Those large, boyish eyes, just as he had known them, stared serenely back into his. He remembered the night in the rain. He remembered the boy. And he thought on his good fortune.
But he was dallying again. He must leave this place. Swallowing hard, he reflected momentarily on his narrow escape just a few hours earlier and broke his solitary communion.
All who were above ground continued to engross themselves in the flowing bodies of the dancing girls. Except for the queen, none of them thought on the time Meneg was taking within the tomb. Ankhesenamun was anxious to complete the closure and be gone. She signalled to a lesser priest.
“The old master carpenter remains within,” she said. “Bring him out at once. I wish to seal my husband’s tomb.”
Reluctantly, the priest turned away from the dancers and stumbled down the steps into the tomb. He slowed as he reached the bottom of the stairway, spying Meneg standing almost in the portal. He bent down so he could see the man’s head. The wood carver was motionless, looking directly ahead, his hands at his side.
The priest leaned forward and touched Meneg lightly on the shoulder. The wood carver jumped and then turned. There were tears in his eyes.
“My best work,” he whimpered. “My very best.”
“Come, artisan. It is time.”
The two scurried back up the steps. Meneg ran over to his artisan colleagues who were standing behind the musicians. He accepted the first jar of beer he was offered.
The priest returned to the queen’s side. “The sepulchre is complete and no one abides within, your Majesty. We may begin the sealing at your Grace’s pleasure.” He turned his eyes back to the dancers.
Ankhesenamun slowly rose from her seat. The movement was a sign to all the closing was at hand. The music died. The dancing stopped. The palace guard came to attention. The priests resumed a saintly posture. Horemheb took his lecherous eyes off the girls. Ay awoke.
The royal group assembled at the top of the steps and looked down into the darkness below. The oil lamps had been removed. There was nothing to see but impenetrable blackness. The bricklayers were already at work at the bottom of the corridor. Within an hour they had completed bricking up the doorway to the antechamber and were busying themselves with plastering the outer surface with a gypsum mud. The priests advanced down the stairs and with much lilting incantation stamped the wet plaster with their seals.
The door completely covered with impressions, a troop of the most trusted royal guard filed down the steps in twos until they reached the bottom of the passageway, filling it completely. The last two stood at the threshold to the stairway. This guard of honour would ensure the security of the tomb until the door had dried hard enough to take the weight of gravel that ultimately would fill the corridor.
This protective armament in place and the first glimmers of dawn once more gilding the peaks surrounding them, the royal entourage began the long walk back along the valley track to the canal and the waiting royal barques sleep and expectation for Ankhesenamun, expectation and sleep for Horemheb, sleep and pray no dreams for Ay. The musicians and dancers followed. The guards remained.
Later on that second day the guards filed back up the stairway to make way for the leader of the work gang. Under the guards’ watchful gaze he descended the steps and tested the plaster on the walled up door for hardness. All was well. He ran back up the stairs and summoned his labourers to start collecting gravel. A line was soon formed on the steps and in the corridor. From one to another each man passed a basket of rubble down into the depths until the corridor was filled. It was midday before enough gravel and tomb chippings had been thrown into the cavity to bring the filling level with the bottom of the stairway.
The bricklayers were summoned from their uncomfortable slumbers on the rough valley track. Fresh mud had been brought from the flooded areas near the river and the workers set about plastering their brickwork, tossing baskets of gravel into the corridor as this last wall rose. Two very tired priests stumbled down the stairway to the newly plastered door to complete their final duty stamping impressions of the regal and royal necropolis seals into the wet mud.
After the priests had left, the militia reassembled in the stairway and stood guard in the growing heat of the day. By the time the order to fill the stairway finally came, the sun had moved over to the west. The tomb stairway quietly simmered in the irradiating shade of the surrounding cliffs.
