Page 41

A Colossal Mistake

T he following day

As Mahmood had promised, a felucca was waiting for them at a dock directly in front of their hotel. Manned by only two men—one at the bow and one at the stern—the boat featured two sails and was large enough to accommodate their party of ten.

Ten because Bradley, dressed in a white gown and bonnet, joined them for the trip to visit the Colossi of Memnon.

Mahmood was the last to board the ship, ensuring there were five adults seated on each side of the vessel.

As the sails filled with the morning breeze and the felucca began the trip across the Nile, he announced the hantours he had arranged to take them to the statues would also be taking them to Medinet Habu.

“To the Temple of Ramesses the Third?” Diana asked in surprise.

“Indeed. It is only three miles from the statues,” he explained. “The area around it is the ruins of an abandoned Coptic village and church. However, the paintings, especially those on the ceilings and between the columns, have survived. I think they are worthy of your attention.”

“I’m going to have to find another sketchbook,” Diana whispered. “I only have a few blank pages left in this one,” she added, patting her satchel.

Randy winced. “We’ll ask at the hotel,” he said.

Across from them Bradley was seated on Helen’s lap, and she was angled so he could watch the water. His excitement was evident when he suddenly attempted to leave her lap—and the felucca.

“Bradley!” she scolded, following his line of sight to discover what had him so excited.

“Croc’dile!” Bradley said happily, his chubby fist waving toward the water.

A quick glance at the dark green shape swimming alongside the hull confirmed her brother’s assessment.

Inhaling sharply, Helen wrapped her arms around him and quickly moved to the center of the deck, nearly tripping on her skirts.

Tom and David were both up from their seats along the starboard side of the boat, reaching out in an attempt to keep her on her feet. She ended up in David’s arms.

“A crocodile!” Stella confirmed, quickly rising to join Helen in the center of the deck.

The sudden shift in weight had the captain shouting a warning, and shouting again when Harry leaned out in an effort to confirm this wife’s claim.

“There is nothing to be afraid of,” Mahmood said, his hands held out, palms down, in an effort to calm the group. “The crocodiles will not come aboard,” he assured them.

“What about at the dock?” Barbara asked in worry.

“We will keep them away.”

Meanwhile, Helen had regained her feet and was left staring at Tom when David released his hold on her, Bradley perched on one of her hips.

“Bach’lor,” he said, a pudgy finger finger pointing at David.

“You remembered!” David said in delight. At Helen’s look of surprise,” he added, “I’ve been trying to teach him some new words,” he said proudly.

Bradley pointed his finger at Tom and said, “Dada.”

“I think not,” Tom replied, a look of horror on his face.

Helen blinked twice, turned, and thanked David for his help. Then she carefully returned to her seat. Meanwhile, Stella plucked the boy from her hold and settled him on her lap, where one of his thumbs caught his attention before ending up in his mouth.

Directing a look of disdain at his cousin, David returned to his seat. Tom sighed and settled back onto his for the remainder of the short trip.

A n hour later

“They’re huge,” Randy murmured, turning to help Diana down from their hantour.

Once she was on the ground, his steps were hurried as he made his way toward one of the two seated statues that loomed ahead of them.

Water nearly surrounded the bases of the statue, a sign they had been built on the floodplain of the Nile.

“I told you they were,” Diana whispered. Dressed as she was in her breeches and boots, she was able to keep up with him. “Sixty feet tall.”

“How much graffiti will we find, do you suppose?” he asked, ignoring the shallow lake to get as close as possible to the base of the statue on the right.

“A hundred and seven inscriptions,” Diana replied absently, joining him to stare at the rectangular base.

“How do you know that?” he asked in surprise, his gaze immediately going to some inscriptions on the front of the statue’s leg. Some carvings even continued down onto the foot.

“Jean-Antoine Letronne wrote about them in his book, La statue vocale de Memnon considérée dans ses rapports avec l'égypte et la Grèce,” she replied. “Father acquired a copy when I was twelve.”

Randy didn’t bother asking if she had read it. She probably had it memorized.

“Will it sing for us?” Stella asked. She wasn’t far from them but had opted not to wade through the water. Standing on his own two feet, Bradley was clinging to her skirts.

