Chapter 19
28 April
MONSIEUR DUVAL WAS IN ABYDOS, SOME SIXTY miles downriver from Dendera. The site lay well inland, in the Libyan Desert at the edge of the mountain range.
With him were several of his countrymen and local allies, who’d hastily retreated from Dendera when word reached them that the Memnon was headed that way. Their numbers being small and Lord Noxley’s feelings about the zodiac ceiling being well known, they decided to play least in sight until he’d moved on to Thebes.
When the man Jabbar arrived, Duval was inside an immense edifice that Strabo and Pliny had called the Memnonium. While his companions made the best of matters by trying to dig the building out from under centuries of accumulated sand and rubble, Duval spent his time staring at a wall in a small inner apartment. Carved into the wall were three long rows of cartouches, a list of kings.
There should have been twenty-six ovals in each row, but the wall was damaged, and a number of names were lost. None of those remaining resembled the one he remembered from the papyrus, the simpler of the two cartouches it had contained.
Now the papyrus was in Noxley’s hands.
The news had come late last night: Faruq was dead. Noxley had both Archdale and the papyrus, and they were in Thebes, beyond Duval’s reach, thanks to the Golden Devil’s reign of terror.
Still, all was not lost, Duval had thought.
He’d sent a large party downriver to intercept the Isis and capture Archdale’s sister. He planned to trade her for the papyrus and Archdale’s key to deciphering the hieroglyphs.
Then Jean-Claude Duval might still achieve the triumph he’d dreamt of: he would discover an untouched royal tomb, filled with treasure. The discovery would make him famous, more famous than Belzoni. The bulk of the treasure would go to the Louvre, not the British Museum. He would win honors. Medals would be struck in his name. And at last France would be avenged for the theft of the Rosetta Stone.
That was the dream, the ideal. He knew matters might not turn out quite that way. The papyrus might lead him to a royal tomb as empty of treasure as the others found so far. He knew it might take many years to find the tomb. He knew it was possible he’d never find it.
Still, even in the worst of cases, he would have the papyrus, which would go to the Louvre. And he—and therefore France—would have the key to decipherment, which was far more valuable, for it was a key to unlocking the secrets of the ancients.
No, all was not lost, he’d thought…until now.
Heart sinking, he gazed at Jabbar’s haggard face and said, “What has happened?”
“A slaughter,” Jabbar said. “The Golden Devil’s men were waiting for us. Most of our men are dead. A few escaped into the hills. Ghazi has the woman.”
“What, again we lose her?” Duval said. “First, the men in Asyut let her slip through their hands when she was unguarded, practically alone.”
“Drunken fools,” Jabbar said bitterly. “We took care, but our enemy had word of our doings. Sometimes I think even the jackals and snakes and vultures spy for the Golden Devil, for he knows everything.”
Lost, Duval thought. His last chance lost.
What now?
He didn’t know. Yet. But he would find a way.
He could not let the English fiend win.
DAPHNE’S CAPTORS HAD kept their word. They’d stopped fighting her people. As soon as she was aboard their boat, they cut the Isis’s mooring ropes and let the swift current carry the dahabeeya downstream.
It would be a while, probably, before her crew had the boat under control. Meanwhile, the Isis might collide with a sandbank or another boat. Still, those aboard were far more likely to survive such mishaps than a battle with these villains. With Rupert dead, who could stop them from slaughtering everyone aboard and sinking the dahabeeya?
Rupert dead.
She ought to feel something, but she was numb.
After a short time on the river, her captors took her overland on horseback. Wherever they were going, they were going swiftly, with only the shortest possible pauses to rest and refresh the animals and themselves. Still, they treated her well enough, allowing her privacy to deal with nature’s needs and a small tent of her own to rest in. She didn’t know if she rested or not or ate or not. Food didn’t matter. Sleep didn’t matter.
She didn’t care how they treated her or what would become of her.
Time had stopped for her. The scene in her mind’s eye was clearer to her than the passing landscape: the flash of fire from the pistol aimed at Rupert’s heart…the surprised expression on his face…his hand clutching his chest while the impact knocked him backward…and over…the splash as his body hit the water.
