The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [47]
“Mr. Vandergelt was inspired, I expect, by Crusaders’ castles. There are a number of them in the Middle East.”
“That is no excuse. Well, I suppose I must put up with it.”
Personally I did not find it difficult to “put up with” clean comfortable rooms and excellent service. Cyrus kept a skeleton staff always in residence; the caretaker greeted us with the assurance that we were expected, and that our rooms were ready. They were as elegantly appointed as in any modern hotel. Fine Oriental rugs covered the floors. Windows and doors were fitted with netting to keep out insects, and the rooms were kept cool by a method known since the Middle Ages—porous earthenware jars in the mashrabiyya alcoves behind the windows.
After asking when we would like luncheon to be served, the majordomo bowed himself out and I began to strip off my travel-stained garments. Emerson prowled around opening wardrobe doors and investigating cabinets. He gave a grunt of satisfaction. “Vandergelt is no fool, if he is an American. There is a good solid lock on this cupboard. Just what I hoped to find.”
From the small travel case he had carried in his own hand from Cairo he took the box containing the scepters and stowed it carefully away, putting the key in his trouser pocket after he had locked the cabinet. I heard the splash of water from the adjoining bathroom; the servants were not done filling the tub, so I wrapped myself in a robe and sat down to wait till they had finished. Cool drinks and an assortment of little cakes had been brought to us; I poured a glass of soda water.
“What a fuss you are making about those scepters! If I had had any idea they would prey on your mind as they seem to I would have suggested we ‘discover’ them last spring while we were at Napata. That is the most logical place for them to be found, after all.”
“Do you suppose I did not consider that? I am not such a fool as you believe.”
“Now, Emerson, be calm. I did not mean to imply—”
“Such a discovery at Napata would have drawn every treasure hunter in Africa and aroused the cupidity of the natives. They would have torn the pyramids to bits.”
“There isn’t much left of them now,” I pointed out.
Emerson ignored this. Pacing furiously, hands clasped behind his back, he went on, “There was another consideration. I wanted the ‘discovery’ to be separated in time from Nefret’s reappearance. If these objects are found at Thebes they cannot possibly be connected with Willy Forth’s lost city.”
I saw the sense of his reasoning and candidly confessed as much. This put him in a better humor; and, a tap at the door having announced that my bath was ready, I proceeded to take it.
After luncheon we assumed our working attire and set out for the Valley, accompanied by Abdullah and Daoud and the cat. Abdullah was not a particular admirer of cats, and he viewed this one askance. Anubis responded, as cats will, by lavishing attention on poor Abdullah—twining around his ankles, leaping at him out of hiding in kittenish fashion, pretending (I believe he was pretending) to attack the hem of his robe. Abdullah tried several times to kick him (he did it when he thought I was not looking, but I was). Needless to say, his foot never connected.
Though I would have preferred to dispense with Abdullah and Daoud, not to mention the cat, the expedition could not but delight me. To see Emerson in the costume that becomes him best, his waving black locks shining in the sun, his tanned and muscular forearms displayed by the rolled sleeves of his shirt; to walk stride by stride with him, agile in my comfortable trousers; to hear the musical clash of the tools depending from my belt and clasp the sturdy handle of my parasol… Mere words cannot capture the exhilaration of that experience.
Instead of following the tourist road, we set off along a curving track that led northwest. The Valley of the Kings—Biban el Muluk, literally “Gates of the Kings” in Arabic—is not one valley but two. The one most frequently visited is the eastern valley, where the majority of the royal tombs of