The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [14]
But Emerson passed the entrance to KV55 with only a sidelong glance, pushing through the throngs and muttering anathemas against empty-headed tourists. As they went on, past the side branches that led to the most popular of the royal tombs, the crowds decreased. The sun had risen over the enclosing cliffs. Ramses took his mother’s arm.
“I’m ready for a rest. How about you?”
The pith helmet shadowed the upper part of her face, but he saw her tight-set lips relax. She was limping a little that morning, or rather, trying not to limp. He had noticed it once or twice before, but she would never admit fatigue or pain. “If you like, my dear.”
Emerson came back to ask why they were stopping. His wife, who was wearing her famous belt hung all round with various “useful objects,” unhooked her canteen and offered it to the others. Nefret accepted gratefully, and so did Ramses, after his mother had had her turn. Emerson shook his head. He could go without water as long as a camel, and his son had often wondered why he had never collapsed from dehydration.
They went on, exploring one side wadi after another, until they reached a cul-de-sac walled in by jagged cliffs. High above them, in a narrow cleft, was a tomb entrance—that of the great warrior pharaoh, Thutmose III.
“What’s Father doing?” Nefret asked.
Her mother-in-law opened her parasol. It was frequently used as an offensive weapon but, as she was fond of pointing out, it served a number of useful purposes, including that of sunshade.
“Looking for signs of unauthorized digging, I think. If anything of that sort has occurred, it would more likely be in this area, away from the main part of the Valley. But don’t ask me what he hopes to accomplish by this.”
This remote sepulchre had an atmosphere of majesty and mystery the main part of the Valley had lost when the Department of Antiquities smoothed its uneven paths and erected neat, modern retaining walls next to most of the tomb entrances. Here, far away from the hubbub and bustle, it wasn’t difficult to imagine the funeral cortege winding along the rocky ravine, the chanting of the white-robed priests and the wailing of the women, the gold-encrusted coffin catching the rays of the sun in a blinding glitter. Like all the other tombs, that of Thutmose III had been robbed millennia ago, but he had been one of Egypt’s richest and most powerful kings, with the wealth of Nubia and Syria in his hands; it boggled the mind to imagine the treasures that must have been buried with him.
Emerson’s bellow roused Ramses from his reverie, which was born partly of lack of sleep. He hastened to join his father, who was prowling around the piled-up rock chips and pebbles at the base of the cliff a little distance away. The debris was head-high here, left, if Ramses remembered correctly, from Davis’s excavation of the nearby tomb of Siptah.
“Didn’t Carter work in this area last year?” Ramses asked.
Emerson didn’t answer. Instead he began digging in one of the heaps, ignoring his wife’s shout of “Emerson, your gloves! Put on your gloves!” Ramses pitched in too, wondering what the devil he was supposed to be looking for. They found a number of pottery shards and the foot of a faience ushebti—Davis had never bothered to sift his fill. Finally Emerson let out a grunt of satisfaction and pulled out a torn, crumpled sheet of newspaper. “July of last year,” he announced.
“A tourist,” Ramses said.
“It’s in Arabic,” said Emerson. “Al Ahram. We had better start back now.” He folded the paper and tucked it carefully into his pocket.
They retraced their steps. As soon