She couldn’t weep. She felt frozen, the way she’d felt six months into her marriage, when she’d fully understood how immense and serious a mistake she’d made.
She’d been a prisoner then, too.
She’d trained herself not to think about the hurt, to concentrate instead on her work and how to hide it from Virgil and how to communicate with the scholarly world outside. The rage and despair remained, but she kept them locked inside. She couldn’t live the rest of her life in open hostility with her husband. She could only build a wall around herself, and make a world inside it where she could live.
She had no work now to distract her, and she wasn’t the girl she’d been then. She wasn’t even the same woman she’d been a few weeks ago.
And in this new woman, the one she’d become, the rage and despair grew, hour by hour, until there was no more room for it inside.
It was the second evening of her captivity, and Ghazi had brought her food. He smiled and spoke so smoothly, and all she could think of was Rupert’s smile, and the sound of his deep voice…and his hands, his large, capable hands.
She looked at Ghazi’s hands, holding the bowl, and at her own as she reached to take it from him. Her right hand balled into a fist, and she knocked the bowl away, and the rage and despair poured out in a stream of Arabic invective.
The other men, gathered about the fire, all turned and stared at her, eyes wide and mouths open. They remained that way, like statues, during the short, deadly silence that followed.
Then Ghazi laughed. “Your Arabic is very pretty,” he said. “You know all the curses. My men, I know, would like to teach you love words. I myself would like so much to teach you some manners. But we must leave all the lessons to the master. He will tame you soon enough.”
“If your master Duval is foolish enough to try to tame a viper, let him try,” she said.
“Duval?” Ghazi laughed. “Ah, no wonder you are so fierce, little viper. You have mistaken us. Duval is not our master. Can you not see where we go, angry serpent? South, to Thebes, where your brother is, and where the Golden Devil rules. And so, you see, you are safe, and have nothing to fear.”
She knew she wasn’t safe. But she had nothing to lose now, and so, nothing to fear.
THE LADY ARRIVED in Luxor on Sunday night, having made the last leg of the journey on the river. Lord Noxley was at the landing place to meet her. Though the moon hadn’t yet risen, and the torches only dimly illuminated the scene, he could see that all was far from well. She was stiff and formal. He heard no pleasure or even relief in her voice when she returned his greeting. She declined his arm.
“My brother,” she said, drawing away from him. “These brutes of yours said Miles was here.”
Brutes of yours. A very bad sign. Something had gone wrong. Someone had bungled.
Lord Noxley concealed his displeasure. His face showed only puzzlement. Still, those who knew him saw the thundercloud forming as clearly as if it had been broad day and a storm truly threatened.
“Archdale is quite safe,” he said. “Merely indisposed at the moment, else he’d be here.”
“Sick?” she said.
“No, no. I wish you would not distress yourself. Come, let us postpone discussion until you’ve had time to rest. You must be weary and wishing—”
“What’s wrong with him?” she cut in.
“A trifle too much to drink,” Noxley said. Dead drunk was more like it. “I hadn’t expected you before tomorrow. He will be so—”
“One of your men killed Rupert Carsington,” she said.
The thundercloud swelled and darkened. “Surely not,” Lord Noxley said. “I cannot conceive how—”
“I saw it,” she said. “Pray do not tell me I must have imagined it. I will not be humored or patronized. I am not a child.”
“No, certainly not.”
“I shall insist upon a full report to the authorities,” she said. “I shall wish to make a statement. Tomorrow, as soon as may be. In the meantime, I want to see my brother, indisposed or not. Then I want a bath. And a bed.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Perhaps—”
“And I want to be left alone. In peace.”
“Certainly. A terrible shock. I am so sorry.”
He would most certainly make someone else sorry, too, very sorry.
He gave Mrs. Pembroke into the care of a maidservant, who took her to see the unconscious Archdale, then helped her bathe and put her to bed.
While his future bride sank into exhausted sleep upon her divan, his lordship listened to Ghazi’s report.
