Ankhtifi's Papyrus

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by Graham Warren


  He slid out to join her in the tunnel. “Not now, Kate, we don’t have time for this.”

  “Make time.”

  “Cairo is in there. He needs our help.”

  “He needs our help alright, but he isn’t in there.”

  “How do you know he isn’t? Do you suddenly have a crystal ball?”

  “You know I don’t, and alright, he might be in there, but if we go in there with him, I don’t think any of us will be coming out. What happens if this gap closes once we are inside?”

  Alex shook his head in disbelief. “Our friend is in there, in pain, and you want a discussion–” He stopped abruptly. Kate went to speak. He held out a hand to shush her. Putting an ear as close to the gap as he could, he listened. Nothing, absolutely nothing, the tomb was silent. Yes, Cairo could have passed out, but Alex would have expected to have heard something. Just the simple fact of him breathing, making slight movements whilst asleep, he should have been able to pick up on something. Tombs had a way of magnifying the slightest of sounds. There was nothing and there continued to be nothing.

  “Sorry, Kate, perhaps we do need to think about this before rushing in.”

  They heard footsteps approaching, it was Rose. She had taken a beating. Putting her back to the wall she slid down to sit on the floor. “Whatever that girl eats for breakfast, order me the same.”

  “She is strong, isn’t she? I could not believe her strength. Really took me by surprise.”

  “Me too! … Is Cairo in there?” Rose pointed to the flickering coming from the gap opposite.

  “Yes,” Alex said quite confidently before adding, far less confidently: “Well, actually, we don’t know.”

  The sound of feet approaching from the distance did not alarm them, as they could hear Ankhtifi calling for them to wait, not to go into the Sekhmet tomb. What did surprise them was that he arrived with Neferkare. Even more surprising was that he appeared to be slightly smaller than when they last saw him, whilst she appeared far larger. Kate and Alex both immediately pictured the bas-relief of Ankhtifi and his wife on the back wall of his tomb, for that is who they were looking at.

  “It is the papyrus,” Neferkare said by way of explanation. “I placed it inside the wax shabti, so it is back where it should be. It is now also under twenty-four-hour guard. Thank you so much, all of you, for making this right.”

  “But, that girl, Leonie, she has it. She took it from me.”

  “She took a papyrus from you … not ‘the’ papyrus,” Rose said.

  “You knew?” Kate was too confused to be angry.

  “Neferkare and I discussed it. We felt that the safest way to get the papyrus back in here would be for her to bring it, whilst all eyes were on us.”

  “Do not be alarmed,” Ankhtifi said, as the sound of running soldiers reached them. “We will soon all know what is in there.” He pointed to the Sekhmet tomb.

  “I am not so sure that I want to know,” Neferkare said as she glanced nervously at everyone in turn, seeing that they obviously did want to know.

  “We must know, then we can seal it once and for all.” Ankhtifi suggested that everyone step back. Once they had, he signalled for the soldiers to bring the wall down.

  Within a few minutes they were staring into a tomb so crammed full of everything Sekhmet that they were all amazed.

  “I knew that when I ordered everything to be placed inside this empty tomb that there were many items, though nowhere near as many as this.” Ankhtifi called for his Thoth.

  It took Thoth a matter of seconds to locate his records. He was actually able to read out what should have been in the Sekhmet tomb in less than a minute. They were looking at far more than he described.

  Having made no mention of a sarcophagus, Ankhtifi ordered his Thoth to read the name contained within any of the cartouches carved into its sides. They could make out the shapes of these, though not the name contained therein.

  With so many shabtis piled upon the floor it was difficult for Thoth, with his wide webbed feet, to reach the sarcophagus. When he did, he was obviously able to read the name. He said nothing as he moved to another cartouche and then another, wobbling crazily upon the shabtis as he did.

  “Who is in the sarcophagus, Thoth?”

  “Please, my pharaoh, I need more time.” Thoth having now read a few vertical lines of hieroglyphs turned to ask for assistance.

