Ramose and the Tomb Robbers (6 page)

Ramose felt like he’d only just got to sleep when Seth was shaking him awake again.

“Come on, Scribe,” he said. “You’ve got work to do.”

Breakfast was another mouthful of dry bread, and three dates. Ramose suspected it was nowhere near breakfast time.

“I’m thirsty.”

Hori gave him a flask of beer.

“Don’t you have any water?” Ramose asked.

“No.”

Outside it was a still, cool evening. It was peaceful. Nothing disturbed the quiet but the howling of a distant dog, the buzzing of insects and Intef’s heavy breathing. Ramose thought that many people probably worked in the area, tending the tombs and the temples around the pyramids. There was no one around, though. All the workers had returned to their homes for the night. Ramose was led by his captors towards the pyramid, which loomed eerily in the dark.

“Okay, Scribe,” said Hori. “This is where you earn your keep.”

“Since you’ve only given me a piece of dry bread and three dates, there can’t be much for me to do.”

“Don’t get smart,” said Hori pulling out the papyrus that he had shown Ramose on the boat. “Find the entrance to the tomb.”

Ramose had guessed that the men were tomb robbers. He hated the idea of helping them, but at that moment he didn’t think that he had a choice. He peered at the papyrus in the dim light of an oil lamp. “It says:

Read these words well, they will teach you
.

If you disturb the great one’s place of rest, you will feel the wrath of the gods
.

If riches come to you by theft, they will not stay the night with you
.

The greedy man will have no tomb
.

He will be tortured for eternity by the spirits
.”

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” said Seth, glancing around nervously.

“Don’t worry about that stuff. It’s just to scare us off,” Hori said. “Get to the important bit. Where’s the tomb entrance?”

Ramose read on.

“
Seek the truth where you least expect it
.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Intef, his brow furrowed with confusion.

“Tomb entrances are always facing north, aren’t they?” said Hori. “Aligned with certain stars.”

Ramose nodded.

“So maybe the entrance is on the south face of the pyramid,” said Seth.

Hori nodded. “Yes but where? What else does it say, Scribe?”

“It says:

The sun rises twenty and seven cubits from the east and climbs to a height of ten and five cubits
.”

“That must be the measurements to find the entrance,” said Hori.

Ramose was sure he was right, but he didn’t say anything. He was thinking about what the scroll had said about feeling the wrath of the gods. The tomb robbers were hurrying to the south side of the pyramid. Ramose reluctantly followed them.

The men measured out the distances that Ramose read out from the papyrus. Intef clambered up the side of the pyramid with the aid of a rickety ladder that they made out of tamarisk branches and reeds. Intef had a large stone hammer tied around his waist.

“There’s no sign of a doorway,” said Intef.

“Of course there isn’t,” snapped Hori. “It’s a hidden entrance!”

“Are you sure this is where it is?”

“Twenty and seven cubits from the eastern corner. Ten and five cubits up the side, that’s what it says isn’t it, boy?”

Ramose nodded, feeling a wave of guilt at helping the criminals.

Intef took the hammer from his belt and with a mighty swing smashed it into the side of the pyramid. The sound seemed deafeningly loud in the quiet of the evening. Ramose winced. The robbers listened anxiously to see if the noise had attracted anyone.

“It hardly made a mark,” said Intef.

“It’s solid stone,” said Seth impatiently. “It’s going to take more than one whack to break it.”

Intef swung the hammer again and again. It took a dozen blows before the stone block even cracked. It looked like the ladder might give way before he broke it. The big man continued to swing the hammer, grunting louder with the exertion of each blow. His body glistened in the moonlight as the sweat ran down him.

“This is getting nowhere,” he called down.

“That’s because you’re useless,” Hori shouted. “Do I have to come up and do it myself?”

Even though Intef was plainly stupid, he didn’t like anybody saying so. He swung his hammer with a growl of anger. The stone exploded under the blow, pieces of rock showered down on those watching below.

“That’s more like it,” said Hori with an ugly grin, aware that his jibe had worked.

“Don’t get too excited,” said Intef. “There’s another layer underneath that one.”

“Well, you better get into it, otherwise it’ll be daybreak and we’ll still be on the outside.”

