The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [99]
A light appeared below. It was the beam of the candle Ramses carried in his pocket, and it illumined the chair frame and a huddled, featureless shape beside it.
There could be no doubt that the shape was that of a human body, or the remains of one. If the individual had fallen clear from the top, there was little chance he had survived, but I clung to the hope that he had been partway down before he lost his hold. I believed—how could I have assumed otherwise?— that some poor deluded villager had penetrated the burial place of the pharaoh by night as his ancestors had done, in a search for treasure.
I do not know precisely when the truth began to dawn. Perhaps it was Ramses’s rigid pose as he knelt beside the crumpled form. He had placed his candle on the floor beside him. His body was in shadow; the glow illumined only his motionless hands. When he spoke he pitched his voice low. It came up the hollow shaft like a series of groans, with long intervals between the words.
“Get something … to cover her. I’ll … bring her up.”
“Her,” Emerson repeated. “Ramses. Who …”
He told us. “She’s dead.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes. God, yes.”
“Call out when you are ready,” Emerson said. He gave me the torch and grasped the handle of the windlass.
Ramses removed his coat and bent over the body. Nefret was already running up the sloping passage that led to the surface.
The girl was—had been—small and slight, but only Emerson’s phenomenal strength could have raised her weight and that of Ramses. When I moved to help him he grunted at me to get out of his way. Nefret came back, carrying one of the rugs from the shelter. She reached out to steady the cage and its burden, and Ramses swung himself onto level ground.
His coat concealed the head and the upper part of the body, but it was not long enough to cover the torn skirt or the small scarred boots. It was Ramses who lifted the half-shrouded form onto the rug and folded the sides over to cover it, but when he would have raised the pathetic bundle Emerson put a firm hand on his shoulder.
“I’ll take her from here,” he said gruffly. “Damnation, my boy, you are only human!”
Ramses turned his face toward the wall. I unhooked the flask of brandy and handed it to Nefret. We left them together, her arm round his bowed shoulders.
EIGHT
I was an object of interest to the women of the tribes, who seemed fascinated by my golden hair and fair skin …
They did not remain below for long. Ramses was himself again, his countenance no more expressive than that of the Sphinx; but when he saw me kneeling by the roll of carpet he caught me by the shoulders and pulled me away. “No, Mother. Don’t. Not here, and not now.”
“And not you, Aunt Amelia,” said Nefret. Ramses turned to face her.
“Nor you, Nefret. What are you trying to prove—that you are more than human?”
“I have done my share of autopsies and dissections,” Nefret said steadily. “How did she die?”
“Take your choice. Fractured skull, shattered spinal cord, broken neck, pelvis, ribs …”
Emerson breathed out a string of curses. I said, “The face?”
“You would not care to see it.”
“Then how can you be certain of her identity?”
After a long moment Ramses said, “Trust you to think of that, Mother. I fear there can be little doubt. The hair was the same, and the clothing.”
“Especially the boots,” Nefret said in a cold, dry voice. She was looking down at the foot I had exposed. “They were specially made for her in London. I doubt many women could get them on. I certainly could not. She was proud of her tiny feet.”
We were no longer alone. Selim and Daoud, Ali and Hassan, had come; at a little distance, huddled together and watching in silence,