The Ape Who Guards the Balance (15 page)

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Five

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W
e celebrated Christmas in the good old-fashioned way, with a tree and carols and friends gathered round. To be sure, the setting was a trifle unusual—golden sand instead of snow, a balmy breeze wafting through the open windows instead of sleety rain pounding at the closed panes, a spindly tamarisk branch instead of an evergreen—but we had spent so many festal seasons in Egypt that it seemed entirely natural to us. Even the spindly tamarisk made a brave show, thanks to David’s ingenious decorations. Comical camels, garlands of delicate silvery stars, and innumerable other designs cut from tin or shaped of baked clay filled in the empty spaces and twinkled in the lights of the candles.

Mr. Weigall and his wife had declined our invitation. They appeared to harbor a grudge, though I could not imagine why; Emerson’s prompt action had saved the young man from far more serious injuries than he received when he landed (rather heavily, I admit) on the hard surface, and my heroic husband was still favoring his left leg, which had been badly bruised by the shower of stones dislodged by idiot tourists trying to climb the rocks above the tomb.

“Perhaps,” I had remarked, following the event, “you need not have pushed him quite so hard, Emerson.”

Emerson gave me a look of hurt reproach. “There was no time to calculate, Peabody. Do you suppose I would deliberately set out to injure an official of the Antiquities Service?”

No one could possibly have proved that he had, but I feared relations between ourselves and the Weigalls had not become any warmer. However, the presence of older and better friends made their absence unimportant. Cyrus and Katherine Vandergelt were there, of course; Cyrus was one of our dearest friends, and we had become very fond of the lady he had espoused a few years earlier, despite her somewhat questionable past.

When we first met her, Katherine was busily bilking a gullible acquaintance of ours in her then-capacity as a spiritualist medium. She had come round to a right way of thinking and had been on the verge of honorably refusing Cyrus’s offer of marriage when I persuaded her to reconsider. I had never regretted my intervention (I seldom do), for they were very happy together, and Katherine’s caustic wit and cynical view of humanity made her a most entertaining companion.

Prices had gone up shockingly since my early days in Egypt; despite Fatima’s skills in bargaining, the turkey cost almost sixty piastres, four times what it would have cost twenty years ago. After dinner—including a splendid plum pudding in a blaze of brandy, borne in by Fatima—we retired to the verandah to watch the sunset. As Katherine sank gratefully into a chair she cast an envious eye upon Nefret, who was wearing one of her loose, elaborately embroidered robes, and declared her intention of acquiring a similar garment herself.

“I ate far too much,” she declared. “And my corsets are killing me. I ought to have followed your advice, Amelia, and left them off, but I am a good deal stouter than you.”

“You are just right as you are,” Cyrus declared, looking fondly at her.

The others hastened to express their agreement. We had only two other guests—Howard Carter and Edward Ayrton, with whom Ramses had struck up a friendship the previous year. Ned, as he had invited me to call him, was the archaeologist in charge of Mr. Davis’s excavations. He got little credit from Davis, who referred to his discoveries in the first person singular, but since the American was completely ignorant of excavation procedures and disinclined to follow them anyhow, Maspero had required him to employ a qualified person. Ned was a slight young fellow, pleasant-looking rather than handsome. I thought he seemed a little shy with us, so I put myself out to include him in the conversation.

“Your official season begins, I believe, on January the first. You have had remarkable good fortune thus far in finding interesting tombs for Mr. Davis. Not that I mean to disparage the archaeological skills which have contributed to your success.”

“You are too kind, Mrs. Emerson,” the young man replied in a soft, well-bred voice. “In fact, we didn’t find anything last year that measured up to Yuya and Thuya.”

“Good Gad, how many unrobbed tombs does the bas—er—man expect to find in one lifetime?” Emerson demanded.

“He has rather got into the habit of expecting at least one a year.” The comment came from Howard, who had taken a seat a little distance from the rest of us. “I don’t envy you your job, Ayrton.”

There was a brief, embarrassed silence. Howard had once supervised Davis’s excavations, in addition to holding down the post of Inspector for Upper Egypt. Now he had lost both positions, and the bitterness in his voice belied his claim of indifference.

