Elizabeth Peters - The Golden One

“Not until this moment,” I said firmly. It would have been the height of unkindness to spoil such a wonderful surprise. “I was making it for Lia’s little girl.”

“Girl?” Ramses’s eyebrows tilted.

“I suppose Abdullah told you,” Nefret said with a chuckle. “Did he happen to mention ours?”

“He never tells me anything important,” I said. Nefret laughed, and I saw Ramses shape the word with his lips: “Ours.” He was still trying to take it in.

I had known, of course, for some time. To an experienced eye the symptoms are unmistakable.

“When?” I inquired.

“September,” Nefret said.

“Ah. So the worst is over, and you are obviously in splendid health. If bouncing across the desert in that motorcar and stealing horses didn’t bring on a miscarriage, nothing will.”

I spoke with all the authority I could summon, which is, if I may say so, considerable, and the faint shadow of anxiety on Ramses’s face faded. “If you say so, Mother.”

“I do. And,” I added, “next time I see Abdullah he will verify it.”

FROM MANUSCRIPT H

They told Emerson next morning. It took a while to get his attention; he and Cyrus and the others were already planning the day’s activities when they arrived at Deir el Medina. After his wife had poked him with her parasol a time or two he agreed, amiably but in some perplexity, to join them for a brief private conversation in a corner of the vestibule. They had discussed various ways of breaking the news.

“If I say we have something to tell him, he’ll look blank and ask what,” Nefret said with a chuckle. “And announcing he is about to become a grandfather is too sickeningly coy.”

So, in the end, she blurted it out. “I’m going to have a baby, Father.”

Emerson’s jaw went slack. “A… a what?”

“We don’t know yet,” Ramses said. “But we’re pretty sure it’s bound to be either a boy or a girl.”

Emerson choked. “Boy? Girl? Baby? Good – good Gad!”

“Take my handkerchief,” said his wife.

Emerson indignantly refused the handkerchief; if there were tears in his eyes he blotted them on Nefret’s hair as he took her in a close embrace. He turned to Ramses, held out his hand, and then, to the latter’s utter stupefaction, embraced him too.

He was with difficulty prevented from rushing out shouting the news at the top of his lungs to everyone present. “A little less publicly, please,” Nefret begged. “We haven’t told Fatima yet, or Kadija, or Sennia, or Gargery, or -”

“Oh, of course Gargery’s feelings are of paramount importance,” said Emerson with heavy sarcasm and a smile that stretched from ear to ear. “Naturally, my dears, I bow to your wishes. Good Gad!”

Emerson went directly to Cyrus and whispered in his ear. Within five minutes everyone on the site had heard. It was possible to watch the word spread by the smiles that warmed the men’s faces as they turned to look at Nefret.

She accepted Cyrus’s hearty good wishes and promises of a celebration to end all celebrations, and then got their minds back to business. “Did anything happen last night?”

“Good Gad,” said Emerson, still grinning. “Good Gad! Er – what did you say? Oh. Well, we saw a few shadows flitting about hither and yon, but they vanished when I announced my – our – presence.”

“You didn’t recognize any of them?” Ramses asked.

“I didn’t have to see them to know who they were,” his father retorted. “Members of our distinguished tomb-robbing families having a look round just in case.”

“They may try again,” Ramses said.

“Bah,” said Emerson. “It’s been over fifty years since the Gurnawis attacked an archaeologist.” He added, his face falling, “The greatest nuisance will be sightseers. They will be swarming as soon as the news spreads.”

In this he was correct. Following regulations, Cyrus had immediately informed the Service des Antiquités of the find. An enthusiastic telegram of congratulations from Daressy was followed in two days by a visit from that gentleman. It was his official duty to inspect the place and make sure the rules were being followed, and a find of that magnitude happened very seldom. Timber balks and a complex arrangement of scaffolding and ladders had been erected, so it was now possible to reach the tomb from below. They had to haul Daressy up by means of a net. He didn’t much enjoy the process, but as he informed them afterward, he would have undergone worse to see the astonishing spectacle.

“My felicitations,” he declared, mopping his sweating face. “For once we have got in ahead of our energetic friends from Gurneh! It is a pleasure to know I can safely leave the clearance in your capable hands, mes amis.”

He accepted a cup of tea and mopped his face again. “By the by, I meant to ask how it is that M. Vandergelt is involved. I was under the impression that he had the firman for Medinet Habu.”

“You are familiar with how it is, monsieur,” Emerson said glibly and ungrammatically. “Thanks to the bedamned war, we are all short of hands. We help one another, as professional goodness demands. It was the young M. Vandergelt who in fact discovered the hiding place.”

“Ah, je comprends bien,” said Daressy, amused. “C’est admirable, messieurs. Proceed, then. I will return from time to time, if I may, not to interfere with your work, but to admire the wonders you will find.”

“I told you he wouldn’t object,” Emerson said to his wife, after they had got Daressy off.

“You left him no choice in the matter,” said that lady.

Every tourist in Luxor wanted to see the tomb. Most of them left in a hurry, driven off by Emerson’s curses and by the fact that there was not much to see as yet. Cyrus was determined nothing should be removed from the chamber until he had arranged for proper lighting and had made certain that objects like the coffins could be moved without damage.

One group of visitors was more persistent. The Albions arrived, en masse, the day after the discovery. Jumana retreated as soon as she saw them, drawing Bertie away with her, and nobody offered them a chair or a glass of tea. The coolness of their reception would have disconcerted sensitive persons, but that adjective did not apply to any of the Albions.

“So that’s how you’re going to get in and out of the place,” Mr. Albion remarked, eyeing the scaffolding. “Too much for me, but Sebastian would like to have a look.”

“Sebastian will have to do without a look,” said Emerson. “Good Gad, I have not the time for this.”

He stalked off to join Jumana and Bertie at the foot of the scaffold. Ramses lingered, marveling at the Albions’ thick skins. Cyrus was unable to resist the temptation to gloat, boasting extravagantly about Bertie and describing the contents of the tomb in loving detail. Mr. Albion’s fixed grin remained in place.

“Sounds like a big job,” he said. “How long do you think it will take?”

“Hard to tell,” Cyrus said. “We’ll have to see what’s there and what needs to be done.”

“Fascinating,” Sebastian declared. He looked around with a complacent smile. “I’ve never observed an excavation in process. Hope you don’t mind if we drop by now and then to watch.”

Ramses had had enough. “Apparently it has escaped your attention that you are not welcome here,” he said. “After what happened the other night -”

“Oh, that. An unfortunate misunderstanding.”

“Quite,” said Mrs. Albion, speaking for the first time. “I do think, Mr. Emerson, that you owe my son Sebastian an apology.”

Ramses caught his mother’s eye. He took a deep breath. “I am indeed sorry. Sorry that I didn’t catch up with him.”