The luxor curse, p.7
The Luxor Curse, page 7
part #1 of Kathryn Black Series
Checking again along the rows of books, Kate noticed that there were three books on David Roberts. One of these was quite slim. Upon flicking through it, she saw there was a full colour picture of a painting on every odd page. Excitedly turning to page twenty-seven, as that was where the front index said the painting of Luxor Temple was to be found, she saw the picture she had seen as a small unframed print. Only in this book the temple was painted as a ruin, just as it looked now. Replacing that book, Kate now pulled out the next, much larger book on David Roberts. Believe it or not, even though the book was well over three times the size of the other one, with many more pictures as well as much more text, the index said the picture of Luxor Temple was on page twenty-seven. And on turning to that page, there it was, exactly the same as it appeared in the previous book. Replacing this, Kate pulled out the third and last book on David Roberts. Without even looking at the index, she turned to page twenty-seven, yet again, there it was, the very same picture. The temple was painted as a ruin, though this time the colours were a little faded, with the image far from clearly defined. After flicking through the rest of the book, Kate realised this was poor quality printing, nothing more sinister than that.
Kate was, however, feeling more than a little freaked out by page twenty-seven. When combined with the mystery woman, she worried what the rest of her trip to Luxor had in store for her. She would be pleased, actually, more than a little relieved, when Alex arrived, hopefully in just a few hours, as she needed to talk about everything that had happened to her since the shabti incident at the British Museum. She needed to talk this through with someone, and that someone had to be Alex, as he was the only person who could, or even would, start to understand.
Deciding this was not getting her anywhere nearer to finding Pharaoh Nakhtifi, she pulled a large book on the Valley of the Kings out of the bookcase. So large and so heavy that she had to hold it with both hands before crossing her legs, and partially controlled, though mostly uncontrolled, she ended sitting cross-legged on the floor. Opening it to no page in particular, she started going through to the back of the book, before going back to the front, hoping to find the gem of inspiration she needed. Sadly, none was forthcoming. She was one-hundred percent sure the name she had seen on the shabti was that of Nakhtifi, but as she barely knew what hieroglyphs were, apart from looking really cool when turned into jewellery, she failed to understand how she could be so sure, especially as her online searches had failed to find any reference to a Nakhtifi one, two, three, or any number for that matter.
Kate knew she was correct, because to her the name sounded as familiar as Aggie’s. Just because the British Museum’s online reference photo of the missing shabti was so poor that she could not see any detail, it did not mean it was not there. Working through to the back of the book again, she now took her time, first looking through the index, then through the chronology of pharaohs, along with their associated dynasties. Sure enough, there was not a name even close to Nakhtifi. At any other time, she would have doubted herself, put it to the back of her mind and probably never given it another thought. But for some reason which evaded her, she was absolutely sure she knew more than just the name. She felt that she should have been able to put flesh on the bones, it was as if there was a picture in her head, but as hard as she tried, it was a picture which stayed just out of focus.
What had happened since the shabti incident at the British Museum, where the name had first come to her, “No,” she thought, “when I first read the name,” was, that the more she had thought about a pharaoh by the name of Nakhtifi, the more images of Egypt had popped into her head. Images which did not exist in anything she had seen in books, or during her, so far relatively short, stay in Luxor. Kate, sitting on the floor in the cool, was now almost frantically scanning through book after book, though she found none better than the first one she had picked up. That one had more information than pictures, yet she was still none the wiser as to who Nakhtifi was, where he was buried, or if he even existed anywhere outside of her thoughts.
Aggie was in a world of her own, a world she loved, a world of drinking whilst gathering people’s innermost confidences, confidences which would have stalled long before they reached the tongue in the sober society of a cold Britain. Here in Luxor it was all too easy for Aggie to get what she wanted, as confidences flowed like water, when warmth was combined with the drinking of copious amounts of alcohol. Aggie was extremely happy to pay for all they could drink, so she could store the poisoned arrows of treachery. Arrows she would use just a short time later. She would destroy any person, when they were no longer friends, and in Luxor nobody remained friends for long, not if Aggie had anything to do with it.
The biggest problem for Aggie today was that she was not used to drinking alcohol in such an intense heat, she much preferred the evenings, though she could not stop, as there was so much really juicy gossip being blurted out. She most certainly would not want to dampen loose tongues by ordering bottled water, so not only did she have no option except to stay, she also had no option except to keep drinking. Without giving Kate another thought, she listened as the gossip went on and on. Having run out of the decent imported gin, which she had kept hidden in her oversized handbag, she resorted to mixing local tonic water with various local spirits.
A dreadful mistake, she thought just over an hour later, as she lay on her bed back at the hotel with a wet flannel over her face. For the second time in as many days she had no recollection of how she got back there. Putting this aside, Aggie pondered on why the local gin, whisky, vodka and rum had all tasted the same. Something she knew for a fact, as she had tried them all. Under the wet flannel which she had draped across her eyes, in a room which moved in ever decreasing circles, she wished she had not.
