The Time Travelers, Volume 2 (31 page)

“I am in the midst of divorcing my fourth.”

It was an admission so outrageous, Camilla could not believe he had said it in public. Even to use the word divorce
at an elegant gathering like this was vulgar. She trembled at the suffering of those four women, sharing a life and a bed with this monster. “I assume your fourth wife babbled,” she said.

“Precisely.” Hiram Stratton laughed hugely and spilled red wine. “
And
demanded
and
whined
and
argued. A man cannot be expected to put up with that.”

“Of course not,” said Camilla.

“Miss Matthews,” said Hiram Stratton very softly, “you are a fine detective. Nothing escapes you, does it? You should know, my dear, that nothing escapes me either.”

Their eyes met. What could he mean? Had he already discerned that she was making plans for Strat’s escape?

Hidden by the starched white damask tablecloth, the man had the gall to put his hand on her knee. He began to inch her skirt upward, in order to touch her bare skin.

Camilla’s choices were few. To stab him with her fork would be a breach of manners. How would the French feel then about Dr. Lightner, bringing so uncouth a creature to their party? Lady Clementine would take back her dress and her pearls, knowing Camilla had not the grace to handle situations like a lady.

Yet she could not allow it to happen.

It dawned on her that this was what Hiram Stratton referred to. He had noticed Camilla and she belonged to him, having accepted his false letter of introduction and his money, and he would take her in other ways as well.

Camilla could not think clearly. Failure to think clearly had happened to at least four other women in the presence of Hiram Stratton, Sr. She looked desperately at Lady Clementine and found she had underestimated this fine person. Lady Clementine tapped her silver knife gently against a crystal glass, and a sweet note rang out through the room. The ladies stood, and quickly the men rose with them.

Hiram Stratton struggled to join them, his bulk and the difficult position into which he had maneuvered his hands slowing him down.

“Gentlemen,” said the ambassador’s wife graciously, “we leave you to your dessert and brandy, so your conversations may turn to war and politics, while we retire to the garden, and our conversations turn to fashion and weddings.”

A servant pulled Camilla’s chair out for her and the gentlemen bade the ladies
au revoir
. Hiram Stratton said into Camilla’s ear, “Do not forget that you are my employee. You will do all that you are told.” A smirk lay behind his moss mustache.
“All.”

A
nnie was very impressed by the clothing placed on her body.

A shift of fine linen hung straight from shoulder to ankle. Over that was placed an entire dress of linked beads, gold and blue and a rich dark red, laced into a thousand one-inch squares. When she moved, the beads rearranged themselves in a chorus of clicks.

Renifer’s servant painted Annie’s eyes far into her hairline, and into her hair worked a garland of shiny green leaves and bright flowers. On her feet were placed gold sandals, which glowed as if they contained the sun and eternity itself. Annie had never seen workmanship so beautiful, so impossible.

Of course, she might as well have been wearing lead slabs. She did not see how she was going to walk, but it turned out that walking didn’t matter. She and Renifer were lifted like dolls into a double sedan chair, placed gently on soft pillows and carried on the shoulders of men whose muscles bulged as they strained.

The streets of Memphis were quiet. It was very late.
Most torches had been put out; most music had ended; most people slept.

All afternoon and all evening, Annie had thought about the three dead men, killed, it seemed, by Pankh and Pen-Meru.

There had been police, full of questions; their uniforms and weapons different from police in her time, but their demeanor and posture the same.

With so much coming and going among guards and so much confusion as they shifted things from one tomb to another, Annie could have vanished into the vast acreage of tombs and blocky mausoleums. But Time had surely given her into Renifer’s hands for a purpose. It had to be Strat. And yet there had been no sign of him.

It was not fair. She had expected to find Strat. To love and be loved once more. Strat must be above her in time, pushing a trowel into the very sand on which she stood. Annie felt betrayed and angry. She wanted to yell at somebody, but nobody shared her language. She had tried to comfort Renifer when the girl wept over the farmers plucked from the fields like chicken for dinner.

But Renifer had sunk into a silent despair and nothing brought her out of it.

When they were dressed by the maids, Renifer refused every single piece of gold and jewelry.

