She absorbed the history of the collection, discarding various images and locking on the visage of a fat, elderly man who seemed important and who had owned all of this lot. Bridget saw expressions flit across the heavily-lined face: anger, pleasure, sadness, confusion was the most prominent.
“A troubled man,” Bridget decided. The ill-tempered portly fellow had a thin beard and moustache and fancied wearing elaborate collars that hid his thick neck. As Bridget’s fingers brushed first a cloak clasp in the shape of a wolf’s head, next a carving kinfe and fork, then a pipe bowl, and finally a ring, a name came to her: Albrecht Friedrich, a Prussian duke in the 1500s who had seven children. Bridget sensed that Eleanor was the duke‘s favorite, fifth-born and always in his thoughts, dying at age twenty-three while she gave birth to what would have been her first child. Bridget took on the duke’s grief, then cast it aside, felt the man’s smooth fingers wrap around the handle of the carving knife. Then she reached deeper and felt the duke’s hunger and anticipation of a holiday meal. More, and she absorbed a disturbing twinge of … what? … Bridget directed all her attention to the collection, shutting out the pleasant scent of Dustin’s soap and the sound of her son’s continued oohing and ahing. What?
Odd, scattered, chaotic thoughts bordering on the edge of madness. Albrecht had been a conflicted man. The longer Bridget focused on the items, the more she absorbed, and the more her own thoughts became muddled. She picked through the disorder. Albrecht was named Duke of Prussia by the king of Poland, to whom he paid feudal homage. Fluent in Polish, he had tried—and failed—to gain acceptance to the Polish senate. A protestant, he enjoyed the backing of some influential Polish Lutherans, and so believed he could ascend to the Polish throne. But that did not happen. In 1572, four years into his reign as duke, his thoughts became even more ambivalent, and those around him questioned his sanity. Albrecht died more than forty years later, crying out the name of his lost daughter.
“Eleanor.” A tear slid down Bridget’s cheek. She shook off the connection and went to the last table, a mix of more Russian and Prussian antiquities ranging in value from several hundred dollars each to several thousand, and …
A sudden sensation of giddiness threatened to drop her when her mind touched something valuable and out of place with the rest of the assortment. It was something very, very old.
***
Seven
Bridget fought off the lightheadedness and inched toward the very old thing, something carved from wood and sitting in the shadow cast by a black box inlaid with bronze. She pulled in a breath, feeling her lungs grow warm and her face absorb the heat that once beat down upon the carving.
“Wonderful,” she breathed.
It was a wooden shabti statuette, roughly seven inches tall, and Bridget was careful not to actually touch it with her bare hands. She didn’t want the oil from her skin to cause any damage, nor did she want to be overwhelmed by the images such intimate contact with something so old could give. That contact would wait for later, back in her brownstone, when she could savor it in privacy. She’d absorb just a smidgen of it now, a junkie taking a hit to tide her over until she could administer a proper fix. She moved her fingers to within an inch of it.
Talk to me , Bridget thought. Where did you come from?
She picked through a rush of images. This shabti had been placed in the tomb of Yuya, father of Tiye, who wed Neb-Maat-Re Amenhotep III.
A little more.
Centuries raced through her thoughts at a dizzying pace and she tried to grab the most important elements without being deluged. Buried in the Valley of the Kings, Yuya’s single-chambered tomb was found in 1905 and dated to the Eighteenth Dynasty. Yuya and his wife held political influence during Amenhotep III’s reign, and before that in
“A troubled man,” Bridget decided. The ill-tempered portly fellow had a thin beard and moustache and fancied wearing elaborate collars that hid his thick neck. As Bridget’s fingers brushed first a cloak clasp in the shape of a wolf’s head, next a carving kinfe and fork, then a pipe bowl, and finally a ring, a name came to her: Albrecht Friedrich, a Prussian duke in the 1500s who had seven children. Bridget sensed that Eleanor was the duke‘s favorite, fifth-born and always in his thoughts, dying at age twenty-three while she gave birth to what would have been her first child. Bridget took on the duke’s grief, then cast it aside, felt the man’s smooth fingers wrap around the handle of the carving knife. Then she reached deeper and felt the duke’s hunger and anticipation of a holiday meal. More, and she absorbed a disturbing twinge of … what? … Bridget directed all her attention to the collection, shutting out the pleasant scent of Dustin’s soap and the sound of her son’s continued oohing and ahing. What?
Odd, scattered, chaotic thoughts bordering on the edge of madness. Albrecht had been a conflicted man. The longer Bridget focused on the items, the more she absorbed, and the more her own thoughts became muddled. She picked through the disorder. Albrecht was named Duke of Prussia by the king of Poland, to whom he paid feudal homage. Fluent in Polish, he had tried—and failed—to gain acceptance to the Polish senate. A protestant, he enjoyed the backing of some influential Polish Lutherans, and so believed he could ascend to the Polish throne. But that did not happen. In 1572, four years into his reign as duke, his thoughts became even more ambivalent, and those around him questioned his sanity. Albrecht died more than forty years later, crying out the name of his lost daughter.
“Eleanor.” A tear slid down Bridget’s cheek. She shook off the connection and went to the last table, a mix of more Russian and Prussian antiquities ranging in value from several hundred dollars each to several thousand, and …
A sudden sensation of giddiness threatened to drop her when her mind touched something valuable and out of place with the rest of the assortment. It was something very, very old.
***
Seven
Bridget fought off the lightheadedness and inched toward the very old thing, something carved from wood and sitting in the shadow cast by a black box inlaid with bronze. She pulled in a breath, feeling her lungs grow warm and her face absorb the heat that once beat down upon the carving.
“Wonderful,” she breathed.
It was a wooden shabti statuette, roughly seven inches tall, and Bridget was careful not to actually touch it with her bare hands. She didn’t want the oil from her skin to cause any damage, nor did she want to be overwhelmed by the images such intimate contact with something so old could give. That contact would wait for later, back in her brownstone, when she could savor it in privacy. She’d absorb just a smidgen of it now, a junkie taking a hit to tide her over until she could administer a proper fix. She moved her fingers to within an inch of it.
Talk to me , Bridget thought. Where did you come from?
She picked through a rush of images. This shabti had been placed in the tomb of Yuya, father of Tiye, who wed Neb-Maat-Re Amenhotep III.
A little more.
Centuries raced through her thoughts at a dizzying pace and she tried to grab the most important elements without being deluged. Buried in the Valley of the Kings, Yuya’s single-chambered tomb was found in 1905 and dated to the Eighteenth Dynasty. Yuya and his wife held political influence during Amenhotep III’s reign, and before that in
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