Gold of the Ancients

by Graham Warren

  “Psusennes.”

  “Thank you, Cairo. So, Alex, is that what you are doing?”

  “Perhaps! It definitely does not destroy my theory, though I accept it’s far from confirmation.” He decided to change the subject as he was well aware that neither Merenptah nor Psusennes were Greek. “Can either of you read any of the hieroglyphs across the top?” Neither of them could. Alex and Emmy spent a couple of minutes trying to work out some sort of meaning.

  “You both need look here.”

  “Where are you, Cairo?” Alex asked.

  “He is here,” Emmy said as she saw Cairo’s raised arm. He was on his knees and looking under the buggy.

  Soon they were all on their knees and looking at the severely crushed bodies of two ancients. They knew this because they could count four feet – two left, two right! Everything else was a total mess. The feet remained where the ancients had stood before the buggy had dropped onto them. Nobody had to be a genius to work out that these had to be ancients. What little could be made of their mode of dress rather pointed to that fact, however, it was the total lack of even one drop of blood, from such heavily damaged bodies, that was the, literally, dead giveaway.

  Cairo slid under the buggy and started to remove their names. It was a far from easy task. Emmy, who really did not want to watch, could not take her eyes off of Cairo as he moved various pieces of crushed body in his search. It was, at the same time, both gross and compelling.

  Emmy struggled to keep her stomach contents in place as she sat back in the buggy.

  Cairo was struggling from the lack of stomach contents. “They gone. We eat now. Cannot take it with us.”

  “Yes, Cairo,” Alex said from the driver’s seat as he wondered if he had got this all wrong. He continued to stare at the gold in front of him, wondering why he could not read the hieroglyphs. They were so obviously Greek, so he should have been able to read them. Previously his ancient memories had allowed him to read Greek, not Egyptian, hieroglyphs.

  Cairo passed food forward. It went uneaten, so, once he had finished everything else, he took it back and ate that as well. For such a diminutive person his ability to consume great volumes of food had to be seen to be believed. To be fair, they had lost quite a large proportion of their supplies to the heat of the desert, though there should have still been more than enough left for them all to have enjoyed a hearty meal. Cairo had the urge to relieve himself, so he asked Alex to dim the buggy lights as he headed towards the tunnel.

  Emmy joked that she was amazed he could even walk after all he had eaten, and that she expected him to explode any minute.

  Alex immediately went into panic mode. He shouted at Cairo to stop, though with Cairo’s desperate urge to urinate no verbal command was going to stop him. In his panic to get out of the buggy, Alex fell out rather than stepped out. However, this did not stop him scrambling forward on all fours. With a frog like flying forward leap he brought Cairo to the ground. “Emmy, get out of the buggy and against the wall,” he shouted as he dragged Cairo against the opposite wall. Without warning the golden frame around the tunnel entrance snapped down as if it were a giant, though ridiculously expensive, mouse trap. With nothing more than sidelights of the buggy for illumination they were still able to witness its destruction far too clearly, even though it would be a while before their eyes fully adjusted.

  It crumpled as if it were made of paper. They covered their ears as tyre after tyre burst. Such was the pressure of the trap. The sidelights remained illuminated, though now they pointed upwards from a much lower angle. One red rear light flickered eerily.

  “Oh, Alex,” Emmy said as she started to move away from the wall.

  “Stop!” Alex shouted with desperation in his voice. “This is not over yet. Do you hear that?” Something, not someone, was moving in the tunnel.

  “I know what that sound is,” Cairo said as he experienced a warm, wet sensation. “Sorry!”

  “Forget about that. What is it? What is that sound?” Alex could see clearer all the time, they all could.

  “It … what you call it? …” There was a creaking, straining sound, followed by a second or two of complete silence, before a multitude of arrows rained into the room. Most embedded themselves into the back wall, white marble being relatively soft. These had all come from the tunnel and had fanned out to cover as much of the area as possible. “I still not remember what it called, but that what it does!”

