The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [132]
We had to pick a path among them. As I stepped carefully over one prostrate body I caught a gleam of eyes, open and alert, and I knew the truth. This was the sleeping place of the servant-slaves; the sky their only roof, a thin mat their only bed. But they were not sleeping. Wherever we stepped, those wide, watching eyes were upon us. Call me fanciful if you will, but I felt the thoughts they dared not express aloud—hope and encouragement and goodwill—guiding my steps like warm, helping hands.
A gate opened out onto the hillside and a pile of vile-smelling refuse. Mentarit picked up her skirts and started to run, following a narrow path of beaten earth. She was as fleet as a hare, and I was quite breathless when she finally came to a stop. Looking down at the causeway far below, I saw just ahead a familiar pyloned gateway. We were on the edge of the cemetery.
When I looked back, Mentarit had disappeared. Emerson took my hand. “Another tunnel, Peabody. There is a hole here, behind the rock.”
There were a good many holes, fissures, and cracks. The one Emerson indicated did not look promising, but I squeezed through and felt Mentarit’s hand clasp mine. Emerson’s broad shoulders stuck but he got through at the expense of a few inches of skin.
Mentarit struck a light. She seemed more at ease now that we were under cover, but she went even more quickly. The tunnels looked exactly like the ones we had traversed earlier, narrow and dark and unadorned. For all I knew they might be part of the same network.
We must have traveled for a good twenty minutes through this maze. At last we came to a steep stairway, lit by a glow from an opening above. I followed Mentarit, with Ramses close on my heels and Emerson bringing up the rear. Soft though the lamplight was, it blinded me after the relative darkness of the tunnel. Mentarit guided me through the opening and I found myself standing upon a bare stone floor.
The chamber was small and so low Emerson’s head brushed the ceiling as he climbed up to join me. A dark rectangle on the far wall indicated a more conventional entrance to the room, which was unfurnished except for another of the low stone benches. Someone was sitting on it—not the stalwart male figure I had expected, but a veiled female. Another swaddled form stood by her, holding a lamp. Mentarit went to stand on the other side of the seated woman, whose gold-embroidered veils glittered in the light.
“Oh, good Gad,” exclaimed Emerson. “Not another one!”
For the figure had risen, and he saw at once, as did I, that it was not the same woman who had kissed the grisly brow of the dead man. This form was slighter and its movements more graceful. A long shiver passed through her; her diaphanous draperies fluttered like the wings of a frightened bird. Then, with a sudden gesture, like a bird taking flight, she flung them back and they drifted to the ground.
Her slim body, scarcely concealed by the flimsy garment beneath the veils, was that of a girl on the threshold of womanhood. Her face was heart-shaped, curving gently from rounded cheeks to a delicate pointed chin. Her skin had the translucent luster of a pearl. The faintest tinge of rose warmed its pallor. Her eyes were blue—not the blazing sapphire of Emerson’s, but the tender azure of forget-me-nots. Delicate brows arched above them, long lashes framed them. And from her broad white brow the crowning glory of her hair fell over her shoulders and down her back, a flood of molten gold bright with coppery highlights.
The first sound that broke the stillness came from somewhere in the region of my left shoulder blade. It resembled the last drops of water gurgling from a hose.
Emerson, on my right, let out his breath in a great sigh. The girl’s lips trembled and her eyes swam with tears. I knew I ought