Chapter 17
THOUGH DAPHNE TOOK THE LAUDANUM IN small doses, it helped a great deal. She was grateful indeed to Mr. Carsington for insisting, as she told him at the first opportunity.
Privately, she marveled at his taking the trouble over her monthly misery. But then, he was a marvel to her. For the two days she spent in bed, she thought about him, and all the ways in which he surprised her.
Though the drug made her mind rather foggy, this much was clear: He was not at all the lout she’d first supposed him. Instead, he made other men seem loutish, especially Virgil. Her late husband had made her feel defective, even monstrous at times. He’d left her with a great fortune and very little self-confidence.
In the weeks she’d spent with Rupert Carsington, her confidence had steadily grown. That day and evening in Asyut, she’d lived through the fear and danger and passion and one trial of endurance after another. And never before had she felt so alive.
Despite the fogginess, she was well aware of his large, capable hands laying the cool, wet cloths on her forehead or gently rubbing her back. She was aware of his deep voice, tinged with laughter now and again as he told an amusing story.
She was also aware that, like laudanum, he could easily become a dangerous habit.
By the morning of the third day the violent spasms of pain had faded to an occasional twinge. She was able to sit up and take note of the world about her and puzzle over how sick she’d been. It could not have been her menses alone, she decided. It always made her tired and cross, and was often painful, but never so much as this. Never before had it so completely incapacitated her.
But then, her life had never been so tumultuous before.
She decided that dyspepsia or some other stomach ailment had aggravated matters.
Whatever it was seemed to be gone because she woke with an appetite. It was Nafisah who brought the ewer and basin as soon as Daphne was sitting up.
“You feel better,” Nafisah said, smiling. “I see it in your face.”
“Much better,” Daphne said. After washing, she noticed the baby was nowhere about. “Where is Sabah?”
“In the front room with the master and the boy Tom,” Nafisah said.
“His name is Udail,” Daphne said automatically.
“He wishes to be Tom,” Nafisah said. “He says he is the slave of the master and will go with him wherever he goes because the master has saved your life.”
“I was not dying,” Daphne said. “You know the ailment isn’t fatal.”
“He saved you from the sandstorm as well. I, too, gladly serve such a master, who shows such kindness to his hareem, and waits upon her like a slave.”
The word hareem made Daphne Mr. Carsington’s property: a woman who belonged to him, who was part of his household. She squirmed at the term yet saw how unwise it would be to correct Nafisah. The girl would not understand. In her view, all women belonged to one man or another. In any event, it was unwise to encourage the servants to speculate too much about the relationship between the “master” and their mistress.
The relationship between European men and their women baffled many Egyptians anyway, although the majority accepted it philosophically. Practices Egyptians normally regarded as improprieties they often explained and excused with “It is their custom.”
The crew and servants were well aware that Daphne’s maid shared her cabin, that Tom shared the “master’s,” and that the cabin Nafisah and Sabah now shared with various domestic supplies stood between the two.
If this arrangement changed, everyone aboard would know. Daphne had no idea whether the men would think less of her or would disregard it as an alien custom. She had no doubt, however, that Miles would eventually hear of it. Depending on how talkative her people were, gossip and speculation might travel up and down the Nile.
In England she lived a reclusive life, and others’ opinion of her mattered not at all. She had never made a scandal, though. Miles was all the family she had left. She could not disgrace him.
What had happened in Asyut must be the beginning and the end of all intimacy with Mr. Carsington, she told herself as she dressed. For a time they had been cut off from the world and its rules. They were back in the world now, and must live by the rules. And she must return to reality, to facts, not fantasies.
She and Mr. Carsington had no future together. This was for the best. Circumstances had thrown together two people who could not have less in common.
To emphasize her resolve to keep him at a distance, she donned her widow’s garb. She looked down at herself and recalled the expression on Mr. Carsington’s face when he’d gazed at her naked breasts. She remembered snuggling, naked, in his arms. She felt a pang.
Telling herself to be sensible, she went out to the front cabin.
The Egyptians therein welcomed her in the usual extravagant fashion: Tom launched into a long speech of rejoicing, his hand on his heart. The baby managed a few staggering steps in her direction before collapsing on the rug, laughing and clapping her hands. Even the mongoose darted in from wherever she’d been, and ran around Daphne’s ankles, sniffing.
Mr. Carsington said nothing, only gave her a slow survey, head to toes and up again.
