Alex said, “Could there be a symbol missing in front of the throne? I should have mentioned that after the geese there was also this.” He drew a small circle followed by the L-shape.
Marek studied both and shook his head. “No, that would make it a word. With the extra two symbols after the throne, the transliteration is st, meaning place. I then added the flag to the next three because this would mean temple—hw t ntr. I think the bird is a swallow representing the sound wr.”
Vanessa said, “So what does it all mean?”
“Khd st hw t ntr wr—sails to the place of the Great Temple. But it’s odd because this could be written in half the number of symbols.” Marek shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know if it makes sense, but I know someone who will.” He took the paper and stood, saying he would find a fax machine and wouldn’t be long.
He returned after ten minutes looking frustrated. “My friend in Cairo isn’t answering his phone, but the fax went through. All we can do is wait. In the meantime, tomorrow morning we should go back to Amarna. There is something I want to show you.”
FIFTY-SIX
1322 BCE, Thebes
Meryra’s secret clay tablets were not safe in the Hall of Records. If Horemheb could destroy so much of the city, what was to prevent him from razing it to the ground? So Yanhamu buried them in a sacred spot on the outskirts of Akhetaten. He returned to Thebes and found the secure house where Thayjem guarded the treasure and coffin. He could recall every word and, as soon as he arrived, he locked himself away and began to write.
Starting with the papyrus intended for Tutankhamen, Yanhamu copied the declaration with meticulous care, replacing the pharaoh’s name with Meryra’s. When he had finished he started on another, this time inserting his own name and the spell Meryra had written for him. After a week’s work, he took a break and went into the artisan sector of Thebes. He bought fresh writing materials and ordered ten of the highest grade sheets of papyrus. Later he instructed Thayjem to purchase another ten and to discreetly source ten more.
When he returned to his writing desk he sat for a long time contemplating what he was about to do. The knowledge he had gained from Meryra’s tablets was dangerous, but writing the stories down was tantamount to treason. In the small hours of the night, he began to write. It was an obsession and an obligation to tell the truth, although he was unsure whether he was telling the gods or merely exorcizing the demons of a suppressed truth. In the morning and every morning after each writing session, he hid the documents beneath the floor.
After Meryra had been taken to the priests, it took seventy-five days for his mummy to be ready. At Akhet, the hour before dawn, Yanhamu instructed Thayjem to load the empty royal coffin onto the carriage and wait for him before sight of the entrance to the valley.
The temple of Osiris looked mystical in the torchlight. As Yanhamu arrived he could hear the incantations of the priests. He smelled frankincense in the cold morning air and the sound of sistra were like a chorus of birds. He peered inside and saw the high priest in a leopard skin placing the four symbols of protection for the afterlife on a mummy: the scarab, the djed, the Isis knot, and the ankh.
The temple bursar came over to him and after introductions Yanhamu handed him a package.
The man opened it, glanced and nodded with a half-smile. “This indeed covers the cost of the best materials. Rather than a pottery coffin you can choose the finest tamarisk wooden one.”
Yanhamu bowed. “I am grateful, but no coffin is required, thank you.”
As the mummy was placed on Yanhamu’s cart, the priests looked surprised, but they made no comment at the lack of a coffin. They loaded the canopic chest and a shroud was used to cover them both. After the final sign, the high priest bade Yanhamu a safe journey to the tombs of the nobles. But Yanhamu had other plans.
The hill of the pharaohs, shaped like a natural pyramid, glowed orange in the first rays of morning as he left the temple. He circled around the area where the nobles were buried and took the track to the pharaoh’s tombs. As instructed, Thayjem was waiting at the bend before the necropolis gates.
As the soldiers kept watch, the two officers transferred Meryra’s mummy and canopic chest to the other carriage. When they were finished, the troop formed a formal guard around the carriage, Yanhamu lead the way and Thayjem guided the pony.
“Papers!”
In the half-light of dawn it was possible the guard couldn’t see Yanhamu’s second officer insignia and he let the rudeness pass. He handed over the papers he’d been given more than four months earlier. With authority he said, “By order of Pharaoh Horemheb, I have brought the king from Akhetaten, where lawlessness has jeopardized his safety.”
The guard saluted. “My apologies, sir,” he said, although his gruffness continued to show little respect. “It has been a difficult night and a long shift.” He studied the document under torchlight and the way he ran his finger around the seal of the pharaoh made Yanhamu wonder if the man even bothered to read the document.
The guard saluted again and stepped back to let the strange cortege through the gates, waved two colleagues to lead the way to the tomb and then followed.
Although the top of the pyramid hill now shone like the sun itself, the ancient wadi that carved its way through the centre had such a chill in the air that Yanhamu questioned whether this was death itself. No wonder the necropolis guards were so well paid. They spent their nights with the souls and no doubt the demons that preyed upon them. He was relieved that the walk up the gentle slope soon ended by an open tomb.
“Pharaoh Akhenaten’s,” the guard said gruffly, and Yanhamu caught him making a slight hawking gesture as though the pharaoh’s very name left a bad taste in his mouth. “Let’s get this coffin in there and we can seal it up finally.” As he spoke, he went to pull the coffin from the back of the carriage.
