The curse of Kalaan (10 page)

“You poor thing, you will never get used to my father’s inventions.”

The young woman smiled and straightened up once again in the wing chair.

“No, on the contrary, I find them extraordinary and… most surprising!”

Maden, the previous count of Croz, had imagination galore. All his inventions were astounding and showed true genius, such as the splendid artificial Christmas tree standing in the dining room after spending several years in a trunk in the attic. It would soon be put back, after Kalaan’s return, which they all hoped would be before next Christmas.

Its trunk was nothing more than a ship’s mast and its branches, flared at the base but ending in a point were made of little sails set on a frame that opened like an umbrella, thanks to a very meticulous system of ropes. The tree was magnificent, but very difficult to decorate. However, decorations were quite unnecessary as the tree was, in itself, a perfect decoration.

Virginie pulled herself away from her thoughts and noticed Amélie and Isabelle’s sudden silence. Could they be pouting? The dowager countess was apparently quite angry with her son, and to punish him from a distance she had decided to ignore his letter. Isabelle, on the other hand was dying to travel to Egypt through her brother’s words and for her, this desire was stronger than her anger.

“So, will you open the letter?” Virginie’s words had escaped before she realized what she was saying.

She was having a difficult time keeping her impatience under control. For some strange reason she had a strong need to feel Kalaan’s presence. No, no, she mustn’t think of him in the way she used to. The man broke her heart. It is of no matter that she was only thirteen at the time, and he nine years older. She was madly in love with Kalaan and he only saw her as a little butterball.

“Come now mother, even Virginie thinks you aren’t being reasonable.” Isabelle was sitting impatiently on the edge of her chair waiting to grab the letter lying on the silver tray in the middle of the little table between them.

“I would never say such a thing!” Virginie was offended by her friend’s remark and gave her a reproachful look.

“Of course you wouldn’t my dear!” Amélie replied as she quickly stood to pick up the letter from under her daughter’s nose. She then sat back on the banquette, her back straight as a rod. After a brief hesitation, she broke the seal and opened the missive.

“Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise. A small quantity of fine sand had fallen from the folded paper and on to her dressing gown.

“Do not move, Mother!” Isabelle jumped excitedly to her feet. She seized a spoon and began picking up the precious Egyptian sand, placing it on the silver tray.

“What a kind thought.” Isabelle was quite moved as she contemplated the precious little pile of sand.

“Or carelessness.” Amélie softly smiled and shook her head. “Look. ’Tis little more than a rag, riddled with ink! The letter probably fell and my son picked it up and folded it without noticing the sand.”

Virginie’s eyes widened and she let out a tinkling laugh. Kalaan’s letter was indeed a mess! His lovely masculine handwriting was completely lost in a maze of ink stains.

“All right now girls, give me some silence. I must concentrate to decipher this.” Amélie then waited for Isabelle to take her seat and calm down.

Virginie’s heart was quivering, and she realized that she was holding her breath waiting for the letter to be read. She breathed calmly, forcing her body to relax.
You are being silly my girl, acting as if Kalaan was here in this very room. Fortunately, he is not.
The young woman chided herself.

“Dearest mother,”
Amélie began to read, but looked at her daughter laughingly before continuing. “...and my beloved tigress of a sister, Isabelle, I realize in reading your latest letter that you suffer from our long separation. It has been eight months now. However you must know that you are almost always in my thoughts and I will soon be returning home. When you receive this letter I will only be a stone’s throw away from the coast of France.”

“He’s coming home!” Isabelle interrupted her mother with a shout of joy, jumping to her feet. “When did he post the letter?”

“Let me see...November 7
th
, 1828, but be still my child, and let me read the rest... Where was I? Ah, yes... a stone’s throw away from the coast of France…”

“... The rumors about the plague and cholera spreading in Europe are omnipresent and this has made me hasten my recent research. My duty is to be at your sides and to protect you, should this be more than simple scandal mongering. Until my return I ask that you respect all the rules of hygiene and to avoid crowds. Remain in our home in Paris, where I will soon be joining you.”

“He thinks you are still in Paris?” Virginie was astonished.

“Yet more evidence, as if we needed any, that he is not receiving all our correspondence,” Isabelle commented, pinching her lips together.

Amélie continued reading:

“Here, there are no crowds, even if cholera has struck several regions. According to my sources the first cases began in Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, on the other side of the Red Sea. There is no call for you to worry; I am too far away to risk contamination. The only things my comrades and I suffer from are the sand, the sun and the heat. And for that I thank the heavens, albeit begrudgingly. On a more joyful subject, today to share these special moments with you, yours truly is sitting in the blazing heat, struggling with a cantankerous quill and ink that dries too fast.”

