The Golden One Read online

  “Quite a philosopher, isn’t he?” Emerson remarked in English. He dropped a few more coins into the leathery brown palm and turned away.

  The interview had taken place on the street, if it could be called that; in contrast to the ancient workmen’s village, with its gridlike plan, the houses of Sheikh el Gurneh had been fitted into whatever space was available – along the slopes of the hill, around the tombs of the nobles of the Empire. Some of the less important, uninscribed tombs were occupied; the forecourt, where offerings had been made to the honored dead, now served the ignominious role of stables for the beasts of the tomb dwellers. In front of many of these tomb-caves stood cylindrical mud-brick structures like giant mushrooms with their edges turned up. They served the double purpose of granaries and sleeping quarters. The hollow on top is safe from scorpions, and there are even egg-cup-shaped projections along the rim to hold water jars – an interesting and unusual adaptation to local conditions, which I mention for the edification of the Reader.

  After he had gone a few feet, Emerson stopped. “Mohammed can’t have got the note directly from Jamil.”

  I might have accused him, as he often accuses me, of jumping to conclusions, but in this case I had to agree. “I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted handsomely. “It does seem unlikely that Jamil would show his face openly in the village or risk betrayal by a man he had threatened.”

  “But he might have come secretly, by night, to a house where at least one person was likely to welcome him,” Emerson said.

  A brief, rather awkward silence followed. Jumana had stuck close by me; she was obviously uncomfortable in the village of her birth. How could she be otherwise, dressed as she was, the object of curious and hostile glances, especially from the older women?

  “Is it my father you mean?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Emerson admitted. “How does he feel about Jamil?”

  “I have not spoken to my father since he told me to leave his house and never come back.”

  There was not much anyone could say to that. Her hard, cold voice told me that even an expression of regret would be unwelcome.

  “I meant to call on Yusuf before this,” I said. “Shall we go round to see him now?”

  Emerson took out his watch, looked at it, groaned, and said, “We are already late.”

  “Supposing you go on, then,” I said. “You and Jumana. Nefret and I will inquire after his health and offer our medical skills. Ramses will go with us. No, Emerson, I really believe that is the best course. You would go thundering into the house and bully the old man until he confessed to anything and everything. My methods of interrogation -”

  “I know what they are like,” said Emerson, eyeing my parasol, which I had been using as a walking stick. “Oh, very well.”

  He stalked off. Jumana shot me a grateful look and trotted after Emerson. The rest of us went on up the hillside toward Yusuf’s house, which was one of the finest in the village, and as we wended a tortuous path round granaries, walls, and rubbish heaps, I could not help thinking what an admirable place this would be for hide-and-go-seek – or for a fugitive who knew every turn of the path and every concealed tomb entrance.

  Our arrival was not unheralded; we were trailed by a number of the curious, some of whom ran on ahead to announce we were coming, so that when we reached the courtyard in front of the house the entire household was waiting to greet us. Most of them were women and children; the men, skilled workers like the majority of Abdullah’s kinsmen, had been employed by us or by Cyrus.

  Courtesy demanded that we accept refreshments, and it was necessary to go through the formal rituals of greeting before I could get round to my inquiries. When I asked after Yusuf, there was no reply at first. Then Yusuf’s chief wife, Mahira – a wrinkled little old lady who looked as if a strong wind would blow her over, but whom I had seen carrying loads that would have strained my back – replied, “He is at the mosque, Sitt Hakim. He will be sorry to have missed you.”

  “It is not the hour for prayer,” said Ramses.

  “He is always at prayer” was the reply. “At the mosque, here, or elsewhere. Will you have more tea, Sitt?”

  I made our excuses and we took our departure.

  “I thought you were going to question them about Jamil,” Nefret said, as we made our way down the hill.

  “It is unlikely that they know any more than we do,” I replied. “Jamil’s mother is long dead, and I fancy that the mothers of Yusuf’s other sons were secretly delighted at seeing the old man’s favorite fall from grace. He wouldn’t ask any of them for help.”

