The Spitting Cobra (13 page)

‘I’ll just run up and check the roof,’ Isis said, and she skipped nimbly up the courtyard steps. She was soon back, shaking her head. ‘Nothing but mats,’ she reported.

Hopi was beginning to feel panicky. It was because of him that Baki had been accused. If they didn’t find anything, the foreman’s revenge might be terrible. He took a few deep breaths.

‘Isis, we have to think,’ he said. ‘If you were Baki, where would you hide royal treasure?’

Isis frowned. ‘I don’t think I’d hide it in my own home at all,’ she said.

Hopi swallowed. His sister’s words made sense. ‘No,’ he agreed, ‘I’d smuggle it out and sell it as fast as I could.’

So even if Baki was guilty, they couldn’t prove a thing. What had Rahotep been thinking of, getting them to enter his house like this? Now they were in real trouble – and so were Seti and Tiya.

The crowd outside was getting noisier, impatient with waiting. ‘Hurry up! Come out! Tell us what you have found!’ came the muffled cry.

Isis and Hopi stared at each other. Hopi’s mouth felt dry.

‘We just have to tell them the truth,’ said Isis. ‘It’s not our fault, Hopi.’

‘No, but . . .’ Hopi trailed off, his mind drifting to Baki’s furious stare. He shrugged. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

They started back towards the door, their hearts quaking. Hopi stared at the walls, the ceiling, the floor, hoping for a last-minute revelation. But they were all solid mud-brick, thick and impenetrable.

They passed the first storeroom. Suddenly, Isis stopped. ‘Hopi,’ she said, ‘if you were going to smuggle treasure out of the village, how would you do it?’

Hopi frowned. ‘What do you mean, how?’

Isis looked towards the storeroom, with its sacks stuffed full of grain. He saw what she was getting at.

‘Yes!’ he cried.

Together, they squeezed inside the store and plunged their hands into two of the bulging sacks. Hopi felt the smooth emmer wheat slip between his fingers and dug deeper, pushing and groping.

‘I can feel something!’ exclaimed Isis, her voice breathless.

At the same time, Hopi’s fingers curled around something smooth and hard. ‘So can I.’

With a little more effort, they both teased the items free from the shifting grain and lifted them out. Even in the dim light, the glint of gold made them gasp. Hopi held a wine goblet of cedar and beaten gold, while Isis held a statuette of the god Anubis, a miniature jackal formed of the blackest ebony, sitting on a golden plinth with the details of his features also picked out in gold.

They gazed at the objects open-mouthed for several seconds.

‘I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,’ murmured Isis.

Hopi felt a rush of excitement. ‘There must be more!’

They balanced the objects on top of the sacks of pulses and delved into the grain again. Hopi fished out a bundle of gold pieces, which looked as though they had been stripped from chariots or furniture, while Isis found a casket containing alabaster jars of precious ointments.

A loud banging on the door interrupted their search.

‘We’ve found enough,’ said Hopi. ‘All we need to do is bring Nakht and Rahotep to see the sacks. And Khonsu, of course.’

Isis held up a jewel-studded ceremonial dagger, gazing at it wistfully. ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘We’ll probably never see treasure like this again in our whole lives.’

They climbed out of the storeroom just as the crowd lost patience. The door burst open, and guards marched in with Nakht and Baki behind them. Rahotep and Khonsu followed. Isis and Hopi faced them, the dagger and golden goblet in their hands.

Baki gave a high-pitched roar of rage and leaped forward. Before he could even think of trying to dodge, Hopi found himself on the ground, choking, with the foreman’s strong, gnarled hands around his throat.

.

CHAPTER TEN

Isis screamed in terror. Without thinking, she raised the ceremonial dagger above her head and brought it crashing down on Baki’s right arm. The blade, made for a king’s tomb rather than war, was blunt – but not too blunt. The foreman gave a howl of pain as blood welled up and ran down his arm. He let go of Hopi while Nakht and Rahotep joined the guard in pulling Baki to his feet.

‘Brother, brother,’ remonstrated Nakht, his face tight with shock, ‘control yourself. These are mere children –’

‘Children!’ The word burst from Baki like a thunderclap. Flecks of spittle sat upon his lips, and his nostrils flared wide. He looked wildly around him, as though he might find an escape from his situation, but he was surrounded. There was no way out.

Nakht bowed his head. ‘I have known you for so many years, my brother,’ he said, his voice broken with regret. ‘I believed in you as a fellow servant of our king. This,’ he waved a hand at the goblet and the blood-stained dagger, ‘this I find hard to believe. And yet I must.’

Baki spat on the ground as more villagers pushed their way into the house, gasping at the sight of the treasure. ‘Some use you are,’ Baki growled at his guard.

The guard looked helpless. He stood with his arms hanging by his sides as more and more people jostled their way in.

Nakht turned to a teenage boy. ‘Go and fetch the head of our Medjay,’ he told him. ‘Quickly.’ Then he turned to the rest of the villagers. ‘You must leave,’ he ordered. ‘You have been valuable witnesses. But it is time to restore order to our village. We must appease the gods – especially the goddess Ma’at, who is our arbiter of justice.’

Reluctantly, the people began to file back into the street. Isis watched them go with the dagger still dangling from her fingers. Then she realised that the traffic was not one way. Other people were still pushing forward, trying to get into the house. Something was going on.

‘Yes, yes, they’re in there!’ she heard someone say.

‘Then let us through!’

Isis recognised the voice. It was Paneb, elbowing his way past the villagers – and right behind him as he entered the house were Nefert, Sheri and Kia.

.

