The Hippopotamus Pool - Elizabeth Peters [180]
‘After her death her nephew, whom she had kept under her thumb for years, began attacking her monuments. As I reconstruct the case, it was his men who entered Tetisheri’s tomb. Thutmose, whose mother was of humble birth, was probably collecting ancestors; he removed Tetisheri and some of her grave goods. And don’t ask me to speculate about why some things were taken away and others were left! Unlike some of my colleagues, I am an excavator, not a writer of historical romances. The last act of Thutmose’s servants was to destroy the decoration of the entrance corridor, which mentioned Hatshepsut.
‘The tomb was entered again in the Twenty-First Dynasty and used for burials of a priestly family – those whose coffins we found trampled and broken by the modern thieves. It may have been they who deposited the Nameless Mummy, but I am inclined to believe he was already there, and that it was his presence that deterred the priests from entering the burial chamber.’
‘Well done, Emerson,’ I said. ‘I agree in general with your reconstruction; but you have not offered a theory as to the identity of the Nameless Mummy.’
‘Come now,’ Walter exclaimed. ‘Not even you, Amelia, would have the . . . That is, would dare . . . What I mean to say –’
‘What he means,’ said Emerson, ‘is that only you possess the imaginative force to invent – pardon me – deduce the solution to this ancient mystery. Proceed, my dear Peabody. I await your remarks with interest.’
‘It is only a theory, of course,’ I said modestly. ‘But as you said, we can be fairly certain that the tomb was entered by agents of Thutmose III. The king destroyed the reliefs that showed his powerful, autocratic aunt Hatshepsut, but he had no reason to resent Tetisheri. It must have been he who left the Nameless Mummy. So who was this unfortunate, horribly murdered, ritually destroyed? Obviously – What did you say, Emerson?’
‘Obviously,’ Emerson muttered. ‘I said “Obviously,” repeating your own word. Do go on, my dear.’
‘Obviously he was an individual of some importance, a priest or prince or noble. The body of a common criminal would not have been preserved at all. Obviously he had committed some act that won him the hatred of the pharaoh, for this was an official murder – an execution, in short. Now I ask you – what high official would have been hated by Thutmose? What low-born upstart had dared to – er –’
Emerson took his pipe from his mouth. The stem was quite badly chewed. ‘Defile?’ he suggested, with deceptive mildness. ‘Just the other day, Peabody, you denied that the queen would have taken a commoner as her lover.’
‘You misunderstood me, my dear,’ I replied.
‘Oh, good Gad!’ Emerson exclaimed.
‘Think it through,’ I insisted. ‘The king of Egypt – whether male or female – was divine, engendered by a god, but I don’t doubt that the ancient Egyptians followed the same unfair double standard that prevails today. It was perfectly acceptable for a king to have as many concubines as he could manage, but a commoner who – er – had intimate relations with the queen would not enjoy a long life – unless the queen was also a king, who could protect her favourite! Once that protection was removed, the sinner met the fate prescribed for those who had violated religious and state law. But – and this, I think, is the conclusive argument . . . if I can think how to put it . . .’
‘Of course!’ Nefret exclaimed. ‘He had partaken of her divinity!’
‘That,’ said Ramses in a peculiar voice, ‘is certainly one way of putting it.’
‘A very proper way of putting it,’ I said, nodding gratefully at Nefret. ‘That relationship imbued his physical remains with a certain sanctity; they could not be utterly destroyed. Yet they were also accursed, and that is why Thutmose removed Tetisheri from her resting place, lest she be contaminated by contact with them.’
‘You have it,’ Nefret cried. ‘Brilliant, Aunt Amelia! Who else could it have been