Mara, Daughter of the Nile (24 page)

“Suspicious? No, er—Excellence.” The first guard’s tone had become more respectful. But the second was staring at Djedet closely, and did not add the “Excellence.” “You mean robbers?” he demanded.

“
I
will ask the questions,” said Djedet coldly. “There has been a report that the tomb of His Majesty the First Thutmose has been disturbed. What do you know of it?”

“Nothing, Your Holiness!” gasped the first guard. “I swear by the Feather of Maat the Truthful One, there has been not a—”

“The report is false,” grunted the other.

Djedet favored him with an icy stare. “I trust you are right. But naturally, I must find out for myself. Kindly stand aside.”

He started forward, but the second guard stayed where he was, his gaze flicking to Sheftu, then to the two diggers, and finally to the laden donkey. “What have you in the baskets?” he demanded.

Sheftu could only thank the gods for Djedet’s convincing air of mild exasperation. “Funerary offerings, of course,”
said the priest. “Would we come empty-handed to the great one’s resting place?”

The guard’s heavy face did not change expression as he moved out of Djedet’s path and sauntered back to the donkey. With a tremendous effort Sheftu refrained from watching him, affecting an attitude of stolid indifference. But his very spine tingled as he heard the creak of a basket lid being raised. It might be merely a routine check. But if the guard had even the glimmer of a real suspicion, he would push aside the offerings and see those stones beneath …

The lid of the basket dropped. Legs trembling with relief, Sheftu moved forward at Djedet’s nod, only half hearing the first guard’s apologies. They had filed past the hut and actually started down the path into the valley when, behind them, the second guard spoke again.

“Stay!”

Once more they halted, but this time Djedet’s burly back was quivering perceptibly. Sheftu, by contrast, felt a wave of anger sweep aside all the confusion that had been hampering him. Suddenly cool and bold, he grasped Djedet’s arm reassuringly under the concealing cloak, and faced the guard.

“You show little respect to His Holiness, fellow! What is it this time? And mind you address him properly.”

“I mean no disrespect—Excellence,” muttered the guard. “But I have my orders, and I’m to let no one pass without a permit. Since you have none, I will have to go with you.”

There was an instant’s appalled silence. Then Djedet found his voice, jerkily. “Your devotion to duty is commendable. However there is no need for you to leave your post. We—”

“My comrade can stay at the post,” interrupted the guard stubbornly. “It’s my duty to go with you.”

Sheftu thought fast. Further argument would give them away completely; even the first guard was beginning to
look doubtful now. With a warning pressure on the priest’s arm, Sheftu said carelessly, “As you wish.”

He could feel Djedet go rigid, but an instant later the priest shrugged and started down the path again as if indifferent to the whole thing. The guard fell in beside him, somewhat sheepishly, to the accompaniment of his comrade’s relieved jeer. “
Ai
, Suspicious One, it’s a long tramp you’ll have for nothing. Until tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow?” remarked Sheftu as they wound downward through the rocks. “Will your friend not be waiting when we return?”

“Nay, our duty is over in half an hour,” rumbled the guard, amiable enough now that he had got his way. “Other men watch through the night.”

Sheftu allowed himself a moment’s grim admiration of the fellow in front of him, plodding along half-embarrassed but still doggedly doing his duty. If there were more like him, the valley would be well guarded. Unfortunately, there would be one less before the night was done …

The last glow of sunset was almost gone when the little procession reached the valley’s floor and started out across it. Nuit, the Starry One, had stretched her dark and spangled body across the heavens, shedding a faint glitter over a vast, rugged wasteland of craggy buttes and sand and rocks, completely bare of vegetation. Eroded, sharp-peaked hills and giant boulders loomed here and there, strange-shaped like sleeping monsters, still breathing heat from their sun-baked sides into the cool night air. There was profound, unnatural stillness. Sheftu trod warily, his eyes fixed on the glimmer of the guard’s cloak ahead, his ears straining for some sound other than the whisper of the donkey’s hoofs on the sand. But in all that desolation no bird called, no small creature scampered—nothing stirred, nothing lived, except themselves.

In and out among the crags they moved, deeper and deeper into the valley’s heart. At last Djedet turned aside
into a gully which sloped downward between tumbled piles of rock. He was picking his way slowly, waiting, in an agony of suspense, Sheftu knew, for some signal as to the guard. They were very near their destination now.

