The Time Travelers, Volume 2

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Pankh had calmed down. “I don’t think it’s a ka,” he said. “Maybe a slave girl in the dress of her native land? She has run away, perhaps, and is trying to hide in the papyrus swamp.”

  How frightening to be lost here! Papyrus was delicate with arching fronds, forming hieroglyphics of their own against the brown Nile and the blue sky. But millions of them … mile upon mile of them … and they interlaced like prison walls. Feet sank into mud and roots clung to ankles and crocodiles sprang out of dark water. No wonder the poor thing was frightened.

  Its clothing was stranger than Renifer had seen even in the slave bazaar. Egyptians did not normally have slaves. Their servants were not sold in streets. Slaves were prisoners of war, and came from distant places that must be thrashed until they understood Egyptian superiority.

  But Pankh was correct about the creature being female, and probably also that it was foreign, for its skin was as pale as bleached linen. It looked unhealthy to Renifer. Its hair was very long and must be very hot.

  The creature tried to grab the pole with which Pankh pushed the little boat through the reeds but he jerked it out of her reach. “Pankh!” said Renifer severely. “We have to rescue her.”

  “No, we don’t. It isn’t a pet,” said Pankh. “Don’t touch it.”

  Renifer paid no attention to him. “It’s all right,” called Renifer, reaching toward the creature. “You may get in the boat with us. I’m going to take you home and bathe you. Don’t be afraid. We won’t leave you in the swamp.”

  Renifer held out her arms and the girl came, and Renifer felt its heartbeat, the heat of its skin and the wet of its tears.

  Pankh kept the boat pole between himself and the pale creature. “Her skin is the color of a worm from under a rock,” he said in distaste. “Perhaps that’s the color of a returning spirit.”

  “Now, Pankh. You just said she was an escaping slave. She cannot be both.” Renifer coaxed the girl to sit in the bottom of the boat. She picked out a sweet pastry and the creature ate it, but refused the beer, which looked fine to Renifer, although maybe it needed to be strained again. Nile beer was rather thick. “The gods have sent her to us, Pankh. They even made you cry out the name of Hetepheres. She is not a ka, but perhaps sent by the queen’s ka! I cannot imagine the purpose. But soon the gods will reveal all. Our task will be made clear to us.”

  “It is clear to me,” said Pankh, “that we should leave her here.”

  Renifer patted the girl’s hand and said soothingly, “We’re going to go home now. You’re going to have a nice bath and put decent clothing on.”

  “She’s the color of a rat’s tail,” said Pankh.

  “She’s the color of ivory,” said Renifer. Even Pharaoh possessed little ivory, for it was so precious and rare. Father, of course, in his wealth, had acquired a number of pieces. Renifer lifted her voice to the gods and sang a song of thanksgiving for being honored with a girl of ivory.

  Pankh swore at the same gods. He poled much more vigorously out of the papyrus than he had coming in.

  The creature—or runaway slave—or foreigner—or ka—slid into the bottom of the boat and slept.

  ANNIE

  Humans!

  Annie rushed forward. They were in a funny little boat with a swan’s neck prow. But the people in the boat did not want her, and the man shoved her away with his oar.

  “No, no,” she said desperately. “There are crocodiles in there. Take me with you. Please? I’ll do anything.”

  The man continued to push her away, but the girl behind him suddenly smiled at Annie, elbowed the man aside and drew Annie into the safety of the funny little boat. She was desperately relieved to have her feet out of the mud.

  Her rescuer was younger than Annie. Very pretty, with rich warm golden-brown skin. Her black hair was extremely decorative, in many tiny tight braids, falling evenly to her shoulders, and heavily laced with beads. The man was bare except for a white kilt.

  The boat was a sort of glorified raft. It was made, Annie realized, of hundreds of the very triangular reeds which had so terrified her. The woven reeds were dried out and stiff, and when she pressed her fingernail into them, they felt like Styrofoam, not wood.

  “Papyrus,” said the girl, smiling at Annie.