“I’ll take it,” Yanhamu said, stepping in the way of the guards. He signalled for Thayjem to help and the two officers lifted the coffin from the carriage. He nodded to the guards. “You can bring the canopic jars and the loose items, but don’t touch the trunk.”
Compared with the royal tombs in Akhetaten, he could see this one was simple and unfinished. With lanterns along the walls, they eased their way down steps into the antechamber and from there into the burial chamber. They placed the coffin of Smenkhkare into a golden shrine that seemed lost without a sarcophagus.
The guards hurried back and forth with the other items that Yanhamu had brought from the royal tombs at Akhetaten. There was little of value, just family memorabilia from a different time and culture.
When they finished, Yanhamu joined them at the entrance and handed the necropolis guard a second document. This was the one Meryra had shown him. He said, “I also have an order to take some old stuff into Tutankhamen’s tomb.” He hoped the guard wouldn’t study the document too well. It had the pharaoh’s seal, only this time it was the old pharaoh’s and not Horemheb’s.
“It’s sealed,” the guard said.
Yanhamu snapped back, “Then get it unsealed, man!”
He left Thayjem to supervise and returned to the coffin in Akhenaten’s simple tomb. He listened for a while to be sure he was alone and then lifted the coffin lid and said a prayer to Meryra lying within. He adjusted the scarab on the mummy’s chest and placed the electrum amulet beside it. His final act was to remove the scroll identical to Tutankhamen’s from his satchel and whisper. “Go find your god, old friend.”
The entrance to Tutankhamen’s tomb was close to Akhenaten’s. When Yanhamu emerged into the valley he saw Thayjem arguing with the guard and stonemason responsible for closing the tombs. The entrance had been opened but there was only a small access hole in the doorway to the antechamber and the stonemason was refusing to make it any larger.
Yanhamu inspected it. There was barely enough of a gap to crawl through. From his satchel he took a small gold comb and palmed it to the stonemason. He added, “I don’t need to get into the ki
ng’s burial chamber. I’m just responsible for taking some funerary items for him.”
There was a moment of hesitation and then the man nodded and turned to hammer and chisel more of the door away.
When he was happy the space was big enough, Yanhamu said, “It’s fine.” He put a hand on Thayjem’s shoulder and instructed him to fetch the trunk Meryra had brought from Akhetaten. He took a torch and gripped his amulet, said a prayer to the dead and then clambered through into the room. The light from the flames danced off the golden furniture crammed in the small space. He cast his eyes around at the astounding sight of more wealth than he could imagine and then jumped. The light caught two large figures: black men standing either side of the burial chamber door. It took a moment to register that they were statues, and he laughed at his skittishness.
Thayjem called through the hole, “Sir?”
Yanhamu fixed the torch to a wall mount and took the first item that Thayjem passed to him. Working quickly, they emptied the sack of the items, many of which had Tutankhamen’s original Aten name engraved on them. After placing all the items around the room, Yanhamu bowed to the two statues and apologized for using the faience necklace to pay for Meryra’s mummification and the gold comb to pay the stonemason. He also promised that everything else Meryra had put in the sack for the king was now in the tomb.
Thayjem was back at the hole and called as he pushed a wooden chest into the space. Yanhamu pulled it through and pushed it over to the statues. He opened the chest to show them the papyri within. “Your path to eternity is here, my lord,” he whispered, and at that moment he was certain the boy king’s ba was present. Rather than a chill in the icy chamber, Yanhamu felt a surge of warmth and a sense of fulfilment. Beneath the Book of the Dead, he showed the statues the pile of papyri that were the words he had translated from Meryra’s tablets. He closed the lid and dropped to his knees, arms outstretched in supplication.
“My Lord Tutankhamen, who wore the crowns and bound the Two Lands together, who pleases the gods and is the son of Ra, I bring you the truth so that the gods may know the truth of your father and his queen and”—the words were formed by the quiet sound of his breath—“the rulers who came after who do not have pure hearts.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
After the gaol, the dusty hotel room felt luxurious. Alex lay in bed, but a day of inactivity and thoughts spinning through his mind made sleep impossible. He sat up, took out his laptop and tried to go online. He called down to reception and eventually managed to communicate that he required the access key for the Wi-Fi. Once on the Internet he searched for an explanation of the combination of hieroglyphs.
He knew the broken horizontal rectangle was the determinative for a building, so it pointed to the word or name being that of a house. The vertical rectangle seemed to confirm this. The semicircle was typically the sound t, the bird was the sound oo or w. The boat was often the boat of the gods, and this being followed by a building seemed to confirm that Alex was looking for a palace or temple, although Alex knew a temple was typically indicated by a flag.
He was still trying to make sense of it when his email registered that new mail had arrived. He’d neglected to check his email since leaving the UK and amongst the marketing communications there was one from his mother. It was a short note, hoping he was all right, letting him know that he could come and stay if he needed. She also told him that Topsy was fine. There was nothing sentimental but he found himself feeling emotional. He rubbed his face. Perhaps he was tired after all. According to his watch it was 2:30 in the morning. He fired off a quick reply to his mum and decided to quickly scan through the other mail for anything important and then hit the sack.
