The Golden One Read online

  We went on foot, over the rocky ridges and across the stony expanse of the desert plain, Ramses slowing his long strides to match mine. The cemetery was on the north side of the village, not far from the mosque. It was all desert here, all baked earth and stony ground; neither tree nor flowering plant softened the starkness of the lonely graves. The tombs themselves were underground, their location indicated by low rectangular monuments of stone or brick, with upright stones at head and foot. The grave of a saint or sheikh of eminence might be marked by a simple structure crowned with a small cupola. There were only a few of such monuments in this humble cemetery; Abdullah’s was conspicuous not only by the freshness of the stones that had been used in its construction but by the somewhat unusual design. It was the conventional four-sided building, but there was a subtle grace in its proportions, and the dome seemed to float, light as a bubble.

  The sun was about to set. The rosy light warmed the white limestone of the walls, and from a mosque in a neighboring village came the first musical notes of the evening call to prayer.

  “It will be dark shortly.” Ramses spoke for the first time since we had left the house. “We mustn’t stay long.”

  “No. I only want -”

  I broke off with a catch of breath. It was somewhat uncanny to see any movement in that deserted place, and this figure, emerging from the dimness under the cupola, was human. We were still some distance away; I could not make out details, only the long galabeeyah and white turban, before it scuttled into concealment behind the walls of the mosque.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Did you bring a torch?”

  “Certainly. I have all my accoutrements. Shall we follow him?”

  “That wasn’t Jamil. I don’t see any point in chasing after the fellow. Let’s just make certain he hasn’t done any damage.”

  The disturbance of the sandy dust was the only sign that anyone other than we had come there. “There are a number of footprints,” Ramses muttered, shining the torch around. “Overlapping. That’s odd.”

  “Perhaps members of the family have come to pay their respects, or to pray,” I suggested.

  “Perhaps. Are you ready to go?”

  I had intended to say a few words – think them, rather – but he was obviously uneasy, and really, what more was there to say when I had just had a long conversation with Abdullah? I acquiesced and let Ramses take my arm, since the dusk had thickened.

  “I like the design,” Ramses said as, with the aid of the torch, we picked a path around the standing monuments. “I hope Abdullah is pleased with it.”

  “Oh, yes. He was only annoyed because he had to ask. He implied that I ought to have thought of it myself.”

  “Ah,” said Ramses noncommittally.

  On the Thursday we were in the midst of our preparations for departure – complicated these days by Sennia and the Great Cat of Re – when a messenger arrived. Jumana had left for Deir el Medina, Ramses was explaining to the cat that he would prefer it did not accompany him, I was dealing with the customary delaying tactics from Sennia, and Emerson was stamping up and down demanding that we hurry. He took the note from Fatima.

  “Well, what do you think of this?” he inquired. “Yusuf wants to see us.”

  “Us?” I echoed. “Who? Sennia, get your books together and go.”

  “You and me. He says it’s urgent. I wonder who wrote it for him?”

  Ramses finished his conversation with the cat and put it down. “A public letter writer, perhaps. Shall Nefret and I come?”

  Emerson stroked the cleft in his chin. “No, he said for us to come alone. Run along, we’ll join you shortly.”

  “Unless something interesting develops,” I amended.

  “Something about Jamil, perhaps,” Nefret said. “Do you suppose Yusuf knows where he’s been hiding?”

  “Let us hope so. It would be a relief to have that business over and done with. I ought to have made more of an effort to question Yusuf,” I admitted.

  “Don’t be unkind to the poor old fellow,” Nefret said. “He must have been suffering horribly, torn between his love for his son and his loyalty to you.”

  “It could be another trick,” said Ramses. “Remember your warning, Father, not to go after the boy alone, even if he is wearing -”

  “I won’t be alone,” Emerson said. “Your mother will be with me.”

  Ramses’s heavy dark eyebrows tilted. “Don’t forget your parasol, Mother.”

  “Certainly not. However, I expect Yusuf only wants sympathy and some medicine. It is the least I can do, and I ought to have done it before this.”

