Mara, Daughter of the Nile

by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

  Slowly he rose and walked across the sands, taking the torch from the priest. At the bottom of the steps was a plastered-over door, imprinted with the Royal Seal of the Necropolis and the cartouche of the First Thutmose. A tremor passed through Sheftu at sight of the familiar hieroglyphs of the old king’s name, enclosed in their oval line. He and the prince had stood on this spot long ago, on the day of the entombment, to see that seal pressed into the wet plaster.

  His lips parted, but it was moments before he could force himself to speak. Thy prince has no right to demand such a crime. . . .

  “Open it,” he said.

  The diggers crept past him, down the steps. Under their chisels the plaster crumbled in an irregular crack, gradually outlining the door. At his elbow Djedet was whispering, “Anubis, strike us not! We have plaster to mend it, we bear the Royal Seal. All shall be as it was, when we have gone.”

  Sheftu found it hard to breathe. The portal which was to have remained closed and inviolate for three thousand years was swinging open before him, with a creak that woke echoes far back in the depths of the tomb. A breath of stale, dry air drifted out and enveloped him. Slowly, every step an act of will, he descended the stairs and passed through the door into the Habitation of the Dead.

  He stood in a tiny entry where the stone floor was strewn with flowers. He remembered them—the last offerings of the funeral party returning to the upper world. They looked only a little withered, as if no more than a week had passed since they were dropped here. But when he touched one with his toe it fell into dust so fine there was no trace left. Shivering a little, he raised the torch. Pleading texts from the Book of the Dead leaped at him from the close-carven walls:

  “I have not committed iniquity against men! I have not oppressed the poor! I have not starved any man, I have not made any to weep, I have not committed that which is an abomination to the gods! I have not turned back the water in its season, I have not put out the fire in its time! Since I know the names of the gods who are with thee in the Hall of Double Truth, save thou me from them, Osiris! I am pure! I am pure! I am pure! I am pure!”

  Before Sheftu, another flight of steps led downward into darkness.

  With Djedet pressing at his side and the diggers with their baskets crowding at his heels, he started the long descent. Down, down, down they crept, into night so black the torch was but a moving spark, into silence so deep the ears rang with it. Staler and more oppressive grew the air—the same air left here years ago when the outer door was shut and sealed. Was there enough for four men breathing hard with fear? Sweat masked Sheftu’s face only to evaporate instantly in the shriveling dryness of the place, drawing his skin and stiffening his lips. In vain he tried to keep his mind away from the thought of the millions of tons of rock and earth above them. The deeper they went, the more ponderous grew the weight, the more stifling his awareness of it.

  The steps ended at last, in the depths of the earth. The men stopped a moment, hearing their own breathing loud in the silence. All were loath to leave the stair, which now seemed known and safe. Sheftu’s thoughts flashed back to the guard, lying so still under the stars far above them—and to the guard’s comrades at the valley entrance, who might be starting to search for him, wondering why he had not returned. . . .

  A sense of urgency possessed Sheftu. They must hasten, or the alarm would be raised and they’d crawl out at last into a trap.

  Fighting his reluctance, he led the way out across a stony floor. One pace, then another, then a third, with the light flickering into the black void. Suddenly a vivid figure twice the height of a man sprang out of the gloom. The trespassers recoiled as at a blow, and a sound that was half grunt, half moan, broke from the digger Usur. It was some seconds before Sheftu could bring himself to raise the torch and discover that the terrifying figure was one of a procession painted along the walls of what appeared to be a lofty and spacious corridor.

  Sheftu forced himself to steadiness, to memory of this corridor from the day of the old king’s entombment. Then, gripping the torch, he started down the long hall. More and more brilliantly painted figures slid past them in the wavering light—a group of women bent in mourning, with disheveled hair; slaves bearing treasure boxes and furniture; dignitaries pacing behind a canopied sledge on which rested a great sarcophagus. It was the old pharaoh’s funeral procession, depicted faithfully in every detail, climaxed at the far end of the hall by the last solemn ritual of the Opening of the Mouth. There, framing the door, rose the painted figure of a sem priest with his mystic tool, while opposite him the jackal-headed god Anubis supported the mummy.

