Tomb of the Golden Bird, page 8
“Howard would be touched by your concern, Emerson.”
Emerson did not reply.
Emerson would soon have forged ahead had I not kept shouting at him. Concern for me, I feel certain, encouraged him to moderate his pace; I am not the most skilled of horsewomen. At least there was no one abroad at that hour. When we turned onto the road that led into the Valley, the cliffs on either side cut off what little light there had been, and at my emphatic suggestion Emerson slowed his steed to a walk. Cyrus Vandergelt’s Castle loomed up against the stars, illumined like a veritable palace by flickering torches at the doors and in the courtyard, for Cyrus was extravagant with lighting. Howard Carter’s house had been a dark huddle on the hillside when we passed it, and I had heard a chortle of satisfaction from Emerson. Howard was not yet awake. Nor would he be, I expected, for several hours.
The entrance to the Valley was closed, naturally. We left the horses outside the barricade; Emerson jumped nimbly over it and lifted first me and then Azmi over.
The Valley is somewhat eerie at night, as silent and deserted as it must have been in the days when the pharaohs lay undisturbed in their deep-dug sepulchres, surrounded by uncounted wealth. High overhead the brilliant stars of Egypt shone diamond-bright against the black velvet sky, but we walked through shadows. There had been guards in ancient times, as there were now; when a reverberating snore broke the silence, I thought that those ancient guards probably had shirked their duties in favor of sleep as often as did their modern counterparts.
Rounding a curve in the path, we reached the area we sought, and I ventured to switch on my torch. Howard hadn’t bothered to station a guard near his site. Why should he, when he had found nothing except some wretched workmen’s huts?
“Well done, Peabody,” said Emerson, taking the torch from me. “Now, Azmi, show me the step.”
The remains of the huts had been removed the previous day, but there was a good three feet of soil and rubble remaining over the bedrock. Azmi indicated a depression less than two feet long and a foot wide.
“I put the sand back, Father of Curses,” he said in a thrilling whisper. “So that you could be the one to find it.”
Emerson handed me the torch, dropped to his hands and knees, and began digging like a mole, throwing the sand out behind him. His large callused hands were efficient tools; it was not long before he let out a muffled swear word and held up a bleeding finger. It was not a request for sympathy, but confirmation of Azmi’s claim. He had scraped his finger on a hard rock surface, the same color as the sand that almost covered it. We all banged our heads together trying to see down into the hole. Sand kept trickling back into it, but before Emerson stopped we all saw the straight edge of what had to be a ledge or step.
Emerson sat back on his heels. I waited for him to speak but he remained silent.
“Dig it out, dig it out,” the boy urged.
“No.” Emerson rose slowly to his feet. “I have not the right to do so.”
“Isn’t it a little late for such scruples?” I inquired. Archaeological fever had gripped me, and I was as anxious as Azmi to enlarge that enticing hole.
“Refill it,” Emerson ordered, in the same quiet, even voice. He took me by the elbow and raised me from the squatting position I had assumed.
Azmi groaned. “Again?”
“Again.”
“But, Emerson,” I cried. “It may be only a natural feature, or the start of an unfinished cutting. Don’t you want to make sure?”
“I have not the right,” Emerson repeated. “In fact,” he went on, “I hadn’t the right to do this much, and it would not be prudent to admit that I had. Azmi, you must allow Reis Girigar to take the credit for finding this, as he will do so in any case. I shall see you are properly rewarded. There, that will do.”
Emerson sat down on the low retaining wall at the nearby entrance to the tomb of Ramses VI and invited me to join him. The predawn chill was bitter. Emerson drew me close and put an arm round my shoulders. “Have a sip of your brandy, Peabody, to ward off the cold.”
“The brandy, as you well know, is for medicinal purposes only. If you had given me time I would have brought a Thermos of coffee.”
“Perhaps I was unnecessarily hasty,” Emerson admitted. “But you understand, Peabody—”
“Yes, my dear, I do. How did you know precisely where to look?”
