brought herself back under control.
'I know this artist,' she said softly. 'I have spent five years studying
his work. I would know it anywhere.' She drew a breath. 'I know with
utter certainty that nearly four thousand years ago Taita the slave
decorated these walls and designed this tomb.'
She pointed to the name of the dead man carved into the stone above the
shelf on which his coffin lay.
'This is not the tomb of a Christian saint. Centuries ago some old
priest must have stumbled upon it and, in his ignorance, usurped it for
his own religion.' She drew another shaky breath. 'Look there! That is
the seal of Tanus, Lord Harreb, the commander of all the armies of
Egypt, lover of Queen Lostris and the natural father of Prince Memnon,
who became the Pharaoh Tamose.'
They were both silent then, lost in the wonder of their discovery.
Nicholas broke the silence at last.
'It's all true, then. The secrets of the seventh scroll are all here for
us, if we can find the key to them.'
'Yes,' she said softly. 'The key. Taita's stone testament.' She turned
back towards the tabot stone and approached it slowly, almost fearfully.
'I can't bring myself to look, Nicky. I am terrified that it's not what
we hope it is. You do itV
He went directly to the column, and with a magician's flourish jerked
away the damask cloth that covered it. They stared at the pillar of pink
mottled granite that he had revealed. It was about six feet high and a
foot square at the base, tapering up to half that width at the flat
pedestal of the summit. The granite had been polished, and then
engraved.
Royan stepped forward and touched the cold stone, running her fingers
lingeringly over the hieroglyphic'script in the way a blind man reads
Braille.
'Taita's letter to us,' she whispered, picking out the symbol of the
hawk with a broken wing from the mass of close-chiselled script, tracing
the outline with a long, slim forefinger that trembled softly. 'Written
almost four thousand years ago, waiting all these ages for us to read
and understand it. See how he has signed it.' Slowly she circled the
granite pillar, studying each of the four sides in turn, smiling and
nodding, frowning and shaking her head, then smiling again as if it were
a love letter.
'Read it to me,' Nicholas invited. 'It's too complicated for me - I
understand the characters, but I cannot follow the sense or the meaning.
Explain it to me.'
'It's pure Taita.' She laughed, her awe and wonder at last giving way to
excitement. 'He is being his usual obscure and capricious self.' It was
as though she were talking of a beloved but infuriating old friend.
'It's all in verse and is probably some esoteric code of his own.' She
picked out a line of hieroglyphics, and followed them with her finger as
she read aloud, ''The vulture rises on mighty pinions to greet the sun.
The jackal howls and turns upon his tail. The river flows towards the
earth. Beware, you violators of the sacred places, lest the wrath of all
the gods descend upon you!''
