Chapter 12: The Isis Stela

Angela was not sure when she realised that she was in danger of losing control when using the ring.

Was it when Patrick came to her flat that the ring ceased to be an object of antiquarian interest and became a tool for her own use? She knew that the feelings she had experienced then had an almost narcotic effect. Not only empowering in the moment but creating a desire to go on and on using it. There was no doubt in her mind that using the ring was addictive.

She could not put it to one side though. As part of the work she was doing for Carfax, she was still investigating the relevance it had for the Tutmania part of the exhibit with the links it had to Burton, Carter and Lady Evelyn.

She knew that her interest was no longer simply academic, though. She was becoming more and more interested in how she might make use of its powers for herself. But, at the same time, she was wary of the power that the ring seemed to endow.

She was standing in the museum’s entrance lobby. She looked up at one of the museum’s permanent exhibits, a stone tablet adorned with an image of the winged figure of Isis. Beneath the figure, Angela could translate the hieroglyphic inscription, “I am all that has been and is and shall be; and no mortal has ever lifted my mantle.” Perhaps the inscription was a warning not to seek that power, not to seek to learn too much of the mysteries of Isis. She would try to keep her attention focussed on work and ignore the ring’s apparent powers.

She tried to bring her thoughts back to the more immediate needs of the exhibition. As far as her work for that was concerned, she had found little more about Lady Evelyn and the ring. There was nothing to suggest Evelyn’s marriage had been anything other than conventional. Angela had found a wedding photo and beyond the difference in the height of the two – Lady Evelyn barely came up to her husband Brograve’s shoulder – they seemed nothing other than a loving couple of the time. There had been precious little to suggest any sexual liaison between Lady Evelyn and Carter before her marriage. An entry in the diary of Arthur Mace, Carter’s assistant, remarked that she and Carter were “very thick” with one another but beyond that she could find no evidence of any relationship in any of Evelyn’s letters nor in the trivialising, gossipy diaries kept by Harry Burton’s wife, Minnie. Perhaps Evelyn had never really grasped the ring’s power. Perhaps her “enough trouble” note was simply an expression of exasperation at what she may have seen as the coincidence of Carter’s and Burton’s attentions, especially as her father had died around that time.

Angela told herself that she had to accept that she had reached a dead-end as far as the ring and the exhibition was concerned. She had managed to create a set of labels for some of the artefacts that stitched together some sort of story and some notes for the exhibition’s guide book too. That would have to do.

Relieved to have decided that she had finished with the exhibition, she returned to her work with the shabtis. She had better get on with it, she thought. The museum’s trustees were meeting at that moment to decide what would be done about Carfax’s proposal to “de-accession” them. She had every reason to expect that they would agree to it.

She opened a box labelled, “32nd Dynasty: Tomb of Nofret at Taposiris Magna, Daughter of Ity, Chief Scribe to the Nomarch of the 9th Nome”. She looked at the box, thinking how sad it was that this woman was known only as the daughter of someone. Surely she must have had a life that meant more than that? As so often, the label on the box asked more questions than it answered. If this woman was related to the Nomarch of the 9th Nome, in the Nile delta, what was she doing being buried far away at Taposiris, on the Mediterranean coast?

Inside the box were six blue faïence shabtis. Angela laid them out on the desk in front of her.

She was impressed. They were finely moulded with sharply incised inscriptions, some of the best examples of their kind that Angela could remember seeing. They were all the more remarkable for coming from the tomb of the daughter of a minor noble. Objects like this would usually be associated with an elite burial of the royal household. How could the museum even imagine selling objects as beautiful as these to fund a cafe and a shop, she thought.

The shabtis seemed to stare at her in an accusatory manner. “And you are going to let this happen,” one seemed to be saying. “When you could use to power of Isis to prevent it,” said another. “The daughter of Ity would not permit it,” said a third. “We serve Nofret, daughter of Ity, in the Duat, so that she has eternal life,” said the fourth. “We must not be separated. Will you abandon her?” the last two said in chorus, “or will you see we are not disturbed; that peace and order, Ma’at, is preserved?”

Angela found it neither surprising nor upsetting that she was confronted by these small statuettes. They were the protectors of Nofret. Of course they would want to preserve their ability to serve their mistress?

“Use the power of Isis to preserve Ma’at,” the shabtis seemed to say.