The thundercloud had grown black by now. The lady was supposed to be warm with gratitude to her rescuer and hero, Asheton Noxley. Instead, she was cold and angry.
She was supposed to love him. At present, she seemed to hate him. Now he must spend days—perhaps weeks—winning her over.
He was very unhappy, which boded ill for somebody, perhaps several somebodies.
“I told you I wanted Carsington out of the way,” he said. “Did I not point out that the simplest method was to have him taken to the nearest guardhouse for questioning?” Once Carsington was in someone else’s custody, it would be easy enough to arrange for him to disappear or die of “natural causes.” It was perfectly natural to die, for instance, if a pillow got stuck on your face or poison got into your food or a viper got into your bed.
Instead, a man Mrs. Pembroke knew was in Lord Noxley’s employ had killed Carsington. While she watched.
“I can scarcely believe my ears,” his lordship said, shaking his head. “You are supposed to be men of experience. But a mongoose nips you in the leg, and all your discipline is thrown to pieces. You knew we needed to be careful with him. You knew the matter required the utmost discretion. Now, thanks to your carelessness, I am tainted with the murder of an English nobleman’s son.”
The nobleman in question was not one with whom his lordship cared to cross swords.
“I agree, lord,” Ghazi said. “It was all very stupid. But if I may explain one matter for which we were not prepared.”
“You didn’t expect the mongoose attack,” Lord Noxley said. “On its hind legs I daresay it came all the way up to your knee. Ah, but their teeth are very sharp, and once they take hold, they don’t let go. Terrifying monsters, indeed.”
“I do not know how it was,” Ghazi said stolidly, “but the Egyptians took courage from the mongoose, I think. They fought us. Common Egyptians—they rose up and fought us.”
Lord Noxley frowned at him. No one could have been prepared for that. Egyptians—common Egyptians, that is, not members of the military—cowered, hid, or ran away. They didn’t fight.
“If they had not fought, we might have taken the Englishman away with no difficulty,” said Ghazi. “We had only to beat the others a little, and soon he must yield. A big man, but with a heart soft like those of so many of your people. I agree there is no excuse for the killing. It was needless and stupid.”
Lord Noxley considered. After a moment, he said, “The killer must be brought to justice.”
Ghazi piously agreed.
“You had better turn him over to the Turkish soldiers,” Lord Noxley said.
Forty Turkish soldiers were stationed in Luxor, for it was a town of some importance. Torturing the murderer would amuse them, and keeping the soldiers entertained was one way to insure their loyalty. Paying them—which the pasha often failed to do—was another. But that presented no problems.
Once he wed Virgil Pembroke’s wealthy widow, Lord Noxley could afford to be very generous, indeed.
Monday 30 April
“DEVIL TAKE IT,” Miles said. “You were supposed to be safe in Cairo.”
It wasn’t the most affectionate greeting for a sister he hadn’t seen in a month, but he wasn’t feeling affectionate at the moment. His head pounded, a fire raged behind his eyeballs, and his mouth tasted like camel’s breath.
He’d dreamt of her last night, or thought it was a dream. She said she’d come in to see him, to make sure he was really there.
Now she was really there—here—in his room, sitting on the edge of the divan, and there was no imagining it was a dream.
“You didn’t know I was coming?” she said. “Your friend didn’t tell you he’d sent men to collect me?”
“I think he likes surprises,” Miles said. Like heads in baskets. He sat up fully, dragging his hand through his hair.
“You look frightful,” she said.
“So do you,” he said. It wasn’t because she was dressed like an Egyptian man, minus turban. Her face was dead white, and shadows ringed her eyes.
She glanced down at her clothes. “I hadn’t time to pack.”
“I don’t mean your clothes,” he said. “What’s happened to you?”
“They killed Rupert Carsington,” she said.
“Say again?”
She repeated the sentence. Then she told him how she’d occupied herself during the last month.
Miles lay down again, clutching his head and trying to take it in. His bookish, reclusive sister had set out—with Rupert Carsington!—Lord Hargate’s hellion son!—to find Miles. He could hardly follow the rest of her adventures, when his mind couldn’t compass the first simple facts.
