The Time Travelers, Volume 2 (29 page)

Here in the shade of the awnings, the silver had not gotten too hot to touch. Reverently, Renifer kissed the floor. Here had she prayed and knelt with the queen’s granddaughter. Here had she scattered droplets of sacred water and the petals of flowers.

And puddling out of the doorway onto the silver floor was something wet and red, but not sacred.

Profane.

Blood.

IV
 
Time for Sacrifice

T
he girl of ivory scrambled to her feet. Yanking Renifer up from her position of humility, she dragged her behind a screen of immense potted ferns just as two tomb police staggered out of the chapel. Both were bleeding heavily.

One was holding together a dreadful wound in his side, so deep it could never be sewn together; a gash from which he would die. “Pen-Meru!” he cried in a gurgling voice, and fell onto the silver pavement.

Pen-Meru? thought Renifer dizzily. But her father was not involved with the tomb police. He was a controller of the Nile, a measurer of floods and opener of canals.

The second soldier sank to his knees. Renifer thought he might live. She would tear up her dress and use it for bandages. She—

But the second soldier also whispered, “Pen-Meru.”

There must be some other Pen-Meru of whom Renifer had not heard.

Pankh sprinted forward from where he had been
waiting in the shade of another temple while Renifer prayed. He pulled his dagger from its sheath.

Renifer’s heart soared with pride. Pankh would be clothed in glory! For of course the tomb robbers who had done this terrible deed were inside the chapel. Brave Pankh was going to finish them off.

But Pankh did not enter the chapel. Lifting high the thin shining blade, he stabbed to death the still living tomb policeman who had sunk to his knees.

Renifer clutched the slender lotus pillar of the portico. What could this mean? How could Pankh do that? The man had been helpless! Already wounded for Pharaoh’s sake.

Now Pankh was a blur, springing into the chapel itself. From within came a cry of terror. “No, Pankh! I promise—”

There was a groan and a thud.

There was silence.

The hot sickening smell of blood filled the air.

Renifer had to understand what was happening. She slipped inside the queen’s chapel, careful not to block the sun, whose glint off the silver floor provided the only illumination to the interior. It took a moment to focus in the gloom. The walls were painted with scenes from the queen’s life. From painted arbors hung thick purple grapes and heavy green leaves. On a ceiling of deep blue, gold stars were scattered.

Pankh stood panting in the center of the chapel. His knife stuck out of the chest of a third tomb policeman, now prostrate on the floor. In the shadows, pressed
against the sacred illustrations, stood her father, Pen-Meru.

There were no other men inside the little chapel.

There was no other exit from which the killers might have fled.

No, thought Renifer. My father did not do this. Pankh did not do this. I am a slow thinker. In a moment I will understand.

She pasted herself against the wall, as if she too had been painted there.

“Good job, Pankh,” said Renifer’s father, grinning.

The two men slapped hands in victory and laughed. Then they frowned down upon the corpse at their feet.

“Now what?” said Pankh.

Renifer stepped forward, startling her father and her beloved, who whirled to see who was there. Father gripped a bloody dagger and Pankh tightened his fist around his own knife.

They had forgotten she existed at all, let alone that she was witness to this carnage. For one terrible moment, she thought herself in danger from the two men she loved most.

She saw now a rectangular opening in the chapel floor. Three paving stones had been lifted aside to reveal a great black shaft: the entrance to Hetepheres’ tomb. It should be entirely filled with rubble—thirty feet down, all sand and rock. If the shaft was empty, then the queen’s tomb had been emptied by robbers. No doubt the space below contained little of value now. The three dead policemen had walked in on the robbery.

And now her thoughts spun all too fast. Renifer felt as if she were drowning in the Nile. Mud-brown water silted up her heart. “You are tomb robbers,” whispered Renifer. “It was
you
they caught.”

Her father shrugged. “I have always been a tomb robber, my daughter. And your uncle with me. And Pankh.”

