“Why, I should like nothing better, my dear Martial. You’re a gift from the gods! With your assistance I will get to the bottom of this business. Shall we say tomorrow at this hour?”
“I’m honored by your confidence, sir.” The poet heaved an inward sigh of relief and vowed an offering to Bacchus. That was dinner taken care of for the next few days! ???
The tenth hour of the night.
In a corner of the temple compound in the Campus Martius, almost under the shadow of the great Isis temple itself, a passerby might observe a shop sign with a painting of the mummified Osiris, brother-husband of the Queen of Heaven. Within the cluttered workshop, the curious visitor would notice a cage with an elderly ibis, its beak tucked under its shabby wing, a stuffed crocodile, a pair of somnolent cobras, a bale of linen, a nested pile of caskets, and jars containing various unguents. The odor of camphor, resin, and myrrh hung like a fog in the small workroom. But Nectanebo used none of these in his work. Their only purpose was to impress the temple trade, who were directed to his establishment by Alexandrinus, the priest of Anubis, in return for a share of his fees. Quite a satisfactory arrangement really. And this was only the beginning, for Alexandrinus had plans to enlarge the embalming works and Nectanebo intended to be a part of that. He had latched onto a good thing. Until lately, Roman worshippers of Isis had cremated their dead like everyone else, but in just the year since he’d set up shop, with the backing of the temple, Nectanebo’s exotic services were beginning to catch on.
Of course, it was all a sham. The ancient ritual of mummification was supposed to take half a dozen men seventy days to complete-you could read that in Herodotus. But nobody these days had time for that. Nectanebo had been given a mere five days to prepare the body of the murdered devotee. Well, they couldn’t expect miracles, then, could they? Scoop out the guts, stuff in a lot of sawdust and rags soaked in cheap oil, shovel on some salt, wind the wrappings, none too carefully, and nail a lid on the casket. By the time the smell got too bad the thing would be safely in its tomb. Of course, in this unseasonable heat they’d been having lately…
Nectanebo was lean as a bone and had the waxy skin of a man who seldom saw daylight. His kohl-rimmed eyes narrowed, he bent his shaven head close over the corpse. He had rolled it over on its back on the stone draining slab and was preparing to slice open the abdomen. He pursed his lips, puzzled. For him this was the reward. He had been hired by Alexandrinus because he knew how to keep his mouth shut about certain things that went on in the temple, but he was a doctor by training, not an undertaker. He had closed up shop early yesterday, as soon as he’d returned from Verpa’s house, and had done nothing but dissect since then: peeling away layers of fat, tracing veins and tendons, probing the puckered knife wounds that covered the man’s back. There was something very odd there; he didn’t know what to make of it. And now this. His nose twitched with excitement.
“Here, what’s this, then?” he spoke aloud to the sleepy little slave who sat beside him and whose job, performed with a minimum of effort, was to wave a horse-hair whisk at the cloud of buzzing flies that hovered over them. Holding the lamp closer, Nectanebo peered and poked at the little, livid bump which was already turning from purple to black. “By the beard of Ptah, most peculiar.” It looked for all the world like a nasty bee sting. Nectanebo frowned in thought. “Now, how in the world does a man get a bee sting in a place like that?”
Beyond Nectanebo’s workshop the columns of the great temple rose up black against the midnight blue of the sky. Before the temple stretched a broad courtyard flanked by porticos of lotus-stalk columns under whose eaves inert figures lay curled on papyrus mats, men and women indiscriminately. One could hear the collective sigh of their breathing. Now and then, one would moan or stir in his sleep. Serpents glided silently among them, tongues flicking out, touching eyelids, bringing dreams. Incense hung heavy in the moist night air.
The only illumination was the pale glow of oil lamps set upon the ground by each sleeper’s head. The priests of the temple kept watch throughout the night, some resting on stools, others bending over the recumbent figures, those who were restless, whose dreams wouldn’t come-touching, whispering incantations, assuring them that the compassionate Mistress of the Universe and her consort were with them and would heal them of their gout, their headache, their infertility. Attending were the priests of Isis, of Serapis, of Thoth; and the priest of Anubis-Alexandrinus-his head covered by the towering jackal mask, long-snouted and sharp-eared, painted black on one side and gold on the other. Through small eye-holes in the long neck he peered into the darkness.
Then one of the sleepers-she hadn’t really been asleep at all-arose and came silently toward him, holding her lamp before her. Quickly Alexandrinus led her around the back of the temple and through a small door into a private cell. He turned to her, raising his arms to shoulder height, palms outward. “Praise the Queen of Heaven,” he said. The voice was deep, the accent Egyptian, whether honestly come by or not. The voice of a god.
“Praise the Daughter of the Stars,” repeated Turpia Scortilla and threw herself against his broad chest. He could feel her trembling.
“Not wise for you to come here.”
“It worked! My Lord, it worked! Eight nights passed after I buried the tablet, I didn’t sleep a single one, lying in my bed, listening, not daring to hope. Then the night before last they came-Ereschigal, Phokensepsou, Cheloumbra, and Abrasax. They came! Flying through his window. I heard the beating of their wings, and then slashing and ripping with their talons. I saw the marks on his body the next day and nearly fainted. I haven’t stirred from my room since then until tonight. But I had to see you, to tell you. It’s all happening exactly as you told me-”
“ I told you?” he broke in sharply. “I told you nothing. It is the divine that speaks through me. Never say I told you.”
“Yes, my Lord.” She lowered her head. “We-we haven’t done wrong, have we?”
He stroked her hair. “Isis is Queen of Hades as well as Queen of Heaven. All means to an end are within her compass.”
“But I’m frightened. The penalty for magic is death. The police are camped in our house, some inspector came around. I wouldn’t speak to him, but what if he comes back?” “These police are stupid men. Calm yourself. The next step is the will. When is the reading?” “Lucius wants it the day after tomorrow.” “Then there isn’t much time. Verpa wrote what you suggested to him?” She nodded. “A hundred thousand.”
“Now I’m going to teach you how to lift a seal. It’s a simple trick, some book maker’s glue mixed with chalk, it hardens quickly. Lift it off and you have a perfect mold. The rest will be simple.”
“Oh, Goddess help me. I’m afraid. I don’t think I can go through with this. My nerves…”
“You can. The demons have done what you commanded, the rest you must do yourself. Anubis will hold your hand, as I do now.” He pulled her to him. Not gently. An animal growl rose deep in his throat, he pushed her on her knees on the cold stones, although he knew it hurt her, and pulled up her stola. Her spine was like a string of knucklebones, her buttocks thin, her hips razor-boned. He mounted her from behind, the dog-headed god himself in all his power and ferocity. He howled and barked through the megaphone of the mask, and she arched her back and cried out as he thrust-the god inside her!
After she had gathered herself and gone, Alexandrinus took up his place again in the courtyard of the sleepers. Human life, he considered, is ruled by the tyrants Hope and Fear. If you employ them skillfully, you can do very well for yourself. Turpia Scortilla was not the first overripe matron, drunk with faith, who had crawled on her knees to Queen Isis only to be lifted up by him.
Nectanebo, standing in the doorway of his workshop for a breath of fresh air, was thoughtful. Whatever he had seen was none of his business.