  Djedet began to chant, in a low, unsteady monotone. “In peace, in peace, unto the Great God. . . . Proceed in peace, in peace, unto thy tomb in the Necropolis, in peace, in peace, unto the Land of the West and thy dwelling on the Dark Nile. . . .” His voice sounded thin and strange in the heavy stillness.

  The torch and its huddled bearers moved between the towering figures and under the lintel of the door. Before them lay more stairs, leading down—always downward and inward, into darker mystery, thicker silence.

  “In peace, in peace. . . .”

  The priest’s voice was a thread of sound, now muffled against the narrow sides of the stair, now hollow and unreal across a passage, rippling as the torchlight rippled along the carven walls. It was as if he could not stop, though the monotony of it beat like little hammers upon Sheftu’s brain.

  He himself was concentrating fiercely, racking his memory at every point where the passage branched. The branchings seemed numberless, and only one was right; the others would lead to pitfalls or blind alleys, traps of confusion set by the old king’s architects for just such intruders as they. Each time Sheftu forced himself to pause, choose painstakingly, before leading on. He tried to quicken his pace, nagged by the thought of the guard, but the craving to turn back dragged at his feet in spite of him.

  “In peace, in peace, unto the Land of the West . . .”

  They had come to a doorway. Across its threshold lay the first storeroom—a large chamber crowded beyond the reach of the smoky light with the possessions of the dead. Here were chariots, dismantled and stacked along one wall; there, a great golden couch, an ebony throne; everywhere, carven chairs and tables, stools, headrests, chests and boxes of clothing, all motionless but somehow waiting. The torch flickered in the still, dead air, but when Sheftu slowly extended it the walls came alive with rows of painted servants—copper skinned, white clad, bearing trays of fruit and meat, jars of wine, platters of bread.

  Sheftu stared up at them. It was here the House of the King began in earnest; and these were his servants. Sheftu knew well they were no longer the mere painted outlines they had been on that day long ago when he had walked here grieving beside the prince, when the air was still heavy with the funerary myrrh and flowers, the priests still droning. The moment the wine of the last libation had dried upon the floor, and the silent dark closed in, these figures had been transformed, transmuted, quickened with that mysterious other life which called their kas out of the paint and plaster to be the wraithlike servants of the dead king. Sheftu shivered. What right had he, the living, to look upon them now?

  “Allow us to pass, O Ka of the pharaoh,” he whispered. “We leave undisturbed your furniture and linen, we leave your slaves to serve you, your chariots to carry you through the Shining Streets.”

  Djedet’s mumbling grew more urgent. “In peace, in peace, unto the Great God. . . . Proceed in peace, unto they tomb in the Necropolis, in peace, in peace . . .”

  Through that chamber, and the next, and the next, they moved, while awareness of the dead king grew always stronger as the torchlight shone over more and more of his possessions. His presence was everywhere about them now—in the jars of honey and unguents sealed with his cartouche, in the shelves bearing his favorite joints of meat, in the sandals he had worn, the spear he had flung, the tiny boxe
s that held his eye paint. Every step led them nearer to him. On the walls were his fowlers and herdsmen, his fishermen dragging in their brimming nets, men threshing his grain or pressing out his wine or fashioning his golden collars—all workers laboring ceaselessly for the royal ka, all shocked motionless by the desecrating glare of the torch and the footsteps of living men.

  Sheftu’s lips were parched, his nerves taut as bowstrings. Was the thin air growing harder to breathe or were the angry hands of khefts squeezing at his lungs? An eternity must have passed since they left the starry night far, far above.

  Djedet touched his arm suddenly. Ahead lay a door—the final door, for golden statues of the goddess Isis guarded it on either side. They shone fiercely yellow in the torchlight as the intruders drew nearer, they blinded the eye with their hot glitter, but they did not strike. Sheftu heard the harsh breathing of Usur, behind him, as they passed under the upraised staffs and across the threshold of the last and holiest chamber—the heart of the tomb.

