Cairo 1922
The bazaar was a far cry from the one he had just walked out of. This one was alive like a writhing, unpredictable animal. Small shops and stores lined with shelves and cupboards bordered the narrow walkways with a constant streaming of people. The merchants sat smoking and talking beneath the cupboards smoking and talking. Everywhere Rowan looked, he saw shops displaying a wide variety of items: saddles and leather goods, shoes in every kind of fabric and material, rugs, and a cascade of vegetables, fruit and meat displayed on staggered display shelves. Everything looked dirty and foreign and authentic. His first emotion at recovering his senses from the journey from the back of the baker’s square where Yeena had taken him was an overwhelming sense of relief nothing like what he had felt when he first arrived in Cairo.
Ella was here. She was now. He felt her alive to him and the feeling energized and buoyed him. And if what Yeena had said was true, Ella had had no say in coming to this time period.
She had not willingly left him.
Yeena had taken him to her shop, locked the door and told him the impossible. Excited to see him, she had held his hand in both hers and told him that she had sent Ella to the time she was born to be in. At first, he didn’t believe what she was saying to him. He thought she must have helped kidnap Ella, but then why search him out? She had clearly been waiting for him to appear.
And she knew about Heidelberg.
“Your wife didn’t want to believe either,” Yeena said. “I feared that she would not go when I could see she must.”
“And why must she?” Rowan figured there was a fine line between mumbo-jumbo spiritualism and batshit crazy. If he hadn’t spent three weeks living in the seventeenth century, he might have been more skeptical. As it was he’d been too far and seen too much not to go on a little faith where time was concerned.
“I see the future in shadows,” she said, shrugging. “But she has gone back to find you. To save you.”
“How is that possible since I’m here?” Rowan said. His stomach tightened. He wasn’t sure whether he was playing her or she was playing him.
“How are many things possible?”
“Gone back when?”
“I cannot be certain of the time.”
“I’ll settle for a guestimate.”
“Howard Carter has yet to find the Boy King. But very soon now.”
“1922. Okay. And you said she went willingly into the past?”
“Willingly, yes. But not knowingly.”
“I see.” Rowan felt the hairs on the back of neck tingle.
“But she willingly stays,” Yeena said. She waved a hand in her shop as if that were proof. “Do you see her here? Has she returned to Alabama?”
Rowan was getting frustrated and he wasn’t sure he was getting any closer to the information he needed.
“You said you told her to get something before her flight. Isn’t that right?”
“The Book of the Dead.”
“As a souvenir for me.”
“Those were her words. But, yes, it is for you.”
“And now? Am I supposed to just believe this crazy story and hang around drinking Darjeeling waiting for her to materialize back from 1922?” He raked his hand through his shaggy brown hair and looked at her in bewilderment.
Yeena steepled her hands in front of her on the table between them. She cocked her head to look at him as if her were an interesting specimen.
“You would not be the man I know you to be if you did that,” she said.
Using a handful of the antique coins Yeena had given him, Rowan bought a piece of bread stuffed with ground lamb at one of the food vendors. He knew that Ella had started her life in 1922 in this bazaar. But she wouldn’t have stayed in the area. It was too unpredictable, too native. He wolfed down his food and walked out into the street, unsure of how to hail a taxi drawn by a horse. He returned to the curb and waited, trying to decipher the traffic flow. He looked up at the sky. Should he try walking to the center of town? Was the center of town where the British were? That’s where Ella would have headed, he was sure of it.
Suddenly a hand tugged at his sleeve and he whirled to see a young Egyptian boy standing on the curb grinning at him.
“Effendi is lost?” the boy said.
Rowan saw the young man’s eyes dart to Rowan’s coat pocket where a wallet might be.
“I need a taxi,” Rowan said.
“You are British? I am very helpful to the British. I am Ra.”
Rowan didn’t bother correcting him. “Great, Ra,” he said. “Hail me a taxi.”
“Where would effendi like the taxi to take him? Are you staying at Shepheard’s Hotel like all the British nobility?”
“Yes, that’s exactly where I’m going. Take me to Shepheards Hotel.”
Thanks to Yeena, Rowan had enough 1920’s bills to pay for a hotel room. He couldn’t help but wonder how in the world Ella managed with just a purse full of useless Visa cards and 2013 Egyptian money.