“Yesterday, after the last of the huts was cleared away, I observed something that caught my attention. The soil lies differently over a concavity. Not much of a difference, unless one is looking for it, but I was looking for it, you see. I couldn’t be absolutely certain,” Emerson said modestly, “so I pointed the spot out to Azmi. He waited until the guards had settled down for the night before he began digging. He’s small, and he knows every nook and cranny in the Valley. Nobody spotted him. He then reported to me.”
A shiver ran through me—part excitement, part cold. “Curse it,” said Emerson. “One would have supposed that by this time our presence would have been noted. Azmi, see if you can rouse one of the guards and tell him the Father of Curses wants coffee.”
Azmi scampered off. The sky had begun to lighten before he returned with two men, whom Emerson hailed by name. “You sleep soundly, Ibrahim, Ishak. What sort of guards are you, to allow us to enter the Valley unchallenged?”
The older of the two, a wiry chap with a grizzled beard, salaamed. “We knew it was you and the Sitt Hakim, Father of Curses, so we left you to do as you wished.”
“That shows excellent judgment,” said Emerson, with a smug smile. “Haven’t you made your morning coffee?”
“As we always do, Father of Curses,” the younger man said. “Ali Mohammed will bring it when it is ready.”
We had our—their—coffee, very black and sweet and hot. Neither of the men ventured to ask what the devil we were doing there at such an hour, although the younger of the two kept looking curiously at the half-filled hole. Conversation was general and somewhat scurrilous; Ali Mohammed expressed doubts as to the virtue of one of the village wives, and Ishak reported that Deib ibn Simsah was said to have found a new tomb back in the Wadi el Sikkeh. Nothing to do with him, Ishak, of course. Finally our hosts left, having been properly thanked by Emerson. They would never have accepted payment for their hospitality, but an exchange of gifts was only good manners.
The sky turned from soft gray to pale blue. The sun had risen above the eastern cliffs, but in the depths of the Valley the shadows clustered. Emerson waxed impatient, fidgeting and muttering. Eventually we heard voices, and along came Howard’s crew, led by his reis. They greeted us without evidencing surprise; clearly they had been told of our presence. Reis Ahmed Girigar was one of the most respected foremen in Luxor, and was made of sterner stuff than the others. Fixing Emerson with a respectful but steady eye, he asked whether Carter Effendi was expecting us.
“No,” said Emerson. “We want to surprise him. And you, I think, will have a greater surprise for him. Look there.”
Howard did not turn up for another hour. (His procrastination prompted a number of caustic remarks from Emerson, who was always at the site as soon as his men; but to do Howard justice, the removal of the remaining debris was a task well within the skill of his experienced foreman.) The reis had finished clearing the first stair, and he and Emerson had arrived at an understanding by the time Howard arrived, swinging his stick. The men fell silent when they heard him approach. Howard didn’t see us at first. We had tactfully retreated into the background.
“Why have you stopped work?” he demanded of Girigar.
The moment was one of high drama. Instead of replying, the reis made a sweeping gesture, directing Howard’s attention to the step.
British phlegm went up in smoke, together with dignity. Howard turned pale, then red, and fell to his knees. I doubt he was praying, he only wanted a closer look; but for the first time I fully realized how much such a discovery would mean to him, and I remembered something he had once said about the excavations carried on by the American Theodore Davis. “It don’t seem right that he should find one tomb after another when there’s been nothing for his lordship.” Or for Howard Carter, whose career was dependent on the goodwill of a patron.
“Good Lord,” he gasped. “When…how…”
“We found it almost at once, Effendi, as soon as we began digging. Then we stopped and waited for you.”
“Yes, yes.” Howard got to his feet and dusted off the knees of his trousers. “Quite right. Get on with the job, then. It may not be anything.”
“I think it is, though,” said Emerson.
Howard jumped. “What the devil—Oh, good morning, Mrs. Emerson. Er…how long have you been here?”
