Tomb of the Sun King, page 21
part #2 of Raiders of the Arcana Series
Ellie took his comment as permission to gape up at the massive statues for a little longer, thrumming with excitement at their sheer, time-weathered splendor. The impact was so great, she barely found herself thinking about how they compared to other monumental sculptures of the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty.
When she finally pulled her eyes away, she was startled to realize that the rest of the party had ridden some distance ahead. Adam turned in his saddle to look back at her. Ellie gave him a quick, reassuring wave and nudged her donkey back into motion as Sayyid fell into place beside her.
“Have you spent much time in Luxor?” Ellie asked.
“I have.” He flashed her a smile tinged with nostalgia. “It will always remind me of my father. He served as a foreman on a number of excavations here and often talked my mother into letting me join him, even when I really ought to have been in school.”
“That must have been wonderful,” Ellie said meaningfully, feeling a little pang of envy. “And more than worth making up a bit of missed study.”
“Oh, that wasn’t necessary,” Sayyid countered. “My father was more than capable of tutoring me in whatever I missed. He was university educated himself.”
“He was?” Ellie frowned. “But if he had a degree, why was he working as a foreman?”
Sayyid cast Ellie a careful look. “You know what a concession is?”
“An official permit granting the right to excavate at a particular site here in Egypt,” she replied automatically. “They’re acquired by applying to the Antiquities Service.”
“Unless one is an Egyptian,” Sayyid added with a tired smile.
Ellie stilled as the import of Sayyid’s words sunk into her brain.
She had been reading about Ancient Egypt for ages. She had soaked up piles of excavation reports written by the likes of Flinders Petrie and Mariette… and she had never once stopped to wonder why none of the names on those reports had been Egyptian.
Her donkey stopped beneath her as her cheeks flushed with humiliation. Hadn’t she dreamed of acquiring just such a concession for herself? Had it never occurred to her that if by some miracle she had received one, it might have been granted to her at the expense of an equally qualified Egyptian?
Dismay washed over her. “I feel like such a wretched fool!”
“It is not as though you would have found it printed in a book,” Sayyid offered with a note of sympathy. “It is not an official policy.”
“I still ought to have noticed before now,” Ellie returned forcefully. “As someone who is routinely excluded from opportunities for professional and academic advancement myself, I might have paid better attention to who else was being left out! There is no excuse for it, and I can only offer a most sincere apology.”
“You needn’t apologize to me,” Sayyid returned quickly, his cheeks flushing.
“To Egypt, then,” Ellie determined firmly. “I will not allow myself to be so self-absorbed in the future. One cannot claim to be committed to righting injustice and then abandon that principle when it is not a matter that impacts one personally.”
“You can hardly expect yourself to know of every injustice in the world.” Sayyid looked a little alarmed at the notion.
“Perhaps not,” Ellie agreed a little reluctantly. “But I must certainly do a better job than I have been. Tell me, then—is it simple prejudice that lies behind the denial of excavation rights to Egyptians, or are the gentlemen at the Antiquities Service perhaps afraid that if you begin digging up your own history, you might question why you need the rest of us outsiders at all? You might even start to wonder whether it is right that half your heritage is routinely carted off to foreign museums and collectors!”
She added that last point with an extra note of fervor. Ellie’s opinions about the distribution of archaeological finds to Europe and America had changed the moment she stepped into a cave in British Honduras and saw the devastation wreaked by looters searching for artifacts they could sell on the black market. She could still vividly recall the resigned, hollow look in Adam’s eyes as he had taken in the scene.
I’m lying about what’s out there. And the worst part is, I’m not even sure it matters.
“I am not entirely certain,” Sayyid replied awkwardly. “I have never applied.”
“But if you were to even try, they would look at you as though you were mad,” Ellie filled in with feeling. “And your request would be turned down for some reason or another, if they even bothered to respond at all!”