  “You and you, go.” Ankhtifi sent in two soldiers to assist Thoth in reaching the far side of the sarcophagus. Cradling Thoth between them, they took him completely around it before bringing him back to Ankhtifi. “Well?”

  “Well, my pharaoh, I can tell you with certainty that this is no sarcophagus, not in the normal sense of the word.”

  “Do not tell me what it is not, tell me what it is!”

  “It is …” Thoth looked nervous. “It is a vault.” He proceeded to tell them all what he had read. Each pair of cartouches were from a different pharaoh. The hieroglyphs around each of these described that pharaoh as coming face to face with their greatest fear.

  “Sekhmet!”

  “Yes, my pharaoh. This vault was built to contain the spirit of Sekhmet. On that end,” Thoth gestured to the end of the vault pointing east, “it explains the daily rituals which need to be undertaken by her priestesses in order to please Sekhmet.”

  “To placate her anger.”

  “Yes, my pharaoh.”

  “What are you not telling me? That end points east, east is where the sun rises, east is life. What does it say on the other end?”

  Ignoring Ankhtifi’s request, Thoth proceeded to them all that most of the far side of the vault was blank, though there was an empty double cartouche ready for a pharaoh’s name to be carved into it.

  “Tell us, Thoth, what the western end says, the end that points to death!”

  “I cannot, my pharaoh, because it has been defaced. There is a message written on it though, which appears to be in some sort of modern English–”

  “It’s modern English alright.” They had to find Cairo. Thoth was taking far too long, so Kate, along with Alex and Rose, had gone to see for themselves. The end of the vault being very rough, from where it had been repeatedly hit in an ultimately successful attempt to make the hieroglyphs illegible, did not make a good surface to write on. “Very bad modern English. Looks like it has been written very hastily in … What would you say it is written in, Alex?”

  “Lipstick, perhaps. I’m really not sure, though there is one thing I am sure of, it’s been written in text speak.”

  Rose became certain that Leonie had written this, after she had deciphered the first line: You killed my friends, you will pay. “Leonie was very upset when she wrote this. It’s really disjointed and shaky. Many letters are so broken up that I can only guess at what they are.” She turned to Kate and Alex: “Either of you doing any better at deciphering her handwriting than I am?”

  “I’m not, though that could be shorthand for Ramses.” Kate pointed to the bottom line Leonie’s scrawl.

  “It could, and if it is, that could be an eight, so that little piece there,” he pointed, “could mean ‘hate you Ramses’.” They agreed that it could. “She wrote this whilst she was in shock. One minute they were winning, she was on top of the world, the next, Celina and her parents were gone, and she was alone.”

  “Even more alone after my soldiers removed the names of the ancients you dealt with outside.” Ankhtifi was obviously very impressed with Rose’s driving. “My soldiers also rounded up several more of their soldiers. They were on their way down here to stop you from entering. None of them will be enjoying the afterlife anymore. Disloyalty must be seen to come with a very high price.”

  Kate, stumbling as she stepped back into the corridor, grabbed hold of Neferkare to stop herself from falling. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to grab your sore arm … Your arm, it’s healed!”

  “I had not noticed, but the pain has gone.” Neferkare turned to see her arm more clearly in
the light from a flaming torch: “You are right … it is healed.”

  “Hathor must be back. Where would she be, where would Cairo be?” Alex asked as he rechecked behind the vault before stepping out into the tunnel.

  “I am not sure, because there is nothing she could do to help Cairo, he would need a hospital.” Any Hathor could only assist members of their pharaoh’s family, and only once they were in the afterlife.

  “Follow me.” Ankhtifi was already moving quickly, Neferkare having jogged his memory.

  Chapter 25

  -

  Twenty-seventh of July

  “Can I have a word with you both?” Gadeem asked, as Three showed Kate and Alex into the lounge at the Winter Palace.

  “Of course,” they said. Kate took the seat at the opposite end of the sofa to him, whilst Alex sat in a massive armchair. Fresh coffee and ice-cold tamar-hindi was sitting on the table in front of them.

