Luxor Lost and Found

by Graham Warren

  “How do you see Amarna?” asked Kate.

  “As a ruin. I lived here until I died, and to me it was the most beautiful place in the world. It had to be, I could not go anywhere else. Now, as an ancient, I see its buildings as I knew them, though I can see all the ancients who are here. Just as Ramses can chat to Akhenaton in the afterlife, something he could never have done in life.”

  “This is the city of Akhenaton, so are we likely to run into him?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Alex, but I know for a fact he will never set foot in Amarna again. You may well see his wife, Nefertiti, but if you do I would suggest you become very humble, very quickly. Her beauty is as legendary in your modern world as her anger is in the afterlife. She really is a horrid person and she rules this city. She gained her greatest power just as she was losing her beauty, so if you are seen to be looking at her in what she or her guards consider to be the wrong way, then you had better watch out.”

  “But this is Akhenaton’s city so he–”

  “No time for history lessons, Alex.”

  “Henuttawy?”

  “Yes, Kate.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “Of sorts, though it is very fluid.”

  Kate had called Henuttawy by name. This change in her attitude gave Alex a really positive feeling. For the first time in a long time, he considered they may well be able to get through this and actually rid the world of the warlock. Regrettably for him, his positive feeling did not last. The longer he listened to Henuttawy’s plan, the worse he felt. Fluid was the only thing he could agree with her on. It was so fluid he could visualise himself heading towards Niagara Falls in a barrel. This was not a plan, this was suicide.

  “Are you really sure this is the best course of action?” Alex tactfully asked Henuttawy, though it was Kate who answered.

  “Remember … afterwards … when we talked about my plan to enter the tomb of Montuemhat, you said you had thought there were too many ‘ifs’ in it. Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

  Alex could not deny that it had worked, but he was at a loss for words. He really could not get his head around the fact that Kate was being so nice to Henuttawy. She was even supporting her crazy plan, which Alex was convinced would get one, if not all of them, killed.

  “It sound like crazy plan to me,” said Cairo.

  “Finally,” Alex thought, “somebody who could see sense.” He was mistaken.

  “Well, if Gadeem say listen to you or die, I listen, I follow.”

  “Good man, Cairo,” Henuttawy said. “You all need to put one of those galabeyas on, then we will be on our way.” She pointed to the bakers’ work clothes which were hanging on the wall.

  “Isn’t it a little early to leave?” Alex had addressed his question to Henuttawy, though yet again Kate answered.

  “Henuttawy knows what she is doing. Why do you have to be so negative all of the time?”

  Alex felt his actions would speak louder than words, so he slipped a galabeya over his clothes before wrapping a scarf around his head. He looked quite the ancient Egyptian, just as long as nobody saw his shoes. Cairo swopped his galabeya for one which more befitted the period he was in. Kate was the last to slip into a galabeya, as Henuttawy was already dressed as a local.

  “Okay, any final questions?” Seeing the look on their faces at her use of the word ‘final’, Henuttawy rephrased her question. “What I meant was, are there any questions before we meet up later?” There were none, so she and Alex left first. Kate and Cairo followed at an acceptable distance.

  “Are you sure they will be able to find the place if we get split up?”

  “Yes, now shush, Alex, as you may look like a local, but you most certainly do not sound like one.”

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid, I should have thought of that,” said Henuttawy just a few minutes later. She was really annoyed with herself. She and Alex, having stopped running, were leaning up against a wall in an alley which smelled as though it was used as a public toilet. “I really should have thought of the dust. Do you think they got away?”

  Alex did not want to answer, as the last image he had of Kate and Cairo was of them being surrounded by angry looking ancients. What had happened from that point he had no idea, because he had been running too fast to be able to look back.

  “They were kicking up too much sand. Ancients do not kick up dust. I should have thought to tell them to walk gently. Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Henuttawy admonished herself again.

  “Please do not beat yourself up. Whatever you told Kate, she would not do it gently. She does nothing gently.”

  “Yes, but it was up to me to make sure you were all safe. I really thought it was more than likely that one, if not all of us, would be captured whilst trying to get our hands on ten grains of sand of the Sun. Not for a moment did I think things would fall apart this quickly.”

  Alex had no doubt at all that they would have been captured at some point, as he had listened to Henuttawy’s plan. “Where to now,” he asked, “because anywhere away from this smell would be good?”

  “Follow me.” With great self-control Henuttawy stepped out from the passage and walked slowly with Alex. Everything inside of her screamed ‘run’, but they walked. Alex made sure he created no dust as they did.

  It was not long before the street opened out into a large square, or to be more correct, a large circle, as mud brick houses ringed a well, though at some distance. This allowed room for market stalls and washer women, along with goats, chickens and ladies who sat on the ground cross-legged, as they fed their pigeons. The frantic action of the square allowed Henuttawy to guide Alex unnoticed through to an upstairs room in a small house on the far side.

  “Everybody is used to me coming into this room. From here we can look directly across to where Gadeem’s map points to.” Henuttawy gestured to a brightly painted building which stood out from the rest. “It is, how shall I put it, a meeting place for–”

  “A brothel?”

