Tutankhamun Uncovered (41 page)

He became conscious of his hesitation and pulled himself together. He removed the papyrus and stuffed it inside his tunic, grabbed the statuette firmly in his fist, wrapped it hurriedly in a linen rag and turned around to face the breached doorway.

His son’s head protruded from the hole. Dashir passed the figure to his son and they joined hands. The boy backed into the tunnel and helped to pull his father up. A few moments later they had managed to wriggle their way back out and into the night air. They refilled the stairwell, taking care to smooth off the surface to obscure evidence of their illicit entry.

The two of them ran out of The Valley as fast as their tired limbs could carry them.

The next night, with the effigy secure in her possession, the queen went to bed in such royally good mood that all in her company had observed and remarked on her improved demeanour.

“You heard the general yourself,” reaffirmed Nefer. “There is no danger. He will see to it that no one comes. We can take all that we can carry. Untold riches await us, Senet. Riches beyond our dreams.”

Senet was anxious. He knew the penalties should they be discovered. He had never trusted the general. He knew full well that if they were caught in the act the general would deny all knowledge of them. They took all the risk. They would take all the punishment. But, then again, should they succeed, they would have all the rewards. It was, after all said and done, far too tempting an opportunity. If they didn’t take it, someone else would. And many had plundered before them and got away with it successfully.

“Let us be quick, Nefer. Before I change my mind.”

They stole into The Valley at midnight, leading a small donkey with two large baskets slung across its back. When they reached the spot, in the darkness the discoloration in the sand left after Dashir’s recently disguised penetration went unnoticed. But, as they excavated down to the lintel of the doorway, they found the digging easier to the left, and when they reached the top of the door they realised why. The hole left by Dashir lay open before them. They looked at each other in gaunt surprise. Could the risks they were now taking be all in vain?

Senet was trembling and clearly ready to leave.

“No,” ordered Nefer, restraining his colleague by the arm. “We must first go in to see the extent of this robbery. Perhaps it is no more than superficial. The tunnel is not large.”

Without waiting for a comment from his friend, Nefer got down on his stomach and pulled himself in, pushing an oil lamp ahead of him. As his bare feet disappeared into the blackness, Senet felt compelled to follow but held back to listen for others. Presently he heard Nefer’s voice whispering from the depths.

“There is much here, my friend. Many caskets. Come, I need your help.”

Senet dove into the entrance but soon found that the fullness of his girth did not allow him to penetrate further than his shoulders. He backed himself out again and began scrabbling at the edges of the tunnel with his hands, enlarging it until it was big enough for him to get the full length of his body inside and provide sufficient elbow room to push the debris he was excavating back to his feet. He manoeuvred backwards up the slope, kicking the rubble behind him until it had cleared the tunnel, then scrambled back in and repeated the process, gradually getting himself closer to the top of the door to the antechamber.

While he awaited the appearance of his friend, Nefer looked around. The child’s face on the centre bed stared directly towards him. Without hesitation he grabbed it, plucked the jewellery from the ears and the scalp and carelessly tossed the carving back on the bed. He stuffed the baubles into his tunic.

When Senet finally poked his head into the dimly lit room, for a moment he became still. The sight of the three great golden bedsteads flanking the opposite wall made him catch his breath.

Nefer reached up to him. “Here, take this.” He passed him two handfuls of jewellery bundled in his head cloth. “Be gone! And return quickly for more.”

Senet edged his way painfully backwards to the entrance.

The gold in his hands glinted in the moonlight. He dropped it into one of the baskets on the donkey, listened for a moment to reassure himself that The Valley remained silent, and then returned to the tunnel with the cloth. When he arrived at the hole in the top of the antechamber door, his partner was ready with another bundle. They exchanged cloths and Senet scrambled backwards once again. When he got back to the chamber the third time, Nefer had disappeared.

“Nefer!” he called in a muted shout. “Where are you?”

He could hear a considerable noise coming from beneath the bed to the left much crashing about, some snapping wood, some obscenities.

“I’m in here,” Nefer shouted at last. “A lot of stuff but not much of value. Found some wine. I’m coming out.”