  There they stopped. Even Djedet’s chanting ceased at last; profound and utter silence closed over them as they stood amid a still magnificence. The room was filled with treasure. Everywhere coffers, chests, carven boxes spilled it out upon the floor—jewels and satin ebony, ivory, pale electrum, tall alabaster vases hollowed to fragile translucence, but above all gold—yellow gold that winked and gleamed and glinted from every corner of the chamber.

  At first Sheftu could see nothing else. Half-dazzled, he dragged his eyes from the glitter. Before him a path had been swept clean through the rich profusion. At its end two life-sized statues of maidens stood, one foot advanced. Their dresses shimmered with silver and carnelian, and they held baskets of foodstuffs in their golden arms. These were the gentle ushabti, closest guardians of the king. They were radiant in the light, with their shining brows and their ageless eyes of lapis lazuli. Between them loomed the huge sarcophagus, veiled by a linen pall so sheer the pink granite showed through its folds. On the wall behind it the Great God Osiris himself welcomed the king’s soul to paradise, while on the other walls a host of deities in mystic headdresses were lined in overpowering grandeur.

  Sheftu sank to his knees, no longer able to withstand his awe. He felt all sense of time and memory fade away, all objects blur except the tranquil faces of the ushabti and the sarcophagus they guarded. Here was the ultimate moment, perhaps his last; for he was in the presence of the dead.

  A strange rustling sounded in his ears. Was it the khefts’ dark wings, or the thundering of his own heart? Nay, it was neither. . . .

  Sheftu’s mind sprang awake, full of the stealthy shuffle of palm-leaf sandals. Usur, the digger, was creeping past him, his profile rigid, his gaze fixed unswerving on the golden statues. He held a rock in his upraised hand. In a flash Sheftu knew his purpose. He meant to smash the eyes of the ushabti, so they could not watch what was to come.

  Sheftu leaped for him, struggling to wrest the weapon from his hand. The man made no sound, but his strength was terrible. In utter silence the two strained together, while the light flickered and danced crazily upon the walls. Hampered by the torch, Sheftu was already sinking to his knees in the moment it took for Kaemuas and the priest to overpower Usur and pin him fast. Sheftu staggered to his feet and seized the rock, holding it poised over his sweating victim’s forehead in a fist that trembled with longing to smash it down.

  “Stay thy hand, my lord,” came Djedet’s low voice. “Not every man can bear his fear.”

  Slowly Sheftu’s arm came down, his fury faded. It was true. He could not have borne his own tonight save for the purpose which so consumed him that he could give heed to nothing else. He shook his head, trying to steady his thoughts. This Usur was a sound enough fellow in the world of daylight, a weaver, well respected and as courageous as the next one. But what man was prepared to defy the very gods? It was not this man, who broke, that was surprising, it was his companion who still held staunch. . . . In wonder, Sheftu turned to Kaemuas, and saw the answer written on his broad and humble face. It was Sashai whom Kaemuas followed, with blind devotion, though he led straight into the Land of Darkness.

  Sheftu put a hand on the massive shoulder, then turned to Usur. “Do not touch the ushabti. You must not blind the guardians of pharaoh and leave him defenseless against his enemies. We come here not to rob, but to rescue Egypt, do you understand? The gods have not struck us yet, and perhaps they will not.”

  He motioned Djedet to loose the man, suddenly feeling so weary he could scarcely stand. Much still lay ahead—there was the treasure to sort, their funerary offerings to set out in place of the gold they took, the baskets to fill and carry through all the rooms and along the stairs and passages back to the upper world, then the outer door to plaster over and mark with the Royal Seal. . . . Ai! And what of the guard? Before they sealed the door they would have to carry him down into the first little flower-strewn chamber. The ways of the gods were strange; this common guard, distinguished by naught save stubbornness, had exchanged his life for Egypt’s and would sleep forever on the doorstep of royalty.

  Unless, of course, he had been missed by his comrades. . . .

  The thought prodded Sheftu’s tired mind once more. “Make haste,” he muttered. “Pick out the heaviest gold.”

  He never knew how long they labored there below the towering images of the gods, weighing the treasure in their palms, packing the massive cups and crowns and chains and collars in the bottom of the baskets, the jewels and necklaces on top. For Sheftu their work took on the unreality of a fevered dream, in which only the cold weight of gold and the sound of labored breathing went on, unchanging.