The Shepheard’s Hotel was elegant—too much so for Rowan’s taste—but it was crammed full of Brits. He marched up the grand front staircase, brushing past the doormen who bowed deferentially as he entered the hotel. He was dressed in khaki slacks and a buttoned down shirt under a dark cotton blazer. He had seen enough of the clothing on the surrounding white men to know that he at least somewhat fit in. Watching the women in their long dresses, gloves and hats, he found himself hoping that Ella wasn’t arrested as a prostitute as soon as she “landed.”
Rowan registered at the hotel, asking if there was a Miss Stevens registered. The request was met with a frown and the response that guest registration was private. Rowan pocketed his room key and went directly out the front door. Outside, he spotted young Ra again and held up a coin.
“I need information,” he said.
The young man eyed the coin hungrily and nodded.
“I can help, effendi,” he said. “Whatever you are looking for, I can find it for you. Women? Drugs?” His eyes glanced down to Rowan’s clothing. “Tomb treasure?”
Rowan tossed him the coin. “Let’s start with a decent menswear store,” he said.
An hour later, Rowan was in his hotel room dressing for dinner. It was obvious that Shepheard’s was the place to be in 1920’s Cairo if you were white and wealthy. While Ella only qualified for one of those characteristics, Rowan felt sure she would naturally have gravitated to the center of English-speaking society. While he had no real idea of how to behave in this time period, he assumed his natural confidence would get him over the roughest hurdles. As it turned out, he wasn’t wrong.
Upon entering the Shepheard’s dining room, he was escorted to his table but before he even flapped his linen napkin out across his napkin, a stern-faced Shepheard’s maître d approached him with an invitation. “If Mr. Pierce is dining alone tonight,” the man said, “Miss Newton of Arlington, Virginia, would like to extend the invitation to dine with her party.” The invitation was delivered in flat monotones as if the bearer would not dream of influencing Rowan’s decision in any way.
Rowan twisted in his chair to look around the dining room. A plump thirty-something woman with auburn hair waved at him from the center of a large table of six people—none of whom could be accused at first sight as looking either dignified or elegant. Rowan smiled and waved back.
The evening, although tiring in every sense of the full definition of the word—and Rowan was used to some pretty exhausting stakeouts as a US Marshal—was a rousing success.
They had heard of Ella. And even better, they knew where she had gone.
“Oh, they left the day we arrived,” Marvel Newton said, shaking her reddish-brown curls so that they jiggled and vied with her hanging ear-bobs. “But of course the whole place was talking about it because she was with Howard Carter’s party.”
Holy shit! Rowan found his excitement building in spite of himself.
“Can you believe we just missed him? Half the people in my party are amateur Egyptologists. They would have killed to meet the great man, himself.”
“In what way was she with his party, do you know?” Rowan spoke as casually as he could without belying his interest in Marvel’s response.
“Well, I don’t know the specifics,” Marvel said, refilling her own wine glass. An extremely wealthy American heiress, she had made it clear that she cared little for ceremony or class distinctions. For that, Rowan was grateful. “I’m sure I could find out, though. Are you related to her in some way?”
Rowan picked up on the coyness of his benefactress’ question and he hated to do anything which might dam up the flow of information. But in the forty minutes that he had spent with Marvel Newton, if he knew anything else about her, he knew she could smell a lie and wouldn’t tolerate bull shit. Which was just as well, Rowan mused, since he typically didn’t bother with either.
“She’s my wife,” he said bluntly.
“Oh.” Clearly, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “A runaway wife, one may presume?”
“It’s complicated.”
“My dear, it always is.”
Howard Carter Camp, Valley of the Kings, 1922
One morning, after Ella had been at Carter’s camp a week, William surprised her by joining her on her ride. In the days since they had arrived at the camp, she had fallen into a routine of riding the perimeter of the valley mornings before it got too hot. On the second day, she had gone out after lunch when there was no one to warn her not too (except Julia) and twice she nearly wilted and toppled from her pony before she could get back to camp. While determined not to admit to anyone she had been so foolish, she assumed that the fact that she kept to her tent the rest of the day too ill to appear at dinner probably told the embarrassing truth of her actions.