A clay wine vessel emerged from beneath the bed; then a head appeared; then an arm with a bundle in its fist; then the rest of him.

“Here. Take this. All I could find in a hurry. The place is packed but there isn’t much jewellery. It was difficult to move around in there. The burial chamber will have more. Let’s have a quick drink.” Nefer waved the wine jar in front of his friend’s face.

“Not me,” said Senet, and he retreated up the tunnel once again.

Nefer broke the seal on the vessel, grabbed a small, light turquoise coloured glass cup standing on one of the beds, wiped it out with his head cloth and filled it to the brim. He took a long draught.

By the time Senet returned, his friend was knocking back his fourth cupful.

“Nefer!” he shouted, then quickly brought his hands to his lips and whispered. “Put it down! Plenty of time for celebration when we’re safely out of here.” He grabbed the jar and placed it behind him. “Get on with it.” He pointed to the plastered wall.

Murmuring under his breath, Nefer pushed the little golden shrine out of the way and set about smashing at the base of the plastered doorway to the burial chamber. He made a hole large enough to crawl through and dragged himself in.

The black sentinels either side the door looked on dispassionately.

Nefer was nowhere to be seen when Senet arrived back at the mouth of the tunnel. At least the wine jar had not moved from where he had left it. Senet cocked his head to the right and saw light flickering dimly from behind the hole his friend had made in the walled up doorway. He could hear him opening caskets and tossing the lids aside, emptying the contents onto the stone floor and rummaging through them.

After a while, Nefer emerged from the hole with another bundle. Senet took it from him and withdrew to the donkey once more.

When he had scrambled back to the antechamber again, Nefer was waiting for him with another head cloth full of jewellery. But, as Senet stretched out a hand to receive it, he felt something touch the sole of his right foot. Instinctively he propelled himself headlong onto his colleague, the bundle all at once flying into the air and the two of them collapsing in a heap on the floor and extinguishing the oil lamp.

Nefer sat up. “What possesses you, my friend?”

“There is a scorpion in the passage, Nefer. I felt it pinch the sole of my foot.”

“This is serious indeed,” reacted his friend. “Finding it in the dark will be difficult. It will make our escape doubly hazardous!”

“We are leaving already?” asked Senet, somewhat relieved but at the same time surprised at Nefer’s apparent haste.

“No! There is much jewellery yet to be retrieved from the treasury. But we shall need help to get at the mummy. For that we will have to return another night.”

The prospect of a second risky venture into The Valley was more than Senet could bare.

“If you come back again, you come back without me. We’re not yet out of this predicament.”

“Senet, you worry too much. Remember, those who do not participate do not share in the reward.”

“What we have here is sufficient for my needs forever.”

“You were never a man of ambition, my friend. Do as you wish tomorrow. Tonight we have more urgent matters. How do...?”

Senet slapped his hand over Nefer’s mouth and signalled him to listen.

There was the faint but unmistakable sound of voices issuing from the mouth of the entrance tunnel. The air in the tomb suddenly felt chilled. They listened, trembling, straining to make out the words.

Someone outside said, “There is no light. No one can be within. We may be too late. Did you notice anyone as you came over the track from Pademi?”

“No. Nobody. Nothing,” answered another.

“Can you hear that? An ass running! They have gone already. That way! Towards the mouth of the valley. Come! We must make haste. They are getting away. Come quickly!”

There were sounds of some scuffling and suddenly there was silence again.

“I think they’ve gone.” Nefer had his head in the tunnel.

“Can’t have. They’d have seen the donkey. They’ll know for sure we’re still inside.” Senet’s heart was in his mouth.

“Nonsense,” said Nefer. “The ass has bolted. They believe they’re chasing us down the valley. We’d better leave at once. Follow me.”

Eagerly Senet followed his partner back into the tunnel. Nefer’s feet scrabbled forward just ahead of Senet’s face and stopped every now and then as he listened for evidence of activity above. Reassured by the silence, he would move on once more, just for a few inches, then stop again. He didn’t give the scorpion a second thought.

