The Buried Pyramid (71 page)

Eddie’s opponent had been disheartened by his fellow’s shift in focus, but he continued working at Eddie, taking full advantage of the uneven footing nearer to the rubble heap. But Eddie was not only a soldier trained in the rough service of Her Majesty’s Army. He had spent the last ten years living between the worlds in an Egypt that didn’t know what to make of him—and that tested that uncertainty with violence.

Eddie countered his man’s blows with evident ease, then after the first panicked frenzy had let up, began beating him back. His attitude was so matter-of-fact and methodical that it, rather than any single swing, broke his opponent’s morale.

The tomb robber savagely blocked one of Eddie’s blows, almost knocking Eddie’s club from his hand. Taking advantage of the momentary interruption, he turned to flee, his own club extended half behind him as he ran. Eddie reached out and caught hold of it, jerking hard. The man lost his balance and reeled a few steps before Eddie hit him and he went down.

Neville had caught glimpses of this while blocking his own opponent’s increasingly erratic attacks. The man’s intensifying fear didn’t make Neville’s fight any easier. The blows might have less concentrated force behind them, but Neville began to feel that they might land anywhere. One wild swing did graze Neville across the back of his left hand, the sharpened edge of the bit of stone or metal set in the heavy wood slicing the skin open as neatly as a razor.

It was a messy cut, but when Neville flexed his fingers they moved unhindered. He swore, and the man actually cringed back a step—apparently more afraid than triumphant at wounding this self-proclaimed champion of the gods.

Momentarily spurred to anger by the surge of pain, Neville swung down hard. He heard the thief’s collarbone crack beneath the impact and instantly regretted his own violence. The man went down on his knees, dropped the mace and cowered. Neville closed on him, kicking the mace out of the way, and resisting a rather absurd impulse to apologize. He knew perfectly well that the man wouldn’t have felt the least regret if he’d gotten the upper hand.

Panting slightly, Stephen came trotting over, two lengths of rope dangling from his hand.

“You’d better wrap that hand, Neville,” he said. “I’ll tie this one up.”

The thief, looking up in sudden hope when Neville didn’t kill him, cringed in horror at his first sight of Stephen’s pale blonde hair and sunburned face.

“I keep having this effect on people,” Stephen said cheerfully. “Well, I’m blond and determined to be fair.”

Neville grinned.

“Your man under control, Eddie?”

“Yes,” Eddie replied, but his voice sounded distracted.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Eddie paused long enough to jerk his man over to one side, clear of the entrance to the tunnel. “But I don’t like the sound of what’s coming out of the tunnel.”

He had hardly finished speaking when one thief, followed closely by another, burst onto the surface. Eddie readied his club and closed the first. Neville headed for the second, yelling to Stephen to secure the prisoners and keep a close eye for anyone attracted by the noise.

The emerging men seemed infuriated, terrified, or both, but there was no time to determine whether their discovery of what had happened to their above ground colleagues or something else had triggered the mood.

Jenny, what’s going on down there?
Neville thought desperately. Then his man was swinging at him and another man was emerging from the tunnel, and once again, he had no time to spare for the luxury of thought.

26

Sweet Balm

Jenny emerged from the glow of Ra’s brilliance into a flickering flame-lit dimness that reflected from the warm hue of pure gold. The sources of the light were three or four clay lamps perched on various pieces of furnishing so elaborately carved and painted, she grasped only details, not items as a whole.

There was the head of a hippopotamus, strangely elongated. Another of a lion. There was a statue of man, his skin as black as ebony, but with Egyptian, rather than Nubian, features. There was a hand with gently curved fingers, part of a larger painting, hidden by odds and ends heaped in front of it. The corner of a painted box showed a man in a chariot. A heap of wickerwork lay tumbled on the floor.

As soon as her mind had registered this, Jenny was aware that not all the chaos in these initial impressions was due to the flickering light. The room in which she stood had been well and thoroughly ransacked. Incredibly embroidered garments were spilled out on the floor, the boxes that had held them turned on their sides. A beaded sandal lay on its edge, looking oddly pathetic. A small jar had spilled some dark powder onto the stone floor. Its mate stood upright, but with its lid poorly set, as if it had been opened, the contents inspected, and dismissed as being without value.

Jenny was aware of Rashid’s warmth where he stood at her shoulder, of the closeness of air little circulated for long years, and then, so overwhelmingly that it was hard to separate from its surroundings, the odor of perfume, the essence of flowers, musk, and rare spices, so concentrated that she wondered if her lungs could find air to breathe.

She took a few panting breaths, just to assure herself that she could indeed breathe, then Rashid had touched her lightly on the arm and pointed down.

A man—or rather the backside of a man—protruded into the room from beneath what Jenny now realized was one of the long couches so prevalent in depictions of Egyptian domesticity. The couch was shaped like an animal of some sort, a cross between a hippo and a crocodile. Reminded of Ammit, Jenny wondered that the man had the courage to crawl beneath it.

But then he hasn’t met Ammit. He doesn’t know that she is real.

The top of the couch was loaded down with treasures, but apparently these were nothing compared to whatever was in the room beyond, for the thief’s attention was concentrated on what was below. They could hear his voice, muffled by the thickness of the walls.

Rashid held up his hand, two fingers raised.

Jenny nodded. It did seem likely there were two of them—one within the chamber on the other side of the wall, and this one half in and half out, doubtless relaying things to where they could be ferried to the surface.

