Collected Short Fiction, page 1279
“Please,” said the priestess, growing irritated. “What good are these questions?”
“No good at all,” the physician said. “Well, I will do what I can to save him, I suppose. Your countryman. If that is what he is.” He had brought his equipment with him, his wooden chest of medicines, his pouch of amulets. He gave some thought to selecting an amulet, picking one finally that showed the figure of Amon with four rams’ heads, trampling on a crocodile while eight gods adored him in the background. He whispered a spell over it and fastened it to a knotted cord, which he tied to the stranger’s kilt. He placed the amulet over the stranger’s heart and made magical passes, and said in a deep, impressive tone, “I am this Osiris here in the West. Osiris knows his day, and if he does not exist in it, then I will not exist in it. I am Re who is with the gods and I will not perish; stand up, Horus, that I may number you among the gods.”
The priestess watched, smiling a little.
The physician said, “There are other spells I can use.” He closed his eyes a moment and breathed deeply. “Behind me, crocodile, son of Set!” he intoned. “Float not with thy tail. Seize not with thy two arms. Open not thy mouth. May the water become a sheet of fire before thee! The charm of thirty-seven gods is in thine eye. Thou art bound to the four bronze pillars of the south, in front of the barge of Re. Stop, crocodile, son of Set! Protect this man, Amon, husband of thy mother!”
“That must be a good spell,” said the priestess. “See, he’s stirring a little. And I think his forehead grows cool.”
“It is one of the most effective spells, yes. But medicines are important too.” The physician began to rummage through the wooden chest, drawing forth little jars, some containing crushed insects, some containing live ones, some holding the powdered dung of powerful animals.
The priestess laid her hand lightly on Hapu-seneb’s arm.
“No,” she said. “No medicines.”
“He needs—”
“What he needs is to rest. I think you should go now.”
“But the powder of the scorpion—”
“Another time, Hapu-seneb.”
“Lady, I am the physician, not you.”
“Yes,” she said gently. “And a very fine physician you are. And your spells have been very fine also. But I feel Isis in my veins, and the goddess tells me that what will heal this man is sleep, nothing other than sleep.”
“Without medicine he will die, lady. And then Isis will have her Osiris.”
“Go, Hapu-seneb.”
“The oil of serpent, at least—”
“Go.”
The physician scowled and began to say something; but then he converted his anger deftly into a shrug and started to pack up his medical equipment. The priestess was a favorite of the young Prince Amenhotep; everyone knew that. It was perhaps not a good idea to disagree with her too strongly. And if she thought she knew what sort of care this stranger needed better than he did, well—
When Hapu-Seneb was gone, the priestess threw some grains of incense on the brazier in the corner of the pavilion and stood for a time staring out into the deepening darkness, breathing deeply and trying to calm herself, for she was not at all calm just now, however she may have seemed to the physician. In the distance she heard chanting. A darkening blue was descending from the sky and changing the river’s color. The first stars were appearing overhead. A few fireflies flickered past the tops of the columns. From far away came the mournful sound of the night-trumpet, floating across the water from the royal palace on the west bank.
Well then, she thought.
She considered what had to be done now.
She clapped her hands twice, and two slave-girls came running. To the older and more intelligent one she said, “Go to the House of Stars which is behind the shrine of Men-Kheper-Re, Eyaseyab, and tell Senmut-Ptah the astronomer to come to me right away. He will tell you that he has important work to do. Say to him that I know that, and want him to come all the same, that it’s absolutely essential, an emergency.” The priestess sent the other slave off to fetch cloths steeped in cool water, so that she could bathe the stranger’s forehead.
The stranger was still unconscious, but he had stopped babbling now. His face was no longer so rigidly set and the sheen of fever was nearly gone. Perhaps he was simply asleep. The priestess stood above him, frowning.
She leaned close to him and said, “Can you hear me?”
He shifted about a bit, but his eyes remained closed.
“I am Isis,” she said softly. “You are Osiris. You are my Osiris. You are the lost Osiris who was cut asunder and restored to life in my care.”
He said something now, indistinctly, muttering in his own language again.
“I am Isis,” she said a second time.
She rested her hand on his shoulder and let it travel down his body, pausing over his heart to feel the steady beating, then lower, and lower still. His loins were cool and soft, but she felt a quickening in them as her fingers lingered. The priestess smiled. Turning away, she picked up the cool cloth that the young slave-girl had brought, and lightly mopped his forehead with it. His eyes fluttered open. Had the cool cloth awakened him, she wondered? Or had it been the touch of her hand at the base of his belly a moment before?
He was staring at her.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“A little better.” He spoke very softly, so that she had to strain to hear him.
He glanced down at his nakedness. She saw the movement of his eyes and draped a strip of cloth that she had not yet moistened across his middle.
“Where am I?”
“The House of Life in the Precinct of Mut. The physician Hapu-seneb found you in the street outside the southern temple and brought you here. I am Nefret. Isis is the one I serve.”
“Am I dying, Nefret?”
“I don’t think so.”
