ched up to the to each was guarded by tall columns that rea roof. Each
column was a carved statue of one member of the pantheon of gods.
Between them they held the high vaulted ceiling suspended.
As they drew level with the first two stalls, Nicholas stopped and
squeezed her arm.
"The treasure chambers of Pharaoh he whispered.
The stalls were packed from floor to ceiling with wonderful and
beautiful things.
"The furniture store." Royan's voice was as reverential as his as she
recognized the shapes of chairs and stools and beds and divans. She went
to the nearest chamber and touched a royal throne. The arms were twining
serpents of bronze and lapis lazuli. The legs were those of lions with
claws of gold. The seat and back were chased with scenes of the hunt,
and wings of gold surmounted the high back.
Stacked behind the throne was a great Profusion of other furniture. They
recognized a screened divan, its sides enclosed in an exquisite lacework
of ebony and ivory. But there were dozens of other items besides, most
of them broken down into their separate Parts so that it was not
possible to guess what they were. They gleamed with precious metals and
coloured stones in such confusion and variety that it was too much to
take in in a single glance.
Both the alcoves on either side of the arcade were stuffed with these
marvelous collections. Royan shook her head in wonder, and Nicholas led
her on. The walls that separated the alcoves were decorated with panels
illustrate in the Book of the Dead, and the journey of Pharaoh through
the pylons, the dangers and the trials, the demons and the monsters that
awaited him along the way.
"These are the paintings that were missing from the mock tomb in the
long gallery," Royan told him. "But just look upon the face of the king,
You can see he was a real person. Those are perfect royal portraits."
The mural beside them depicted the great god Osiris leading Pharaoh by
the hand, protecting him from the crowded close on either hand, waiting
thei monsters that showed the face of the king as he chance to devour
him. I with a kind and gentle, if must truly have been, a man rather
weak, face.
"Look at the figures," Nicholas agreed. "They are not forward with the
right stiff wooden dolls always stepping foot. These are real men and
women. They are anatomic and had cally correct. The artist understood
perspectiv studied the human body."
They came to the next pair of alcoves, and paused to peer into them.
"Weapons," said Nicholas. just look at that chariot The panels of the
chariot were covered with a skin of old leaf, so that it dazzled the
eye. The harness and traces the horses that would draw it into seemed
only to await and the quivers strapped to the side panels behind battle,
elins. The each tall wheel bulged with arrows and jav was emblazoned on
the side panels.
cartouche of Mamose significant vehicle were war bows Piled beside this
of electrum and bronze whose stocks were bound with wir ays of daggers
with ivory handles and gold. There were arr and swords with blades of
glistening bronze. There were racks of spears and pikes. There were
shields of bronze, the targets decorated with scenes of war and the name
of the se. There were helmets and breastplates made divine Mamo from the
skin of the crocodile, and the uniforms and regalia of the famous
regiments of Egypt dressed the life-sized the wooden statues of the king
that stood in rows against walls of the alcoves.
a They walked on down the isle, between more paint, death of the icting
the life and the ings and murals dep ters and danking. They saw him
playing with his daugh nt son. They saw him fishing and hunting and
dling his infa isn'omarches, hawking, in council with his ministers and
dallying with his wives and concubines, and feasting with the priests of
the temple.
What a chronicle of life in ancient times," Royan breathed with awe.
"There has never been a discovery remotely like this before." Each of
the persons in the panels had obviously been drawn from life. They were
real breathing living men and women, every face and every expression
different, captured with the keen eye, the humour and he great humanity
of the artist.
"That must be Taita himself." Royan pointed out the self-portrait of the
eunuch in one of the central panels. "I wonder if he took poetic
licence, or was he truly so noble and beautiful?"
They paused to admire the face of Taita, their adversary, and looked
into his searching, intelligent eyes. Such was the skill of the artist
that he watched them as keenly as they studied him. A small, enigmatic
smile played on Taita's lips. The painting had been varnished, so that
it was perfectly preserved, as if it had been painted the day before.
Taita's lips seemed moist and his eyes gleamed softly with life.
"His complexion is fair and his eyes are blue!" Royan exclaimed.
"Although that red hair is almost certainly dyed with henna."
"It is weird to think that, although he lived so long ago, he almost
succeeded in killing us,'Nicholas said softly.
"In what land was he born? He never tells us that in the scrolls. Was it
Greeceor Italy? Was he from one of the Germanic tribes, or was he of
Viking stock? We will never know, for he himself probably did not know
his own origins."
"There he, is again in the next panel." Nicholas pointed down the arcade
to where the unmistakable face of the eunuch appeared in the throng that
knelt in homage before the throne on which sat Pharaoh and his queen.
"Like Hitchcock, he seems to like to appear in his own creations."
They went on past the treasure stalls in which were stored plates and
goblets and bowls of alabaster and bronze chased with silver and gold,
polished bronze mirrors and rolls of precious silk and linen and woollen
cloth that had long ago rotted to shaggy black amorphous heaps. On the
walls that divided these from the next set of stalls they saw reenacted
the battle with the Hyksos in which Pharaoh had been struck down, the
arrow shot by the Hyksos king lodged in his breast. Then in the next
panel Taita, the surgeon, bent Over him with the surgical instruments in
his ed barb from deep in his hands, removing the blood-smear flesh.
Now they came to alcoves in which were stacked hundreds of cedarwood
chests. The boxes were painted with the royal cartouche of Mamose, and
with scenes of the king at his toilet: lining his eyes with kohl,
painting his face with white antimony and scarlet rouge, being shaved by
his barbers and dressed by his valets.
"Some of those chests will contain the royal cosmetics," Royan murmured,
'and some of them will be Pharaoh's wardrobes of clothing. There will be
costumes in them for ack every occasion in his after-life. I long to be
able to unp and examine them."
all panels showed the mart iage of the The next set of king to the
young virgin, Taita's mistress. The face of Queen LostTis was tendered
with loving detail. The artist gloated on her beauty and exaggerated it,
his brush strokes caressing her naked breasts and lingering on all her
virtues until they epitomized feminine perfection.
"How much Taita loved her," Royan murmured, and there was envy in her