The Lost Army of Cambyses (21 page)

The pain of her father's death, momentarily for-

gotten, came flooding back more intensely

than ever, an overwhelming sense of loss and help-

lessness. She ran her hands through her hair and

sat down heavily on the bed, leaning backwards

against the pillow. Something crunched beneath

her. She sat forward again and lifted the

pillow. A piece of folded papyrus was lying on the

sheet, with her name, Tara, written on it in black

ink. She opened it and read.

'Daniel,' she called, 'come and look at this.'

He came into the room and she handed him the

sheet. He read aloud:

One of eight, first link in a chain,

Clue to clue, like stepping stones,

At the end a prize, something hidden,

But is it treasure, or just old bones?

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The Gods might help you if you ask politely,

Imhotep, perhaps, or Isis or Seth,

Although personally I'd look a little closer to

home,

For none knows more than old Mariette.

'Aren't you a bit old for treasure hunts?' he

asked.

'When I was fifteen Dad laid a treasure trail for

my birthday,' she said, smiling sadly at the

memory. 'It was one of the few times I ever felt he

really cared for me. I think this is his way of try-

ing to heal old wounds. A sort of peace offering.'

Daniel squeezed her shoulder and looked down

at the papyrus again.

'I wonder . . .' he said to himself.

'You think maybe . . .'

'That your dad's prize is the thing we're looking

for? No idea. But it's certainly worth finding out.'

He strode back into the main room.

'Mariette is Auguste Mariette,' he said over his

shoulder. 'One of the founding fathers of

Egyptology. Did a lot of work here at Saqqara.

Discovered the Serapeum.'

Tara followed to find him standing in front of

the print he'd been looking at before.

'Auguste Mariette,' he said. The picture showed

a bearded man in a suit and traditional Egyptian

headdress. He lifted the frame from the wall and

turned it over. Sellotaped to the back was another

folded papyrus.

'Bingo.' His eyes were shining.

'Go on then,' she said, adrenalin starting to

pump again. 'Open it.'

175

He pulled the clue from the frame and unfolded

it.

A queen to a pharaoh, but a pharaoh herself,

Ruled between husband and husband's son,

Nefertiti her name, a beautiful name,

And with her the beautiful one has come.

Heretic husband, damned Akhenaten,

Forsaken by the Gods because the Gods he

forsook,

Together they lived, but where did she live?

The answer, perhaps, you will find in a book.

'What the hell does that mean?' Tara asked.

'Nefertiti was the principal wife of the Pharaoh

Akhenaten,' he explained. 'Her name meant the

Beautiful One Has Come. After Akhenaten died

she changed her name to Smenkhkare and ruled as

a pharaoh in her own right. She was succeeded by

Tutankhamun, Akhenaten's son by another wife.'

'Of course,' grunted Tara.

'Later generations reviled Akhenaten because he

abandoned Egypt's traditional gods in favour of

the worship of just one god: the Aten. He and

Nefertiti built a new capital city two hundred kilo-

metres south of here. It was called Akhetaten, the

Horizon of the Aten, although today it's known by

its Arab name: Tel el-Amarna. I dug there once.'

He crossed to the bookcase.

'Looks like we need to find a book on Amarna.'

She joined him and together they ran their eyes

swiftly along the rows of books. There were

several with titles incorporating the name

'Amarna', but no clue inside any of them. There

176

was another bookcase in one of the bedrooms and

they went through that as well, but with no

greater success. Tara shook her head in

frustration.

'This is so bloody typical of Dad. I mean, if I

can't even get these clues with an Egyptologist to

help me, what chance would I have had on my

own! He never could understand that I just wasn't

bloody interested in any of it!'

Daniel wasn't listening. He was squatting on the

floor, eyes narrowed. 'Where did she live?' he

muttered. 'Where did Nefertiti live?'

Suddenly he sprang to his feet.
'Merde!'
he

cried. 'I'm an idiot.'

He hurried back into the main room, where he

knelt in front of the bookcase and ran his finger

along the rows of books. He pulled one out, a slim

volume.

'I was trying to be too clever. The clue was more

literal than it sounded.' He held the book up,

pointing to its title:
Nefertiti Lived Here.
He was

smiling, pleased with himself. 'Probably

the best book about excavating ever written. By

Mary Chubb. I met her once. Fascinating woman.

Let's see what the clue says.'

This next rhyme – about the dynasties of

ancient Egypt – proved easier than the last, lead-

ing them to a poster of Tutankhamun's death

mask in the kitchen. Clue five was inside an

amphora in one of the bedrooms, six pinned inside

the flue of the chimney and seven hidden behind

the lavatory cistern. Eight, the final clue, was

rolled up inside a tube of tracing paper in a cup-

board in the main room. By now they were both

177

tense with anticipation. They read the last rhyme

together, tripping over the words in their hurry to

discover what it said.

The last at last, eight of eight,

Hardest of all, so use your head,

Near where you are, but not inside,

A five-thousand-year-old bench for the dead

Fifteen paces south (or fifteen north),

Bang in the centre, now use your eyes,

Search for the sign of Anubis the Jackal,

For Anubis it is that guards the prize.

'Bench for the dead?' she asked.

'Mastaba,'
replied Daniel. 'A type of rectangular

tomb made of mud bricks.
Mastaba
is the Arabic

for bench. Come on.'

