Chapter Nine

London, October 1972

Eve was overjoyed to have passed the tests Ana Mansour set for her—they were clearly tests. Of course she remembered Tutankhamun! How could she not? She watched Ana slide the images back into her document wallet, thinking that she seemed very fashionably dressed for her profession. Archaeologists tended to wear practical clothing, both in the field and elsewhere.

She thought of Howard Carter’s baggy three-piece suits with patched elbows, the shirts with fraying cuffs, and the sloppily tied bow ties. By contrast, Ana was wearing a slim skirt and matching belted jacket, and some gold earrings and a necklace with a twisted knot design. There was no wedding band on her ring finger, no rings at all. Eve didn’t know if Egyptian women wore wedding rings; she’d never been close enough to check. The ones she used to see in the streets of Cairo wore veils that covered their hair and faces, leaving only the eyes visible.

She guessed Dr. Mansour’s age to be late thirties, maybe forty. Surely she must be married. She had beautiful eyes, a golden leonine color, and her skin was unlined, her figure trim. Some man was bound to have snapped her up.

“Did your interest in archaeology come from your father?” she asked Eve.

“Pups and Howard C-Carter both indulged my c-curiosity from a young age. And H-Howard taught me how to dig during my first w-winter in the Valley. I loved it from the s-start.”

Recently, Katie had been teaching Eve to slow her speech right down. “You attack a sentence like my Labrador attacks her food bowl,” she commented. “But if you space the words out more, your tongue will have time to find the vowels and consonants.”

It was true, Eve thought. She’d always had a lot to say, but if she tried to speak fast now she tripped, helter-skelter, over the words.

“My father was a dealer in antiquities, based in Cairo,” Ana said. “He and Howard Carter sometimes did business together.”

“Really?” Eve was excited. “Perhaps he knew my f-father too?”

“He would have loved to meet your father and shake his hand,” Ana said. “He was only a young man when Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered, just starting out in his trade, and he said it made him very proud to be Egyptian. The fact that it happened only months after Egyptian independence was particularly special—as if we were at last demonstrating to the world the greatness of our heritage.”

“I think the world has always r-recognized the genius of the Ancient Egyptian c-craftsmen,” Eve said. “I was bewitched by their work at an early age. D-did your f-father visit the tomb?”

“Not till much later. It was hard for ordinary Egyptians to get access. My father told me many stories of digs in the years before the discovery, though, and I know you were present at some of them. Weren’t you there, for example, when Mr. Carter found the Merneptah embalming oil jugs?”

“It was me who found them!” Eve exclaimed. “My one true c-claim to fame!” She was overjoyed that Ana had asked about them. They weren’t important in the scheme of things, but they’d always been special for her.

* * *

It was the twenty-sixth of February, 1921. Eve and her father were digging with Howard in the Valley. She’d been working on an area near the eastern edge of the concession when she spotted something pale glinting in the sand. She felt with her gloved fingers and was thrilled to realize it was an object, about six inches long, and it seemed more substantial than an animal bone.

“Howard!” she called, with a ripple of excitement, and he was at her side in an instant.

“You’ve got something there,” he said. “Well done, Eve.” He eased it out slowly, using a delicate-pointed probe, and brushed it down with a fine brush. It appeared to be some sort of vessel, long and narrow, with the remains of a handle on one side.

“Alabaster,” Howard said. “Probably used for embalming oil.”

“Might I hold it?” Eve asked, and was breathless when he passed it to her.

“No other hands have touched it for thousands of years,” he said, grinning. “How do you feel?”

“Like a proper archaeologist.” She cradled the vessel as carefully as she would a newborn baby. “This is the best feeling in the world.”

* * *

“It was the first significant find in that concession,” she told Ana. “There were th-thirteen jars altogether, engraved with the name Merneptah and that of his father, Ramesses II.”

Brograve was staring at her with astonishment and she realized she had barely stumbled in the whole sentence. Ana Mansour was smiling encouragement.

“Howard had ex-excavated Merneptah’s tomb in . . .” Eve forgot the date. Damn. Katie said just to keep talking if she couldn’t remember a word. “KV8,” she said. “That was the tomb number. He said it had some rather lovely w-wall paintings, though much faded.”

“But it was you who found the jars. I’ll make a note of that. You should be credited in the archives!” Ana took out a notebook and turned to an unmarked page, where she scribbled something down.

“It was Pups’s concession,” Eve said, secretly pleased her name would appear in the records. “Tell me, have you done much fieldw-work? Where have you dug?”

Ana closed her notebook again but kept it on her lap. “I was honored to be part of the team that discovered the Lighthouse of Alexandria four years ago. That was a special moment but, as you know, no one person can claim credit for finds of that magnitude. There were several of us involved, all researching different aspects.”

Eve shook her head. “In the case of T-Tutankhamun, it was definitely Howard’s find. He just knew it was there. Theodore Davis, the American archaeologist, had sponsored a team that dug within six feet of it and gave up, but Howard had a plan . . .”

