Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [91]
“But we have not yet ascertained all the facts,” I protested. “I have a good many more questions to ask His Majesty.”
“I feel certain you do, Peabody,” said Emerson, forcing himself to calmness. “But if I have to listen to any more rubbish about goddesses from that treacherous little puppy, I may do something rash.”
Merasen’s lower lip protruded like that of a sulky child. We had used a number of words he did not know and his amour propre was damaged. The king had shown signs of increasing impatience as the conversation went on and Merasen did not translate. Now he rose to his feet. “Come,” he said in Meroitic, with an expansive gesture that would have made his meaning clear even if it had not been one of the words we all knew. We followed as he strode toward an open archway. Beyond was an anteroom, pillared and handsomely decorated, and beyond that a series of arches that opened onto a terrace with statues of divinities.
The sun was well up, and the long valley of the Holy Mountain stretched out to right and left below the high balcony on which we stood—fields and small villages on the floor of the valley, fine mansions and temples on the slopes. A broad staircase lined with sphinxes led down to the roadway that followed the curve of the cliffs, leading from the quarter of the nobles past the palace to the Great Temple of Amon Re, or, as he was called here, Aminreh. Gold-tipped obelisks glittered in the sunlight, and the painted reliefs on the pyloned gateway shone with brilliant color. On the left, the mighty figure of a king or god grasped a kneeling enemy by the hair while the other arm raised a long spear. Behind the king stood a smaller, female figure who also brandished a weapon. I was familiar with such scenes, which were common in Egyptian temples, but here the colors were fresh and bright: the black hair of the king, the brownish red of his body, and the woman’s paler yellow skin. Her hair was also black. I squinted, trying to make out details, for there was something unusual about the figures, especially that of the woman. She was slimmer than a conventional Cushite queen, those ladies being notorious for their extreme corpulence; and what weapon was it she held?
“That pylon is new,” Emerson muttered. “At least the reliefs are. I wonder who the female figure represents. A goddess? Not Isis, she hasn’t the right sort of headdress, or Maat, or—”
Ramses let out a strangled sound. “It’s Mother,” he gasped. “You and Mother. Don’t you see the parasol?”
From Letter Collection C
Dear Lia,
Chances are you will never see this letter. But I don’t like journals, they seem so impersonal, and I don’t know what has happened to the others, and I must keep track of what is going on, and I’m all alone—except for Daria. Have I told you about her? No, of course I haven’t. I keep forgetting things. She’s a strange girl, very young, very pretty—the companion of a horrible man named Newbold, a hunter and treasure seeker. She pleaded for my protection, so we brought her on with us to the Holy Mountain. The trip itself went well enough, as such things go, and we were welcomed as honored guests. I went to bed that night tired but comfortable and happy at the prospect of seeing Tarek next day. I awoke next morning…How can I explain it? I went to bed as Nefret Forth. I awoke next morning as High Priestess of Isis. The rooms were the ones I had occupied ten years ago; every ornament, every piece of furniture was the same, including the low bed with its linen sheets and draperies, where I lay. The women who surrounded the bed were robed in white, their face veils thrown back—the handmaidens of the goddess.
Lia, it was the most awful feeling!