The Visitors (19 page)
‘People think these burials were all about glory and display, as Miss Mackenzie claimed over lunch,’ he went on. ‘And that’s true to a degree, of course. But they were also thoughtful, Lucy, when they supplied these tombs: thoughtful – and loving too. The priests wanted to ensure the pharaoh’s happiness and well-being in the afterlife, so they left him with food and grain and meat and wines. They provided him with medicinal ointments and sweet-smelling oils, and left him lamps so he need never endure the dark. Those who mourned him decorated his tomb with flower wreaths, just as we do now… ’ He hesitated and his voice caught. ‘I’ve seen examples of such wreaths, in fact we have some at the Met, and it always moves me to look at them… They’re beautiful, Lucy, woven from olive and palm leaves, interlaced with beads, decorated with blue lotus, cornflowers and nightshade berries. They’re joyous things – not like the funereal tributes we send now. The ones we have at the museum are in a near-perfect state of preservation, yet it’s three thousand years since the funeral for which they were made.’
He fell silent and looked along the wadi, his face clouded and his eyes sad. Frances reached for my hand and clasped it tight. I wondered if they were thinking of other, much more recent funerals, as I was; perhaps the burial of the little son who died when his father was on a different continent, fighting a war – and maybe they were, for Frances wiped her eyes, and Winlock remained quiet, his gaze averted.
After a while, he gave himself a shake and said in a newly hesitant way: ‘Where was I? Ah yes: the death of kings… Lucy, all those things I’ve just described, are you imagining them? The Burial Chamber, the shrines, the treasures – can you see them?’
When I nodded, he said in a new brusque way: ‘Good. Go on imagining. Imagine very hard – because they’ve gone. None of it is here. Not the chariots or the shrines or the golden coffins… there’s not one stick of treasure left. All the loving tributes disappeared long, long ago. That’s true of this tomb – and, to a greater or lesser degree, of every single one ever found in the Valley. There isn’t one that wasn’t rifled. The spells, the amulets, the goddesses and the guards, even the slow, hideous process of execution by impaling that was inflicted on all tomb robbers who were captured –
none
of it could protect Seti from human avarice. All that is left of him – and a poor forked creature he is – you saw in a glass case in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
‘Meanwhile, I’ve come prepared,’ he added, turning towards the dark entrance to the tomb. ‘No candles for us, and none of those infernal magnesium flares either. The smoke and the chemicals damage the wall paintings – and the ones here are magnificent, as you’re about to see, Lucy. Also, the flares and the candles can go out and then you’re left in the dark. That’s unpleasant: it once frightened Frances badly.’ He turned with a smile to ruffle Frances’s hair, then handed us the torches. ‘New flashlights and new batteries, and I’m with you, so there’s nothing to fear. Are you ready? I want you to use your eyes: the two eyes you’ve been blessed with and your mind’s eye as well. You’ll need all three. The dead await us. In we go.’
And down, down, down we went, descending flight after flight of crumbling steps, negotiating a rough wooden bridge over a deep black well-shaft; into one great subterranean hall, and then on again down more steps and along more hot dark corridors until I felt we must be a mile underground… and then forgot distance, because every step of the way we were accompanied – by depictions of the dead king himself on his journey to eternity, and by an escort of gods and goddesses, Ra, Atun and Isis, her green protective kite wings outspread in the beams of our flashlights.
The deeper we went, the quieter my mind became – Winlock had been right about that three-thousand-year effect; all the turmoil of the day seemed to slip away from me. I could recognise only some of the painted gods that lined the corridors, but I could feel the reassurance of their power. I could sense something else too: I took it for fear at first, and then decided it was holiness. It was the first time I’d ever experienced such a thing. I’ve sensed it on many occasions in the long decades since – it’s caught me unawares, surprised me in the hush of an English country church, stolen upon me in a mosque or a temple. But the first time I ever truly felt
that
breath on the back of my neck was in Seti’s tomb, when we reached the last room, three hundred feet into the rock, the final space that Winlock had called the Holy of Holies.
When we came to that last chamber, her father hung back, and Frances took my hand. She switched off my flashlight, and then her own, and we stood side by side in the absolute dark. ‘Now, look up, Lucy,’ Frances whispered.