  Gadeem was unable to stand, in order to greet them, due to him sitting in the only place an ancient could. Any attempt to move would result in him disappearing through the floor. “Thank you Three,” he called out.

  With the doors to the lounge now closed, Mohammed, the Mohammed who was built like a brick barn, stood guard in the corridor outside. Kate and Alex were curious as to what Gadeem wanted to talk to them about. Kate had expected to come down to a not-so-much-of-a-surprise surprise party. Her sixteenth birthday had come and gone just over two weeks ago but, with the fear of Sekhmet appearing and the possibility of all hell breaking out, her party had sensibly been delayed.

  The twenty-seventh of July having come and gone just like any other day, all their thoughts had then moved to the sixth or possibly seventh of August. The peak time, the strongest time for Leo and therefore for Sekhmet. These dates, and all the days since, having also passed uneventfully, today had been picked by Rose as the day to celebrate.

  “I am not supposed to tell you, but I saw Cairo earlier. He is determined to be at your party later–”

  “He said he was coming,” Kate said eagerly. Gadeem gave a slight shake of his head. “Sorry … I interrupted you.”

  “As I was saying, he is determined to be at your party later … without his crutches.”

  “That’s great news.” Kate was genuinely pleased.

  “Yes, it really is. I knew he was coming along well, but that is amazing.” Alex poured Kate a tamar-hindi, then a coffee for himself. “That isn’t why you wanted to see us though, is it?”

  “No … I wanted to be able to speak to you where we could not be overheard, because I thought it was important to let you know that Leonie has been found.”

  “That’s great,” Alex said to Gadeem before turning to Kate: “Then today, we really can celebrate your birthday in style.” Turning back to look at Gadeem, he asked, “Where was she found? Did your spell work? … Of course, it would have worked; what I meant was, is that how you found her? Have you been able to get anything out of her yet?”

  “Don’t get so excited, Alex, because I cannot see any excitement on that face.” Kate gestured towards Gadeem.

  “Oh, no, Kate,” Gadeem tried a smile, “it is not that bad.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” she said.

  “Well, perhaps you should?”

  Alex had been aware for some while, they all had, that Leonie taking the papyrus from Kate was exactly what Rose had hoped would happen. She had asked Gadeem to place a location spell upon it, so that the family would be able to track the movements of whoever took it. Rose had chased after Leonie only because someone had to. If nobody had, then she would have immediately known the papyrus was fake.

  After following Leonie’s movements for a few days, which had brought the family some very useful intelligence, they had lost her. The most likely reason, Gadeem had thought at the time, was that she had discovered it to be fake and in doing so had had it destroyed.

  “I must admit to being slightly concerned, because, yes, Alex, we discovered Leonie, thanks to the papyrus.”

  “Discovered her?” You found people, you did not discover people. His father discovered things when he dug them up!

  “We think that she was deliberately left for us to find. Actually, it was blatantly obvious that she was left for us to find.”

  “Where?” Kate asked.

  “The Temple of Mut … Do you know it?” Kate and Alex had both heard of it. Alex thought that he may have even been there once, though wasn’t sure, and if he had he could remember nothing about it. “It is an outer temple within the Karnak complex.”

  “Yes, that is where I have heard it mentioned. Dad had to go there for something or other,” Alex said, though he was still none the wiser if he had ever been there or not.

  “Mut itself is nothing exceptional. There is a walled area which encloses, or perhaps I should say, used to enclose several temples, as they are long gone, it being one of the oldest areas of the Karnak temple complex. Only the Montu temple is older. That was right over on the opposite side of Karnak and is now also gone, apart from one rather nice arch and a few remains in the sand. Do you know, the Montu temple dates back to the eleventh dynasty, just after the time of Ankhtifi? That is how old it is.”

  “And Mut, how old is Mut?” Alex asked.

  “Work on it started only a few years after Montu, I think. Obviously, with it being well before my time, I cannot be sure, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that it was started in the same century, though it has always been overshadowed by Montu, just by that temple’s sheer size.”

  “Okay,” said Kate with slight attitude, “we get what isn’t special about Mut, now could you tell us what is?”

