The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [111]
My fast-swelling foot forced me to put off exploration of the new chamber and I spent the evening changing again and again the sopping dressing—an ugly wound indeed, though of course, a small price for our discovery. I sent the man away for his own rest, some more water, and a cane, but I could not in good conscience return to my villa or see a doctor until I had mapped the tomb’s new chamber. Sleep was nearly impossible.
17 November came, a flicker of light, and as my man was not yet back, I again washed and wrapped my foot with another strip of bedsheet and the last of my drinking water. A fair problem I found in the murky dawn light: the two outside toes were certainly broken, as were, judging by the purple swelling, a bone or two or three in the foot itself. The cuts were mostly superficial, my boot having served as armour, but the skin was split in a few places and the sheet was brown. I finished my nursing and stumbled off to explore what we will temporarily refer to as the “Chamber of Confusion.”
This second chamber is as superficially empty as the Empty Chamber. And so one must conclude that Atum-hadu and his anonymous tomb architect decided that any robber who breached the Empty Chamber, discovered the ominous curse written on Door B, and yet was strong enough to forge on could be dissuaded only by total frustration, as neither fear nor obstacles had so far stopped him, and so the king and his builder likely decided not to bother with further curses or obstruction but merely attempted to convince a potential burglar that he was absolutely wasting his time. Thus, another bare room. Of course, no observer ever made it so far, so while I admire Atum-hadu’s craftiness, it was, in retrospect, quite superfluous.
At any rate, my tomb is now laid out thus:
(FIG. E: MAP OF ATUM-HADU’S TOMB AS OF 17 NOV., ’22)
Were it not for the (lost) inscription on Door B and the seductress’s song of Door C, my own confusion and despair might at this point have matched those of the hypothetical ancient robber.
It was late in the morning of the 17th before my man was back with bandages, water, food, and a cane, curved at the top like a royal sceptre and crafted of a strong, dark wood. “Do you know he smashed a foot on the dig and then, cool as you like, merely sent for a cane while he carried on? The cane’s on display at the Explorers’ in Cairo.”
The cane was a help, as with every step my foot throbbed out a perpetual echo to the fallen door’s impact. I ate, drank, and finished my magnifying glass inspection of the Chamber of Confusion, confirming its brilliant “possum” design, but for the very faint but unmistakable outline of Door C, quite blank.
With my one man’s help (Ahmed and the other three were late in returning), I commenced dusting and chiselling around Door C, the same slow work of chisel, brush, mallet, wedge, brush, chisel, brush, mallet, wedge, brush. I was feeling terribly weak, perhaps even a bit feverish, no doubt from excitement at what was behind this last remarkable door. And, two or three times, I hobbled back outside, where I was slightly ill. Twice also, at least, I was so exhausted that I slept uneasily on one of the cots in the Empty Chamber, trying to make up for many lost hours. Night fell on the 17th with me having slept most of the day away, and I awoke—as was my unfortunate habit, and Atum-hadu’s as well—in the earliest, dark hours. The 18th. I could hear but not see my one loyal man asleep in a dark corner, but the others had still not returned. I went outside to consider the stars above Deir el Bahari.
I will not say I was cheerful in this night watch.
Dawn of the 18th finally arrived, and the pale light revealed that I was alone; I had evidently misconstrued the echoes of my own breath as that of a loyal worker who was not there. I noted that Ahmed and the others were now eighteen hours late. The possibility of betrayal occurred to me, the cowardice and avarice of the local workforce