“How is Madam Rose?” asked the policeman with three gold stars on each lapel.
“Very well,” replied Kate, not knowing what else she should say. Though they had shared a great adventure, Kate had known Rose for slightly less than forty-eight hours. She therefore knew little of her, apart from being told by Three that Rose was someone who could be totally trusted. This was a statement which Kate had no reason to doubt after the battle of yesterday. She had witnessed Rose give Ramses II and Nakhtifi orders. She knew Rose came from Germany, helped the people and animals in the village where Cairo lived, and that her ancient family were not in the afterlife.
“Rose yet again proved just how good she is at planning battle strategies. It must be in the genes, though whatever it is, you are so lucky to have her on your side.” And with that the policeman, the one with three gold stars on each lapel, signalled to his officers to open the old gate to Luxor Temple.
“But we don’t have tickets,” said Kate with concern in her voice.
“It is your temple, young Madam, so you do not need a ticket,” said the policeman smiling. “But it is not your friend’s temple, so he can pay twice.” Putting a friendly hand on Alex’s shoulder before giving him a wink, he ushered them both through.
A quick thank you, a wave, and they were happily walking towards the impressive first pylon of Luxor Temple. The seated statues of Ramses II either side of the entrance were massive. “I wonder where Ramses is today?” asked Kate without wanting an answer. “Because if he was here right now, I would tell him that his ego is big enough for a hundred men.”
“A few thousand,” replied Alex who was now beneath one of the statues. Looking straight up, he was immediately dazzled by the sun, but as his eyes moved back to behold the carved face of Ramses, his jaw dropped, as it so often did. “They are flipping enormous. I can’t think of the word that I am looking for, but oh boy, does he have an ego!”
“A well-deserved ego, I would say,” emanated from a figure of an ibis at the base of the statue. “Do be careful, Master Alex, as Ramses has people listening to what you say.”
“Is that you, Thoth?”
“It would be, if I was not with him on the roof of Gadeem’s villa.” The beautifully carved ibis winked at Alex. “A small celebration is underway after your fine victory of yesterday.”
“Won’t you be in trouble when he realises you are not there?”
“I have someone covering for me. Trust me, it is so tedious with Ramses praising Gadeem and Gadeem praising Ramses. With every glass of red wine more praise is lavished. When they are like this I tend to wander off. Then I make it up when I write my notes later. So much more fun that way.” Thoth finished with a chuckle. This ancient god was portrayed with the body of a slim man, though with the neck and head of the ibis bird, along with its distinctive long curved beak. Thoth was the scribe. He wrote down everything that his pharaoh did, so he was always depicted with his quill in his hand. Each pharaoh had his own scribe, and each scribe took the form of Thoth, and this Thoth was the scribe of the mighty Ramses II.
“Who is Gadeem?” asked Kate.
“Oh sorry, of course you have not met him. He is Rose’s husband, and he and Ramses hold mutual appreciation meetings, on an all too regular basis, whilst drinking their beloved red wine.”
“So, they get drunk like Aggie!”
“NEVER, young Madam, oh, most certainly NEVER!”
“So sorry, Thoth, I didn’t mean to offend.”
“It is like this, young Madam, they are both characters. They can drive you up the wall more often than not, but they both have hearts of gold. Though for me their get-togethers are more than a little boring.” Thoth looked sad as he said, “I am never in the conversation as I fail to have that relationship, that friendship, so that is why I wander off. And listen to me, I am saying more than I should. I must go now,” and with that he went. Not that he had really been there in the first place, as they were talking to a side on engraving at the bottom of Ramses’ colossal statue. Both Kate and Alex were pleased to see, as they glanced around, that the temple was virtually without tourists, or they would have felt most embarrassed.
“Well, shall we head on through the first pylon?”
“Why don’t you call it what it is, Alex, the entrance to the temple?”
“Because it is the first pylon, and in ancient Egyptian temples there was a first pylon, followed by a second pylon, and often a third or fourth pylon, but mostly I call them pylons because my father would kill me if he heard me call it an entrance.”
