Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [84]
“Did you think I was going to hit you on the head again?”
“I can hardly blame you for losing your wits when I kiss you,” he said magnanimously, and kissed her again.
“There’s another reason,” he went on. “The thieves were able to get out in a hurry, so they couldn’t have been far inside. I think they were in this room when we interrupted them.”
He pointed the torch toward the left-hand wall. Someone had certainly been doing something. She would have assumed it was Howard Carter; the cleared space was neatly defined, leading from the door to the base of the wall and along it for several feet.
The hiding place was a rough hole which had been hastily enlarged from a fault in the stone. She could only guess at what it might once have contained; the only things remaining were a scattering of beads and a narrow strip of gold—a spacer or part of the fastening of a bracelet. Swearing softly and comprehensively, Ramses scooped up the objects, handed them to Nefret, and swept his fingers through the dust. He found one small item the thieves had overlooked: a ring, the golden hoop surmounted by a bezel of turquoise or blue glass with several tiny figures in gold relief.
“They must have had most of it out before they heard the signal,” he muttered. “Then they grabbed and ran. Damn!”
“Damn,” Nefret agreed. “How did they know where to look?”
“Good question. It was probably an ancient thief’s cache; some enterprising workman or priest scooped up a handful of jewelry—or maybe a small box, there are splinters of wood here—possibly when the tomb was being inspected, or was reopened for another burial, and tucked it away, meaning to come back for it later, when nobody was around. Carter would have found it if he had gone a bit farther. He’ll be sick when he hears about this.”
He rose to his feet. Nefret said, “You didn’t answer my question. How did they know where to look for the jewels?”
“I don’t know the answer. But he has an uncanny talent for finding such things.”
The backlight from the torch cast odd shadows across his face.
“He’s dead,” Nefret said, after a moment.
“Is he?”
They had been talking too loudly. An irritable, dry rustling began. They left the chamber and started back up the sloping passage to the entrance.
“Don’t mention what we found to Jamil or Jumana,” Ramses said.
Nefret nodded agreement. She knew as well as he did the effect the word “gold” had on the men of Gurneh, and how gossip would exaggerate the find. Upon their emergence they were greeted with flattering enthusiasm by their companions.
“Is it time to eat?” Jamil inquired hopefully.
“We may as well,” Nefret said. “Ramses?”
He was inspecting the rock surface around the entrance. She saw it almost as soon as he did: a rough circle cut into the rock, divided by a flattened curve.
There were times when the man Nefret adored with all her heart and soul made her so angry she wanted to hit him. According to her mother-in-law, this was a normal, even positive, feeling. “Not that I would ever condone striking a man,” she had added. “It would not be playing the game. A firm expression of annoyance generally inspires a loud response and a brief discussion, which serves to clear the air.” It seemed to work for her in-laws, but Ramses didn’t have his father’s explosive temper.
She had assumed they would go straight back to the boat so they could discuss the astonishing idea he had planted in her mind. It inspired other ideas, other conjectures, other theories; but instead of letting her talk about them, her husband proceeded to spend the rest of the day methodically exploring the valley and dictating notes to Jumana, who trotted after him like an energetic puppy. They went into the other royal tomb, where Ramses muttered over its neglected state and pointed out the wall painting of little baboons which had given the valley its name. By the time he announced they would return, her head was so full of unspoken comments it felt as if it would burst.
They parted from Jumana at the point where the path to Gurneh diverged from the main road to the ferry