  “Well, yes, on consideration that would be an accurate description.”

  They watched as a lady arrived in the square on what Alex would have called a sedan chair, though Henuttawy called it a litter. The highly decorated semi-covered chair was being carried between two poles by two bearers. Upon reaching the colourful building, it was carefully placed down onto its legs, each of which had been carved to resemble those of a lion. One of the bearers dropped to the ground in front of the chair, whilst the other stood upright beside him, arms crossed, with his back to the lady. She stood, and as she did, she placed a hand on the shoulder of the standing bearer, before stepping down onto the other, then finally stepping to the ground. She made no attempt to hurry, giving every appearance of wanting the people around to notice her.

  “It is a sign of great wealth, as well as status, to be able to visit an establishment such as that. She wants everybody to see her. She is making a statement.”

  “So, women go in there as well as men?”

  “Yes, but there are far fewer women with wealth, which is why she is being a peacock.”

  Alex understood what Henuttawy meant. Just as a peacock raises its feathers to make an often unnecessary show, so was this lady. She turned slowly, her long, almost see-through white dress, split at the sides from the ground to her waist, appeared to turn even slower. Alex audibly gasped as the lady faced in his direction. Just as the first time he had met Bast, this dress also stopped below her breasts, though unlike Bast, there was no scarab, in fact there was no covering at all. His jaw dropped.

  “It is a sign of royalty for a woman to have her breasts uncovered.”

  “But you don’t,” said Alex without thinking. He immediately flushed with embarrassment.

  “You forget, I was not royalty here.”

  The lady disappeared inside, whilst Alex, rather too obviously, attempted to hide his embarrassment by paying far too much attention to anything that was not female.

  “Oh, to be young and beauti
ful,” said Henuttawy, as her mind drifted off to a time long gone.

  “But you look so young!”

  “Yes, though it is a false youth. Do you know, I died in my seventy-second year?”

  “I … I just cannot get my head around that.”

  “How come, when you accept it with Ramses?”

  Alex had wanted to tell her that he had not fallen in love with Ramses, so his age was not an issue. “Yes,” was all he eventually managed to say.

  “You know all too well, ancients spend the afterlife looking as they did at their most powerful. I was a princess, the favoured daughter of the mighty Ramses II. I had everything a princess could want, until my life fell apart when he sent me away. That was the most powerful time in my life, so I look exactly as I did on that dreadful day. I think that is the reason why he still finds it so hard to look at me. I cried, I begged. On that day, for the first time in my life, I did not behave as a princess was supposed to behave. I clung to my father and had to be dragged from him. I screamed my innocence at the top of my voice until long after he was able to hear me.”

  “That must have been so awful.”

  “Gadeem was gentle with me. When he explained why he had made Ramses do what he did, I screamed at him, kicked him, I even bit him! Not once did he raise his voice to me. Later, actually quite a few weeks later, when I had more or less accepted the situation, we both sat and cried. It was for the greater good, I could see that it was, though I really struggled to accept the situation I found myself in. As Ramses had ordered me to be sent from Egypt, he had to believe I was out of the country. It was Gadeem who brought me here. After an initially turbulent time emotionally, I lived, loved and enjoyed my life here.”

  They talked some more, as they certainly could not move from where they were until they knew who had captured Kate and Cairo. Alex had real difficulty looking at Henuttawy as she appeared in her youth, whilst hearing of her life, her old age, and her eventual death, and she saw this in his face.

  “Did any of your grandparents ever tell you about looking in a mirror and not recognising the face which stared back at them?”

  “Forget grandparents, my mum does that all the time.”

  “Exactly my point! The body ages long before the mind does. With the exception of those sons who became pharaoh late on in life, most were at their most powerful whilst still reasonably young. So that is how they spend their afterlife … looking young. Great, isn’t it?” She playfully flicked at her hair. “I feel really sorry for those who look old.”

  “Yes,” said Alex who was not at his most talkative. He wondered if Henuttawy was thinking of Pharaoh Nakhtifi, who looked to be so much older than most in the afterlife. “Like Nakhtifi?” he added.

  “Yes, though with so many pharaohs there are a few who do look really old in the afterlife. I know, as I have met some of them.”

  “Perhaps this is the curse of the pharaohs we hear so much about?”

  Chapter 25

  -

  Dust and Confusion

  Alex and Henuttawy had been taking it in turns to watch out of the window, whilst making sure they could not be seen from outside. They had talked over many points and were currently chatting about her return to Luxor.

  “So, let me see if I have got this right,” said Alex, though he was pretty sure he had. “You came back to Luxor because Gadeem asked you to help us, as you know Amarna so well and he knew we would have to come here. Up until that time, only he and Ramses knew the truth about why you had been sent away.”

  “Don’t forget Inky, as he has always been a friend.”

  “Yes, of course, but someone from the family must have seen you with Rose in the Theban hills. Gadeem had to tell her the truth about you because it would not have been safe for him or Ramses to be seen with you.”

  “Almost correct. Rose was indeed hurt that Gadeem had not told her the truth about me before now. Though I seriously doubt it was a member of our family who knew we were meeting in the Theban Hills, as we had both been so careful.”

