A dedicated priest might even decide to check that second shaft and fill it in himself, to be sure the queen's tomb could not be robbed yet again. But Renifer had recognized Pharaoh's priest last night. It was the man who had held his ostrich fan in front of his face, fleeing the unfortunate event of Pen-Meru caught in the act of robbing Hetepheres' tomb. No doubt that priest was very dedicated. To gold.

Which meant there had been at least three tomb robbers present at the reburial of Hetepheres: the priest, her father, her beloved. Poor Pharaoh, she thought. You do not know with whom You consort.

“Renifer!” said the girl of ivory fiercely, trying to drag her right off the sarcophagus.

Renifer made a universal sign: finger slicing her throat. Quit!

Muttering, the girl expended considerable effort replacing the queen's sedan chair on top of the mattress. At first Renifer thought the girl was going to do a little tomb robbing after all, but then she understood the girl wanted to be sure that Renifer could change her mind. If Renifer stood on top of that sedan chair, she might be close enough to the ceiling to pull herself through.

Coming back to the sarcophagus, the girl kissed her own fingertips and placed those fingertips on Renifer's forehead, drawing on her skin a sign Renifer did not recognize. A blessing, perhaps, or a salute. Renifer would never know. She did not let herself meet the girl's eyes. In a moment of weakness, she might surrender, cry out and go with them.

Pankh was weak. She, Renifer, would be strong.

She held her breath and all her muscle and bone against weakness and while she lay rigid and unyielding, the boy lifted his girl into the upper chamber. A treasure room empty, Renifer supposed, of anything except air.

Although, in its way, air was a treasure.

The boy did not slide the stone over the ceiling opening. She would lie here knowing she could leave, and that was difficult knowledge to possess. The flow of fresh air meant that she could not die easily in gathering sleep, and would die in the dreadful pain of thirst. But they were foreigners, and did not understand these things, and she had no means to explain.

She could tell by the sounds of their feet that a ladder remained in place inside the shaft; that he went first and she second up the shaft and from thence to freedom and life.

And then they were gone.

Renifer's tears puddled on the cold stone at her back. Then she prayed, composing a song for her own soul. How glorious and magnified was her voice in the stone chamber. She imagined her soprano rising like smoke, ascending to heaven, and knew that Pharaoh would be pleased.