One of the guards had them enthralled with a story — about a white-haired ghost who’d caused a boat to collide with a sandbank and sink near Minya a week ago.
THE GHOST, THE guard said, had a very small beard, even though it appeared as a full-grown male. It was tall — almost as tall as the English sir — and dressed like a foreigner. It was very pale and wearing chains. Several people had seen it, the guard said.
Some on shore had seen the apparition on the boat as it was sinking. They saw two men jump into the water and swim away in terror. The ghost appeared again upriver later the same night, floating toward the tombs, then again a few nights later, going to the river. Everyone avoided the tombs beyond the red hill now, because of him.
Ordinarily, Daphne would have simply smiled at the tale. Egyptians’ lives were thickly populated with supernatural beings. But the “white” hair and small beard gave her pause, and she asked for a fuller account.
As she translated for Mr. Carsington, she saw the stiff, distant expression fade from his countenance and an arrested look come into his dark eyes. He, too, had guessed the ghost’s identity. Like her, though, he was careful to show no more than a mild interest in the tale.
But when the guard was done and had rejoined the others, Mr. Carsington said in a low voice, “Your brother, I collect.”
Her heart thrummed — with hope, anticipation, and fear, too. She composed herself, met his gaze, and nodded. “The guard says the boat broke apart when it stuck on a sandbank. Several corpses have turned up but no survivors, apparently. He must have escaped.”
“He played a ghost to keep people away,” Mr. Carsington said. “Very wise of him.”
“Miles has a vivid imagination,” she said. “When it comes to solving practical problems, he can be amazingly sharp and quick, often ingenious.”
“That’s good,” Mr. Carsington said. “From all I’ve heard, Minya isn’t a safe place for a solitary European.”
In truth, even with a large, armed escort and Mr. Carsington towering over everybody, Daphne had been glad to leave the town behind.
Leena hadn’t exaggerated about the people. Daphne had never before seen in one place so many one-eyed individuals or so many sickly and stunted children. She knew the eye disease opthalmia was one of Egypt’s perils, and she’d brought sulphate of copper and citron ointment, the medicines recommended to treat it.
The Egyptians had no medicines and took no precautions against disease. Magic and superstition ruled. She’d seen too many small children — even helpless babies — with flies clustered upon their eyes. She’d seen a mother prevent a child from brushing them away. She’d also heard that some boys were deliberately mutilated to make them ineligible for conscription into Muhammad Ali’s army.
The flies and scarred faces were reason enough to pass through the town quickly, even had it been friendly. It was not friendly. The people were sullen and evasive.
Miles, who’d been in charge of planning their journey, had told her about the two hundred miles of marauders. No wonder he’d done what he could to keep people away.
“The Egyptians believe in an immense variety of jinn, good and bad,” she told Mr. Carsington. “Ghosts, ghouls, and afreets — demons — are species of jinn. They frequent graveyards and tombs.”
“Well, he’s not haunting the burial ground at the moment,” Mr. Carsington said. “I daresay he only comes out at night.”
“There are tombs a short distance southward,” she said, pointing. “Near the red mound, the Kom el Ahmar.”
“Then we’d better have a look,” he said.
IT WAS DANGEROUSLY close to sunset before they found any sign of Archdale, and then it was clear they’d come too late.
As the day waned, their Egyptian entourage had grown increasingly reluctant to continue the search. At present, the guards waited outside the tomb. Most of the crew ventured only a few feet inside the entrance. Only Tom and another young servant, Yusef, carrying the torches, had bravely followed Rupert and Mrs. Pembroke into the interior.
Deep within the tomb they found the remains of a cooking fire and other signs of habitation. This was not unusual, Rupert knew. Foreign explorers often took up residence in tombs and temples, as did some natives.
But this tomb held pieces of chain, as well as the remnants of English clothing of high quality. While dirty and torn, it was royal raiment compared to what the average Egyptian peasant wore. No native tomb dweller would have left such riches behind, in plain sight.
