Children of the Storm (44 page)

“Yes, it was very nice.” My expectant silence evoked additional comment. “I didn’t realize he was so popular. A number of people stopped to talk to him. A friend of yours—Mrs. Fisher, I believe—sent her best wishes.”

“After extracting an introduction to you, I expect. Newcomers to Luxor are always of interest. Did she remember having met you some years ago, when you were here with your husband?”

“Did I meet her? I don’t recall. It was a long time ago, and I have changed a great deal since then.”

The door to the house opened and Emerson peered out. “What are you doing out here? It is time for . . . Oh. Er. Hullo, Maryam. Did you have a nice evening?”

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

“What about that scoundrel François?” Emerson inquired. “Did you see him?”

“Yes, sir, I did. Mrs. Fitzroyce called him to the saloon after I told her about the stone-throwing. He . . . I . . .”

“Don’t stutter, child,” Emerson said kindly. “He denied it, I suppose.”

“No, sir, he didn’t.” She raised her eyes to his face. “He said terrible things, about Ramses and you. He hates you.”

“Not to worry,” said Emerson cheerfully. “If he shows his face round here I will deal with him.”

“He won’t. She spoke to him very sternly—threatened him with dismissal if he did anything like that again. That is the worst punishment he could receive, to be separated from Justin.”

“Nevertheless, we will watch out for him,” I declared.

“It won’t be for long,” Maryam said. “They are leaving for Cairo in a few days. Justin has been unwell.”

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EMERSON HAD HOPED TO FIND an excuse to fight with François, but the next two days passed without a sign of him, or of any other trouble. The treasure was packed and ready to go, except for the items I had decided to leave, so I soothed Emerson by returning his staff to him and allowing him to get on with his excavations. The discovery of several nice votive statues and stelae which had been overlooked by earlier diggers enabled him to ascribe one group of broken-down foundations to an Eighteenth Dynasty shrine, and Bertie finished his plan of the Amenhotep I temple. While digging out the cellar of a house in the village Ramses came across another collection of ostraca. He translated one of the most interesting for us over luncheon one day.

“It falls into the category of what might be called Letters to the Dead,” he explained. “This appears to be written by a widower to his deceased wife. ‘To the excellent equipped spirit Baketamon: What have I done to you that you have caused evil to come to me? I took you as wife, I did not put you away, I brought many good things to you, and when you sickened I caused the chief physician to come to you; I wrapped you in fine linen and gave you a good burial, and since that time I have not known another woman, though it is right that a man like myself should do so. Yet you torment me and bring evil upon me!’ “

“Does he say what sort of evil?” Nefret inquired, her arms clasped round her raised knees.

“No. Presumably he had a streak of bad luck.”

“And blamed it on her,” Lia said with a little laugh. “Don’t say it, Aunt Amelia.”

“ ‘Just like a man,’ you mean? Persons of both genders and all cultures fall into that error,” I admitted generously. “It is comforting to ascribe misfortune to demonic influence, since one may hope to avert it by magical means instead of being forced to accept it as inevitable.”

“Or as one’s own fault,” Lia said. “It does seem to me that he wouldn’t have picked on her—poor dead woman—unless he knew he had done something to deserve her anger. Not that he would admit it.”

“He couldn’t,” Ramses said, placing the fragment carefully in a padded tray. “He says he’s going to file a complaint against her in the Tribunal of the Gods. This is a formal appeal—a legal document, in a sense.”

“Like taking the Fifth Amendment in American law,” Bertie said with a grin. “One wouldn’t expect him to testify against himself.”

Emerson, who had listened with only half an ear, ordered everyone back to work.

Sifting rubbish does not require one’s full attention if one is as experienced as I. The Reader will no doubt anticipate the tenor of my wandering thoughts. Less perceptive individuals might have been reassured by the relative peace of those days, without a single incident that could be viewed as hostile. To me, it was highly suspicious—the calm before the storm, the lull before the battle. Something was brewing, I felt it in my very bones. But though I had gone over and over the facts we knew, the pattern yet eluded me.

