The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [59]
The previous day Selim had brought the horses from Atiyah. The Arabians were gone from the stable, as I had expected. Only one of the hired animals, a skittish bay mare, remained in her stall. She rolled a critical eye in my direction when I instructed Mohammed to saddle her.
Mohammed also looked dubious. “The Father of Curses told me not to—”
“Never mind what he told you. They have gone to Zawaiet el ’Aryan, I suppose? Well, I am going there too. Please do as I say.”
“But, Sitt Hakim, the Father of Curses said I should not let you go alone.”
“Nonsense. You don’t suppose I would lose my way, do you? I, who know every inch of the terrain from Abu Roash to Giza, from Sakkara to Abusir?”
I tend to exaggerate just a bit when I speak Arabic—it is a habit I got from Emerson—but the general sense of my claim was accurate.
Mohammed shook his head mournfully. He knew he was in for a lecture from Emerson if he did not accompany me, and a scolding from me if he insisted on doing so. The lecture was not imminent; the scolding was. His decision was not surprising.
“At least you will take your parasol, Sitt.”
He gave the word the English pronunciation, and very odd it sounded. My parasol had come to be regarded as a weapon of extreme magical potency. In addition to its psychological effect, it is the most useful all-round implement imaginable, serving as walking stick, sunshade, and—since my parasols are made with stout steel shafts and rather pointed tips—weapon. I assured Mohammed I would go fully armed.
Then I heard a low growl and saw in the shadows two green-glowing orbs. No wonder the poor horse was nervous. Horus must have been there the whole time, staring her out of countenance and imitating a lion.
“I will have something to say to you later,” I informed the cat, and led my steed out of the stable before mounting.
It was a beautiful morning, clear and still—a perfect day for pyramids. Annoyance has an unfortunate effect on one’s literary style; phrases like “work my fingers to the bone” and “sacrifice my own inclinations to the needs of others” dominated my musings. However, I am not the sort of person who allows resentment to spoil her pleasure. When I found my errant family I would express myself in a few well-chosen words; until then, I would enjoy the passing moment and the moments to come.
If I had been the sort of person who broods on her injuries, I would have found an additional cause of resentment in what had been going on at the site during my enforced (by duty) absence. After our first visit I had gone looking for the reports of Signor Barsanti, which I had last seen in the hands of Ramses. They were not in the bookshelves in the saloon; they were not on the upper deck; they were not on Ramses’s desk in his room. I finally ran them to ground under a chair in the saloon and sat down to read them at once before someone else carried them off and misplaced them.
Honesty compels me to confess that the pyramid was a good deal more interesting than I had believed. As Emerson had said, in his quaint fashion, it is the interiors of pyramids that fascinate me, perhaps because they recall childhood fantasies about caves and underground passages, crypts and buried treasure. He can speculate about construction methods and fossiliferous limestone and angles of inclination and headers and stretchers all he likes; for my part, I will take a long, dark, complicated substructure any day. This one appeared to be quite nice, and I did not believe