Mad dogs and Englishmen, she thought, as she tacked up her pony for her morning ride. Normally too busy with his camp chores and servile attendance on the noxious Viscount Digby, William had somehow managed the morning off.
She loved the company of the quiet little man. His English was flecked with accented uplilts at the end of his sentences which made it sound as if he was always asking a question. In a strange way, it reminded her of the way Southerners speak and it felt oddly familiar and comforting amidst this strange world.
She was particularly glad for William’s company today because he was leading her away from the valley to new scenery. They walked their ponies slowly across the rocky ground at the base of the foothills that formed not a half a mile from the valley of stony, barren landscaping, its cliffs studded with the black openings of the discovered tombs. While William talked little as they rode, Ella found herself feeling restored and relaxed in his presence. She let him lead and simply watched the scenery change from rockscape to green, tilled fields. Presently, they came upon a village of small mud huts with cornstalk roofs. The houses were bunched around a main courtyard with a stone fire pit. Around the fire pit were several women who were cooking. As they rode into the village, the men who were standing together in small groups smoking stared at her. She was dressed in her riding clothes and a pith helmet. She pulled up her hijab to shield her face. She wore it less as a display of modesty than to protect her face against the relentless, airborne desert sands.
The women of the village were engaged in a flurry of activity: grinding meal, sewing, weaving baskets, and cooking. The children were naked and running around with dozens of half-wild dogs. The narrow streets of the village were lined with garbage, making them smaller still. Even though the village was surrounded by fields, sand coated every surface. Ella had already discovered that the wind never stopped blowing.
The poverty of the little village was a slap in the face to Ella who suddenly thought of the clean linen sheets on her camp bed, the roast beef she had eaten off a china plate for dinner the night before and the pot of tea she had enjoyed that morning. As she watched the children stop playing to stare at her, she saw swarms of flies on their faces. They didn’t even bother to wave them away.
William dismounted and dropped the reins of his horse on the ground. Ella knew this was a signal to the horse to stay. She wondered how the Egyptians taught their horses to do this and realized that in the desert without hitching posts, it was a very valuable trick. She remained mounted while William approached a grey-bearded old man who sat squatting by the fire. Ella tried to imagine her own father, easily twenty years younger than this old fellow, managing to sit in that position without falling over.
William spoke slowly and respectfully to the old man, who nodded several times and watched Ella closely. For one mad moment, Ella got the impression that William was talking about her. The whole village was staring at her which clearly had nothing to do with what William was saying. An image of a white slave market flashed through Ella’s mind but she scolded herself from even thinking of it.
When William finished talking to the villager, he went to his saddlebag and pulled out a small leather bag. Ella knew that Carter employed men from the villages around the dig site but she also knew that payday was only once a week. The day after they arrived, she had seen the men toss down their pickaxes and shovels, their baskets and ropes, and queue up in long sluggish serpentine lines to receive their pay from Carter himself. He sat at a table, writing in a huge ledger, as he gave the coins to each man and boy.
William gave the small leather bag to the old man then jumped back on his horse. He turned his horse around to leave the way they had come. Ella followed and smiled at several children who had dared come close to her as they departed. They broke into wide grins. She was struck by what a handsome people the Egyptians were. A quick glance at the village women reminded her of how quickly this arid, hard life aged and ruined that beauty.
After they had ridden out of the village, William explained that Mr. Carter worked harder than most to keep good relations with his workers—above and beyond paying them fair wages. By honoring the elders of their villages, he helped ensure that when problems arose—as they always did—he had some foundation from which to reason with them.
“The poorest Egyptian is superstitious,” William said as they rode back to camp. “All believe in efreets and the spirits of the disturbed dead.” He waved a hand to encompass the valley of tombs before them. “Here they have lived for dozens of centuries among the dead of our kings, our people.”
“I guess they don’t really see the difference between archaeology and grave-robbing.”
William looked at her with interest. “That is exactly true,” he said. “When it is your ancestor’s graves that are being breeched by foreigners, it can be difficult to understand.”
