The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [44]
“Then she has not changed her mind about visiting her clinic?”
“No, sir, I believe not. It will be all right, Father.”
“Hmph,” said Emerson, stroking his chin. “Yes. We will see you at Shepheard’s for luncheon, then. Don’t be late.”
One of our men took us across the river, to where Selim was waiting with the horses we left in his care each summer. The original pair of thoroughbred Arabians had been gifts to David and Ramses from our friend Sheikh Mohammed; over the years they had produced several equally beautiful offspring. Selim had brought Risha and Asfur for us, and was mounted on Nefret’s mare Moonlight. I thought our youthful reis appeared a trifle hollow-eyed and said as much to my husband.
“It really was inconsiderate of you, Emerson, to get Selim out so early. He has probably been up till all hours these past nights, celebrating and being welcomed home by his friends—”
“And his wives,” said Emerson. “I wonder if he taught them to waltz?”
I deemed it advisable to drop the subject.
The inundation had begun to recede, but sheets of water still covered some of the fields, reflecting the sky in a shimmer of light. Herds of buffalo grazed among the reeds and white herons floated in the pools. In the distance the pale limestone of the desert plateau was crowned by the majestic shapes of the pyramids of Giza.
There were two routes we might have followed. As I believe I have pointed out (and as every informed Reader ought to know anyhow), a strip of fertile soil borders the river on either side. Since cultivable land was precious (and, at some seasons, actually under water), the ancients built their tombs in the desert. We could follow the coastal road south and then turn inland to reach Zawaiet el ’Aryan, or we could climb the slopes of the plateau at Giza and then ride south across the desert. As I pointed out to Emerson, it would not be much out of our way to pay a little visit to the pyramids. Emerson replied that this was quite true, so long as we had a little look and not a prolonged stop.
We were, in fact, past the Great Pyramid and proceeding around that of Khafre, when an exclamation from Emerson drew my attention toward an approaching form which hastened to intercept us, waving and calling out as he came.
“Why, Karl,” I exclaimed as he came panting up. “How nice to see you. I didn’t know you were coming out this year.”
Karl von Bork whipped off his pith helmet, mopped his perspiring face, and made each of us a formal, Germanic bow. He was a bit stouter than he had been when we first met him, but his smile was as broad, his mustache as luxuriant and his speech as effusive.
“Guten Morgen, Frau Professor, Herr Professor! A pleasure and an honor it is to see you again! Aber ja, I am with the so distinguished Professor Junker, assisting his work on the archives of the German Institute in Cairo and in supervising the excavating of the Western Cemetery, which, as you know—”
“Yes, we do know,” said Emerson. “Hallo, von Bork. Read your article in the Zeitschrift. Bloody nonsense, you know, what you said about the early dynastic royal tombs being at Sakkara.”
“Ach, so? Aber, Herr Professor, the Abydos monuments—”
I interrupted Emerson in the middle of an emphatic rebuttal. “Karl, you should not stand bareheaded in the sun; replace your hat at once. How is Mary? And the children? You have three, I believe? Or is it four?”
I ought to have known better than to ask; Karl whipped a thick sheaf of snapshots from his breast pocket. It took quite a while to examine them, since each image was accompanied by a detailed commentary on the beauty, intelligence, and medical history of the individual depicted. I was pleased to hear that Mary had fully recovered from the illness that had affected her a few years earlier. I had always had a fondness for her; she had worked for us as an artist during the Baskerville case and her marriage to Karl was one of the few pleasant results of that unhappy business.
For a time Emerson politely endeavored to conceal his boredom—like most