“My impetuous friend,” chided Thomas, shaking his head, “we have not looked in the sarcophagus.”
“The sarcophagus…” Hope, instantly renewed, flared in Kit’s despairing soul. He started back to the tomb on the run. “All hands on deck! We’re going to need all the help we can get.”
“Khalid, bring the heavy-lifting equipment,” called the doctor. He paused and shouted towards the temple. “Khefri, fetch the cook and bring a team of mules-we may need them.”
Carved from a single block of red granite, the hulking mass of stone sat in the centre of the chamber, as yet untouched. Kit swept away the dust with a handful of rags to expose the smooth, stylised visage of a man, features impassive, staring with blank eyes into the darkness of eternity. Below the face, the rest of the stone lid was engraved with row upon row of hieroglyphs.
“This won’t be easy,” observed Kit. “The thing must weigh twenty tons. How are we going to lift it?”
“Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I shall move the earth!” Thomas told him. “Archimedes.” He squatted down beside the massive granite case and ran his fingers along the seam joining the lid to the bottom. “We will also use wedges and ropes.”
Setting the lamps in a perimeter around the great stone case, the labourers set to with levers and wooden wedges; working in tandem-two levers a few inches apart-they eased up an edge of the lid and held it while another workman hammered in a wedge. The process was repeated time and again all along the right-hand side of the huge stone top. When they finished, they started over again, raising the lid a little more and driving in the wedges that much farther.
After the third round of prying and hammering, they had succeeded in raising the weighty red granite a few inches. Ropes were passed around the centre of the lid and these sent up to be secured to the mule team. The levers were applied, nudging the carved top a little higher-enough to drive even larger wedges into the gap and tilt the lid to one side. Little by little the top rose and tilted until, with a low grinding sound like the rumble of distant thunder, it began to slide off. The ropes grew taut as the mules took the strain. Khalid dashed to the chamber doorway and called instructions for Khefri to relay to the mule drivers. Slowly, slowly, with a creaking complaint of ropes and wood, the massive stone lid tilted and slid. All at once, one of the ropes gave way. The stone slewed to one side, teetered, then crashed to the floor with a thud that shook the ground beneath their feet.
The dust was still rising in the air as Kit, Thomas, Khalid, and the nearest labourers rushed forward to catch the first glimpse of the interior of the sarcophagus. Any hope for jewelled treasure or golden ornaments was swiftly dashed. For inside was a second sarcophagus of limestone, richly painted to resemble the deceased high priest in his ceremonial robes. The lid of this second sarcophagus was lighter and was raised with little difficulty by the workmen to uncover a third coffin of wood, also painted.
The third lid was prised off in a moment to reveal the mummified body of Anen, tightly bound in linen bands to withstand the ravages of time. Over the chest had been placed-not jewelled ornaments or ceremonial trinkets, as in the case of others of high-born caste-but only a simple olive wood ankh, the ubiquitous cross with a loop, symbol for life. Nothing more.
Kit, leaning over the mummy, scanned the interior of the coffin, but saw no boxes, chests, or bundles of any kind. He felt the heat of discovery begin to fade into the gloom of disappointment once more. “Well, what do you think? Should we unwrap him?” he asked doubtfully.
“We do not have the proper equipment,” said Thomas. “But I doubt we would find anything. I am sorry. I fear we have been grossly misinformed.”
“I guess.” Kit, miserable with frustration, moved to the painting of the priest holding the map and pointing to the star. What was the old boy trying to tell them?
“Kit Livingstone!” said Khefri suddenly. “Look here. The headrest!”
The doctor returned to the sarcophagus. “What sharp eyes you have, my boy,” breathed Thomas. “I do believe you’re right…”
Kit turned to see the doctor and Khefri leaning over the mummy once more. Crossing the distance in three bounds, he watched as Thomas reached down beside the linen-wrapped corpse. “Here, give me a hand. Lift the mummy-gently, carefully… there. Got it!” He straightened, and in his hand was a square of something wrapped in linen; it looked like a mummified sofa cushion. “Our friend Anen was using it as a pillow.”
“Here-let’s get it out into the light where we can see it better,” suggested Kit, already heading for the door.
Out in the daylight, the carefully wrapped packet was examined for any external markings. There were none; the linen bindings were the same as those used to swathe the mummy. “I will enter this find in the ledger,” said Thomas, moving towards his station beneath the canopy. “Then we shall open it.”
If Kit had had his way, he would have torn off the bandages then and there, but he agreed and followed the doctor to the table and watched with mounting impatience as Thomas made his entry. Then, handing Kit a thin- bladed knife, he passed the parcel to Kit along with the admonition to be very careful and take his time so as not to damage the delicate artefact within.
With trembling fingers, Kit slit open the top layer of bands and began unwinding the long narrow strips.
One after another, the layers were removed-seven in all-and as each fell away, excitement grew until Kit was almost hopping from foot to foot. The last layer of binding strips was unwound and there, on the table before them, lay a pair of wooden plaques tied with a cord of braided hemp that had been died red. The plaques were olive wood, raw and unvarnished, but covered with columns of black writing-not hieroglyphics, nor any language Kit had ever seen before.
He licked his lips. “Do you recognise the script?”
The doctor raised his glasses and bent down to scrutinise the writing, so close his nose almost touched the ancient wood. “I cannot say that I have ever encountered it.” He clucked his tongue. “Alas, I don’t know what it might be.”
The cord was tied with a simple knot, and the doctor reached for it, then hesitated. “I think,” he said, pushing the bound wooden plaques towards Kit once more, “that you should have this honour.”
Kit, his mouth dry, tugged at the woven cord, which parted as the ancient fibres shredded beneath his fingers. He brushed aside the disintegrating fragments and, holding his breath, lifted the top wooden plate. There, covered with a thin square of gossamer-fine linen, pressed like a rare leaf between the preserving sheets of a scrapbook, lay an irregular scrap of parchment almost translucent with age. The fine-grained leather, thin as gossamer and brittle as a scarab shell, was covered with a wild scattering of the most superbly etched symbols in dark blue.
Like a shadow shrivelled by the noonday sun, doubt vanished at the sight, and Kit knew that he had found the Skin Map.
PART FOUR
The Language of Angels
CHAPTER 21
In Which the Scholarly Inquiry Bears Strange Fruit
D ouglas Flinders-Petrie stood beneath the dripping eaves marvelling at the pageant. There were maids with pails of milk on yokes across their shoulders, ferrying their wares to the college inns; ironmongers selling skewers and sconces; bakers with trays of fresh bread on their heads hurrying across the square; vendors in ramshackle booths selling candles, ribbon, cloth, cheese, and spices. A butcher working from the back of an open wagon, carving up the carcass as required by his customers; a pie seller with a handcart, shouting for business; a farmer with braces of trussed and squawking chickens strolling through the milling throng; and on and on, like a live action study for a Brueghel painting.
How any of the students could concentrate on their professor, who was holding forth a few dozen paces away, Douglas could not fathom. But the lecturer, tall and gaunt upon his wooden crate, lifted his voice above the general din and declaimed in precise Latin on the subject of the day while the students, dressed in scholars’ robes of green and blue, faces earnest beneath the level brims of their square hats, sat or lounged on bales of straw that
