The following morning, the shaft which young Stratton had discovered was speedily emptied, but spirits sank as soon as the first person descended. The space below was small and unadorned. There were no gilt ceilings. No fine statues. No fabulous treasure. There were the remains of furniture, the wood having disintegrated, only the gold leaf which had wrapped each leg or arm still there. The only other object in the tomb was a huge unopened stone sarcophagus, sealed in antiquity.
“That means,” the Yale man told Camilla, “that the tomb was robbed of anything easily carried, while the big pieces were abandoned.”
“But surely, if the sarcophagus is sealed,” Camilla protested, “there will be a coffin inside. A king's mummy and lots of gold.”
“Nothing is for sure in ancient Egypt,” said Dr. Lightner ruefully. He was lowered by rope down the sharply slanted shaft. Strat followed, carrying his camera equipment.
Camilla stared down the opening through which Hiram Stratton's son had just disappeared. If only he would rot down there. If only some tomb curse would close in upon him, smothering him with rocks. Then Hiram Stratton would find out what it was like to lose somebody he loved!
She sipped warm water from her canteen, wishing there were a way to keep drinks cold. To make ice, perhaps. She tried to imagine a method of creating ice in hot weather but gave up.
Dr. Lightner emerged from the shaft. He was excited and happy. “Look at this!” he cried.
He sounded like one of her little sisters or brothers bringing home some treasure found on the sidewalk. A bright penny or a lost pencil. Camilla was touched.
He held in his hand something that had been buried thousands of years ago. For the first time, it was struck by sun.
It was a sandal of gold.
Camilla had rarely seen gold. The gleam astonished her. No wonder the world had fallen in love with this metal; no wonder that conquistadors and pirates, presidents and archaeologists wanted it. She wanted that sandal. She was amazed by the ferocity of her desire. She asked permission, and received it, to touch the shoe. But when she did, a strange damp terror crept into her and she pulled her hand back as if from a hot iron.
“It was lying on the floor,” said Dr. Lightner. “Just one sandal. Not the other. It's solid gold. Not intended for actual wear.”
“Yet it was worn,” said Camilla. “See? The sole of the sandal is scraped.”
They stared in astonishment. She was right. The sandal had once slid onto the bare foot of an Egyptian girl, its intricately designed gold rope between her toes.
It was an Egyptian Cinderella's slipper, thought Camilla. She was leaving the ball, and her magic slipper fell off and was left behind. Somewhere in time, she still wears her other slipper.
Dr. Lightner held the gold sandal against his cheek, to feel its history. “Would the slipper fit you, Miss Matthews?” he asked.
“It was made for a small and slender foot,” she told him. “My foot is far too large. You will have to find a princess.”
“Miss Matthews, say no such thing. Among women, you are a queen.”
Camilla blushed and then, being truthful, extended her right foot. Grinning, he stuck his out next to it. Dr. Lightner's feet made her own look delicate. They stood in each other's footprints, lost their balance, and gripped each other to keep from falling. Before it could become impropriety, of course, they stepped back and pretended to be doing other things.
“Might I descend the shaft?” said Camilla eagerly, merely being polite, not expecting to need permission.
But Dr. Lightner refused. She was a lady, he explained.
On the one hand, Camilla loved being a lady: too important to take risks or get dirty. On the other hand, she hated being a lady: too unimportant to participate in the fun.
The mystery of the tomb, however, was not so much the single sandal, but its owner. When torches were brought into the depths, and the hieroglyphs on the stone coffin read, it turned out to be the sarcophagus of Hetepheres, mother of Khufu, who built the Great Pyramid.
Impossible. This little hole—a queen's tomb?
Pharaoh forced his people to labor for decades to create his tomb—and stuck his mother into an undecorated closet?
“Surely, inside that sarcophagus lies the queen herself,” said the young man from Yale.
“How fabulous her mummy will be!” said the boy from Princeton.
Dr. Lightner spread his hands in a shrug. “One does not know these things in advance. Egypt likes to hold her secrets.”
“We must have a ceremony for the opening of her sarcophagus,” said the youth from Harvard, having been raised to expect things to go his way, “and invite all the important archaeologists in Egypt. Within easy reach are scholars and dignitaries from Germany and Austria, France and Italy, America and England.”
The site was chaotic as dusk fell. Egyptian workmen scurried and carried. Men from other digs in Giza came to discuss the find and the possibility of treasure. Camels spat and donkeys bellowed. The shadow of the Pyramid sketched a black line over the sand.
Camilla kept track of every member of the expedition.
The moment finally came in which nobody was looking in her direction. Camilla felt the nuns who had taught her calling Stop it! She ignored them.
She wrapped the gold sandal in her scarf and drifted away.
All the action was around Hetepheres' tomb. She walked swiftly to the long low tent where young Stratton and the college boys slept.
She was now a thief. She could never deny that in this life, and in the next life, she must face her Maker, and when asked which commandments she had broken, she would have to admit that she had stolen.
But Hiram Stratton, Sr., had stolen a life.
There were five cots in the tent, each with some gear stacked by. Which was Strat's? By the bed closest to the door, on a small scarred wooden trunk, lay one of Dr. Lightner's volumes with a folded letter half-tucked into it. Camilla withdrew the letter.
Dear Katie,
Your letters continue to make me feel worthless and self-indulgent. I participate in the opening of tombs— and you serve the most wretched humans on earth. That sickness terrifies me, Katie. One day, I fear, you will be what they are. And yet you chose that life. I will never understand. But I will always be proud.
