Ignoring Louisa, he led us out the way we had come.
The others crowded after him. They weren’t any more comfortable in that room than I had been, and I’m not just talking about the temperature and the close air. It was good sized – about thirty feet square, according to Feisal, and the ceiling didn’t brush the top of my head. But somehow I felt as if it did, and the battered stone pillars looked as if they might collapse at any moment.
Whistling softly and irreverently, John stood studying the wall and Mary sidled up to me. ‘Are you as anxious to leave this place as I am?’ she whispered.
‘I don’t know. How anxious are you?’ I wiped the perspiration off my forehead.
‘I suppose it’s partly psychological,’ Mary murmured. ‘The reminders of death and decay and darkness . . .’
That was one of the words I didn’t need to hear right then. Without replying I headed for the door.
I was determined to stick it out, though. The chambers we had visited in the mastaba tombs at Sakkara were above ground; the nobles’ tombs at Amarna were cut into the cliff, but we hadn’t gone down under, into the burial chambers, and I had always been able to see daylight in the distance. This was the most difficult place I’d encountered yet, and I felt I was going about conquering my phobia in a very sensible way. The hell with jumping back onto the horse; I’d rather start with a very small pony or a Saint Bernard, and work my way up.
One of Akhenaton’s daughters had died young and had been buried in her father’s tomb, in a suite of rooms located off the main descending corridor. The scene I had found particularly moving, that of the little body lying stiff on the funeral bed, with the grieving parents bending over it, could hardly be made out. Some vandal had tried to hack out a portion of the relief; the deep jagged incision had destroyed the upper part of the princess’s body and other details.
‘That’s an example of why I dread increased accessibility,’ said Larry, who was standing next to me. ‘These reliefs were virtually intact until the thirties.’
‘But you cannot blame the poor devils of villagers,’ said Schmidt, the unreconstructed socialist, on my other side. ‘It is the European and American collectors who pay large prices for illegal antiquities who are responsible. I do not mean you, of course,’ he added quickly.
Larry laughed. ‘That’s why my collection isn’t very impressive. The best objects were acquired by museums and less scrupulous collectors before I got interested. Anyhow, I’m more concerned about preservation than collecting.’
When we left the princess’s rooms I noticed that John again hung back while Mary followed me. Had there been a lovers’ tiff? I waited for her and gave her a friendly smile. I had, of course, no ulterior motive.
‘Almost through,’ I said encouragingly.
‘Oh, I don’t mind.’ Her voice wavered a little, though. ‘It’s been very interesting.’
We started up the ramp. It seemed a lot steeper than it had when we descended. The last suite of rooms, the ones Feisal had said might have been meant for the queen’s burial, was located about halfway up the incline. Indicating the entrance where the others were waiting, I asked, ‘Are you going to skip the final treat, or shall we participate?’
Mary glanced behind her. John was some distance away, taking his time. Couldn’t the poor little wimp come to any decision without consulting him? What had he been doing down there alone? Perhaps there had been a quarrel and he was sulking, trying to make Mary feel guilty about hurting his sensitive feelings.
‘I meant to ask you before,’ I said casually. ‘About Jen. How is she?’
‘Much better. In fact – ’
She stopped with a gulp. All of a sudden there he was, behind her, looming. ‘You startled me, darling!’ she exclaimed.
‘In fact,’ John said, ‘she’s recovered enough to return home.’
‘You mean she’s left Egypt?’ I stared at him.
‘This morning. She doesn’t trust Egyptian doctors or hospitals.’
‘Then she won’t be rejoining the tour?’
‘No, she won’t.’
I looked from his self-satisfied smile to Mary’s downcast face. Was that what the quarrel had been about?
‘You sound pleased,’ I said.
‘Oh, I am. She was a bloody nuisance,’ John said callously. ‘Now hurry along, girls. One would suppose, from the way you’re dawdling, that you are enjoying this.’
By the time we had finished examining a few more rough unfinished rock-cut rooms and listened to Feisal describe their possible function, everyone, even Louisa, was ready to call it a day. ‘I do not feel her presence,’ she intoned. ‘The beautiful one was never interred here.’
‘She’s probably right about that,’ muttered Larry. ‘But for the wrong reasons. Since when did she become an expert on Nefertiti?’
‘I think she’s making her the heroine of her new book,’ I said.
‘Then why was she carrying on about missing Meydum?’ Larry demanded. ‘That pyramid predates Nefertiti by over a thousand years.’
‘Historical novelists don’t worry about little details like that,’ I explained, with certain guilty memories of my own heroine’s activities. Having Rosanna hide in a broom closet to elude Genghis Khan had not been kosher, but it had entertained Schmidt, which was my primary purpose for continuing the saga.
Hot, thirsty, and coated with dust, we made a beeline for the ice chest and stood swilling down cold drinks. The late-afternoon heat was intense, but it felt refreshing after the confined airlessness of the tomb. Even in the shade I seemed to feel my skin drying and shrinking over my bones. It was the climate of Egypt, not the well-meaning but often destructive process of burial, that produced such excellent mummies.
Blenkiron wanted to see a few more tombs on the way back to the boat, but he gave in with smiling good grace when the others emphatically outvoted him. Mary let out a muted wail when he suggested stopping at the southern tombs. Schmidt, ever gallant, hurried to her and offered her his arm.
He’d held up well, but I was worried about him. The open-heart surgery he had undergone a few years earlier had, he claimed, made a new man of him. The new man looked to me just as unhealthy as the old one. His face was flushed with heat and exercise, but his smile was as broad and his moustache as defiant as ever. He was obviously having a wonderful time.
I let them and the others go on ahead. I hadn’t had a chance to talk with John; huddling with him in an otherwise unoccupied tomb chamber might have inspired rude speculation. Maybe he was just as anxious for a private conversation. Maybe that was why he appeared to be avoiding Mary.
That theory was strengthened when he fell in step with me and said easily and audibly, ‘Enjoying yourself, Dr Bliss?’
‘Don’t let’s be so formal,’ I said, stretching my mouth into a tight smile.
‘I’m trying, but my ingrained awe of academic titles makes it difficult.’ His voice kept dropping in pitch. ‘I don’t believe I can possibly address Professor Schmidt as Anton.’
‘Try Poopsie,’ I suggested, losing it for a second.
The corners of his mouth compressed, holding back laughter – or a rude comment. The reference, to a particularly tense moment in one of our earlier encounters, might have inspired either.
I went on, in a hoarse whisper, ‘What did you tell him?’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘I intend to. But I want to hear your version. Quit stalling, the others are waiting for us.’
I stumbled artistically, stopped, and bent over to examine my foot.
‘Coincidence,’ John said, taking me by the arm as if to steady me. The flow of blood to my hand stopped dead.