“No! It cannot be! Father, I cannot believe it of you!”

Her father snorted. “You know perfectly well we live beyond the means of any controller of the Nile.
You
are the one yearning for gold. You and your mother insist on necklaces here and bracelets there.
You
are the ones for whom five servants are not enough; no, you must have fifteen,” he snapped.

She thought of the chests of gold at home, all those jewels fit for a queen. The Sekhmet fit for a Pharaoh. Indeed. To a Pharaoh and a queen had they once belonged.

“I regret you are here, my love,” said Pankh, “but since you are, you will participate.”

In murder? thought Renifer. Never. She stared in loathing at their blood-flecked chests and arms.

“So far we are safe,” said Pankh. “Easy lies will get us out of this. We say we are the ones who caught robbers in the act. Regrettably, they escaped, having first murdered three brave and true protectors of the queen’s chapel.”

Pankh and Pen-Meru laughed.

They had slain three loyal men of Pharaoh’s and found it funny? Renifer felt as if she had been thrown
into a sewage ditch. She could never be cleansed of the evil her father had done.

“I think, Pankh, we should say that you and I captured the actual robbers,” said Pen-Meru. “They are being tortured even now, and dispatched to the Land in the West.”

“What if He asks to see the prisoners?” said Pankh.

Pen-Meru shrugged. “We stake out a few peasants.”

Renifer was appalled. “You would execute innocent men, pretending they robbed this tomb? But this is Egypt! Such things do not happen here.”

“Would you rather that I and your future husband got staked out in the desert?” said Pen-Meru.

Renifer remembered how Pankh had stroked the goddess Sekhmet. It had not been worship, or lack of worship. It had been blackmail.
Your daughter marries me, Pen-Meru, or I bring Pharaoh into your gates to see what you have stolen from Him
.

I am the daughter of a tomb robber, thought Renifer. I will be made to marry a tomb robber. My father and husband will force my sons to be tomb robbers.

Renifer caught the distant scent of incense being burned. Somewhere a priest was obeying the sacred rites. Much good it did him, when people like her father were abroad in the land.

Here had Princess Meresankh prayed as Renifer sang, “Sky and stars make music for you. Sun and moon praise you. Gods exalt you and goddesses lift their voices.” But Meresankh’s grandmother was not exalted now. Renifer’s family had brought her down.

Her father said to Pankh, “Even if Pharaoh believes our story, I think we will be executed. Pharaoh will find out that not only is His mother’s tomb nearly empty, but her mummy is gone. He’ll execute everyone in sight. He might execute the whole battalion of tomb police, even those not on duty this month.”

“You stole the queen’s mummy?”
cried Renifer. Her family would be haunted forever. The powerful
ka
of the queen would waylay them by night and set traps for them by day. Renifer’s children would be doomed to lives of terror.

Horror curdled in her stomach like goat’s milk in the sun. She was not going to have children. She too would be staked out in the desert, three days dying, jackals waiting. Renifer’s eternity would be spent in limbo, with neither rest nor joy. She hardly minded (although probably she would mind when they actually drove the stake through her). Such a fate was richly deserved by a family that profaned the tomb of a queen.

“We took the inner coffin, Renifer,” said her father irritably, “because it contained the finest jewels. Of course it had her mummy in it.”

“Where did you put the mummy?” said Renifer, trying not to sob. “We’ll put it back. She must lie among her remaining tomb goods.”

“I tossed the mummy in the desert after I peeled away the gold and silver,” said Pen-Meru.

The verb he used
—toss
—was horrible in its simplicity. Children tossed balls. Her father had tossed aside
the mummy of a queen as if it had no more meaning than a child’s toy.

“Did you always know about this?” Renifer said in Pankh’s direction. She could not face him.

“I’ve been helping since I was twelve.” His voice was proud and even sassy, as if he had always wanted to swagger in front of her with this information, and now at last, his real self could stand before her: tomb robber.

