“Would you rather that I and your future husband got staked out in the desert?” said Pen-Meru.

Renifer remembered how Pankh had stroked the goddess Sekhmet. It had not been worship, or lack of worship. It had been blackmail. Your daughter marries me, Pen-Meru, or I bring Pharaoh into your gates to see what you have stolen from Him.

I am the daughter of a tomb robber, thought Renifer. I will be made to marry a tomb robber. My father and husband will force my sons to be tomb robbers.

Renifer caught the distant scent of incense being burned. Somewhere a priest was obeying the sacred rites. Much good it did him, when people like her father were abroad in the land.

Here had Princess Meresankh prayed as Renifer sang, “Sky and stars make music for you. Sun and moon praise you. Gods exalt you and goddesses lift their voices.” But Meresankh's grandmother was not exalted now. Renifer's family had brought her down.

Her father said to Pankh, “Even if Pharaoh believes our story, I think we will be executed. Pharaoh will find out that not only is His mother's tomb nearly empty, but her mummy is gone. He'll execute everyone in sight. He might execute the whole battalion of tomb police, even those not on duty this month.”

“You stole the queen's mummy?” cried Renifer. Her family would be haunted forever. The powerful ka of the queen would waylay them by night and set traps for them by day. Renifer's children would be doomed to lives of terror.

Horror curdled in her stomach like goat's milk in the sun. She was not going to have children. She too would be staked out in the desert, three days dying, jackals waiting. Renifer's eternity would be spent in limbo, with neither rest nor joy. She hardly minded (although probably she would mind when they actually drove the stake through her). Such a fate was richly deserved by a family that profaned the tomb of a queen.

“We took the inner coffin, Renifer,” said her father irritably, “because it contained the finest jewels. Of course it had her mummy in it.”

“Where did you put the mummy?” said Renifer, trying not to sob. “We'll put it back. She must lie among her remaining tomb goods.”

“I tossed the mummy in the desert after I peeled away the gold and silver,” said Pen-Meru.

The verb he used—toss—was horrible in its simplicity. Children tossed balls. Her father had tossed aside the mummy of a queen as if it had no more meaning than a child's toy.

“Did you always know about this?” Renifer said in Pankh's direction. She could not face him.

“I've been helping since I was twelve.” His voice was proud and even sassy, as if he had always wanted to swagger in front of her with this information, and now at last, his real self could stand before her: tomb robber.