“Welcome back, Madam Kate,” called out Mohammed on reception, as Kate came back into the hotel. She was absolutely dripping from the heat of the short walk back from the bookshop, which caused her to have a quiet chuckle as she read the engraved brass sign which clearly stated, ‘No swimming costumes in reception, please’. She could not have been any wetter if she had just come out of the pool. A young staff member, who looked rather uncomfortable at having to wear a traditional red fez, stepped towards her. He offered a chilled wet flannel from a silver tray, which Kate was most relieved to use. Mohammed had given his welcome in such a way that Kate knew he wanted to say more, so she took the few paces over to him, whilst still moving the cold, wet flannel around her face and neck. Mohammed immediately leant over the reception desk in order to tell Kate in a whisper, that Aggie had been helped to her room just a short while earlier.
On reaching their room, Kate opened the door as quietly as she could, crossed the lounge, then peeked around the partially open door into Aggie’s room. Aggie’s flannel was now on the floor, whilst an arm dangled as she lay on her back, dead to the world. The snoring had yet to start, so Kate knew that she had only just drifted off.
Moving over to the minibar, Kate removed a bottle of water before sitting on the sofa, which had been cleaned of this morning’s coffee spill, in order to ponder on why she was looking for a pharaoh who did not exist. She had not missed her mobile phone or laptop until now, but this was the condition Aggie had laid down. “We shall go to Luxor as you wish, though only if you leave your mobile phone and computer at home.” A heated discussion had followed, but Aggie had refused to budge. As was always the case when Kate was desperate for something, and she was really desperate to get to Luxor, her desperation blocked the creative resources she needed to win the argument.
Alex would soon be booking in at the Sobek Island Hotel. Without her phone she could not message him. “Tonight is only a few hours away, but it might as well be a lifetime,” thought Kate, who suddenly realised that she had not seen Cairo as she had arrived back at the hotel.
Aggie was now snoring so much that it was interrupting Kate’s thoughts, so she moved to her own bedroom and shut the door, whilst having a quiet chuckle. As she threw herself and her new book onto the bed, opening it at no particular page, her chuckle turned into a laugh, as she thought about the man in the Aboudi Bookshop. He had said, quite genuinely, she could come back and read his books anytime, because she did not crease the pages. Kate had assured him that she would never crease the page of any book, let alone fold any page corner over. She also assured him that once she had the money, she would return to buy the particularly thick book on the Valley of the Kings, the one she had spent so much time looking through. With fewer pictures than words, it was a much more academic work than the others, leaving Kate to believe that somewhere within this tome she would find what she was looking for … inspiration!
The bookshop owner had insisted that she should take the book with her as she could come back and pay for it another day, which had taken Kate by surprise. He had explained that this was the Egyptian way, so eventually Kate had been happy to take it. Whilst he had looked behind the counter for a bag strong enough to hold the book, he had asked Kate what she was looking for. Not wanting to appear the fool by saying that she was looking for a pharaoh who nobody thought existed, she had amended her reply, which had worked in her mind, though had failed dismally as she had heard the words spring from her lips, “I’m looking for a man.”
“Oh, young lady, you are too young. Here they want gold. There is an Egyptian saying – young for fun, old for gold. It is the gold, the money they want, not the fun, so you had better keep an eye on your mother.” Kate had not wanted to get into the long story of why she was in Luxor with her grandmother, rather than her mother, so she simply said that she would, before she had turned and hurried for the door, in the sure knowledge she was going redder than a beetroot, and that any attempt at further explanation would have only made things worse.
Kate knew if she had told the man that she was looking for a particular pharaoh, then he would have asked which one. The conversation would have gone downhill from there, but why, oh why, had she said she was looking for a man. Kate drifted off to sleep, still smiling to herself.
Chapter 6
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It Was a Long Flight
Having arrived at Gatwick Airport with his mum and dad, it had not been a good start to the day for Alex, because so far nobody had recognised his father, world renowned archaeologist Quentin Cumberpatch. When Quentin’s ego was deflated, it was never a good day for anyone who happened to be around him. Queuing to check in, the clerks appeared to be far more interested in the old lady standing behind them. It looked as though she was about to enter a fancy-dress competition as a streetwalker.
“Oh, please don’t start dad off on old ladies looking for love in Luxor, or I’ll never get him on to shabtis,” thought Alex. He knew that once his dad was on this subject, everything else went out of the window. Quentin would lament on times past, when the plane used to be full of upper class tourists who went to Luxor for the history, whereas these days so many did not even bother to visit a single temple or tomb.
“Just look at her,” Quentin said loud enough for everybody around him to hear. The old lady, to whom he was aiming his comments, was oblivious, having already removed her hearing aids. She felt that they made her look old, so his words floated past her like a breeze, as she smiled back at him. “She thinks Club 18-30 refers to the year you were born, not your age,” continued Quentin. “Oh, why do so many old ladies try and recapture their youth in Thebes?” Quentin was on a roll. Alex worried that this would end badly if he could not get his father to shut up, as his mum was likely to have a go at Quentin for calling it Thebes when it was actually Luxor. Alex would then be in for two weeks of family hell, though right then, just as Babs opened her mouth to speak, he was saved, as they were called forward to check their bags in.