The second layer was thicker but made of mud brick. With a lot of grumbling and a few more hefty blows, Intef’s hammer disappeared inside the pyramid. Seth cheered.

“Shut up, you fool,” said Hori. “We don’t want to bring the temple guards over here. Get the lamps and the bag, Scribe. You’re going in with him.”

“What about you?”

“Seth and I will keep watch.”

Seth smiled, relieved that he didn’t have to go inside the pyramid. It was an ugly sight as the robber had hardly any teeth. Ramose tentatively put his foot on the shaky ladder and climbed to the hole, balancing an oil lamp in one hand and with a bag of tools over his shoulder.

The air from inside the tomb was cool and had a strange smell. It was escaping after being sealed inside for four centuries. While he had been waiting for Intef to break into the pyramid, he’d read the papyrus carefully. The pyramid contained the tomb of Pharaoh Senusret from long ago.

Ramose remembered the name from Keneben’s lists of kings, which he’d had to learn off by heart back in the palace schoolroom. He crawled in through the hole gouged in the white limestone of the pyramid. He’d been a good pharaoh as far as Ramose could remember, known for irrigation systems and trade with foreigners. Ramose didn’t like the idea of disturbing his tomb.

Inside the pyramid a narrow passage sloped downwards. The walls were lined with plain limestone, not decorated with carvings as his father’s tomb had been. He sighed. He should be on his way to his father now, not stumbling around inside a pyramid. He could see Intef ahead, with a coil of rope over one shoulder and the stone hammer swinging from his waist. The ceiling was low and the big man had to stoop. So this is what it feels like to be a tomb robber, Ramose thought to himself. He had always found it hard to believe such people really existed. People who were so greedy for gold that they were willing to risk severe punishments. He’d heard of tomb robbers having their ears and lips cut off. More often than not they were executed. And that was only in this world. In the afterlife, tomb robbers faced eternal oblivion. No growing wheat in the Fields of Reeds for them. He wondered how Osiris, the god of the underworld, would judge an unwilling tomb robber.

Ramose had been expecting to feel his usual fear of enclosed spaces, but he didn’t. Perhaps it was because it was night, and the darkness inside the pyramid seemed like a continuation of the darkness outside. Perhaps it was because he was tired and hungry. He hadn’t seen any daylight for two days. He felt as if everything that was happening wasn’t real, as if it was a dream and therefore nothing to be afraid of. As he descended into the depths of the pyramid he felt a strange calmness, as if he was watching himself from somewhere else—somewhere where it was safe.

At the bottom of the sloping shaft there was a high-ceilinged chamber. Intef straightened up with a groan. He looked around, squinting in the dim light of his lamp. The chamber had been carefully lined with smooth limestone, but it was completely empty.

“Where’s the sarcophagus?” he said.

Ramose smiled at the man’s stupidity. “If it was that easy to find the actual burial chamber it would have been robbed ages ago.”

Intef’s brow creased.

“The architect who built this didn’t want the tomb to be found. He probably designed it with hidden passages and dead-end tunnels. There could be traps.”

“But you know all about it from the writing, don’t you?”

“It’s written in a sort of riddle.”

Intef walked around the chamber feeling the solid limestone walls. “But there’s no other way out of this room.”

“Yes there is,” said Ramose who was beginning to enjoy making Intef look foolish, which wasn’t hard. He read from the papyrus.

“Allow thy soul to be raised up towards heaven
.

This is the best and shortest road towards knowledge
.

The way of knowledge is narrow
.

You must become a low and creeping thing.”

Intef stood with his head cocked on one side like a large and stupid dog.

Ramose held his lamp above his head. The roof of the chamber was made of stepped slabs of stone so that it narrowed to a point.

“The entrance to the next tunnel must be up there somewhere.”

Intef held his lamp up and looked up. With the light from both lamps they could just make out a small dark square. It was at least the height of four men above them.

“How will we get up there?” asked Intef.

Ramose shrugged. “Don’t ask me, I’m just a scribe.”

They went back up the entrance shaft and pulled up the ladder. Even with the ladder in place underneath the upper tunnel entrance, it was still well short. Intef roughly carved handholds in the stone as far as he could reach from the top of the ladder. Greed had made him fearless. He climbed up, gripping the holes he had gouged in the limestone wall. Ramose was expecting him to slip and fall at every moment. He didn’t. The big man clambered up the sheer wall like an enormous spider. He reached a ledge and crawled onto it.