Sheftu set his jaw, drawing both hands in through the slits in his cloak. When they emerged again they brought his long, stout-woven sash. Stealthily he closed the distance between himself and the guard; grasping an end of the sash in each hand, he crossed his wrists.

Now
, whispered a voice inside him.

One swift movement and the sash fell about the guard’s neck. Sheftu snapped it tight, at the same time jamming his knee into the small of the man’s back. Next instant both had pitched forward to tumble over the rocky ground, Sheftu clinging to his writhing, threshing victim and still tightening the garrote. There was a scramble of footsteps, grunted curses as the diggers flung themselves upon the guard’s flailing arms and legs. A moment later they had him pinioned, and Sheftu’s muscles knotted for the last strangling jerk—knotted, but never released their energy. Slowly Sheftu relaxed, and as the diggers glanced up in astonishment, he flipped the sash free and used it instead as a gag. Knotting it securely, he stood up.

“You mean to spare him?” whispered Djedet.

In the starlight the priest’s face showed pasty white and sweating. “Osiris! What will we do with him?”

“Nothing, for the present,” muttered Sheftu. “Take his sash, you men, and tie him well.” He turned his back and walked over to Djedet. He knew he had been a fool to let the fellow live. But he had no stomach for murdering a man whose only crime was stubbornness. It was possible this other plan might work … “He’ll be safe enough here, Djedet.”

“But later, when we return to Thebes?” came the priest’s frantic whisper.

“He will return with us. Nekonkh can spirit him away
downriver with the others, and keep him hidden until it’s safe to free him.”

“What are you saying, my lord? It’s the guards at the valley entrance I’m thinking of—the new ones who come on duty with the night. We shall have to explain our baskets all over again, Amon help us! Can we also carry their comrade past them, bound and gagged?”

“He will not be bound. He will walk among us—but with my knife at his back. He will say only what I—”

There was a sharp cry behind them. Sheftu whirled just in time to see Kaemuas double up, groaning, the guard’s tunic rip in Usur’s clutching hands, and the guard himself dart up the path, free, and tearing at his gag. With a curse Sheftu sprang after him. The guard was stumbling on the treacherous rocks, staggering a little, but he had the gag off now. Sheftu wrenched his dagger from its sheath.

“Thieves! Thieves! Help in the valley! Thieves …”

The cry rang out hideously, echoing off the sides of the cleft. But the guard had not strength enough left to both run and shout. With the last “Thieves!” he staggered into a boulder, saw Sheftu close behind him, and drew his short sword. It clashed once against Sheftu’s knife, was deflected by a desperate wrench, freed itself, swung up murderously—then fell clattering to the ground as Sheftu’s dagger drove home.

“My friend, you die for Egypt,” gasped Sheftu. He caught the crumpling body and eased it down beside the boulder. Usur was beside him, and an instant later, Djedet.

“Master, I could not help it,” panted the digger. “I was trying to loose his sash, and he kicked Kaemuas as a mule kicks, as a horse kicks—”

“Be silent.” Sheftu leaned against the boulder, struggling to catch his breath, straining his ears for any sign that the guard’s cries had been heard. All was silent, except for the crunching of pebbles as Kaemuas plodded up the path toward them. Wearily Sheftu leaned over the guard and
retrieved his dagger. “Carry him back and put him across the donkey. Get a torch burning, one of you men.”

A few minutes later they were making their way by flickering torchlight down the gully, the donkey with its grim burden following behind along the rocky path. On either side, the barren rock rose higher into darkness, the way wound more steeply down. How much farther? Already the Nile and Thebes seemed leagues away …

Sheftu nearly bumped into the priest, who had come to a sudden halt and was pointing. “
Ast!
we have arrived.”

Slowly Sheftu extended the torch. There ahead against the side of the gully leaned a pile of red granite boulders—the same which had haunted him for four interminable days. With an effort he dragged his eyes away from it.

“There is the place,” he told the diggers. “Beneath the rubble at the left is the door we seek. Dig until you find it.”