Having been left one evening with no one to talk to, I went to my own little study. The weary workers had dispersed, Walter and Evelyn to the Castle and the others to their rooms, and Emerson to his own office. My desk was piled high with work in progress, including my own excavation notes, but I was diverted by three sheets of paper covered with Ramses’s emphatic scrawl. It was the translation of part of Walter’s horoscope papyrus he had promised me; I hadn’t had a chance to look at it before.

It began with that memorable entry concerning “the children of the storm.” Memorable and seemingly significant, but as I glanced through the remainder of the pages I found nothing of interest. “It is the day of Horus fighting with Set” was followed by “It is the day of peace between Horus and Set.” Not surprisingly, the first was designated as “very unfavorable,” and the second as “very favorable.” Neither could reasonably be said to have any bearing on our situation.

After all, what had I expected? Deciphering Ramses’s handwriting always gave me a headache. I put the pages aside. Under them was one of my lists—the names of the women with whom Ramses had been involved. Guiltily, I wondered if he had seen it. He had. At the bottom of the page was another entry in that same emphatic scrawl. “Shame on you, Mother.”

I began idly sketching on a blank sheet of paper. I do not draw well, but I had learned the rudiments, as all archaeologists must, and I had found this mechanical operation to be conducive to thought. When the hands are busy the mind is free to wander at will. Never before had I been at such a loss to find a solution to a criminal case.

I drew a rather nice little jar and added a few elements of decoration—lotus blooms, a hieroglyphic bird or two, a winged scarab. They reminded me of the jewelry with which we had bedecked ourselves. Vanity is a sin, but I had enjoyed it as much as the others! I tried, without great success, to sketch the horned ram of Amon which had rested with such heavy import on my breast. It was one of the simpler ornaments, despite the complexity of the beautifully sculpted animal; much Egyptian jewelry is made up of many different elements, like the pectoral that had been stolen, with its central scarab and row of lotus blossoms below and the two flanking cobras. I drew them and added nice little white crowns to their heads; and as my pencil moved randomly across the paper, my mind moved as randomly, mentally fingering the disparate elements of the pattern we had attempted to establish, arranging them and rearranging them. Had not Abdullah assured me the pattern was there? I was inclined to believe I had really heard his voice that day, for it was like Abdullah to throw out a tantalizing, equivocal statement instead of giving me a direct answer. “You are at the beginning . . .”

My fingers clenched so tightly on the pencil that the point broke off. “That too is part of the pattern,” he had said once before, when we talked of his elevation to the role of sheikh. And his tomb was the beginning . . . I stared at the uncompleted sketch of the pectoral, and I knew there was one pattern we had not considered—and one avenue of information we had not explored.

Inspired and revived, I sprang to my feet and hastened out of the house.

My peremptory knocking went unanswered for some time, but I persevered. Not until Ramses himself opened the door did I realize how late was the hour.

“Oh dear,” I said. “Did I wake you?”

“I wasn’t asleep.” He tied the belt of his robe and ran his hand over his tumbled curls. “What’s wrong? Come in and tell me.”

“No, no. I am sorry to have disturbed you. I have only a single question.”

When I asked it, his drowsy eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped. “I don’t remember. Why on earth—”

“You had heard the name of the place, though?”

“I may have done. Father might know. Have you asked him?”

“I prefer not to mention the subject to your father. Try to remember. I could telegraph Thomas Russell, but time is of the essence.”

He shook his head. “It’s been several years, and I don’t understand why—”

“Ah well, perhaps it will come to you in the night, when your mind is on something else,” I said helpfully. “That is how memory works. Do not hesitate to come to me immediately, whatever the hour.”

He was wide awake now, but he had learned not to persist in questions I had no intention of answering. His lips curved in an expression that might have betokened amusement, though I rather doubted it.

“I wouldn’t want to wake you, Mother. Or disturb you when your mind is on something else.”

“Don’t worry about that, my dear. I am a light sleeper.”

“If you say so. Come, I’ll walk you back to the house,” Ramses said, stifling a yawn.