In the spring of 1905 Howard had been transferred to Lower Egypt in place of Mr. Quibell, who had taken over Howard’s position as Inspector for Upper Egypt. Not long after Howard moved to Sakkara, a group of drunken French tourists had tried to enter the Serapeum without the necessary tickets. When they were refused entry, they attacked the guards with fists and sticks. Upon being summoned to the scene, Howard ordered his men to defend themselves, and a Frenchman was knocked down.

Since the inebriated individuals had also invaded the house of Mrs. Petrie that same morning and behaved rudely to her, there was no doubt that they had been in the wrong—but for a “native” to strike a foreigner, even in self-defense, was a greater wrong in the eyes of the pompous officials who controlled the Egyptian government. The French demanded an official apology. Howard refused to give it. Maspero transferred him to a remote site in the Delta, and after several months of brooding Howard resigned. Since then he had been scraping a dubious living by selling his paintings and acting as a guide to distinguished tourists. He had no private means, and the career which had been so promising was now cut short.

It was Emerson who broke the silence, with the sort of comment he had promised me he would not make. The previous year he had had a major falling-out with Mr. Davis—as opposed to his minor fallings-out with other people. He had sworn he would not disturb the felicity of the day by cursing Davis, but I might have known he would be unable to resist.

“You’re well out of it, Carter,” he growled. “Quibell couldn’t stick working with Davis, that’s why he got himself transferred back north, and after Weigall took over the inspectorate he persuaded Davis to hire Ayrton because
he
couldn’t stand the old idiot either.”

Emerson’s fulminations had a better effect than my attempts at tact. They broke the ice as emphatically as a boulder crashing onto a frozen stream. Everybody relaxed, and even Howard grinned sympathetically at Ned Ayrton. Nevertheless, I felt obliged to utter a gentle remonstrance.

“Really, Emerson, you are the most tactless man alive. I had hoped that on this day of all times we might avoid topics that lead to cursing and controversy.”

Cyrus chuckled. “That would be doggone dull, Amelia dear.”

Nefret went to sit on the arm of Emerson’s chair. “Quite right. The Professor only said what we were all thinking, Aunt Amelia. Allow us the pleasure of a little malicious gossip.”

“I never gossip,” said Emerson loftily. “I am only stating facts. Where are you planning to work this season, Ayrton?”

This sounded to Ned like a relatively innocent question, and he was quick to answer. “The area south of the tomb of Ramses IX was what I had in mind, sir. The heaped-up rubble doesn’t appear to have been disturbed since . . .”

After a while Cyrus drew up a chair and joined in, so I went to sit beside Katherine, who had been listening with considerable amusement.

“Poor Cyrus,” she said. “It is no wonder he resents Mr. Davis, after all those unproductive years he spent digging in the Valley.”

“He might not be so resentful if Davis didn’t swagger and gloat whenever they chance to meet. It really isn’t fair. Cyrus was at his dig every day, supervising and assisting; Davis only turns up after his archaeologist has found something interesting.”

A burst of laughter drew our attention back to the group. Ramses must have said something particularly rude (or possibly witty), for they had all turned to him, and Nefret went to sit beside her brother on the ledge. The rays of the setting sun gilded her luxuriant golden-red hair and flushed, laughing face. Katherine drew in her breath.

“She is frighteningly beautiful, isn’t she? I know, Amelia, I know—beauty is only skin-deep, and vanity is a sin, and nobility of character is more important than appearance—but most women would sell their souls to look like that. I had better go and remind Cyrus that he is a happily married man. Only see how he is staring.”

“They are all staring,” I said, with a smile. “But Nefret is completely without vanity, thank heaven, and it is the qualities within that render her beautiful. Without them she would be only a pretty little doll. She is in tearing high spirits today.”

“There is certainly a glow about her,” Katherine said thoughtfully. “The sort of glow one sees on the face of a girl who is in the company of an individual who has engaged her affections.”

“It is not like you to employ circumlocutions, Katherine. If you mean that Nefret has fallen in love, I fear your instincts have, for once, led you astray. Her feelings for Howard and Ned Ayrton are friendly at best, and I assure you she would never set her cap for a married man.”

My little jest brought a smile to Katherine’s lips. “No doubt I am mistaken. I often am.”