“We decided on an early-morning ride, you see,” said Emerson evasively. “When we arrived, Reis Girigar had just made his great discovery, so we were unable to resist hanging about to see what developed. Don’t mind, do you? Here, Peabody, take a seat.”
The seat was a campstool, gallantly produced by the reis. I took it and smiled at Howard, who had been left with no way of getting rid of us short of a blunt dismissal.
I really would not have blamed Howard for cursing Emerson, who stood at Howard’s shoulder and kept giving orders to the men, but before long Howard was too absorbed to feel resentment. The usual debris still overlay the steps, however many there might be, and the cutting itself. The men worked with a will, as anxious as we to see what lay below, but the work seemed to progress with agonizing slowness. Howard was—I must do him credit—a careful excavator, and with Emerson looming over him he was not tempted to neglect proper standards. As the morning went on, the crowd round the excavation increased—most of the guards and dragomen, curious tourists. The latter did not linger, for there was nothing much to see, but some of the Egyptians remained to watch. They knew, as the tourists did not, what those stone-cut steps might mean, and I was sorry to see among the watchers the villainous countenance of Deib el Simsah, one of Gurneh’s most notorious tomb robbers. The sun was high and we were all sticky with dust and perspiration when we were joined by another group—Cyrus and Bertie Vandergelt, Jumana, and Ramses and Nefret.
“We heard,” said Cyrus. “Looking good, is it?”
“It’s too early to say,” Howard replied cautiously.
“We brought a luncheon basket,” Nefret said. “Won’t you stop and rest for a bit?”
Her sympathetic smile brought home to Howard how disheveled he looked, his tie at an angle and his garments covered with dust. It also prevented him from protesting our presence, but in fact there was nothing he could do about it.
The tomb of Ramses VI was the nearest shelter, but it was popular with tourists. Emerson soon took care of that difficulty. “The tomb is temporarily closed,” he informed the guard on duty. “Get them out of there, Mahmud, and don’t let anyone else in until we have left.”
Cyrus had also brought refreshments, so we had a nice little private luncheon. Speculation was rife. Was it a finished tomb, or only the beginning of one? Was it royal, or the smaller sepulchre of a nobleman? Was the entrance still sealed, or had it been breached in ancient times? We all knew that the former possibility was too much to hope for, but hope, dear Reader, does not rest on logic. Only Ramses remained his usual silent self.
By the end of the workday we were still uncertain as to what we—Howard, I should say—had found. Lest the Reader wonder why, allow me to remind him or her of how such tombs were constructed. Steps were cut down into the bedrock at the base of the cliff, within a descending stairwell, and when the desired depth was reached, a squared-off doorway gave entrance to the corridors and chambers of the sepulchre itself. This doorway must be well below the level of the topmost steps, since there had been no sign of it as yet, and detritus lay deep over the area—almost thirteen feet down to bedrock in some places. Howard kept on until growing darkness made careful work impossible. Emerson would have gone on beyond that time, had I not tactfully reminded him that the decision was not his to make. He was extremely restless that night, mumbling and throwing himself from side to side until I threatened to expel him from our chamber.
If I had not protested, Emerson would have headed for the Valley at dawn next morning; when interrogated, he had to admit that by his calculations it would take another day of hard work to clear the entire cutting.
“We ought at least pretend to be casual visitors,” I informed him. “Howard will not take it amiss if we drop by on our way home from the West Valley, but if you push him too far—”
“Curse it,” Emerson shouted. “See here, Peabody—”
“Mother is right,” Ramses said.
“What?” Emerson stared at him. “Oh. Well. If you think so.”
I wished Ramses had not interfered. We had had the beginning of a nice little argument developing.
Our morning’s work in the West Valley was a waste of time, though. Neither Emerson nor Cyrus could concentrate, and the former was, for once, the first to suggest that we stop for the day. Exhibiting the delicacy which was so characteristic of him, Cyrus refused Emerson’s invitation to call on Howard. He did not, as he might have done, point out that it wasn’t Emerson’s tomb.
“I feel kind of funny about hanging around,” he explained.
“Why?” Emerson asked, in honest bafflement.