“Fair enough,” said Kate, walking through. It was so hot that even the gaffirs, the Egyptians who looked after the tombs and temples, were sleeping in any available shade. “I forgot to bring a guide book, do you have one?”
“Sorry, it’s so close to our hotel, I didn’t even think to bring my backpack. Oh flip! I didn’t even bring any water, which was silly of me.”
“I didn’t think to bring any water either. It isn’t like planning to go to the West Bank monuments, as five minutes from here we are back in the hotel.”
“If we run!”
“Okay, seven minutes, if you want to be pedantic.”
They walked on into the temple proper, where they came across a slightly larger than life size statue of a seated man and woman. Kate bobbed down to read a small sign which was written in English, though it had seen better days. Turning to Alex, she told him that the statue was of Tutankhamun and his sister, though she could not read her name. Looking straight ahead there were very tall columns on both sides of a central walkway which opened out into a much larger courtyard. Alex muttered without any real conviction that he thought this section of the temple was built during the all too short reign of Tutankhamun. In reality, after the excitement of the last few days, Luxor Temple was proving to be extremely boring.
Kate moved forward, back, left and then right, in the hopes of seeing the temple as it was in ancient times, as it had appeared to her from the Nile just a few days before. Alas, she was shown nothing.
They both stood and watched as a young man walked towards them. His finger stuffed so far up his nose that Alex asked Kate if he could possibly be attempting brain surgery. His parents, a few metres behind, wondered what Kate and Alex were laughing about. The boy was unfazed.
“One day the wind will change and he will stay like that,” said Kate through great guffaws. Alex also lost it, causing them both to take a wobbly step backwards. It was at that precise moment that a metre square block of Aswan granite crashed to the ground. It left its mark exactly where they had been standing. They felt its draft as it caught the step at the bottom of the column beside them, causing it to fly across to their left. It hit the boy’s elbow so hard that his bloodied finger appeared through the top of his nose.
The rock, rather unnaturally, changed course, before coming to a rest far too close to Kate and Alex for comfort. The boy screamed, as the boulder had not only pushed his finger up through the top of his nose, it had also shattered his elbow. Unable to move his arm, his finger shook as though it had electricity going through it, sending droplets of blood in all directions. The boy’s mother stood as if in a trance, the father fainted, and an Egyptian temple was not a good place for anyone to faint. His head hit the stone floor with such a resounding bang that it echoed throughout the columns. He was soon lying in a pool of his own blood. The boy went silent. The look on his face was one of total disbelief, though he was actually going into shock.
Gaffirs, as well as Tourist and Antiquity Police, were arriving from every direction. Initially they did nothing more than stop and stare. This was beyond their training. The boy stood there, saying nothing, finger wagging out of the top of his nose, drops of blood flying, so they chose to ignore him. The mother continued to stand as if in a trance, so they also chose to ignore her. Giving them both a wide berth, two gaffirs moved around so that they could wrap the father’s head wound with an old head scarf. It was a really freaky sight. Afte
r a good minute of silence Kate and Alex broke out into nervous, almost hysterical laughter, before turning and running for the exit. They left the temple at full pelt and were very nearly at The Gardens before they could run no more. Both stopped, bent over, placed their hands on their knees and puffed away, as they tried to recover their breath.
“You were right,” said Alex, still struggling for air, “we could be back at the hotel in less than five minutes, possibly two!”
“What just happened in there?”
“I don’t know, Kate, but what I do know is, that kid saved us. Had he not been picking his nose we would have both been under that rock.”
They leant on a nearby railing. Kate looked behind her. On the opposite side of the road was the Aboudi Bookshop. It was here, last week, that an ancient Egyptian woman had walked through the railings as if they did not exist and into the temple, after taking the David Roberts print from her. A black cat jumped up onto the top of the railing. It nuzzled up to Kate, then nuzzled harder, then pushed her. She was not moving, so the cat sank its teeth in. Then she moved. Alex saw from the small golden scarab hanging around her neck, that it was the ancient goddess Bast, in cat form.
“Be careful, Alex, as that flipping cat just bit me.”
