“Well,” started Dashir, aware of his colleagues’ feelings, “who has the most right to destroy? I ask you. Surely of all it is he who first creates.”
They stood in silence exchanging anxious glances. Enet’s whimpering brought them back from their thoughts.
“Quick,” said Dashir. “Meneg and Ugele, take Enet by the shoulders and ankles and carry him out of here. You two bring the mummy. You others bring some scraps of wood.”
He was determined not to carry the mummy himself. It was still greasy with the unguents that had only recently been poured over it. The sickly sweet odour turned his stomach.
Dashir carried the oil lamps outside and gestured to his men to dump the body on some rocks. Using the shards of wood they had brought from the tomb, they built a fire base under it. Dashir touched the oil lamps to the bandaging. The cloth ignited immediately and within seconds the wood was crackling. A strong glow burst beneath the pathetic remains of the king. It lit up the valley sides around them, throwing their wavering shadows grossly long against the rocks.
Now the men’s dilemma was to incinerate the body without producing so bright a fire that the glow could be seen from the far side of the river. As the flames took serious hold and grew higher, Dashir took off his robe and handed one side of it to Meneg. The two brought it down over the fire with the edges to the ground, briefly smothering the flames.
“Up!” shouted Dashir as he saw his robe begin to char, and they drew the cloth away allowing the fire to breathe again.
The fire quickly grew intense once more. They had to repeat their manoeuvre many times. By the time the body was in ashes, three of their party, including Dashir, had lost their robes to the inferno. As the dying embers signalled the final success of their mission Dashir observed an expectant look on the faces of the two who, like he, were now without night clothing.
“Fear not, my friends,” he chuckled, “our queen will compensate us for the loss.”
And so she did. Indeed, when they returned in the early hours of the third morning her plaudits were unconstrained, notwithstanding the absence of the trophy. The men departed relieved and content.
Once the crime had been discovered, Ankhesenamun eagerly took part in the royal visit to the site. She publicly demonstrated her shock at what had transpired to so noble an old man her late departed second husband. And for the benefit of all those around her, including Horemheb, she damned those infidels who had perpetrated this horrific act.
Her final official function as the departing queen was to preside at the coronation celebrations of the new pharaoh. The very thought of Horemheb taking the title that her Tutankhamun had so briefly held enraged her to such an extent that she knew she would be unable to disguise her distaste in public. On the night immediately preceding the ceremonies, at the stroke of midnight, accompanied by Tia and what remained of her faithful palace entourage, she silently stole away towards the lands of the Hittites, her boy king’s effigy safely secreted within her quarters in the barque.
Queen Ankhesenamun as a mortal disappeared from her Egypt forever.
Firmly established on the throne of the Upper and Lower Nile Horemheb’s objective was to rid his country once and for all of the memory of the Aten cult and firmly re-establish the old ways. The act would be well received by his subjects and would doubly reinforce his position as Pharaoh.
He had the great avenue of sphinxes that flanked the processional way to the Temple of Amun in Karnak, which at the time of his coronation alternated with the heads of the heretic and his principal wife, re-sculpted to anonymity with the heads of rams. He ordered the razing of Akhetaten and the removal of all references to Akhenaten, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, Ay and their families from the great temples and obelisks of Thebes and from the king list. He began an ambitious and complex building programme. He ordered the construction of new pylons at Karnak, liberally sculptured in reliefs attesting to his grandeur, and he had the bodies of the pylons ballasted with dismantled stonework from the temples at Akhetaten, the beauty of their sculpture and the vivaciously painted friezes becoming sealed for ever as disembodied fragments within the cores of these massive, processional gateways.
His was to become a long and glorious reign. Although he lived barely long enough to celebrate his first Sed Festival, wealth and stability nevertheless returned to the great land that straddled the beneficent Nile. The people would rejoice in the newfound harmony of their old ways. There would at last be true maat. Horemheb would be worshipped by the faithful. The general was a very happy man.