One email caught his attention. It was from Mutnodjemet, another of the names from the forum.
Hi, Senemut. Thanks for your email. Been lying low for a while after the warnings from Sinuhe. God, it’s scary what happened to him. It can’t be a coincidence, can it? Anyway, glad you’re OK—are you coming back to the forum? Mutnodjemet x
Sinuhe was Marek. Mutnodjemet was a female name. Assuming this person was female, why was she saying something had happened to Marek? A shiver ran across Alex’s chest. If something had happened to Marek, then who was the man who had picked them up at the airport? It had to be him, didn’t it?
Alex fired off a quick reply to the email, asking what had happened and what she meant about a coincidence. Then he searched the Internet for Marek Borevsek and found the usual references to his research. It confirmed what Marek had told him about his transfer to Cairo and the research team there working on the identity of the cache of mummies found in Amenhotep the Second’s tomb. Nothing suspicious there.
He returned to bed and left his laptop on in case Mutnodjemet replied. Sleep still refused to come. Over and over, he replayed conversations with Marek. The man was definitely suspicious. He didn’t seem to recall telling Ellen to use a webmail account. He didn’t know about the message on the Map-Stone about uniting the House of Aten. And he had called Tutankhamen King Tut. No student of Egyptology would do that, would they?
The guy didn’t seem that academic and yet he was supposed to be a leading PhD student.
Or was Alex just being paranoid? Was he turning into Ellen?
Ten minutes later Alex made a decision. He picked up the room phone and dialled Vanessa. After eight rings she answered, her voice groggy with sleep.
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Alex? What time is it?”
“Look, don’t worry about that, just pack your things.”
“What’s wrong?” She was awake now.
He told her what he’d found out and suspected about Marek.
She said, “Are you sure? It sounds—”
“Paranoid, I know, but better safe than sorry. What if he is working for the bad guys?” He let that sink in for a moment then said. “Get packed. We’ve got to go—Now!”
“OK, OK, I’ll be at your room as soon as I can.”
Immediately after putting down the phone, he switched off the laptop, dressed and stuffed everything into his bag. A couple of minutes later there was a light knock on his door.
“Alex?” Vanessa whispered from the other side.
He started to open the door, his bag held ready to go, but instead of leaving, Vanessa pushed him back into the room and shut the door behind her.
She said, “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes!”
“Let me see the email.”
He’d already packed, but reluctantly he opened up the laptop, switched on and waited for the connection. “We’re wasting time.”
She waited.
Then when the email was open she read it quickly. “It says nothing.”
“But I was suspicious of him right from the start when he collected us at the airport and seemed nervous.”
Vanessa pointed to the bed. “Sit down and breathe.” When he did she continued. “He’s a heavy smoker, addicted to nicotine. We discussed this, Alex.”
“But he also made a mistake when telling you about the letters. And earlier I asked him about a webmail account and I could swear he knew nothing about it.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t. You arrived and he changed the subject.”
“Maybe my arrival distracted him. People sometimes forget what they are talking about. True?”
“I guess.”
“Ask him again in the morning. I bet you haven’t slept, have you? You’re tired and it’s been very stressful what with being chased in the tombs and held overnight in prison.”
“You think I’m being paranoid.”
“Just take slow, deep breaths and then let’s see how we feel.”
Alex gradually calmed himself while Vanessa made him a cup of tea.
“You think you’ve got a map that might lead to treasure. Anyone would be nervous having that,” she said, handing him the tea and smiling. “Anyway, you’ve told Marek everything now, so it’s
too late to worry. He knows what you know, so if he’s not genuine he won’t be here in the morning.”
Now it was Alex’s turn to smile. “Well, to be honest, he doesn’t know something.”
“You didn’t draw all the symbols?”
“I drew what I could make out.” He put down his cup, feeling more relaxed, and hoped Vanessa would think him smart. “You see, this evening I suddenly realized the Map-Stone is more than just a map. It’s also partly a mathematical code.”
The Fourth
FIFTY-EIGHT
Alex and Vanessa spent an hour debating what to do.
“Tell me again why you think it’s a mathematical code,” Vanessa said.
“I think there are three parts: the name of the building, the lines—which make up the map of a maze—and the code.”
Vanessa waited.
“Two reasons I think there’s a code: firstly because I think Ellen worked it out. I told her the numbers and she knew they were significant. If it had been word-based then it wouldn’t have required my contribution.”
“But why does that—”
“Oh sorry. When they wrote something that meant something other than the obvious, they would use modified hieroglyphs—ideograms that weren’t hieroglyphs. Like the number eight in cuneiform.”
“The grid-like thing.”
“Yes. And the thing that I didn’t show Marek. The geese surrounding a throne. That’s not normal. Geese on their own, yes. Throne on its own, yes. But geese around a throne means something else.”
She got it. “So what does it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what does the building part mean? Do you think we’ve seen the right place now?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said again.
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