“Put your bags on there, sir,” the clerk said with a smile as she typed in their details. As Quentin leant forward to place their bags on the scales, she leant forward and quietly said, “We mark their boarding cards with GLL for the cabin staff, so they know that they are likely to buy champagne and expensive chocolates.”
“GLL?” Quentin asked with a look of confusion. Alex, who stood beside him, also wanted to know what a GLL was.
“Oh, sorry sir, it means Granny Looking for Love,” she said through a stewardess smile, as she pressed the button to move their cases along the conveyer. “It means they are still in the early days of visiting Luxor, therefore they still have money to spend, though it never lasts long. Eventually they will return home both broke and broken-hearted.”
“Why doesn’t it last long?” asked Alex, hanging on her every word.
“Once her Egyptian boyfriend has spent all her money, she will be history, as there is always another GLL waiting to take her place.” Again, she smiled the stewardess smile … false. Turning back to Quentin, she said quite genuinely, “I really enjoyed your book about your dig in Amarna. The detail you gave of all the pieces you found, excellent. It made ancient Egypt come to life for me. However, it was your description of how you kept the dogs away at night, whilst you used the toilet in the desert, that was a scream. It had me in tears of laughter.”
As they walked away with their boarding cards, Quentin was back in archaeology mode, or as Alex thought, “Dad is back to digging up old things, rather than moaning about old things,” he smiled.
Their time in the departure lounge went quickly, and they were soon on the plane. After all the usual pushing, shoving and storing of hand luggage in the overhead lockers, they were finally able to settle into their seats. These were towards the rear of the plane, with the toilets directly behind. Before they knew it, they were up in the air and the drinks-trolley was beside them. The stewardess leant over to Quentin, who was sitting in the middle of the three seats, asking if he would like a complementary drink. Quentin beamed as he ordered a gin and tonic. Alex wondered what they had marked his boarding card with, but whatever it was, it most definitely was not GLL. Alex had a water whilst his mum had nothing, as she was already asleep, with her head supported by an inflatable doughnut. Alex considered that now might be the best time to talk to his father about shabtis, so he asked, “What were shabtis for?”
His father turned, looked at him, frowned and said, “If you don’t know by now, there is little point in me telling you again.”
Alex remonstrated, “Every time I ever ask you anything, you either have to go to a lecture or your phone goes, and that is the last I see of you, often for several days, if not for several weeks!”
Thinking that his son was probably correct, he, like most fathers, would never admit to being wrong. He thought it through, deciding to answer the question rather than react to the rebuke. “Okay, I will tell you. They were put into tombs to work for the pharaoh in the afterlife, so he could continue with the high standard of living he had become used to. Hundreds were made for even minor pharaoh’s tombs. They were usually mass produced by the workmen of Deir el Medina.”
“That’s the workers village,” interjected Alex.
“Yes, quite correct. Making shabtis was a family affair, with the wife and children gathering the mud and shaping them, whilst the father would finish them with blue faience, or in whatever way the pharaoh had requested. He would then fire them, often in a little kiln on the roof of his mud brick home, as it was very crowded in Deir el Medina.”
Alex thought that they must take a flight more often, as these few words had already formed the longest uninterrupted conversation they had had in years. Thinking back to the British Museum, he asked, “Were there ever special shabtis who were actually meant to represent someone in particular, a real person?”
A look of satisfaction came across Quentin’s face as Alex had asked a question which he was going to enjoy answering. Sliding a little further down into his seat before loosening his tie, he looked at Alex as he considered his answer.
Alex recognised this was going to be an answer worth waiting for, so he would wait. He did not have to wait for long.
“This is exactly what I have been trying to prove for ages, especially with some of the very individual blue faience shabtis I have discovered. You see, the colour of any shabti never goes onto the underneath of the feet. This area was always left unglazed, as the ancient Egyptians fired them standing up. If you look closely at these unglazed areas, there is frequently a small dark spot, which had to be put there after firing.”
“Why couldn’t it have been put there before firing?”
“Yes, well, before firing it was very damp mud. Easy enough to sculpt, easy enough to glaze, though not at all absorbent. After firing it was dry, really dry. The area under the feet would have been very absorbent. I have tested just a few of these individual shabtis. The results have all been the same, blood … human blood. This never happens with shabtis which are all the same, only on individually sculpted shabtis. It’s really annoying that I cannot get my hands on a large enough sample to test, in order to be able to prove my theory.”
“Surely you could test any shabti at any museum.”
“Yes, I could. The problem for me is not getting my hands on them, it’s finding shabtis with a large enough surface sample of dried blood to test. If only they were not so porous. Though even without this test, I am ninety-nine percent sure that the individual ones will all have been marked with human blood.”
“Wow,” said Alex, really just to confirm that he had been listening, “so what was the point of the blood?”
“Well, in ancient times, there were a few, just a few very powerful warlocks. Actually, it’s us who call them warlocks. In ancient hieroglyphs they are always called magicians. Today, the word magician just doesn’t evoke the feel we are trying to convey, so most, if not all of us,” he said, referring to the academics who studied ancient Egypt, “use the word warlock. It conjures up a more impressive image of someone who had truly magical powers.”
