The Eye of Horus (28 page)

I breathed a sigh of relief though my hands shook at the thought that his cries might bring Pharaoh’s police down on our heads. But a babe hungering in the night for his mother’s breast, or a cat on the prowl, are common enough to pass without notice by men with an eye only for the telltale light of Aten. I cradled the babe in one arm to ward off the night air, stroking his cheek with my finger while we waited for them to pass, hardly daring to breathe.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the sound of barking dogs faded away. “Stay where you are while I make sure they left no one behind,” Khary whispered, and slipped through the ragged doorway. I did not hear him return until he spoke again. “It is safe to light the lamp again.” No one stirred. “Pepi?” he whispered.

A heart-wrenching cry rent the dark room. “My god has forsaken me—” the stonecutter sobbed. I felt the air stir as Khary moved past me, fumbled with the lamp, whispered a curse, and finally got a flame going.

Aset saw the babe in my arms, and hurried to take him from me. “Oh, Thuya, what a beautiful babe you have! Look, Pepi, a boy.” She glanced at Pepi and fell silent, sensing that something was wrong.

He still held his wife, but tears were running down his cheeks. “Beloved of my body, mate of my ka, without you I am an empty husk,” he wept into her hair. “Oh, Aten, mightiest of the mighty, from whom all life flows. Let your light shine upon her face that she may breathe again. Come back
to me. Thuya, come back.” He went on pleading with his god to restore her to life or take him instead, calling her name, begging Thuya to forgive him—for what, no one could bear to ask. Whether Pepi smothered his wife while trying to keep her from crying out, or Thuya chose that way herself rather than bring us all to grief, I cannot say.

The followers of Aten believe it is only in the wickedness they embrace in this life that one man differs from another. But is it wickedness simply to believe in the wrong god, whether it be Amen-Re or Aten, two faces of the same sun? That is the crux of my disaffection with all the priests.

Flocks of white ibis have begun to appear in the shorn brown fields, for like Thoth they know the secret of the flood that renews our soil and so do not have to depend on the dog star to tell them when to fly north. Surely the rising waters of Mother River cannot be far behind, but waiting to learn if there will be enough or too much, sweeping away our homes and animals along with the canals that feed the higher fields, is an uneasy time for all. In the meantime, Aset makes cornhusk dolls for the shrine of Hapi, to celebrate the New Year and placate the capricious river god.

Most days she assists Khary in the dispensary, but the routine of our lives changes in other ways as well. In the evenings now she puts on one of the gauze gowns she wore as Uzahor’s wife before joining me for our meal, and tonight I noticed she is letting her hair grow. But when I mentioned it she just shrugged and smiled, a little guiltily, I thought. Afterward I sought her advice about a sick child, only to have her recall the man whose leg drew up until he could not put his foot flat on the ground.

“Yet everyone beset by fever does not end with a useless leg.” I waited, for she has the habit of fitting one thought to another the way a master bricklayer constructs a wall. “A
woman’s womb tightens when she labors to expel her babe, and that causes pain, as well, but the tightening comes and goes like waves washing ashore after a passing boat. What of the pain in Uzahor’s arm? Could that have been a tightening, too?”

“His pain was a sign that the heart begins to falter.”

“So the tightening is in the cardia, not the muscles of the arm.” I stopped eating, curious as to where she would go next. “In both kinds of vessels, or only the ones I painted red on your map?” It seemed to me an echo of my own voice, telling Senmut that somehow we must learn to ask the right questions.

Always before I asked what path the blood takes through the body, not how it gets there. But that, I believe, may finally be the right question.

The sun made Kate squint when she came out of the hospital, and a summerlike blast of heat hit her when she opened the door of Max’s Mercedes. That’s when she decided to go shopping. By three o’clock, when she breezed into the Imaging Center, she was feeling happy in a way she hadn’t for a long time. And comfortable, thanks to the cotton outfit she’d just bought.