“The man who found me said I was. He told me I was about to become Osiris. That means I’m dying, doesn’t it?”
“It can mean that. It can mean other things. Hapu-seneb is a very fine physician, but he’s not always right. You aren’t dying. I think the heat was too much for you, that’s all. That and perhaps the strain of your voyage.” She studied him thoughtfully. “You came a long way?”
He hesitated before replying. “You can tell, can you?”
“A child could tell. Where are you from?”
Another little pause. A moistening of the lips. “It’s a place called America.”
“That must be very far away.”
“Very.”
“Farther than Syria? Farther than Crete?”
“Farther, yes. Much farther.”
“And your name?” the priestess asked.
“Edward Davis.”
“Ed-ward Da-vis.”
“You pronounce it very well.”
“Edward Davis,” she said again, less awkwardly. “Is that better?”
“You did it well enough the first time.”
“What language do they speak in the place called America?” she asked.
“English.”
“Not American?”
“Not American, no. English.”
“You were speaking in your English while you were asleep, I think.”
He looked at her. “Was I?”
“I suppose,” she said. “How would I know? I heard foreign words, that’s all I can tell you. But you speak our language very well, for someone who comes from so far away.”
“Thank you.”
“Very well indeed. You arrived just today, did you?”
“Yes.”
“By the ship that sailed in from Crete?”
“Yes,” he said. “No. No, not that one. It was a different ship, the one that came from—” He paused again. “It was the ship from Canada.”
“Canada. Is that near America?”
“Very near, yes.”
“And ships from Canada come here often?”
“Not really. Not very often.”
“Ah,” she said. “But one came today.”
“Or yesterday. Everything’s so confused for me—since I became sick—”
“I understand,” the priestess said. She swabbed his forehead with the cool cloth again. “Are you hungry?”
“No, not at all.” Then he frowned. Messages seemed to be traveling around inside his body. “Well, a little.”
“We have some cold roast goose, and some bread. And a little beer. Can you handle that?”
“I could try,” he said.
“We’ll bring you some, then.”
The slave-girl who had gone to fetch the astronomer had returned. She was standing just outside the perimeter of the pavilion, waiting. The priestess glanced at her.
“The priest Senmut-Ptah is here, Lady. Shall I bring him to you?”
“No. No, I’ll go to him. This is Edward-Davis. He was ill, but I think he’s recovering. He’d like to have some food, and something to drink.”
“Yes, Lady.”
The priestess turned to the stranger again. He was sitting up on the bed now, looking off toward the west, toward the river. Night had fully arrived by this time and the torches had been lit along the west bank promenade, and in the hills where the kings’ tombs were. He appeared to be caught up in some enchantment.
“The city is very beautiful at night, yes,” she said.
“I can hardly believe I’m really here.”
“There’s no city like it in all the land. How fortunate you are to see it at its greatest.”
“Yes,” he said. “I know.”
His eyes were shining. He turned to stare at her, and she knew that he was staring at her body through her filmy gown, backlit by the torches behind her. She felt exposed and curiously vulnerable, and found herself wishing she was wearing something less revealing. It was a long time since she had last cared about that.
The priestess wondered how old he was. Twenty-five, perhaps? Perhaps even less. Younger than she by a good many years, that much was certain.
She said, “This is Eyaseyab. She’ll bring you food. If you want anything else, just ask her.”
“Are you going?”
“There’s someone I have to speak with,” the priestess said.
“And then you’ll come back?”
“Later.”
“Not too much later, I hope.”
“Eat. Rest. That’s what’s important now. Eyaseyab will take care of you.” She smiled and turned away. She could feel his eyes on her as she left the pavilion.
THREE
Senmut-Ptah was waiting for her outside, by the great sphinx that bore the inscription of Tuthmosis III. He was wearing a kilt of scarlet cloth into which golden ibises had been woven, and a tall priestly crown with three long feathers set in it. His shoulders and chest were bare. He was a long-limbed, bony man, very broad through the shoulders, and his features were sharp and powerful, giving him a falcon-face, a Horus-hawk face. Just now he looked angry and impatient.
“You know you’ve made me miss the rising of the Bull’s Thigh,” he said at once, when she appeared. “The North Star will be past the meridian by the time I—”
“Shh,” she said. “The North Star won’t go anywhere unusual tonight, and the Bull’s Thigh will look just the same tomorrow. Walk with me. We have to talk.”
“What about?”
“Walk,” she said. “We can’t talk here. Let’s go down toward the Sacred Lake.”
“I don’t understand why we can’t—”
“Because we can’t,” she said in a fierce whisper. “Come on. Walk with me. The astronomer and the priestess of Isis, out for a little stroll by starlight.”
“I have important observations that absolutely have to be made this evening, and—”
“Yes, I know,” she said.
