FORTY-THREE

Harriet applied her pencil to the paper on the drawing board. Things had changed since her last visit. Dr. Woolfe was close to being able to enter the tomb. The whole of the lintel of the doorway had emerged under his patient tapping, and the rubble beneath it was steadily being reduced, carried away for sieving by the Egyptian workers. He had greeted her without commenting on her absence, simply saying that he had thought she would return. Then he made a little bow and apologized for his English. He had not thought she would return. He had hoped that she would.

The pool of lamplight where she worked was still and steady; not a breath of the thick air moved.

“Have you made any more finds, Dr. Woolfe?” she called to him.

“Ach, just shards mainly, Romans. I came across the feet of a shabti, in faience. And a promising-looking amulet that I haven’t had a chance yet to examine. Another scarab.”

“I like scarabs,” Harriet said.

“I also like scarabs,” came Dr. Woolfe’s voice. He cleared his throat. “We have missed you here, Miss Heron.”

“I wanted to come before but I’ve been sitting for a portrait. Eyre Soane, the artist, is here with his friends.”

“I have heard about the arrival of the dashing Mr. Soane. In fact, I met the man on the ship.”

“He would like to visit the dig,” Harriet said, “if you had no objection.”

“If I had no objection,” Dr. Woolfe said, “then he could.”

His voice, traveling through the darkness, sounded farther away than it was.

Harriet held up the paper to compare her drawing with the original. She was copying the second column of hieroglyphs, below the oval ring of symbols that spelled out the name of the queen, that she hadn’t yet been able to read. At the top of the column was the depiction of a house, which—combined with two walking legs and an empty eye shape—meant to go forth. Harriet wondered again whether the queen still lay on the other side of the doorway, whether the magic had worked and the Lady of the Two Lands went forth by day to savor the muddy scent of the rising Nile, feel the sun on her shoulders. The queens wore surprisingly revealing gowns.

Harriet had risen before dawn and walked through the hotel garden in the darkness, the warmth cloaking her despite the early hour. Mornings in Luxor were unlike any Harriet had ever experienced in England. The minutes before dawn seemed to hold some great tension, as if the curtain was about to be raised on an epic drama and the earth hushed itself in readiness, with only the cockerels unable to contain themselves, shrieking their excitement at the coming day.

She’d told Fouad of her intention and he was waiting for her by the gate the servants used. Hurrying behind the mud-brick wall at the back of the hotel, they walked quickly south along the shore to the spot from which the boats departed for the west bank. Soft splashes broke the silence as the boatman pushed the little craft out into the water, waded through the shallows, and scrambled on board in his bare feet, pulling round the sail to catch the breeze.

Fifty yards or more out into the river, Fouad clicked his tongue and nodded his head toward the shore. Harriet followed the direction of his eyes. Eyre Soane was walking in the direction of the Luxor Hotel, his paintbox under his arm. His step reminded Harriet of the way he’d approached their table on the steamer. Then it had been Louisa who was the object of his purpose. Now it was herself. She still didn’t know what that purpose was.

Harriet had thought once that she wanted more than anything to be painted by Mr. Soane. It was hard to admit to herself that she wasn’t enjoying it. She watched as he dropped his cigar in the dust, ground it out with his heel, then walked through the gate. She’d left a note in the gazebo apologizing for her absence and assuring him that she would be there the following day.

Harriet looked again at what she had copied onto the paper. A sickle shape, an oar, the sign for the sound kh, and the name of the god Osiris, giver of breath, followed by a flag, the sign of a male god, and something like a sword that made the sound ahk, and meant great. Then the feather of Maat, that for Harriet stood for Aunt Yael but for the ancient Egyptians meant order and balance and rightness of all kinds.

Suddenly, the signs fell into place. Harriet let out a shout of pleasure and the tapping from farther down the passage ceased as Dr. Woolfe came hurrying to where she worked.

“Miss Heron? Are you—”

“Look!” She pointed at the hieroglyphs. “This means Her voice has been justified before Osiris, the great god. Or at least I think it does.”

“That is most helpful,” Dr. Woolfe said, examining her drawings. “In fact, it is marvelous.”

He smiled at her, then went back to his station by the blocked entrance and for some time they worked in silence.

“How is your mother?” he called through the darkness.

“Well, thank you.”

Louisa hadn’t been herself for days but she wasn’t ill in the way one could describe to another person. She had taken to haunting the garden, veiled against the sun, shaded by her parasol, her hands hidden in white gloves. At lunchtime, when Harriet met her in the hotel dining room after the sittings, she was anxious, her appetite poor. She was still urging that they leave for Alexandria, and then London.

“I wondered . . .” came Dr. Woolfe’s voice in the darkness. “That is, I thought . . . Will you join me for dinner on Friday evening, Miss Heron? With your mother, of course.”

“I would like to, Dr. Woolfe, but I can’t.” In the silence that followed, Harriet added an explanation. “Mr. Soane is holding a dinner party.”

“Ach, I see. Yes, I do see.” The tapping resumed.

“I am certain he would be pleased to see you there, Dr. Woolfe, at the dinner.”

“How are you certain, Fräulein?” he called over the hammering.

“Well, I would be glad if you attended,” she called back. “I know that.”