Pankh and Pen-Meru were at the door constantly, demanding speed.

The maids were frightened. Annie tried to keep her own composure, but it was difficult, understanding so little of the events, and feeling so very sorry for Renifer,
in love with a man who made a habit of stabbing policemen to death.

She and Renifer sat shoulder to shoulder in the litter, Annie’s beads making dents in both of them. At last Renifer roused herself. She took Annie’s first finger and pressed it against Annie’s lips, shaking her head twice:
No
. Then she pressed her own finger against Annie’s lips and raised her eyebrows.

She was requesting silence. Annie smiled and nodded agreement, rather proud to be communicating so clearly. With her thumbs, Renifer flattened the edges of Annie’s smile away. Again she shook her head.

Whatever they were about to do, it was no laughing matter.

Oh, Strat! thought Annie. What is going to happen? Why aren’t you here?

They were carried to the river and aboard the same barge that had been at the Pyramid lagoon that morning. Trimmed in gold, fluttering with flags and bright with paint, it was fit for a king. Along its deck, soldiers swung spears whose shafts were encircled with gold.

Not king, thought Annie.
Pharaoh
.

Khufu himself.

She was to be in the presence of the most powerful man on this earth? When she could not understand what anybody said? When she had seen how readily they murdered people here?

In front of his feet, as in front of the queen’s chapel, the deck was silver. In the torchlight, it possessed a mysterious flickering gleam.

She and Renifer were lifted out of the sedan chair, while Pen-Meru and Pankh stepped ahead to kneel. They knelt in the awkward gymnast’s perch that Renifer had used, one leg extended behind, other knee touching the floor, forehead pressed against the silver. In such a position, a man was helpless. If an order were given to have them killed, how simple it would be.

Fear was palpable. In their anxiety, people breathed so deeply it almost caused the sails to billow forth.

Annie suddenly realized the men were kneeling to Pharaoh. His throne was so immense, so high, and he so utterly still that she had not seen him. He did not seem to breathe at all. Wrapped against the evening chill in a magnificent cape of leopard skin, a towering crown upon his head, he did not appear to notice the humans at his feet. He did not even seem real.

Perhaps he’s a mummy, thought Annie. Perhaps they worship a dead man.

But Pharaoh was very much alive, and very angry.

Whatever Renifer’s father said infuriated the king. In one hand was a staff that he pounded against the deck of the ship, and in the other a short whip, which he flailed through the air, causing men to fling themselves flat on the deck.

Renifer was trembling badly. Annie tried to stave off her own fears. Much as she wanted Strat, she hoped he was not here. There was too much danger.

The barge left the wharf and moved slowly on the river, rowed by men sitting below the deck. Annie
watched the rising and falling tips of the oars and heard the gentle slap as they entered the Nile.

Abruptly Pharaoh waved Pen-Meru to silence. Pen-Meru dashed his forehead on the deck and Pharaoh stood up. He barked short syllables, angry and quick. Renifer whimpered, and then guided Annie forward. It was almost impossible to move in the beaded dress and the inflexible gold sandals. Renifer positioned Annie in front of Pharaoh, running a hand up Annie’s spine to keep her standing, while she herself knelt.

Pharaoh stared at Annie. He seemed made of wood. His eyes blinked slowly and thickly, as if fastened to hinges rarely used.

Courtiers reverently removed the great crown, placing it upon a pedestal designed to hold that amazing headgear. Pharaoh swung the great cape off his shoulders. He was bare-chested except for a medallion encrusted with jewels, and his muscular body was scarred from some danger he had survived. Claw scrapes, perhaps, from the very leopard whose skin he now wore.

This man, thought Annie, would skin anybody if he felt like it.

But it was Annie whose skin interested Pharaoh.

She tried to breathe as infrequently as he did. To show this man her fear would be a grave error. Not one man or woman on this barge had dared look Pharaoh in the eye. Annie stared right at him. For a moment, their gazes locked: a king and a blue-eyed trespasser from another time.

Her stomach churned. The slabs of gold on her feet seemed to drag her down.

Pharaoh seemed almost to smile, and the smile was one she had seen before. Where? On what face? Because she had certainly never seen his.