  “I wonder what Yusuf is praying for,” Nefret mused.

  “One could hazard a guess,” Ramses said dryly. “We may be on the wrong track here, Mother. Has it struck you that neither Jamil nor Yusuf can read or write?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure about Yusuf. Jamil gave no evidence of literacy when he was working for us. But,” Ramses admitted, “he might have had limited skills, which he was embarrassed to display because they were limited, or acquired them since.”

  He cupped his hands and helped me into my saddle.

  “Ah well,” I said, “we have done all we can for the moment, and speculation can get us no further. Perhaps this latest incident has finally convinced Jamil to leave Luxor.”

  The more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Jamil was capable of cold-blooded murder. The attack on Nefret had not been deliberate; he had responded in sheer panic, like a cornered animal. As for the body in the tomb, there was no evidence that Jamil had been responsible, nor did we know precisely how the man had died. He might have been struck on the head or pushed over a precipice, or fallen by accident. (Though that last possibility was, in my opinion, the least likely.)

  The most worrisome part of the business was Jamil’s claim that he had found another tomb – not because I believed he had, but because I feared Emerson did believe it. Jamil was a braggart and a liar, and I could think of several reasons why he might have wished to mislead us and his sister. In my opinion it would be the better part of wisdom to ignore his capering about the cliffs of the western wadis. He might be stupid enough to suppose he could frighten us off, but it was more likely that he was trying to entice us to follow him. But if he’d got in the habit of pushing people off cliffs…

  As soon as we reached Deir el Medina I took Emerson aside and explained my conclusions. He listened in frowning silence, and when I went on to inform him of our failure to speak with Yusuf, he cut me off with a wave of his hand. “I didn’t suppose you would learn anything from him anyhow, Peabody. The devil with him and Jamil.”

  By the end of the week we had surveyed the site and laid it out in regular grids. Emerson had of course decided to re-excavate the area our predecessor had examined, and the wisdom of his decision soon became evident. We found a number of interesting objects, including a basket of papyri. They were in wretched condition, but Ramses’s eyes lit up at the sight of them, and for several evenings he worked late in the little laboratory he had set up at the house, carefully repairing and restoring them.

  Sennia had been out with us twice, and had enjoyed herself a great deal running from one person to another and “helping” them. Gargery took to his bed as soon as we returned from these excursions. I pointed out to him that there was no need for him to follow so close on her heels; the site was enclosed, dozens of people were there, and I had strictly forbidden her to climb the hills on either side.

  He shook his head. “You know how she is, madam, she can disappear in a twinkling when she wants, and she is all over the place, here one minute and there the next. What if that young villain Jamil lured her away, or she fell into one of those holes the men are digging?”

  I thought it much more likely that Gargery would fall in, but he could not be dissuaded. His self-appointed duties were complicated even more by his suspicion of Jumana; he considered us hopelessly naive for believing in her reformation, and tried t
o keep an eye on her as well as on Sennia. The days Sennia spent with us were extremely lively, what with one thing and another. Horus was one of the things. We could not leave him at the house, since he bullied the maids and went raging about, breaking bric-a-brac and furniture. His determination to follow Sennia wherever she went led to several unpleasant scenes between him and Gargery.

  The other cat was far less trouble. It had made a remarkable recovery, and once we had got it cleaned up it turned out to be quite a pretty creature, with an interesting pattern of black spots and a ringed tail; but it didn’t want to stay at the house either. It trotted after Ramses, shrieking pitifully when he tried to leave for the dig, and it managed to escape from any confinement we arranged. Ramses would not allow it to be caged, and closed doors and shutters proved no impediment. I could not imagine how it got out, but Sennia felt certain she knew. “It is the Great Cat of Re,” she announced. “It has magical powers.”

  Ramses’s eyebrows tilted up in silent skepticism as he looked at the miniature creature sitting on his knee, and Sennia elaborated. “I know it is not very large just now, but it will grow.”