“Now we know why the paper is so marked with stains,” Amélie said with a laugh, shaking the letter before continuing.

“In my last missive I described the majestic beauty of the pyramids at Giza, including the one of Cheops. I also told you of my departure from Cairo with my men, Salam, my Tuareg friend and the grumpy yet devoted Lil’ Louis (I should add that the crotchety old sea dog follows your orders very well, Mother. He never lets me out of his sight.) We did not tarry long and soon set sail on the Nile to reach our destination- Tell el-Amarna. If I lift my eyes from this letter, I can lay them on the waters of the river. We are so far from the raging waters of our Mor Breizh
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in a storm, yet the sight is just as captivating.”

“If he had been with us last night, he might not have been so nostalgic for our storms,” Isabelle muttered before pinching her lips again at her mother’s impatient look.

“The Nile and its banks are rich with papyrus and fragrant eucalyptus. There are also date palms, lotus and reeds. Do not worry, Isabelle, I have done what is needed so that you may receive samples of each of these plants. But no, you will not have a crocodile! (Stamp your foot all you like. You know how I enjoy watching you dance the gavotte.)”

“The rapscallion!” But Isabelle was laughing as she said it, while her mother and her friend joined in.

“Did you really ask your brother to bring you back a crocodile?” Virginie was shaking with laughter.

“Yes,” Amélie replied for her daughter. “As she did for the rabbits which have since colonized the isle. ‘Twas a real invasion!” she sighed heavily.

“What can I say, Mother? Rabbits are, well… very prolific.”

The three of them broke out in good-hearted laughter, and Amélie went back to reading the letter. She almost immediately started to giggle.

“
Damned ink stains… Please forgive me ladies, for my crude language (although I know you are used to it) and everything else.  I’m fighting a losing battle with my quill and I lack the paper to start afresh. This one will have to do. Where was I now? Oh yes… and so, definitely no crocodiles in the family! Besides, we have only come across three coming up the Nile to Tell el-Amarna. And I would not have you, my dear Isabelle, be the cause of the reptiles’ extinction in Egypt. You can stop muttering now; it was only a little humor, right Mother?”

“How could he know I would mutter?”

“Because he knows you so well, my dear,” replied Amélie with a knowing smile.

“Let me come back to the scenery. No, I will return to that later. Something wonderful has happened. The man I was hoping to meet here, Jean-François Champollion, has arrived! He will help me with the translation of a few hieroglyphs. With these words I will take your leave. We will see each other very soon in Paris. Your loving son and brother,

Kal.”

Virginie opened her eyes when the letter suddenly ended. Only seconds before she had been sitting on the golden sand of the Egyptian desert, lifting her eyes up to Kalaan, the Kalaan she remembered from the last time they saw each other in Paris, when he was twenty-four. Virginie was staying with her father, the Marquis de Macy and she was still a fifteen-year-old butterball. Kalaan did not seem to notice that she was losing weight and hardly even looked at her when he came to call.

She had come to greet him at the entrance, but soon ran off to her rooms in tears. Virginie did not exist in Kalaan’s eyes, whereas he was in all her dreams, and always had been, ever since…

Oh God, too long,
she sighed to herself. It had to stop, and she thought it had. But she had to admit she still thought of him often. However it was over. She was an adult of twenty-one and Kalaan a thirty-year-old rake. Never would she let another man break her heart!

A deafening explosion shook Virginie from her bitter reminiscing. She jumped in her chair, letting a little scream escape from her lips, as she sat up straight in her chair, eyeing the clock with suspicion. Amélie and Isabelle sat up just as straight.

“It’s not the clock!” cried Isabelle, seeing the young woman look at the strange contraption. She turned her head to the tall windows where the shutters were closed. Yet another explosion made them jump and Virginie could not hold back another scream.

“It’s the cannons!” Amélie jumped up and starting turning in circles. “My coat, my boots, where are they? He...he...”

“Are we under attack?” Virginie was wringing her fingers with worry, but Isabelle was acting like her mother. What on earth were they doing?

“No, we are not under attack,” Amélie said, laughing. “Those are the cannons of
Ar sorserez,
Kalaan’s frigate!”A third explosion; much louder and closer interrupted Amélie.

“Yes!” Isabelle shouted with joy and ran out of the room after throwing a small lap rug over her shoulders.

“But I…don’t... understand.” Poor Virginie was completely disconcerted by whatever was happening.

Amélie smiled at her radiantly. “It’s Kalaan... he has returned! My son is the only captain capable of braving such a storm to keep his promise!”

The next minute Virginie found herself alone and confused. Kalaan... the cannon fire...
Ar sorserez
...

“Oh my God,” she gasped, as she sank back into the chair and then on to the floor, which she didn’t seem to notice.