Abdullah trudged behind the two men as they walked back to camp from the dig site. Digby looked back at him and grimaced. For a dog, the man was quite competent, he found himself thinking. Although it was yet to be seen how loyal he was. Digby shoved his hands in the pockets of his jodhpurs, mimicking Carter as he walked ahead of him. They had spent an exhausting afternoon patrolling the work site, Carter pointing out one tomb entrance as more extraordinary than the last. As far as Digby was concerned, it was all just rubble and stone caves. He thought it was incredible how enthused the world got over what was clearly shoddy artisan workmanship. Some of the funeral vases Carter had unearthed were as rough as aboriginal stoneware. That is to say, primitive in the extreme.
But primitive or not, they would fetch a pretty pence with his man in Cairo. Well, perhaps not the funeral vases since Carter seemed to value them to the extent that he did everything short of sleep with them, but there were several lesser pieces within easy reach of an interested bystander. Digby smiled to himself.
Digby was white. He was English. He was trusted. It didn’t hurt that he had known Carnarvon at school, although perhaps he had exaggerated the connection in the telling just a tad.
He stumbled over a rock and wrenched his hands out of his pocket in time to avoid a fall. These outings were damned tiring. One tour of the rocky no man’s land that Carter looked at as his idea of nirvana had been more than enough. It took all his powers of dissembling to act enthusiastic about returning day after day. He was disappointed in his slowly-growing cache of stolen antiquities—a button, a tiny mold of something, a scrap of papyrus. Surely, there would be bigger treasure?
“Good evening, ladies,” Carter called out as they entered the camp.
Digby jerked his head up to see Julia and that American woman walking arm in arm back from the bathing tent. Now that would have been a better spent use of an hour, he thought wolfishly, as he waved back to them. His assumption that Julia would hate it at the dig site enough to insist on his removing her immediately had been thwarted by the American’s presence. First, it made it impossible to get Julia off alone in the desert. Second, the bloody woman appeared to be making the whole living-in-a-tent experience a tolerable one for Julia.
It was clear that the time had come to move things along—even with the complications that the American woman presented. His eyes narrowed as he watched the two women disappear into Julia’s tent to dress for dinner.
Perhaps, at the end of the day, Julia’s unfortunate accident would look even more believable if it involved two?
After a wonderful meal of roast lamb and couscous, the servers cleared the table and replaced the setting with wide-bottomed brandy decanters, crystal snifters and a heavy dessert wine. Julia was watching her closely and Ella knew another scolding about how she had spent the morning would be in the offing once they were alone.
Because Digby and his man, Abdullah, typically followed Carter around the valley all day, Julia was left alone in the camp for long hours at a time. While Ella knew she spent the time reading, napping and sketching, Ella also saw her friend becoming more and more tense and withdrawn. Although Julia was a competent rider—as most young women from her class were in England—she disdained the rugged, surefooted little Egyptian ponies, saying they were no better than the filthy donkeys that wandered everywhere and befouled the walking paths.
Ella was sorry that Julia couldn’t break out of her dour mood long enough to enjoy the magical Egyptian countryside. But Ella had given up trying and found herself partially grateful not to have Julia along, feeling she would surely put a damper on even the exquisite Egyptian sunrise.
Ella watched from the dinner table as dusk settled on the camp. She saw the shadows come towards the little encampment like an advancing army, blackening the western cliffs, and obliterating the appearance of their looming menace until all that was left was a canopy of glittering stars.
Carter had announced a surprise as soon as they seated themselves for the meal. Immediately after the coffee and brandy was poured and the cigars lighted, he stood up at the end of the table and, with much drama, pulled out a rolled papyrus and held it in his outstretched hands.
“I am delighted to share with you, my friends,” Carter said with unconcealed excitement, “a find today that is the first of many leading to what I believe will be considered the most significant archaeological find of the century.”
Ella noticed Digby frown and wondered if he was annoyed because he wasn’t in on the surprise. She saw his eyes flash to Abdullah as if to say: why did I not know about this?
Very carefully, Carter laid the papyrus down on the table and unrolled it to expose a yard-square portion. Using crystal decanters and polished stones as paper weights, he anchored the four corners of the paper. Everyone jumped up from their chairs to crowd around him to see the document.
“No drinks, if you please, ladies, Digby,” Carter said. “Mustn’t take the chance of dribbling claret on one of the finest examples of a Book of the Dead I have ever seen.”