“Don’t worry, it’s Bast. She must be trying to tell us it’s not safe here. We must move.”
“Sorry, Bast, not one of my best days.”
“Let’s go back to the hotel as we will be safe there. I know that you don’t want to, and I certainly don’t want to, but we must let Aggie and my mum know first or you will be grounded.” As he guided Kate over to The Gardens, he looked back to see Bast give him a wink before running off.
Aggie was well away and surrounded by so many expats that the gossip was rolling over itself, as each fought to get their snippet of poison in first. The splatter of blood on the shirts of Kate and Alex stopped the conversation dead in its tracks. All eyes were on them. Babs sat there with her mouth open. It looked as though she was catching flies.
“There was an accident at the temple. We’re okay, Mum, just shaken up. We are going to go back to the hotel.” Alex turned Kate towards the Winter Palace.
“Just a minute, my girl,” they heard Aggie call from behind. Before they could react, they heard an expat, who was arriving in quite a flap, say, “Have you heard what happened at the temple just now?” Kate and Alex walked on. They heard no more from Aggie. What they did hear, however, were many exclamations of “ooh,” “no” and “really,” followed by lots of drunken evil laughter.
Chapter 2
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Ramses and Red Wine
“I tell you, Ramses, every flipping night she,” the she being Rose, Gadeem’s wife, “kisses all the animals good night, with me being last, so I am the one who ends up with the fur ball!” They both laughed, as Gadeem did enjoy his own jokes, but then so did Ramses. This fact, combined with a joint love of red wine, probably accounted for them being such good friends. They spent many happy evenings on the roof of Rose and Gadeem’s small white villa, which stood alone by the Nile, on the outskirts of Luxor.
“What is this about fur balls?” was said softly behind them, with a slight purr. “You do not have any animals, Gadeem, and I know for certain that your lovely wife would never kiss any animal, as she only has eyes for you.”
“If you are going to spoil all my jokes, Bast, you had better leave now.”
“I shall stay, Gadeem, as I shall not spoil any more of your jokes, just as long as you do not tell any more of them.”
“That sounds fair. You may stay.”
“Come and join us, Bast,” called Ramses as he leant back on the cushions of a brick built sofa. He and Gadeem were enjoying a bottle of twelve hundred and ninety BC red wine, wine which had been presented to his father, Seti I, in celebration of his birth. About which Ramses had complained, for a long, long time that he was down to his last three hundred bottles. This was a figure which appeared to be stuck in time, just as much as Ramses himself.
The villa, as that is what they tended to call houses in Egypt, had only two floors, though it had been meticulously planned by Rose some years previously. Situated on a small piece of ground, it had to be built where it was, as this was the site of one of the main watchtowers which had ringed ancient Luxor. A watchtower built by Akhenaton in thirteen forty-five BC, to replace an earlier and much lower tower which Queen Hatshepsut had built close by. Rose had been quite inventive in her design, as she had incorporated an outside washroom, built to the exact dimensions of Queen Hatshepsut’s smaller tower. Brick built seating spanned three sides of the roof. This mimicked the original seating area. Being unmovable, it meant that she could sit there, talking to many ancient people, and it would look as though they were all sitting quite normally, when in fact ancients could only sit on items that had been there in their own time.
Rose chatted to everyone from those ancient times. There were many visitors, from servants to soldiers, but also pharaohs such as Thutmosis III and IV, Amenhotep II and III as well as Queen Hatshepsut herself, all of whom were frequent visitors, sometimes far too frequent for Gadeem’s liking. Rose got on well with them all.
Queen Hatshepsut freaked Gadeem out on the occasions when she sat there wearing the false beard of a male pharaoh whilst ranting in her deep ‘war’ voice. He liked ladies to be ladies, and men to be men, and anything outside of that caused him real panic. His great friendship with Ramses meant that he was the natural choice to oversee placing the seating on the villa’s flat second floor roof. This was built over the site of the newer, taller watchtower. The watchtower built by Akhenaton, which was still in use in Ramses’ time.