She switched on the torch again, training its beam across the high vaulted ceiling of the Burial Chamber. It curved over us, I saw, so wondrously beautiful and strange that I gasped: a blue night sky of planets, constellations and their ruling deities, still protecting a dead king whose body now lay five hundred miles away in a glass case in a museum. The gods’ hands were spilling stars and their eyes were eternally watchful; the paint was as fresh as if it had been applied yesterday.
We stayed longer than intended in the underworld of the tombs and visited more of them than perhaps Winlock had first planned. When we finally emerged from the last, the sun was beginning to set in a sky stained the purple of blackberries. The tourists and their guides had long gone: just three boys were waiting for us in the distance, at the donkey shelter where the two branches of the Valley divided. We began to walk back, Winlock striding ahead, Frances and me lagging behind. None of us spoke. The heat of the day was already being sucked back into the sky, and the air was chill. I shivered.
My donkey was docile, old and reluctant to move. I stroked the coarse cross of fur on her neck and whispered words of encouragement, while the boy in charge of her, skipping behind, gave her an assortment of slaps and barefooted kicks, all of which she ignored. She proceeded on, at an obstinate arthritic pace, and gradually the gap between me and the Winlocks widened. By the time I approached the soaring rock spur that marked the throat of the Valley and its exit, I was fifty yards behind, and Frances and her father were already out of sight. I looked back – knowing the Valley would be deserted, yet sure I’d glimpse the spirits who reclaimed it when darkness fell. In the velvety creeping dusk I did see a man’s shape and, for one second, took him for a ghost. Then I realised that it was Howard Carter; perhaps waiting for the Valley to empty of people, he had now returned to occupy it.
He was standing in the belly of the Valley, at the navel point marked by the tomb of Ramesses VI. I watched him clamber up a high mound of scree by the mouth of that tomb. Hatless and in his shirtsleeves, he started off at a run, but it was a reeling, ungainly climb; he missed his footing several times, whirling his arms to get his balance. When he finally reached the summit, he stood there, scowling at air. The declining sun silhouetted his figure, and as I looked back, I saw him stoop, pick up a stone and hurl it against the rock face behind him. First one stone, then another, then violent handfuls of them in rapid succession – in the clear air, I could hear their ricochet, like a spatter of gunfire.
My donkey, tired and refractory, had come to a halt at the mouth of the Valley; the boy gave her a hard smack on her rump. She kicked out at him and shied, nearly dislodging me from the saddle. By the time I’d regained my balance and she’d been persuaded to move on again, Carter had flung himself down on the shale, with his back against a rock.
Looking back one last time, I saw him take a flask from his pocket; there was a flash of silver as he raised it and drained its contents. We rounded the rocks, and set off at a sober pace for the American House, leaving Carter alone, in possession of the Valley.
The next morning, when we were at breakfast at the American House, a handwritten note was delivered to Helen. We were coming to the end of our meal: Frances and I were sitting at the foot of the long refectory table; most of the working archaeologists, including the amiable Harry Burton, had left by then. Minnie Burton remained, seated near the table’s head. She had eaten a large breakfast, helping herself to bacon, eggs and pancakes, kept warm in chafing dishes on a sideboard. Now she was delicately munching toast and marmalade, with her head bent over a book that she’d continued to read throughout the meal. She looked up and watched the delivery of this note with close interest, I saw – but then Minnie kept an eye on all activities at the house, and very little escaped her scrutiny. Helen read it, smiled, shook her head and showed the note to her husband, on his way out of the door and late for his dig.
‘Astonishing.’ Winlock laughed. ‘That’s the nearest thing to an apology you’ll ever get from Carter. Consider yourselves honoured.’
The note was handed to Miss Mack, who raised her eyebrows but made no comment; finally, since we were also addressed, it was passed to Frances and to me. It read:
My dear Helen, likewise Miss Mackenzie, Frances and Lucie,
I shall be at my dig in the Valley today and you are welcome to visit it should that prospect be of interest. If it appeels I can offer you tea afterwards at my ‘Castle’ hoping it will,
Sincerely yours,
Howard Carter
‘He can’t spell, Myrtle. Never could.’ Helen sighed. ‘Or punctuate. Or, indeed, bring himself to apologise. In fact, he’s impossible and an unmannerly bear, but––’
‘It’s a charming note. Touching in its way.’