Quiet, studious Daphne. Chasing up the Nile. With Rupert Carsington!
“You should not have drunk so much,” she said. “I have never known you to get into that state. You are developing very bad habits. I hope it isn’t Noxley’s influence.”
He dragged himself up again. “It’s the curst papyrus,” he said. “He takes it out every night and wants to talk about it. I think he thinks I know something I don’t.”
“Well, you don’t know anything about it,” she said.
“I mean, I think he thinks what the French lunatic thinks.”
“That you can read it,” she said.
“I’ve told him no one can read it. I’ve told him I went to Giza to study the entrance to Chephren’s pyramid, to try to discern the clues Belzoni saw, the ones that told him where the entrance was. Something about the way the rubble lay. I thought, if I could see what Belzoni saw, I could apply the knowledge in Thebes, the way Belzoni did, and find a royal tomb. I told him the papyrus got me itching to find another one. But Noxley keeps picking at my brain, as though he thinks I’m keeping secrets from him.”
“You are,” she said. “My secret.”
“He thinks it’s the key to decipherment. I drink because his delicate probing is driving me mad.”
“Well, then, we shall have to clarify matters,” she said. “He’s asked us to join him in the qa’a. Shall I go ahead or wait for you?”
“Wait,” he said. “I’d rather not leave you alone with him.”
She gave a short laugh.
“What’s so amusing?” he said.
“I’ve looked a viper in the eye before,” she said.
He didn’t understand. She was behaving strangely. This wasn’t the Daphne he knew. It must be the shock, he thought. She’d seen a man killed, and she’d traveled across the desert with Ghazi and his band of merry murderers. Not to mention the river journey. With Rupert Carsington!
She rose. “I’ll wait for you in my room,” she said. “I have a fine view.”
It was only after she left that he became aware of the distant sound. A screech or shriek. Some sort of bird, perhaps.
HE LOOKED SO innocent, Daphne thought. Golden curls and clear blue eyes. He was dressed Arab style though minus the turban and beard and all in white instead of the bright colors the locals favored.
All in white, like an angel.
Smiling, all sunshine, as though all were right with the world.
She smiled, too, because she did not plan to make anything easy for him. She settled onto the divan and said, yes, she’d slept well, thank you. And no, she had no objections to native food, and yes, coffee would be just the thing—very strong, please, as Miles needed a stimulant.
Miles sat next to her, protective, though he was so ill and weak, he could scarcely sit upright. He’d never had a head for drinking.
Noxley apologized for her limited wardrobe. “I cannot think why the men failed to collect your belongings,” he said.
“They were too busy killing people,” she said.
“Daph,” Miles murmured, giving her a nudge.
She ignored him. “Speaking of which—”
“Daph, could we postpone unpleasant subjects until after I’ve swallowed some coffee?” Miles said. “Good gad, what’s that horrible noise?” He clutched his head.
Even without an aching head, she, too, found it disturbing. She’d heard it earlier, but faintly. She’d thought it some exotic bird or animal. Or maybe peacocks.
“The screaming, you mean?” said Noxley.
“It’s human?” Miles said.
“Oh, yes,” Noxley said. “It appears the Turkish soldiers are interrogating the man who shot Mr. Carsington.” He brought his innocent blue gaze back to Daphne. “Naturally, as soon as you informed me, I questioned my men and ordered the culprit brought to justice.”
“It sounds as though they’re torturing him,” she said.
“The Turks’ notions of justice are different from ours,” he said. “If the noise troubles you, I’ll request they remove him out of earshot. It will not go on very much longer, at any rate. They must take him back to Cairo. Muhammad Ali will want the English consul general to witness the execution. Doubtless the assassin’s head will be sent to Lord Hargate.”
“Gad, another one,” Miles muttered. “In a basket, I don’t doubt.”
A servant glided in, bearing an enormous tray. He set it down upon the elaborately carved stool near the divan and glided away.
“You had wanted the matter dealt with promptly,” said Lord Noxley. “I wished to spare you the ordeal of reliving the experience.”
