Scroll of Saqqara

by Pauline Gedge

  “I know that his eyes do not slide away from mine when he compliments me,” she said, “or when he tells me exactly what I am thinking and fearing. I am so safe with him, Hori, so at peace. I can be myself and he understands.”

  O Amun, Hori thought. It is much worse than I imagined. “I am happy for you, Sheritra,” he said gently. “Please keep sharing it with me. I do love you very much.”

  She kissed him swiftly, in a gush of unfamiliar perfume. “I share everything with you anyway,” she said. “Dear Hori! What do you think of Harmin’s mother? Father seems quite taken with her.”

  Hod sat up and clasped his knees. His muscles were beginning to stiffen with the day’s violent exercise and he massaged his calves absently. “I had forgotten that you were with him when he first saw her,” he mused. “She is beautiful, of course, in an odd way …”

  Sheritra glanced at him keenly. “So she has caught your interest too, has she?” she said. “I like her, for she treats me as an equal, not a shy fool. But if I were you or Father …” She hesitated.

  “What?”

  “She is that rare kind of woman who can inspire obsession in a man, but there is something else about her, some mystery, a thing not quite nice. If I were you or Father I would be on my guard.” She spoke simply and seriously, and Hori stared at her. I do not know about Father, he thought miserably, but for me it is already too late. I want to be with her, watch her. He got off the couch.

  “I suppose I had better have myself cleaned up before dinner,” he said. “Don’t react to any comments on your appearance tonight, Sheritra. Behave as though such dress is quite usual. Mother’s approval will be insulting. Father will notice but say nothing. Unless, of course, you want to explain your feelings to them both. I suggest you wait a while for that. I will see you at dinner.” He left the cosy, warm room and made his way to his own quarters. As well as being sore and tired, he was suddenly, unaccountably, depressed.

  That night he lay on his couch, headrest in place to ease his protesting spine, and watched the flickering of the night lamp cast mobile shadows on his blue-painted, star-spangled ceiling. He relived his time with Tbubui, bringing to mind her brown body, her slow smiles, with a mental and physical unrest that disturbed and puzzled him. There is nothing of the coquette in Tbubui, he thought uneasily, yet she exudes a flaunting sexuality in everything she says and does.

  His mind veered to what she had said about the tomb. She is right, he decided, glad to push the afternoon behind a saner matter for deliberation. Father has lost interest in the project. The least he could have done was admit as much to me and allow me to continue with it on my own. Tomorrow I will order the destruction of the wall. I am very eager to see what is beyond, and perhaps Father will find his enthusiasm rekindled if I find something of note.

  He saw his father briefly in the morning and, feeling slightly guilty, he almost blurted out his plans. But Khaemwaset seemed withdrawn, and in the end Hori ordered out his litter and was carried to Saqqara without sharing the confidence. Guilt continued to trouble him as he sat cross-logged behind the sheltering curtains, but he remembered Tbubui’s words and managed to suppress it. The day was one of relentless heat and blinding light, Tibi careening towards Makhir, and he thought with longing of the cool dimness of the tomb.

  The Overseer of Works came to meet him as he alighted before the tent that now had a settled, mildly dishevelled air of permanence. Hori paused to drink the water held out to him before walking with the man to the chipped steps leading down. At the foot, the artists and workmen clustered, talking idly and waiting for the orders of the day. They bowed as Hori descended and he returned their reverence with an absent smile. “Let us get out of the sun,” he said.

  Inside, the tomb was much as he had first seen it; indeed, with the floor continually swept it looked fresher. Hori drew in a deep breath of the now sweet, damp air, and his spirits rose. This had become his second home. It was he who had laboured here in a fruitful peace, establishing respect among the workmen, commanding a fleck of paint here, a fragment of new stone there, to make this resting place fitting for its inhabitants once again. His father’s reluctance to share the sheets of papyrus placed on his desk every day had disappointed Hori, but as he slowly surveyed the painted walls, the uneven floor and shrouded grave goods, he acknowledged Khaemwaset’s other responsibilities and tried to be mollified.

  Signalling to the expectant Overseer and the Chief Artist, he walked through into the coffin room. “That wall,” he indicated. “Have the scenes and inscriptions now been copied fully?”

