by C J Turner
All evidence of reluctant on Blake’s part to become further embroiled in this tiresome affair promptly vanished. He was there within the hour.
The object was a pendant, beautifully fashioned in the form of a small winged scarab, and in Blake’s opinion, was a genuine, ancient Egyptian artifact. He would have liked more time to examine it, but the hawk-eyed nurse was already shuffling it back into a paper bag and replacing it with the rest of the girl’s belongings.
Now thoroughly intrigued, he offered to take another look at the girl, perhaps he would be able to identify her spoken language? Blake was whisked off immediately to the ward to see if he could throw more light on the identity of the injured girl. Otherwise, although the police would continue with their usual checks and procedures, there was little more they could do until something turned up, or someone came forward to claim her.
The Professor, his thoughts now far away, somewhat absently agreed to this on the off chance that his appearance might trigger some reaction in the patient who was now awake.
You could say that is when it all began.
Although, of course, the story did not really start there – those tragic seeds had been sown in another place and another time, long, long ago.
Fourth Year of the King Horemheb
Egypt 1312 BC
Tameri’s last breath choked out in a spray of tiny red bubbles; her eyes, those extraordinary green gold eyes once so beautiful, now fixed in a lifeless stare as cold as marble. Menkherperne let her head fall back onto the sandy floor of the cave and scrambled to his feet, his chest heaving with that last violent exertion. His heart hammered painfully in his chest and he reflected bitterly how strange it was that this weak flawed thing that labored in his breast, and could no longer be relied upon to sustain his life, should still torment his body so.
It would not be long now.
Giving himself a few minute to recoup his strength, he eyed the ruined body sprawled at his feet with distaste. Noting that he would have to change before going back to the Temple, he adjusted his white linen robes, alas white no longer, with stiff fingers that shook uncontrollably as if with an ague. Now he had to carry out the final part of his preparations to ensure that Tameri would be bound to him forever, body and soul.
It had after all been so easy to lure the girl to his secret place in the desolate hills of Thebes. Fatally easy. In his spy’s usually mundane report of the trivia of village life, had been that nugget of vital information that Menkherperne had been waiting for. Tameri’s mother, the widow Hetsepi, planned a visit to her sister’s farm which lay a few miles away from the village and was going to take little Sheriti with her, Tameri’s baby daughter and the apple of her grandmother’s eye. Taking advantage of this unexpected holiday, Tameri intended a surprise visit to her young husband, Kenna, who was working on a tomb further up in the valley. Simple then, for Menkheperne to waylay Tameri, tell her that he had taken her child and command her to meet him at a certain place where he had hidden the infant. She must tell no one where she was going, or her baby would die.
Tameri was a simple village girl and terrified of Menkheperne, as were all the village. The High Priest was a powerful magician and a cruel and ruthless man. All knew this to be true, but Tameri was aware of his particular interest in her; the knowledge that she was special to him in some way filled her with fear and loathing. She could not chance her daughter’s life; she did as she was told.
Everything had gone as he had planned and so it would always be. Only in one matter had his craft let him down. Menkheperne was a skilled physician, although it was many years since he had used his gift to heal. He had read the signs aright and knew he had not long to live. At first, he had railed at the bitter injustice that he, who had acquired so much knowledge and power by his secret studies, could not prevent the fatal weakness of his body wrecking all his aspirations. His fellow priests assured the credulous populace that death was just a passing over to the other side of the shadow that was life. For most people, it was so much easier to accept this comforting placebo than to challenge the age-old belief. You took with you as much as you could afford. Of course, if you were noble or rich you could take everything you could possible need with you into your tomb, including many ushabti, the small pottery or alabaster figures, who would serve you in the afterlife.
As his own end drew nearer, Menkherperne grew afraid; once his heart, black and heavy with evil, was weighed against the feather of truth there could only be one outcome. He knew the demon Ammit was waiting to devour him.