As though she could ever stop reliving it.
He looked down for a moment, at his hands, then up at her again, all blue-eyed innocence. “I cannot apologize enough,” he said. “My men were obliged to act in haste, for they’d word that Duval’s people were coming for you. The trouble is, thinking is not what they do best. In their eagerness to protect you, they were impatient, clumsy, and stupid. They are unaccustomed to defiance from the common people. It gave them a shock that disordered their lamentably limited wits.”
“I see,” she said. “I had wondered why I had to be forcibly removed from my boat. I should have thought an armed escort would have sufficed as protection. But your men were not thinking clearly—or at all.”
He bowed his head again and pressed two fingers to the place between his eyebrows. “I do see your point. It is so difficult to explain the way of things here.”
“Suppose you don’t,” she said. “Suppose you say plainly that you are the Golden Devil, the terror of Upper Egypt, and you want us here for a particular reason, not necessarily altruistic.”
She heard Miles suck in his breath.
Noxley winced and shut his eyes.
“Daph,” Miles said, touching her arm.
She shook him off. “What is it, my lord?” she pressed. “The papyrus? It does have a curious effect on men. Poisons their judgment. Makes them see things that aren’t there. Royal tombs, heaped with treasure. People who can read hieroglyphic writing. My papyrus could be an account of a battle or a proclamation—no more to do with treasure than the Rosetta Stone. But men see the pair of cartouches, and their imaginations run away with them. You are such romantic creatures.”
Lord Noxley’s head came up. “Your papyrus,” he repeated. “You said—”
“It’s mine,” she said. “Miles bought it for me. Because I’m the one. He is the famous scholar Miles Archdale, but I am his brain.”
AT SUNSET SHE stood at the window of her room, looking out over the river.
Like London, Thebes was built on both sides of the river. There the resemblance ended. This was truly another world. Here, above the fertile plain of the eastern bank rose the immense temples, obelisks, and pylons of Luxor and Karnak. On the plain of the western bank the Colossi of Memnon sat upon on their thrones. Behind them loomed the vast necropolis, with its temples and tombs. The latter, cut into the flanks of the Libyan hills, honeycombed the eastern slope. She gazed at the mountains that concealed the Biban el Muluk and its royal tombs.
“Is your mind poisoned, too? Have you completely taken leave of your senses?”
She turned toward the door, where her brother stood. “Has the sun boiled away your brain, Daph?” he said. He came in, slamming the door behind him. “We can’t stay here,” he said. “He is—he is—” With his forefinger Miles made a circular motion near his temple.
“I don’t care what he is,” she said, turning back to the window. “We have no pressing reason to return to Cairo, as he pointed out. He’s most eager to accommodate us. He’s promised to send to Cairo for my books and materials. There may be a difficulty in replacing my Coptic lexicons—they were aboard the Isis—but he’s promised to make inquiries at the Coptic monasteries.”
“Daph, you must have heard how his fellows ‘make inquiries,’ ” Miles said. “They beat the soles of a man’s feet with a stick. For hours. And that’s the mildest sort of interrogation.”
“I’ll ask him not to abuse the monks,” she said. “He wants to keep me happy.”
“Of course he wants to keep you happy,” Miles said. “You’re filthy rich. With your backing, he could excavate the entire valley. He could make himself king of Thebes. You’re like the goose that lays the golden eggs: an endless supply of money.”
Virgil’s conscience money, she thought. It had been easier for him to leave her everything after he was dead than to treat her with respect and kindness while he lived.
“We shall be able to explore all of Thebes unhindered,” she said. “All the royal tombs, including the one Belzoni found. I’ll have hundreds upon hundreds of samples of hieroglyphic writing. It is a great opportunity. And I shan’t have to pretend to be someone I am not.”
“And he’ll be able to make either of us do whatever he wants simply by threatening the other,” Miles said.
“Then it would be wise not to provoke him to use threats,” she said.
“He’s got it in his head to marry you,” Miles said. “Can’t you see? He must be master of everything: of you, of your money. And mad or not, Golden Devil or not, he looks at you the same way other men do.”