Her face grew hot, and she was well aware of heat further down, coiling in the pit of her belly.
She directed her gaze at the mongoose. “Marigold has grown lively while I was ill,” she said composedly. “And friendlier.” Had he won over the mongoose, too? Was there anyone or anything able to resist him? “What’s happened to her precious shirt?”
“She hides it,” Mr. Carsington said. “Today it’s under the divan. You’ll see her check at intervals, to make sure it’s still there. She’s vastly entertaining, now her paw has healed. I hadn’t realized what busy, curious creatures they are. She’s constantly running in and out, to and fro, investigating.”
She left Daphne to run about the divan. The mongoose ran up Mr. Carsington as though he were a tree, sat on his shoulder for a moment, sniffing his neck, then ran down again and out of the cabin.
The baby found this highly amusing. She let out squeals of laughter. She stood up, fell down, and squealed some more.
Nafisah came in, scooped her up, and bore her away, to allow the mistress to enjoy her breakfast in peace.
Daphne settled onto the divan at a decorous distance from Mr. Carsington.
Leena entered then, bearing a large tray heaped with breakfast pastries and fruits. “Well, why do you stand there like a stone?” she cried to Tom. “Where is the coffee for your mistress?”
“I forget because my heart is so full,” he said. “We are all well now, and safe. This boat is filled with happiness. The baby who was dying laughs and claps her hands. My master who was swallowed by the sandstorm came back to us. He brought back our mistress and made her well again when death tried to take her. He will find our master—our other master—and take him from the foreign devils who carried him into the desert. There are twelve of them, but Yusef and I will fight by his side, and we will fight like a hundred demons and devils.”
“What’s he on about now?” Mr. Carsington asked Daphne. She quickly translated. Tom went on with his rant.
“Hold on,” said Mr. Carsington. He held up his hand. “Wait. Stop.”
The boy paused.
“Foreign devils?” Mr. Carsington said. “Twelve of them? How do you know this?”
“But everyone knows,” Leena said. “We heard it in the marketplace. The caravans come to Asyut. They see these men, one or two Egyptians, but most are foreigners—Syrian, Greek, Armenian, Turkish. They keep close watch over a tall, fair man who speaks very strange Arabic and whose camel quarrels with him. Did no one tell you?”
She turned a reproachful look upon Tom. “Did you not tell him? Of the talk in Asyut?”
“Oh, yes,” said Tom. “I told you, sir, when you came on the boat. Everyone told you. Everyone heard of it in the suq.”
“Did you tell him in English?” Daphne said.
The boy considered. Then he lifted his shoulders and hands. “In your tongue, in our tongue, I cannot say. My joy to see you was so great. Tears filled my eyes. So full were our hearts, who can say what words we spoke?”
“Leena, sit,” Mr. Carsington ordered. “Tom, sit. Now, one at a time, slowly, tell us everything you heard in Asyut.”
WITH LEENA AND Tom interrupting each other, and the usual excess verbiage, the report went on for some time, and to Rupert seemed to grow increasingly melodramatic. Daphne’s translation reduced the endless saga to a few bald facts.
Archdale had been seen, alive, only a few days ago, en route to Dendera. If this was true, the Isis was not so many days behind him as they’d feared. Sandstorms had slowed the kidnappers’ progress through the desert. The Isis was not far behind Noxious, either. His dahabeeya had stopped at Asyut earlier in the week.
At this point, the tale took the dramatic turn.
The Memnon was well known in Asyut, the servants reported. As soon as it was spotted, a number of people fled the town and went into hiding, not emerging until the boat was long gone.
“They call this man the Golden Devil,” Tom said, “because his hair is the color of gold. He is English, like you. But he is a devil with an army of men like demons. The people of Upper Egypt have less fear of Muhammad Ali and his soldiers.”
The Golden Devil had become a legend, apparently. When children misbehaved, their mothers told them the Golden Devil would come after them.
Tom went on for some time about the Golden Devil. Daphne provided her usual, concise English version.
She offered it calmly enough.
After Tom left to fetch the coffee and Leena to bring the maps Rupert asked for, he said, “These revelations about Noxious don’t seem to have shocked you.”
Her gaze was distant, abstracted. “After what I have discovered about my late husband, I doubt anything more I learn about any man could shock me. This voyage—or mission—or whatever one calls it—has been highly educational. No wonder Miles said I was naïve and unworldly.”