In any case, he did not seek the tranquility of paradise, he craved power, and he would use any means to achieve his ends. Highly intelligent and supremely arrogant, he determined that there must be the means of guaranteeing a way back to the living world after death. After much searching amongst forgotten scrolls, he found an ancient papyrus which seemed to promise that which he so desperately sought.
From the crumbling text, he learnt that the spirits of the newly dead pass into a land of shadows, where they stayed for a while in limbo before passing on. To re-unite a spirit of the recently departed to its fleshly envelope, a beacon could be created that would span both this world and the next, and this would draw the ka back to its former body. This was dangerous magic indeed and the beacon would have to be very powerful, imbued with strong spells.
These spells were intensely difficult to master, but not impossible to a magician as advanced as Menkheperne, and could be hidden in an amulet which, under the right circumstances, would guide the ka back to the land of the living.
Cynically, despite his fellow priest’s assurances to Pharaoh, he knew that it was impossible to keep robbers away from a newly sealed tomb. No matter how terrible were the consequences of being caught, there were always those greedy, or desperate enough to try. This knowledge he would use to his advantage. If he left the magical amulet in the outer chamber of his tomb, it was sure to be picked up by the first bold thief who came along. Back in the outside world, sooner or later the time would come when the spells would be set in motion.
The difficulty would be to ensure that his sarcophagus was not broken into and his mummified remains violated. His ka would not be able to inhabit a damaged body and once drawn back to this world, would have to seek shelter elsewhere. After long thought, he designed a massive black marble barrier to guard the inner chamber of his tomb wherein would lie his great sarcophagus of red basalt. After his interment, the wall would slide into place and thus the inner chamber would become impregnable. So that none would know the secret of its mechanism, Menkheperne made certain that the workman whom he set to complete this task, were never seen by their families again.
At last he was well content, assured and complacent that by his cleverness he would be able to cheat death. One thing only still pricked him like a sharp thorn caught painfully in a sandal. His failure to obtain the woman he desired above all others, tormented his nights and haunted his days. Again, he wove his webs and again his evil gods smiled on him.
Now no one in this world would bask in the warmth of Tameri’s sweet smile, or see her sparkling eyes ever again. He had made her his for eternity and only he would ever enjoy her charms again; she was his alone.
Muttering his spells, he lifted a ushabti figurine and gazed into the small face made of clay that was a true likeness of Tameri. Round its head, he wound a lock of her blood stained hair and the necklace that he had taken from the dead girl’s neck. A gold chain with a scarab pendant of fine workmanship, a bridal gift from Kenna, which was her most treasured possession.
A powerful talisman then, to bind her spirit close and indivisably to the ushabti doll that Menkheperen intended would be buried with him, thus ensuring that Tameri would be in thrall to him forever.
Chapter 2
Alice Warwick extricated herself from various heavy carrier bags and bent down with an irritated tut to pick up the small square of white card. This, the most recent addition from the post office, had landed on the
summit of a small mountain of unopened mail cluttering the doormat, which had nearly prevented her from opening the front door sufficiently to squeeze through that morning. The card smugly conveyed the annoying information that she had just missed the delivery of a parcel for Professor B.W. Gasgoine, and that it was now waiting collection at the local depot.
‘Bother!’ she muttered vexedly under her breath, and slipped the card into her bag with a resolve to collect it the following morning. Later, she reduced the rest of the unwieldy collection of envelopes, obviously the result of several days wasted effort by the postman, to a few miscellaneous items of correspondence that needed Blake’s personal attention and left the neat pile on the hall table. She hoped he would take the hint.
Alice was calm, kind and tactful. Virtues that Blake appreciated all the more as he rarely chose to exercise them himself. She was a small woman in her fifties, with silver streaked chestnut hair worn in an untidy bun on the top of her head and an eccentric taste in ethnic clothes. One of Blake’s oldest friends, she had kept house for him ever since the premature death of her husband some years earlier. Blake knew he was lucky to have her, he could be difficult to get on with, indeed some might think, took pride in the fact, and he was well aware that various colleagues and acquaintances had tried to lure Alice away from him from time to time. He was devoutly thankful (although he would never dream of telling her so), when he heard that they had been firmly rebuffed.