  Alex saw and heard Emmy struggling to move. “Are you okay?” he called.

  “Fine, I’m pinned to the wall, but I’m okay.”

  “Are you hit?”

  “No.” There followed the sounds of the breaking of the shafts of arrows and the tearing of clothes. “I’m free, and have nothing more than a couple of grazes. I’m okay. That was far too close.” Emmy moved along the wall, away from the arrows, and towards the tunnel. “Please tell me it is over.”

  “I don’t know. We had better stay where we are for just a little longer.” Alex looked around and a shudder went through him at the sight of all the arrows, each illuminated by the red rear lights of the now deceased buggy. With one of the lights blinking erratically it looked as though blood was running down the wall, and that could have so easily been their blood. If Emmy had stood just a little further along the wall it would have been certain death. He shuddered again.

  Emmy had had enough of waiting. She moved quickly and without warning.

  “No, Emmy!” Alex shouted.

  “Stay!” Cairo shouted. He also raised the palms of his hands in front of him to emphasise the point.

  Emmy was having none of it. If she was going to die, she was not going to die alone. She scrambled over the crushed buggy, adding more rips to her already torn clothing. There was a thud as her back hit the wall beside Alex and Cairo.

  “That must have hurt, are you okay?” Alex asked.

  “Of course I am not okay. I have just avoided being swatted like a fly, after which I was almost turned into a human pincushion.” She started to shake, they all did. There had been far too many awful events for one day … and the day was far from over.

  A short while later they all agreed that they had better move. Cautiously, and with one eye always on the tunnel, they searched what was left of the buggy for anything they could salvage. There was nothing, not even a bottle of water that had not been crushed. They could not even get to their clothes. The lights on the buggy died without warning. Holding hands, the three young adventurers found their way to the tunnel and rather gingerly made their way towards the distant sounds. It was slow nerve-wracking progress.

  Alex had taken the lead. Moving with his back to the wall, his free arm feeling ahead, he slid his feet along the floor. It was then that the solid ground beneath his right foot sank just a few centimetres. He froze, though his senses heightened. He need not have worried as it was nothing more than a switch which ignited torch after torch on the walls, their flames now lighting the way ahead.

  “You can let go of my hand now,” Emmy said. She loved it that he held her hand, and would not have asked him to let go, except that he had been holding it far too firmly. So firmly that her blood supply had almost stopped.

  “Yes, sorry.” The tunnel was indeed a very long tunnel, though it did widen out from this point onward. It was a basic though well carved tunnel, not unlike those found in the Valley of the Kings. The ones which allowed the sarcophagus to be transported into the burial chamber. Thoughts of a burial chamber ahead, possibly their burial chamber, did not sit well in Alex’s mind. “If those torches have lit all the way to where the noise is coming from, then we can expect a reception party.”

  “No, we okay, Mr Alex. Guards not send warning, we got rid of them.”

  “Yes, you are right. Well … let’s hope you are right. With the torches lit they will be expecting …” Alex did not know who or what they would be expecting, but it most certainly would not be the three of them.

  “They will not be expec
ting anybody who doesn’t work for them,” Emmy said in order to help Alex to finish his sentence.

  Alex saw Emmy looking at Cairo’s wet galabeya. “Cairo spilled some water,” he looked down at himself, “we both did.”

  Emmy now noticed that both boys shared the same wet patch. She turned to directly face them for the first time since the torches lit their way and said, “I think we all spilled the same water!”

  When they reached where they thought the tunnel ended, it did not. It went on and on. Eventually they reached the light at the end of the tunnel. Peering out, they could see no soldiers, nobody at all. They were on a balcony which ran around all four walls. They were above an exceptionally large, as well as rather noisy, area.