The cursed silk dressing gown no longer affected her. She was petrified at the thought of seeing Kalaan again. She should never have accepted to come to the Isle of Croz. Never!

Chapter 7

In the small hours of the morning

             
“
G
et the men on the yawls and lead them to the levee!” Kalaan shouted orders to Lil’ Louis in his baritone voice. “We will meet later at the longhouse to get organized.”

“
Ya!”
shouted back the chief mate who then turned to join the rest of the crew.

Kalaan closed his eyes and took deep breaths of the salty air. He was almost euphorically happy to be back on Croz, especially as he’d arrived home in a man’s body and not that of a female. He tried as hard as he could to get accustomed to his female version, but to no avail. He was constantly fighting the
thing
he became at dawn.

That was the other reason for which he had braved the incredible storm, to win his race against time and bring his ship to port safely, in the skin of the Count of Croz. He defied Poseidon, danced on the waves and triumphed over the elements. Nothing and no one could have stopped him.

If he had been forced to go ashore as a female, it would have been such a dishonor. God only knows what would have happened then, for the idea of putting an end to his days was a little too present in his mind these past few weeks.

But now his men were in the yawls on their way to safe shelter behind the port ramparts and they would soon be joining their families, Kalaan started to regain his self-confidence. At nightfall he would go with Salam and Lil’ Louis to find the guardian of the stones. The old druid would help him, of that he was certain.

“We are not going with them?” Salam looked worried, with his clothes soaking wet and his heavy pack sliding off his shoulder.

“No, we are taking the dinghy,” Kalaan told him, using his oil lamp to show him the small skiff well below them, pitching wildly on the water and banging against the ship’s hull.

“Never!” Salam’s accent was even stronger when he was offended.

Kalaan threw his head back and laughed heartily. His hair was dripping wet, and he licked his lips to savor the salty sea spray.

“I don’t have the time to persuade you, but we will gain precious time with the dinghy. I could take a short cut by the ramparts and be home before sunrise. So, are you coming with me, or are you swimming?”

At this point Kalaan turned out the lamp, put it on the bridge and slid down the long rope to land in the dinghy. At least that is what Salam imagined, for he could not see a thing! He did not know how to swim, but was not going let a little salt water stop him, so he felt around in the dark for the rope and followed Kalaan, sighing in relief when he felt the wood of the little boat under his feet. He sat down and firmly gripped the gunwale
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. He was surprised to see that it was no longer pitch black and that in the early signs of dawn he could make out shapes and forms, such as his friend’s imposing silhouette.

Kalaan was amused by his discomfort and stood laughing after picking up an oar. This devil of a man was fearless… except, of course, where women were concerned. That thought alone helped Salam to relax, and he began to laugh with Kalaan, who was far from imagining what the Tuareg was laughing at. The irony of the situation put Salam in an even better mood.

With his hair flying in the wind and his long coat flapping behind him, Kalaan sculled
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powerfully away from the frigate. Suddenly, something in the opposite direction caught his attention.

“What do you see?” Salam shouted, pestered by the gusts of wind and heavy rain. He knew his friend was endowed with excellent night vision.

“The last yawl with Lil’ Louis and the other men has just reached the levee. There are a lot of people there to greet them, for which I am happy.”

Indeed, in the far lights of torches and oil lamps, they could make out the forms of many people moving on the embankment. The sailors were reunited with their wives and children after long months of separation and in the coming days, their return would be joyfully celebrated. Kalaan pushed away any sad thoughts when he realized no one was there to greet him. After all, it was his decision and given the circumstances it was a thousand fold better having his mother and sister in Paris.

They arrived quickly at the bottom of some very steep stone stairs that went up along a very high wall. Kalaan docked the dinghy, tying the docking rope with a mariner’s knot and began climbing the slippery steps four by four. He seemed to forget Salam behind him. The Tuareg was severely hindered by his long dripping robes and heavy pack. He could not move nearly as easily as Kalaan and swore in a most undignified manner when he faltered on the last landing. He would have fallen backwards had Kalaan not caught him in his strong grip.

“Follow in my steps, brother,” he advised, as he stepped onto stone and dirt path.

Salam tried to do just that, muttering and swearing every time he stumbled. The desert sand was far less treacherous, even if your feet sank into it at each step. And in Egypt, it was much warmer; rain was a rare treasure, whereas here, the rain froze you to the bone and water became your enemy!

The two men walked quickly despite the steep ascent, which brought them to the heights of the isle. They soon found themselves on a strip of land dimly lit by the light coming from the windows of a long stone house.

Kalaan strode onto the courtyard cobblestones and pushed the heavy entrance door open letting Salam enter first. There was a good strong fire going in the hearth of what was obviously someone’s home and they quivered with pleasure at the warmth of the place.