I have a dozen or so boards in the museum collection, some from Egypt
and others from further south in Africa.'
'Yes, I would also subscribe to that theory. Both games have many of the
same objects and rules, but bao is a more rudimentary form of the game.
It is played with coloured stones of different rank, instead of chess
men. Well, I believe that Taita was not able to resist the temptation to
display his riddling skills and his cleverness to posterity. I believe
that he was so conceited that he deliberately left clues to the location
of the Pharaoh's tomb, both in the scrolls and amongst the murals that
he tells us he painted with his own hands in the tomb of his beloved
Queen.'
'You think that this is one of those clues?' Nicholas tapped the
photograph with the glass.
'Read it,' she instructed him. 'It's in classical hieroglyphics - not
too difficult compared to his cryptic codes.'
''The father of the prince who is not the father, the giver of the blue
that killed him,'' he translated haltingly, ''guards eternally hand in
hand with Hapi the stone testament of the pathway to the father of the
prince who is not the father, the giver of blood and ashes.''
Nicholas shook his head, 'No, it doesn't make sense,' he protested, you
must have made an error in the translation.'
'Don't despair. You are making your first acquaintance with Taita, the
champion bao, player and consummate riddler. Duraid and I puzzled over
it for weeks,' she reassured him. 'To work it out, let's go back to the
book.
Tanus was not the father of Prince Memnon in name, but, as the Queen's
lover, was his biological father. On his deathbed, he gave Memnon the
blue sword that had inflicted his own mortal wound during the battle
with the native Ethiopian chief There is a full description of the
battle in the book.'
'Yes, when I first read that section, I remember thinking that the blue
sword was probably one of the very earliest iron weapons, and in an age
of bronze would have been a marvel of the armourer's art. A gift fit for
a prince,' Nicholas mused, and went on, 'So 'the father of the prince
who is not the father' is Tanus?' He sighed with resignation.
'For the moment I accept your interpretation.'
'Thank you for your trust and confidence in me,' she said sarcastically.
'But to proceed with Taita's riddle Pharaoh Mamose was Memnon's father
in name only, but not his blood father. Again the father who was not the
father. Mamose passed down to the prince the double crown of Egypt, the
red and white crowns of Upper and Lower Kingdoms - the blood and the
ashes.
'I am able to swallow that more easily. What about the rest of the
inscription?'Nicholas was clearly intrigued.
'The expression 'hand in hand' is ambiguous in ancient Egyptian. It
could just as well mean very close to, or within sight of, something.'
'Go on. At last you have me sitting up and taking notice,'Nicholas
encouraged her.
'Hapi is the hermaphroditic god or goddess of the Nile, depending on the
