The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [76]
“I only want to make a preliminary survey.”
The evasive tone would certainly have aroused his wife’s suspicions. Ramses said, “Preliminary to what? You don’t mean to give up Deir el Medina and Medinet Habu in favor of the western wadis, do you? And what about Cyrus? He isn’t going to settle for workmen’s houses while we’re looking for queens’ tombs.”
Emerson’s face took on a look of noble self-righteousness. “Cyrus is not up to the kind of survey we’ll be doing. He might injure himself. Can’t have that.”
“We’re doing him a kindness, really.”
Emerson glanced at his solemn face and burst out laughing. “Glad you agree, my boy. I haven’t made up my mind yet where we will be working. I just want to have another look round. Without,” he added indignantly, “half a dozen people, including your mother, getting in my way.”
Emerson moved at a rapid pace; he had insisted on carrying the heavier load, but it didn’t slow him in the slightest. Though he did not pause, he greeted everyone he met and responded cheerfully to their questions. Several passersby asked where they were going. Emerson told them. Matching his father’s long strides, Ramses realized Emerson didn’t really expect to find Jamil’s tomb by himself. He was hoping Jamil would show himself again.
“Do you think he’ll be there?” he asked.
“Who? Oh. Hmph. He has been. He’s bound to make a mistake sooner or later, and when he does we’ll be ready for him.”
“You don’t know that the masked demon was he.”
“Who else could it have been? The Gurnawis don’t play silly tricks like that.”
“Mother will find out, you know—especially if Jamil succeeds in bashing one of us with a boulder.”
“Unlikely in the extreme,” Emerson declared. “However . . . No one is a better companion than your mother—when she is in a friendly state of mind—but women do get in the way at times. Especially your mother.”
Ramses grinned but saved his breath. He did not suffer from false modesty about his physical fitness, but keeping up with his father taxed even him. Emerson must have decided to take one of his famous “round-about-ways,” for they were already climbing, along a steep, winding path that would eventually lead them behind Deir el Medina and the Valley of the Queens.
They had got a late start and Emerson was in a hurry. Once they had reached the highest part of the path they made good time over relatively level ground. Absorbed in thought, Ramses followed his father without speaking.
He didn’t want to be here, or at Medinet Habu. If he’d had his way they would settle down for the season at Deir el Medina. He hadn’t explained himself very eloquently, and apparently his father’s fascination with temples prevented him from seeing what Ramses saw: a unique opportunity to learn about the lives of ordinary Egyptians, not pharaohs, not noblemen, but men who worked hard for a living, and their wives and children. The scraps of written material he had found contained work schedules and lists of supplies, and tantalizing hints of family relationships, friendly and not so friendly, extending over many generations. He was certain there were more papyri to be found; one of the men had mentioned coming across a similar cache some years earlier, near the place where this one had turned up. If his father would let him dig there . . .
He didn’t want to be here, but he’d had no choice. Once Emerson got the bit in his teeth it was impossible to turn him aside, and wandering the western wadis alone was dangerous, even for an old hand like his father. Paths wound all over the place, marked in some places by tumbles of stone that marked the ruins of ancient huts, used by the necropolis guards or by workmen. Ramses could only marvel at his father’s encyclopedic memory of the terrain; he did not pause before turning into a track that led downhill, following the eastern ridge of a deep wadi. When he finally stopped, they were only twenty feet from the valley floor, and Ramses saw a flight of rough stone stairs going down.
“Rest a bit,” Emerson said, unstrapping his knapsack. He removed his coat,