The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [67]
He’d done everything short of asking, though, during their conversation at dinner. Had it been that eager timidity that had prompted Ramses’s mother to bully her husband into changing his plans? She liked to think of herself as hard-hearted and practical, but everybody in Luxor knew she was the softest of soft touches. Katchenovsky was the sort of pathetic specimen she was fond of rescuing. He must be hard up if he was staying at Hussein Ali’s.
He led the Russian to his workroom and explained what he wanted done. “The first priority is to sort and stabilize the material we found yesterday at Deir el Medina. You know how quickly papyrus can deteriorate once it’s exposed to the air.”
He demonstrated the methods he used. The Russian was quick to catch on. They worked silently and efficiently until Fatima popped her head in and announced that tea would be ready shortly.
“You’ll stay, I hope,” Ramses said.
“Will your lovely children be there? I am very fond of children.”
“Oh, yes, they never miss tea.”
They interrupted a violent argument between Carla and David John. Carla was the violent one; her shouts had no effect on her brother, who stood with folded arms, shaking his head. The argument seemed to have something to do with the dog. Ramses deduced that Carla wanted Amira to join them for tea. The dog was peering hopefully through the bars at the door. The Great Cat of Re stared back at her, tail thrashing.
“Shame on you,” Ramses said, taking his enraged daughter in a tight embrace. “You know the dog isn’t allowed in. Is this any way to behave before a guest?”
Carla’s temper was as changeable as a windstorm. Her face was still bright red with fury when she hugged him back and gave Katchenovsky an angelic smile. “Good evening, sir. Can we have tea now, Papa?”
“As soon as the others get here.”
“They are here. Grandmama said they wanted to wash first.”
She left him to lean against Katchenovsky’s chair and tell him about Amira, but she instantly abandoned the Russian when Emerson came out of the house.
“Can we have tea now, Grandpapa?”
“Yes, yes, may as well,” said Emerson, pushing his damp hair back from his forehead. “Ah—good evening—er—Kravatsky. Is your work going well, my boy?”
Knowing his father had only asked out of politeness, Ramses said briefly, “Mikhail is being a great help. How did your day go, Father?”
“Well, very well. We have the debris cleared from the entrance and the steps.” He paused to light his pipe. “Have to go carefully from here on; there appear to be a number of pieces from the gilded shrine in the rubble in the corridor. You remember it was left there when Davis closed the tomb in ’07. Despite my protests,” he added, scowling.
“I thought Weigall removed it the following year,” Ramses said.
“While my back was turned,” Emerson growled.
Well and truly turned, Ramses thought. They had been far out in the Western Desert that year. Emerson’s diatribe—“no idea what he did with the damned thing, it never arrived at the museum, probably fell to pieces when he took it out”—was interrupted by the arrival of Nefret and his mother. Sethos was the last to turn up.
“It took a while to dry my hair,” he explained unnecessarily.
Fatima brought the tea things and everyone began talking at once, with the shrill voices of the children rising and falling like an obbligato. Ramses smiled apologetically at the Russian. “I’m afraid it’s always like this. Pure pandemonium.”
Katchenovsky started and came back from whatever internal world he had been occupying. “It is very pleasant. Such a large, loving family.”
Emerson continued to hold forth on the iniquities of other archaeologists, particularly those of the Davis excavations. Sensing that he had a new audience, he turned his attention on Katchenovsky.
“Are you familiar with the excavation of KV55?”
“No, sir,” the Russian said. True or not, it was the right answer.
“Botched from start to finish,” Emerson declared. “It contained the parts of a gold-encrusted shrine made by Akhenaton for his mother, Queen Tiy, and a battered coffin containing