She paused. There was a word she couldn’t think of. Howard had drawn a huge scale map of the Valley, charting the areas of each previous excavation, including the depths to which they had dug. What had he called it? What was that word?

“He worked out there was an area beneath some old w-workers’ huts that hadn’t been explored.” Suddenly it came to her. “A gridblock plan!”

“And he suspected Tutankhamun’s tomb might be there?” Ana asked.

Eve nodded. “He was quietly confident it was in that v-vicinity.”

* * *

Howard spread the roll of paper across his table, weighting down the edges with books. It was like an engineer’s drawing, in pencil on squared paper, the writing tiny and barely legible. Eve and Pups stood to watch as he explained.

“In 1905, a faience cup engraved with the name Tutankhamun was found here,” Howard told them, pointing to the spot, his fingernail encrusted with what looked like centuries’ worth of dirt. “As you’ll remember, Eve, he was an Eighteenth Dynasty king who ruled for nine or ten years. Theodore Davis assumed that KV54, which he and I had excavated in 1907, was the tomb of Tutankhamun, because it contained embalming oil jars with his name on them. In 1913, he decided there were no other tombs to be found in the Valley, and that’s why he retired when he did, but I disagree. I think Tutankhamun’s real tomb might be somewhere in this vicinity, as yet undiscovered.” He circled an area of the plan with his fingertip.

“Crikey!” Eve felt a shiver down her arms. “And you plan to find it?”

“Your father and I are negotiating the terms of the concession with the Egyptian government—but of course it is moving slowly, as everything does out here. Negotiations for the country’s independence somewhat muddy the waters because the nationalists are insisting that all artifacts found on Egyptian soil should belong to the state. But they know they need our expertise and investment, so I’m sure we will prevail.”

“An undiscovered tomb in the Valley!” Eve exclaimed. “Isn’t that the holy grail of every archaeologist in the world? You’ll be famous, Howard Carter. Gosh, I really hope I’m there when you find it.”

* * *

“I think I knew that day in Castle Carter,” she told Ana. “Howard inspired c-confidence. Pups always had total faith in him, although he s-struggled to find the money.” She paused. “Everyone th-thought he was wealthy because he was an earl, but places like Highclere take an enormous amount of . . .” Damn. The word had gone.

“Upkeep,” Brograve helped her, and she smiled her thanks.

“While you’ve been talking, I’ve had an idea,” Ana said. “You clearly have remarkable recall of events that happened fifty years ago. Would you be prepared to talk me through the whole story if I return with a tape recorder? It would make an invaluable record for the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Perhaps they could make it available for visitors to listen to.”

Eve turned to look at Brograve, feeling unsure. “I’d probably forget bits.”

“I could ask you questions as we go along, and bring some images to prompt you. . . . Although you’ve proved to me that you are a good raconteur and need little prompting.” She smiled warmly.

Eve liked the idea, but what if her speech let her down? She would sound like an idiot if she forgot words and stammered all the way through.

“We can edit out any hesitation and pauses,” Ana said, reading her mind. “You’d be amazed what they can do with tapes.”

Eve’s second worry was that there were things her father, Howard, and she had agreed never to tell about the discovery of the tomb. What if she forgot and blurted them out by accident? She would have to stay on her guard.

“Take your time to decide,” Ana said. “I’m flying to Cairo tomorrow but I’ll be in London again before Christmas and I’ll get in touch to see if you want to chat. There are some questions I would very much like to ask you. It should only take a couple of hours, if that.”

“I hope my speech will be better by then,” Eve said. “I’m w-working hard at it.”

“It sounds fine to me already,” Ana replied. “I know from your husband that you are making remarkable progress.” She glanced at her watch. “I mustn’t intrude on your visit any longer, but I just wanted to say it’s been an honor to meet you—a great honor. My father would be very envious.”

She shook Eve’s hand firmly, and Eve could see how genuinely pleased she was. It was nice to make someone happy.

Brograve saw her to the door, and returned a few minutes later, his eyebrows raised.

“Well,” he said. “That was quite something.”

“Wh-what do you think?” Eve asked, her lips stretching into a grin that she could feel was only slightly lopsided now.

“I think I haven’t seen you so happy since . . . since before you were admitted to hospital.”

He never called it a stroke, Eve noted. He always found some other form of words.

“I suppose it will g-give me a goal to aim at,” she said, taking her time between words. “I need to be speaking per-perfectly before she comes back. I’ll tell Katie to keep my nose to the g-grindstone.”

She was like a new woman, Brograve thought. Egypt had always had that effect on her. She became luminous, lit from within. Back when he first knew her, she used to be animated when she told him about digging in the Valley of the Kings with her father and Howard. It set her head and shoulders above other girls in that era, who in his experience had rather limited conversation about new gowns and romance novels.

Then a shadow crossed his brow. It was all very well talking about the discovery of the tomb, but he very much hoped Ana Mansour didn’t want to talk about what happened after. That wouldn’t be a good idea in Eve’s current state of health. Not good at all.