  Keeping as low as possible they moved out from the tunnel. The first few steps were easy as they were obscured, from anybody who may have looked up from below, by an ancient hoist. This took the form of a wooden platform, similar to a modern day pallet, suspended within an open wooden frame. It was held aloft by a rope attached at each corner, each of which travelled up before being spliced together to become a single very thick rope. This rose up even higher before travelling over a beam and dropping down to the ground below, where it was split back into separate ropes, each of which was tied around several bags of sand. It was obvious to them all that the route they had arrived by was the same route the stolen gold took. Able to peak down from between the mummiform pillars of the balustrade, they saw below them a room full of workers, precious metal workers.

  At table after table there was a single worker, each had had their head shaved, and none wore a shirt of any kind. They all looked as though they were in urgent need of a good meal. A small group of workers were unpacking and sorting golden items. This had to have been the latest delivery, as it sat beside where the hoist would sit upon reaching the floor below.

  Another group of workers, though these were on the far side of the room, stacked finished gold items into unmarked wheeled crates of all shapes and sizes. Each worker wore nothing more than a simple white wrap. This fitted around the waist, overlapped at the front, and was no longer than a pair of shorts.

  “They don’t even have flip-flops. Is that all they are wearing?” As if to answer Emmy’s whispered question a worker with his back to them bent over in order to pick a box up from the floor.

  “Absolutely nothing else,” Alex confirmed.

  “Nothing,” Cairo said with a smirk.

  Upon each table was a single item of gold. Some were so small that if they did not glint as the worker moved them, it would have looked as though there was nothing in their hands. Other pieces were so large that the table literally buckled under the weight. To the right of each worker a cloth was laid out, upon which rested several simple tools. To the left of each worker was a papyrus with the cartouche design they had to engrave. From their vantage point it was clear to see the shape, so they knew it was a cartouche, though they were too far away to be able to read whose cartouche it was, even on the closest table. The workers looked vacant in their expression as they worked.

  Heavily armed Nubian soldiers, who most certainly were not suffering from any calorie deficit, patrolled the workforce. Each looked as though he was prepared for his own mini war. Emmy almost gave them away, though she successfully managed to stifle a scream, as one worker stood and turned away from them. Wheals covered his back. Some were so fresh that they had yet to heal over.

  “Do you see that?” Emmy asked.

  “How could I miss it?” Alex replied.

  “We must do something, they being whipped. That not right.”

  “All in good time, Cairo. There is no blood, just marks, so these are ancients.”

  “Does that make it any better?” Upon hearing this from Emmy Alex gave her a look that could have easily come from Kate. She closed her eyes, shook her head slightly, and then looked back down at the workers below with a tear in her eye.

  Alex took in all that was going on. His mind was trying to make sense of it all. Everything he was looking down upon screamed Greek, ancient Greek, when, according to his theory, it should have all been Egyptian. His thoughts moved to the stolen gold and the huge quantity needed here, day after day, in order to keep this many ancients working at this pace. It was clear that the workers – slaves – had to hide the original cartouche and engrave another, thereby changing the perceived ownership of each piece. These were then being sold on, but to whom? This was a much bigger operation than Alex ever thought it could have been. This was stealing, fraud and slavery on a massive scale.

  “Do you think it best if we move on?” Emmy whispered. She really had seen enough and was angry at what she saw. “Unless we get out of here we can do nothing to free these slaves.”

  “Yes, I agree,” Alex whispered, and Cairo nodded. They were just about to move when they saw a very familiar figure come into view. Their collective jaws dropped as they watched in disbelief.

  Chapter 19

  -

  Traitor! Traitor?

  “Don’t ever tell me again that you trust her,” Emmy said in anger. She aimed her comment equally at both Alex and Cairo in such a way as to dare either of them to challenge her. Neither did. Nothing more was said for a long time.

  In order not to be seen they had frog-walked into a rather opulent corridor. The three young adventurers were now on the opposite side of the room full of slave workers, directly opposite to the tunnel they had arrived by. Highly polished dark green marble covered the floor and the lower third of the walls. A frieze of small though highly detailed sculpted figures sat above this. The remaining wall, as well as the ceiling, was covered in white marble, though of a far superior quality to the marble they had witnessed earlier. That marble had been soft enough for the arrows to have embedded into it. Very low grade. This had a uniform purity of white seldom seen in marble in ancient times, and never seen today. Overly decorative wall mounted oil lamps, made from solid gold, illuminated the area amazingly well. All classically Greek in style, something which had not gone amiss on Alex.

