Pharaoh (21 page)

‘Surprise, surprise,’ said Blake. ‘To what could I possibly owe the honour of this visit to my dig site?’

‘Hi there, Sarah,’ proffered Maddox, seeing the girl still seated not far away. Turning to Blake, he added, ‘Got some news. The results of the radiocarbon tests on the samples we sent in for analysis have come back. It cost a fortune, but they did it in record time. I just thought you would want to have the results as soon as possible.’

‘Thanks a lot,’ said Blake, without any attempt at hiding his excitement. ‘Can I see them?’

‘That’s what I came for,’ said Maddox, handing him a still-sealed envelope.

Blake opened it and hurriedly pulled out the sheet of paper with the test results. He read them aloud:

Maddox watched him nervously, waiting for his reaction. ‘Well? What kind of news is it, anyway?’

Blake shook his head. ‘It’s a very precise finding, but I just can’t figure it out—’

‘Why? What does it mean?’

All the factors that I have thus far taken into consideration lead me to date this tomb some time between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries bc, and the radiocarbon dating of the wood from the panel confirms my theory. But the results for the leather date the sample at the beginning of the sixth century bc and that just doesn’t make sense.’

‘Someone broke into the tomb six centuries before Christ to rob it. What’s so strange about that?’

‘Just that. It wasn’t robbed. What, then, brought our mysterious visitor into the tomb?’

Maddox stood in silence for a few moments, as if pondering this strange set of circumstances.

‘Thirsty?’ Blake asked him. ‘There’s some water and the orange juice should still be cold.’

‘No, thanks, I’ve already had something to drink. By the way, Blake, how much time do you think you’ll need to clear away the rubble from the landslide?’

‘Not much,’ said Blake. ‘Maybe by tomorrow evening . . .’

‘And then what will you do, open the sarcophagus?’

Blake nodded yes.

‘I definitely want to be present when you do it. Send for me, Blake. I want to be down there with you when you open that damned lid.’

‘All right, Mr Maddox. Thanks for coming by. If that’s all, I’d like to get back to work.’

Maddox had a brief discussion with Sullivan, said goodbye to Sarah, hopped back into his Jeep and left. Blake had himself lowered into the tomb so he could continue.

Sarah joined him shortly. ‘Do you really intend to open the sarcophagus tomorrow evening?’

‘Quite possibly’

‘How do you plan on doing it?’

‘The top slab sticks out about ten centimetres all the way around. All we need are four blocks of wood and four hydraulic jacks. We will use two more blocks to slide the lid down onto the ground. Do you think we can find what we need around the camp?’

‘I’ll take care of it this evening. If we have to, we can always use the jacks from the Jeeps. They should do the job.’

By this point the workmen had already uncovered most of the board and gradually, as more debris was removed, on the eastern side of the tomb a kind of door frame appeared, through which rubble and debris kept falling.

Blake drew nearer and pointed his torch at the frame.

‘What’s this?’ Sarah asked.

Scrutinizing first the frame and then the board, which had been almost completely cleared of debris, Blake was suddenly overcome by a strange excitement. ‘Maybe I’ve got it,’ he said. ‘Hand me the tape measure.’

Sarah took a tape measure out of the tool kit and handed it to him. Blake climbed up the heap of debris, slipping back down several times before managing to reach the frame structure and measure it. Next, he came back down and measured the width of the board.

‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘It’s exactly as I thought. This board was originally positioned vertically in such a way as to close that opening . . .’

‘So then, at some later time, someone made it fall to permanently seal off the entrance to the tomb,’ Sarah broke in.

‘Right. And I bet, when we’ve removed the board, we’ll also find the latches that held it in place. Tell the workmen to be careful and damage the board as little as possible when they remove the debris.’

He picked up a shovel and began digging at the side of the sarcophagus, while the men continued to work on the side where the board was. He was starting to hit lighter material now, sand mostly, mixed with pebbles as big as grains of corn, and the removal operation began proceeding at a quicker pace than he had anticipated.

Sarah also was possessed by a mounting excitement that wouldn’t allow her to simply stand idly by and observe. She began filling buckets and emptying them into the dump container, revealing amazing reserves of physical energy. She was sweating so hard that her light cotton shirt began sticking to her body, revealing even more of her physical attributes, causing her supple tan skin to glow in the shadows of the burial site, like the patina of an ancient statue. Both of them had tied handkerchiefs over their mouths to keep out the thick dust that the work of the four people was raising from the heap of rubble; too much for the vacuum to adequately draw outside.

Blake suddenly stopped and took a little whisk broom and a brush from the tool kit, then began removing the dust that had coated the surface of the sarcophagus.

‘What do you see?’ asked Sarah.

‘The stone of the sarcophagus is inscribed. All the way down to the base, it looks like.’

Sarah left the workmen to their task and joined Blake, kneeling down beside him.

‘Light the lantern and give me some bright light,’ he said as he continued to clean the calcareous surface, first with the little whisk broom and then with the fine paintbrush. Sarah did as she was told and stood observing her companion as he delicately fingered the fine grooves cut into the stone. The bright light revealed a line of hieroglyphs that still displayed traces of the original colours wielded by the ancient scribes: ochre, indigo, black and yellow.

‘What does it mean?’ Sarah asked.

‘Nothing,’ answered Blake. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘What do you mean?’ the girl enquired.

‘This isn’t a horizontal sequence of signs; each one is rather the top of a buried vertical line. I won’t be able to make any sense out of it until we reach the floor. Let’s get to work.’

Blake picked up his shovel again and managed to dig out a space between the heap of debris and the side of the sarcophagus that was big enough for him to manoeuvre into. He began cleaning the surface to see what the inscriptions said.