  He was near exhaustion. The struggle with Usur had nearly drained his strength, already taxed by days of strain and a night of unbearable tensions. His anxieties swirled about him—the guard, the passing of time, the uncertainty of getting out of the valley, and above all the deep hatred of what he was doing. Every move he made, every cup and goblet he plucked from its place, did violence to a lifetime of stern teaching. But it is not for ourselves, it is for the king, he told himself. Better we die than Egypt. . . .

  Mother of Truth, how hard it was to breathe! Sheftu dragged himself erect, a gold chain dripping from his hand, and frowned toward the stone urn into which he had thrust the torch. The flame burned murky and uneven—was it nearly used up, or had their hungry lungs consumed the air it, too, required to live?

  “Kaemuas! Light a fresh torch!” ordered Sheftu.

  The big man straightened, stared blankly at the torch, then paled. “Master,” he whispered. “We did not bring another.”

  The room grew painfully still. Every mind was filling with a new fear, so fundamental that it swallowed all the rest—the fear of the dark. Here below the earth darkness was total, absolute, unnatural. They remembered too well how it had followed and surrounded them through the whole descent, a formless monster held at bay only by their tiny flame. They remembered the black labyrinth awaiting them now, the windings, the echoing halls and stairways, the lonely passages that led nowhere, through which they must journey back.

  There was a low moan from Usur. The wildness was coming over him again, and Sheftu lashed his tired will to combat it.

  “No matter.” His voice sounded strange. He fought to steady it, though his tongue felt thick and numb. “This one will do. But there is little air left here. Hurry.”

  To his relief the need for haste submerged Usur’s panic. They fell upon the gold with redoubled effort. But Sheftu’s eyes slid back to the torch. Perhaps it was only air it lacked—perhaps it would burn bright again when they left this chamber where they had worked—and breathed—too long. The baskets were nearly full now. The room, stripped of its glitter, looked stark and somber.

  “You must take what is his, even to the royal cobra and the collar of amulets. . . .”

  Sheftu’s head throbbed; he turned slowly to the sarcophagus, r
unning his tongue over his lips without changing their dryness. Be ruthless, it must be done, he told himself. He beckoned Djedet with a faint jerk of his head; together they hurried down the clean-swept path, past the ushabti, to the spreading edge of the pall. Sheftu lifted it grimly, afraid to pause an instant. Avoiding each other’s eyes, the two men seized the heavy lid and struggled to turn it diagonally on its base. It would not budge.

  “Usur! Kaemuas!” Djedet panted.

  The diggers came, laid hold. Nothing mattered now but haste, the dying torch, the dark. Under the straining of eight strong arms the thick slab grated, inched outward with a horrid grinding of stone on stone, and turned at last to lay open a triangular area at its head. The torch was guttering lower and lower; Sheftu did not look upon the dead king’s face but plunged his arms blindly into the dark cavity of the coffin. They came out laden with solid gold amulets worth a prince’s ransom. He forced himself to grope once more, to find the heavy circlet with its golden cobra that bound the forehead. He drew it forth, shining, cold. . . .

  “Now!” he whispered.

  Once more the shoulders strained, in frantic haste. The torch sputtered feebly, winked—the lid grated into place. Sheftu flung the pall across it, sprang with the others for the baskets and the torch. They fled, their starved lungs dragging at the air.

  Through the doorway, beneath the upraised golden staffs of the twin Isis statues, in and out among the furniture and piles of weapons that littered the floor—on into the next chamber past the painted fishermen, the threshers, the endless shelves of goods, down a passage and up three stairs, and on—

  “Nay, wait!” Sheftu halted, panting. He thrust out the torch, staring at the walls ahead of him, the stairs behind. The light shone dully across the opening of a second passage. “This way!”

  He swerved into it, all his flesh crawling. It would have been so easy to miss it altogether! He must go more slowly, be sure that every turn was right. But if he lagged, what of the torch? He looked up at it anxiously. The air seemed better now, but still the flame sank. It was not the lack of air, then; the torch itself was all but gone.