When they finally emerged at the surface, after what seemed like an eternity, in the limpid moonlight all was silent no one, no donkey, no people, not a sound.

Nefer whispered to his friend, “We won’t take the hill track. We’ll go the other way to the valley head. If they return they will never think of looking for us there. We shall hide ’til daybreak, then climb to the ridge.”

Senet was beside himself with worry. In his blind panic he was unable to think and was only too happy to follow his partner’s lead.

“Can you hear anything?”

Senet listened for a moment and then shook his head.

“I’m going back for the jewellery and, since we’re going to have to stay out here all night, I’ll get the wine as well.”

Before Senet could stop him, Nefer’s feet were once more disappearing into the hole in the ground. Alone on the surface in the dark, Senet imagined all manner of sounds about him.

Nefer finally dragged himself out of the tunnel, pulled the wine vessel after him by the heels, and stood up.

“Couldn’t find the bundle anywhere. Dark as hell in there. Managed to stumble into these, however.” Smiling he held up the wine jar and the drinking cup.

There was no answer. Nefer looked about him. Senet was nowhere to be seen. “Senet!” he called, in a half whisper. “Senet! Where in the name of Seth are you?”

Nothing not a sound, not so much as a stirring cricket. It was eerily silent. He listened. The breeze blew up for a moment, rustling his robe. There was a low rumble from up the valley as some rocks tumbled down from the cliff, then silence again.

Nefer decided to go his own way. ‘Maybe Senet is up there already,’ he thought. But, as he turned to go, he heard it. The sounds were unmistakable. The officials were on their way back up The Valley.

He took off up the nearest ravine until he reached the valley head. The open entrance to a disturbed tomb lay before him. He stopped and listened. The voices were still there but it appeared they were not getting any closer.

‘They will investigate the tomb now,’ he thought. ‘Then, hopefully, they will leave once more.’

He settled back on his haunches behind a large boulder and filled his cup with more wine. But no sooner had he swallowed the first draught than he heard voices again. They were coming closer. ‘Unbelievable!’

The sound was unmistakable. Senet’s voice was among them.

‘He is leading them to me!’ Nefer panicked. He dropped his cup and let go of the wine vessel. It eased over onto its side and, spilling the remainder of its contents, slowly rolled to the floor of the ravine. Frantically he tried to scramble his way up the steep valley flank. He couldn’t see what was ahead of him and grabbed hold of a loose boulder. As the rock pulled free, he lost his footing and skated down the scree slope on his rear end. With his flailing hands he searched desperately for something to hold on to but found nothing and continued sliding downwards until finally coming to rest at the feet of his pursuers.

They had made their protestations. They had said that they had discovered a tomb robber’s tunnel and had gone inside to apprehend the criminals in the act. They had denied the existence of the lost donkey. In final desperation they had accused Horemheb. But this only served to seal their fate.

Now they felt little. They had been imprisoned without food for three weeks and the lightness of the impoverished blood now supplying their minds did not give them the energy for anxiety. Their only emotion was a desire for eternal sleep.

It was Horemheb himself who gave the final order Horemheb, the general who had publicly damned their indiscretions; Horemheb, who had condemned their violation of the late king’s tomb; Horemheb, who had slept little since their discovery, bemoaning in the privacy of his chambers that the tomb remained essentially intact. He did not even know what his conscripts had managed to take. The donkey had galloped away as the priests had arrived. It was never found not by any officials of the court, at least.

They were brought to the place of execution. They gave no outward expression of fear or any resistance. They were each placed on their backs on a mat of reeds, their arms tied behind them at the elbows. Nefer and Senet did not hear the words the priests chanted to the assembled public. Four large soldiers appeared above them. Each pair carried a stout wooden stake, crudely sharpened at both ends. On the priests’ commands, the soldiers raised the stakes vertically above the two prone bodies. The weakened muscles tensed. In a single stroke the soldiers plunged the stakes deep into the unfortunates’ bellies. Then, in a wheeling motion, the guards inverted and elevated the two bodies until they hung upside down, the stakes within them but not piercing them all the way through, and planted the stakes firmly into prepared holes in the ground.