Scroll of Saqqara(79)

“Bore one hole,” he said to the Overseer. “There, where the sky converges with the palm tree. If the wall is rock, the hole will not be too difficult to fill and paint over again. If not …” He turned on his heel. “Bring me word when it is done.”

He thought his Chief Artist might protest but the man said nothing, and Hori made his way out into the sunshine. It smote him like a blow, and with it came a vivid memory of Tbubui wrapped in the gossamer folds of the linen cloak, the hot breeze stirring her black hair as yesterday she lifted the wine cup to her mouth and smiled at him over its rim.

Hori trudged through the sand to his tent and flung himself into the chair under the awning’s shade. Eyes narrowed against the glare, he squinted into the nothingness of rolling sand and a hectic blue sky and wondered how he might suggest to his father that an older woman of minor noble blood from a backwater like Koptos would make a suitable Chief Wife for one of Egypt’s foremost princes.

In about an hour the Overseer was bowing before him, blinking owlishly through the fine grey powder clinging to his face. “The hole is bored Highness,” he said in answer to Hori’s sharp query. “Part of it is through wood. I must surmise that we are dealing with a hidden door that has been plastered over.”

Hori rose. “Take your men and sound it carefully. We do not want to tear out more than is necessary. When you have measured and marked, use fine saws. Open the door for me.” He repressed the urge to run into the tomb, to see the telltale hole for himself, and besides, his men, skilled and well trained, would do the work as efficiently without him. The Overseer bowed shortly and Hori called for food. He wished Antef were here, but Antef had requested a few days to visit his family in the Delta. Hori missed him. What if Father decides to visit the site today? Hori thought suddenly with a stab of anxiety. What shall I tell him? Guilt over the tomb mingled with guilt over his feelings for Tbubui, but he mentally shrugged, thanked the man who was setting a meal before him, and began to eat.

He went inside the tent after his lunch, lay on the camp cot and slept. His steward woke him two hours later as he had requested, and once more he sat under the awning, slaking his thirst with beer while a servant gently washed from him the sweat of his dreams. Out on the plain, a desert dog was panting in the thin shadow of a small, half-buried rock, and in the fiery bronze afternoon sky a hawk wheeled lazily, its cry echoing spasmodically through the stultifying air. We must break through today, Hori thought anxiously. What is taking them so long? He watched the cool droplets of water on his bare thighs evaporate.

In another hour the Overseer was once more toiling to him through the burning sand. Something about his gait warned Hori, and he came to his feet, his heart pounding. The man bowed clumsily. Hori beckoned him in under the shade.

“Well?” he prompted urgently.

The man was breathing hard. “There is a room beyond,” he blurted. “Very dark, Highness, and smelling very bad. Water began to trickle over the lintel into the coffin chamber long before my men had completed the cutting of the door. They are very uneasy. As soon as their duty was done they left.”

“Left?” Hori repeated. “They ran away?”

The Overseer stiffened. “The servants of the illustrious Khaemwaset do not run away,” he replied. “They were so apprehensive, Highness, that I told them to go home and return tomorrow morning.”

Hori said nothing. The Overseers of every department of works were competent leaders who knew their underlings, and interfering with their methods of control was always foolish. “Very well,” Hori said after a while. “Are torches lit? I will take a look.”

The Overseer hesitated. “Highness, it might be wise to summon a priest,” he said. “Someone to burn incense and petition the gods to protect you and the inhabitants of the tomb, to …” He faltered.

“To what?” Hori asked, interested.

“To forgive you.”

“Do not be pompous,” Hori retorted. “It does not suit a man streaked in sweat and dirt and looking like a woman whose face is caked in meal of alabaster and natron for the good of her skin.” Seeing his servant’s acute embarrassment he relented. “Do not fear,” he said. “Father and you and I have been doing this work together for many years. And am I not a sem-priest of mighty Ptah myself? Come. I want to see this mystery.”

The air in the tomb had changed again. Hori smelled it as soon as he left the cramped entrance passage and emerged into the first chamber. The rank odour of old, stagnant water pervaded his nostrils and he fancied that he could feel it, slimy against his skin. The Overseer shuddered. Hori moved quickly to the coffin room where two torchbearers were huddled together, their backs against a wall. They were nervously facing a black, jagged aperture, low and narrow, at whose raised foot the light reflected slickly. Small streams of other darkness were trickling over this lintel and spreading out haphazardly toward the coffin plinths. The odour now was disgusting, yet it tantalized Hori with a memory as swiftly there as gone. He had of course smelled rotten water before, though never in circumstances like this. Now his mind blended it with something else, something wonderful, then snatched it away. Hori picked his way to the hole, gestured impatiently for a torch and, when it was placed in his hand, peered forward with arm outstretched.