She remembered the way Rupert looked at her, the glint of laughter in his eyes. She remembered that last afternoon on the Isis.
We could marry.
Her throat started to close up. She bowed her head and willed the grief back. If she gave in, she’d sink and never find her way out again. She would be lost. She couldn’t afford grief. She had to be strong and hard if she hoped to survive this and find a way out.
“Use your head,” she said, her voice harsh. “Your friend won’t let us go. We have to make the best of matters.”
“The way you made the best of Pembroke?” Miles said. “Do you think I want to see you suffer again?”
She made herself look at him. She smiled crookedly. “If I could survive Virgil, I can survive anything,” she said. “We’ll get out of this somehow. But it will take time and thought and care—and you must learn to have more confidence in me.”
ON TUESDAY AND Wednesday they toured Luxor, which, as she’d already discerned, was a grander spectacle when viewed from a distance, from the other side of the river or when tidied by the artists of the Description de l’Egypte. The reality, at close quarters, depressed her spirits, although that may have simply been her state of mind.
The place seemed to close in on her: the hovels squeezed into every corner and crevice, the squalor, the pigeons, the refuse, the mounds of sand and rubbish choking obelisks, pylons, columns.
Still, she made herself view it with a scholar’s eyes. On Wednesday she borrowed a notebook from Lord Noxley and began copying inscriptions.
On Thursday, they went to Karnak. It was no great distance away: less than two miles. They rode their donkeys along the Avenue of Sphinxes, or what was left of it. At present, most of the sphinxes were destroyed, and the southern part of the avenue was covered with soil and rubbish.
Yet this destruction failed to diminish the place. Neither did the monuments’ being half buried make them any the less overwhelming. The vast pylons, the giant forests of columns, the obelisks, colossi, and sphinxes—it was all as the Description de l’Egypte had illustrated, at length and in detail. Nonetheless, the reality far exceeded anything Daphne could have imagined.
As they made their way along the principal avenue in the hypostyle hall, she gazed up at the avenue of twelve immense columns—the largest in any Egyptian building, Noxley said—and wondered what Rupert would have made of it.
In her mind’s eye she saw him looking up at one of the lotus-shaped capitals much as he’d gazed at Chephren’s pyramid: fists on his hips, the breeze ruffling his black hair. She could almost hear the deep voice saying, “It’s big.”
And she smiled, but her lips wobbled, and her throat ached, and tears blurred her vision.
She closed her eyes and willed back the tears. She must keep working, employ her intellect instead of her emotions. Her work had given her strength before and would again. Her mind was the one ally she could always rely upon. In time, it would show her the way out.
THAT NIGHT DAPHNE dreamt of a pharaoh’s tomb.
She descended sixteen steps into an entrance passage. At the end of it was a chamber crowded with various objects: boxes, baskets, jars, and articles of furniture shaped like animals. Her gaze was drawn to the right, to two figures guarding a door. She passed the two figures and stepped through the doorway into a dark chamber.
A faint light showed her a pair of doors. She opened them. An immense golden sarcophagus stood within. Goddesses stood at its corners, their wings spread out, protecting what lay within.
Daphne climbed a set of steps and looked down into the sarcophagus.
There lay Rupert Carsington, as though asleep, wearing a small, sweet smile like the one on the statue of Ramesses the Great at Memphis.
He wore a kilt of gold cloth and lay with his arms crossed over his naked chest. In the soft light, the muscled planes of his torso gleamed a darker gold.
She reached down and touched his face.
“Miss you,” she whispered.
Tears trickled down her face and onto his.
He said, “Daphne, wake up.”
No. She didn’t want to leave the dream. She would never see him again except in dreams.
“Daphne, wake up.”
She tried to say no, but nothing came out.
She opened her eyes to darkness. A hand covered her mouth. It wasn’t her hand. It was big, and…familiar.
There was the scent. Man-scent. His.
A deep voice growled, “No screaming. No weeping. No fainting.”
She choked out the three words on a sob, as her arms went round his neck: “I. Never. Faint.”