Tomb of the Golden Bird - Elizabeth Peters [60]
“So he’s there,” Emerson muttered. “Still there. Inside his coffins and his sarcophagus and the shrines, alone in the dark, as he has been for over three thousand years…”
This flight of fancy was so unlike my pragmatic husband that I looked at him in surprise. But I ought not to have been surprised; the sensitive, poetic side of Emerson’s nature is known to only a few—of which I am one.
“Perhaps he is with the gods he worshiped,” I said softly.
“Hmph,” said Emerson. “Which gods? The multitudinous pantheon of Egypt, or the sole god Aton in whose faith he was raised? Don’t talk rubbish, Peabody.”
Emerson’s poetic moods do not last long.
The burial chamber contained one more surprise—a rectangular opening near the far corner, leading to a fourth room filled, like the two outer rooms, with a fabulous jumble of artifacts. Vision and brain were so overwhelmed that I remember only two objects: a reclining statue of Anubis and behind it a golden chest with an exquisite statue of a goddess extending protective arms across its side.
“It must be the canopic chest,” I said, as Emerson helped me up. “I could only see one statue—the most beautiful thing, Emerson—”
I had completely forgotten about Sethos, but Ramses had not. He stood watching his uncle as the latter moved slowly round the outer chamber.
“Look here,” Sethos said.
“Don’t touch it,” Ramses snapped.
“It’s been opened.” Sethos indicated a small gilded shrine. “Here’s where your statuette came from.”
“By God, I think you’re right,” Ramses said. The interior of the boxlike shape was empty, except for a wooden pedestal on whose base were the cartouches of Tutankhamon. “There’s room for another statuette next to it,” Ramses said. “Remember the thief’s confession—that his friend took the image of the queen?”
“Enough,” Emerson said in a subdued voice. His shoulders shifted uneasily.
Naturally I understood his feelings. I too had a sense of profanation, of intruding into a realm where we had no right to go. Framed by darkness, the monstrous heads of the funerary couches looked as if they might at any moment turn to stare accusingly at the invaders. Dust motes swam in the light, and from time to time we heard the smallest whisper of sound—an ominous sound, for it betokened the fall of a scrap of gold or bit of cloth disturbed by the entrance of air into the long-sealed chamber.
Following Emerson’s orders, Ramses replaced the stones that had been taken from the entrance to the burial chamber. I held the torch, and I am not ashamed to admit my hand was a trifle unsteady. As I stood watching, the light caught the eyes of the uraeus serpents on the royal brows so that they seemed to blink and glare.
Slowly, in a state of dreamlike disbelief, we made our way back along the passage and up the stairs. I had not realized how dead and musty the air in the tomb had been until I felt a cool breeze against my face. No one spoke. The wonder of what we had seen left us without words. The tomb had been robbed in antiquity, but enough was left to make the find unique—the first royal burial with most of its rich grave goods intact.
Emerson was in the lead, Sethos and Ramses behind me. A sudden bellow from Emerson startled me, so that I toppled backward against Ramses, who let out a pained grunt but kept his balance. Cursing, Sethos shoved Ramses, who pushed me, and we stumbled to the top of the stairs.
“Now what?” I demanded breathlessly. “Have the ibn Simsahs got away?”
At first it appeared that they had attempted to do so, for Emerson gripped a dark form, which he was shaking as a terrier shakes a rat. Then I saw the miscreant brothers, still bound, and heard a plaintive voice gasp, “I give up. I give up. Please, Professor—”
He must have bit his tongue, for the plea ended in a sharp scream.
I recognized the voice, distorted though it was by pain and shortness of breath and by the absence of the brogue that ordinarily marked his speech.
“Kevin?” I cried. “Kevin O’Connell? What the devil are you doing here? I thought you were in London.