  “Yes, Highness,” the Chief Artist replied promptly. “The work was completed three days ago. Indeed, the task of copying the whole tomb will be finished in another three days.”

  “Thank you. Overseer, is it possible to remove a section of the wall by cutting out small blocks and then replacing them later? How much damage to the painting would there be?”

  The man hitched at his thick kilt. “If you are mistaken, Highness, and there is no room beyond, and the wall is solid rock covered in plaster, we cannot pierce it, of course. We would bore a series of holes, insert wet wooden wedges and split the rock as closely as possible to the nearness of blocks. But the stone will crack where the seams are weak. I cannot guarantee neatness.”

  “Even if there is a room beyond, and the wall is nothing but wood and plaster,” the Chief Artist interposed, “the fine paintings will be destroyed. Certainly, Highness, in that case, it could be taken apart neatly, but the plaster will inevitably flake, taking the scenes with it in tiny pieces.”

  “Could they be reproduced from the copies already made?” Hori asked.

  The man nodded unwillingly. “Yes they could, and in the most authentic way, but Highness, they would not be the originals no matter how cleverly done. Who knows what prayers and spells were lovingly chanted over this great work?”

  Who indeed, Hori thought. But there is nothing loving about the atmosphere of this place, no matter how at home I feel in it. The prayers and spells are more likely to have been curses and evil incantations. What should I do? His servants fell silent and stood quietly waiting while he stared at the floor, brow furrowed. He was tempted to ask himself what Khaemwaset would do, but his father had always been too supernaturally involved with this particular unveiling and besides, had he not abrogated his right to make the decisions here? Much as I love him, Hori thought, I have been the beast of burden in this case and I deserve the reward of the responsibility for this decision. Eventually his head came up.

  “Bore one hole,” he said to the Overseer. “There, where the sky converges with the palm tree. If the wall is rock, the hole will not be too difficult to fill and paint over again. If not …” He turned on his heel. “Bring me word when it is done.”

  He thought his Chief Artist might protest but the man said nothing, and Hori made his way out into the sunshine. It smote him like a blow, and with it came a vivid memory of Tbubui wrapped in the gossamer folds of the linen cloak, the hot breeze stirring her black hair as yesterday she lifted the wine cup to her mouth and smiled at him over its rim.

  Hori trudged through the sand to his tent and flung himself into the chair under the awning’s shade. Eyes narrowed against the glare, he squinted into the nothingness of rolling sand and a hectic blue sky and wondered how he might suggest to his father that an older woman of minor noble blood from a backwater like Koptos would make a suitable Chief Wife for one of Egypt’s foremost princes.

  In about an hour the Overseer was bowing before him, blinking owlishly through the fine grey powder clinging to his face. “The hole is bored Highness,” he said in answer to Hori’s sharp query. “Part of it is through wood. I must surmise that we are dealing with a hidden door that has been plastered over.”

  Hori rose. “Take your men and sound it carefully. We do not want to tear out more than is necessary. When you have measured and marked, use fine saws. Open the door for me.” He repressed the urge to run into the tomb
, to see the telltale hole for himself, and besides, his men, skilled and well trained, would do the work as efficiently without him. The Overseer bowed shortly and Hori called for food. He wished Antef were here, but Antef had requested a few days to visit his family in the Delta. Hori missed him. What if Father decides to visit the site today? Hori thought suddenly with a stab of anxiety. What shall I tell him? Guilt over the tomb mingled with guilt over his feelings for Tbubui, but he mentally shrugged, thanked the man who was setting a meal before him, and began to eat.

  He went inside the tent after his lunch, lay on the camp cot and slept. His steward woke him two hours later as he had requested, and once more he sat under the awning, slaking his thirst with beer while a servant gently washed from him the sweat of his dreams. Out on the plain, a desert dog was panting in the thin shadow of a small, half-buried rock, and in the fiery bronze afternoon sky a hawk wheeled lazily, its cry echoing spasmodically through the stultifying air. We must break through today, Hori thought anxiously. What is taking them so long? He watched the cool droplets of water on his bare thighs evaporate.