IT WAS an hour before the clang of shovels ceased. Sheftu, sitting on a rock some yards away, was aware of eerie silence and raised his head. The torch flared wild and lonely against the night, revealing a gap in the rubble and a stone stairway leading downward into obscurity. At the top stood Djedet and the sweating diggers, their eyes upon him.

Slowly he rose and walked across the sands, taking the torch from the priest. At the bottom of the steps was a plastered-over door, imprinted with the Royal Seal of the Necropolis and the
cartouche
of the First Thutmose. A tremor passed through Sheftu at sight of the familiar hieroglyphs of the old king’s name, enclosed in their oval line. He and the prince had stood on this spot long ago, on the day of the entombment, to see that seal pressed into the wet plaster.

His lips parted, but it was moments before he could force himself to speak.
Not even thy prince should demand such a crime
…

“Open it,” he said.

The diggers crept past him, down the steps. Under their chisels the plaster crumbled in an irregular crack, gradually outlining the door. At his elbow Djedet was whispering, “Anubis, strike us not! We have plaster to mend it, we bear the Royal Seal. All shall be as it was, when we have gone.”

Sheftu found it hard to breathe. The portal which was to have remained closed and inviolate for three thousand years was swinging open before him, with a creak that woke echoes far back in the depths of the tomb. A breath of stale, dry air drifted out and enveloped him. Slowly, every step an act of will, he descended the stairs and passed through the door into the Habitation of the Dead.

He stood in a tiny entry where the stone floor was strewn with flowers. He remembered them—the last offerings of the funeral party returning to the upper world. They looked only a little withered, as if no more than a week had passed since they were dropped here. But when he touched one with his toe it fell into dust so fine there was no trace left. Shivering a little, he raised the torch. Pleading texts from the Book of the Dead leaped at him from the close-carven walls:

“I have not committed iniquity against men! I have not oppressed the poor! I have not starved any man, I have not
made any to weep, I have not committed that which is an abomination to the gods! I have not turned back the water in its season, I have not put out the fire in its time! Since I know the names of the gods who are with thee in the Hall of Double Truth, save thou me from them, Osiris! I am pure! I am pure! I am pure! I am pure!”

Before Sheftu, another flight of steps led downward into darkness.

With Djedet pressing at his side and the diggers with their baskets crowding at his heels, he started the long descent. Down, down, down they crept, into night so black the torch was but a moving spark, into silence so deep the ears rang with it Staler and more oppressive grew the air—the same air left here years ago when the outer door was shut and sealed. Was there enough for four men breathing hard with fear? Sweat masked Sheftu’s face only to evaporate instantly in the shriveling dryness of the place, drawing his skin and stiffening his lips. In vain he tried to keep his mind away from the thought of the millions of tons of rock and earth above them. The deeper they went, the more ponderous grew the weight, the more stifling his awareness of it.

The steps ended at last, in the depths of the earth. The men stopped a moment, hearing their own breathing loud in the silence. All were loath to leave the stair, which now seemed known and safe. Sheftu’s thoughts flashed back to the guard, lying so still under the stars far above them—and to the guard’s comrades at the valley entrance, who might be starting to search for him, wondering why he had not returned …

A sense of urgency possessed Sheftu. They must hasten, or the alarm would be raised and they’d crawl out at last into a trap.

Fighting his reluctance, he led the way out across a stony floor. One pace, then another, then a third, with the light flickering into the black void. Suddenly a vivid figure twice
the height of a man sprang out of the gloom. The trespassers recoiled as at a blow, and a sound that was half grunt, half moan, broke from the digger Usur. It was some seconds before Sheftu could bring himself to raise the torch and discover that the terrifying figure was one of a procession painted along the walls of what appeared to be a lofty and spacious corridor.

Sheftu forced himself to steadiness, to memory of this corridor from the day of the old king’s entombment. Then, gripping the torch, he started down the long hall. More and more brilliantly painted figures slid past them in the wavering light—a group of women bent in mourning, with disheveled hair; slaves bearing treasure boxes and furniture, dignitaries pacing behind a canopied sledge on which rested a great sarcophagus. It was the old pharaoh’s funeral procession, depicted faithfully in every detail, climaxed at the far end of the hall by the last solemn ritual of the Opening of the Mouth. There, framing the door, rose the painted figure of a
sem
priest with his mystic tool, while opposite him the jackal-headed god Anubis supported the mummy.