This is as far as I got with this chapter, but as short as it is it feels complete. I'm working out the next...I'm not done with this yet!
The afternoon was hot, heavy with the heat of the Egyptian summer. Even though the palace with its thick, brightly painted mudbrick walls could not keep away the heat. The windows and corridors, specially designed to catch and trap the slightest breeze, would not admit any air until sundown.
Her maids had removed her heavy wig so that her shaved scalp might find some relief but it was not doing any good. She put her slender henna-tipped fingers on her barely swelling stomach, wondering if she carried a son and heir for her husband. Her bare scalp was covered with tiny beads of sweat. She ran her hands down her body, caressing the mound that was growing there. Never mind, she told herself, this was life in Egypt and soon she would be giving life. The hottest part of the summer would pass and the palace would be pleasant once more.
She sat up and her maids scurried to her side. They draped her sheer linen robe over her shoulders, waiting to put the gilded sandals on her delicate feet, when the pharaoh's son was announced.
She dismissed her maids who scurried out of the room and Penteweret, her husband and lord, sat next to her.
"What is the matter, my little Sitamun? Does the baby not care for the heat and keeps you from resting?"
She took his hand and kissed it. "Yes, my love, yes it does, but I am afraid to go to sleep, my dreams frighten me so?"
"Why my love?"
"It is if someone is inside me who is not me. She is there, waking or sleeping, watching and waiting for her chance. It is as if some demon goddess wishes to take my place, driving me away." She looked to her lord, "Perhaps it is because of the pregnancy?"
"Do not worry my little love, soon all will be well. On the day of "The Beautiful Feast of the Valley" we will put our plan into place, mother has seen to it. You and I will sit on the throne of the land of Kem, and you will be the Lady of Two Lands. Our wise little one will inherit the throne of Egypt someday. Your nightmares will vanish, you will see."
"What if you are betrayed? What if they try to put your brother Ramesses on the throne and not you? What will happen to us then?"
"My brother is a fool. We have many supporters, you will see. Mother has made sure that they will remain supporters. Father is slipping into dementia, the priests are predicting a drought, the people will be ready for a change." He kissed her and sat up, "I will send in a priest to find a spell to take away your bad dreams."
She watched him leave, tall, handsome, and commanding. She had almost been made the wife of the pharaoh's son Ramesses, but was glad now she had not been married to the heir. Penteweret will be Pharaoh and I will be Lady of the Two Lands, she thought, and the first thing I will do is banish Queen Tiye.
Roma supervised the workers as they loaded the sarcophagus onto the extra lorry she had rented. To Rick fell the responsibility of driving it, while she drove the Land Rover with Ardeth and Omar drove the lorry that carried the workers and supplies. It would take them three days to reach the tomb because she intended to stop each night to minimize the damage the road trip might to the ancient wooden coffin. Rick would have driven straight to the tomb without stopping, but she convinced him that the men would benefit from stopping and eating a meal, and so would he.
"Are you ready?" Ardeth asked but she shook her head.
"There is no way I am ready to do this but I want to leave—now. I blame myself, you know, I should never have told Evie about this tomb."
"And maybe the spirits of the dead would be haunting you instead of Evie. In the desert it would not leave you alone, it even followed us to Cairo."
"What if we can't get her back?" Ardeth heard the panic in her voice and took her in his arms.
"You must not think that, we will get her back because we must. Come, it is time for us to leave."
They drove through the night, stars twinkling overhead in the desert sky. Miraculously there were no shadows and apparitions but that was no comfort to Roma. What frightened her was the thought of awaited them when they reached their destination.
The drove several hours, then stopped and made a meal, then took again to the road. They were driving around the clock to shorten the journey although allowances must be made for rest.
Rick was openly agitated; he would have driven straight through with no stop for food or rest. He had the feeling that he was not alone in the lorry. A cool breath of air kept caressing his cheek, unexpected in the hot night air. And a presence seemed to be hovering over him and Rick was not a man prone to fancies.
He wanted the damn drive to be over. Roma didn't want it to stop. She felt safe in the Land Rover, that feeling would vanish once they reached the tomb. As long as they were driving, she was safe.
But the drive had to end. At last, they pulled into the area where they had parked the vehicles before, a scant one hundred yards from the tomb entrance. The men they had brought to help them were leaving the lorry and pulling the tents and cooking equipment—it was near dawn and they were hungry and needed their breakfast.
"Get me away from here," Roma slumped down in the seat. The landscape seemed innocent and free of evil in the early morning light of the Egyptian dawn. "How can it be so beautiful here when it hides something so sinister? I'd turn around and go back to Luxor if it didn't mean leaving Evie lost forever, I can't do that, the problem is, I don't know what to do."
Rick was in a similar quandary. He wanted to destroy the coffin and its contents that lay in the back of the Land Rover, but might endanger his wife. What would happen if he tore it out of the truck and left the contents open to the desert sun? Would it doom his wife or would it liberate her from the clutches of whatever held her captive?