Ella started. This was the Book of the Dead? So obviously there was more than one of them. She squeezed under Carter’s elbow to peer at the document. The segment of the scroll visible revealed a complex series of illustrations and hieroglyphics. Many of the drawings were very faint.
“I say, old man,” Digby said behind her, his hips pressing against her bottom in his eagerness to see the book over her shoulder. “That is bloody marvelous!”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Carter said, clearly delighted with his find. Ella squirmed to get away from the pressure of Digby as he ground his pelvis into her backside. He cupped her bottom with his hand and she pushed it away.
“Is it valuable?” Julia asked.
“Oh, it is invaluable,” Carter said. “I will be deciphering it tonight but I couldn’t wait to show it to you. It is a guide to the treasures that await the dead. All royalty had these to aid them in their journey to the afterlife.”
Ella pushed back against Digby and jammed her heel into his instep. The result was negligible as his foot was protected in a hard leather boot and her heel in only a soft slipper. Nonetheless, he removed his hand as she pushed out of the scrum of bodies around Carter.
“Well, it’s very impressive,” Ella said, giving a filthy look to Digby as she walked back to her chair. He continued to look over Carter’s shoulder as if nothing had happened.
“So the kings and queens were buried with these Books of the Dead?” Julia asked vapidly. Ella had never seen a more staged expression of interest. Julia clearly did not give a damn.
Carter responded eagerly. “Oh, yes, it was their roadmap to reaching heaven. Metaphorically. The Egyptians believe that there are many tests one must pass in the afterlife if they are to achieve the paradise that awaits them. These documents are the answer sheet, if you will. They are full of the incantations to create the magic when it is needed. In some cases, the incantations can actually prevent or even reverse certain death.”
“You see this?” he said, pointing to one of the faint illustrations. “That is clearly Anubis who most recently deceased Egyptians would expect to encounter. This papyrus lays it all out such that the owner may answer the tests appropriately. One couldn’t expect to reach the afterlife without a properly detailed, personalized Book of the Dead.”
“Did all Egyptians have one of these? Because it looks pretty time consuming to create,” Julia asked as she reseated herself.
“Oh, no my dear. Only royalty and the wealthy.”
“So, common Egyptians couldn’t expect to make it to the afterlife?” Ella asked.
“I’m afraid not,” Carter said, chuckling. “Only those with enough money got the treasures. As it is in life it is after death.”
“That sucks,” Ella said. The words were out of her mouth before she realized she was speaking. Three heads snapped to look at her.
“I…I said, aw shucks,” she stuttered. “It’s an American phrase. I’m not sure it translates.”
“I have heard of it,” Julia said brightly, obviously trying to cover for her.
Later, after the party had dispersed to their separate tents, Ella wondered if she should say something to Julia about Digby trying to grope her through Carter’s Egyptology lecture. Clearly, the man was getting desperate. Which didn’t excuse his disgusting behavior, Ella thought. In any other time zone, she would have confronted him immediately and in no uncertain terms but there was a delicate balance in play here in this group. If she exposed Digby’s behavior she was not at all sure that she would be considered the aggrieved party.
She pulled off her dress and hung it next to the camp chair by her cot. As she pulled on her nightdress, the sound of a large pebble rolling down the rocky terrain outside her tent made her stop and hold her breath.
Someone or something had dislodged that rock.
She looked at her riding clothes stacked in a neat pile next to her bed and it occurred to her that, up to this point, she hadn’t missed not having a weapon with her. Because Ella’s tent had been erected last and hastily, it was situated near the path to the work site rather than the main sleeping and dining structures.
She heard a definite crunch of gravel under foot. The sound wasn’t repeated, leading her to guess that the person was attempting stealth. She looked around her tent for any kind of weapon and seeing only her riding crop, grabbed it and stood beside the tent’s entrance, waiting and breathing hard. She didn’t have to wait long.
The hand that reached into the tent entrance was white. Ella sucked in a breath as Digby burst in. He looked flushed from drink. While Ella expected a conversational standoff, and was fully prepared to provide the first onslaught of tongue lashing to get things going, Digby charged her and knocked her onto the bed. The crop fell to the floor.
Ella was too shocked to do more than emit a weak “oh!” before he twisted her facedown on the cot.