  I put together a little parcel for Yusuf, some of his favorite tobacco and a freshly baked assortment of Fatima ’s honey cakes, of which he was fond. I also took my medical kit. The others had gone by the time I had collected everything I needed. Emerson and I were soon on our way; but as we turned the horses onto the path that led by the tombs on the lower part of the hill of Sheikh Abd el Gurneh, I saw something that made me bring my little mare to a rude halt.

  “Emerson! Look there!”

  Where she had come from I could not tell – one of the tombs, perhaps – but the outlines of that trim figure were unmistakable. Only a few women in Luxor wore boots and divided skirts and only one other woman wore a belt jangling with objects.

  Emerson, who had also stopped, let out an oath. “After her!” he exclaimed.

  “Not so fast, my dear. We must follow at a distance and ascertain where she is going – and why. She has been in the village; if Yusuf admitted his intention of turning Jamil in, she may be on her way to warn him.”

  “Damnation,” said Emerson. “How could she… Well, we will soon find out.”

  He had dismounted as he spoke. Hailing one of the villagers, he said, “Give me your galabeeyah.”

  “But, Father of Curses,” the fellow began.

  “Hand it over, I say.” Emerson dispensed baksheesh with so lavish a hand that he was instantly obeyed. The jingle of coins attracted several other men. One of them was willing to part with his outer garment too. (I had selected the shortest and cleanest of them.)

  Jumana was almost out of sight by then, trotting along with the agility I knew so well, but the delay had been necessary; she would have spotted us instantly if we had been in our usual clothing and on horseback. We got into our impromptu disguises, left the horses with one of the men, and hastened after the girl.

  “She’s heading back toward our house,” Emerson said, looking uneasy. “Perhaps we are wrong, Peabody. She may have been paying a duty call on her father.”

  “Don’t be such a sentimentalist, Emerson. She admitted she hadn’t spoken to him for months – and why would she not tell us of her intentions, if they were innocent? She has deliberately deceived me, the treacherous little creature.”

  The truth of this soon became apparent. Shoulders hunched and bent, as if to make herself less conspicuous, Jumana cut off onto a rough track that wound around houses and hills toward the western cliffs south of Deir el Bahri. Once or twice she glanced over her shoulder. She must have seen us, but evidently our clumsy disguises were good enough to deceive, for she went on without pausing, scrambling nimbly up the rising slope at the base of the cliffs. I could see the temple, below and to our right, as we climbed; the colonnades and tumbled stones shone in the morning light.

  Quickly as the girl moved, Emerson kept up without difficulty, his breathing even, his stride slower than his usual pace. Since my lower limbs were not much longer than Jumana’s, I had to trot.

  “Where the devil is she going?” I panted. “Curse the girl -”

  “Save your breath,” Emerson advised, offering me his hand. “By Gad, Peabody, you don’t suppose… That’s where she’s headed, though.”

  With the help of his strong arm I found the going easier, and was able to look about. I knew the place well. The previous year we had removed the golden statue of the god Amon-Re from its hidden
shrine at the back of a shallow bay. Jamil was the original discoverer of that place. Could he have selected it as his hiding place? The shaft that led down to a small chamber cut out of the rock was only eight feet deep and it was unlikely that anyone would go there; the Gurnawis knew we had cleared the place of everything it contained.

  Jumana stopped, her back to us, in the mouth of the little bay. Her head turned from side to side. Emerson pulled me down behind a heap of detritus. We dared not risk going closer; we were only twenty feet from Jumana, and there was no one else in sight.

  She called out. “Jamil, are you there?” Her voice cracked with nervousness.

  I heard nothing. She called again, “I am coming.”

  “We’ve got him now,” Emerson whispered. “Let’s go.”

  When I got to my feet, Jumana was no longer in sight. Emerson ran toward the opening of the bay. I ran after him.

  The declivity was shallow and the morning sun shone directly into it. At its far end the shaft we had cleared gaped open, a black square against the rock. There was no sign of Jumana.

  “Where is she?” I demanded.

  “Never mind her. He can’t have got out, there wasn’t time.” Kneeling on the rubble-strewn ground, Emerson took out his torch and shone it down into the shaft.