Chapter Sixteen
Finally
The earl arrived in the middle of winter, 1920. Long before the visit, Carter had been busy in The Valley. He was keen to have the operation looking as practised and as neat as possible for the arrival of his patron, and had hoped to come across a small discovery or two to add some lustre to the forthcoming visit.
Luck was on his side. Shortly before Carnarvon and his daughter arrived in Luxor, Carter’s men came across the remains of some artefacts used in the burial of Ramses IV. These included some tools, a few blue glass plaques, several beads and one or two models of animal parts; not a great deal to write home about, but nevertheless a timely find of some archaeological importance. Practically any find of interest, if not of value, would favourably punctuate the tedium of what otherwise had been fruitless excavation.
When Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn first entered The Valley, it occurred to the earl that it was like walking into the midst of a full-scale mining operation. Their usual first sight of the necropolis proper was obscured by a wall of rubble standing high above them and blocking their way forward. The sheer size of the tip caused them to stand and gaze at it open-mouthed. As they regarded the crude pile, a trolley appeared at the top edge and tipped, cascading its load down the slope, the rubble bouncing down the incline. A few rocks rolled close to their feet.
Carter appeared at the top and signalled to them to go to the left. There they found a prepared gravel ramp which took them gradually up to the level of the railway. At the top, a crowd of chaotic men was industriously moving rocks from the pit ahead of them to the tiny cast-iron rail carts.
As Carnarvon and his daughter reached the perimeter of the cavity where the excavation was presently concentrated, Carter turned to his patron. “Look at where the fellahs are working, sir. Tell me what you see.”
This was an unfair and rather tactless question for Carter the expert to ask his patron. Carnarvon hadn’t a clue what he was supposed to be looking for and Carter knew it, yet the Egyptologist continued unrelenting. “It is difficult for the lay eye, I know. Observe the change in character of the soil. What that means I shall explain... You remember that our purpose here was to remove all recent surface rubbish until we reached undisturbed bedrock deposits that could be recognised to have lain here for millennia? That is what you are looking at now, sir. Look at it closely. See how the texture and colour of it differ from the material above. This is ancient flood debris the very material, at much the same elevation, that covered the uncorrupted tomb of Yuya and Tuya Davis’s triumph.”
The earl thought for a moment. “But that doesn’t mean there is anything beneath probably just bare, virgin rock, surely?”
“Probably,” said Carter. “Possibly. But success is not born of doubt. Success comes from curiosity, observation, recognising the signs, and analysis.” He did not allow Carnarvon another word. “Come, I have a small discovery to show you.”
He took them over to the spot where he had placed the objects recently found close to the entrance of the tomb of Ramses IV.
“What do you say to these, sir?”
Carnarvon’s eyes lit up. The earl was enchanted. Carter’s minor theatrical had had its desired effect. As things were to turn out, it would not be long before the pleasure was repeated.
By midday Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn, and Carter himself for that matter, were quite fed up with watching labourers carry rubble from one place to another.
The earl suggested lunch. As they walked over to the open tomb which had been prepared for them, the reis ran up to them from the pit.
“Mr Carter, sir. A find! Please come.”
They forgot their hunger immediately and walked briskly over to the edge of the excavation. There below, protruding from the wall of the fresh diggings, was the distinct, smooth, convex shape of a large jar. Carter couldn’t believe his good fortune. The find was embedded in the debris level he had been pointing out to the earl just a few moments earlier.
As the two men stood at the edge of the excavation looking down, Lady Evelyn surprised both of them by hoisting up her skirt and scrambling down the slope to where the object lay. Carter was quick to follow after her he didn’t want her to stumble; neither did he want her to disturb the find.
His lordship remained at the top. He was not that firm of foot, in recent years rarely seen without the support of a walking cane, and was not about to risk negotiating the unstable slope.
By the time Carter had reached Lady Evelyn’s side, she was prising the caked silt from around the jar. “Miss Evelyn, please be careful,” he implored. “It could be broken.”