Marilou spotted her right away and beckoned her to the reception desk. “Boy, am I glad to see
you.
He’s been driving us—” She broke off as the devil himself appeared.

“Hi,” Max said, eyes moving all over her, then back to her face. “I was beginning to worry, thought you might’ve gotten lost or something.”

“I went shopping.” She turned to make her skirt flare out, showing off the embroidered camisole top and overshirt to match. All three pieces were the same color, a dusty cinnamon that made her eyes look almost green.

“I noticed. Does that mean Tinsley came through with a fat check?”

“Mostly it means the clothes I brought with me are too warm for this weather,” she said as she followed him down the hall.

“So tell me about it,” Max invited, once they were in his office.

Kate spread the sketches she’d done at the hospital across his desk, showing the steps in Mike Tinsley’s new procedure
for repairing a fractured kneecap. Max gave them a cursory glance, then picked up the one of Tinsley with his binocular magnifying goggles pushed up on his forehead.

“I thought he’d use a photograph to show the setup with all the equipment in place,” Kate explained, “so I was just trying to get down the way it felt to me there—the aura of excitement at the beginning and how the tension builds, then the letdown after the procedure climaxes and everyone begins to settle back into familiar territory, closing up. But that one seemed to turn the tide.” She paused. “Did you know he plays Mahler while he operates?” Max shook his head and waited.

“I’m going to illustrate the entire book, use my own judgment about what needs illustrating, and how. Tinsley wants to frame each procedure with scene-setting sketches like that one, to bring in the psychology that colors everything a student or resident does or doesn’t do, no matter what level of skill they acquire—what we all share in common: the human factor. It’s one thing to draw an anatomically accurate picture and something else to present it in a way that keeps everyone reminded that they’re dealing with other human beings. I guess that’s what made me realize I was being handed the chance to do something really important, not just work for hire.”

The instant she said it Kate realized that the need to portray the humanizing aspect of medicine had been the driving force behind her illustrations from the moment she dropped out of medical school, coloring not only her drafting style but how she chose to present her subjects. That was what Max had been trying to say about her drawings, from the very beginning.

She tried to smile at him, but her lips began to wobble, so she just hugged him instead. He held her and rubbed his cheek against her hair.

“I’m not a gambler,” she told him when she recovered her voice and could pull away without revealing how close she’d come to tears, “maybe because I’ve never been able to afford
it, but, well, I agreed to do an unlimited number of illustrations—to be determined by me after I see Mike’s text, plus suggestions from him. He gets final approval, but my name appears on the title page.” She paused, watching Max’s face, but he seemed to know she wasn’t finished.

“I’m also planning to learn all I can about the latest computer-graphics stuff so that I can use whatever works best in a given situation. That way I’ll also be in a position to enlarge on what I can offer other potential customers. Not that I told
him
that. What I’m gambling is that I’ll make enough to cover all the time this one project is going to take. I hope it isn’t just ego, but he thinks we’ve got the makings of a classic, so I asked for a percentage of the royalties plus a piece of whatever advance he gets from his publisher. He thinks that will go way up when they see my illustrations and know I’m going to do the whole book.”

“Tinsley actually told you all that?” Max asked, incredulous. “Not much of a businessman, is he?” Kate hoped that wasn’t just a variation on his habit of going silent when faced with something unexpected or unknowable.

Without thinking, she reached out and tugged on his hand. “Come on, Max, say what you really think. Did I give away the store, make the deal of a lifetime, or what?”

“It doesn’t matter how much money you make if it’s really important to you, but I call it an act of faith, not gambling.”

Tuesday morning, after Max left for his office, Kate put Sam on his leash and jogged down to the office supply in Rice Village, the neighborhood shopping center just a few blocks from Max’s house. When they returned she spread everything out on the kitchen table, which sat in an alcove framed by floor-to-ceiling windows, and went to work. First she made several anatomical drawings of the human knee, in pencil. Then she selected the best one and refined the lines with India ink, slipped it into a folder, told Sam to behave, and hurried out to her car.

