Lady of Heaven (34 page)

He looked back
at the potsherd. “The glyph is, I’m fairly certain, the symbol for Nut, the
goddess of the sky,” he replied. “But what’s weird about this is that according
to the Dendera papyrus, which is the only recorded reference to the physical
city of Ranthor, it refers to Nut as the patron goddess of Ranthor.  In later
texts throughout the middle and late kingdoms, the term ‘ranthor’ was used as a
pronoun to describe the kingdom of the sky or city of the sky because of the
city’s close association with Nut.”

Morgan stared at
him, digesting his explanation. “Then let me ask you this,” she asked softly.
“Based on the limited evidence you’ve been able to glean from this site, what’s
your professional opinion?”

He sighed
faintly, scratching his neck as he looked up at the early afternoon sky.  There
were vultures high on the drafts; he could see them.  He thought on his answer
for a moment as he watched the birds cruise. 

“It’s too soon
to form an opinion,” he said honestly. “All I have are seven blue beads and a
small potsherd.  Based on that evidence alone, I would say without a doubt that
there is something underneath us. Whether it is the mythical city of Ranthor
will have to be determined by massive excavations.”

“Are you going
to tell somebody about this?”

He nodded,
standing on stiff legs. “I have several contacts in the Supreme Council for
Antiquities,” he replied. “Have no doubt that one way or another, an
archaeological excavation will be established here.”

“But you’re not
ready to say it’s Ranthor yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Are we doing to
dig here a little more to see if we come up with anything else?”

He shrugged.
“I’m not really sure that’s necessary,” he said. “The papyrus refers to the
city of Ranthor being ten days as the sun sets from Amada.  With all of the
data we could come up with, that puts us right in this spot. And as a result of
our test holes today, we’ve established that there is definitely something
here. So I’m satisfied that a city of some kind was here at some point, built
along a tributary of the Nile some five or six thousand years ago.  Maybe it
was Ranthor, maybe it wasn’t. But according to you, we’re not really out to
find the city of Ranthor, are we?”

Morgan gazed up
into his dark eyes, slowly shaking her head. “No,” she said quietly. “We’re
looking for Isis’ tomb at Mt. Nuqrus.”

“And that’s
about forty kilometers to the east as the crow flies,” he told her. “But we’ll
need to head back up to the main road and cut across, so it will be about sixty
kilometers total. We’ll get an early start in the morning.”

“So you’ve seen
everything you want to see here?”

“I think so.”

Morgan wasn’t
too disappointed about that given that she was off the hook for any more
digging, at least for the day.  But she was very excited to see what they found
at Mr. Nuqrus.  She began to collect her shovel and empty water bottles from
the sand around her test hole as Fox continued to study the potsherd.  She eyed
him as she policed her trash.

“How far is Mt.
Nuqrus from the Red Sea?” she asked.

He didn’t look
up from the shard. “About fifteen miles.”

“Isn’t there a
town at the end of the road?”

He nodded.
“Marsa Alam.”

She walked up
next to him, lugging her gear. “There’s a resort in that town.”

He looked at
her. “How would you know that?”

“Because I
looked it up on the Internet,” she told him. “It’s called the Wadi Lahmy Azure
Resort.  It really looks beautiful.”

He lifted an
eyebrow, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “You’re trying to tell me something,
aren’t you?”

She giggled, the
dimples deep. “Well, I’m trying to, anyway.”

He shook his
head. “You’ve only spent one night on the desert in a tent and already you’re
talking about a resort?”

She shrugged.
“We don’t have to sleep in tents every night if the hotel is only fifteen miles
away,” she pointed out. “That’s an easy drive.”

He rolled his
eyes. “I can see where this is going,” he said, already resigned. “I gather
you’d rather stay in town tomorrow night?”

She smiled
hugely, her baby-doll dimples big. “Thank you for asking, baby; of course I’d
love to stay in a hotel with a real bed and a real bathtub and toilet. You’re
so sweet to ask.”

He snorted, put
his arm around her shoulders, and pulled her to him.  “You’re a character; you
know that?”

“That’s what you
get for knowing me such a short time before you married me.”

“I wouldn’t have
done it any other way.”

She hugged him
as they turned for the encampment, the mood light.“I wonder if the resort has a
spa?” she pondered aloud, knowing that would taunt him.

He squeezed her.
“Don’t worry about that,” he told her. “I’ll be your masseuse.”

“Do I have to
tip you?”

“You better
believe it. And not with money, either.”

She giggled all
the way back to their tent.

December 15,
1923

            Louis
is demanding we return to England, of which I am extremely unhappy.  He never
developed the love for Egypt that I did.  I am still determined to seek the
tomb of the goddess Isis and Kadin has sworn to help me.  My feelings are torn
between  my great love for Egypt and my husband and child.  It is selfish, I
know, but I think I will die if I am not able to see out the final resting
place of Isis.

            ~FS

CHAPTER TWENTY
ONE

Morgan awoke the
next morning with arms and back so sore that she could barely move. She wasn’t
used to digging and her arms felt like they were about to fall off.  Fox was
already up and dressed, helping Allahaba and Jabeel load up the Land Rover for
departure, and Morgan could hear their voices outside the tent. 

Groaning, she
struggled to get dressed, managing her jeans and a t-shirt, socks and shoes. 
She cleaned her face off with a facial-cleansing towelette and even managed to
put a little make up on, at least enough so that she didn’t feel likea complete
slob. But when it came to doing her hair, she couldn’t keep her arms lifted
long enough to brush it.  Tired, in pain, she called for her husband.