“But look, Howard,” she said. “Look. The handle is in the form of an ibex head. See... the horns.”
Carter stooped to look. She was absolutely right. The smooth calcite surface curved outwards to form the jar’s lip and from the lip extended the twin horns of an ibex, sweeping in a fragile arc to a diminutive head attached at the neck to the body of the vessel. The carving was simple but exquisite and apparently undamaged.
As Carter flashed his expert eyes over the rubble mass that surrounded the pot he noticed, spread widely distant from one another, two other gaps between the stones. Barely visible within the shadows inside these tiny windows were other smooth surfaces unmistakably fashioned by the hand of man.
“There are more, Lady Evelyn,” he said with some excitement. “See... here... and here.”
“Oh, Howard. How exciting! Howard, may I excavate them myself? It would give me so much pleasure.”
A very real step within Carter’s private territory this was asking a lot. The lady had absolutely no technical experience. She could easily damage what she was seeking to recover. Worse still, she was excited, and in the exuberance of the moment might be too intoxicated and impatient to take the care required.
Carter was not a tactfully political man. But over the past few years he had had plenty of time to reflect on which side his bread was buttered and on the manner in which he would contrive to keep this sustenance in good supply. After a thoughtful pause he conceded.
“As your ladyship pleases. I will record the positions and descriptions as you excavate. But take the greatest care, I implore you.”
He drew out his notebook and watched her closely as she removed the dirt with her bare hands. He advised her now and then as to which piece of gravel to remove to ensure the best chance of the jar releasing itself from the soil in one piece. To his great relief she did take care. It took her over half an hour to clear the area, and when she had finished she had before her a pair of soiled hands and no less than thirteen complete jars, all calcite, all beautifully shaped, to varying degrees all damaged, but all complete and readily restorable.
“A true professional!” Carter congratulated Lady Evelyn. “I could not have done better myself. We must now carefully package the pieces. I will want to take some samples of the contents for analysis at Lucas’s labs in Cairo. And, of course, unfortunately we shall have to show the hoard to Lacau. It is he who will decide who gets what.”
He turned and looked up at Carnarvon who was still standing at the edge of the pit.
“Things have changed since you were here last, sir. You remember me telling you so? Changed for the worse, I am afraid. And Pierre Lacau is a part of it. You will find that in the matter of division of discoveries they are not as generous or as equable as they once were. Quite to the contrary. But you will see soon enough when we take this little lot to ‘Le Directeur’.”
The pieces were carefully wrapped in cotton wool and boxed. Each jar had its own separate box. Each was laid on a stretcher and carried back to Carter’s house.
That night, as the three relaxed on the terrace of Carnarvon’s hotel in Luxor, Carter mused at his good fortune and worried about what he might have to do next to maintain his patron’s interest. For now, at least, this lucky event had bought him some time.
His elbows resting on the arms of his wicker chair, he held the gin tumbler in both hands and pressed his chin to the lip. He stared thoughtfully towards the sunset.
“A penny for them, Howard,” piped up Lady Evelyn.
He smiled. “I was reflecting on our fortunes of the day. The find was a good one was it not, Lady Evelyn?”
“Oh, yes. And all the more pleasing to be there at the moment the jars were discovered and so fortunate to take part in their recovery. It was most generous of you to allow me the breach of discipline.” She nodded a knowing glance at Carter.
He took her meaning and smiled. “I must admit, my lady, you had me a little worried for a while. But, as I observed, you have a natural skill a gentle touch So I quickly became relaxed about it.”
“Yes, Howard. She did damn well,” chimed the earl. “But can we better this tomorrow?”
“Well, that’s another thing I was dwelling on, sir,” said Carter. “I should like to be quickly put out of the misery of worrying about how much of the find Monsieur le Directeur might allow your lordship to keep. If it fits in with your wishes, sir, I would like to travel with the pieces to Cairo tomorrow to get it over with. Besides, at the same time we can visit with Mr Lucas at his laboratory to see if he can shed some light on the nature of the jars’ contents. What do you say?”
