Part 17 (1/2)
”Yes!” Daoud shouted. ”They are here, my saviors! The Father of Curses and the Brother of Demons, who lifted me out of the water, and the others, the brave ones who faced death with smiling faces. They are heroes!”
A great cheer broke out. Hiding his smile behind his hand, Emerson muttered, ”What a showman the old fellow is! He picked up his cue as neatly as any actor.”
”I wonder how accurate his story was,” said Ramses, acknowledging the plaudits of the crowd with a wave of his hand. ”Hullo, Selim. Sorry to have interrupted.”
”It was time,” said Selim, frowning. ”My respected uncle is a great liar, but . . . Is it true that the sinking of the boat was deliberate?”
Emerson had dismounted. Politely fending off two admirers-Daoud's sons-who were trying to embrace him, he said, ”It is true. Ramses, will you address the crowd, since Daoud has got them in the proper frame of mind?”
”Yes, sir,” Ramses said. He raised his hand for silence, and the faces turned expectantly toward him. ”My friends! Daoud has told you what happened. It was no accident. We will replace the boat, but we must find out who was guilty of such an evil act. We ask for your help, knowing you will give it as you have always done.” He would have stopped there, but the sight of Daoud's hopeful face made him add, ”Though he was too modest to say so, Daoud is also a hero. Honor him for his courage.”
”Well done, my boy,” Nefret murmured.
She hadn't called him that for a long time. He turned quickly to her, but she had already started to dismount. The rest of them followed suit and one of the men led the horses away, to the shelter his mother had rigged up with poles and pieces of canvas.
”Get the men started, Selim,” Emerson ordered.
”Not yet,” said Selim, looking severely at Emerson. ”This is a bad business, Father of Curses. We must discuss our strategy.”
”I don't have a strategy,” Emerson retorted. ”What the devil, Selim-”
His wife poked him with her parasol. ”Perhaps Selim has one, Emerson. You might at least pay him the courtesy of listening.”
Before Selim could reply, they were joined by Bertie Vandergelt. Ramses hadn't seen him until then, but he had obviously been one of the audience, for his face bore a frown instead of its usual affable smile. Removing his pith helmet, in acknowledgment of the ladies, he exclaimed, ”This is frightful, Professor. You might all have been killed! How can you dismiss the incident so casually?”
”If you or Selim has any practical advice, I would be pleased to hear it,” said Emerson, folding his arms and scowling.
They didn't. Neither did Daoud, though he informed them that his son, the nominal captain of the sunken craft, had gone across to Luxor early that morning to see if the boat could be raised, and to question the other boatmen.
”We have done all we can for the present,” said Emerson firmly. ”If anyone knows anything, Selim will hear of it. Now may I be allowed to carry on with my work? Bertie, I want a plan of the house we finished excavating yesterday. David, get the cameras. Walter, there are several graffiti on the facade to be copied.”
Selim dared to linger for a moment. ”Is it true that Daoud can now swim? He was boasting that David had taught him.”
”He may need a few more lessons,” David said. His amused smile faded. ”Perhaps he'd better have them. You too, Selim.”
”I do not think so,” said Selim, backing away. ”I swim well enough. Now, Father of Curses, I will start the men who are working at the temple.”
Emerson was already striding away. ”Ramses!” he shouted.
The ruins of the structures north of the Ptolemaic temple presented a few nice little problems in excavation. Not a wall had been left standing, and it wasn't easy to determine precisely where the fallen blocks had fit in. Many were missing, carried off by later builders. Fellahin and archaeologists searching for artifacts had dug holes more or less at random, leaving piles of debris and further confusing the stratigraphy. Emerson let out a particularly ripe string of swear words when one of the men found a page from a German newspaper, dated January 4, 1843, two feet below the surface. They made good progress, though, and later that morning Emerson cheered up when they located a piece of column with the cartouche of Seti I. When they stopped for luncheon he surveyed the collection of objects that had been found with visible satisfaction. They included fragments of statues and stelae.
”Nineteenth Dynasty,” he declared. ”Dedicated to Hathor.”
”She does keep turning up, doesn't she?” David murmured.
For once they had divided into groups by age, the parents sitting off to one side and the younger foursome together. Ramses glanced at his friend and clamped his jaws together to prevent a rude response. He was becoming sensitive to references to that particular G.o.ddess.
David went on, with seeming irrelevance, ”Tomorrow is full moon, isn't it?”
”What about it?” Lia asked.
David finished his sandwich and leaned back, supporting himself on his elbows. ”It's been a long time since we had a moonlight ramble. Luxor and Karnak temples are magical under a full moon.”
Lia shook her head. ”The tourists all turn out for that.”
”Then how about Medinet Habu or Deir el Bahri? Or the temple here? I've been thinking of painting it.”