  In another hour the Overseer was once more toiling to him through the burning sand. Something about his gait warned Hori, and he came to his feet, his heart pounding. The man bowed clumsily. Hori beckoned him in under the shade.

  “Well?” he prompted urgently.

  The man was breathing hard. “There is a room beyond,” he blurted. “Very dark, Highness, and smelling very bad. Water began to trickle over the lintel into the coffin chamber long before my men had completed the cutting of the door. They are very uneasy. As soon as their duty was done they left.”

  “Left?” Hori repeated. “They ran away?”

  The Overseer stiffened. “The servants of the illustrious Khaemwaset do not run away,” he replied. “They were so apprehensive, Highness, that I told them to go home and return tomorrow morning.”

  Hori said nothing. The Overseers of every department of works were competent leaders who knew their underlings, and interfering with their methods of control was always foolish. “Very well,” Hori said after a while. “Are torches lit? I will take a look.”

  The Overseer hesitated. “Highness, it might be wise to summon a priest,” he said. “Someone to burn incense and petition the gods to protect you and the inhabitants of the tomb, to …” He faltered.

  “To what?” Hori asked, interested.

  “To forgive you.”

  “Do not be pompous,” Hori retorted. “It does not suit a man streaked in sweat and dirt and looking like a woman whose face is caked in meal of alabaster and natron for the good of her skin.” Seeing his servant’s acute embarrassment he relented. “Do not fear,” he said. “Father and you and I have been doing this work together for many years. And am I not a sem-priest of mighty Ptah myself? Come. I want to see this mystery.”

  The air in the tomb had changed again. Hori smelled it as soon as he left the cramped entrance passage and emerged into the first chamber. The rank odour of old, stagnant water pervaded his nostrils and he fancied that he could feel it, slimy against his skin. The Overseer shuddered. Hori moved quickly to the coffin room where two torchbearers were huddled together, their backs against a wall. They were nervously facing a black, jagged aperture, low and narrow, at whose raised foot the light reflected slickly. Small streams of other darkness were trickling over this lintel and spreading out haphazardly toward the coffin plinths. The odour now was disgusting, yet it tantalized Hori with a memory as swiftly there as gone. He had of course smelled rotten water before, though never in circumstances like this. Now his mind blended it with something else, something wonderful, then snatched it away. Hori picked his way to the hole, gestured impatiently for a torch and, when it was placed in his hand, peered forward with arm outstretched.

  The room was very small and appeared to be unfinished. The walls were plain rock into which man-sized but empty niches had been crudely hacked, probably for shawabtis that were never installed, Hori surmised. Ribbons of wet mildew snaked everywhere. The floor was a sheet of black rank water that only dully gave back the flaring torchlight and lapped with a slow easy menace against Hori’s feet. In the centre, islanded by that shallow, mysterious sea, were two lidless coffins. Hori drew in his breath. Craning, holding the torch as far out as he could, he tried to divine the contents but was shown only leaping shadows. With a grunt he ducked his head and stepped gingerly into the water. The Overseer gave a low exclamation behind him, which he ignored. The movement stirred the dark expanse and it circled out from him and kissed the farther wall with a soft sucking sound. Hori’s flesh crawled.

  Slowly he waded towards the coffins The water deepened but not much. He felt it just over his ankles and he cringed from the slippery texture of the long-submerged rocky floor beneath him. Nevertheless he kept going, almost unconsciously reciting a litany to Ptah under his breath, and in a moment he was peering into the coffins. They were nothing more than great troughs of roughly hollowed stone, and both were empty. Looking carefully into their pitted depths Hori decided that they had once been occupied. There were traces of blackened embalming salts mingled with body fluids that over time always discoloured the stone.

  Carefully, deliberately, he quartered the chamber, his feet questing. Not for anything in the world would he have placed his hands down into that murk. But his toes did not stub against the things he sought. “There are no lids,” he said aloud, his voice falling flat and muffled.