  Nefret had planned to name the creature Osiris, since it had virtually come back from the dead, but from then on it was the Great Cat of Re, and soon learned to answer to its name. Emerson, who is fond of cats and whose sense of humor is somewhat childish, found it very amusing to bellow out those sonorous syllables and have his summons promptly answered by a very small, very fuzzy kitten. At first Horus was fascinated by the creature. Seized by what appeared to be a misplaced maternal instinct, he would wash it till it squealed and carry it around in his mouth. He became bored with this eventually. Such is often the case, even with human parents.

  Toward the end of the week Emerson proposed that we stop work early and go to Medinet Habu to see how Cyrus was getting on. We took the cat with us, since it would not be left behind. It was still small enough to fit into one of Ramses’s pockets, and I must say it looked very peculiar with its paws hooked over the flap and its small head peering interestedly out at the world. Our cats had a considerable reputation in Egypt, being regarded as possessing supernatural powers. I suspected this one would prove to be no exception.

  During the Pyramid Age, the temples serving the dead monarch’s funerary cult were built close by the monuments. When the pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty decided to hide their tombs in the depths of the western mountains, the temples had to be located elsewhere. At one time a long row of them ran along the edge of the cultivation. Most were now in a sad state of ruination, but Medinet Habu, the temple of Ramses III (not to be confused with Ramses II), was still well preserved, and full of interest. The fortified towers through which one entered the area were decorated in the conventional style, with reliefs of the king smiting various enemies; but the interior contained some charming scenes of his majesty dallying with ladies of the court. (Let me hasten to add that there were no vulgarities depicted.) The first great pylon stood almost intact, its walls and the walls of the courts and colonnades covered with reliefs and inscriptions. The place had been a residence as well as a religious edifice; a tumble of mud-brick walls indicated the site of what had once been a palace. In addition to the monuments of Ramses III, there were two other structures, one of which, begun in the early Eighteenth Dynasty, had been added on to by successive rulers clear down to the Roman period. Another, smaller, complex belonged to the God’s Wives of Amon, who had held almost royal status in Thebes during the late dynasties. It was this area Cyrus was excavating.

  We passed through the towers of the gateway into the great open court. Emerson’s keen gaze swept the surroundings, from the smaller temple on our right, past the great pylons of Ramses III, and on to the left, where the chapels of the God’s Wives stood. His handsome countenance proclaimed his emotion: greed, pure and simple. If Emerson has a particular Egyptological passion, it is for temples, as mine is for pyramids, and he had wanted for years to tackle Medinet Habu. However, as he had admitted to me only this past year, it would be the work of a lifetime. He said it again as he stared wistfully about – a man trying to convince himself of something he knows is true and does not want to believe.

  “We haven’t a large-enough staff,” I said, as I had said before. “And there is no hope of hiring skilled persons at the present time. Many of our younger colleagues are in the army.”

  “Damned war,” Emerson muttered. “But with Lia and David, and Walter and Evelyn -”

  “Yes, my dear, that would be very nice, and I hope with all my heart that one day they will join us. Until then we must make the best of what fate has to offer, and accept the good with gratitude and the bad with fortitude.”

  “Good Gad,” said Emerson, and went stamping off toward the rope-enclosed area where Cyrus’s men were working.

  Cyrus hailed us with pleasure and offered tea, which Emerson refused, without consulting anyone else. “I want to have a look round first, Vandergelt.”

  “You wasted your time coming here if you expected I’d have anything new to show you,” Cyrus said grumpily, but he led the way toward the small building. On the lintel of the doorway were several rows of hieroglyphs, which Ramses scanned with an expert eye. The cat, which had climbed up onto his shoulder, leaned forward and stared as intently as he. I caught myself on the verge of asking it for a translation.

  “What does it say?” I inquired, addressing Ramses.

  “It’s an invocation to visitors, asking them to pray for the Adorer of the God Amenirdis and her successor, who built the chapel for her. ‘O you living ones who are on earth… if you love your children and would leave to them your positions, your hopes, your lakes, and your canals… please say… ’ The usual prayer, asking for bread and beer and every good thing for the lady’s spirit.”