”Fine with me,” Ramses said lazily.
Nefret uncrossed her legs and rose to her knees, fixing David with a hard stare. ”You told him, didn't you?”
”Told me what?” Ramses asked.
”Told him what?” David demanded. Then his face cleared, and he laughed. ”That's right, he wasn't here the other morning when the boy was babbling about people seeing Hathor manifest herself in her temple on the night of the full moon. Come now, Nefret, you don't believe those wild tales, do you?”
”n.o.body told me,” Ramses said. He tried to keep his voice neutral, but apparently he didn't succeed; Nefret's cheeks darkened and she refused to meet his eyes. The other two remained silent, aware of a certain tension in the air. Finally Nefret muttered, ”I'm sorry. It's silly and superst.i.tious of me to see a connection between the wild tales and what happened to you in Cairo. But there haven't been such stories about Deir el Medina before, have there?”
”Not so far as I know,” Ramses said. ”We've all heard of the giant cat who haunts Karnak and turns into a scantily clad female who seduces men and then smothers them. Legends like that are common, so perhaps it isn't surprising that Deir el Medina should acquire one. I don't understand, Nefret. Why didn't you want David to tell me? Did you suppose I'd come here, secretly and alone, to investigate, and . . . And what? Allow myself to be lured away by a feeble-witted female in fancy dress?”
She had tried several times to interrupt him. The last sentence brought her to her feet, flushed and sputtering. ”I . . . You . . . That's outrageous, Ramses. I didn't suppose any of that! Why are you so quick to take offense? I was only trying-”
”Calm down, both of you,” David said placidly. ”You'll have Aunt Amelia over here in a minute, wanting to know what you're yelling about. Maybe you ought to listen to each other instead of firing off accusations. Unless, that is, you are enjoying the argument for its own sake.”
Nefret sat down. ”I'm not enjoying it.”
”Well, there's a switch,” Ramses snapped. ”You're always accusing me of avoiding confrontations. I was only trying-”
A burst of laughter from David stopped him. ”Shake hands,” David suggested, ”and say you're sorry.”
Somewhat sheepishly Ramses took the hand Nefret had offered. ”I'm sorry,” he said. ”Is that how you deal with your obstreperous children, David?”
”It doesn't work with Evvie,” David said.
”She's never sorry,” Lia added.
”I am,” Nefret murmured, bowing her head. ”The truth is I can't explain, even to myself, why I've got so worked up about this.”
”I think I understand,” Lia said. Nefret looked up. Her eyes met those of Lia, who gave her a nod and a confidential smile before continuing. ”The inexplicable is always unsettling. And if either of you gentlemen breathe the words 'feminine intuition' . . .”
”Heaven forbid,” David said in a shocked voice, and with an irrepressible twinkle in his eyes. ”I have a few forebodings of my own. But the situation is inexplicable only because we haven't figured out the motive yet. We will. And I believe it would be a serious error to dismiss the purported epiphanies of Hathor as unrelated. Nefret is right; there've been no such stories before this year. It's worth investigating, at any rate.”
It was agreed that they would limit the expedition to their four selves. David had expressed an interest in painting the temple by moonlight; that would be their ostensible motive.
”Though why the devil we are obliged to have a reason for going off by ourselves I don't know,” Ramses muttered. ”They cling a bit, don't they? Especially-”
”For all you know they may be anxious to be rid of us for a time,” David said with perfect good humor.
After luncheon he and Walter left, David to the Castle and Walter back to the house, to work on his translations. Ramses watched them go with unconcealed envy. They had turned up a lot of inscribed material, most of it fragmentary but all of interest and, so far as he was concerned, at least as important as the b.l.o.o.d.y temple ruins. His father didn't really need him on the dig. After years of being shouted at by Emerson, the men knew the techniques of excavation; many of them, including Selim, could read and write and keep accurate records. With Bertie and Lia and Nefret, and his wife, Emerson had a staff more than adequate for his requirements. Ramses decided he would raise the subject again that evening. He had already discussed with his uncle the prospect of jointly publis.h.i.+ng some of the more interesting texts. Walter wasn't awfully good at standing up to Emerson-neither was he!-but perhaps if the two of them joined forces they could present a convincing case.
After they returned to the house that afternoon he hastily changed, left Nefret with the children, and went looking for his uncle. One of the rooms in the new wing had been fitted up as storage and work s.p.a.ce. Shelves along one wall contained boxes of potsherds, sorted and labeled. Numbers in India ink on the edge or back of each piece referred to the index that had been kept as they were found. A long table served as desk. Ramses found his uncle bent over it, his nose a scant inch away from the surface of the brown, brittle papyrus in front of him, his eyes s.h.i.+fting back and forth from it to the sheet of paper on which he was copying the hieratic signs.