“He’s your brother,” Rupert said. “Brothers can take the oddest views of their siblings. Perhaps because I’m not your brother, I see you altogether differently. From the first you struck me as levelheaded and clear-eyed.”
“You’ve only known me in unusual circumstances,” she said.
“Maybe unusual circumstances show us what we’re truly made of,” he said. “Maybe your life before didn’t give you room enough to be yourself.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t sorted myself out yet. Lord Noxley is easier. His activities at least fit a pattern. We knew he was at war with Duval, competing for antiquities. As to his lordship’s army of demons and devils, Belzoni said much the same of his rivals’ agents. He said they were lawless men. European ‘renegadoes, desperadoes, and exiles,’ he called them.”
“It’s wonderful,” Rupert said.
Her green gaze shot to him.
“Your mind,” he said. “The way you collect evidence, sort it out, and come to the logical conclusion. It’s amazing, considering how much you’ve got in there.”
She smiled faintly. “It’s the one thing I can do.”
“It isn’t all you can do,” Rupert said.
The faint thread of pink over her cheekbones spread and deepened into rose.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” he said. “That is, it wasn’t all I meant, although you’re brilliant at lovemaking as well, and I do wish—”
Leena bustled in with the maps. She was no sooner gone than Tom entered with the coffee.
Rupert waited until the boy had departed and Daphne had poured the coffee.
He said, “I know why you’ve donned your weeds again. You didn’t need to warn me off. I know we’re obliged to observe the proprieties. That’s why I wish we were elsewhere.”
“It doesn’t matter where we are,” she said. “This isn’t the Arabian Nights. It was exciting, once—twice—to be carried away—”
“Was that all?” he said, and something stabbed inside, making him hot and cold at the same time. “You were carried away?”
“What do you want me to say?”
He didn’t have an answer.
The silence lengthened while he looked for words and couldn’t find any, found only feelings for which he had no names, either.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “But you must say something more than that. You’re the genius, not I.”
“The matter doesn’t require cleverness,” she said. “What we experienced was lust, pure and simple—well, not pure—”
“It isn’t simple for me,” he cut in, stabbed again. “This must be Egyptian lust, because it isn’t at all what I’m used to. I have…feelings.”
DAPHNE LONGED TO ask, naturally, what kind of feelings they were. She wanted to probe, as she would a subtlety of grammar or vocabulary.
She wanted, in short, to grasp at any straw.
But that was emotion, not reason.
Reason reminded her that in normal circumstances she was bookish and reclusive while he was a man who hungered for excitement. He was dashing; she was boring. They came from different worlds. The world of fashionable aristocratic society was far more alien to her than Egypt was.
She didn’t need to know what these feelings of his were. She knew they were fleeting, because he was not the sort of man whose interest in any woman could last. She knew she could not trust her heart to his feelings, and that was all she really needed to know.
“It’s Egypt,” she said. “It’s the excitement. It’s the narrow escapes from death. These make us feel more than we would do otherwise. That’s what I meant about the Arabian Nights. We’re living a romantic adventure. But it’s only temporary. Once we find Miles—”
“It will be over,” he finished for her.
“Yes,” she said.
“What a pity.” He shrugged and unrolled a map. “Your brother is headed to Dendera. Is that near Thebes?”
What a pity. That was all. He accepted her decision. Why should he not? What had she expected him to do: plead with her?
She turned her attention to the map. “There is Qena,” she said, pointing.
“Three or four days from here, it looks like, if the wind holds,” he said.
“There is Dendera, you see, across the river near the site of ancient Tentyris,” she went on. “The famous Temple of Hathor is there. She is the Egyptian goddess of…love.” She added quickly, “Thebes is forty or fifty miles upriver, if I recall aright.”
“Another few days, then,” he said without looking up from the map. “That’s supposedly Noxious’s stronghold at present. What do you wager he’ll head that way rather than turn back to Cairo?”
She stared at the map while possibilities chased one another through her mind.
“You said the papyrus was reputed to describe a Theban tomb,” he said. “Perhaps Noxious would like to help your brother find it.”
IT WAS TYPICAL of Faruq to hide right under his enemy’s nose, in Lord Noxley’s own domain.
The remains of ancient Thebes sprawled over both banks of the Nile. On the west bank, close by the river, lay the ruins of the village of Qurna, destroyed some years earlier by the Mamelukes. Rather than rebuild their huts, the Qurnans decided it was more efficient to live where they worked, in the Theban tombs. They did not, like other Egyptian peasants, get their living from agriculture. They got it from excavating tombs and selling papyri and other “anteekahs” they’d stripped from mummies.