  RENIFER

  Once home in the women’s quarters, Renifer could not get the girl to remove her dreadful clothing and Renifer could not figure out how to remove it herself. It was tied together in some bizarre foreign way.

  The servants were laughing too hard and were also too afraid to be of any use.

  Whatever tribe the girl came from, it was very primitive. Clearly, she had no acquaintance with gold or adornment. Her ears were pierced, so at some time in her life, she had worn something. But the only jewelry she possessed now was a plain leather wrist strap with a speckled circle.

  Renifer decided on gold for a bribe.

  Offering jewelry, one piece at a time, she coaxed the girl into a bracelet, and then a necklace and then another. Finally, Renifer got her to remove the strange clothing. The top piece gripped by means of little circles stuck through holes. It had sleeves, such as Renifer had seen on warriors from the Far East, when they had been captured by superior Egyptian forces.

  What a relief to strip the girl naked and scrub away her foreign smell and dress her in clothing through which the cleansing desert air could pass.

  When at last she was clean and well oiled—a process she resisted rather vigorously—Renifer chose one of her finest gowns. They had a clash over how the dress hung, as the girl wanted it to cover her upper body. Renifer tried to demonstrate that breasts were a girl’s best asset and the girl of ivory had a fine pair, and must display them. In fact, Renifer had makeup for them, but when she tried to apply it, the girl flung herself across the room and even handed back the gold.

  Renifer could only laugh and put the girl in a dress that hung from the shoulders.

  Renifer decked the girl in her very finest jewels, the ones Father had acquired during the last year, which she wore only at private dinners, because Father said they mustn’t let neighbors realize how successful he had become. The necklace had a swollen solid gold collar from which hung gold lace and intense blue lapis lazuli. The finger rings were shaped like coiled serpents and sacred beetles. The earrings were paper-thin plates of hammered gold, six inches across.

  When she was finally dressed, she no longer looked like a fish rotting on the shore. She was almost attractive. Once her face was properly made up, she might even be rather lovely. Renifer had never seen anything quite like her.

  “A goddess sent you,” said Renifer softly. “I’m sure of it. Tomorrow morning, or perhaps by the setting sun, the goddess will tell me your purpose.”

  Renifer’s nurse sniffed. “She looks like a sacrifice. She is white like the best oxen and you have dressed her in white, like the best priestess. I think she is here to die.”

  They stared at her, while the pale girl herself stared at her new jewelry.

  Renifer shivered, wondering to whom and for what the creature would be sacrificed.

  ANNIE

  All her life, Annie had loved those paintings of Egyptian women, their sloe eyes, dark lids and romantic mysterious glances. Renifer painted her just like that, the makeup going from the corners of her eyes all the way back into her hair. Annie sat and enjoyed it. She wasn’t even trying to talk. The sounds Renifer made—if in fact her name was Renifer; it could just as easily be Zrnykr or Bjzhirhoo—did not sound like language.

  Annie felt oddly as if she had not changed millennia; these were just girls gathered in a girl’s bedroom, playing dress-up, putting on new makeup and sharing hairstyles.

  Whereupon Renifer took off her hair.

  Annie nearly screamed. Renifer was bald. She shaved her head!

  Renifer laughed and pointed through a shuttered window at the huge yellow disk of the sun.

  They shave their heads to keep cool, thought Annie, and wear wigs to keep off t
he sun, the way I’d wear a baseball cap. “Don’t even think about shaving off my hair,” said Annie. “Bad enough you put me in a see-through dress with nothing on underneath it.”

  Renifer and her maids burst into giggles at the duck-quacking sound of Annie’s language. Then she tied Annie’s hair into a knot on top of her head to get rid of it, while a servant brought out a magnificent wig.

  It was a deeper black than Annie’s real hair, with hundreds of the tight twisted braids like the ones in Renifer’s wig. Into the wig, Renifer and the serving girl worked a series of gold ornaments, and then Annie was permitted to stand.

  She knew by the delight on their faces that she was beautiful; that they were pleased.

  Finally, Renifer decked Annie in gold necklaces. In Annie’s world, a gold necklace was a slender thread, a mere suggestion of gold. Ancient Egyptians were not so restrained. The necklace Renifer fastened around Annie’s throat was splendid. Its weight astonished her.