I sold my best photograph of the Sphinx to a London newspaper! I had to keep a bit of money to resole my boots; sand is hard on footgear. But here is the rest. Katie, buy vegetables and milk, so you resist illness. Go ahead, laugh. You know I despise vegetables and milk. But I worry. You might spend this on chocolate for your patients, instead of upon yourself.
Today we descend into the tomb I found! Pray I will take a photograph good enough to sell. Then I will have lots of money to send you.
Your very dear friend,
Strat
Camilla stood for a moment. Then she opened the trunk.
Strat had few possessions. A spyglass, that he might see across the desert. Notebooks and pens. A few changes of clothing and linen. A Bible, with a red ribbon marking his place.
She lifted the Bible, intending to see what book and chapter he was reading, but out fell the tiny envelope. It was not sealed, but the flap gently tucked in. Camilla opened it, too. The lock of hair Strat had told her about was black and shimmery as silk. It was very straight and did not want to be in such a small space, but leaped toward the opening, straightening itself as if it still lived and grew.
Annie, thought Camilla, and the dank terror that had come through the gold sandal spread through her limbs once more.
She freed herself from the spell of the hair, put the gold sandal inside one of Strat's shirts and stumbled away.
“The wind has brought tears to your eyes,” said Dr. Lightner, handing Camilla his handkerchief.
She blotted her tears.
From Spain Camilla had sent a cable to Duffie, telling him that Strat was with Dr. Lightner's dig in Giza. Shortly she would send another cable. It would contain the news of the son's ruin. A man who stole gold from an archaeology site was destined for the hellhole of an Egyptian prison.
Hiram Stratton would have no joyful reunion. Perhaps no reunion at all. Men do not live long in such prisons, what with cholera and typhus and murder.
“See how the desert has changed, sir,” she whispered. “In the dark, it stretches on like death.”
“That is the very horror Pharaoh tried to fend off,” agreed Dr. Lightner. “All these stones he piled into a mountain, a ladder to his eternal life, because he so feared death. That I can understand. But what possible explanation can there be for the tomb Strat found? Why did Khufu not equally prepare his mother for her eternal life?”
She gave back the handkerchief. Her deeds had shadowed her soul, and she was worthy of nothing, not even a square of linen.
“Miss Matthews,” said Dr. Lightner, “might I ask a most special favor of you?”
“Of course, sir,” she said drearily.
“The French embassy is giving a dinner party. It seems that a major American art collector is arriving in Cairo. Over the years he has purchased many a French oil painting. We are privileged to meet him and of course invite him to our excavation.”
Camilla kept forgetting she was here as a reporter. Dr. Lightner would want this event in the newspapers back in America and so would the art collector. She had never read a society column in her life. She had no idea what to write about such an event.
“Miss Matthews,” said Dr. Lightner, “would you do me the honor of allowing me to escort you to this dinner?”
She was not to attend as a female reporter with work to do. She had been asked as a guest. A man—a tall man—had sought out her company. “You are so kind, sir,” she said, her words stumbling on her tongue. “I regret, however, that when I packed my trunks, I did not plan for a ball at the French embassy.”
He beamed. “I have already communicated with a friend whose wife has a plentiful wardrobe and will be delighted to assist you.”
Men, Camilla thought. Whoever she is, her clothing won't fit me. It's too late to call a dressmaker. I have literally nothing to wear on such an evening.
But she was too touched by his eagerness to tell him how silly he was; that she, Camilla Mateusz, made even dressmakers laugh. And then she remembered that Camilla Mateusz did not exist. “Dr. Lightner, it will be my privilege.”
And privilege it was.
Two dressmakers used up two gowns to create one for Camilla. With anyone else, Camilla would have been weeping. Lady Clementine made it a party.
The maids cleverly stitched an entire ten inches to the length of one gown by using the ruffles off the other. “I feel like Cinderella,” said Camilla, laughing.
“Indeed,” said Lady Clementine, smiling. “And here are your borrowed slippers. Silver-toed. Are they not fashionable? Luckily, my feet are large for me and your feet are small for you.”
Slippers …
Was the gold slipper even now being discovered in Strat's trunk? Would Dr. Lightner arrive at Lady Clementine's shocked and heartsick, having learned that his cameraman was a thief? Was Strat even now in some dark prison, without light or air or hope?
What price revenge? thought Camilla. My soul. Strat's future. But I do not care about either one. I want Hiram Stratton to suffer, and he will.
“Now stand tall, my dear,” said Lady Clementine. “Do not slump. Dr. Lightner is halfway in love with you, and it is your splendid height that attracts him.”
“Halfway in love? With me?”
“Of course. You are as tall and strong as a pillar of Karnak, I believe he said. He is quite smitten. Of course archaeologists are a difficult group, my dear. Think twice. They are apt to be demanding, pernickety and dusty.”
Camilla laughed.
“Capitalize upon your height. Throw your shoulders back. Be tall.”
Nobody had ever instructed Camilla to do that.
Lady Clementine became very serious. “I see you are well educated and more than capable of presenting fine arguments during table discussions. Remember that ladies in search of a husband do not demonstrate brains.” Lady Clementine fixed around Camilla's throat a beautiful necklace of shimmering pearls.
In the looking glass, Camilla found, as many a girl before her, that the wearing of beautiful clothing and jewels made her lovelier and more worthy.
“Perfect!” cried Lady Clementine. “Just so must you blush and lower your eyes. It draws men's eyes toward your bosom, you know, and away from your mind. You must not display your mind.”
“Thank you,” said Camilla gratefully, and they pantomimed hugs, such as decoratively dressed and coiffed women give one another.