The first thing that caught von Schiller's eye as he entered the vault
was the glittering crown in its velvet nest.
immediately he began to wheeze for air like an asthmatic, and he seized
her hand and squeezed until her knuckles crackled with the pressure and
she whimpered with pain. But the pain excited her. Von Schiller
undressed her, placed the golden crown upon her head and laid her naked
in the open coffin.
"I am the promise of life," she whispered from the ancient coffin. "Mine
is the shining face of immortality." He did not touch her. Naked, he
stood over the coffin with his inflamed and swollen rod thrusting from
the base of his belly like a creature with separate life.
She ran her hands slowly down her own body, and as they reached her mons
Veneris, she intoned gravely, "May you live for ever!'
The wondrous efficacy of the crown of Mamose was proven beyond any
doubt. Nothing before had produced this effect upon Gotthold von
Schiller. For at her words, the purple head of his penis erupted of its
own accord and glistening silver strings of his semen dribbled down and
splattered upon her soft white belly.
In the open coffin Utte Kemper arched her back, and writhed in her own
consuming orgasm.
It seemed to Royan that she had been away from Egypt for years instead
of weeks. She realized just -how much she had missed the crowded and
bustling streets of the city, the wondrous smells of spices and food and
perfume in the bazaars, and the wailing voice of the muezzin calling the
faithful to prayer from the turrets of the mosques.
That very first morning she left her flat in Giza while it was still
dark, and since her injured knee was still swollen and painful she used
her stick as she limped along the banks of the Nile. She watched the
dawn cobble the river waters with a pathway of gold and copper and set
the triangular sails of the feluccas ablaze.
This was a different Nile from the one she had encountered in Ethiopia.
This was not the Abbay, but the true Nile. It was broader and slower,
and the muddy stink of it was familiar and well beloved. This was her
river and her land. She found that her resolve to do what she had come
home to do was reinforced. Her doubts were set at rest, her conscience
soothed. As she turned away from it she felt strong and sure of herself
and the course that she must take.
She visited Duraid's family. She had to make amends to them for her
sudden departure and her long, unexplained absence. At first her
brother-in-law was cool and stiff towards her; but after his wife had
wept and embraced Royan and the children had clambered all over her -
she was always their favourite ammah - he warmed to her and relented
sufficiently to offer to drive her out to the oasis.
When she explained that she wanted to be alone when she visited the
cemetery, he unbent so far as to lend her his beloved Citron.
As she stood beside Duraid's grave the smell of the , desert filled her
nostrils and the hot breeze rid'eted with her hair. Duraid had loved the
desert. She was glad for him that from now onwards he would always be
close to it. The headstone was simple and traditionaclass="underline" just his name and
dates, under the outline of the cross. She knelt beside it and tidied
the grave, renewing the wilted and dried bouquets of flowers with those
that she had brought with her from Cairo.
Then she sat quietly beside him for a long while. She made no rehearsed
speeches, but " imply ran over in her mind so many of the good quiet
times they had passed together. She remembered his kindness and his
understanding, and the security and warmth of his love for her. She
regretted that she had never been able to return it in the same measure,
but she knew that he had accepted and understood that.
She hoped that he also understood why she had come back now. This was a
leave-taking. She had come to say goodbye. She had mourned him and,
although she would always remember him and he would always be a part of
her, it was time for -her to move on. It was time for him to let her go.
When at last she left the cemetery, she walked away without looking
back.
She took the long road around the south side of the lake to avoid having
to pass the burnt-out villa; she did not wish to be reminded of that
night of horror on which Duraid had died there. It was therefore after
dark when she, returned to the city, and the family were relieved to see
her. Her brother-in-law walked three times around the Citron, checking
for damage to the paintwork, before ushering her into the house where
his wife had set a feast for them.
'an Abou Sin, the minister whom Royan had Come specifically to see, was
out of Cairo on an official visit to Paris. She had three days to wait
for his return, and because she knew that Nahoot Guddabi was no longer
in Cairo, she felt safe and able to spend much of that time at the
museum. She had many friends there, and they were delighted to see her
and to bring her up to date with all that had happened during the time
that she had been away.
The rest of the time she spent in the museum reading room, going over
the microfilm of the Taita scrolls, searching for any clues that she
might have missed in her previous readings. There was a section of the
second scroll which she read carefully and from which she made extensive
notes. Now that the prospect of finding the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose
intact had become real and credible, her interest in what that tomb
might contain had been stimulated.
The section of the scroll upon which she concentrated was a description
that the scribe, Taita, had given of a' royal visit by the Pharaoh to
the workshops of the necropolis, where his funerary treasure was being
manufactured and assembled within the walls of the great temple that he
had built for his own embalming. According to Taita they had visited the
separate workshops, first the armoury with its collection of
accoutrements of the battlefield and the chase, and then the furniture
workshop, home of exquisite workmanship. In the studio of the sculptors,
Taita.
described the work on the statues of the gods and the lifesized images
of the king in every different activity of his life that would line the
long causeway from the necropolis to the tomb in the Valley of the
Kings. In this.workshop the masons were also-hard at work on the massive
granite sarcophagus which would house the king's mummy over the ages.
However, according to Taita's later account history had cheated Pharaoh
Mamose of this part of his treasure, and all these heavy and unwieldy
items of stone had been abandoned and left behind in the Valley of the
Kings when the Egyptians fled south along the Nile to the land they
called Cush, to escape the Hyksos invasion that overwhelmed their
homeland.
As Royan turned with more attention to the scribe's description of the
studio of the goldsmiths, the phrase which he used to describe the
golden deathmask of the Pharaoh struck her forcibly. "This was the peak
and the zenith. All the Unborn ages might one day marvel at its
splen&ur." Royan looked up dreamily from the micro film and wondered if