“No, thank you, my dear. You ought not go out of doors barefoot, and by the time you found your shoes you might wake Nefret.”

“She’s awake. Am I to take it that you don’t want me to mention the subject to her either? See here, Mother—”

“Until later, then,” I said, and got away before he could object.

Most of the lanterns along the path had burned out. The area seemed much darker now than it had when, sped by the wings of discovery, I had traversed it earlier. Something larger than a mouse or a shrew rustled in the shrubbery. I knew it was probably one of the cats, but I am not ashamed to confess that I moved as fast as I dared.

It was somewhere around three in the morning when I was aroused by a scratching at the window. Emerson did not stir; he can sleep through a thunderstorm. I made sure my nightdress was modestly buttoned before I went to the window and leaned out. We always kept a lamp burning in the courtyard. By its light I recognized the tall form of my son. His posture and the tilt of his head indicated a certain degree of vexation.

“You have remembered?” I whispered.

“Yes. It came to me,” Ramses added in an expressionless murmur, “when I was thinking of something else. The place is about thirty miles south of here, on the West Bank. I presume there is no point in asking you why—”

“You will learn the answer tomorrow. I want you to come with me. And don’t tell your father.”

“Or Nefret?”

“No.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Emerson had turned over and was muttering to himself. When he reaches for me and I am not there he becomes agitated. “I will make the necessary arrangements,” I hissed. “Go now, your father is stirring.”

Emerson sat up. “Peabody!” he shouted. Ramses vanished into the darkness.

GETTING AWAY WITHOUT EMERSON’S KNOWLEDGE was not easy, but I managed it by telling him he could have Lia and David with him that day.

Emerson said, “Ramses—” and I said, “He promised to finish a translation for me this morning. We will be along later.”

Emerson wisely decided to take what he could get, and swept Lia and David out of the house as soon as they had finished breakfast, for fear I would change my mind. Nefret and Maryam were not at the breakfast table. I assumed the former was with a patient and at that moment I did not care where Maryam had got to, as long as she was not in my way. Like me, Ramses was attired as he would have been for a day at the excavation, so we did not have to delay to change. As we left the house I selected a particularly sturdy parasol.

I had not seen the train station since the explosion and was surprised to find so little damage. Business was going on as usual. We were recognized, of course, and had to answer a number of friendly questions and listen to the latest gossip. The train was an hour late, which was not unusual. It was a local, with only second- and third-class carriages; as Ramses helped me into one of the former, I saw a familiar form on the platform. Catching my eye, Dr. Khattab swept off his fez, placed a fat hand on his embroidered waistcoat, and bowed. I concluded he must be meeting someone, since he did not board the train.

The aged carriage jolted and clanked along the rails and a fine sandy dust blew in through the open window. Ramses put a steadying arm round me and offered me a handkerchief.

“You didn’t bring your knife,” I said.

“Are you expecting trouble? You might have mentioned it.”

“I do not expect it, but I believe in being prepared. Never mind, I have my belt of tools and my parasol.”

“That should suffice,” Ramses agreed. “You told everyone who asked where we were going.”

“I also left a message for your father. Should we fail to return—”

“Damn it, Mother!” The train hit a bump. I bounced, and he tightened his grip. “I beg your pardon. Are you going to confide in me now?”

In the cold light of morning my brilliant inspiration did not shine as brightly. I rather regretted wasting an entire day on a far-fetched idea—and bouncing up and down on the hard seat was cursed uncomfortable. “It will all be made clear to you at the proper time,” I said, hoping it would be made clear to me as well.

Ramses said another bad word. This time he did not apologize.

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FROM A DISTANCE THE VILLAGE looked quite picturesque, set in a grove of palm trees, with a pretty little minaret poking up through the branches. Experience had taught me that close up the effect was less picturesque than nasty, and as we approached, the village looked no different from dozens of others I had seen: the same flat-roofed, plastered mud-brick houses; the same chickens and pigeons pecking at the dirt under the trees; the same pack of children dashing toward us with outstretched hands, asking for baksheesh; the same black-clad women pausing in their work of grinding grain or kneading bread to stare curiously at us.