Fox heard her on
the third call.  He stuck his head inside the tent, smiling at her, but she
gave him the big-pout sad face and held out her hair brush.

“My arms are so
sore that I can’t lift them up to brush my hair,” she told him. “Can you please
help me?”

He chuckled and
came into the tent, taking the hair brush from her and sitting down on the
sleeping bag next to her.  Morgan faced away from him so he could get at her
considerable mane of blond hair.

“Just so you
know, I’ve never done this before,” he told her, “so I’ll apologize in advance
if I mess this up.”

“You can’t mess
it up,” she told him. “Just brush it out and then pull it back into a
ponytail.  You’ve seen me do it a few times.”

“But I won’t do
it as good as you will.”

“Sure you will,”
she told him. “Besides; I don’t have a choice. My arms are killing me.”

He grinned,
carefully stroking her long hair. It was soft and luscious and he kept running
his fingers through it, feeling the sensual texture, remembering how her hair
felt when it was splayed on him.  But that brought instant arousal so he struggled
not to think of how her hair felt against his body as he brushed.

Her hair was
fine and straight but she had a lot of it, and it tumbled to her mid-back.  He
brushed and brushed, finally managing to get a grip on a ponytail at the back
of her head but the rubber band wouldn’t cooperate, so it took him a few
tries.  Finally, he was able to put her hair into a respectable ponytail. 
Morgan inspected it in a mirror, satisfied, and packed the mirror away.

She turned
around, kissing him on the lips. “Thank you,” she said. “You did a great job.
If you every wash out as an Egyptologist, then you can become a hairdresser.”

“Not bloody
likely,” he grunted, standing to a hunched-over position and pulling her to her
feet.  Morgan groaned with pain.

“Oh, my God,”
she gasped. “My arms feel like they’re going to fall off.”

Fox knew what
she meant; even though he lifted weights on a regular basis, his arms were
still a little sore from the marathon digging they had done the previous day.

“There’s some
naproxen in my backpack,” he told her. “Go take a couple.”

Grumbling and
groaning, she did what he told her.  She washed the naproxen down with a bottle
of water as she ate bread, dried fruit and more of the cinnamon date bread
while Fox and the others broke down her tent and finished cleaning up the
campsite.  

As Morgan
chewed, she alternately watched the men clean up and the wilderness around
her.  It was semi-cool on this day; the sand beneath her was cool to the touch
and the soft wind that blew had a cool note to it. The sun was struggling to
rise, sending out warming rays that hadn’t yet reached her.  As she looked
around, she noticed that the test holes they had dug were filled up.  When Fox
came to collect the chair she was sitting in, she pointed at the test holes.

“When did you
fill those in?” she asked.

He glanced over
at the holes. “This morning before you awoke.  I didn’t want there to be any
evidence of digging for treasure hunters or thieves that might cross over this
area.” He nodded his head in the direction of their dig. “If they catch wind of
any kind of undisturbed archaeological dig, they’ll tear it apart looking for
relics.”

Morgan wriggled
her eyebrows at the horror of that thought.  Fox folded up her chair, took her
hand, and led her over to the waiting Land Rover.  Piling the chair in the
back, he jumped in as Jabeel threw it into gear.  In a cloud of dust, they
headed back the twenty miles to the main road to start their eastern trek to
Mt. Nusruq.

***

For a day that
had started off cool, the temperature rose in a hurry once the sun began to
rise.  Seated in the third row seat with her legs stretched out across the
bench, Morgan was reading a book on Egypt that she had brought along with her
from home.  With all of the traveling she’d been doing, she hadn’t had a chance
to sit still for any length of time to read, so as the car sped down the
highway and the wind whipped her ponytail around, Morgan read about the
Ptolemic period in Egyptian history. 

Fox sat in the
bench seat in front of her, stretched out as well, a massive arm over the seat
back as he alternately watched Morgan and the passing landscape. He had seen
her pull the book out but she was holding it in her lap so he couldn’t see the
cover. He watched her as she turned the pages.

“What are you
reading?” he finally asked.

She didn’t look
up from the book. “A book on Egypt.”

“I wrote one
about five years ago, right after the Edfu dig,” he told her without a hint of
boastfulness. “It centered around….”

She suddenly
held the book up from her lap so he could see the book cover. “I know,” she
pointed to his name across the bottom of the cover. “My mother found this in a
bookstore and bought it for me before I left for Egypt. ‘The Facts of Greek
Egypt’ by the great Dr. Fox Henredon.”

He grinned. “It
really does say ‘the great’ Dr. Henredon, doesn’t it?”

She had to laugh
at him. “It will on my copy as soon as I find a pen.”

He watched her a
moment, the gentle pout of her lips, the way her dimples sank deep into her
cheeks. She was such an alluring creature.  “So… what do you think of it?” he
asked hopefully.

She refocused on
the book. “I think that you are as intelligent as you are handsome,” she said,
looking up and winking at him. “Good thing I married you before someone else
got to you.”

He laughed
softly. “I’ll second that,” he said. “Want me to autograph the book for you?”

She scooted
forward on the seat so she was leaning against his arm on the seatback.  “Will
you write something sexy?” she teased, keeping her voice down so Allahaba and Jabeel
couldn’t hear her.

He lifted a dark
eyebrow, his face looming very close to hers. “I’ll write whatever you want,”
he muttered.  “I’ve got a few ideas. Suggestions for the future, shall we say.”

She giggled,
kissed his enormous bicep, and sat back against her seat. But he didn’t like
her back there and patted the seat beside him.

“Come sit with
me, love,” he said. “I won’t bite. Hard.”

She laughed.
“You stole that line from a movie.”