The soldiers threw the scraps of refuse that still remained after the night’s feasting to the bottom of the steps and filled the cavity with gravel. Having restored the surface of the ground to its original profile, they shouldered their hoes and marched in double file to the boats awaiting them at the head of the canal. Behind, they left a group of fresh sentries standing at attention on the flank of the valley. But for a shapeless stain of slightly darker sand, all evidence of the tomb entrance had been erased. Beneath their feet and to their left a monarch in the eternal cycle of slumber and reincarnation lay amidst a treasure trove beyond all comprehension.
At least one of them had to wonder...
Chapter Twelve
Conscription
It was 1914, and the war to end all wars was about to start. Theodore Davis was no longer young and was in ill health. He had given all his energy, most of the latter years of his life and a sizeable chunk of his fortune to exhausting the secrets which remained within The Valley. He had explored every inch of it. He had even found the paltry pit tomb of the boy king, ‘Touatankhamanou’, as he called him or so he believed. There was nothing left. Too tired to continue and with so little prospect of future discovery, he announced to the press and his colleagues at the Met that his life’s work was finished. He declared The Valley empty, relinquished his concession and left Egypt forever. He died a year later, peacefully complacent in his vindication.
Another distinguished career ended that year. But before Gaston Maspero closed his records at the Antiquities Service for the last time and handed over to his French successor, he had one happy, final duty.
He had felt immense personal satisfaction in bringing the wealthy aristocrat and the tenacious archaeologist together that day in the market. Since then the union had not exactly been without fruit, but, although Carter had worked tirelessly at all the sites they had excavated, until now he and his sponsor had been prevented from entering The Valley the very target of Carter’s ambitions. Now at last Maspero would have the pleasing task of opening up this opportunity to them.
Carnarvon and Carter arrived at Maspero’s office on the dot of ten. The director welcomed them warmly, an unmistakably broad smile beneath that stained, tufty moustache. All three were beaming. The normally staid Carter could hardly contain himself and stuffed his hands hard into his pockets to keep himself from fidgeting. Carnarvon was outwardly more relaxed, expressing the controlled appearance that is the legacy of a lifetime of traditional behaviours. But, much as a child, inside he bubbled with anticipation.
They each took a seat across the desk from Maspero. The director passed them the handwritten contract that would permit Carnarvon the exclusive right to excavate in The Valley of the Tombs of the Kings for the next ten years. Carnarvon signed in the appointed space and handed the contract back to Maspero. The business was done.
“This calls for some celebration, does it not, gentlemen?”
The director withdrew three small glasses from his desk drawer, the familiar bottle following quickly from beneath the desk. He filled each glass in turn.
“To your success, gentlemen,” Maspero toasted, and each raised his glass.
“To a well-earned, happy and comfortable retirement, sir,” responded Carnarvon. “You will be sorely missed, Monsieur le Directeur,” added Carter with feeling. He meant it.
At that particular moment, however, he could have no idea how very much he would miss the old man. The entire environment to which the three of them had become so accustomed over the years was about to change dramatically, and irrevocably. The wa
r to end all wars would be only the start.
The lights burned late at ‘Castle Carter’ that night. Carter and Carnarvon, with the enthusiasm of two children playing with a new toy, absorbed themselves in the development of a plan of attack. They sat opposite each other poring over a large sketch map.
Carnarvon looked Carter in the eyes, reached out with his right hand and grasped his arm.
“Howard,” he began, “our expectations are high, I know, but there are many unknowns. Each holds significant risks of failure. The Valley may indeed be empty. Davis could have been right ... Maspero is soon to leave us. The new director may not share such a generous demeanour. We must work to enjoy his affection ... There are signs, too, that England soon will be at war. It may escalate into world conflict. It may touch this secluded world of ours in some way. It may destroy it.”
Carter shook the earl’s grip loose. His response was clinical.