  It was as empty as we had left it, and that in itself was confirmation of our theory. Sand and pebbles would have partially filled it unless someone had kept it clear. In the light of the torch I saw additional confirmation: a rough but sturdy wooden ladder.

  Before I could stop him, Emerson, disdaining the ladder, had lowered himself by his hands and dropped, landing with a thump of booted feet. Jamil must have heard that, even if he had not heard the sound of our approach.

  “Damnation, Emerson,” I exclaimed. “Wait for me!”

  He had already proceeded into the short passage that led to the chamber. The roof was low; he would have to bend over, which would put his head at a particularly convenient level – convenient for a blow, that is – when he emerged. I dropped my parasol into the shaft and descended the ladder. Snatching up the parasol, I proceeded quickly into the passageway.

  There was light at the end of it, but I could hear nothing, which did not lessen my anxiety; already Emerson might be unconscious and bleeding. I removed my little gun from my pocket.

  It was plucked from my hand the moment I reached the end of the passage.

  “I knew you’d be waving that damned pistol,” Emerson remarked, helping me to rise. “He’s not here, Peabody. He’s been here, though.”

  He shone his torch round the small chamber. A pile of rugs, forming a rough pallet, tins of food, jars of water, and… I lifted the saucer that covered one of them. Beer. He had made himself comfortable.

  “He has eluded us again,” I said angrily. “How could she have warned him?”

  “Obviously he was not in residence,” Emerson replied. “That’s all to the good, Peabody; if he wasn’t here he can’t have seen us. He will come back eventually – it’s a cozy little den, isn’t it? We’ll go for the others and stake the place out. Once I get my hands on that girl I will make certain she cannot warn him.” His large square teeth, bared in a snarl, shone white in the torchlight.

  “Let us go,” I said uneasily. “I am not at all comfortable here, Emerson.”

  “One of your famous premonitions?” He chuckled, but perhaps he had one, too, for he added, “I’ll go first.”

  He waited in the shaft while I crawled through the passage.

  The ladder was no longer there.

  Before I could stop him, Emerson reached up and gripped the rim of the shaft with both hands. The muscles on his bare forearms tightened as he prepared to pull himself up.

  “Watch out!” I shrieked, an instant too late. The heavy stick struck Emerson’s arm, causing him to loosen his grip and fall down. I had heard the bone crack.

  A trifle unnerved, I took out my pistol and fired twice. The bullets went ricocheting round the walls. The only response was a laugh. I had heard that laugh before, in the Gabbanat el-Qirud.

  “A waste of ammunition,” remarked Emerson, who was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, cradling his left arm with his right. His face shone with perspiration.

  “Don’t move your arm,” I ordered, fumbling with the implements hanging from my belt. “Confound it! From now on I will carry some bits of wood with me. Why did we clear the place so thoroughly? There is nothing to serve as a splint. I will go and -”

  “Don’t even think of it, Peabody. I might be able to lift you up with one arm, but as soon as your head is within range, he’ll strike. He’s got us in a pretty pickle, my dear.”

  “He cannot stay there all day,” I said, and ducked my head as a rain of small stones descended.

  “He appears to have another plan in mind,” Emerson said coolly. More rocks fell, including a fist-sized boulder. It landed on my head, which was quite painful, since I was not wearing my pith helmet. “We had better get back into the tunnel,” Emerson continued.

  I rigged up a rough sling with my shirt, fastening it in place with safety pins from my sewing kit. It was the best I could do in a hurry. If we stayed where we were, one of us would be brained by a boulder eventually. It took Jamil a little while to get his next load of rocks collected; we made it into the passage before another shower descended.

  “Well!” I said, drawing a deep breath. “Now we have time to think of a plan.”

  “Go right ahead,” said Emerson through tightly set lips. “At the moment my mind is a blank.”

  “And no wonder, my dear. I am sure you are in considerable pain. Have a little brandy.”