“Capital idea. Capital. Will y’come with us, m’dear?”
“If you don’t mind, Father, I should like to stay here and rest a little. Today’s excitement has quite worn me out. I could do with a day’s relaxation. Do you mind?”
“Not at all, m’ dear. Do you good, I’m sure. The trip’s not exactly without its hardships. In fact, now I come to dwell on it, I think I could do with a day off m’self. We don’t get much sleep if we’re to rise early enough to get the through train. Do you mind if we put the trip off for a day, Howard? I believe the reality of fatigue is being suppressed by all this excitement.”
“Agreed, sir. I could usefully use the time back at the house. I have notes to catch up on. In any case, I shall have to telegraph Lacau to ensure we have an appointment.”
As Carter sailed back to the west bank later that evening he felt relieved he had fended off another few days of oversight by the earl. He didn’t know why, but at the present time he didn’t feel all that lucky, notwithstanding their successes earlier in the day.
On their day of rest Carter studied the inscriptions on the cache of jars. They turned out to be attributed to Pharaoh Merneptah. The location of this particular Pharaoh’s tomb was situated at one of the points of Carter’s triangle of investigation. Their discovery, therefore, led him no nearer to Tutankhamen. So far as his ultimate quarry was concerned, he felt more depressed than elated by the find. And he could hardly bear the thought of being watched by his patron for the remainder of a what he now felt assuredly would turn out to be a barren season. A few more days of diversion would be welcomed.
Carnarvon and Carter were at the station long before sunrise. The trip took all day. The train ride began uncomfortably enough, but later, in the heat of the day, it would become almost unbearable. As the carriages rattled and rocked over the well used rails, the thickly warm draught would provide little comfort. Nevertheless, some breeze was better than no breeze at all.
Carnarvon’s doctor travelled with them in case of emergency, plus the earl’s man who laboured on board carrying a large picnic hamper. Carnarvon would never take the food and drink served on the train. Abdel and a colleague sat in the baggage car with the earl’s and Carter�
�s belongings and the antiquities.
Following a wash and brush up and a change of clothes, they were soon to be found seated comfortably on the sunset lit veranda at the Continental Savoy. Their personal, red-fezzed waiter stood at attention at the door, broad shouldered cut lead crystal tumblers of iced gin and tonic reclined securely in their hands, and cucumber sandwiches lay fanned out on crested porcelain centred within a silver tray. This cocktail of impressions went a long way to settling them peacefully back into the cosseted environment in which the earl had grown up and Carter had grown to enjoy. Tomorrow they would have to brave the streets on their way to Lucas’s lab and thereafter to the Director’s office, but for now they could relax and forget the noise and chaotic carryon that existed just outside the hotel perimeter.
The following morning the team of two with their Arab carriers arrived at the lab with samples of the jars’ contents. Lucas rushed down the corridor to meet them, his unbuttoned white lab coat flapping all about him. “Howard!” he shouted. “Overjoyed to see you, old boy!”
“Me, too,” answered Carter, turning to the earl. “May I introduce his lordship, the Earl of Carnarvon. Doctor Alfred Lucas, sir.”
“Sir, a great pleasure.”
“All mine, Doctor Lucas. I have heard much good said about you. A detective a sleuth no less so I am told.”
He even looks it, thought Carnarvon. He was a slight man, with oiled and combed back black hair cropped extremely short on the sides, dark black eyebrows and a small moustache. The hair, although thin, had not gone from the top of his head but it had receded sufficiently to expose a lofty forehead which extended down to a large nose, on which rested a pair of wire spectacles. ‘Quite the country Detective Inspector’, thought the earl.
“You are too kind, sir. I...”
Carter cut in. “Don’t be modest, Alfred. His lordship knows I only tell the truth about other men. Besides, you can prove yourself. Look here. We have something innocuous to test your analytical skills.”
Tutankhamun Uncovered Page 40