Anne Rice: The Mummy or Ramses the Damned

He thrust the torch through the gaping hole. Walls decorated with hieroglyphs-again, the magnificent nineteenth-dynasty style without question.

At once he stepped inside. How extraordinarily cool it felt; and the smell, what was it, a curious perfume after all these long centuries!

His heart beat too fast. The blood rushed to his face, and he had to cough again, as the press of reporters raised the dust in the passage.

'Keep back!'' he shouted crossly. The flashes were going off all around him again. He could barely see the painted ceiling overhead with its tiny stars.

And there, a long table laden with alabaster jars and boxes. Heaps of rolled papyri. Dear God, all this alone confirmed a momentous discovery.

"But this is no tomb!" he whispered.

There was a writing table, covered with a thin film of dust, looking for all the world as if the scholar had only just left it. An open papyrus lay there, with sharpened pens, an ink bottle. And a goblet.

But the bust, the marble bust-it was unmistakably Graeco-Roman. A woman with her tight wavy hair drawn back beneath a metal band, her drowsy half-lidded eyes seemingly blind, and the name cut into the base:

CLEOPATRA

"Not possible," he heard Samir say. "But look, Lawrence, the mummy case!"

Lawrence had already seen it. He was staring speechless at the thing which lay serenely in the very middle of (his puzzling room, this study, this library, with its stacks of scrolls and its dust-covered writing table.

Once again, Samir ordered the photographers back. The smoking flashes were maddening Lawrence.

"Get out, all of you, get out!" Lawrence said. Grumbling, they retreated out of sight of the door, leaving the two men standing there in stunned silence.

It was Samir who spoke first:

"This is Roman furniture. This is Cleopatra. Look at the coins, Lawrence, on the desk. With her image, and newly minted. Those alone are worth-"

"I know. But there lies an ancient Pharaoh, my friend. Every detail of the case-it's as fine as any ever found in the Valley of the Kings."

"But without a sarcophagus," Samir said. "Why?"

"This is no tomb," Lawrence answered.

"And so the King chose to be buried here!" Samir approached the mummy case, lifting the torch high above the beautifully painted face, with its darkly lined eyes and exquisitely modeled lips.

"I could swear this is the Roman period," he said.

"But the style ..."

"Lawrence, it's too lifelike. It's a Roman artist who has imitated the nineteenth-dynastic style to perfection."

"And how could such a thing happen, my friend?"

"Curses," Samir whispered, as if he had not heard the question. He was staring at the rows of hieroglyphs that circled the painted figure. The Greek lettering appeared lower down, and finally came the Latin.

"Touch not the remains of Ramses the Great" Samir read. "It's the same in all three tongues. Enough to give a sensible man pause."

"Not this sensible man," Lawrence replied. "Get those workers in here to lift this lid at once."

* * *

The dust had settled somewhat. The torches, in the old iron sconces on the wall, were sending far too much smoke onto the ceiling, but that he would worry about later.

The thing now was to cut open the bundled human shape, which had been propped against the wall, the thin wooden lid of the mummy case carefully laid upright beside it.

He no longer saw the men and women packed at the entrance, who peered at him and his find in silence.

Slowly, he raised the knife and sliced through the brittle husk of dried linen, which fell open immediately to reveal the tightly wrapped figure beneath.

There was a collective gasp from the reporters. Again and again the flashes popped. Lawrence could feel Samir's silence. Both men stared at the gaunt face beneath its yellowed linen bandages, at the withered arms so serenely laid across the breast.

It seemed one of the photographers was begging to be allowed into the chamber. Samir angrily demanded silence. But of these distractions, Lawrence was only dimly aware.

He gazed calmly at the emaciated form before him, its wrappings the color of darkened desert sand. It seemed he could detect an expression in the shrouded features; he could detect something eloquent of tranquillity in the set of the thin lips.

Every mummy was a mystery. Every desiccated yet preserved form a ghastly image of life in death. It never failed to chill him, to look upon these ancient Egyptian dead. But he felt a strange longing as he looked at this one-this mysterious being who called himself Ramses the Damned, Ramses the Great.

Something warm touched him inside. He drew closer, slashing again at the outer wrapping. Behind him, Samir ordered the photographers out of the passage. There was danger of contamination. Yes, go, all of you, please.

He reached out and touched the mummy suddenly; he touched it reverently with the very tips of his fingers. So curiously resilient! Surely the thick layer of bandages had become soft with time.

Again, he gazed at the narrow face before him, at the rounded lids, and the sombre mouth.

"Julie," he whispered. "Oh, my darling, if only you could see ..."

* * *

The Embassy Ball. Same old faces; same old orchestra, same old sweet yet droning waltz. The lights were a glare to Elliott Savarell: the champagne left a sour taste in his mouth. Nevertheless he drained the glass rather gracelessly and caught the eye of a passing waiter. Yes, anodier. And another. Would that it were good brandy or whisky.

But they wanted him here, didn't they? Wouldn't be the same without the Earl of Rutherford. The Earl of Rutherford was an essential ingredient, as were the lavish flower arrangements, the thousands upon thousands of candles; the caviar, and the silver; and the old musicians sawing wearily at their violins while the younger generation danced.

Everyone had a greeting for the Earl of Rutherford. Everyone wanted the Earl of Rutherford to attend a daughter's wedding, or an afternoon tea, or another ball such as this. Never mind that Elliott and his wife rarely entertained anymore in either their London town house or the country estate in Yorkshire-that Edith spent much of her time in Paris now with a widowed sister. The seventeenth Earl of Rutherford was the genuine article. The titles in his family went back-one way or another-to Henry VIII.

Why hadn't he ruined everything long ago? Elliott wondered. How had he ever managed to charm so many people in whom he had no more than a passing interest, at best?

But no, that wasn't the entire truth. He loved some of these people, whether he cared to admit it or not. He loved his old friend Randolph Stratford, just as he loved Randolph's brother, Lawrence. And surely he loved Julie Stratford, and he loved watching her dance with his son. Elliott was here on account of his son. Of course Julie wasn't really going to marry Alex. At least not any time soon. But it was the only clear hope on the horizon that Alex might acquire the money he needed to maintain the landed estates he would inherit, the wealth that was supposed to go along with an old title, and seldom did anymore.

The sad part was that Alex loved Julie. The money meant nothing to either of them, really. It was the older generation that did the scheming, and the planning, as they have always done.

Elliott leaned against the gilded railing, gazing down at the soft drift of young couples turning beneath him, and for a moment, he tried to shut out the din of voices, and hear only the sweet strains of the waltz.

But Randolph Stratford was talking again. Randolph was assuring Elliott that Julie needed only a little prodding. If only Lawrence would say the word, his daughter would give in.

"Give Henry a chance," Randolph said again. "He's only been in Egypt a week. If Lawrence will take the initiative ..."