She loathed the all-enveloping obsessive concern with his astronomical duties that had taken possession of him in recent years. He was like a machine, now. Or like an insect of some sort, clicking along busily in his preprogrammed routines. Day and night preoccupied with his viewing apertures and his transits, his reflecting bowls, his azimuths and meridians and ascensions, his sundials and his water-clocks. Once, when the two of them were new here and first struggling with the terrible challenge of building lives for themselves in Egypt, he had been aflame with wonder and eager curiosity and a kind of burning dauntlessness, but that was all gone now. Nothing seemed to matter to him any longer except his observations of the stars. Somewhere along the way a vast leaden indifference had come to engulf all the rest of him. Why was it so important to him, that absurd compilation of astronomical data, probably inaccurate and in any case useless? And where had he misplaced the warmth and passion that had carried the two of them through all the difficulties they had had to face in this strange land in earlier days?
He glared at her now as though he would send her to the Lake of Fire with a single flash of his eyes, if he could. By the chilly light of the stars his eyes seemed cruel and cold to her, and his face, sculpted to harshness by the years, had some of the nightmare look of the gods whose images were engraved on every wall of every temple. She had once thought he was handsome, even romantic, but time had made his face and body gaunt just as it had turned his soul to stone. He was as ugly as Thoth now, she thought. And as horrid as Set.
But he was the closest thing to an ally that she had in this eternally strange land, unless she counted the prince; and the prince was dangerously unstable, and an Egyptian besides. However much the man who stood before her had changed since he and she had first come to Thebes, he was nevertheless someone of her own kind. She needed him. She couldn’t let herself ever forget that.
She slipped her arm into his and tugged him along, through the colonnade that surrounded the Precinct of Mut, down the new avenue that Pharaoh had built, lined by a double row of cobras, and across the field toward the Sacred Lake. When they had gone far enough from the House of Life so that there was no chance the breeze might carry her voice upward to the sick man in the pavilion she said, speaking suddenly in English, “Someone from downtime showed up in Thebes today, Roger. From Home Era.”
The shift to English was like the throwing of a switch. It was years since she had spoken it, and the effect was immediate and emphatic for her. She felt her former identity, so long suppressed, come leaping forth now from its entombment. Her heart pounded; her breasts rose and fell quickly.
The man who called himself Senmut-Ptah seemed shaken as though by an earthquake. He made a choking sound and pulled himself free of her. Then his icy self-control reasserted itself.
“You can’t be serious. And why are you speaking English?”
“Because Egyptian doesn’t have the words I need in order to tell you what I have to tell you. And because I wouldn’t want anyone who might overhear us to understand.”
“I hate speaking it.”
“I know you do. Speak it anyway.”
“All right. English, then.”
“And I am serious.”
“Someone else from downtime is here? Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
The corner of his mouth made a little quirking motion. He was trying to comprehend her news and obviously having a difficult time of it. She had finally broken through that indifference of his. But it had taken something like this to do it.
“His name’s Edward Davis. He’s very young, very innocent in a charming way. He was staggering around outside Luxor Temple this afternoon right about the time the king was leaving, and he passed out with heatstroke and a bad case of temporal shock practically at Hapu-seneb’s feet. Hapu-seneb brought him to me. I’ve got him in the House of Life this very minute. Eyaseyab’s trying to get a little food into him.”
The astronomer stared. His nostrils flickered tensely. She could see him fighting to maintain his poise.
Sullenly he said, “This is all a fantasy. You’re making it up.”
“I wish. He’s real.”
“Is he? Is he?”
“I could take you to him right now. You can say hello to him in English and hear what he says.”
“No. No, I don’t want to do that.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything. But if you’ve got someone from Home Era up there in your temple, the last thing I would want to do is go to him and give him a big happy handshake. The absolutely last thing.”
“Will you believe me without seeing him, then?”
“If I have to.”
“You have to, yes. Why would I want to invent something like this?”
His lips worked, but for a moment no sound came out.
“Yes, why would you?” he said, finally. And then, after another pause: “When is he from?”
“I don’t know, but it’s got to be a year pretty close to ours. He told me right flat out that he’s from America—what should he care, he must figure the word’s just a meaningless noise to me?—and that he came in today or yesterday on a ship from Canada. He started to say he sailed in from Crete, but maybe it occurred to him that I could check up on that. Or maybe he just enjoys telling whoppers. Did you know an Edward Davis when you were in the Service?”
“I don’t remember any.”
“Neither do I.”
“He must be later than we are.”
“I suppose. But not much. I’m sure of that.”
The astronomer shrugged. “He could come from five hundred years after our time, for all we can tell. Isn’t that so?”
“He could. But I don’t think he does.”
“Intuition?”
“He just doesn’t seem to. Edward Davis. Is that your idea of a Twenty-Seventh Century name?”
“How would I know what a Twenty-Seventh Century name would sound like?” he asked, his voice rising angrily. By the glimmering light of the torches set in the sconces ringing the Sacred Lake she saw agitation returning to his face. Ordinarily he was as expressionless as a granite statue. She had broken through, all right.
He began to pace rapidly along the perimeter of the lake. She was hard pressed to keep up with him.
Then he turned and looked back at her.
Hoarsely he said, “What do you think he wants here, Elaine?”