“Sir, many ‘maybes’. And you may be right. But these things will transpire one way or the other. We personally have no control over them. So why give them a second thought? Let us concentrate on the target we have set ourselves and let the fate of the world take its course. If fate wishes to intervene in our endeavours we can face up to it at the time and review our options accordingly. But if we allow ourselves to become preoccupied with thoughts of ‘maybe’ we may execute our task with less conviction and, in the end, achieve nothing. God forbid!”
To emphasise this final delivery, he leaned forward and stared directly back at Carnarvon.
“The Valley is not empty, sir. Believe me. Davis’s methods were crude, unsystematic, and perfunctory. The tombs of many kings have yet to be discovered amongst them perhaps one or more may remain undefiled. The odds are long, I admit, but I am convinced we shall make many discoveries perhaps some of them great perhaps the likes of Davis’s Yuya and Tuya tomb. But to have any chance of success we must be systematic.” He stabbed the map in front of them with his forefinger as if to physically underscore his last word. “Systematic, sir. Systematic.”
“Oh, Howard. We have so much to look forward to. I hope I can contain my patience.”
“That is a virtue we shall both need to cultivate, m’lord. There are three Ps in ‘approach’: patience, practice and polish! You have the polish, I have the practice, and together we must generate the patience!”
They both chuckled.
Carter dragged his chair around the table to sit adjacent to his patron. “Sir,” he began, “I must confess to you now that not only do I expect that we shall find at least one of the several kings yet unaccounted for but that I have one particular Pharaoh in mind, ‘Tutankhamen’.” He penned the name on the map in front of them. “The boy king.”
Carnarvon was captivated. “I thought Davis had reported he had found the tomb. Anyway, why he, Howard? From my readings, of all remaining kings he was of little significance in the history of Egypt. A stopgap, if you like, between the heretic Akhenaten and the new order of... er... ‘Harmhabi’... I believe Maspero called him.”
“Horemheb, sir, is the pronunciation I prefer to use. I might have thought the same myself, m’lord, had it not been for some recent clues.”
Carter’s obvious seriousness held the earl’s attention. He leaned closer to his colleague.
“Consider this,” Carter continued, “Davis. Bless his spatted feet. Quite by accident he finds a small alabaster cup under a rock. The cup has the cartouche of Tutankhamen inscribed into it. He found it about here...”
Carter picked up a pencil and drew a small ‘X’ on the map.
“...Much later he discovers what he believes to be Tutankhamen’s ‘tomb’. But this is nothing more than a small, shallow pit. Perhaps the abandoned beginnings of a pit tomb in which, among other things, he finds fragments of gold foil bearing the names of Tutankhamen and Ankhesenamen, his queen...”
He drew a second ‘X’.
“...About six or seven years ago, on the flank of the valley not far from the tomb of Ramses Ten, he finds what any experienced archaeologist would ascribe to ‘foundation deposits’ the buried remains of funerary rubbish. He found that stuff about here.”
Another ‘X’ appears on the map.
“You do not find this kind of material evidence if the very tomb itself is not somewhere close by. It just doesn’t happen.
“Now, consider this... Why hasn’t the tomb been discovered? Could it be so well hidden that even robbers could not locate it? Nearly all the tombs in The Valley of the Kings have been totally rifled in antiquity even the cliff tomb of Hatshepsut, well hidden and dangerous to reach. Am I not correct in my assertion?”
“Yes. Yes. But not that of Yuya and Tuya.” Carnarvon’s observation was directly in line with where Carter had been leading.
“Right!” Carter slammed his fist down. “Right. And why Yuya and Tuya, do y’ think, sir?”
Carnarvon shrugged his shoulders. He couldn’t think. He was too excited, eager to hear what Carter had to say next.
“I’ll tell you,” conceded Carter after a pause. “Plenty of scattered evidence but no tomb. That of Yuya and Tuya was discovered in the very bottom of the valley, the area most vulnerable to the catastrophic floods that occur here infrequently, yes, but they occur all the same and to devastating effect often leaving mountains of debris, burying all in their path.”
He paused once more.