“Well, Carter didn’t ask me.”
“He didn’t ask us, either,” I said. “But that will not deter my husband. Come to dinner this evening, Cyrus, and we will tell you what went on.”
Nefret had decided to spend the morning at her clinic, so it was just the three of us, Emerson, Ramses, and I, who wended our way to the East Valley.
Emerson had underestimated the zeal of Howard’s crew. We arrived on the scene in time to see that the rubbish above the steps had been removed. Howard gave us only an abstracted greeting before urging his men to proceed. There was no thought of stopping now, and no possibility of leaving. One by one the descending stairs were exposed as the cutting deepened. The sun was low in the west when the level of the twelfth step was reached, and there before us was the top of a doorway blocked with plastered stones.
Howard sat down suddenly on the ground and wiped his forehead with his sleeve, too overwrought to take out his handkerchief. “I can’t stand the suspense.” He groaned. “Is the blocking intact? Are there seals on the plaster?”
This was as good as an invitation to Emerson, who probably would not have waited for one anyhow. Howard tottered after him as he descended the steps.
“I can’t see,” Howard mutttered. “It’s too dark down here. The exposed section seems to be solid—”
“Keep your hands off the plaster,” said Emerson curtly. “Peabody, toss down a candle.”
I handed Ramses my torch. He had courteously refrained from comment or suggestion, feeling, I suppose, that his father was doing enough of both, but I knew the dear lad was as eager as we to inspect the doorway. With a smile at me, he descended in his turn. The rest of us crowded round the opening, breathlessly awaiting a report.
It came at last, in the form of a groan from Howard. My heart sank; and then Ramses’s even voice called up, “Plastered stone blocks. There are several seals stamped in the plaster—the seals of the necropolis, the jackal and the nine kneeling captives.”
“No cartouche?” I asked.
“Not here. But the lower part of the doorway is still hidden by rubble.”
“I must see,” Howard cried. “I must see what is behind that door.”
“It will take several more hours to finish clearing the rubble from the stairwell,” Ramses said coolly. “And it’s getting dark.”
“I must see,” Howard repeated. “I must!”
“Some of the plaster at the top has fallen away,” said Emerson. It was the first time he had spoken since Ramses went down with a light, and it was clear to me that he was having some difficulty speaking calmly. “There appears to be a wooden lintel behind it. Peabody, I don’t suppose you have such a thing as a drill on that belt of tools?”
“I regret to say I do not, Emerson. I will make certain to carry one in future.”
“Good Gad,” said Emerson, whether in response to my comment or in general, I cannot say.
With Ramses’s knife and an awl provided by the crew, a small hole was drilled through the beam. The wood was old and dry but very thick, so it took a while. It was like being spectators at a play—sightless spectators, since we were dependent on the reports of the actors instead of our own eyes. The suspense was not lessened thereby. It had not occurred to anyone, even Emerson, to object to Howard’s mutilation of the lintel; only a mind completely lacking in imagination could have resisted the temptation to look beyond that blocked doorway.
Ramses was the first to ascend the stairs. “Well?” I cried.
He gestured toward Howard, who had followed him, with Emerson close on Howard’s heels. “Well, Howard?” I demanded. “What is there?”
“Rubble.” Howard held the torch, which wavered about. “The space beyond the door is entirely filled with stones and chips, from floor to ceiling.”
“But surely that is good news,” I said. “If the passage beyond—it must be a passageway—is closed, the tomb has been all these years undisturbed!”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Howard said flatly. “I—to tell you the truth, Mrs. Emerson, I am so worn down with suspense and excitement, I am incapable of thinking.”
“It has been quite a day,” I said sympathetically. “You ought to go home and rest.”
Emerson said only, “Hmph.”
Howard’s bowed shoulders straightened. “Not before I have filled in the excavation.”
“Filled it in! But surely—”
“In fairness to Lord Carnarvon I must do so. He will want to be present when we take down the door.”
“But that will mean a delay of weeks,” I cried. “How can you bear to wait?”