They were reputed to be the most independent people in all of Egypt, with the possible exception of the Bedouins. One army after another had come to subdue the Qurnans…and failed. They did succeed, however, in reducing the population from some three thousand to about three hundred.
The survivors had hidden in the distant Theban hills, which contained thousands of tombs and an intricate network of passages connecting them. Here Faruq had taken refuge.
Unluckily for him, Ghazi had a way with tomb robbers. He set fire to the nearer tombs, where the old women resided, shot their vicious watchdogs, and killed their cows, sheep, and goats. Had he been after one of their own, this method would have failed. But the Qurnans were disinclined to sacrifice their mothers, grandmothers, and livestock to protect a foreigner.
This was how Ghazi located Faruq so quickly, within days of leaving Lord Noxley. The Qurnans, who knew all the best hiding places, also helped him find the dispatch bag under a heap of ransacked mummy parts. Once Ghazi had made sure the objects he wanted were inside, he rewarded the Qurnans generously, as his master would wish. He also rewarded Faruq as the master would wish, by beheading Duval’s chief agent before a large audience of Qurnans.
25 April
WHEN LORD NOXLEY and his friend disembarked from the Memnon at Luxor, they found Ghazi awaiting them. He proudly produced not only the papyrus and the interesting copy with its numerous notes but also—in a basket rather than a dispatch bag—Faruq’s head.
Lord Noxley’s face lit at the sight of these offerings, and he felt as sunny within as he appeared without.
Miles Archdale’s face was ashen.
“You must develop a stronger stomach,” Lord Noxley told him. “These people respect only force, especially the Qurnans. Now they will think twice before harboring any more of Duval’s friends.”
Ghazi had other news, which he conveyed privately to his master as they set out for the house: Archdale’s sister was not waiting quietly in Cairo, as everyone had assumed. Despite Ghazi’s best efforts, the authorities had failed to charge Hargate’s moron son with either the murder of the two men in the pyramid or that of Vanni Anaz. Consequently, Carsington was at large and at present taking Mrs. Pembroke up the Nile in search of her brother.
“By the time these things happened, I was far from Cairo,” Ghazi said. “Even if I had known—”
“You couldn’t turn back then.” Lord Noxley slowed his pace, so they might lag behind the rest of the party. He considered for a time, then his expression brightened. “Perhaps it’s for the best,” he said. “We’re here now. Why should she not be? Do go fetch her. As to Carsington, I should like it very much if you would make him go away.”
SEEING FARUQ’S HEAD gave Miles his first inkling of something being not quite right with Noxley’s.
In Dendera, Noxley had mentioned a “nasty business.” Until it was settled, he told Miles on the way to the boat, Miles would be safer in Thebes, where Noxley could rely upon the loyalty of the Turkish soldiers stationed there. The French kept clear of Thebes at present.
It was not as though Miles had any choice but to go where his friend chose. Once the Memnon set sail, though, Noxley explained the “nasty business.”
By “the French” his lordship meant, it turned out, a man named Duval, whom Miles vaguely recalled meeting at a consulate affair. Noxley said this was the man who’d hired the kidnappers. When they ransacked Miles’s belongings, they were looking for the papyrus. The next day, others of Duval’s henchmen went to the house and took both the papyrus and the copy.
In other words, Duval believed not only the story about the treasure-filled pharaoh’s tomb but also that Miles could read hieroglyphic writing.
So far, to Miles’s relief, no one had discovered the truth about Daphne. He preferred to keep it that way. She was vulnerable enough as it was.
Had she not been out at the time of the theft, she might have been taken, too, as a hostage, to make Miles cooperate with the French lunatic. But she’d been at the consulate, trying to make them do something, which, as everyone knew, they never did, unless the something involved getting ancient artifacts on the cheap. The theft sent her to Noxley, who had promptly set out to recover both Miles and the papyrus.
Clearly his lordship had succeeded on both counts.
Clearly Duval was a dangerous man.
Still, the business of the head…
It was all well and good to say, “When in Rome…” But the English had stopped cutting off people’s heads and displaying them for the edification of the masses some years ago, and Miles saw no reason for recommencing a barbaric practice merely because one was among barbarians.
Preoccupied with making sense of his friend’s behavior, he took little note of his surroundings beyond observing that the present-day Egyptians had built their houses in, around, and on the ancient temple of Luxor. Where the pharaoh and his high priests must have once performed sacred rituals, the peasants had built pigeon towers.