Now this lady had just returned from a well earned holiday, and so had not seen Blake for a fortnight. Evidence of her absence was glaringly obvious in the aforementioned mound of unopened mail, empty fridge and general chaotic disorder throughout the house. Alice had found that if she wanted to retain the services of a cleaner it was better for the sake of the poor woman’s nerves that she only came to the house when Alice knew that Blake was not going to be in. As his movements were notoriously unpredictable, she had reluctantly decided that the lesser of the two evils (untidy house as opposed to inevitably having to find yet another help) would be to dispense with this service while Alice herself was away.
On the following day as she turned onto the drive, she saw that Blake had obviously pulled up in his old Jaguar just minutes before her, and was in the process of helping someone out of the car. The stranger was no one that Alice knew; her head was swathed in a professional looking white dressing and she seemed very frail and rather dazed.
With a murmur of concern, the older woman climbed quickly out of her own car and hurried over to them.
‘Now whatever has happened?’ she exclaimed, inserting her key into the front door and throwing it open. Gently ushering the girl inside, Alice cast an accusatory glare over the bandaged head at the Professor. ‘What on earth….’
‘It’s perfectly all right Alice, don’t fuss,’ he interrupted testily, the undeserved but tacit assumption that whatever had happened was probably his fault, had not gone unnoticed.
‘The young lady was involved in an accident and will be staying with us for a while until we can get things sorted out. If you could just take her up to the guest room and settle her in,’ Blake paused, enjoying his friend’s astonishment, ‘I’m sure she would like a nice cup of tea.’
He smiled maliciously at the dumbstruck woman and taking advantage of her silence, disappeared into his study with an airy wave of his hand. Pulling herself together, Alice closed her mouth abruptly and shook her head in resigned exasperation.
‘Typical!’ she snorted and then, in a considerably more gentle voice, ‘Come with me, my dear, and we’ll get you comfortable. Now, whatever has happened to you? No, no don’t worry about that now, I’ll get you settled first.’
The girl followed her meekly up the stairs accompanied by a continuous kindly monologue of conjecture and reassurance, until they arrive at a spacious landing lined with several white panelled doors. Opening one, Alice ushered their unexpected guest into a pleasant bedroom decorated in shades of cornflower blue. An inviting cushioned window-seat framed between long velvet curtains looked out on to the quiet tree-lined avenue below.
‘Bathroom through there,’ Alice motioned through a half-open door to a blue tiled en-suite. ‘Now shall I help you unpack? Where’s your luggage, still in the car?’ then anxiously, as the younger woman sat down heavily on the bed with a tremulous sigh, ‘What is it, my dear, how can I help?’
Under the crisp white bandage that sat rakishly at odds with the tangled dark curls, large eyes of an unusually clear grey lifted in mute appeal.
Alice felt a frisson of shock down her spine, but had no time to query this unexpected reaction as, almost immediately, she saw the vulnerable figure shiver, and her warm heart was touched. With a small sigh, the girl sagged gratefully against Alice as she was drawn into comforting arms and gently hugged.
‘Now then, I don’t know what has happened but the Professor will sort it out, just you see. Why don’t you snuggle down under the covers while I go and make you a cup of tea, you do drink tea? Right, now you just have a little rest and I’ll be right back – will you be o.k. by yourself for a few minutes?’ This last, rather doubtfully, but the girl gave a shaky nod and an unsteady attempt at a smile and temporarily satisfied, Alice returned downstairs like an avenging angel on speed.
Blake met the hell bent Alice at the foot of the stairs and flung up one hand to halt the imminent storm. Thrusting a glass into her hand, he wheeled her into the study, where he took a long swallow from his own drink before pushing her firmly into a chair.