  “How sweet!” I exclaimed.

  Ramses gave me an amused look. “Not really. The lady asks very nicely, but the inscription ends with what can only be described as a threat. If a visitor doesn’t speak the proper words, he and his wife will be afflicted with illness.”

  The open forecourt, with columns on either side, led to an enclosed sanctuary. On the right of this building, which was both tomb and mortuary temple, were three smaller chapels, dedicated to a queen and two more of the God’s Wives. I had always been intrigued by these ladies, for their status was unusual. Kings’ daughters all, they were not kings’ wives, but wives of the god Amon, who had apparently lost the ability to procreate as he had done in the Eighteenth Dynasty, when he visited the queen in the shape of her husband and fathered the royal heir. These God’s Wives, who also held the title of Adorer of the God, did not bear children but adopted their successors. There were practical political reasons for this policy; the Late Period was a time of turmoil, with the throne of Egypt passing from pharaoh to usurper to conqueror and back; many of these men, residing in the north, sent royal daughters to Thebes to succeed the reigning God’s Wife, achieving thereby continuity and a certain legitimacy.

  The position was one of high honor, the occupant surrounded by luxury and prestige; but I had often wondered about the women themselves. Doomed to lifelong celibacy, forbidden the joys of motherhood, they had not even the pleasures of power to compensate, for it is more than likely – men being what they are – that the ladies were mere figureheads, controlled by the king and the powerful nobles of Thebes.

  However, I would be the last to deny that celibacy has its advantages, when the alternative is a state marriage to a man unloving and unloved. As for the joys of motherhood… I glanced at Ramses, who was wandering about reading the inscriptions. We were using torches, since the inner chamber was enclosed and unlighted. Shadows outlined his well-cut features and the little half smile that betokened his total absorption. Yes, it had been worth it, though there had been times when I had serious doubts. However, not all children turned out as well as he had done.

  We inspected the other chapels, which were not so well preserved. In the floor of on
e an irregular hole gaped, where the stone flooring blocks had been taken up.

  “Not a durned thing down there,” Cyrus complained.

  Emerson glared at him. “Curse it, Vandergelt, I told you the burial chambers were empty. You had better replace the flooring before some damned fool tourist falls in.”

  “I thought maybe there might be another burial,” Cyrus said defensively. “There are four chapels and five God’s Wives.”

  “More than five,” Ramses said. He proceeded to reel off the names. They had an exotic, almost poetic cadence. “Karomama, Tashakheper, Shepenwepet, Amenirdis, Nitocris, Ankhnesneferibre.”

  “So where are the rest of ’em?” Cyrus demanded. “And the coffins and mummies of the ones who were buried here?”

  “Jumana asked me that once,” Ramses said. “She had a romantic notion that they might have been hidden away to protect them from tomb robbers.”

  “Nonsense,” grunted Emerson.

  “We know where two of the sarcophagi are, or were,” I explained. “At Deir el Medina, in tomb shafts high on the hillside. They were dragged there by individuals who meant to usurp them for their own burials. One had actually been reinscribed with the name and titles of – er -”

  “Pamontu,” Ramses said. “A priest of the Ptolemaic or early Roman period, approximately five hundred years after the last God’s Wife died and was buried.”

  “Just what I was about to say, Ramses.”

  “I beg your pardon, Mother.”

  “It seems likely, therefore,” I continued, acknowledging his apology with a nod, “that by the first century a.d. the original burial chambers here at Medinet Habu were empty except for the sarcophagi. They were too heavy and of no value to ordinary -”

  “Yes, yes, Peabody,” said Emerson. “Vandergelt, you’re as bad as Jumana. There is some excuse for her, but you ought to know better. The brickwork west of here may be the remains of a fifth chapel.”

  “Abu and Bertie are working there now,” Cyrus said, with a vague gesture toward the west. “So far, no luck. I’m getting tired of this, Emerson.”