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    Paneb walked in silence. Ramose was grateful. He didn’t want to talk to the scribe. He followed Paneb up the hill to the west of the village, further into the desert, further away from his home. The overweight scribe was soon puffing and panting. The other workers disappeared over the crest before Paneb and Ramose were halfway up.
    The path looked the same as the one that had brought him to the village—just a dusty track worn by the passage of feet. On either side of the path was the same dry sand and sharp rocks and flints. There were no trees, no plants, no sign of animal life. Ramose thought it must surely be the most inhospitable place in the world. They reached the top and the heat of the sun hit Ramose full in the face. He wasn’t used to being outside in the heat without servants to fan him. He hoped he would be able to work out in the sun without fainting.
    Ramose shielded his eyes. The Great Place lay below them. It didn’t look great at all. It was a dry and sand-coloured valley the same as the valley where the village was. The only difference was the cliffs leading down to this valley floor were still standing.
    “Is this it?” asked Ramose. “Where’s Pharaoh’s tomb?”
    “Hidden underground, of course,” said Paneb. “The entrance is over there.”
    He pointed to a hole in the side of the valley wall opposite. Ramose was disappointed. He knew that the royal tomb was being built underground to protect it from tomb robbers, but he had expected it to have an ornate entrance and elaborate temples above ground. There was nothing.
    The path wove up and down until it found a way down around the cliffs. When they reached the valley floor, Ramose could see the entrance more clearly. It was just a large square hole cut into the rock face. Outside were blocks of stone quarried from the tomb. The tomb makers were nowhere to be seen. Paneb muttered grumpily to himself as he headed to the tomb entrance. An enormous man stood at the entrance. He wasn’t an Egyptian, he was black-skinned, like Karoya, and very tall.
    “Good morning, Scribe Paneb,” said the guard.
    “Morning,” grumbled Paneb.
    “Who is this with you?” asked the guard.
    “This is my new apprentice, Ramose. Let him pass whenever he wishes.”
    Paneb also introduced Ramose to Samut, a sweaty man with long stringy hair who was foreman of the tomb workers. Then they were out of the sun and suddenly in darkness. They walked down a steeply sloping corridor that led deep inside the rock. Small oil lamps lit the way at intervals, but it was still very dark. Ramose was surprised. He wasn’t really sure what a scribe attached to a royal tomb was meant to do, but he’d imagined that he would be working out in the blazing sun. It had never occurred to him that he would be working deep underground.
    They passed a group of sculptors working on carvings on the sloping walls of the corridor. Ramose could make out pictures of his father fighting in military campaigns. There was a carving of him firing arrows from a chariot, a carving of him with his foot on the head of a grovelling barbarian, another of him standing next to a pile of dismembered hands, cut from his victims. Hieroglyphs told the story of his bravery and how he was undefeated in battle. The corridor continued to slope steeply down. Ramose looked over his shoulder. The tomb entrance was just a small square of light high above him.
    The corridor opened into a room where men were working on the ceiling. It was painted deep blue and the painters, clinging to a wooden scaffold, were covering it with five-pointed yellow stars. The murmur of voices and the sound of the chipping of stone drifted up from a flight of steps that led down from this room at right angles. Ramose followed Paneb down the steps. The burial chamber was at the bottom. Outliners were marking out paintings and text on four square columns supporting the ceiling. More sculptors were on their hands and knees carving a