Hathor's Mirror

FOUR | BURIED IN TIME

He leaves me alone. For a time, I sit and soak up the atmosphere. Beneath the terrace, I glimpse servants in short kilts and sandals tending the palace gardens. They do their work with quiet dignity and purpose, handling the flowering plants with a tenderness and care that surprises me. Hunger pangs make me restless, so I decide to wander through the apartment among the personal effects of a princess who's been dead for three millennia.

I didn't even know that Hatshepsut had a daughter. I venture into Neferu-re's bedroom, drawn to the intimate space with its sun-dappled private inner courtyard and lotus pool. Her wooden four poster bed sits in the middle of the space upon a raised platform two steps up. I part the sheer linen hangings embroidered with golden hieroglyphs and trail my fingers along the bright yellow cover embroidered with blue cornflowers. It feels like silk. It definitely looks like silk. I'm impressed. I didn't know they had silk in ancient Egypt.

I always imagined their world would be primitive, that modern movies and shows were pure fantasy. This isn't the same as the movies, it's clear everything is crafted by hand, but the level of artisanship is boggling considering the limitations they faced. Zero electricity, zero machines, zero everything. But still. The facts stare me in the face. 

I turn and take in the incredible attention to detail and design in everything, from the handles on the cupboards to the smooth, wafer-thin alabaster tray holding Neferu-re's assortment of golden hairpins. I realise there's a lot this history-writing expert was missing in her expertise. Speaking of which, this might be a good time to get my historical bearings.

Hatshepsut was legendary for pulling off a co-regency that was more like a full-blown power grab from her stepson, the future Pharaoh Thutmose III aka my Prince Menkheperre. She died around fifty. Thutmose III took the throne in 1479 BCE, so that makes me . . . I blink as the incomprehensible amount of time adds up.

"I'm three thousand five hundred years in the past," I whisper.

I turn and look at the sun-drenched terrace overlooking the palace gardens with its potted date palms and indigo blue awnings rippling in the Nile's breeze. Everything I am looking at is gone, flattened by the pressure of ridiculous amounts of time. 

Ramesses II, the greatest pharaoh of all won't even be born for almost two centuries. The Assyrian, Greek, Roman, and Persian empires, and Cleopatra and Alexander the Great are literally nothing right now. I sit on the bed. It creaks a little as it accepts my weight. In my world, this royal apartment could be the kitchen of a luxury hotel. Or a ramshackle apartment building. Or a road. Or a sewer.

"Fuck!" Somehow that extra half-millennia pushes me over the edge. It's as if three thousand years was the maximum cutoff for my brain to accommodate time-traveling mishaps.

I always imagined time like an inverted cone that history dug itself out of from a distant minute Stone Age point with the base of the present growing wider with human knowledge and expansion, kind of like the Big Bang, but with history.

Maybe it's because of archaeology, and things from the past being buried, it's just how I have perceived everything that's come from before. It's down there, below us. In the ground.

And now I'm buried three thousand five hundred years deep. I scan Neferu-re's bedroom for a jug of something to drink. Nothing. Out in the main reception room, I spy a side table sporting a golden pitcher and two golden cups. I heft the jug, it's heavy. Good. I pour. A ruby red liquid splashes in the cup. Throwing all caution to the wind, I don't sip, I drink. It's wine, strong, and a tiny bit vinegary but it's not too bad considering. I've had far worse served to me by Luke, the local pub's ridiculously sexy Scottish bartender.

I think about my ex and his love for rare vintages. One point for me. I just drank the rarest vintage ever. I raise the cup in a mock toast to Neferu-re's apartment before polishing off the rest of the cup's contents.

I continue to explore my 'prison'. I have to admit it's a whole lot nicer than my cramped flat. I'm loving the airiness, the space, and the insane of amount of fresh air scented with honeysuckle and jasmine breezing through the painted pillars and linen hangings. The symmetry and aesthetically pleasing arrangement of the furnishings, rugs, and potted palms rustling in the breeze soothes my nerves.

I pour myself another cup of wine just in case I get any more funny feelings about being buried in time and carry it with me back into Neferu-re's bedroom. I go to the end of the bed, push aside the soft hangings and sit. In front of me, the courtyard with the lotus pool. A little splash comes from the pool. I realise it's got fish in it, and this weirdly pleases me. Calm permeates the apartment, telling me much about its owner. I decide to ask the prince more about the princess. After all, maybe we share something in common besides her mirror.

Speaking of which, I haven't seen any mirrors yet. I really hope her mirror didn't disappear with her, because I sense that's critical to me getting back. Bad feelings stir, rousing the sleeping dragons of my mind. I take a quick sip. The dragons settle back down, thank god.

In return, my stomach makes an unpleasant gurgle, angry with me for feeding it wine instead of the greasy fare it craves. But I can feel my mood lifting nicely, and the bad feeling of being buried in time losing its glare, drowning out everything else including the enigmatic and enticingly well-built prince of Egypt.

I pull my phone out of my jeans pocket. Lucky me, my phone was on the charge when Avril woke me this morning, so it's still almost fully charged. With careful use it should have power for about three more days. I power down all the battery draining apps, then laugh at myself. Like it can find Instagram here. I turn off the Wi-Fi and mobile data. I stare at the home screen of my silenced phone, a photo of me and my ex sharing an ice cream in Brighton stares back at me. That was last weekend. 

I wonder if my ex has taken their new partner to the same place, bought them the same ice cream and asked them to do the same silly selfie with them. I wonder if they made the photo their home screen image. I delete it and Marc's face vanishes. I won't cry. I already cried enough down at the local last night first on my best friend Avril's shoulders, then on Luke's bigger and better ones. 

Anyway, crying here is ridiculous. I would be crying about a baby that isn't going to be born for thousands of years. And that's just dumb. I pocket my phone and take another sip and examine the cup as I swallow. It's got embossed images of nightingales in flight. It's very pretty. Everything here is pretty. I like all the pretty.

The door to the apartment opens. From my vantage point, I watch the prince wrestle in a large gold tray laden with food. One of the guards ducks in behind him to pull the door shut, but not before he cuts a look over to me. Our eyes meet. His are cold. Murderous even. Well, that's not nice. The door closes with a dull, respectful thud. 

I get up and follow the mouth-watering scent of roasted meat and fresh-baked bread. Further down the terrace, in the deep shade of the awning the prince is busying himself laying out a variety of dishes on the low table before the divan. He stands back and rubs his hands together, inspecting his work, utterly unaware of my surveyal from the adjoining terrace of his stepsister's bedroom. He leans down to adjust one of the platters, so it's straight then after another beat of inspection, nods to himself. 

I bite back a laugh. This is the guy who will go down in history as one of the ancient world's greatest military commanders, if not the greatest, only superseded by Alexander the Great a thousand years from now. And he's faffing around with our breakfast. I step out of the awning's shade into the midday sun. It's stupidly hot and the heat makes me walk faster to reach him, the food, and blessed shade.

He looks up and notices the wine cup in my hand. His jaw hardens a touch. Maybe drinking before noon is bad form here. But he'll see, I'm fine. I'm totally fine.