Sayyid’s eyes flashed with an unnameable emotion—and Ellie knew that she had found the nub of it. And why wouldn’t she? She knew precisely how these things went.
Adam threw another worried look back at her. The rest of the party had ridden even further ahead. Ellie forced her donkey to trot along after them before she and Sayyid fell too conspicuously behind.
“Where did your father go to school?” she asked, searching for a less infuriating and painful topic of conversation.
“The English name for it would be ‘The School of the Ancient Egyptian Tongue.’”
There was something a little careful in how Sayyid said it.
Ellie’s interest perked at the intriguing name. “Is it here in Egypt?”
“Was,” Sayyid replied shortly.
“What happened?” Ellie felt another quick flash of anger, already anticipating Sayyid’s answer.
“The British Consul General closed it down. It was not just my father’s school,” Sayyid continued hurriedly. “Lord Cromer is suspicious of all higher education for Egyptians.” He held back for a moment, but then burst out with the rest of his thought, which came in a distinctly wry tone. “He thinks it turns us into revolutionaries.”
Ellie decided to keep her resulting thoughts about Lord Cromer to herself, lest the sound of her ranting reach the others and send Adam back to check on her.
“That must have been terribly hard for your father,” she said instead. “To know that he was just as well educated as the men he worked for but could only ever play a supporting role.”
“He had a reputation for being an extremely knowledgeable and capable foreman—the best, really,” Sayyid replied carefully. “And the foreign archaeologists all wanted the best. There was never any shortage of work.”
“But it was not the work he deserved,” Ellie declared firmly.
“No.” Sayyid met her eyes. “It was not.”
They had left the fields behind for an arid path through rubble-strewn desert. The Colossi of Memnon receded behind them. The ruins of an empire sprawled across the dry ground to either side in little more than tumbled piles of rubble.
Ellie’s chest still seethed with a tight mix of conflicted feeling. It prompted her to be more frank than she might normally have been with a relatively new acquaintance.
“Are you ever so angry that you feel like you could just… explode?”
Sayyid’s smile was both sympathetic and a little sad. “You sound like my wife.”
Ellie tapped her donkey back into motion, conscious once more of their distance from the rest of the party. “I like your wife.”
Sayyid burst out with a laugh. He looked a little surprised by it, and shook his head as he rode beside her.
They rejoined the party just as the rugged track turned onto a wide, well-paved road.
Not a road, Ellie corrected herself with a sense of wonder. She was looking at a processional way built thousands of years ago for the enormous structure nestled at the foot of the soaring cliffs—the funerary temple of the pharaoh Hatshepsut.
A soaring tribute to a woman who had turned herself into a king, the temple was partially ruined but still impressive, rising like an elaborate wedding cake in three grand tiers that framed a broad central staircase. Shadowy enclaves to either side of the steps were fronted by surviving rows of elegant columns.
“Does anyone have any perfume?” Mrs. Swingley complained. “My donkey smells absolutely awful.”
“I don’t want to hire one of those grifters to talk about the art again,” her husband complained. “Half of them don’t speak English properly, and I bet they’re just making up who all the animal-headed people are.”
Ellie realized her teeth were grinding together.
“Heeeey.” Adam deliberately let his donkey fall back beside her. “Those big statues back there were pretty great. Want to tell me all the things you know about them?”
Ellie shot him a grateful look as her burst of temper diffused.
Constance slowed to join them. “We only have to put up with them until we reach the temple,” she whispered loudly.
The structure grew in scale and impressiveness the nearer they came to it. Once they reached the base of the steps, the tourists drifted over to a makeshift souvenir shop nearby. It was more or less a rug thrown down by the stairs, which was covered with an assortment of cheap trinkets. A group of women sat beside it, gossiping with each other as they ignored the foreigners. They wore the black cloaks and headscarves that Ellie had seen all over Egypt, along with niqab veils that covered the lower half of their faces.
