He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [27]
Ramses straightened. “Why me? Can’t you deal with it?”
“It is not that sort of emergency.” The light was poor; they had been using reflectors, since the supply of electric batteries was limited and his father would not permit candles or torches; but he saw Selim’s teeth gleam in the black of his beard. He was obviously amused about something, and determined to share it with his friend.
They emerged from the tomb into the mellow light of late afternoon, and Ramses heard voices. The bass and baritone bellows of the men mingled with the excited cries of children, and over them all rose and fell a series of penetrating sounds like the whistle of a locomotive. Egyptians enjoyed a good argument and did it at the top of their lungs, but the loudest voice sounded like that of a woman. He quickened his pace.
Straight ahead rose the southern face of Egypt’s mightiest pyramid. The crowd had gathered around the base. They were all Egyptians except for a few foreigners, obviously tourists. One of the foreign females was doing the screaming.
Ramses raised his voice in a peremptory demand for silence and information. The men came trotting toward him, all yelling and gesticulating. Selim, just behind him, raised an arm and pointed. “Up there, Ramses. Do you see?”
Ramses shaded his eyes and looked up. The sun was low in the western sky and its slanting rays turned the pyramid’s slope to gold. Several dark shapes stood out against the glowing stone.
Climbing the Great Pyramid was a popular tourist sport. The layers of stones formed a kind of staircase, but since most of the stones were almost three feet high, the climb was too arduous for the majority of visitors without the help of several Egyptians, hauling from above and sometimes pushing from below. Occasionally a timid adventurer balked when he was only partway up, and had to be hauled ignominiously down by his assistants. Perhaps that was what had happened, but he couldn’t understand why Selim had dragged him away from his work to enjoy the discomfiture of some unfortunate man . . . No, not a man. Squinting, he realized the motionless form was female.
She was a good halfway up, two hundred feet from the ground, sitting bolt upright on one of the stones, with her feet sticking straight out. He couldn’t make out details at this distance—only a bare dark head and a slender body clad in a light-colored frock of European style. Not far away, but not too close either, were two men in the long robes of the Egyptians.
He turned to Sheikh Hassan, the nominal chief of the guides who infested Giza. “What is going on?” he demanded. “Why don’t they bring her down?”
“She won’t let them.” Hassan’s round face broke into a grin. “She calls them bad names, Brother of Demons, and strikes them with her hand when they try to take hold of her.”
“She slapped them?” Ramses was tempted to laugh. The situation was too serious for that, however. The wretched female must have become hysterical, and if the guides took hold of her against her will, her struggles could result in injury to her and charges of assault—or worse—against them. No proof of malicious intent would be needed, only her word. He swore in Arabic, and added irritably, “Can someone stop that woman yelling? Who is she?”
The woman in question pulled away from the arms that held her and ran toward Ramses. “Why are you standing there?” she demanded. “You are English, aren’t you? Go and get her. Save the child!”
“Calm yourself, madam,” Ramses said. “Are you her mother?”
He knew she wasn’t, though. She might have had “governess” printed across her forehead. The ones he had met fell into two categories: the timid and wispy and the loud and dictatorial. This woman was of the second type. She glared at him from under her unplucked eyebrows and rubbed her prominent nose with a gloved hand.
“Well, sir? As an English gentleman—”
“English, at any rate,” said Ramses. He was tempted to point out that his nationality did not qualify him to tackle the job, which any Egyptian could do better,