“Okay, Scribe,” he said. “Your turn.”

“But I’m shorter than you, I won’t be able to reach the handholds you’ve made.”

Ramose felt the end of a coil of rope drop on his head.

“Tie that around you,” said Intef.

Ramose tied the rope securely around his waist and then climbed the ladder. When he reached the top, he felt himself being lifted into the air. Intef hauled him up as if he was a sack of grain, not worrying about how he banged against the stone. Ramose grabbed hold of the ledge and clambered up onto it. A new passage sloped up from the ledge they were standing on in the direction of the centre of the pyramid. It had a low ceiling, nothing more than a tunnel roughly carved through solid stone.

“You go first,” said Intef.

Ramose knew it was pointless to argue. He got down on his hands and knees and started to crawl up the tunnel, like a creeping thing, just as the papyrus had foretold. He held his oil lamp in one hand; it was no easy task. Ramose could hear Intef complaining as he crawled along behind.

Ramose’s calm began to fade. He suspected his lack of fear had only been the effect of the beer on an empty stomach. He was now starting to imagine the hundreds of mud bricks just above his head. The narrowness of the tomb was making him feel stifled. He kept crawling. He thought about his friends. He wondered what they had done when they woke up and found him gone. They had no gold or copper to exchange for food. He began to think that he’d misread the papyrus, that this was a blind tunnel leading nowhere. He wanted to turn around and crawl back out again, but he knew the tunnel would be blocked by Intef’s sweaty body. Even if the robber wanted to, he couldn’t turn around in the narrow tunnel.

Just when Ramose was starting to really panic, the tunnel came to an end. He emerged in a passage which ran at right angles to the tunnel. This passage was wider, higher and properly faced with smooth limestone. Ramose stood up and straightened his aching back with relief. Intef came crawling out of the tunnel, cursing the workmen who made it so narrow. He stood up and peered down the new passage.

“The burial chamber must be this way,” he said walking eagerly down the passage.

“Wait,” said Ramose. “Don’t be in such a hurry.” He studied the papyrus and read aloud.

“Woe unto the impatient man. The goddess of the celestial ocean draws you down to her waters.”

“Oh, that’s just flowery writing,” said Intef as he hurried on down the passage. “Don’t take…”

Intef stopped suddenly. He stood frozen. Ramose came up behind him and held out his lamp. Intef was standing on the edge of a vertical shaft. The toes of his sandals were hanging over the edge. The shaft was only two cubits across, but it was too wide to jump safely to the other side. Ramose could not see how deep it was. He picked up a small stone and dropped it. He waited. After what seemed like minutes, he heard a faint splash. He looked at Intef. The big man had a terrified look on his face, realising that he had very nearly plunged to his death.

“Don’t bother to thank me,” Ramose said.

Intef found his voice. “How do we get across?” he asked shakily.

Ramose walked back along the passage looking for something that would span the gap. He found a recess in the limestone wall and a plank of wood that a lazy tomb maker had left there centuries earlier. He looked at it doubtfully. He didn’t know whether he was prepared to trust his weight to a four hundred-year-old plank. He didn’t have any choice.

“Hurry up,” Intef prodded Ramose in the back. “We must be close to the burial chamber now.”

Ramose lowered the plank over the gap. Intef loaded him up with the coil of rope and the bag of tools. He put his foot on the plank. He was glad he couldn’t see the drop. He took one tentative step. The plank creaked. He took another step and it sagged in the middle. Ramose took two more steps, his heart racing, and he was over. Intef looked across at him.

“I don’t know if it’ll hold your weight,” Ramose said. “Why don’t I go on ahead and see if it’s worth the risk?”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Intef didn’t trust Ramose. “You could pocket half the gold.”

“Okay. Come across then.”

The big man took a breath and ran towards the gaping shaft. His full weight hit the middle of the plank. It cracked. He lunged forward as the ancient wood broke. He grasped hold of the rock ledge on the other side, his legs dangling down into the shaft. His feet scrabbled on the rock face but couldn’t find anything that would support him. His hands clawed at the ledge. He started to slip.