Scroll of Saqqara(29)
“At their foot is a sealed door!” Penbuy finished triumphantly.
“It is too much to hope that the seals are original,” Hori observed, but with a question in his voice. He looked at Khaemwaset, who rose.
“What do you think?” he asked his scribe. Penbuy shrugged, already settling back into his customary controlled decorum.
“The seals appear to be originals,” he answered, “but we have encountered clever fakes before, Prince. The thrill of the moment engulfed me. I am sorry. Your Overseer of Works is of the opinion that we have indeed found an untouched tomb.”
Nubnofret sighed ostentatiously. “You had better pack up the Prince’s meal and give it to the servants who will accompany him, Ib,” she said, and Khaemwaset shot her a grateful, humorous glance.
“I’m sorry, dear sister,” he apologized. “I must at least inspect this find today. Ib, have the litters brought round. Hori, will you come?” The young man nodded.
“But I beg you, no break-ins today please, Father! I have not even had time to be washed!”
“That depends on what we find.” Khaemwaset was already preoccupied, his words spoken absently. A new tomb, new inscriptions, new knowledge, new scrolls, new scrolls … Do not expect anything, he told himself sternly. The chances for something fresh are slim. My horoscope for the last third of this day is very bad. So, for that matter, is the rest of my family’s, so I doubt if this find will yield anything worthwhile. All at once he was seized with a desire to tell Penbuy, “Have the earth and sand shovelled back over the entrance. My most pressing project is the work for Osiris Neuser-Ra and he shall have his restoration,” but his curiosity and mounting excitement won out. Neuser-Ra could wait. He had been waiting for hundreds of hentis and would surely be patient for another day or two. Amek was approaching, the litter-bearers with their folded burdens behind.
“Is there any urgent business on my desk?” Khaemwaset asked. Penbuy shook his head. “Good. I will make this up to you somehow, Sheritra,” he went on, turning to her, but she grinned up at him and held the gossamer blue linen he had given her to her face. “I am used to it,” she laughed. “Enjoy yourself, Father. Find something wonderful.”
Something wonderful. Suddenly Khaemwaset was filled with boyish anticipation. Gesturing to Hori and kissing Nubnofret’s cool cheek, he got onto his litter and was soon swaying towards the temple of Neith and the Ankh-tawy district. His stomach growled its hunger, and the linens he had donned on the boat that morning were limp and itchy with sweat, but he did not care. The hunt was on once more.
By the time he alighted from his litter with the churned plain of Saqqara baking in the afternoon sun all around him, he was thirsty as well. His servants were hurrying behind, some pitching the small tent he always used, some lighting a cooking fire, and the long-suffering Ib was already directing the laying of Khaemwaset’s camp table for his belated noon meal. Hori came scrambling through the sand to join his father.
“Phew!” he said. “No matter what time of the year it is, Saqqara is always sweltering! Please control your lust for an hour, Father, and take pity on me! I simply must eat, but I also want to stand with you when you examine the seals. I suppose that is the entrance, there.” He pointed across the hot expanse of waste to where Osiris Neuser-Ra’s mined temple lay. Beside it, just outside the jagged, truncated outer wall, was a gigantic boulder and an untidy heap of dark sand and gravel. Khaemwaset reluctantly turned back towards the tent and the table, now shaded by a flapping canopy and laden with food, where Ib stood behind his chair, arms folded.
Khaemwaset and Hori set to with relish, talking easily as they ate and drank, but presently the conversation died away. Hori fell into an abstracted mood. Chin in hand and eyes downcast, he traced the folds in the tablecloth with a knife. Khaemwaset’s mood of elation gradually faded to be replaced by a growing uneasiness. He sat back, eyes drawn to the temporarily deserted hole in the desert floor, and it seemed to him to be both beckoning and warning. Mentally shaking himself he turned away, draining the last of his beer and rinsing his fingers, but soon his gaze returned to that ominous gash in the sunny reality of the desert and in spite of himself he imagined it as a portal to the underworld, out of which a cold wind blew.
He had sometimes been superstitiously anxious at tomb openings. The dead did not like to be disturbed. But he always made sure that proper offerings for the kas of the deceased were laid beside the coffins, broken belongings mended, and endowments reactivated, and he had seen earth replaced over the resting places with a feeling of satisfaction, knowing the gratitude of the Osiris ones.