It looked like she and the others were the first visitors to reach the temple that day, but Ellie could see a closed carriage approaching on the processional way behind them, likely carrying another batch of sightseers.
She supposed she should be grateful there weren’t more of them. During the peak of Egypt’s tourist season in the winter, the temple would have been crawling with tourists, making her mission far more complicated.
Adam studied the three enormous levels of the building a little ruefully. “Looks a lot bigger up close than it does from a distance.”
“Should we expect to run into any official forces?” Constance asked.
“She means archaeologists,” Ellie clarified at Sayyid’s confused look.
“Édouard Naville has been leading the work here for the last several years,” Sayyid offered. “But his season ended in April. I shouldn’t expect to see any of his people about.”
Ellie glanced at Neil, who stood a little apart from the rest of them. He had been unusually quiet all morning—or since they had left Saqqara, really. Not that she could blame him. Neil hadn’t asked for any of this—not losing his job and being railroaded into a trip to Luxor… or learning that his sister was involved with his trouble-making best friend.
Adam might have talked things through with Neil back at Saqqara—for better or worse—but Ellie knew her own reckoning with her brother still awaited her. She’d frankly been avoiding it because Neil was sure to have questions that she had no idea how to answer.
“We should split up,” Constance declared authoritatively, “so that we can cover the temple more efficiently. Ellie, why don’t you and Adam examine the lower level? Sayyid could take the center while Stuffy and I manage the top. That way, we are maximizing our Egyptologists.”
The lower level of the temple was lined with colonnades framing shadowy, intimate recesses. Ellie’s thoughts snapped irresistibly to just what she and Adam might get up to while searching those hidden alcoves for clues.
No, she thought quickly, suppressing a groan. She couldn’t explore any shadowy recesses with Adam—not when he remained so conflicted about the liberties they had already taken with each other.
If Ellie had given any outward sign of her confusion, Constance didn’t notice. Her gaze had locked onto Ellie’s brother, darkening with a special—and deeply alarming—glint of interest.
There were plenty of shadowy recesses at the top of the temple as well.
“Wait!” Ellie blurted out in protest as she searched frantically for a reasonable excuse to overturn Constance’s plan.
Before she could manage it, Sayyid danced back from the steps, biting out an alarmed yelp.
“Is something wrong?” Constance pressed.
“Beetle!” Sayyid managed, his voice strangled. “Shoe!”
Neil rolled his eyes. “It’s just a bug!”
“A bug intent on climbing the leg of my trousers!” Sayyid whipped out a handkerchief, wiping his forehead with it nervously.
“Goodness! It is rather large.” Constance bent over to study the insect with gruesome interest. It was an inch or so long with big black pincers and an iridescent sheen to its carapace.
“It had nearly reached my laces.” Sayyid barely repressed a shudder.
“But it’s a scarab!” Ellie said, recognizing the distinct form of the insect. “I should think an Egyptologist would be fond of them, considering how sacred they were to the ancient people here.”
“They can be perfectly sacred, and one can still prefer that they remain very far away,” Sayyid retorted.
Constance cast another interested look at Neil, who had turned away to gaze at the temple with a slightly mournful air. “Well!” she said brightly. “Now that’s settled…”
Ellie hurried to cut her off before she could cement her plan. “I believe both Sayyid and my brother are already familiar with the temple structure. Clearly, it makes the most sense for the rest of us to form teams around them.”
Constance shot Ellie a dangerous glare. “Oh, really?”
“I can explore the upper level with Neil,” Ellie continued deliberately. “You, Adam, and Sayyid can check these lower colonnades.”
“Or I can explore the upper level,” Constance returned evenly, knives flashing behind her eyes. “And you may do the colonnades.”
“Why are they arguing about this?” Sayyid asked, clearly bewildered.
“Think I’m starting to have an idea,” Adam replied, “and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to know.”
He cast a sympathetic glance at Neil, who was obliviously polishing his spectacles on a handkerchief.
