Free Prince in Exile by Carole Wilkinson Page A

back at the palace, priests said prayers over me and the royal jewellers made amulets to hang around my neck and ward off evil spirits.”
    “No priests. Just a piece of ox flesh.”
    “What about the broken bones in my chest?”
    “They will heal as long as you rest.”
    Ramose didn’t get to rest for long. He was given two days to recover before he was called before a special tribunal. Weni, Nakhtamun and Hapu were also summoned. The tribunal consisted of Scribe Paneb, Samut the foreman and two senior tomb workers.
    “Why were you boys climbing the sacred mountain?” asked Paneb.
    “We saw Ramose going up there and we were worried that he might get lost,” Weni lied.
    “And then when we found him, he just attacked Weni. He punched him in the nose,” said Nakhtamun.
    “Is this true, Ramose?” asked the foreman.
    “I didn’t mean to hit him,” Ramose replied. “I just meant to push him away.”
    “I was just protecting myself,” said Weni, “and then Ramose’s foot slipped and he fell.”
    Hapu didn’t say anything.
    “You have behaved irresponsibly,” said Paneb.
    “We are all here at the Great Place to prepare the tomb of the pharaoh, may he have long life and health,” said the foreman. “You striplings are privileged to work in this place. You have been trusted with knowledge of the whereabouts of Pharaoh’s tomb. Only we tomb workers know this. The Great Place and the Gate of Heaven are sacred places.”
    “You should be banished from the Great Place,” said Paneb. “But with two tombs now under construction we need all the workers we can get.”
    It was agreed that each boy should receive ten blows and pay a fine of a week’s grain ration. Ramose was exempted from the beating, as he was already covered with purple and yellow bruises.
    “I think it would be a good idea to separate you boys for a while,” said Samut. “Ramose and Hapu, you can go to the Place of Beauty. Report to the foreman there tomorrow morning.”

    The Place of Beauty was the valley to the south of the Great Place. It was meant for the burial of other members of the royal family. There were three tombs there. Two belonged to Ramose’s brothers, Wadzmose and Amenmose. The entrances to those tombs were hidden so that tomb robbers couldn’t find them. Ramose found himself at the entrance of the third tomb in the Place of Beauty, which was still under construction. It was his own tomb.
    Ramose had been so busy in the Great Place, concerned with daily life, the possibility of death and the sharpness of chisels, that he hadn’t had time to think about the preparations for his own burial. The mood of the workers at this tomb was completely different to that of the men working on Pharaoh’s tomb. Men were hurrying about. There was a sense of urgency. The moment the two boys arrived, the foreman put them to work. He sent Hapu down into the tomb to help the painters.
    “I want you to check the script on the tomb walls,” the foreman told Ramose. “This has been a rushed job and our scribe has been ill for weeks. Check for mistakes.”
    Ramose entered the tomb and the cool air gave him goosebumps. It was a small tomb compared to his father’s. A few steps led down to a short corridor, which opened straight into the burial chamber. The chamber was a strange shape. Instead of being rectangular, it was narrow at one end. One corner had an ugly, jagged lump sticking out of it. The foreman saw Ramose looking at it.
    “The quarry men ran into a flint boulder in the rock,” he explained. The rock deep in the desert hills was generally quite soft and easy to carve, but occasionally there were outcrops of hard flint. The tomb makers’ copper chisels buckled and broke when they hit flint.
    “We didn’t have time to start a new excavation, so we had to leave it. It’ll make it difficult to fit the sarcophagus in, but it can’t be helped.”
    Ramose looked at the artwork on the walls. A team of six painters, now including