The first star of evening had appeared in the sky over Luxor and I was about to suggest we retire to the parlor when Ramses turned his head. “Someone is coming,” he said, interrupting his father in mid-expletive.

The Egyptians call Ramses “the brother of Demons,” and some of them believe he can see in the dark, like an afreet or a cat. I would not deny that his vision is excellent. Several seconds had passed before I made out the shadowy form of a man on horseback. He dismounted and advanced toward us, and when the dying light illumined his well-cut features I let out an exclamation.

“Good Gad! Is it—can it be—Sir Edward? What are you doing here?”

Sir Edward Washington—for it was indeed he—removed his hat and bowed. “I am flattered that you remember me, Mrs. Emerson. It has been several years since we last met.”

It had been over six years, to be precise. He had not changed appreciably; his tall form was as trim, his fair hair as thick, and his blue eyes met mine with the same look of lazy amusement. I remembered my manners, which astonishment had made me forget. Astonishment—and a certain degree of uneasiness. At that last meeting I had bluntly informed Sir Edward that he must give up any hope of winning Nefret and he had informed me, less bluntly but just as unequivocally, that he intended to try again. And here he was, and there was Nefret, smiling and dimpling in a particularly suspicious manner.

I rose and went to meet him. “It is unlikely that I would forget an individual who worked so diligently with us on Tetisheri’s tomb, and who was, moreover, responsible for rescuing me from a particularly awkward situation.”

This reference reminded Emerson of
his
manners. At their best they were far from perfect, and he had never been very fond of Sir Edward; but gratitude won out over dislike. “I suppose being strangled could be described as an awkward situation,” he said dryly. “Good evening, Sir Edward. I had not expected to see you again, but so long as you are here you may as well sit down.”

Sir Edward appeared to be amused rather than offended by this less-than-effusive invitation. His own manners were admirable. His greeting to Nefret was warm but in no way familiar; his comments on how Ramses and David had grown since he had last seen them were only a little condescending. Ramses’s reaction was to rise to his full height, an inch or two greater than that of Sir Edward, and shake hands rather more vigorously than courtesy demanded.

As it turned out, Sir Edward was acquainted with all the others except Katherine.

“I had heard of Mr. Vandergelt’s good fortune, and am delighted to make the acquaintance of a lady who has been so widely praised,” he said with a graceful bow.

“How very kind,” Katherine replied. “I had heard of you too, Sir Edward, but was not aware of the remarkable incident to which the Professor referred. Is it a secret, or will you tell us about it?”

Sir Edward remained modestly silent, and I said, “It is no longer a secret. Is it, Emerson?”

Emerson glowered at me. “People are not infrequently moved to strangle you, Amelia. This—er—incident occurred a few years ago, Katherine, when my discreet, prudent wife took a notion to go haring off to confront a suspect without bothering to inform me of her intentions. Had not Sir Edward followed her—for reasons which were never explained to my entire satisfaction—she might have been efficiently murdered by—”

“Emerson!” I exclaimed. “Enough of this morbidity. We were just about to retire to the parlor for refreshment and a bit of carol singing, Sir Edward. You will join us, I hope?”

“I had no intention of intruding,” the gentleman in question exclaimed. “I came only to wish you the felicitations of the season, and to present you with a small token of my esteem.” He took a small box from his coat pocket and offered it to me. “It is nothing, really,” he went on, overriding my thanks. “I happened to come across it in an antiquities shop the other day, and I thought it might appeal to you.”

Inside the box was an amulet of blue faience, approximately two inches long. The molded loop showed that it had been worn on a cord or string as a protective amulet—almost certainly by a woman, since the protruding muzzle and swollen belly were those of the hippopotamus goddess Taueret, who watched over mothers and children.

“How charming,” I murmured.

“A memento of our last meeting?” Brows elevated, voice harsh, Emerson addressed Sir Edward. “You exhibit less than your usual tact, Sir Edward; Taueret was for us a symbol of danger and bad luck.”

“But you triumphed over both,” Sir Edward said winsomely. “I thought it might be a reminder of your success, but if Mrs. Emerson does not care for it she must feel free to discard it. It is probably a forgery; some of the Gurnawis produce excellent fakes.”