  Then he gave a startled shout. The torch had shown him a small arch let into the base of the right-hand wall, just big enough for a man to crawl into. Leaning down he inserted his free hand. He felt cold, dry, sandy rock canting upwards at a gradual rate. Everything in him shrank from what he knew he must do. Damn you, Antef, he thought, annoyed. Why did you have to go away just now? You would have been fearless here. You would have helped me. “Overseer!” he called. “Come here!”

  There was a moment of whispering. Hori did not turn round. He waited, feeling all at once alone and very vulnerable, the sheer aloofness of the place sending prickles along his spine. I wish I had summoned the courage to tell Father after all, he thought. I wish he were here, standing beside me taking charge with the aura of authority and security that reassures us all, servant and family alike. Nothing terrible ever happens around him.

  After a while he heard the Overseer splash into the water and then felt a touch on his shoulder. The man was trembling but obedient. “What do you think of this?” Hori demanded. The man examined the aperture, then straightened.

  “It looks like a crawlspace of some kind,” he replied. “It is not a natural fissure in the rock.”

  “I did not think so either,” Hori agreed. “Hold the torch down, as low as you can. I am going to see where it leads.”

  He did not wait for objections. Thrusting the flame at the Overseer he lay on his stomach, arms and head in the hole. His kilt quickly soaked up the foetid water and his muscles contracted with cold revulsion. Grimly he pushed himself forward. His shoulders caught. He wriggled them free. “The air is cleaner in here!” he called, “and I am sure I feel it stirring from somewhere above.” If the Overseer replied, Hori did not hear him. Ahead was thick blackness. He squirmed on, up a gently rising grade, keeping his head low, his elbows and knees soon grazed on the gritty rock. Panic threatened to immobilize him but he repressed it forcibly, thinking of the men who waited behind him, bravely controlling their own fears.

  It seemed to Hori that he crawled on for an age, that surely the sun must have set by now, that he had only the illusion of movement and he was really making motions that were taking him nowhere. But suddenly the top of his head met something hard and sharp and he recoiled with an oath, turned on his side, and explored with his fingers. The way was blocked by a large stone, but even as he worked at it, it shifted. Bracing himself against the walls of the crude tunnel he pushed. The rock quivered. With all his might, Hori heaved, feeling that his strength was diminished because of the t
otal darkness, knowing it was not true. The rock ground, squealed a mild protest, then all at once gave, letting in a great shaft of blinding light. Hori recoiled. His eyes gushed tears. Blinking, he forced himself forward and in another few minutes his head was free and he was gazing painfully out upon a slope that ambled to a palm grove. The city danced in the haze beyond it. An angle of beige stone obscured his vision to the right, and pulling his hands loose he grasped it and heaved himself free

  As he did so his knee scraped over something lying just within the lip of darkness he had left, and he cried out in shock, jackknifing to find what it was. His fingers scrabbled inside the tunnel and withdrew a single earring now glistening dark red with the blood that was pouring from his knee. Wiping the jewellery on his kilt, his face still contorted with pain, he examined it.

  A large piece of mottled blue green turquoise shaped like a teardrop was set within a heavy lacery of purple gold. It was dull and encrusted with sand, but Hori knew it was very ancient. Turquoise like this was no longer worn and had become very expensive. He knew that Egyptian artisans now had the secret of the production of purple gold. The goldsmiths of the kingdom of Mitanni, long since absorbed into other empires, had made it and traded it to Egyptian nobility for centuries until the Egyptians themselves had learned to fire it. Modern purple gold was a more even blend that gave the precious substance a mere purple sheen. The thing Hori was turning over in his filthy hand had the distinct purple tracery of an ancient Mitanni craftsman.

  Excitedly he gripped it and began to hobble down the slope. He knew where he was. The tunnel had ended in a discreet angle of part of the outer wall, now derelict, that had once surrounded the magnificent complex of Pharaoh Unas’s pyramid and funerary buildings. To any idle eye the rock blocking it would have looked no more than a small untidiness.

  As he limped under the hot sun, Hori was conscious of a deep disappointment. No wonder the seals on the main entrance had been intact. The rock at the exit had been far too loose. Thieves must have found it and worked their way into the tomb through the tunnel. Anything of value in the newly opened chamber would of course now be gone, and the miscreants had dropped the earring as they hurriedly escaped.