“I don’t think it does that anymore,” Harry replied. “The Romans rebuilt the upper part of the one on the right after the top broke during an earthquake.”

“Oh, so that’s why his face is in such poor condition,” she remarked. “The other seems in better shape.”

When the breeze picked up, Bradley began coo’ing. “Seems we have our own singing monument,” Helen remarked, grinning for the first time since they had boarded the felucca that morning.

Barbara tittered at the boy, but her gaze was on the two statues that stood in front of them. “They are certainly colossal,” she said. “What are they made of?”

“Quartzite sandstone,” Mahmood replied. “Back when it could sing—one of the cracks in the sandstone was the source of the sound—the Greeks said it was calling to his mother, Aurora, the goddess of the morning sun.”

“Why are they so far apart?” Will asked.

“Amenhotep the Third’s temple was here. From what was written by the Romans who came here, it is said the temple was larger than even Karnak,” Mahmood claimed. “These statues of him flanked the entrance to the first pylon.”

Will furrowed his brows. Although a few trees and some uneven ground could be seen above a shallow lake behind the statues, the expanse of otherwise flat ground showed no evidence of ruins. “What happened to it?”

“This is a floodplain,” Mahmood said with a shrug. “The foundations were probably made of mud brick. After a few earthquakes, it is not surprising the temple would have collapsed and its remaining blocks carted off to be used for other temples,” he explained.

“Such a shame,” Barbara murmured, tittering when she realized a cow was grazing near the water’s edge behind the statues. “I didn’t know you had cattle here,” she remarked.

Mahmood’s brows furrowed before he spotted what had her making the comment. “That, my lady, is a water buffalo. But we also have cows.”

“Oh,” she murmured.

Will offered his arm and they moved closer to the other statue at the same time Diana and Randy were making their way to it. “She is obviously thrilled to be here,” he commented.

“I rather imagine she would be more thrilled to actually discover something new. Or old, rather,” Barbara replied.

“Thank you for not balking when I told you we would be continuing our trip south,” he said.

She reacted with surprise. “Why would I balk?” she asked. “This has been very diverting and far more interesting than Oxfordshire,” she added. “And I haven’t been having to run a household.”

He chuckled. “I promise we’ll still go to Rome on the way back.”

“I am looking forward to it,” she replied.

When the rest of the party had seen enough, they returned to the hantours for the trip to the Temple of Ramesses III.

“ W hat do you know of this temple?” Randy asked Diana when the driver of their hantour halted the horse in front of the temple.

“Vivant Denon was the first to describe it in recent times,” Diana replied. “That was at the turn of the century, when Napoleon’s savants were here. Then there was a Franco-Tuscan Expedition about twelve or thirteen years ago. Jean-Francois Champollion was part of that.”

After the other hantours had joined theirs and everyone had assembled, Mahmood led the way to the first pylon.

“These ruins you see around you are from a Coptic settlement that may have been home to over eighteen-thousand inhabitants,” he explained.

“Houses, narrow streets, and the remains of religious buildings can all be found here.” He turned and faced the pylon.

“By now, this must appear familiar to you. However, wait until you are inside.”

Like the pylon at the Khonsu temple, the tops of four niches, two on each side, could be seen above the sand that had collected over time.

The opening was clear, though, and they made their way into the forecourt.

All the visible walls were carved with hieroglyphics, many the same as what they had seen in other temples.

Some were done in relief while others were etched.

The most arresting differences were the colossal statues of Ramesses III on one side and uncarved columns on the other.

“Again, you will see familiar scenes, as if whole sections of other temples were copied onto the wall of this one,” Mahmood said, waving them past the second pylon and into a peristyle hall.

Although there was a carpet of sand covering the floor, it wasn’t as deep as in the other temples they had toured, so more of the walls were visible.

So were the columns, these in the shape of the pharaoh.

“This place is massive,” Randy remarked, gazing up to discover that the painted symbols on the ceiling and at the top of the columns still retained their brilliant colors.

Diana was quick to examine as much as she could.