Renifer was weeping. “Does Mother know?” she asked her father.

“She pretends not to. Like you.”

“But I didn’t know,” she cried.

They lost interest in her silly vapors and returned to the problem at hand.

“More soldiers will be here soon,” said Pen-Meru gloomily. “That means Pharaoh will be told soon. They’ll go down the shaft and report to Pharaoh that not only was His mother’s tomb robbed, her bones are gone. We are dead men.”

“I’ve got it,” said Pankh excitedly. “We tell Him that we, in our glory, prevented the robbery. The valor of Pen-Meru and his future son-in-law, Pankh, led to the deaths of some robbers—but the others fled. We tell Pharaoh that since the escaped evildoers now know where the opening of the queen’s tomb is, we recommend an immediate solution to Pharaoh.”

Pankh was almost jumping up and down in his delight. Renifer wondered how she had ever found this man attractive.

“You will recall, Pen-Meru,” said her beloved, “that adjacent to that temple being constructed close to the Pyramid is an unused tomb. It was built for Princess Nitiqret of Blessed Memory, but she chose to be buried in her husband’s tomb. How we will praise the vacant tomb! We will convince Pharaoh that it is fit for the
ka
of His mother. Even now, we will explain to Him, we are swiftly removing the tomb furniture from this defiled spot and have taken the blessed body of Hetepheres to its new and safe resting place.” He folded his arms over his chest, swollen with pride at his brilliant idea.

“It’s not much of a tomb,” said Pen-Meru doubtfully. “It’s hardly a closet. They sank it very deep, but since Nitiqret was buried elsewhere, they never began the wall paintings or finished up—”

“Who cares?” said Pankh impatiently. “Pharaoh is never going to descend the shaft to see. He will believe you. You in your radiance will have acted swiftly and with reverence to rescue a queen whose safe harbor has been invaded. I will treat you as a god before Him, marveling in the splendor of your quick thinking and willingness to die for the queen. He’ll fall for it.”

“Maybe,” said Renifer’s father. “But maybe not. Pharaoh isn’t stupid.”

“May I remind you what will happen if we allow Pharaoh’s servants to climb down that shaft?”

And then the time for planning was over. The chapel filled with more tomb police. Shocked and saddened by the loss of their colleagues, they let Pen-Meru take
charge. He motioned them into a huddle, giving instructions.

“We work quickly to transfer the remaining tomb furniture,” said Pen-Meru. “Pharaoh will kill every one of us for failing to keep His mother’s tomb safe. But if He thinks that in the end, we
did
keep her safe … Well, then. Not only do we survive, He will pay us each a great reward.”

The tomb police, afraid of the wrath of Pharaoh, agreed.

Renifer felt there was a flaw in the plan. Everybody knew where tomb entrances were. The moment a chapel was raised, the world understood that the tomb lay beneath.

Does Pharaoh think nobody knows where He will lie? wondered Renifer. Having built the largest pyramid in the world above His shaft? Not that anybody could ever shift those stones. Still …

For the first time she realized that
Pharaoh would not bury Himself beneath His Pyramid
. He would have a real grave site, hidden and safe. The Pyramid was many things, and one was trickery.

Every tomb policeman went to work immediately. They delegated and planned, summoning laborers and torches, planks and ropes, carts and baskets.

Although Hetepheres’ sarcophagus weighed many tons, removing it was not difficult, as the equipment was close at hand and used every day. Once lifted up, it was placed on rollers, hitched to ropes that were hitched to men, and moved to the mouth of the new tomb.
Nitiqret’s shaft was far deeper. Affixing the strongest of papyrus ropes, the men lowered the sarcophagus easily, their only worry that the ropes would split under the weight and the coffin drop to the bottom and break into a thousand pieces. But that did not happen.

The remaining pieces of tomb furniture—only a bed canopy and a carrying chair had not been stolen—were taken down and piled against the wall. The gold hieroglyphs of the queen’s name glittered against the black ebony of her bed.