Valley of the Kings by Cecelia Holland Page A

aside.
    â€œI want a place to stay, in Kurna. Do you know of one?”
    â€œA house?” he said. He blinked at me. “What do you need a house in Kurna for?”
    I saw that he would not be satisfied with a simple request. I would have to confide in him. I turned aside from him and moved on down the path, put off. He trailed after me. His shadow reached ahead of me down the path. Half a mile away, the lights of Luxor pricked through the gloom.
    â€œCarter,” he said. “There is a house near mine that is empty. The old woman lives with her son now.”
    My breath hissed away between my teeth. Relieved, I said, “I will pay her a good rent.”
    â€œI will help you bring your goods,” he said.
    That made me suspicious. I remembered that he was a robber—I remembered what I had forgotten, that he had a good reason to wish me ill. I would have to keep a closer watch on him, henceforth.
    I moved what I needed to live into the little house in Kurna; by day I worked in the valley and by night I stayed in Kurna, isolated from modern Luxor. I began to feel safe from the department. Then on the next morning, the fourth of November, I came up to the valley from Kurna and found the crew there on the site, but not working.
    They were sitting in a cluster on the ground, watching me expectantly. Among them, Ahmed got to his feet.
    â€œCarter,” he said, “you are a genius.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWe have found something.”
    I went after him up the gentle slope toward the site. The trench was about ten feet deep and twenty-five feet long. The huts we had been digging out stood in the bottom. At one end, the hut and the ground under it had been removed. In the deep blue morning shadow pooled at this end of the trench, I saw a ledge in the bedrock.
    I jumped down into the trench and bent to touch it. It was hand-hewn, much like the edge Lady Evelyn had found two years before.
    â€œAhmed, bring some shovels. And a basket.” I pulled off my jacket.
    Ahmed sprang into the trench, two shovels held high in his hands like weapons. He and I dug carefully around the ledge, shoveling the dirt into the basket. I was clearing away one side of the ledge, hoping to find a corner, but my shovel grated on something hard below the loose earth, and I scraped away the rubble and found another, lower ledge.
    â€œA step.”
    I straightened. This was not like Evelyn’s find. I pointed past the second, lower edge.
    â€œThere,” I said to Ahmed. “Dig there. I’ll bet fifty pounds there’s another.”
    Ahmed yanked up the hem of his robe, tucked it into his belt out of the way, and thrust his shovel into the loose ground. He grunted with effort. The shovel grated on the stony earth. I knelt and scooped the dirt away with my hands.
    â€œYes. I was right. See?”
    Another straight edge showed under the dirt, a third step down into the hillside. I stood up. Ahmed smiled at me, and I nodded, like an idiot trying to stay calm.
    â€œYes, yes. It’s an—well, it’s something, anyway.” I shook his hand, and he kept on smiling at me and nodding. “Let’s get organized here,” I said, and we climbed out of the ditch.
    The crew was gathered there, but they were not looking at us. They were staring off down the valley. I shaded my eyes with my hand to see where they were looking.
    A large motorcar was bumping and bouncing up the valley toward us. Puffs of jet black smoke burst from its exhaust. I swore. It was the department’s notorious old motorcar.
    I swore again. The crew was watching me, anxious; they gathered around Ahmed, looking to him for answers, but he said nothing. His gaze was pinned to my face. I stamped away from the trench, ready to meet the men in the oncoming motorcar. The suspicion took root in my mind that Ahmed had tipped off the department that I was digging here. Before I could think about that, the car stopped, and from