She snatched up her knapsack and followed him

outside, wincing at the heat after the cool interior

of the house. The taxi driver had pulled his car

into a pool of shade in front of the building and

gone to sleep, seat reclined, bare feet sticking out

of the window. Daniel stood for a moment look-

ing around, shielding his eyes, then pointed to an

oblong hummock rising from the sands fifty

metres ahead of them and to their left.

'That must be it,' he said. 'I can't see any other

mastabas.'

They crossed the track and hurried over to the

hummock which, when she came closer, Tara could

see was made of badly weathered brown mud

bricks. Daniel went to one corner and counted out

fifteen paces along its side, the top of the
mastaba

coming up almost to the level of his neck.

178

'Somewhere around here,' he said, indicating

the middle of the wall. 'We're looking for an

image of a jackal.'

They squatted and ran their eyes back and forth

over the uneven surface. Tara found it almost

immediately.

'Got it!' she cried.

Incised into the face of one of the bricks, very

faint, was the figure of a reclining jackal, paws

outstretched, ears erect. The brick seemed to be

loose and, getting her fingers around it, Tara

began working it out of the wall. It had clearly

been removed before because it came out easily,

revealing a deep cavity. Daniel rolled up his sleeve,

checked quickly for scorpions, then drove his

hand into the hole, withdrawing it holding a flat

cardboard box. He laid it on his knee and began

undoing the string with which it was tied.

'What is it?' she asked.

'I'm not sure,' he said. 'It's quite heavy. I think

it might be . . .'

A shadow fell across them from above and there

was a metallic click. Startled, they looked up.

Standing on top of the
mastaba,
gun in hand, was

a bearded man in black robes, a turban wrapped

low around his head. He motioned them to their

feet, gabbling something in Arabic.

'What did he say?' Tara's voice was tight with

terror.

'The box,' said Daniel. 'He wants the box.'

He began to reach out, handing the box up to

the man. Tara grabbed his arm.

'No,' she said.

'What?'

179

'Not till we know what's in it.'

The man spoke again, waving the gun. Again

Daniel tried to extend his arm, again Tara pulled

it back.

'I said no,' she hissed. 'Not till we know why

these people are doing this.'

'For fuck's sake, Tara, this isn't a game! He'll

kill us. I know these people!'

The man was getting agitated. He pointed his

gun at Tara's head, then Daniel's, then down at the

top of the
mastaba,
firing a brief burst of bullets

into the mud bricks, explosions of dust spitting up

around his feet and into their faces. Daniel

wrenched his arm free and threw the box onto the

tomb.

'Just leave it, Tara. I want to know what's in it

as much as you, but it's not worth it. Trust me, it's

better to let it go.'

Keeping the gun trained on them, the man

dropped to his haunches, releasing one hand and

feeling for the box. It was slightly to his left

and his fingers kept missing it, and, for the briefest

of moments, he flicked his eyes downwards. At the

same instant, hardly aware of what she was doing,

Tara whipped out her arm, seized his robe and

yanked. The man cried out and toppled forward

over the edge of the
mastaba,
crashing head first

onto the sand between them, his neck twisted at a

curious angle.

For a moment neither of them moved. Then,

glancing across at Tara, Daniel knelt and lifted the

man's hand, feeling for a pulse.

'Is he unconscious?' She was whispering for

some reason.

180

'He's dead.'

'Oh my God!' She put her hands to her mouth.

'Oh my God!'

Daniel stared down at the body, then reached

out and pushed back the man's black woollen

'imma,
revealing a deep vertical scar running up

his forehead. He gazed at it for a few seconds, then

came abruptly to his feet and grabbed her arm.

'We're getting out of here.'

He started pulling her away, but after a couple

of metres she broke free and leaped back to the

mastaba,
grabbing the box which was still lying

there.

'For Christ's sake!' cried Daniel, coming after

her and seizing her shoulder. 'Just leave it! There

are things going on here . . . you don't understand

. . . there'll be more of them . . .'

She shrugged him away. 'They killed my father,'

she said, voice defiant. 'You do what you want,

but I'm not letting them have this box! Do you

understand, Daniel? They're not getting it.'

Their eyes met briefly, then she pushed past him

and started back towards the dig house, slipping

the box into her bag as she went. For a moment

Daniel stared after her, face contorted with

impotent fury, then followed, muttering to

himself.

The gunfire had woken their driver, who was

standing on the track looking towards them.

'What happen?' he asked as they came up.

'Nothing,' snapped Daniel. 'Take us back to

Cairo.'

'I hear gun.'

'Just start the bloody . . .!'

181

There was a sharp crack of gunfire. Whirling,

they saw two black-robed figures sprinting along

the track towards them. There was another crack,

from behind this time. Two more figures had

emerged from the desert and were also making

straight for them, black smudges against the

shimmering yellow of the sand. The driver

screamed and dropped to the ground.

'I told you there'd be more of them!' shouted

Daniel. 'The dig house! Run!'

He seized her arm and they sprinted towards the

house, one bullet whizzing past Tara's head,

another kicking up a spray of dust just in front of

them. They reached the side of the building and

jumped down onto the rear terrace. Beyond it a

steep sandy slope dropped away to the village

beneath, where people were coming out of their

houses and looking up, wondering what all the

noise was about.

'Get down the slope,' shouted Daniel.

'What about you?'

'Just get down the slope. I'll follow.'

'I'm not leaving you!'

'Jesus!'

There was a thud of running feet. Daniel cast his

eyes wildly around, spotted an old
touria
leaning