The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [103]
Holding the scrap delicately by one side, Ramses turned it to catch the fading light. “Most of the original paint is gone. The impression at the top of the cartouche could be a sun sign, and this curve part of the kheper beetle.”
“Smenkhkare,” Emerson said triumphantly. “He was buried there, I knew it.”
“Not necessarily,” Ramses said. “A number of royal names have those signs, including Amenhotep the Second and Tutankhamon. What do you make of it, Mikhail?”
He handed the piece to the Russian, who received it on the palm of his hand. “It is as you have said, Ramses. Only those two signs are certain. They were usually more deeply carved than others.”
“I’ll have another look at it in the morning, when the light is stronger,” Ramses said. “Though I doubt if it is significant. KV55 was a cache, after all, with objects from various royals.”
He replaced the scrap in the box lined with fabric and moved it aside in time to avoid the reaching hand of his daughter. “How many times must I tell you not to touch antiquities without permission?” he asked sternly.
“It is only a dirty piece of wood,” said Carla.
“Any object may have historical value,” said her brother, blue eyes accusatory. “May I have a look, Papa?”
“Another time,” Ramses said. He didn’t want to discourage his son, who had already shown an interest in Egyptology, but he knew that if David John were permitted to examine the scrap, Carla would insist on her turn. “Here, Fatima, will you be good enough to take this to Father’s study?”
Katchenovsky distracted Carla by producing a piece of string and initiating her into the art of cat’s cradle. He really did have a knack with children.
Unfortunately his mother got at the post basket first. Fortunately Harriet Petherick did not indulge in dainty scented notepaper. His mother handed over the plain white envelope without comment. The handwriting was as large and emphatic as that of a man. There were several other letters for him; he read them first, and then opened Harriet’s.
It left him in what his mother would have called a moral dilemma. Harriet reiterated her request that he tell no one—and what a depressingly familiar sound that had! In this case, he told himself, there couldn’t be any danger in going alone. She’d asked him to come to her room at the hotel. He could imagine what his mother would suspect: poison in the tea, a passionate embrace that would end with a knife in his ribs, a posse of thugs hiding in the bath chamber…Plots worthy of the Countess Magda.
He laughed, and his mother looked up from the letter she was reading.
“Something amusing in your correspondence, my dear?”
“No, not very.”
The situation wasn’t at all amusing. He found himself between the devil and the deep blue sea: breaking his word to Harriet Petherick or deceiving his wife—again.
He could lie with a straight face when he had to, but the trouble with his affectionate, closely knit, inquisitive, helpful family was that the lie had to be clever enough to get them off the track. In the end, he told part of the truth.
“I’m going over to Luxor for a while. I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
He hadn’t expected to get off that easily, nor did he. In the end he had to pretend to lose his temper. “For God’s sake, I don’t need a bodyguard every time I leave the house! I’m going straight to the Winter Palace and I’ll come straight back. I only want to have a chat with Abdul and one or two of the other suffragis.”
“You’ve remembered something?” his mother asked keenly.
“Just an amorphous idea. They’re more likely to talk to me if I’m alone. Now, please, Mama, may I have your permission to go?”
“May I beg a ride?” Katchenovsky asked. “I have some business in Luxor.”
The children set up a clamor of protest. The Russian smiled and held out his hands to them. “Little ones, I must not take advantage of your family’s kindness. I will see you tomorrow.”
Feluccas and gaily painted boats crowded the river, as belated tourists returned to their hotels. The sun was setting when they reached the East Bank. Katchenovsky,