At the moment, Tom and Yusef stood in a corner, talking in subdued tones.
Mrs. Pembroke had the ragged garments and pieces of chain in her hands. She was staring at them, her torch-lit countenance bleak.
The heartbroken look only added to the nasty stew of emotion Rupert was experiencing.
He’d rather not think about how he felt or she felt. He wanted to get out of here and on to the next thing. But he had to do something, say something. She’d started the search so eagerly and hopefully, and she was so bitterly disappointed.
Not to mention that Rupert was still disturbed about what had happened earlier.
While he wasn’t a saint, he did have rules, simple sporting rules regarding what a gentleman did and did not do. A gentleman didn’t bed an unmarried lady, for instance. He did bed unwed women who weren’t ladies: actresses, ballet dancers, courtesans, and such. He might bed a married lady — but Rupert had always shied away from such liaisons, deeming them far too complicated. Widows, though, weren’t complicated. Virginity breached, husbands permanently out of the picture, they were supposed to be fair game.
He was desperately in lust with this widow. She’d shown clear signs that she wasn’t indifferent to him. She wasn’t easy to seduce, and the challenge made her even more attractive.
Besides, she had the face and figure of a goddess and a gigantic brain. Everyone knew goddesses were more difficult and dangerous than the common run of females. Look at what happened in the Greek myths. You couldn’t expect an extraordinary woman to behave like an ordinary one.
If she’d hit him with the rifle butt or bloodied his nose or at the very least given him a blistering scold earlier, he would have accepted the punishment cheerfully. He’d misbehaved, after all, using a minor accident as an excuse to take an outrageous liberty.
Instead, the baffling creature blamed herself and apologized to him, of all things! She was vexed with herself instead of with him. This made no sense. Worse, it made him feel all wrong inside. He was experiencing the ghastly sensation he remembered from boyhood: conscience. It hadn’t troubled him in years. Now it yowled at him and tied his innards in knots.
Because of a bit of a grope with a widow who’d said in plain English that she liked him physically!
“Well, we’re a few days late, it seems,” he said finally. “Still, looking on the bright side, we know we’re on the right track: he isn’t being held captive in Cairo. He’s less than a week ahead of us.”
“Or behind us,” she said. “He might be trying to return to Cairo.”
Or he might be dead. Or he might have moved on to another hiding place. The cliffs were riddled with tombs. It was a miracle they’d found any sign of Archdale after only half a day’s search.
But she knew this as well as Rupert did, and if he didn’t say something to rouse her spirits, she’d lose heart. Her face would get the dead-white, taut look that upset him almost as much as actual weeping.
“You’d think Noxious would have found him by now, then,” Rupert said. “You’d think he’d be looking diligently. Everyone stops at Minya. Surely he’d have heard about the boat mishap, and put two and two together. It hardly takes a genius. After all, I worked it out.”
She looked up, and he saw her come out of whatever dark place of her immense brain she’d gone into. Her countenance brightened. Even in the wavering torchlight Rupert could see her remarkable eyes shifting back and forth.
“Good grief, I’d forgotten about him,” she said
. “But there’s been nothing to remind me. No one’s mentioned him. Isn’t that odd? His boat is distinctive, you said. He’s been up and down the Nile several times. People would recognize his boat. The kashef would know him.”
“Not so strange,” Rupert said. “The locals aren’t the most forthcoming lot of Egyptians we’ve ever encountered.”
“Then we’ll have to make them talk,” she said. Clutching her brother’s effects to her bosom, she hurried out.
AS THEY WERE returning to the landing place, Daphne was calculating her stores, debating whether she ought to sacrifice another set of the pistols or perhaps some of Miles’s instruments as bribery. She was glad to have a plan of sorts, something productive to think about.
She had not realized how deeply — painfully so — she’d hoped, until the hope was dashed. She had not realized, truly, how much she missed Miles until she held his filthy shirt in her hands. Then to see the broken pieces of chain…and imagine what he’d endured, and feel so helpless…She’d told herself not to succumb to despair, to be grateful she had not found his body. She’d told herself not to weep. It would avail nothing.