  “My discomfort is more mental than physical,” Emerson muttered, but he accepted the brandy and took a long swallow. “ Peabody, this is ridiculous. We’ve been in uglier places before, with opponents far more dangerous than that miserable boy; and yet he’s managed to get us in an exceedingly tight spot. No one knows where we are… except Jumana. Have we been so mistaken in her character? I can’t believe she would connive in murder.”

  “No,” I said. “She wouldn’t.” The strained voice, the odd, bent walk… “That wasn’t Jumana, Emerson. It was Jamil.”

  7

  FROM MANUSCRIPT H

  When the citizens of Deir el Medina abandoned their houses they took their most valued possessions with them – except for the most valuable of all, the goods devoutly deposited with the dead. Looking for tombs was a gamble, with approximately the same odds as any game of chance. The great majority of them were empty and vandalized, but every now and then a lucky winner would find a prize, with some of the grave goods still intact, and the grand prize, the unrobbed tomb of a king or king’s wife, was a will-o’-the-wisp that tantalized the imagination of every excavator, whether he admitted it or not. However slim the odds, the temptation to search for treasure was hard to resist, especially when the alternative was a clutter of unimpressive mud-brick walls, or the tedious tasks of measuring and recording.

  Jumana was supposed to be helping Bertie and Cyrus finish the surveying, but Ramses wasn’t surprised to see her halfway up the hillside, squatting, her head bent, her hands busy. He let out a shout that made Nefret jump and brought Jumana to her feet. She waved vigorously and started down.

  “She shouldn’t be doing that,” he said in exasperation. “Look at her, grinning and cavorting. She knows she is violating orders.”

  “Don’t be too hard on her,” Nefret said tolerantly. “Mother would be up there too. She’s found something.”

  She was holding a small stela. It was not an unusual discovery; a good many of them had been found by earlier excavators, in or near the chapels of the tombs. She offered it to Ramses, raising shining eyes to him.

  “You were told not to remove objects from their place,” Ramses said severely. The way she was looking at him made him nervous.

  “I tagged the place,” Jumana protested. “As you showed me. I made the measurem
ents, I know exactly where it should go on the plan. There is no chapel there, Ramses, it must have fallen from its place and tumbled down the hillside. See – isn’t it pretty?”

  Mollified, and regretting his hard tone, he took the stone from her. The curved top and straight sides, the rows of hieroglyphs that praised the deities worshiped by the male and female figures, were of a standard type, but the deities were somewhat unusual – two plump cats, facing each other across an offering table.

  “I’ve seen other stelae from Deir el Medina that depict cats,” he said. “They were identified with several goddesses, including Amon’s wife Mut.”

  “Not with the Great Cat of Re?” Jumana asked.

  “Not these.” They were rather charming animals, fatter and less aloof than the usual lean Egyptian cat. He indicated the appropriate hieroglyphs. “ ‘Giving praise to the good and peaceful cat.’ Well, maybe they are at that. They aren’t named. But the Great Cat of Re wasn’t peaceful, was he.”

  “They’re delightful,” Nefret said, nodding at Jumana. She got no response; Jumana was watching Ramses, breathless and expectant, waiting for a word of praise from him.

  “They are,” he conceded. “Let’s take it to Bertie. Drawing it will be good practice for him.”

  “I would like to give it to the Little Bird,” Jumana said, as they walked toward the shelter. “Her cat is getting fat, like these, and we could tell her one of them was the Great Cat of Re.”

  “We will have to wait for the Antiquities Department to decide which pieces we may keep,” Ramses said. Feeling he had been a trifle harsh, he added, “It was kind of you to think of it, Jumana.”

  They greeted Bertie and handed over the stela, and Ramses said, “It’s rather a charming piece. Why don’t you try your hand at making a copy, Bertie? Unless you’re busy with something else.”

  “I will do it,” Jumana said. “I can -”

  “Yes, I know you can, but I need you elsewhere.”

  Selim had set the men to work. He hailed Ramses, demanding his opinion of an unusual raised platform in the corner of the house they were excavating, and Ramses lost track of the time. It wasn’t until Cyrus joined them and suggested they stop for luncheon that Ramses realized how late it was.