  “It is Sekhmet. It is there where you will find the highest concentration of Sekhmet statues anywhere in Egypt.”

  The colour literally drained from Kate and Alex.

  “Please, I do not think that we have anything to worry about, not today anyway.”

  “Well, that fills me with confidence.”

  “I admit, Kate, that I could have put that better.” Gadeem could be quite animated when he talked. Sitting where he was he was having to restrain himself. “Let us look at this logically. That half-wit and his terrible mother have been dealt with.”

  “How? I hadn’t heard that they had been located.”

  “Let me put it like this, Ankhtifi located them, interrogated them, and they will not be posing any future threat to us or anybody.”

  “He has removed their names?” Alex asked.

  “Not yet, as he has them repairing the damage to Neferkare’s tomb. I would imagine that very soon they will be begging to have their names removed. That is something we will leave to Ankhtifi. For me, it is enough to know that they pose no threat.”

  Kate and Alex were relieved.

  “Ramses has insisted that Sekhmet’s priestesses continue to perform additional daily rituals in all temples. You will have possibly read in The ADD that Ramses has strongly suggested that all ancients do the same. That will placate any possible anger Sekhmet may have. He intends to continue with these extra rituals for the foreseeable future, which I think is for the best. We still have no idea how that sarcophagus–”

  “Vault,” Kate said.

  “Yes, vault. Well, we have no idea how that works, but Ankhtifi has been very careful to have everything in the Sekhmet tomb cleaned, repaired, and the wall replaced. It was sealed yesterday, and, like his papyrus, will be guarded twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Do you think that the sealing of the Sekhmet tomb, and the finding of Leonie, could be connected?” Alex asked.

  “I have thought about that long and hard. I really cannot draw any connection between the two events that would cause me to worry, though the way Leonie was found does.”

  Alex placed his empty cup on the coffee table. Kate did the same with her glass. Gadeem had their undivided attention.

  “Amongst all the statues of Sekhmet at Mut there is one, even though she is shown seated, which is
far larger than all the rest. That is where we found Leonie, placed like a doll in Sekhmet’s lap, with the papyrus under her. Her neck was so cleanly broken that she looked as though she was asleep.”

  “And you are only worried by this? Why are you not in deep panic? I am!”

  “Kate, there is no need to panic. Am I worried, yes, slightly, as to why she was killed. I am also worried, slightly, by who the murderer might be, but we are looking for nothing more than an ordinary person who committed murder. She was not killed by Sekhmet, you only have to look at Cairo’s injuries to know that.

  “To be honest, I was far more worried that we had somebody out there who had ‘seen’, who was working to bring the wrath of Sekhmet down upon us all. Her death concerns me because now we may never know who she was working with or why they felt the need to deface that Sekhmet vault, nothing more than that. In many ways, it makes things easier for us.”

  “How?” Kate asked.

  “Because we can now use the intelligence we gained from the papyrus that we could not use whilst she was alive. So, let us all enjoy your birthday, Kate. When does the party begin?”

  “I’m not supposed to know.”

  “About an hour from now,” Alex said as he looked over to an old clock, the ticking of which was driving him crazy.

  Upon leaving the lounge Three excitedly ushered them to their favourite table in the bar, where a beaming Cairo was waiting for them. The next hour just disappeared as the three friends chatted away. At one point, Alex had taken out his reinforced mobile and announced, to much laughter, that he was still on the first one, so nothing interesting could have happened whilst Cairo had been recuperating.

  Dr Margretti had sent them each a box which contained five identical mobile phones, having obviously decided that the way they were getting through them, one each would not have been enough. Kate and Cairo had been convinced that Alex would be through all his phones while they were still on their first. It had now become a little bit of a joke between them for Alex to have to prove which phone he was on.

  Rose entered the bar, where she asked them to follow her, as the party was about to start. Cairo made it from the bar to the room at the end of the hall without crutches – the only room in the Winter Palace that could be freely used by ancients – where he received a rapturous welcome.

 

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