But never had she wanted so much to sink to her knees and cry until she had no tears left.
She was recovered now, though, thanks to Mr. Carsington’s mentioning Lord Noxley.
His lordship had pointed out how quickly news traveled here. It was odd that no one in Minya had said a word about him. His boat must have stopped there for supplies. Otherwise, they must wait until they reached Asyut, nearly a hundred miles away.
Calculating bribes and speculating about his lordship kept her mind occupied all the way back to the landing place. As they neared the water, a young woman pushed past the men and thrust a baby wrapped in dirty rags in Daphne’s face.
“Help my child,” the woman cried in anguished Arabic. “Give the babe your magic, English lady.”
Some of the men tried to push the woman away.
Mr. Carsington’s arm went around Daphne’s shoulders.
“Her baby’s sick,” Daphne said.
“I can see that,” he said. “But they’re all sick, and I don’t trust anybody. Tom, get a coin from my coat, and give it to her.” He drew Daphne closer. “Come away.”
Daphne started to go with him but glanced back. The woman was young, little more than a girl. She shook her head at Udail/Tom, who was holding out a coin. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “My baby,” she cried. “Please, English lady.”
Daphne glanced up at Mr. Carsington.
He wore a pained expression.
Then to the woman she said, “Come with us.”
RUPERT COULD SEE that the mother was young, poor, and desperate. He didn’t want to turn his back on her. But it might be a trap. Or it might lead to trouble. If the babe died — and it looked very near to drawing its last feeble breath — any of a number of things might happen, none of them good. Tom and Leena had agreed that blood feud was popular in the countryside.
Rupert had enough to do, protecting Mrs. Pembroke and her entourage from villains. What the Isis did not need was a lot of vengeful villagers in pursuit as well.
The sensible thing to do was give the girl a generous baksheesh and get away as quickly as possible.
He would have been sensible, would have carried away Mrs. Pembroke bodily if necessary — if the confounded Egyptian female had not commenced weeping.
As the first tears trickled down, he knew he hadn’t a prayer.
He got everyone safely aboard and kept vigilant watch as they crossed to the Isis. There he spent his time on deck with the men. Occasionally, Leena would emerge from the middle cabin, which had been quickly transformed into the Isis’s infirmary. Her reports on the infant’s progress were invariably pessimistic. The child suffered from a bilious fever, perhaps the typhus fever or something even worse. Fevers killed strong, healthy adults. They’d brought the consul general to death’s door more than once, she’d heard, and he had proper doctors, not shamans and village hags. What hope was there for a weak, ill-fed baby who’d been treated with nothing but charms and magic spells for days? Now they would all catch the fever and die in one of the filthiest and ugliest places in all the world, and when they were all dead, the peasants would come and pillage the boat and throw their bodies in the river for the fish and the crocodiles to eat.
After Leena returned to her mistress — and certain death, by the sounds of it — Rupert could spend the next several hours cursing himself for once again falling victim to feminine tears.
He was an idiot. No, worse, he was a cliché.
Women wept. Easily and often. An adult male ought to be able to remain sane while they did so. Had he remained sane, Mrs. Pembroke would be in no danger — or no more than the usual danger — of contracting some unspeakable foreign disease.
They were miles from civilization and anything remotely resembling medical care. All she had was her medicine case, whose contents were shrinking, thanks to the crew members’ frequent accidents. She’d treated with success someone’s bruised foot, someone else’s swollen thumb, and one case of sunstroke. Rupert had no idea how much she knew about treating fever. More than he did, beyond question. If she fell ill, he wouldn’t have the first idea what to do.
From sunset until the last streak of light faded from the sky and the stars arranged themselves in the familiar constellations, Rupert paced the deck, growled when spoken to, and repeatedly waved away Tom’s attempts to lure him into the front cabin to take some supper.
When he heard the footsteps behind him, he assumed it was Tom again, come to plague him.