‘Wherever –’ Nefert began, then stopped.

Hopi could guess exactly what she’d been about to say:
Wherever have you been?
They’d been looking for Isis on the mountain ever since early morning, and it must now be early afternoon. Both Nefert and Paneb looked tired and cross, but their expressions changed as they took in the scene before them.

‘Whatever’s happening?’ asked Paneb. ‘Isis, Hopi, you are not in trouble, I hope?’

‘Far from it,’ Rahotep replied for them. ‘They have been used by the gods to reveal a terrible truth to our village.’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Nakht. ‘And there is more to come. Where did you find these items? Are there others?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Isis eagerly. ‘There are sackfuls of them.’ And she pointed at the storeroom with its sacks of grain. ‘We’ve already found lots of gold and beautiful jewels.’

Hopi saw that this was not good news as far as Nakht was concerned. The deeper the guilt of his friend and colleague Baki, the more he felt betrayed.

Nakht sighed. ‘These will be investigated fully in due course.’

Nefert and Paneb looked stunned. They watched in wonder as the head of the village Medjay police entered and bowed his head respectfully to both Nakht and Baki.

‘What –’ began Nefert again, but she was silenced by Paneb.

Nakht turned to Baki. ‘Brother Baki, I will not see you paraded through the village like a common criminal,’ he said. He turned to the head of police. ‘You will no longer take orders from Foreman Baki. He is to be placed under arrest. But in accordance with his high status, he will remain in this house with his family. You can guard him here.’

‘May I suggest that Tiya be released?’ added Rahotep. ‘Surely you no longer consider her guilty.’

Nakht and Khonsu exchanged glances. ‘She was found in possession of royal jewellery,’ said Khonsu, ‘so we must conduct a thorough search of her house. But her story, and that of her brother Seti, have so far been confirmed by today’s events – and especially by the blessing of the goddess.’

‘But one thing still puzzles me,’ said Nakht.

‘And what is that?’ asked Rahotep.

‘Tiya and Seti speak of a tunnel that had already collapsed by the time they found it. That was some weeks ago. But these treasures must have been stolen recently, for no one would risk keeping them for long. How is that possible, if the tunnel they found was blocked?’

‘We can tell you that!’ Isis burst out.

The priest of Serqet smiled. ‘Indeed. I think you will find, Nakht, that our visitors have played an extraordinary role in unravelling this mystery. Let us confirm their story, and that of Tiya and Seti, by visiting the mountain itself.’

.

A long, straggling line of people began the steep climb up the path towards the Great Place. Isis gazed back at them, shading her eyes. It looked as though half the villagers were following, so excited were they about the scandal in their midst. She skipped back to the front of the line, where Rahotep, Nakht and Khonsu were leading with Seti and Tiya, Hopi and Heria just behind them. Nefert, Paneb and the rest of the family had gone to find Mut and her brothers.

The sun was beating down relentlessly. Heria was struggling, and had to stop to wipe her forehead every few metres. Hopi’s limp was growing more pronounced, while the village elders, used to walking in the cool of evening and dawn, slowed to a plod as well. They reached the top of the cliffs and paused to survey the view.

‘See the wonders of our land,’ said Nakht, gesturing towards the emerald green of the fields, and the magnificent mortuary temples. ‘See what the gods have given us. And yet the work of Seth is never finished. However much we have to be thankful for, he still sows chaos among us.’

Khonsu placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t grieve so, my brother,’ he said. ‘Seth may do his worst, but Horus always triumphs in the end.’

They carried on until the desert stretched out on their left, unfolding into the great Sahara, and walked as far as the workmen’s huts above the Great Place.

Hopi pointed to a winding gully. ‘The open tunnel is that way,’ he told Nakht.

‘Then we shall go there first,’ said the foreman.

There was no path down into the gully – just a slope of limestone pebbles and rocks. The group began their descent slowly, sometimes sliding on treacherous loose stones. Isis remembered wandering into the gully from the opposite direction, disorientated and lost, and seeing Hopi slumped ahead. Approaching the tunnel now, straight from the path, it seemed incredible that they had ever found it – in a gully of endless crags, fallen rocks and fissures, they had located the one fissure that hid something behind it.

Nakht and Khonsu examined the entrance to the tunnel closely, Nakht running his fingers over the scorings of the chisels.

‘The workmanship is of our own men,’ he said sadly. ‘I had hoped, even now, that it might not be so.’

Khonsu turned to Seti. ‘But this is not the tunnel that you discovered?’

Seti shook his head. ‘No. That’s in the next gully.’

The group toiled up the ridge in the afternoon heat. At the top, Seti pointed to an outcrop of rocks below. ‘There,’ he said.

‘Very well.’ Rahotep nodded.

Isis bounded ahead, leaping lightly to the bottom of the gully where the outcrop lay. She gazed up at hulking boulders, deep golden ochre against the blue sky, and clambered around them to see if she could find the entrance herself.

It didn’t take long. In the shadow cast by the rocks she found a patch of deeper shade, a blackness leading into the heart of the mountain. She crouched down and peered inside, then crawled slowly forward on all fours.

‘Isis! Stop!’ It was Tiya’s voice, urgent and scared. ‘It’s not safe!’

Isis looked over her shoulder to see that the group had arrived. Everyone was gathered around the narrow entrance to the tunnel, craning their necks to see inside. She stopped and looked up. Above her head, shafts of daylight revealed the unmistakable work of chisels, which continued on into the darkness. As her eyes adjusted to the blackness, she saw the angular bulk of a freshly fallen rock.

‘Tell us what you can see!’ called Nakht.