  “So, you think it was a supporter of the warlock who ratted?”

  “I just love your terminology.”

  “Sorry!”

  “Yes, I think the warlock found out we were meeting. How, is anybody’s guess. Telling the family I had abducted Rose was actually quite clever of him. As they did not know the truth, I was the villain in their eyes. The warlock obviously thought–”

  “Wait!” exclaimed Alex. “Did you see that?”

  “What?” asked Henuttawy as she moved closer to the window.

  “Two running figures heading this way. At least one was kicking up dust.”

  “Kate and Cairo?” asked Henuttawy, because she had not reached the window quick enough to observe anyone running.

  The door behind them crashed open before Alex could say ‘No, it wasn’t them’. He froze to the spot as the eyes of a panting man, of average height, scanned the room. The rest of him was covered in what had once been a white galabeya and headscarf. “Out now, forget ‘Cleopatra’, this is a panic exit.”

  “Code word,” said Alex to himself. Whoever it was, he was on their side. All three of them were quickly outside where Henuttawy and Alex were yet again running, though now there were four of them running. His partner had stayed outside and pointed quite forcibly which way they should run as they had exited the building. Nobody had needed to be told twice.

  They ran and ran, into narrower alley after narrower alley. After a while they turned. Now heading back to the centre of the ancient city, they walked at a pace rather than ran. Alex and Henuttawy followed at a safe distance. As street after street became wider the homes became ever grander. Their walk became almost a crawl as nobody wished to kick up any dust or draw unwanted attention.

  The man in front put a hand behind his back, stretching out a finger to a slightly opened door as he walked past. Henuttawy took hold of Alex’s arm, rather dragging him inside. Wherever his mind had been, he had failed to observe the signal.

  “I know this house,” said Henuttawy, once they were safely inside. “It belongs to a rich merchant, though he is seldom in Amarna, so we should be safe here.” She walked straight through a pair of very large and typically ancient Egyptian doors, which Alex struggled to open. They were very heavy, obviously the merchants’ second line of defence against being robbed. He stepped into an opulent lounge complete with a fountain as a feature in the middle of the oversized room.

  “Kate, Cairo, you have not been caught! How wonderful to see you both again. I am so relieved.”

  Alex did not have to wonder for long if Henuttawy had gone crazy or not, as first Kate’s head appeared above a vastly oversized sofa, then so did Cairo’s. “She sees it as it was in her time, and in her time it was an empty room,” Alex said to himself, before all other thoughts left him. He raced over to hug his friends.

  Kate and Cairo excitedly talked over each other. They told of how two figures had burst screaming through the crowd which had surrounded them, grabbed hold of them, then dragged them off into the narrow alleys before any ancient could work out what had just happened. Eventually, they had walked, just as Alex and Henuttawy had, and had also received the same gesture as they arrived at a partially opened door.

  “Do you know who they are?” asked Kate of Henuttawy.

  “First, let me apologise, as I forgot to mention about kicking up dust.”

  “Nothing to apologise for,” said Kate. A look of total disbelief at what he was hearing came over Alex’s face. “We should have known without being told. The lack of dust being kicked up was, after all, how we found out Gadeem was an ancient, so us kicking up dust would prove exactly the opposite.”

  “Then the answer to your question is yes, I know them both.”

  “So, who were those two men? We could only see their eyes,” said Alex as Henuttawy had paused for far too long. Now she smiled.

  “Friends,” was all she said, though she retained her smile.


  “Will they be back?” asked Kate.

  “If you are asking if we will see them again, the answer must be yes, though I would think they will be staying away from us until it is safe to meet up.”

  “They not ancients?” asked Cairo. “So how they get here?”

  “Exactly the same way we did, though to be truthful I never expected to see either of them here. Something must have gone dreadfully wrong for them to enter Amana as it was.” There was a real nervousness in her voice. “I don’t think it is safe to go ahead with the plan before we find out more.”

  “I never thought it was safe to go ahead with your plan,” thought Alex. He felt panic and relief in equal measure. “Do you think we should check for other ways out of here, just in case we come under attack?” he asked.

  They split up and checked room after room. Once they were all back together, they agreed that the home had been built like a fortress. The front door was the only obvious exit.

  “Imagine you were this incredibly rich and presumably powerful citizen of Amarna,” said Alex as he paced around the room. “Imagine being in here whilst robbers were breaking down those doors.” He pointed to the extremely heavy doors which nobody could imagine any robber breaking through. “Okay, then imagine someone who really disliked you setting fire to those doors. Would you be happy to sit here in the knowledge that there was no other way out? I can see from the look on your faces that you would not, so there must be another way out, we have just not found it yet.”

  They went to move off to recheck the house, though the sight of Cairo standing still whilst looking at the floor, on the side of the fountain furthest from the entrance, stopped them.

  “It here,” he said. “It like Great Escape.”

  “The film?” asked Alex as he joined a now nodding Cairo by the fountain. They all joined him and looked down.

  “So, a small amount of water is splashing on the floor,” said Kate.

  “But it not stay on floor,” replied Cairo.

  “I’m going to search the house to find another way out, anyone coming with me?”