Two hours later, when she emerged from the hair salon Marilou had recommended, a languid Gulf breeze had turned Houston into a humid hothouse. “Great!” she muttered, sure her hair would be up around her ears by the time she reached the car. Back at Max’s house she showered, taking care not to look at herself until she was out and dressed, then stood in front of the full-length mirror—and almost didn’t recognize the woman she saw! Anxious now, and in a hurry, she returned to the kitchen and pulled the cork on a bottle of wine to let it breathe, then went back to work.

She was trying to decide which tendon to do next when she heard a car door slam. Suddenly nervous as a cat, she dipped her paintbrush into the jar of water and hurried to where she’d left the wine, filled the two stemmed glasses, and turned just as Max come through the door.

“Hi. Sorry I’m so late,” he apologized, dropped his briefcase on the floor, and bent to fondle Sam’s ears. It wasn’t until he slipped off his suit coat and threw it over the back of a chair that he noticed the wine. “Are we celebrating something?”

“Maybe.” She handed him a glass, not wanting to make a big thing of her hair. Cut just to the edge of her jaw, it was at least three inches shorter and for the first time in her life held a shape rather than curling up in a frizzy mess—not to mention the highlighting she thought made it look healthier and more alive.

She knew the instant he noticed, mostly by the way his eyes changed. “Turn around,” he ordered. She did a quick spin and felt a smile begin inside her head. “Again, slower.” He slid his arms around her from behind and laid his lips to her ear. “I’m beginning to understand why a man might risk his head for a woman.”

Kate turned and threw her arms around his neck, only to have him reach up and slowly pull them away. It took her a second to realize that the wineglass she held was empty. “Oh God, Max, I’m sorry.”

“I need to shower, anyway, and change for supper. Then
you can pour me another glass and tell me what you did today.” He ruffled her hair. “Besides this.”

She made herself go back to the illustration and tried to concentrate on what she was doing instead of thinking about what Max had just said. Or rather, what he could possibly have meant. Surely it was nothing more than a halfway joking sort of compliment about her hair. Or was it?

She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry. Don’t stop.”

“I’ll be done in a second. Plastic doesn’t absorb paint, so if I stop now, I’ll have to overpaint a dry edge and leave a raised line.”

He refilled her glass as well as his, set it on the table out of her way, then pulled out a chair and sat down. “What kind of paint is that?”

“Opaque watercolor.”

He didn’t speak again until she tipped her brush into the murky water. “Tell me what you’re doing.”

“What you see as you go into the knee, enhanced by color shadings to distinguish one tendon or piece of cartilage from another—instead of those.” She gestured at the stack of axial scans Mike Tinsley had given her. “It was my idea to—here, I’ll show you.” She reached for one of the inked outlines. “I had this copied onto transparent sheets so they’d all be identical. Now I’m putting in where and how the tendons attach to the bone, but on different sheets so you can peel them away one at a time to reveal the shape, color, and texture of everything you have to deal with surgically, one at a time.” She stacked the three painted transparencies she’d finished and handed them to Max. “Think it’s going to work?”

“You wouldn’t have taken it this far if it didn’t.” He lifted the first sheet, then the next. “Ever think of doing a book on forensic art, maybe combine your drawings and the kind of illustrations you’re doing for Tinsley with MRI or CT scans?”

“I doubt the market would be big enough to interest any publishers.”

“Even if you build it around Tashat? You could describe
the coffin inscription and how the X rays disprove her age but confirm those paintings—that she was left-handed. Show her injuries and the gold glove. Include photographs of the computer-generated composites and compare it with the cartonnage mask. Pose all the unanswered questions and suggest possible answers, about Ptah and Khnum, the plants in that garden—” He stopped. “Did Dave ever venture an opinion about that, by the way?” Kate shook her head. “Does he even know they’re medicinal?”

“Not from me.”

“Then you’re home free.”

“He’d never give me permission to use my illustrations, let alone a photograph.”

