The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [20]
“Your hands, Ramses. What have you been doing?”
“Digging,” Ramses admitted. “Please, Khadija, not the green ointment! There are only a few scratches.”
She had already vanished inside the house.
“Digging where?” Selim asked. He at least hadn’t changed. Straight and trim, dressed in his best woolen robe to do them honor, he watched with a grin as Khadija smeared the famous ointment on Ramses’s hands. It was a traditional recipe in her Nubian family and it had amazingly therapeutic powers, but it left long-lasting stains on skin and clothing.
“The Valley of the Kings,” Ramses answered Selim’s question. “Near the tomb of Siptah.”
Selim’s fine dark eyes widened. “Why there?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Tell it, then,” said Daoud. “Tell about the golden statues and the man with the gun.”
Damnation, Ramses thought. He ought to have known that Fatima would spread the tale. After all, no one had sworn her to secrecy, and her new “footman,” Kareem, was a notorious gossip. He decided it would be better to set the record straight before Daoud, the family’s self-appointed chronicler, could embellish it any further. He had intended to discuss the business with Selim anyhow. Selim knew everyone in Luxor, including tomb robbers and dealers. The children were playing some game that involved intermittent screaming and a lot of rushing around, so he suggested to Daoud and Selim that they go for a walk.
There was no chance for a quiet conversation in the village; the narrow twisting paths led past open courtyards where the women were grinding grain and the men working at various chores or just sitting around smoking water pipes and drinking coffee. Everyone had a greeting or an embrace for Ramses, and questions showered them: “When would the Sitt Hakim visit? How were the little ones, God’s blessing be on them?”
After leaving the village they turned by unspoken consent toward the village cemetery, and Ramses began his narrative.
“Only one statue?” Daoud asked, visibly cast down. “I thought there were many, and rich jewelry.”
“Kareem is a great liar,” Selim declared.
“It isn’t so much what Kareem said as how others embellish the basic story,” Ramses said. “Do some of the Gurnawis believe we found the statue during our excavations?”
“It is not true?” Daoud asked.
Selim gave him an exasperated look. “You know it is not, Daoud, you heard of the lady giving it to Emerson, and of the son who came to take it back.”
“Ah, yes.” Daoud stroked his beard. “I had forgotten. But some of the Gurnawis do not believe that story.”
“We ran into two of them this morning,” Ramses said. “Deib and Aguil. There was a third man, who got away after firing a pistol in our direction.”
“He dared to shoot at the Father of Curses?” Daoud rumbled. “Who was it?”
“Deib said he was a howadji. Someone he’d never seen before and couldn’t describe.”
“Deib is a greater liar than Kareem,” Selim said through tight lips. “It must have been the third brother, Farhat. He is a bad egg, Ramses, who has been in trouble with the police. Though how he dared…”
“I will see to him,” said Daoud.
Selim was almost certainly right, Ramses realized. Only the more gullible of the locals would have believed the statuette had been found in the Valley. Emerson must have known that too and suspected the brothers were lying about the identity of the third man. Yet he hadn’t pressed them. Why?
He was still pondering this when Selim said, “Yes, we will see to him. One golden statue is wonder enough. It is genuine? Of what period?”
“Amarna. Yes, it’s genuine. We don’t know how long ago it was found, or whose hands it passed through before Petherick bought it. You would know, wouldn’t you, if such a thing had turned up in Luxor?”
Selim stroked his neatly trimmed beard. “There are always rumors of rich finds. Most are lies. If this happened a long time ago, I might not know. Are you sure the statue came from Thebes?”
Ramses shook his