  The wig and the eyepaint had the nice result of making her feel invisible, the way you felt behind sunglasses. You could see other people, but they couldn’t see you. And this was a good thing, because Renifer took Annie’s hand and led her into a garden and displayed her in the sheer dress.

  The garden was enchanting. The dark plumes of palm trees bowed in the evening breeze. Against a tawny mud-brick wall stood an ancient sycamore, bark peeling into leopard spots. Acacia were powdered with yellow blooms. There were oleander, and limes, and roses blooming as if for a score of weddings.

  Every tree and shrub stood inside its own little puddle of Nile water. Gardeners were walking about refilling the puddles. Outside each puddle, the dirt was as hard and dry as wooden planks.

  Geese and ducks wandered. A cat sunned itself on a wall. Annie’s gown was pleasantly cool against her skin. Renifer led her up a ladder to a roof garden. From here, Annie could see children playing tag, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Men in the street below were coming home from work—fishermen with their catch; vendors with their wagons. They wore cotton nightgowns, like baggy T-shirts to the ankle.

  On the desert horizon, Annie saw two pyramids. She caught her breath. Every picture she had ever seen showed three. It didn’t precisely tell her the year, but it did tell her the time: She had arrived in Egypt before the third pyramid had been built. What had she just read on the plaques in the museum? Had not Khufu built his Pyramid around 2500 B.C.?

  She tried to think how Strat fit into this and realized that she was going to find Strat, here in antiquity. How he must be rejoicing at his good fortune! What archaeologist has not dreamed of falling through Time to the very place he digs?

  Annie turned away from the sights of Memphis to find Renifer’s friend Pankh—the one-syllable name was easy to learn—staring at her with loathing. He stepped back when she approached, rubbing his arms, as if she literally made his skin crawl. Annie stuck close to Renifer. Pankh wore a pleated white cloth tied diaper-fashion between his legs. To Annie, he appeared comical, but Renifer certainly admired him.

  A man who seemed to be Renifer’s father greeted them, raising his eyebrows at the sight of Annie, but shrugging. When Pankh’s back was turned, the father sent him looks. Just so had Annie and Tod looked at the woman with whom their father had had that affair. If looks were sharp knives, the woman would have died a quick death.

  So, thought Annie, Renifer’s father hates Renifer’s boyfriend.

  There was no time to dwell on this interesting problem, because a little sister and several brothers came pounding up the steps to the roof patio, and surrounded Annie, patting her as they did their pet goose and their pet monkey. The children were naked and dusty and beautiful and she found herself laughing and romping with them.

  For dinner, there were roast pigeons with onion. There was baked perch with pomegranate sauce. The bread was delicious and also sandy, as if they had made the bread outside on a windy day. There were cakes drizzled with honey and many kinds of cheese.

  Annie began nodding off, a giggly little brother on each side of her keeping her upright. Renifer led her away. She was so tired she could hardly make it down the roof ladder.

  Renifer’s bedroom was so full of beautiful objects. Every possession looked worthy of a king’s tomb, but it was the bed Annie wanted to try out. It was wood framed and tilted toward the feet, with a footboard to keep Renifer from sliding off and one of those wonderful wooden pillows, like a torture rack.

  But Annie did not get a bed or even a wooden pillow. Mats kept under Renifer’s bed were unrolled and all Annie had for comfort was an inch of reed on a mud-brick floor.

  She meant to stay awake for hours, memorizing all she had seen so she could tell Strat, but she fell asleep the moment her cheek touched the mat.

  She did not know that when the servants unrolled their mats, tiptoeing around her, they carefully placed amulets on all four sides of her, to protect themselves.

  CAMILLA

  The following morning, the shaft which young Stratton had discovered was speedily emptied, but spirits sank as soon as the first person descended. The space below was small and unadorned. There were no gilt ceilings. No fine statues. No fabulous treasure. There were the remains of furniture, the wood having disintegrated, only the gold leaf which had wrapped each leg or arm still there. The only other object in the tomb was a huge unopened stone sarcophagus, sealed in antiquity.

