Pandora - By Anne Rice Page 0,70

sure you do. I come on his behalf.” I looked around. “May I sit down?”

“Oh, please do, forgive me,” said the man. He gestured to a sturdy trunk. Flavius stood perplexed. The man sat back down at his cluttered table.

“I wish I had a proper table. Where is my slave? I know I have some wine around here. I just . . . I was reading in this text the most amazing story!”

“Really,” I said. “Well, take a look at this!” I thrust the pages into his hand.

“My God, but this is beautiful copying,” he said, “and so fresh!” He whispered under his breath. He could make out many of the words. “Marius will be very interested in this. This is about the legends of Isis, this is what Marius studies.”

I drew back the papers gently. “I’ve written this for him!”

“You wrote it?”

“Yes, but you see, I want to surprise him with something, a gift! Something newly arrived, something he hasn’t seen yet.”

“Well, there’s quite a lot.”

“Flavius, money.”

“Madam, I don’t have any.”

“That’s not true, Flavius; you wouldn’t leave the house without the keys and some money. Hand it over.”

“Oh, I’ll take it on credit if it’s for Marius,” said the old man. “Hmmm, you know, several things came onto the market this very week. It’s because of the famine in Egypt. People were forced to sell, I suppose. You never know where an Egyptian manuscript comes from. But here—” He reached up and took a fragile papyrus from its niche in the dusty crisscross of wooden shelves.

He laid it down reverently and most cautiously opened it. The papyrus had been well preserved, but it was flaking at the edges. The thing would disintegrate if not handled with care.

I stood to look at it over his shoulder. A dizziness overcame me. I saw the desert and a town of huts with roofs of palm branches. I strained to open my eyes.

“This is,” said the old man, “positively the oldest manuscript in Egyptian which I have ever seen! Here, steady yourself, my dear. Lean upon my shoulder. Let me give you my stool.”

“No, not necessary,” I said gazing at the letters. I read aloud, “To my Lord, Narmer, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, who are these enemies of me that say I do not walk in righteousness? When has Your Majesty ever known me not to be righteous? Indeed I seek to do always more than what is asked of me or expected. When have I not heard every word of the accused so that he may be judged in fairness, as would Your Majesty? . . . ”

I broke off. My head swam. Some brief recollection. I was a child and we were all going up into the mountains over the desert to ask the god Osiris, the blood god, to look into the heart of the evildoer. “Look,” said those around me. The god was a man of perfection, bronze of skin and under the moon; he took the condemned and slowly drew out his blood. Beside me a woman whispered that the god had made his judgment and rendered punishment and the evil blood would go back now to be cleansed and reborn in another in which it would do no harm.

I tried to banish this vision, this sense of enclosing remembrance. Flavius was greatly concerned and held me by the shoulders.

I stood suspended in two worlds. I gazed out at the bright sun striking the stones of the Forum, and I lived somewhere else, a young man running up a mountain, declaring my innocence. “Summon the old blood god! He will look into my husband’s heart and see that the man lies. I never lay with another.” Oh, sweet darkness, come, I needed it to shroud the mountains because the blood god slept by day, hidden, lest Ra, the sun god, find him and destroy him out of jealousy.

“Because she had conquered them all,” I whispered. I meant Queen Isis. “Flavius, hold me.”

“I have you, Madam.”

“There,” said the old man, who had risen and pushed me down on his stool.

The night over Egypt filled with stars. I saw it as distinctly as I saw this shop around me in Antioch at midday. I saw the stars and knew I had won. The god would rule. “Oh, come forth, please, from this mountain, our beloved Osiris, and look into my husband’s heart and my heart, and if you find me in the wrong, then my blood is yours, I pledge it.” He was coming! There he