Ascending Passion
Page 9
Woman likes her coffee.
If Rowan had three cups before noon, she was jittery for the rest of the day. Kayla had three cups before she left for site.
Standing in front of the small buffet, Rowan eyed the offerings. At the start, she had enjoyed the Egyptian cuisine, but after three weeks she longed for a bowl of granola. Grabbing some bread and eggs, she figured that would do.
“That’s all you’re eating? No wonder you’re so skinny.” Yael gestured at her plate, then proceeded to heap a bit of everything on his.
“I’m not skinny.” She didn’t think she was overweight; but she wasn’t model-thin. And she was okay with that. Plus, she didn’t have much of an appetite after her dream this morning. She still felt embarrassed to look at her bodyguard.
“Fine. You do you. Means more for me.”
“Like you were going to leave anything, anyway,” Rowan muttered, heading over to Kayla’s table.
“Ah, you know me too well.” The familiar smirk was back.
She was so grumpy that she wanted to smack it off his face. Instead, she dug into her eggs and pita.
“What are you two bickering about this time?” Kayla downed the last of her coffee.
“Food.” Yael jerked his chin in her direction. “She doesn’t eat enough.”
“What are you, my dad?” Rowan snapped.
He appeared horrified at the suggestion.
Kayla snort-laughed. “You guys crack me up. You’re like an old married couple.”
“Glad someone enjoys it,” Rowan growled then quickly shoved her mouth full of food so she couldn’t say anything else stupid.
Old married couple? The idea wasn’t quite as horrifying as it should be.
“Colin reckons we’re about to find the entrance to the tomb in his trench,” Kayla said, then glanced at the bottom of her coffee cup, amazed it was empty.
“Do you run on that stuff?” Yael asked, pointing at the cup with his fork.
Kayla slapped his utensil away. “Don’t they teach you manners in He—wherever you’re from?”
He bared his teeth. “No.”
Rowan finished her mouthful, ignoring their exchange. “Well, since we couldn’t find the entrance with the other three trenches, let’s hope he’s right.”
The G.P.R. had shown that the tomb terminated at each of the four trenches. The only problem? It didn’t show where the door was. G.P.R. only indicated changes in soil that occurred from voids, or the presence of stone, and since most of the tombs had stairwells leading into them, well, it showed up simply as a room.
I still think we’re digging in the wrong spot.
She couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of her doubt, just that she knew this new tomb wasn’t Twosret’s. But it shouldn’t matter. Discovering a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings was an immense achievement, regardless of whether it was the ‘right one’.
“I went through the sieve finds yesterday from Colin’s trench,” Kayla said, turning the empty coffee cup in her hands. “There were a number of small gold objects, even a broken ushabti.”
Ushabtis were small figurines said to come to life to serve the tomb’s owner—it meant that actual servants didn’t have to be killed and buried with their former masters. The figurines weren’t left outside tombs, not unless they had been dumped there by grave robbers. “That isn’t a good sign that the tomb is intact.”
“No. Colin seems to think it could be debris left over from KV15.”
Rowan made a non-committal sound, while Yael finished his mound of food.
“Let’s go.”
#
Four dusty hours later, they unearthed a staircase.
KV64, here we go!
“This is it!” Dr. Murdoch rubbed his hands together in glee, while Dr. Mustafa and Dr. Campbell stood stone-faced at the top of the stairs. Rowan crouched down four stairs away, using her trowel to scrape at the compact alluvial soil that covered the remainder of the staircase. The shiny golden back of an ornamental scarab appeared, and her heart sank. As she worked, broken shards of pottery also emerged.
Dr. Mustafa came to crouch down next to her. “What is it?”
“There are artifacts all through this. I don’t think it bodes well.”
While the pottery fragments and scarab should have been left in situ—so they could be recorded first—Dr. Mustafa pried up the scarab with care. He flipped it over, the dusky skin of his palm contrasting against the warm gold. His hand clenched on the item. “Maatkare.”
Excitement made Rowan’s skin tingle and she fought the urge to pry apart his fingers and steal the object. “Can I see?”
Slowly, he opened his hand, letting her pick up the scarab. There, on its back, was