“I would say it’s Greek to me, but I cannot help but think you’re able to decipher these symbols,” David said, joining her at one of the walls.

“Most of it is unintelligible to me,” she admitted. “But look at this.” She pointed to a series of carvings inside an ovoid outline. Several more ovoids appeared on the wall, all vertical and some containing the same symbols. “What could be so important as to always be outlined?”

David shrugged. “A name?” he guessed. “Someone important.”

“A pharaoh’s name. It’s called a cartouche,” Diana agreed. “Maybe a god, but they seem to be drawn with their bodies and headdresses.” She waved to an area where a figure of the god Horus appeared to be accepting an offering from a man.

“And the symbols not in the ovals?” he asked.

“The rest of the words of their language, I would surmise,” she reasoned.

“Have you any clues?”

She arched a brow. “Snakes are enemies, and these...” She pointed to a series of elongated triangles. “Are weapons. Knives.”

“Agreed. What about the animals? The birds?” he pressed.

“Animals and birds,” she replied. Her forefinger traced one. “A sparrow,” she said before pointing to a large outline of what appeared to be a bird of prey. “An eagle.”

David stepped back and took in the entire wall, his brows furrowed as if he was about to disagree. “All right,” he hedged. “What about these wavy lines?” He indicated a series of serpentine lines that were parallel to one another.

She gave him a quelling glance. “Water,” she replied.

Blinking several times, David scoffed. “So... you’re thinking this language is very literal.”

“Well, it would seem so,” she replied. “Except...” her attention went to another series of the symbols.

“The one that looks like a sistrum could be something having to do with loving something... or someone, and this sideways lotus flower I think is for fertility.” She glanced over at him and saw his gaze was on the departing backs of Tom and Helen. “Are you jealous?”

David gave a start. “What?”

“Are you... jealous. Of Tom?”

His eyes rounding in shock, he said, “No, of course not. What would I be jealous of?”

Diana gave him a quelling glance before returning her attention to the hieroglyphics. Her brow furrowed when she noticed one shaped like a wishbone with a crossbar at the middle. When she stepped back and studied the others around it, she murmured, “to love.”

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

Glancing around, she realized the others had already moved on. “Come, let’s see what we’re missing.”

The two climbed a ramp that led through a columned portico to a third pylon. The large hypostyle hall beyond no longer had its roof, and most of the original carvings had been etched away and replaced with Christian symbols.

“This is where a church was once located,” Mahmood explained. “The Egyptian gods are thought of as pagan gods, so any depictions of them have been removed.”

“Such a loss,” Randy said on a sigh.

“Two years ago, the Epigraphic Survey was published from work done here to document all these wall carvings,” Mahmood continued.

“Epigraphic Survey?” Randy repeated.

“A rendering of all these scenes,” their guide clarified, waving an arm to indicate the carvings. “We believe it includes a list of all the pharaohs who ruled Egypt.”

“Incredible,” Will breathed, his attention going to the statuary.

“Indeed,” Barbara said. She glanced over to discover Tom staring at Helen’s back, his face displaying an expression of pain. “Oh, dear,” she whispered.

“What is it?” Will asked, turning to follow her line of sight.

“You tell me. Your nephew seems terribly upset with Lady Helen, but I cannot for the life of me decide what has him so vexed.”

Will arched a brow. “With her? Or the baby?”

Barbara did a double-take. Helen was holding Bradley so his head rested over her shoulder, his closed eyes suggesting he was sound asleep. For a moment, she wished she was the one holding him. “You think he’s jealous of Master Bradley?” she asked.

“I’m not sure what’s going through his head,” Will admitted. “But after the incident on the felucca this morning, I have to believe something happened between them.”

The sound of Mahmood’s voice interrupted their conversation. “If you are finished here, let us travel back to the hotel for a luncheon and then I shall take you to the Temple of Luxor. I fear after this one, you may be disappointed,” he warned.

“I rather doubt it,” Diana murmured, taking Randy’s proffered arm.

He grinned. “You’ve liked them all, haven’t you?”

She nodded. “They might appear all the same, but there is something unique to every one of them,” she said, arching a brow.

“You have the right of it,” Mahmood said, overhearing her comment.