“Scream all you want, little one,” Digby sneered in a whisper, bringing his face down close to her ear. She could smell stale cigars and alcohol on his breath. “Only the bedcovers will hear.”
Panic overwhelmed Ella as she struggled to get a breath out, the bed blanket pressed tightly against her nose and mouth. She felt his rough hard hands rip her nightgown up over her hips. He jammed a hand between her legs, while holding her head down firmly with the other hand. She felt the pressure on her back lessen as he fumbled to undo the buttons on the front of his pants. Weakened and gasping for breath, Ella lost her opportunity to take advantage of the moment. In a flash, both hands were back, pushing her further and further into the bed covers. She could feel the touch of his insistent cock poised between her clenching buttocks.
Suddenly, she heard a low grunt and Digby jerked away. Ella wrenched her nightgown down over her hips as she turned to see William standing in the opening of her tent, his fists clenched at his sides, his eyes wild with loathing and lust. Digby now lay on her bed, his eyes blinking as if in surprise, blood pouring from his broken nose.
Ella jumped up and grabbed her dressing gown. “William!” she said, looking from him to Digby.
“I followed him,” he said, nodding at Digby who was sitting up on the bed. “I saw him enter. But you did not scream.” He looked at Digby and narrowed his eyes. He looked back at Ella and then at the ground.
“I did not scream,” she said, still gasping for precious breath, “because he jumped me before I could. Thank God you came when you did.”
William whirled around to face someone standing outside Ella’s tent. He gave Digby one last look over his shoulder and then fled.
“You bastard,” Ella said to Digby. “I’ll have you arrested and hung by your gonads for what you just tried to do.”
Digby yanked out a clean handkerchief and held it to his nose. “This just means that when it does happen,” he said, his voice muffled behind the cloth. “I’ll make sure it hurts.”
Ella was incredulous. “Get out!” she screamed. “Get out now!” From where she stood she could see why William had left. Abdullah was standing outside, waiting for his master.
Within moments, a small group of people, attracted by the noise, formed outside Ella’s tent. While Carter was not among them, his foreman, Josh Spenser was. He took charge immediately by ushering Digby, trailed by Abdullah, to Digby’s tent.
Julia ran to Ella and the two women fell into each other’s arms. There was no sign of William.
“Julia,” she said, “I don’t know whether he was intent on murdering me or just raping me but if it hadn’t been for William, he would have done both.”
“Who?” Julia said, holding Ella’s hands. “Edward?”
“Yes, Edward!” Ella said loudly. “Who do you think?
Julia screwed up her face as if trying to process what Ella was telling her and looked over her shoulder in the direction of Digby’s tent where she could see the light flickering and the shadows of the three men inside.
“Why would he do that?”
“Why? Gee, I don’t know, Julia, maybe because he’s a sex-starved pervert? Are you trying to tell me I don’t know who attacked me?”
“No, of course not, Ella.” But the way Julia looked at her, it was clear she did doubt what Ella was saying. “But why did William run away so quickly?”
“Are you kidding me?” Ella said. “You think I was getting it on with William and blaming Digby? William prevented that bastard from doing the deed!”
“Well, if he is a hero, why did he run?”
“Maybe because he’s Egyptian in a white man’s world and he knows he’s going to get screwed somehow in all this.” Ella sat down hard on her cot and realized that her hands were shaking.
Julia pulled up a chair and patted Ella’s knee. “Well, whatever happened,” she said, “it’s all over now. Do you want me to sleep in here tonight?”
Ella nodded.
A few moments later, Spenser called from outside Ella’s tent and she jumped up to open the flap to him.
“You ladies okay?” Up until then, Ella hadn’t realized the foreman was American. Just hearing his strong, familiar accent made her feel instantly better.
“Yes,” Ella said. “Thank you, Mr. Spenser.”
“I’m placing a couple of men at the front of your tent, Miss Stevens,” he said. “And one to the back. You shouldn’t have any more visitors tonight. We’ll sort all this out in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Ella said. Even with Julia sleeping in the tent with her, she was not confident that Digby wouldn’t try again later that night.
