Chapter Three

Luxor, November 1919

After Brograve left, Eve stared at the photo of Luxor. The scene felt as familiar to her as her husband’s face, but it must be ages since she’d been there. She remembered she was eighteen years old when she first visited. She’d traveled with her parents and two ladies’ maids on the boat train to Paris, then they took another train to Marseilles, from where they crossed the Mediterranean on a steamer to Alexandria. Her mother went straight to Cairo, where she loved the expat social scene, but Pups took Eve and her maid to Luxor with him. What was the name of that maid? It escaped her.

Since Eve was a nipper, Pups had kept a collection of Egyptian artifacts at Highclere Castle and she loved to be allowed to examine them and imagine the lives of the pharaohs they had adorned in ancient times. Her brother, Porchy, wasn’t interested, so at first it had been her way of wangling time on her own with her beloved Pups, but as she grew older, and read more about Egyptology, she had become determined to visit the country. “When you’re old enough!” her parents said—and then the war got in the way, so it was November 1919 before she first saw the place she had dreamed of for so long.

They arrived by night, under velvety black skies studded with brilliant white stars. As Eve stood on the platform gazing up, two bats glided past, blotting the light for a split second. A donkey-drawn cart took them from the train station to the Winter Palace Hotel, where they checked in and were shown to their suite. Eve fell straight into bed, but she slept for only a few hours and woke as soon as light began streaking around the edges of the curtains.

She flung them open, then pried back the heavy wooden shutters, before gasping in surprise. The River Nile was so close she could have thrown her shoe into it from the narrow balcony of her third-floor room. She hadn’t imagined they would be so near. The water was the deepest of blue colors, like liquid sapphires twinkling in the morning light. On the opposite bank were spiky green palm trees and low white houses, backed by reddish-gold hills that she knew enclosed the Valley of the Kings. It was the most thrilling moment of her life so far.

There was a basket chair on her balcony so she slipped on a pale silk robe and sat outside to take in the view. Tiny boats with single white sails flitted across the water at astonishing speed, and the air was filled with noise: traders calling their wares, a donkey braying, a cart clattering past. Even so early—she saw from a mantelpiece clock that it was only six-thirty—the shore was bustling.

It wasn’t yet hot but the air was humid, with a sweet flower scent, overlaid by another, ranker smell that reminded her of blocked drains. Dozens of gray birds with yellow breasts were chattering in a tree, and suddenly they rose in a rush of wings, so close she could feel the ripple of air on her cheeks. Watching them, Eve hugged herself. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she was going to fall in love with Egypt.

* * *

Howard Carter came to the hotel reception at eight a.m., wearing a baggy suit that looked as though it was made from old potato sacks and a straw boater with a black ribbon around it. Eve rushed to greet him with a squeal of delight.

“Look! It’s me! I can hardly believe I’m here in Egypt at last!”

She’d known Howard since she was six years old. He used to come to Highclere bringing artifacts he’d purchased for Lord Carnarvon’s collection, and Eve would corner him and attempt to impress him with her knowledge of Egyptology. At that age, it consisted of the ability to recite all the kings and their dynasties in date order, plus an encyclopedic recall of her father’s treasures.

Howard recommended books to fill out her understanding and always stopped to chat. What she liked most was that he never talked to her as if she were a child, but answered her questions plainly and factually. Her mother said his manners were “lacking” and he didn’t show “proper respect for his superiors,” but as far as Eve could tell, he treated everyone the same, young or old, family or servants, and she liked that.

“Shall we have breakfast?” Pups asked, but Howard insisted they should cross to the Valley straightaway, because it would be too hot to remain outdoors past eleven-thirty.

They followed him through the hotel’s lush gardens and down some steps to the riverside. He approached some fellows with dark-brown skin and spoke to them in Arabic before turning to beckon her and Pups.

“Your first trip in a felucca,” he told Eve, holding her arm to steady her as she climbed in. “The Egyptians are born sailors. They can take these craft upstream, downstream, or east bank to west and vice versa no matter what the wind direction.”

She gazed around, drinking it in: a man with a crocodile tattoo on his arm feeding nuts to a blue-and-yellow parrot perched on a fence; a border of jet-black mud where the water lapped the shore; some wooden crates stacked precariously on the dock, stamped with the names of impossibly distant lands like Siam and the Dutch East Indies.

Their sailor balanced on the edge of the felucca, his toes curled around the rim like a bird’s claws, and angled his sail to catch the wind. In an instant they were whisked from the bank, zigzagging around other boats with just a tilt of the sail. Eve imagined this must be what flying felt like. They got to the other side in minutes, and she wished it had taken longer because it was such fun. Howard slipped their boatman a few coins, then walked over to a group of men with donkey carriages. Voices were raised, as if he was arguing with them.

“Is there a problem?” Eve whispered, sidling up, curious.

He smiled. “Just getting the best price. Everyone haggles here. You’ll get used to it.”

She decided she very much wanted to try her hand at haggling.

The carriage took them up a twisty road with deep potholes and ruts that made them jolt alarmingly. The verdant land flanking the Nile soon gave way to reddish sand and dust, and the air grew quieter, stiller, and hotter. Eve opened the white lace parasol she had brought; her mother would be furious if she got freckles.

“This is the Valley,” Howard told them, as their driver took a sharp left turn onto a dirt track. “You will be able to make out various tomb entrances set in the hillsides.”

“I’ve seen a map of it,” Eve said, jumping down from the carriage. “The tombs all have numbers, don’t they? Like houses in a London street.”

“Indeed. There are sixty-one of them, with numbers starting KV for King’s Valley or WV for West Valley. We are in the East Valley.”