“No, I don’t want any supper,” Rupert said. “No. Is that not clear? I thought you had mastered the English term. Clearly, I was wrong. What is the Egyptian word for no? How about bokra? Not today.”
“No is la,” came an amused feminine voice. “The polite refusal would be la shokran.”
He turned quickly, and his heart slammed into his rib cage. He managed to keep from reaching for her and pulling her into his arms. But he couldn’t suppress the moronic smile or the laugh of pleasure that it turned into.
All this, at the sound of her voice.
But she sounded happy. He was relieved, naturally. The child wasn’t dead. The prognosis must be hopeful, else he’d have heard the disappointment and sorrow in her voice.
“The babe?” he said. “It’s well?”
“It’s a she, amazingly enough,” she said. “Girls are not very important and normally wouldn’t be worth the trouble. But Sabah’s mother deems her exceedingly valuable. The name means morning, you know. We got some liquids into her, which seemed to help. We gave her a cool bath, and she bore it well, unlike her mama, who was terrified. Then I tried a decoction of Peruvian bark. The fever seems to be declining. Quite rapidly, in fact.”
Rupert let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said.
“You can have no idea how relieved I am,” she said.
Not nearly as relieved as he, he’d wager.
“I have no experience of children,” she went on. “Still, I did care for my parents and Virgil, and must have absorbed some doctoring wisdom. It is little enough, but these people have none. A compress, a bath, a poultice — the simplest remedies are great miracles and magic to them. Good grief, what a world this is.” Her voice caught.
“You’ve had a long and trying day,” he said quickly. “Come inside and help me eat the supper Tom’s so frantic about.” He paused and added, “Dr. Pembroke.”
She laughed at that, but he heard the strain in her voice.
“Come, I’m starved,” he said. And then it was simple instinct to put a protective arm about her shoulders and lead her inside.
They had a quiet, companionable meal, and Rupert was reaching for his third helping of sweet pastry when Leena screamed.
Chapter 13
EVERYONE IRRUPTED INTO THE PASSAGE AT once: Daphne, Mr. Carsington with a piece of pastry in his
hand, the mother Nafisah with the baby clutched to her bosom, and Leena, who slammed the door to Daphne’s cabin shut behind her.
She ended the barrage of questions with the grim announcement, “Mongoose.”
“Is that all?” said Mr. Carsington. He made his way through the gantlet of females and grasped the door handle. “I thought someone was cutting your throat.”
“He showed his teeth at me,” Leena said.
Mr. Carsington opened the door and smiled. “Gad, it’s only a baby. Well, not fully grown at any rate.” The smile faded. “But he’s got — or is it a she? I think it’s a she, actually.”
“What’s it got?” Daphne said. She edged round Nafisah and baby and past Leena and on tiptoe looked over Mr. Carsington’s shoulder. “Oh, it’s Miles’s shirt.”
The creature had a clump of sleeve in her teeth. She gazed balefully at the humans in the doorway.
“They’re good with rats,” Mr. Carsington said. “And snakes. She could come in handy, Mrs. Pembroke, when you’re dismantling temples and pyramids.” As he spoke, he turned to meet her gaze, his as black as midnight. His mouth was mere inches away, a smile teasing at the very corners. She wanted to bring her lips to that hint of a smile and kiss it away from him and into her. She needed the smile, the secret joke, the humor that was so much a part of his fierce aliveness.
She inched back and told herself to calm down. “We have two cats,” she said.
“Killing venomous snakes is not their specialty,” Mr. Carsington said. “Recollect, you do like to poke about places where short-tempered vipers like to sleep.”
“I am not at all sure the cats will be happy about her,” Daphne said. “Besides, she might be wild. Or rabid. I cannot think why any rational mongoose would wish to eat a dirty shirt. It is not as though there is any shortage of rats hereabouts.”
“Yes, it’s very interesting,” said Mr. Carsington. “Such interesting things happen in your vicinity.” His amused expression faded. He looked…puzzled? Lost?