The Viscount pulled off his boots and tossed them on the floor of his tent. He moved his toes in his socks and ran a hand across his face. Abdullah squatted by the door flap as if ready to bolt on some vital errand should Digby give the word. Digby loosened his collar and regretted not insisting on a valet on this trip. That was back in the day when he was being so accommodating to his new bride. Why would she pinch pence? As rich as she was. He paused and made a face. As rich as they were.
Abdullah grunted and Digby glanced at him. While Spenser had been decent about it all—and certainly no hint of blame or culpability had fallen on himself—it was still damn galling to have to explain oneself. Digby supposed the American would feel it necessary to report the evening’s events to Carter. Another annoyance to be dealt with. If that goddamn dragoman hadn’t interfered he’d at least have been able to carry on a few weeks longer. As it was, he would have to hurry things along. He would need the money now sooner than later. And he still didn’t have a solid plan of how to arrange her death such that he was not the first person the police suspected.
His man grunted again and Digby looked over at him. When Abdullah solemnly drew a line across his throat, his eyes drilling into his master’s, Digby sighed and nodded. The man rose quickly and disappeared into the night leaving an almost visible odor vapor behind him.
Damn heathens, Digby thought, pulling his white tie out of its knot. Would it kill them to bathe once in awhile?
The next morning, Ella slipped out of bed, careful not to awaken Julia. She tapped the guard on the shoulder as she left the tent and pointed to the central outdoor dining area. The guard, a black Egyptian with a long beard and a turban, nodded and resumed his watch on the tent.
Ella hurried to the main fire pit, looking for William. But he was nowhere to be seen. After a hurried cup of tea and a piece of buttered toast, she walked to where the ponies were tied on a long rope between two sycamore trees. She looked over her shoulder at Digby’s tent but he was a notoriously late riser and she didn’t expect this morning to be any different.
She went to the tack and feed shed and quickly found her mount’s bridle. She pulled her pony from the line of other horses and slipped the bridle on him.
It occurred to her that Digby viewed her as no differently than he did his servants or even his horse. As he saw it, he was merely exercising his station in society as her better. And now William—who knew the rules as well as anyone and who had broken them to save her—was at best, fired and at worst, being hunted for assault on a member of the English peerage.
She tossed the pony’s blanket on his back. After that first day, she had stopped riding with a saddle. Without boots, the stirrups were too dangerous. She found she felt more secure gripping the pony with her legs rather than sliding around a saddle that was too big for her anyway.
She had yet to decide what she would do about Digby. Clearly, he wasn’t finished with her. One thing was for sure, she would have to find a weapon of some kind.
Standing on the wooden mounting block, she nodded a greeting to the boy in charge of the camp donkeys. He was covered in some sort of skin infection and Ella found herself hoping it wasn’t contagious. She swung onto her pony and squeezed him into a quick trot up the hill toward the perimeter path that she took each morning. She loved seeing the whole valley spread out below her in the morning sunlight.
She stopped at a spot on the hilltop. Dawn was her favorite time of the day. She regretted that William couldn’t be here to share it with her. Thinking of him gave her an unsettled feeling. Had he gone home to his family in Luxor? Was he lying low so he could say goodbye to her? She looked around the circle of rocks and boulders where she sat waiting for the sunrise. He knew she came this way. Perhaps he was near?
As she sat on her pony and watched the sun brighten the carved stonewalls of the cliffs across the valley, she noticed a flash of light—like a reflection of the sun—in the bushes on the hillside a few yards below. It was almost as if someone was signaling her with a mirror. She squinted and then saw it again.
The thought came to her that she might be on the verge of discovering some treasure dropped by ancient tomb robbers. Feeling a growing excitement, she slipped off her pony and pulled the reins over his head and dropped them to the ground.
“Stay,” she said, as she turned and scrambled down the steep hill, throwing rocks and clods of stone up as she went. How many times had she seen the villagers and workers maneuver up and down these hills? She could hardly believe she was doing it now herself without protective footwear.
The flash had seemed to come from a wide bush clearly visible in the hillside thirty yards below. As she steadied herself for the final few steps, she shrieked and fell, skidding on her stomach on the hard rocky ground. She gasped as there, beneath the bush, she found what she was looking for.
The tiny gold cross hanging from William’s slashed and bloody throat glimmered in the morning sun.