“Now... Tutankhamen died young that much we know... So young, perhaps, that no tomb had been constructed for him. And there was no time to construct one from scratch, like that of Smenkhkare also found by Davis who died after only three years as regent. Now, what if the tomb of this king was built originally for a noble... like the tomb of Yuya and Tuya? In the bottom of The Valley... not like the kings, high up and potentially protected from the ravages of flooding, but in the bottom... And what if... What if there was a tremendous storm shortly after burial that wiped out all evidence of the tomb’s location before robbers had the opportunity to enter... Like Yuya and Tuya?”
“Perhaps too many ‘What ifs’, Howard. But, I confess, a plausible scenario all the same.” The earl grinned. “Damned exciting thought, if nothing else!”
“Now consider this, m’ lord,” Carter pushed on, answering his own questions. “Where is the greatest accumulation of excavators’ tailings? And here I am not referring exclusively to modern excavators. Consider also those in antiquity those who built the tombs. Where did the stones brought up from within the rock get dumped?”
The earl remained silent.
“I’ll tell you at the lowest point... in the valley bottom. And how long has it been since the bedrock of the valley bottom has seen the light of day?... Centuries, my lord... Nay millennia!”
Truly, as Carter had just described, were it not for the profusion of geometric apertures in the valley flanks and the whitened, worn tourist paths snaking all about the valley bottom and its sides, The Valley might have resembled a worked out open pit gold mine. The spoils of excavation were piled high in mountainous heaps all about the valley floor. They littered the entire place, tons and tons of the refuse of contemporary and earlier excavators, of tomb masons’ chippings and reworked natural flood debris.
“It is a captivating logic, Howard. But where do we start?”
“A methodical search, m’Lord, beginning here and ending here.” Carter planted his finger on the map. “A systematic clearing to bedrock of the area between these three tombs.”
He took his pencil and drew a triangle in the heart of The Valley. The lines joined the mouths of the tombs of Merenptah, situated at the head of a tributary valley to the west, Ramses II, in the central valley to the east and Ramses VI, also in the centre of the valley but to the south.
For what Carter had in mind he knew he would have to have a considerable fortune at his personal disposal. The Earl of Carnarvon had the necessary substance and, for now at least, given Carter’s enthusiastic story, an eager enthusiasm and strength of purpose, perhaps
also the patience to see it through.
With Carter’s plan and his conviction firmly in place, the two attacked their first season in The Valley with considerable energy. Although his patron departed early, Carter toiled for a full seven months with hundreds of men removing tons of material. But the effort turned up absolutely nothing of value.
And then the Great War started.
A firm hammering at the front door disturbed Carter in the middle of his breakfast.
Abdel came in and announced, “It is a soldier, sir, of the British Army.”
Carter swallowed his mouthful of toast and marmalade. “I will see him, Abdel. Bring another chair.”
A ruddy faced sergeant appeared, cap in hand. He drew himself to attention and saluted. “Mr Carter, sir?”
“Yes. Please be seated. And who am I addressing?”
“H’Adamson, sir. Sarn’t Adamson h’at your service, sir. I ’as been sent up ’ere from H’Aich Queue to request your h’attendance at a h’interview wiv Major Dorking, sir. Prefer if I stands, h’if you don’t mind, sir.”
“Indeed. What did you say your name was?”
“H’Adamson, sir. H’Adamson. H’AyDeeH’AyH’EmH’EssH’oH’En, H’Adamson, sir. Easy to remember, sir. I is assigned to assistance duties h’at Aich Queue. Kinda h’oddjob man. H’assist whereva needed, sir. When you needs me just call ‘H’Adamson’ and I comes h’at the double, sir.”
“Well I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Sergeant Adamson. As you can see I am in the middle of breakfast. Will you not join me for a cup of tea?” Carter was much amused at the man but resisted the temptation to grin.
“Don’t mind h’if I do, sir. Fair works h’up a thirst riding a donkey for h’any length of time, don’t it?”
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