“Maybe he doesn’t have to. All they own is what they paid you to do, which you left with them. What about the photographs I saw at your house?”

“I bought the film and used my own camera. Dave was going to have a professional photographer come in after everything was done. But that doesn’t mean I can publish them without permission.”

“He said it, Kate. You were a hired hand. Phil and I donated our expertise and the scan with no strings attached. Dave never asked us to sign a thing, so I doubt he could stop us from giving someone else permission to use those films, but I’ll check with my lawyer.”

“I don’t know, Max. Maybe I should talk to Cleo.”

“Okay. I guess you owe her that much. While you’re at it, ask if she knows what Dave is planning to do with the head and your drawings.” He paused. “What’s the hieroglyph for artist?”

“There isn’t one. They had sculptors and craftsmen and different kinds of scribes. An outline scribe was top dog because he laid out the register on the tomb walls and drew the figures, then others came behind him and filled in the colors, or chiseled away the lines to create reliefs. Why?”

“We talk about the art of medicine. I thought they might
have the same figure of speech. Okay, so that’s a dead end. How about the glyph for Osiris?”

Kate reached into the wastebasket for something to write on, drew the glyph for Isis—the staired-stepped throne—added an open eye with a brow to the left of it and a seated man to the right.

“So her name was derived from his?” Max asked.

“Or his was built by adding to hers, the same way the human fetus develops as female before undergoing modification to become male—as you very well know,
Dr.
Cavanaugh!”

“You and Marilou go for the jugular every time,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Must have the same short in your neural networks.”

She caught the little twitch at the corner of his mouth, so she let him have the other barrel. “The Egyptians didn’t use a horned viper as the sign for the male pronoun for nothing.”

Kate volunteered to fix her specialty, a tuna-noodle casserole they could share with Sam, while Max prepared a salad, just to keep it simple. Now that she’d committed to the Tinsley textbook, it was time to bring up the subject she’d been avoiding.

“If you’re finished with the paper, Max, I thought I’d look at the want ads, see what may be available for rent.”

“There’s no rush,” he mumbled without looking at her. “Better wait until you’ve have a chance to case out the different parts of town, unless—”

“I’ve already stayed longer than—”

He turned to confront her. “I like having you here—you and Sam.”

“I like—we like being here.”

It was as if they were using code and the words had another meaning, but Kate was worried that she was reading more into them than he intended. In the past few days she had become painfully aware that she was far more interested in Maxwell Cavanaugh the man than she was in Dr.
Cavanaugh the radiologist. But she still couldn’t be sure that his feelings for her weren’t strictly platonic, and she didn’t want to embarrass him, let alone herself.

Later, while they were cleaning the dishes away, he told her he was going to go search the Net for a while, which she interpreted as a subtle hint that he wanted to be alone, until he asked, “Want to see what the Egyptology groupies are talking about? You might learn something.”

“That the sphinx was built by aliens from another planet?” she replied. “No thanks. I better finish those transparencies for Mike Tinsley.”

It seemed only a few minutes until he was back. “Did you know the Ebers Papyrus was found between the legs of a mummy?” He could hardly contain himself. “A mummy from the necropolis at Thebes!”

“Seems like I read that one of the medical papyri was. Why?”

“She has to ask why?” he asked Sam, who looked to Kate, then back at Max. “Has to be some reason. Why wrap a medical handbook with a physician’s body instead of just leaving it in his tomb like all the food and other stuff he was going to need in the afterlife?”

“I don’t know, but Cleo might.”

He started to leave, then turned back to ask, “Is there anything else I should know that you neglected to tell me, besides where the Ebers was found?”

Kate thought for a minute, then beckoned him to her. While he watched, she dipped her straight pen into the bottle of ink and drew an arched brow, a circle for a pupil, then a wedge-shaped cheek mark of a falcon near the inside of the eye. Another line started just below the pupil but angled toward the crest of the cheekbone, ending in an open coil. “That’s the tear line of a cheetah. Look familiar?”