Tomb of the Golden Bird - Elizabeth Peters [108]
“Go away, Kevin,” I said automatically.
“Why?” He fell in step with me, nodding pleasantly at David, on my other side. “You are persona non grata in any case. Be nice, Mrs. E., and I will return the favor. Carter has most of the entrance cleared.”
“Where is Miss Minton?”
“Hovering over the tomb,” said Kevin, scowling. “She has tried twice to approach Carter, but she had no more success than I did. I must say, his manners leave a great deal to be desired.”
Some persons find the Valley of the Kings stark and forbidding, its monochromatic buff cliffs unrelieved by greenery or rippling water. Yet it has a beauty of its own. Shaped by wind and weather, the walls of the narrow wadis have assumed fantastic shapes and the shadows exhibit subtle changes in color, from soft lavender to gray-blue, as the direction of the sun’s rays changes. In my opinion it was not as impressive as it had been before Howard Carter and his successors tidied the place, smoothing the paths, bringing electric lights into the most popular tombs and erecting walls round their entrances. It had to be done, not only to make access easier for the tourists who provided income to the local people, but to prevent rainwater from rushing down the cliffs into the tombs. Rainstorms in Luxor are infrequent, but formidable; I had beheld several myself, and knew how damaging they could be. And yet, and yet…the sheer romance of clambering over fallen rubble, of creeping down the narrow bat-filled passages with only a flickering candle to light the way, of being among the first to behold a burial chamber littered with the broken remnants of the treasures its occupant had taken to the tomb—and the remnants of the occupant himself—a snapped-off arm, its fingers extended like claws, a face whose withered lids were half open, showing slits of white, seeming to blink in the wavering flame…
How fortunate I had been to experience such delights! My deep sigh made David look curiously at me. “All right, are you, Aunt Amelia?”
“I was remembering the old days. Did you know,” I said dreamily, “that sometimes onions were inserted under the eyelids of the mummy to give a lifelike appearance?”
David’s sympathetic imagination understood the seeming irrelevance. He laughed a little, and slipped my arm through his. “That must have been a wonderful sight.”
The stairwell leading to the tomb entrance lay in a pit approximately twenty feet below ground level. More tidying, I thought sadly, observing the cleared space before the stairwell, the rough shed that had been constructed, the electric cable snaking its way across the ground. Several tents had been erected, presumably for the use of the guards; I doubted very much that Lord Carnarvon or Howard would settle for such rude accommodations. Just above and behind the pit lay the rectangular opening to the tomb of Ramses VI. A low retaining wall of unmortared stone surrounded the declivity.
David and I joined the rest of our party near the entrance to the tomb. Howard’s activities had not gone unobserved, and a few of the more dedicated sightseers lingered, leaning over the wall. They might be said to brighten the drab hues of the Valley, though not in an appropriate manner; some of the ladies wore frocks of saffron and nile green and the gentlemen, gaudily striped flannels. Many held cameras. Mingling with them and squatting on the paths that led like a spiderweb over the hills of debris on either side were representatives of the local villagers wearing turbans and galabeeyahs. Margaret Minton, close to the wall, raised her arm and waved. I did not wave back.
Mr. Callender, trying to ignore the cameras that clicked every time he appeared, was directing a group of workmen who were filling baskets with the last of the rubble and carrying them away.
“So that’s it,” David said softly.
“Not very exciting.”
“You know better than that,” David said. “Can we get any closer?”
“Several of your distant cousins are among the guards,” I said, with a meaningful smile.
His arrival had been noted, and when he approached one of