Noxley’s house, which occupied a corner of the southern end of the temple, was not the most imposing structure. No doubt it would easily fit in the entrance hall of his lordship’s ancestral home in Leicestershire. By Luxor standards, though, it was spacious and elegant, boasting upper and lower floors, the former airy and ideal for summer sleeping quarters.
At the house, Noxley suggested locking up the papyrus and the copy in a strongbox. Miles agreed, though he wondered who’d have the temerity to try to steal anything from anybody with Ghazi about.
Miles retired to his assigned chamber, bathed, and collapsed on the divan. He slept until a servant woke him for dinner.
When he rejoined Noxley in the comfortably appointed qa’a, Miles found he hadn’t any stomach for dinner.
“My poor fellow, pray forgive me,” Noxley said. “You must be sick to death of native fare. Let me tell Cook—”
“It isn’t the food but Faruq,” Miles said. “That head preys on my mind. Are you quite sure it’s wise to encourage persons like Ghazi in these barbaric practices?”
“Why is it any more barbaric than hanging a man at Tyburn?” Noxley said. “I should say it was more merciful. It can take a good while to die on the end of a rope, you know. As to keeping the head for display, this is the only way to make sure the word spreads. We want to leave Duval in no doubt of his chief henchman’s demise. Then he’ll know he’s lost the papyrus as well as you.” Noxley smiled. “He’ll be frothing at the mouth, like the mad dog he is.”
“I only met him the once, and he seemed sane enough to me,” Miles said. “Yet he cannot be, to believe that anyone has deciphered hieroglyphs yet. He must be madder still to act as he has, upon such a delusion.”
“It is a delusion, beyond question?” Noxley looked up from his plate, his expression oddly childlike.
“The papyrus contains royal names,” Miles said. “That’s all any scholar can ascertain at present.”
“You didn’t buy it because you believed it described a royal tomb, as Vanni Anaz claimed?” Noxley said, still watching him with that childlike expression. “Nothing about it told you it might be a treasure map of some kind?”
Miles shook his head. He’d bought it for Daphne. Because it was beautiful, in near-perfect condition. Because she had nothing half so fine in her collection. Because he knew her eyes would light up as they used to do, a long time ago, before she wed Pembroke. Her eyes had lit, and Miles had never seen her happier than when she set to work on it. To him, this made the thing worth ten times what he’d paid.
“I heard the French consul general, Drovetti, offered Belzoni ten thousand pounds for the alabaster sarcophagus he found,” Miles said. “I thought the papyrus, another rare specimen of great artistry, was of proportional value.”
“Perhaps you’ve explained Duval’s problem, then,” said Noxley. He signaled a servant to take away the dinner tray.
When the servant had gone, he said, “Duval has always believed the French ‘discovered’ Egypt, because of the scientific expedition and the Description de l’Egypte. He hates the English partly because we beat them but mostly because we took the Rosetta Stone as spoils of war.”
“Good gad, that was twenty years ago,” Miles said. “It isn’t as though the French never took valuable items from nations they conquered. I haven’t noticed them giving any of it back.”
“Try telling that to Duval,” Noxley said. “Still, he was no worse than any of the other antiquities hunters until recent years.”
Since you came and took men like Ghazi into your employ? Miles wondered. But the recollection of Faruq’s head made him cautious. “Any idea why?” he said.
“Belzoni,” Noxley said. “Duval has been in Egypt for more than twenty years. Belzoni was here for less than five, and now he’s famous around the world. Duval had excavated in the Biban el Muluk, the Valley of the Tombs of Kings. He never found a royal tomb, but Belzoni did—a magnificent one, containing a rare alabaster sarcophagus. Neither Duval nor Drovetti could find the entrance to Chephren’s pyramid, but Belzoni did. The French couldn’t find a way to move the head of Young Memnon, but Belzoni did, and now it’s in England.”
“Twenty years of work and nothing to show for it,” Miles said. Rather like Virgil Pembroke’s case, he thought. “He must have been mad with jealousy.” Again, like Pembroke, so jealous of Daphne’s gift for languages.
“Imagine what he felt when he heard about the papyrus Anaz had sold you,” Noxley said.
“The last straw,” Miles said.
Noxley smiled. “I’ll admit I felt a twinge of jealousy, too. Anaz must have taken a liking to you. He’s dead, by the way, poor fellow.”