  In shocked disbelief at what they had just witnessed, they sat – slumped was possibly a more accurate description – with their backs against the wall. All motivation to go forward had left them.

  “I can’t believe it,” Alex eventually said as he shook his head. “I really don’t want to believe it.” His head stopped shaking. It now drooped as he sat. Emmy and Cairo took this to mean the betrayal of Bast, when he meant that he could not believe how he had gotten things so wrong. No longer did he know what to think, let alone what to do. His body language was that of someone who was utterly broken. He wondered if he ever could, ever would, trust his instincts ever again. “Perhaps Merenptah and Psusennes are working with the Greeks?” he thought to himself in desperation.

  “Well, you must believe it, because you cannot deny what you saw her do … what we all saw her do. We saw it with our own eyes.” Both Alex and Cairo gestured - palms down, fingers outstretched, and with a slight waving movement – for Emmy to keep her voice down. There were no soldiers around, except for those overseeing the workers. The noise as the gold was worked had been enough to cover the distant sound of the buggy being crushed, but they were now too close for Emmy, or any of them for that matter, to become loud. “Okay, I shall be quiet. But I want you both to think over what you just saw. Neither of you can deny what you just saw. Then I want you both to look me in the eye and tell me that you trust her.”

  Alex reran what he had seen. Bast’s actions had appeared to be rather damming, but he knew that she would never betray Ramses, Nakhtifi or any of the family. However, he could not help wishing he had been standing where that Nubian soldier had been standing.

  Cairo had no wish to say anything because his thoughts were mirroring those of Alex’s. It was a boy thing!

  “Did you see the way she thrust her breasts at that soldier? She was most certainly not asking him if he wanted a coffee. And just exactly what was she whispering in his
ear?” Both Alex and Cairo must have given the wrong expression. “That is all you two can think of, breasts! We have been betrayed and all you can think of–”

  “NO … Emmy … you are wrong!” Alex had spoken louder and more angrily than he had intended to, probably because she was not altogether wrong. Emmy gave Alex the look. “No need to look at me like that. Of course I was …” Alex struggled to find the right word.

  “Lusting!”

  “She is an exceptionally beautiful woman, but you have no right tell me how I felt,” Alex said angrily. “Because I don’t know how I felt, feel, oh I just don’t know!” Alex paused before speaking again. His anger left him. “Okay, Emmy, I admit it, I am at a total loss.”

  Upon hearing this Emmy’s anger subsided somewhat. As it did she became much less certain of her condemnation. “You are quiet, Cairo. Haven’t you got anything to say?” He shook his head thoughtfully, though he said nothing. There followed a further period of silence as they each mentally reconstructed what they had seen.

  “Now, what did I really see?” Alex thought. “She must have entered the room below, using a door which we could not see. It must have been below where we were. NO … what did I really see. Focus! I first saw her from behind as she walked towards the Nubian soldier. He could not take his eyes off of her, but then neither could I. I doubt that anyone could. I wonder if anyone did!

  “Why was I so sure it was her? Long jet black hair was far from confirmation, yet I knew. So how did I know? It couldn’t have been the dress. Though she did carve out a great shape in it.”

  The dress Alex had seen was the typical dress of upper class ladies in ancient Egypt, though most frequently they would have been worn by those who were in, or had some connection with, the royal household. Many saw the wearing of these as a sign of either their royal lineage or patronage. Made from natural linen they flowed freely down to the ankles and were held in place by a wide band wrapped around the torso, just below uncovered breasts. Alex had seen many ancient Egyptian women wearing this type of dress, especially when he had ventured into ancient Amarna just over a year ago. There, even Emmy had worn one, along with Henuttawy, in order to fool the royal guards into thinking that Cairo could do magic.