‘Yes, I know it is too early but when you hear what I have been through lately you will need one too – believe me! Now just shut up for a minute and let me speak,’ he growled warningly as she opened her mouth to interrupt. ‘No, just listen.’
She did, in almost complete, appalled silence, while he told her of the events leading up to the arrival of their unexpected houseguest.
‘Well, what a dreadful thing to happen to the poor child!’ she exclaimed as he came to the end. ‘And what’s going to happen to her now? You’ve truly no idea as who she could be?’
‘Oh, the police will keep trying to trace her and someone, somewhere, will miss her and come forward,’ he said flippantly, ‘It will only be for a very short time, I promise you.’
‘Well, as to that, it’s your house – it’s up to you who stays here, but I can’t help thinking …’
‘Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking,’ Blake interrupted, (I bet you don’t, Alice thought to herself acidly.) ‘But it will all work out, you’ll see – the hospital said she could regain her memory at any time and I’m sure that’s what will happen when she’s had a good rest in peace and quiet. How anyone can be expected to recover from anything in that damned hospital, I will never know, Alice – place is a mad house! And what passes for food! No wonder she’s so thin,’ he added slyly, with an attempt at diversion. ‘She needs feeding up with some good home cooking.’
It worked. With a start Alice pulled herself out of the chair with a muttered exclamation of distress, only the words, ‘forgot the tea’ and ‘chicken soup, that’s the thing’ repeated like a mantra, drifted back to him as she made her way purposefully to the kitchen.
Oddly enough, it was not so much the girl’s predicament, as Blake’s own extraordinary behaviour that occupied Alice’s thoughts as she prepared the evening meal later that evening.
Alice had been troubled for some time with the knowledge that the Professor’s irascibility and cynical attitude to life was getting worse.
Now firmly entrenched as an acknowledged expert in Egyptian Archaeology, success had bred disillusionment for Blake. Hampered and frustrated by a modern world he saw as driven by double standards and vain, petty ambitions, he wanted none of it. His uncompromising attitude, outspoken views and damning indictment of the political restraints and shibboleths put on most archaeological projects these days had made more than one would be employer more relieved than sorry when he rejected their proposals. Brilliant he might be, b
ut his reputation for being a dangerous loose cannon was undeniably well deserved.
However, it was not his professional reputation that concerned Alice. She was beginning to worry that she had made his life too comfortable! Certainly, he seemed in no danger of wanting to exchange their present arrangement for that of a wife and family. Commitment of any kind seemed complete anathema to him. Despite his caustic manner, Blake possessed an innate magnetism and charm (when it suited him to use it) which the opposite sex found hard to resist and he could take full advantage of the fact. A close encounter of the female kind a few years ago had left its cynical mark, with the consequence that although he might indulge in a fling from time to time, if the lady began to harbor expectations, she was dropped immediately. He had a hatred of vulgarity, and feminine wiles only irritated him. Any woman unwise enough to make assumptions or demands on his time soon learnt her mistake. He would prove cold, hard and utterly unfeeling once he had decided that the affair was over.
The introduction of this nameless waif into his life puzzled Alice, but she had no fear that he was emotionally involved. The girl appeared too young and vulnerable, not to his usual taste at all, which inclined to sophisticated beauties who knew how the game was played, and were well equipped to take care of their selves.
Dismissing chivalry with a cynical smile of her own, Alice wondered, wondered very hard indeed, what Blake was up to now.
When Alice put her head round the guestroom door next morning, their visitor was just beginning to stir. Grateful and exhausted, she had shed her torn and stained clothes, ruined beyond redress by the accident, and had fallen instantly into a deep sleep as soon as Alice had left her the previous evening.
The early morning light had woken the reluctant and heavy headed girl to yet more bewilderment. During the night, her dreams had been full of confusing images but this morning she could not recall any of them and, obedient to the doctors instructions, had not attempted to try. After a long hot shower, she had sat wrapped in a large fluffy towel, docilely submissive, while Alice brushed out her hair and reduced her unwieldy bandage to a simple dressing. Then came a problem.