The barge arrived at the square lake and the harsh temple. Far down the torchlit causeway loomed his Pyramid, stunning and graceful by night.

Annie and Renifer were lifted once more into their sedan chair, while Pharaoh was placed on a similar, but immensely larger, chair. It took eight men to lift him.

A procession was formed.

Annie had thought Pharaoh would be attended by a cast of thousands. But only a dozen soldiers and a few priests accompanied the king.

They passed through the portals of the stern temple and under the banners of its pillars. They walked with measured pace along the causeway. They passed the chapel where the murders had happened. Renifer held tight to Annie. Her hand felt as thin and cold as bones.

Instead of lighting more torches for more light, the priests doused torches for
less
light.

What dark ceremony, what dark thoughts were soon to be expressed? What dark deeds?

They stopped at the shaft down which Pen-Meru and Pankh and their cohorts had lowered the sarcophagus. Annie and Renifer were lifted from their conveyance and brought to stand next to Pharaoh at the opening in the earth.

The priests chanted, and rocked on their heels, and
anointed surfaces with oil from holy vessels. Renifer sang. What a beautiful soprano she had! The notes soared among the tombs and the dead, echoing off a million stones.

Pharaoh closed his eyes in prayer.

Annie prayed to Time.
Take me to Strat
.

She could hear Time laughing, and turned quickly, but it was Pankh.

R
enifer stood with her head bowed and her eyes fixed on her painted toes. She knew now why her father smirked at power. Power was held by those who told the best lies.

For Pharaoh had believed Pen-Meru. He accepted Pankh’s lies. Renifer stood in shame as deep as the mud in which peasants toiled.

If Pharaoh did not understand, and she did, was it Renifer’s duty to speak the truth? Should she crush Him with the knowledge that His mother’s bones were scattered and dishonored?

Pharaoh, God Himself, must bring order to the chaos of living. His power caused the Nile to rise, bringing the water that grew the grain that baked the bread that kept Egypt alive. To upset Pharaoh was to ruin the lives of all. Therefore silence was best.

Or was it?

One priest anointed the site with sacred oils while another burned incense. An acolyte set down a freshly killed duck and a basket of dates.

O Hetepheres! Your interment should include a train
of priestesses! Paid musicians and a choir. A parade and seventy days of feasting. Petals of roses strewn for hundreds of yards and fine perfumes distributed among thousands of mourners.

“It’s a hundred feet down the shaft, Great King,” said Pen-Meru, gleeful with success. “Infinitely more secure than the previous tomb. All was accomplished with speed but sacred dignity. Those laborers who moved her tomb goods have been sent West.”

Renifer was sick. So every worker her father had commanded this afternoon had been executed. Oh, the foul deaths for which her father was responsible!

I cannot atone, thought Renifer. No matter what parts of this ritual I do, it will mean nothing.

She washed her face and hands with holy drops and sang to the Nile, because the river was Egypt and Egypt was the river.

When Pharaoh had added His blessing, He said, “The priestess of ivory does not sing?”

“She has no language, sire,” said Renifer.

Seven times, she stepped forward and then backward to sanctify the shaft. Kissing each one, she placed before the new tomb four amulets: cat, scarab, cow and ibis. From a spun-glass goblet of holy water, Renifer sipped first, and then gave each person present a taste of the holy water. Even the girl of ivory.

The ritual was complete.

Pharaoh stepped up to the hole and gazed steadily down the open shaft.

Nobody dared speak. Perhaps the God was praying in
His heart. Or perhaps He had some plan of which He had not yet spoken.

“In very ancient times,” said the Living God slowly, “a queen was buried with her living servants. I sometimes wonder if it is sufficiently reverent to allow dolls to represent those servants.”

The hundreds of dolls which represented palace staff had of course been stolen early on. They were easy to sell. Well-to-do people needed them for their own burials and never asked when the dolls had been made or for whom.

Pharaoh flicked a wrist and two of His palace guards stepped forward. They carried between them a long open box, whose weight caused their muscles to bulge and quiver with effort. It contained gold. Necklaces were draped over tiaras, earrings tumbled through arm-pieces, bracelets tangled among pectorals.