That reminded her that Ra had indicated there were three doors into this room. Jenny quickly located the hole in the door that must lead to the tunnel to the surface. It was dark, but when she stepped closer, remaining to one side so that she would not silhouette herself against the comparative brightness of the room, she thought she could hear movement on the other side.

There was a small stack of what looked like wine or water bottles stacked on the floor near the hole, and a thin line of drops leading back to the hole beneath the Ammit couch.

Got it,
Jenny thought.
They’re removing something liquid from that inner room. Perfume I guess or scented unguents. Ungulates, as Stephen would say.

She was aware of a desire to giggle, to share her joke with Rashid, and knew it for nerves.

Smart of the thieves,
she thought, forcing herself to think clearly.
Gold or carvings marked with the pharaoh’s name might be harder to sell—at least if you didn’t want people to know right off you’d been robbing burials—but perfume might come from anywhere, and there’d be a good market for it right here in Thebes, with all the temples and tombs.

Rashid touched her arm again and indicated the third door. It was right where Ra had told them it would be, but harder to find since it wasn’t so much a door as a small hole cut in the wall where the door would be. The space was flanked by two matching statues, magnificent depictions of pharaoh as a warrior holding spear and some other weapon. His skin was shining black, his trappings all of gold.

They must have been intended to defend the king,
Jenny thought.
Well, they haven’t done much of a job, but they needn’t worry. We’re here now.

She put her lips near Rashid’s ear.

“Can you find out if anyone is through that hole now?”

He nodded.

Jenny kept her attention on the man beneath the Ammit couch. His hindquarters were wriggling slightly, as if he was beginning to work his way backwards. A small cascade of pebbles announced that someone was coming back down the tunnel. She felt her heart beat wildly.

Rashid touched her arm, pointed to the hole behind, nodded and tapped his ear.

Someone in there. Rashid could hear him. He doesn’t seem worried, though, so whoever it is must seem busy.

Rashid had moved to the side of the tunnel entrance. He picked up one of the wineskins, sniffed it, and wrinkled his nose. Then a mischievous expression crossed his face. He pointed to the tunnel, then to himself, then to Jenny, then to the man under the couch. This one was clearly extracting himself.

Lastly, Rashid handed Jenny one of the waterskins. It was filled almost to bursting with some oily substance. He mimed opening the top, then squeezing.

Jenny grinned at him.

“I like it,” she mouthed, and stepped back to let her intended victim get free.

He did so, revealing in the flickering lamp light a hooked-nose face, pockmarked from some disease.

“This is the last of it,” he said, obviously not realizing that the indistinct figure standing to one side was not one of his associates come to help bear away the loot. “Taneni’s looking to see what else . . .”

He stopped, realizing that not only was Jenny not one of his gang, but that she was like no one he had ever seen before. He drew in breath to shout, and Jenny hit him full in the face with a jet of perfumed oil from the waterskin in her hands. It simultaneously choked and gagged him, leaving him sputtering, rubbing his eyes to clear away the stinging oil.

Jenny grabbed the tomb robber by the shoulders, her hands slipping slightly until she got purchase on the back of his loin wrap. She dragged him forward fairly easily. She had never been particularly weak, and the rigors of the journey had toughened her further. Moreover, her captive was small and light, clearly chosen for this post—as she and Rashid had been—because of his build.

The man started to struggle, but as soon as he blinked the worst of the oil from his eyes, Jenny had made sure her very un-Egyptian features were visible to him. Whether these or the sight of Rashid standing poised and ready were what subdued him, Jenny had no trouble getting him to lie on his stomach while she bound his hands and ankles. She gagged him with a bit of linen from one of the spilled coffers.

Rashid had returned his attention to the tunnel, and Jenny kept a ready eye on the hole beneath the Ammit couch from which Taneni might emerge at any time.

“Hem? Taneni?” came a voice from the tunnel. “Something’s wrong up top. You might want . . .”

A man’s head and shoulders emerged from the top of the door. He was streaked with grime, and scored with numerous small cuts and scratches, doubtless garnered through repeated trips up and down the tunnel in the rubble.

What Hem and Taneni might want to do was interrupted when the thief caught sight of Rashid. As with Jenny’s thief—now identified probably as Hem—a gout of scented oil in his face eliminated his ability to struggle effectively.

Jenny didn’t see the entirety of this, for Taneni called out, “Hem? What was that? I’ve set a small stack of interesting stuff by the hole. Get moving with it.”

Jenny was readying her club, wondering if she should say something to try to lure Taneni out, when she glimpsed motion from the corner of her eye. A man so thin yet so tall that he reminded her of a serpent was emerging from the hole in the far wall. Unlike the other two who had been caught unaware, this thief had clearly been spying on them for some time. A knife was caught in his teeth, and even as Jenny noticed him, he wriggled through the hole with the hipless dexterity of a snake, regained his feet, and came at her, knife in hand.

She had no oil ready, and couldn’t delay for the small moment it would take to grab one of those bags Hem had been bringing out. Her club was ready, though, and she blocked the first downthrust of the knife with ease, noticing as she did so that it was a beautiful thing, worked with gold.

Probably a grave good,
she thought.
Doesn’t mean he won’t know how to use it.

Her club was awkward to use in the confined space, especially as she didn’t want to break anything if she could possibly avoid doing so. A nick along her forearm from her opponent’s knife reduced her concern for antiquities considerably. However, her opponent was also limited. His long arms and legs did not move easily in the confined space, and he caught his elbow a solid rap against one of the statues of the king.