‘Shall I accept? I’d love you and Lucy to see Carter’s house. We could go this afternoon? His boy Hosein is waiting for an answer.’
‘Can we rely on his temper this time, do you suppose?’ Miss Mack asked, in a dry tone.
‘Not in the least. But let’s risk it, shall we? Come and help me, Myrtle – I think I should write a
very
ceremonious reply, don’t you?’
The two women left us. Minnie Burton ostentatiously turned a page of her book. ‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘Lunch with Carnarvon and Carter yesterday. Castle Carter this afternoon. Aren’t you popular little girls?’
‘I guess we must be, Mrs Burton,’ Frances replied demurely, her tone a precisely judged one millimetre away from insolence. ‘I wonder why?’
‘I wonder too.’ Minnie looked up and gave us both an appraising stare. ‘One thing you can be sure of – Howard Carter never bothers with people unless they are useful to him. So either you two have been useful to him already, or he plans to make use of you very soon. Which would you say it was, my dear?’
‘Gee, I can’t think,’ Frances answered, in an innocent tone. ‘I guess it’s just that he
likes
us. He says Lucy has remarkable powers of observation.’
‘Does he indeed? How flattering. And do you share her abilities?’
‘What, me, Mrs Burton? Gosh, no. I just goof around. I make him laugh, maybe.’
‘Well, I can’t say I share his sense of humour.’ Minnie’s cold blue eyes rested first on Frances’s face, then on mine. ‘In my day, children spoke rather less than you do, Frances. They endeavoured to be seen and
not
heard
.’
‘Then we go one better,’ Frances smartly replied. ‘We try not to be heard
or
seen, Mrs Burton. We endeavour to be
invisible.
And we often succeed.’
There was a silence, and it was not a comfortable one. ‘And so I am beginning to realise,’ Minnie replied at last, colour mounting in her cheeks. She rose to her feet, frowning. ‘Most amusing. All I will say, Frances, to you and your little friend, is that your private jokes may entertain you, but they do not entertain
me.
You may smirk to your hearts’ content, and no doubt consider yourselves very clever – but you know the expression “He who laughs last, laughs longest”? You’ll discover the truth of that one of these days.’
She picked up her book, marked her place in it with an old envelope, tucked it under her arm and left us. Frances made a face at her departing back.
‘Oh well done,’ I said. ‘Brilliant, Frances. Now she knows we’re spies.’
‘She knew anyway. She must have worked it out – she’s not stupid. She must have seen us on the terrace at Shepheard’s and now she’s put two and two together. What do I care? There’s nothing she can do anyway. She wouldn’t dare say a word about Poppy, not after that dressing-down Lord Carnarvon gave her… except, what did that last remark of hers mean? Could you see the title of that book she was reading?’
‘No. I looked, but she kept her hand over it. Could you?’
‘I tried but she was too quick. It was too fat to be a novel – Queen Min doesn’t stoop to fiction anyway, she’s a snob about books
and
people. A biography? Some reference thing? You saw the way she kind of flourished it and hid it at the same time?’
‘I did. Was it one of the books from the library here, maybe? I thought I could see some kind of stamp on the cover.’
‘I’ll check. Anyway, it’s a clue, Lucy. We’ll keep a watch on her – she’s up to something.’
Burton-watching was a fine game; we tried hard to keep it up after breakfast, but our spying activities were thwarted time and again. Frances checked the American House library, stacked with works of archaeological reference in the main, but the results were inconclusive. For the rest of that morning, we were kept occupied. Neither Helen nor Miss Mack approved of idleness, so we were banished to our room to practise our ballet steps, then spent an hour over hieroglyphs and Egyptian history on the veranda; finally, easels were set up for us outside the house, so we could paint industrious watercolours of the Theban hills.
Minnie Burton reappeared as Frances and I were embarking on our watercolours, remarking acidly to Helen that it was good to see the children occupied for once. ‘Maybe Frances will inherit your talents, Helen,’ she said sweetly. ‘I was saying to Harry the other day,
such
a pity you never trained – for an amateur, you really do paint so charmingly. You must do a little sketch of me, one day – just as a keepsake, you know.’