Alice just shook her head. Beatrice had taught her the natural sciences, and a little Latin and Greek. Mary had taught her history and geography. Justine had taught her philosophy, which she did not particularly understand. Catherine had taught her literature, and Mrs. Poole had taught her arithmetics. But no one had taught her anything about ancient Egyptian dynasties.
“Well,” said Margaret, with evident pleasure—she seemed to enjoy explaining to someone who knew nothing about the subject, “there were many Ptolemies, so we distinguish them by epithets. Tera was a queen before she was a priestess of Isis, the second wife of Ptolemy Auletes. His first wife, who was also his sister, bore him a daughter, Berenice, but was too sickly afterward to bear another child, so he set her aside and married Tera, the daughter of the High Priest of Ptah at Memphis. For generations, the Ptolemies had not married outside their own family. Brother married sister, uncle married niece, with terrible results—deformity and madness in the family line. Tera was a popular choice—the Egyptians were rebelling against Macedonian rule, and she was a native Egyptian. She bore Ptolemy three healthy children—Cleopatra, Arsinoë, and his son Ptolemy, called Philopator. She ruled Egypt for several years while her husband was exiled in Rome, then ceded the throne again on his return. When he died, his son Philopator and daughter Cleopatra ascended the throne. Cleopatra said the Goddess Isis had come to her in a dream and told her that Tera should become the High Priestess of Isis at Philae. It was, of course, to get her out of Alexandria so she would not try to assume the throne again herself. She would certainly have made a better ruler than her daughter!”
Miss Trelawny sounded like a university professor. Mrs. Poole had once taken Alice to hear a professor of literature speak about Wordsworth: Our English Bard in a lecture at the Working Women’s Institute, and he had sounded exactly the same way. Would Margaret have liked to be a professor? If women could become professors—Alice was unsure on that point.
“You know the rest from Shakespeare,” Margaret continued. “Cleopatra lost Rome to the armies of Augustus. After conquering Alexandria, Augustus sent a contingent of his soldiers to Philae, to the temple of Isis. He was hoping to capture the High Priestess, because he feared that she might once again claim the throne and lead a rebellion against Roman rule. The priestesses resisted his soldiers, and many of them were killed, including Tera. A tomb had already been prepared among the rocky hills that flanked that portion of the Nile, for Egyptians planned carefully for the afterlife. The remaining priestesses interred her in that tomb, sealing the entrance and covering it with desert sand. There it remained undisturbed until my father discovered it a year ago.”
“Your father! As though he had anything to do with the discovery.” Helen snorted. “You’re the one who discovered that tomb—and did he give you credit? Of course not.”
“Well, you could say that I stumbled upon it,” said Margaret. “You see, I had gone out to see the sunrise over the Nile—I had been awakened early by the call to prayer, which was chanted by the leader of our Arab bearers five times a day. As I climbed a sandy cliff, my foot slipped on the sand, and I felt something hard beneath it. For no reason other than idle curiosity, I leaned down and started to dig with my bare hands. When I realized it was a door set into the underlying rock, I went to get my father and Eugene Corbeck, a weaselly little man my father employed to find him genuine artifacts in the markets of Cairo, where they were often sold by grave robbers. The three of us were the first to open that door—and then Corbeck went to fetch our bearers, to help us clear the rest of the sand from the tomb. It was carved directly into the cliff. Once we had cleared the entrance, I followed my father down a long passageway illuminated only by the light of our lanterns. We were excited, of course—it seemed to be a new tomb that had never been found by robbers. Any Egyptologist would be excited by such a discovery. But we did not expect what we would find at the end of that passage.” Here she paused for a moment, her hand on the beetle at her throat, as though remembering.
“And what was that?” asked Alice. She could almost see it—the desert sand, the bright light of the Egyptian sun, and then the darkness of the passageway, illuminated only by lanterns. For the first time in her life, she wondered what it would be like to travel to faraway lands, to see such sights. Yes, she was just Alice the kitchen maid. Nevertheless, she would not mind seeing Egypt, or Greece, or the lands of the Bible. Perhaps someday…
Helen smiled and raised her left hand. She waved it like a conductor gesturing for the orchestra to begin. Suddenly, stone walls rose around them, covered in pictures unlike any Alice had ever seen—scenes of what life must have been like in ancient Egypt, as well as rows of hieroglyphs, which looked like small pictures themselves. The room was growing dimmer. The three of them were standing beside—what was it? A large, oblong box made of stone, with a stone slab to cover it, carved and painted. Around them, set into the walls, burned seven lamps. By the walls stood furniture of various sorts: a narrow bed with a platform of woven reeds, several folding chairs and small tables, a cabinet with drawers, and what looked like a game board, all beautifully carved and painted. Along one wall was a narrow table on which was placed a series of intricately decorated boxes. Next to them was a mummified cat, with almond-shaped eyes and a whiskered smile painted on its wrappings.
“Have I gotten it right?” asked Helen, looking at Margaret. “This is how you described it when we first planned… you know.”
“Close,” said Margaret, looking around at the tomb of Queen Tera with pleasure, as though glad to be back there. “It was darker, of course. The lamps were not lit, not then, and we could not see as clearly by the light of our torches. The paint was worn, and some of the plaster had fallen. But you must show Lydia what we saw when we opened the sarcophagus itself.”
Helen waved her hand. Suddenly, the top of the oblong box was gone. Inside the box was another, without a top, and inside that lay a woman. She was old—her face was covered with a web of wrinkles—but she must have been very beautiful in life. She had light brown skin, high cheekbones, and delicate features. White hair flowed past her shoulders, as fine as thistledown.
She was wrapped in white linen, with only her left arm outside the linen wrappings, placed over her chest, her hand where her heart would be. In it she held an ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life. Alice saw, with a start, that she had seven fingers! On her neck was a gold necklace with a ruby pendant in the shape of a beetle, just like Margaret’s.
“Very beautiful,” said Margaret. “But that was not how we found her.”
Suddenly, the woman’s wrappings turned brown. Her fine features shriveled up, until she looked positively ancient. The white hair fell out until there were only a few tangled strands. Her seven-fingered hand curled into a claw clutching the ankh. Only the necklace with the beetle on it stayed the same, glowing on her breast.
“That’s more accurate,” said Margaret. “It’s a good re-creation. I wish I could show it to the visitors who will be flocking to the museum to see the exhibition. Instead, they will have to imagine it, based on the artifacts themselves.”
“Is that the necklace you wear?” asked Alice, looking down at the one on the wrinkled brown neck of the mummified queen.