In the end, Ellie was saved by the American, Mr. Swingley, who strolled over to join them.
“Does your Egyptian fellow speak English?” he demanded.
It took Ellie a moment to realize that he was talking about Sayyid, who stared back at the man with blank astonishment.
“Not a word,” Adam cut in. He looped his arm through Sayyid’s elbow, hauling him toward the colonnade. “Come on, Connie,” he called back.
Constance shot Ellie a glare ripe with the threat of revenge before stalking after him.
Ellie made her way over to Neil. “Shall we, then?”
“Shall we what?” Neil blinked at her with confusion behind his spectacles.
“Explore the upper level,” Ellie explained tiredly. “Or weren’t you listening to any of that?”
“I… That is… my mind might’ve been wandering a bit,” Neil replied uncomfortably.
Ellie wondered if she should be frustrated or grateful for that.
“Goodness!” Constance exclaimed as she peered past Adam and Sayyid at the recessed wall behind one of the nearby colonnades. “That’s a remarkably large—”
“—ithyphallic representation of the god Amun,” Sayyid quickly and awkwardly finished for her, patting his forehead with his handkerchief once more. “Perhaps we should move on to the next one?”
Ellie barely suppressed a snort. Adam glanced over at her with a wryly raised eyebrow, and their gazes locked.
Ithyphallic representations. Shadowy alcoves.
A flush of heat that had nothing to do with the rising ambient temperature rose into her cheeks.
No, she thought forcefully. She had to stop letting her unruly thoughts run wild when it came to Adam Bates—not until they had sorted things out between them like reasonable, rational people.
Adam cleared his throat and turned his eyes deliberately to the ceiling of the colonnade. Ellie pivoted back to her oblivious brother, hooking her hand through his arm. “Come on,” she ordered and hauled him toward the stairs.
𓇶
Eighteen
Ellie climbed to the top of the grand temple stairway, dragging Neil along with her. The highest tier of the enormous structure would once have housed its most sacred precincts. Back then, a grand colonnade would have fronted the level, interspersed with statues of the pharaoh and her gods. That facade was nothing but tumbled rubble now, footings and fragments that lined the edge of the floor like a row of jagged teeth.
Beyond the broken columns lay a private open-air courtyard. Chapels and annexes branched off from it, including one carved directly into the face of the cliff, which rose from the back of the courtyard to a dizzying height overhead.
Ellie puzzled over the most likely place where she might find the sun disk mentioned in the inscription from the jewelry box. Could it be something painted on the remaining walls that lined the courtyard? Or might it be hidden in one of the chapels?
The truth was that it could be anywhere.
Instinctively, she turned to Neil for input—but he was looking back over his shoulder at the processional way and the distant glimmer of the Nile. The carriage she had seen earlier had reached the base of the temple, promising the imminent invasion of more tourists. Ellie suppressed a sigh.
“Ist das ein schöner Ort für ein Picknick?” one of the Germans from the hotel announced as he skipped up the steps to the courtyard.
Ellie did not want to search for ancient clues while being watched by a pair of Deutschlanders munching on pickles.
“How about this way?” She tugged Neil through the opening in the cliff.
The heat outside had been rising with the day, but in the shadowy confines of the carved chapel, Ellie was instantly cooler. The space was also quiet. The chatter of the tourists fell away as they moved deeper inside.
She tingled with excitement as she breathed in the smell of stone and dust. In this protected space, more of the temple’s original artwork had survived the centuries. The blue-tinted wings of a ba-bird extended over lines of hieroglyphs and graceful figures draped in royal finery.
“It’s a shrine to Amun.” She spotted the name of one of the pre-eminent deities of Thebes above an empty niche cut into the wall.
“That’s Hatshepsut and her father, Thutmose I, making offerings to the gods,” Neil pointed out from behind her, wiping his mouth after taking a pull from his canteen.