  “That means,” the Yale man told Camilla, “that the tomb was robbed of anything easily carried, while the big pieces were abandoned.”

  “But surely, if the sarcophagus is sealed,” Camilla protested, “there will be a coffin inside. A king’s mummy and lots of gold.”

  “Nothing is for sure in ancient Egypt,” said Dr. Lightner ruefully. He was lowered by rope down the sharply slanted shaft. Strat followed, carrying his camera equipment.

  Camilla stared down the opening through which Hiram Stratton’s son had just disappeared. If only he would rot down there. If only some tomb curse would close in upon him, smothering him with rocks. Then Hiram Stratton would find out what it was like to lose somebody he loved!

  She sipped warm water from her canteen, wishing there were a way to keep drinks cold. To make ice, perhaps. She tried to imagine a method of creating ice in hot weather but gave up.

  Dr. Lightner emerged from the shaft. He was excited and happy. “Look at this!” he cried.

  He sounded like one of her little sisters or brothers bringing home some treasure found on the sidewalk. A bright penny or a lost pencil. Camilla was touched.

  He held in his hand something that had been buried thousands of years ago. For the first time, it was struck by sun.

  It was a sandal of gold.

  Camilla had rarely seen gold. The gleam astonished her. No wonder the world had fallen in love with this metal; no wonder that conquistadors and pirates, presidents and archaeologists wanted it. She wanted that sandal. She was amazed by the ferocity of her desire. She asked permission, and received it, to touch the shoe. But when she did, a strange damp terror crept into her and she pulled her hand back as if from a hot iron.

  “It was lying on the floor,” said Dr. Lightner. “Just one sandal. Not the other. It’s solid gold. Not intended for actual wear.”

  “Yet it was worn,” said Camilla. “See? The sole of the sandal is scraped.”

  They stared in astonishment. She was right. The sandal had once slid onto the bare foot of an Egyptian girl, its intricately designed gold rope between her toes.

  It was an Egyptian Cinderella’s slipper, thought Camilla. She was leaving the ball, and her magic slipper fell off and was left behind. Somewhere in time, she still wears her other slipper.

  Dr. Lightner held the gold sandal against his cheek, to feel its history. “Would the slipper fit you, Miss Matthews?” he asked.

  “It was made for a small and slender foot,” she told him. “My foot is far too large. You will have to find a princess.”

  “Miss Matthews, say no such t
hing. Among women, you are a queen.”

  Camilla blushed and then, being truthful, extended her right foot. Grinning, he stuck his out next to it. Dr. Lightner’s feet made her own look delicate. They stood in each other’s footprints, lost their balance, and gripped each other to keep from falling. Before it could become impropriety, of course, they stepped back and pretended to be doing other things.

  “Might I descend the shaft?” said Camilla eagerly, merely being polite, not expecting to need permission.

  But Dr. Lightner refused. She was a lady, he explained.

  On the one hand, Camilla loved being a lady: too important to take risks or get dirty. On the other hand, she hated being a lady: too unimportant to participate in the fun.

  The mystery of the tomb, however, was not so much the single sandal, but its owner. When torches were brought into the depths, and the hieroglyphs on the stone coffin read, it turned out to be the sarcophagus of Hetepheres, mother of Khufu, who built the Great Pyramid.

  Impossible. This little hole—a queen’s tomb?

  Pharaoh forced his people to labor for decades to create his tomb—and stuck his mother into an undecorated closet?

  “Surely, inside that sarcophagus lies the queen herself,” said the young man from Yale.

  “How fabulous her mummy will be!” said the boy from Princeton.

  Dr. Lightner spread his hands in a shrug. “One does not know these things in advance. Egypt likes to hold her secrets.”

  “We must have a ceremony for the opening of her sarcophagus,” said the youth from Harvard, having been raised to expect things to go his way, “and invite all the important archaeologists in Egypt. Within easy reach are scholars and dignitaries from Germany and Austria, France and Italy, America and England.”