All she could see were sand hills and piles of rubble without distinguishing features; no plants or animals, just red sand on rock. How could anything be found here? She scuffed her toe, writing her name in the sand.

“Let’s have a look at an empty tomb, KV17,” Howard said.

They walked down some steps to a low-ceilinged passageway that led to a long, narrow chamber hewn in the rock. Lord Carnarvon had to crouch to get in.

“I am the ideal height for a lady archaeologist,” Eve remarked. “Look! I can stand up straight.” Being tiny wasn’t often an advantage.

The interior of the tomb was hot as a furnace and the air was stale, as if it had been breathed by hundreds of souls across the millennia—into their lungs and out again, over and over. Eve shivered, thinking of the weight of the sand mountain above them and hoping it would not collapse, trapping them for eternity.

Howard pointed to a row of hieroglyphics painted on the wall, but they were faded and hard to make out.

“The colors survive if they are undisturbed, because there is no air or water to cause decay,” he explained. “But as soon as human beings enter and start breathing, the fragile pigments disintegrate.”

“I shall hold my breath in that case,” Eve said, “to play my part in the preservation of antiquities.” She tried, but couldn’t manage for long because she had too many questions to ask. Whose tomb was it? How old? Had anything significant been found there? Any treasures?

“Poor Howard,” her father remarked. “If he’s not already used to your loquaciousness, he soon will be.”

Eve caught Howard’s eye and smiled. She knew he was happy to talk from dawn till dusk if the subject was Egyptology; anything else, and he’d be bored senseless.

They had a stroll around the Valley, looking into two more tombs and surveying the concession Howard’s team was currently excavating. A primitive hand-operated railway carriage was taking rubble out to the road for disposal. The site looked no more promising than anywhere else, Eve thought, but who knew what lay beneath the sand and rock?

“Will you teach me how to dig?” she asked. “I’m simply dying to learn. It’s my lifelong ambition.”

Howard glanced at Pups before replying. “Certainly. You’ll have to wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty, and bring a wide-brimmed hat because you won’t be able to hold that parasol. But I don’t see why I couldn’t teach you some basics.”

Eve jumped in the air with an ecstatic whoop. If her mother had been there, she would no doubt have said it was unladylike, but Pups had always been happy to let his daughter be her own person. He adored her. She could wind him around her little finger.

Their carriage driver had waited, and when they finished the tour he took them down the hill to the house where Howard lived, which he had named “Castle Carter.” It was white-painted and one story high, with a dome in the center, and it was almost completely surrounded by trees, making it feel cool and fresh after the scorching, enervating heat of the Valley. They sat in his sparsely furnished drawing room and he brought a whisky and water for her father and a lemonade for Eve that his houseboy had made with fresh lemons from a tree in his garden and heaps of sugar.

“Don’t you have ice?” Pups asked, fanning himself, but Howard explained that he did not possess a refrigerator. Even if he did, the electricity supply was so erratic he doubted it would stay cold long enough for water to freeze.

Eve heard a bird whistling outside the window, a tuneful creature putting its heart and soul into its song. “What type of bird is that?”

“It’s my pet canary,” Howard told her. “The Egyptians think its song brings good luck.”

“I’m sure they’re right,” Eve said. “What’s his or her name?”

“Bulldog, believe it or not.” He laughed at her bewildered expression. “It’s the nickname of a friend of mine.”

“You’ll give that poor creature neurosis,” Eve teased. “How would you like it if I called you Dentist or some other such thing that you’re not?”

“That would certainly be odd,” he agreed.

His home was very much a bachelor’s: books lay open on dusty tabletops; a pair of binoculars rested on a window frame; the upholstery was worn and had clearly been chosen without any notion of a design scheme.

“Don’t you get lonely here?” she asked, for it seemed miles from any other habitation.

“Howard doesn’t get lonely,” Lord Carnarvon chipped in. “He has the pharaohs for company.”

“And Bulldog,” Howard replied.

Eve wanted to ask why there wasn’t a Mrs. Carter but she supposed it might be difficult to find a woman who would want to share his spartan lifestyle. She couldn’t imagine being quite so isolated and hoped it wouldn’t be essential if she were to be a lady archaeologist. She was definitely more of a sociable type.

* * *

The next morning, Eve and Pups crossed to the Valley at dawn. Howard took them to the concession and showed Eve how to sift debris with a trowel and sieve, looking for anything out of the ordinary, before throwing it onto the spoil heap. If she struck hard rock, he told her to mime for one of the Egyptian boys to break it up with a mattock. They didn’t speak English but would understand. If she found anything apart from sand and rock, she was to call him immediately.

Eve worked her patch with great diligence, daydreaming about the Ancient Egyptians who chose this spot as their burial ground. They walked on this earth, saw the same views she was seeing, felt the same baking heat. Millennia apart, they probably experienced the same emotions—love, fear, irritation, happiness—although their worldview had been so very different, peopled by gods and spirits, slaves and rulers.

She didn’t find anything except the bone of an animal, which Howard thought was a jackal, but still she loved the experience.

“Can’t I come and work in the desert with you?” she asked. “I’ll be your trusty assistant. It’s my dearest ambition, the one thing I want more than anything else.”

Before Howard could reply, her father spoke: “I’m afraid your mother has other plans.”

“Yes, I know,” Eve said, with gloom in her heart. “A prestigious marriage.” She adopted her mother’s clipped tones: “No one of lower rank than a viscount, and no second sons, only the eldest.”

Both men burst out laughing at the uncanny accuracy of the imitation.