The Golden One

Undeterred, I proceeded. “Then how do you explain the position of the body? It is a most inconvenient hiding place. How did Jamil – oh, very well, whoever it was – how did he get the body there?”

Emerson replied with a rhetorical question. “How did the ancient workmen get that damned sarcophagus of Hatshepsut’s into her tomb in the cliff? That tomb is even less accessible than this one, and a stone sarcophagus is considerably heavier than a man.”

“Perhaps it was meant to warn us, and others, away from the place.”

“There was nothing of value left in the tomb,” Emerson said. “Anyhow, Jamil knows better than to threaten me.”

The shrubbery outside rustled, and Horus came in through the open window. He was carrying something in his mouth.

“Oh, my goodness,” I exclaimed. “It’s not a mouse – it’s too big. A rat. Disgusting. Emerson -”

Emerson was too slow. Horus darted past him and laid the object at Nefret’s feet. He then sat down and stared fixedly at her.

“It’s not a rat,” Ramses said. He reached down and scooped the motionless form into his hands. “It’s a cat – a kitten. I’m afraid it’s…”

A faint but unmistakable purr contradicted his assumption. The small creature was so dirty I could not make out its markings.

Nefret said gently, “Cats sometimes purr when they are frightened or in pain. If it is beyond help, we had better put it out of its misery.”

The parlor door opened. Se

Emerson caught hold of her. “Now, child, don’t touch it. It is sick, or hurt, or…”

Se

“Oh, Se

“Yes, Aunt Nefret. Horus, you are a good boy. Come to bed now, Aunt Nefret will take care of the kitty.”

Horus considered the suggestion. With what looked alarmingly like a nod of acquiescence, he got up and followed Se

“Oh, dear,” I said. “Nefret, do you think you can… What is wrong with it?”

“I don’t know yet.” Nefret shrugged helplessly. “But I’ll have to find out, won’t I? Bring it along, Ramses.”

As I might have expected, Se

“I don’t know, Se

“Under her chair,” said Gargery grimly. “As usual. Madam, what is all this about another cat? We don’t need one. We don’t need that one,” he added, with a baleful look at Horus.

“It is only a little cat,” said Se

Her bright, confident face made my heart sink. What she expected, in her i

“There they are!” Se

“It needs to rest,” Nefret said, after the obligatory grunt of expelled breath. “But it is better. Much better.”

Emerson’s face displayed his relief. He is such a sentimentalist about children, he could not bear to see Se

“Malnutrition and dehydration,” Nefret said. “With the attendant infections. The little creature has quite a will to live, though. The first thing it did was stagger to the food we put out for it and gulp it down. Then it tried to climb up Ramses’s leg.”

Se

“Not really. Its claws aren’t any longer than your eyelashes.”

“It thinks Ramses is its mother,” Nefret said. Se

“It needed to be kept warm,” Ramses mumbled, looking embarrassed. “And it wouldn’t stay in its basket.”

“I am going to see it now,” Se

Gargery tried to think of something that would express his feelings to the rest of us without betraying them to Se

The kitten served one useful purpose. I did not want to take Se

Naturally Ramses stayed with them, and Se

Few tourists visit the site, which is tucked into a little valley in the hills of the West Bank. The only attraction for them is the Ptolemaic temple at the north end of the valley. It is a nice enough temple in its way, but it is too late in date to interest us. The people who do go there follow the route that includes more popular tourist attractions, from Deir el Bahri to Medinet Habu.

There is another path, however, that ascends one of the hills enclosing the settlement and continues at a considerable elevation, passing above the temples of Deir el Bahri on its way to the Place of Truth, as the Valley of the Kings was called in ancient times. We had often followed part of this route, climbing the slope behind the temple and going on to the Valley – or, as we had done two days earlier, striking off on that hair-raising climb over the plateau.

It was not the easiest way of getting to Deir el Medina, but Emerson proposed we follow it that first morning. He wanted to see what condition the southern section of the path was in, he explained. I was reasonably sure it was in exactly the same condition it had been the previous year and for countless years before, but I did not demur. When we reached the top of the hill above Deir el Bahri we stopped for a moment, as Abdullah and I had so often done.

I knew that Emerson was also thinking of Abdullah as we stood looking out across the desert and the cultivation. The air was clear that morning; we could see the miniature shapes of the temples on the East Bank, with the eastern cliffs behind them. However, his only audible expression of emotion was a loud clearing of his throat.

Instead of turning south toward Deir el Medina, Emerson set off along the trail that led to the Valley. He had not gone far before he stopped with a grunt of satisfaction. I could not see what had occasioned the satisfaction; he was looking at what appeared to be a row of tumbled stones, half-buried in sand.

“Emerson, what are you doing?” I demanded, as he knelt and began scraping away sand. “Stop that at once. You aren’t even wearing gloves.”

Emerson rose, not because I had told him to, but because he had had second thoughts. “They will have to be properly excavated.”

“Those rocks? Why?”

“Good Gad, Peabody, what has become of your trained excavator’s eye? That’s a wall, or what is left of one, and there are others hereabouts. I noticed them some time ago, but saw no reason to investigate them.”