when Jenny arrived. Their first reaction was joy and relief, but that faded when they saw no answering happiness. She knew she looked as if she had barely staggered away intact from some horrible ordeal.

When a handsome, muscular young man—ideal counterpart in every way to Stephen’s attendant—came to assist her to a place of honor, she waved him away. She was weary to her bones, and even knowing that Stephen and Uncle Neville were safe gave her only the faintest hint of pleasure.

“Jenny, come and enjoy the rewards of virtue,” Stephen said happily. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve passed the judgment of Maat. Come and let the good pharaoh’s people treat you like a queen.”

Jenny sank down onto a cushion beside the pool, and set Mozelle down. The kitten ignored her black mood, and immediately set about a violent assault on the trailing length of the physician’s sash.

“I feel,” Jenny said, “like I should be hauled off to some penal colony, not treated like a queen. I didn’t pass Maat. I failed. My life was redeemed by the trust of a kitten.”

Both Neville and Stephen looked inclined toward disbelief, but neither of them commented. No doubt both of them had seen too much to easily doubt anything. However, Jenny had to admit that Mozelle, now lying on her side and vigorously attacking the tip of her own tail, made an unlikely savior.

The physician turned from his inspection of Neville’s ankle.

“Pardon, sweet lady,” he said, “but if you are here, you have passed Maat, and are vindicated before the gods. If you have not succeeded solely through your own merits, then this is all the more reason to be grateful. Good Neferankhotep has commanded that you be entertained and soothed from the pain of your wounds. Do not, in your pride, defy him.”

The man’s eyes were kind, his face lined from many smiles. Even the girl who had been anointing Stephen paused in her labors, but her expression held concern, not the contempt Jenny dreaded.

“I guess I am a mite on the proud side,” Jenny admitted, “and I guess that’s one of the things I need to learn to put aside.”

She rose and stretched. “I’m not too banged up, but I could use a wash.”

Her attendant advanced again, clearly pleased. He pointed toward a small pool she hadn’t noticed before, discreetly screened from the larger room by flowering papyrus. Jenny looked at the young man and felt a blush climbing straight up to her hairline.

“I don’t figure I need someone to bathe me.”

Neville and Stephen both shifted uncomfortably. For the first time since Jenny’s entrance, Stephen seemed aware of the state of undress of his own attendant. He shrugged, then smiled sheepishly.

“Bath attendants do seem to be the custom of the country,” he said at last. “I’m not sure we should violate it.”

“What about my much-vaunted reputation?” Jenny sputtered. “I’ve been guarded and chaperoned since I got to Boston, and now you’re telling me to go off with some man?”

“I won’t say anything,” Stephen promised. “Especially if you promise not to tell my mother about me.”

Jenny looked over at Uncle Neville.

“My doctor tells me I need to soak this ankle,” he said, “and I’m going to soak all the rest of me while I do it. Jenny, you’re old enough that if you’re not going to guard your modesty, public and private, there’s not much I can do about it short of locking you up, and I’m not doing that. If that handsome shabti there makes you uncomfortable, then I’m sure one of the young ladies would assist.”

He indicated a new arrival whose linen gown was, if possible, more revealing than the other girl’s jeweled belt.

“Shabti?” Jenny asked.

“So the physician informs me,” Neville said. “In paradise, only those who wish to labor need do so. For all other things, there are shabti.”

Jenny rubbed her temples, then began to laugh. At first her laughter bore an edge of hysteria, but gradually it transformed into something healthy and healing.

“Why not accept what’s given?” she said, and followed her shabti to the indicated pool. It was filled with perfumed waters, neither too hot nor too cold, and did wonderful things for her aching muscles—so did the probing fingers of the shabti.

In truth, Neville wasn’t much worried about Jenny. Ever since he had left the judgment hall, he’d been shrouded in a feeling of perfect contentment, a contentment the ministrations of the shabti did nothing to interrupt.