In order to blend the washroom in and make it appear part of the villa, outside stairs lead from the ground floor to its seating area. From there more outside stairs lead to the roof. With the villa roof being somewhat larger in area than the top of the ancient watchtower, Gadeem had thought it best to place six metal poles exactly in line with where the ancient wooden supports used to be. He disguised these by adding a canopy which was covered with bamboo. This way Ramses, or any other ancient visitor, would not, or perhaps should not, suffer a fall by stepping outside the bounds of their ancient tower.
What was even better, as far as Ramses and Gadeem were concerned, was that this tower had been built in the time of Akhenaton, the father of Tutankhamun. Any ancient from an earlier time, such as Queen Hatshepsut, was unable to spoil their evenings. She was restricted to the washroom roof.
It was not always peaceful on the villa roof, as sometimes the conversations between Tutankhamun and his generals – Ay and Horemheb – became more than a little heated. They were never all invited on the same day, but some ancients popped in from time to time completely unannounced. Some were genuinely surprised to see who was already there, others arrived because they knew exactly who was there. They were the ones who relished confrontation. Ramses posted guards at ground level whenever he was on the roof, to keep ancients away. It worked in the majority of cases, though it was impossible, even for the guards of the mighty Ramses II, to deny access to any pharaoh.
It being more than a little disconcerting watching someone sit on thin air, so, just as with the washroom, immovable brick sofas had been built to exactly mimic the ancient seating. Everything was slightly out of line with the modern roof, but it worked. It had even fooled current day guests, who had called in unannounced, just as long as they had turned up on a galabeya day rather than on one of Ramses’ ceremonial days. Arriving to see someone wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt along with all the associated paraphernalia of an ancient pharaoh took some explaining.
Ramses enjoyed playing a game with each unannounced visitor where, when he introduced himself, he would conjure up a different name. It started quite simply with everyday Egyptian names, but after a while he became bored, so, in order to have more fun, he once announced himself as Eid Melad Said which though individually were real names, when
put together like this said happy birthday in Arabic.
Ramses took an immediate and total dislike to one loud English woman in particular. She had arrived unannounced, so he introduced himself as Yameen Sift. She flirted with him, rolled her eyes at him, and spoilt a quiet evening that he and Gadeem had been enjoying. Her visit, however, was often referred to by them and has supplied chuckles ever since. In Luxor Arabic ‘Yameen’ meant ‘right’ and ‘Sift’ meant, well, there was no other way of saying it, but it was a four-letter word which rhymed with ‘sit’. At times they giggled like a couple of school kids, wondering just how many people she had told that she had met a Yameen Sift in Luxor, and how many would get the joke.
Bast, being an ancient god, was not constrained to moving or sitting on items of her time. The mere fact that she was a god, meant that everything was of her time. She morphed from the lovely black cat into a beautiful woman who had the deepest rich black skin. Her hair, just as dark as her skin, shone as it fell over her shoulders. The intense gem stone blue of her eyes, around which were the longest eyelashes, was mesmerising. A traditional ancient Egyptian natural linen dress reached from her ankles to a band just below her breasts. These were covered by a large golden scarab with wings extended which had morphed from the small pendant worn around her neck when in cat form. Inlaid with precious gems of every imaginable colour, set in rows, these followed the contours of her body. The scarab looked as though it had been moulded onto her, as there were no straps or fittings of any kind. It could have very easily looked tacky or gaudy, however, it had the impeccable quality and finesse of ancient Egyptian craftsmanship. Bast took a few short steps across the roof before sitting between the ‘boys’, as she often referred to Ramses and Gadeem.
“I am told that you have not been to the Theban tombs recently,” said Ramses to Gadeem.
“No, I have not. Let me tell you why. When I first arrived in Egypt many years ago, I looked at the tombs like a tourist. After visiting them all so many times, I was treated as a professor. Now, when I go to look at a tomb, they worry that I am thinking of moving in!” They both collapsed in fits of laughter, so much so, that Ramses had to put his glass down. There was no way he was going to spill any of his beloved red wine.
Death in Luxor Page 2