When he had finished the cleaning operation, he realized that the scribe must have been the same one who had made the other inscriptions found in the tomb, the same one who had written the Breasted papyrus.

He began reading and Sarah observed his reaction as his eyes coursed along the lines written from top to bottom. When he stopped, she approached him. He had a puzzled expression on his face, almost distressed, as if the text had thrown his mind into great confusion. Sarah placed her right hand on his shoulder and looked him straight in the eye.

‘What does it say, William? What does the inscription mean?’

Blake shook his head. ‘I can’t say for sure . . . If what I’m thinking were true, it would be so outrageous that—’

‘Why? Will, come on, tell me what it says!’

The workmen noticed the agitated tone of the girl’s voice and turned towards her, letting their shovels hang limply at their sides. Blake made a gesture intended to halt her insistence. But all he said was, ‘Take a couple of pictures while I copy out the text. I have to be sure . . . have to be sure . . . And it’s not easy. A person can always make a mistake . . . We’ll talk about it later. Help me, now.’

Sarah didn’t persist. Instead she got the camera and took several photos of the inscription, as Blake began carefully to copy the hieroglyphic symbols into a sketch pad.

In the meantime, the workmen had almost completely freed the board of all debris and had cleared the structure on the eastern wall of the tomb: a lintel and two jambs which framed an opening that was just slightly smaller than the board itself.

‘Clean the board completely and clear away the rest of the debris from the sarcophagus,’ said Blake. ‘There are still a couple of hours and we can do it. If you finish by evening, I guarantee you that Mr Maddox will give you a nice bonus.’

The two workmen nodded in assent and Blake began to dig at the spot where, several days before, they had found the remains of some skeletons. There were just the bare bones of four adults, most probably male. Around them were traces of sulphur and bitumen, the substances used to burn the bodies. He gathered the bones into a little box and set it in a corner of the tomb. When he had finished, he signalled for Sarah to follow him out into the open. They were hoisted to the surface by the winch.

‘How are things progressing?’ asked Sullivan.

‘Fine,’ answered Blake. ‘If everything proceeds as it should, we’ll have all the debris removed by evening. I’ll see you later, Sullivan. You carry on while we take a little stroll.’

‘That’s fine with me,’ said Sullivan, riding the bucket back down into the tomb. ‘But don’t go wandering off too far and be careful of snakes and scorpions.’

‘Don’t worry, Sullivan,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ll take care of him.’

Blake drank a little cold water from the thermos as they set off in the direction of a hill that rose to the east, not far from the excavation site. The sun was very low in the sky, casting unnaturally long shadows towards the base of the hill. He walked quickly, as if he were in a hurry to get to a certain predetermined destination.

‘Why are we going so fast?’ asked Sarah.

‘Because I want to get up there before the sun sinks behind the horizon and by now it’s just a question of minutes.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Sarah, trying to keep up with him. ‘What are we going to look for up there? And what did you read that was so extraordinary in that inscription?’

‘I told you,’ Blake replied. ‘I’m not sure. The hieroglyphs could be interpreted in different ways. I have to find confirmation, some other evidence, before I want to commit myself. And, above all, I have to open that sarcophagus.’

By now he was walking uphill, panting. The light was growing dimmer with every step and the sky above him began darkening to a deeper and deeper blue. He finally got to the top of the hill and turned round to look over the plain, where Sullivan’s Jeep and their equipment stood out against the total emptiness.

‘What are you looking for?’ Sarah asked again.

‘Don’t you see anything?’ asked Blake, observing the surrounding territory.

‘No,’ replied Sarah, ‘nothing other than Sullivan’s Jeep, our Jeep and the equipment around the dig.’

‘Look more carefully,’ said Blake with an enigmatic expression. ‘You really don’t see anything?’

Sarah just shook her head, her eyes scanning the deserted plain below. ‘Nothing other than rocks, that is.’

‘That’s right,’ said Blake, ‘rocks. But if you look closely you’ll make out patterns that delineate a kind of perimeter. And the tomb is more or less in the middle.’

Sarah observed more closely as the sun sank completely behind the horizon and now she could make out the four corners of an enormous rectangle and other stone arrangements inside it that almost seemed to trace further divisions of the space.

Just then a solitary night hawk took wing, leaving its nest perched on a distant peak of the Mitzpe crater, flying towards the centre of the sky to take possession of the night.

‘How did you know about these patterns on the landscape?’ asked Sarah.

‘This place is full of patterns, drawings and signs – on the ground, on the rock walls. I was struck by them from the very first time we came out here. There are rock carvings, alignments of the stones, a language that has remained mute up until this moment. I have studied and sketched out a great number of patterns whenever I’ve had free time away from the dig . . . And now the time has come to let them speak . . . Sarah, do you have a Bible in your quarters?’

‘A Bible?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I’m not very religious, William. I’m afraid I don’t have a Bible . . . But maybe Pollock might have one. He’s an old lech, but he’s also a bit of a fanatic, as far as I can tell.’

‘Ask him for it. I need it. I’ll explain later. Let’s get going now. I’m curious to see how the work is proceeding.’

They walked past Sullivan, who was dumping the bucket. ‘I think they’re about to finish,’ he said. ‘The bucket is coming up half empty.’

‘I’ll go down,’ said Blake.

Blake lowered himself with the winch and saw that the rubble had been almost completely removed. The two workmen were cleaning the board with brooms. Their beards and hair were white from the fine powder that was floating around in the motionless air.

‘When you have finished,’ he said, ‘close the opening but don’t remove the plastic sheeting, because there’s still too much dust in the air.’