The Sycamore Song

by Elizabeth Hunter

He shrugged his shoulders and walked beside her across the rough ground, holding her back for an instant as they crossed again the busy road that ran between the two pyramids. They rounded the corner of the enormous edifice and made their way to the present entrance that had been cut out by robbers not very many years after the great Pharaoh had been laid to rest in what had been thought to be perfect safety.

  For ever afterwards Victoria was to remember her first visit to Cheops’ Pyramid as the great turning point of her life. It came upon her unawares, before she had begun to realise what was happening to her. One moment she was as she had always been, and the next she was aware of a new self that had been brought into being against her wishes by the man beside her. A man she wasn’t sure she liked, let alone loved, but who had already become more important to her than any other person she had ever met. And she didn’t even know his name.

  So bemused was she by this discovery that she could have climbed the whole way up to Heaven and scarcely noticed. As it was, she had done the greater part of the seventy metres up to the King’s Chamber before she realised what a long way down it was behind her. The same kind of strips of wood had been nailed across the planks that covered the ancient stone steps that the Egyptians had used to haul up the coffin of the dead king, but here they had been reinforced with metal, perhaps because of the steepness of the angle. The first flight took them halfway, to where there was a low corridor leading to the abandoned Queen’s Chamber, which had never been completed.

  It was a fairly small tomb compared to the others, hewn out of a single slab of granite. At one end was a recess which might have held a statue of Cheops himself so that, if anything happened to his body, his second self, his ka, would have some place to return that he would recognise as his own likeness. From there on upwards there was the choice of two stairways, one on either side of the smooth, central slide, up which the sarcophagus had been hauled.

  It was there that Victoria was foolish enough to look back at the way they had come. She held on to the thin metal banisters until her knuckles shone white and trembled.

  “Look up!” Tariq’s voice said immediately behind her. He came so close to her that she could feel the hard muscles of his thighs against hers and he put one arm around her, holding her firmly against him, his hand against her heart.

  Now she had something new to worry her. Forgotten were her fears of the height they had attained. Forgotten too was her immediate interest in the architectural splendour of the Grand Gallery. She was conscious only of the feel of his body against hers and an urgent longing to be closer still. Her palms slipped on the metal banister and the lights blurred before her eyes.

  “Easy now,” Tariq bade her. “You’re nearly there.”

  She gained the top and stood as far away from him as she could, gasping for breath. Her legs had turned to cottonwool and she was afraid to look at him for fear that he would read what she knew must be reflected in her navy-blue eyes. Instead, she stared down at the bottom of the shaft up which they had climbed and, for once, she knew no fear at all of the depth of the fall below her.

  “Well, well,” said Tariq, “you’re getting very brave!”

  She trembled then and clutched the rail in front of her. “I made it!” she said faintly. “I actually made it!”

  “You have to go down yet,” he reminded her.

  “A mere bagatelle!” she declared, but a wave of panic swept through her at the thought. “And not quite yet,” she added with great caution. She bent her head too quickly to go through the low, narrow passage that led to the King’s Chamber and hit it hard on the entrance. Tariq swept her round to face him, rubbing her scalp with gentle fingers.

  “Better?” he asked her.

  She wondered what he would say if she were to tell him exactly what she was feeling and that he himself had become the centre of her thoughts. She tore herself out of his embrace and flung herself into a headlong charge down the passage, emerging into the King’s Chamber with such force that another tourist, waiting to come out, put out an anxious hand to steady himself.

  Tariq followed at a more leisurely pace. He walked over to the stone sarcophagus and leaned against it, crossing his arms in front of his chest, and watching her as she wandered nervously about the chamber, looking at the markings on the walls - modern, she feared! - and the air-vent that brought in fresh air from the outside, though its original purpose had probably been to allow the Pharaoh’s ka to come and go at will.

  “Tariq,” she said at last, “about going to Sakkara tomorrow. Will they expect me to bring the money with me?”

  He shook his head. “There’s the licence to sort out first. If you have some money with you, I expect Juliette and Jim Kerr will be glad to be paid up to date, but I shouldn’t worry about it too much.”

  She felt suddenly helpless. “Juliette is right. My father must have been mad to let me loose on such a project. I don’t know the first thing about it and I’ll only be in the way.”

  “Are you thinking of running back to England?”

  She was. She couldn’t deny it. England spelt safety and a cosy security where she would never have to think about him again. “I might,” she said.

  “That would be a pity. I think you must stay, Victoria, until we get to the bottom of these thefts and clear your father’s name—”

  “But nobody has accused him!”

  “As far as the Egyptian government is concerned he was as much a suspect as anyone else. You may have come out here to finish the job for him.”

  “Is that what you think?” she asked.

  “I’m not paid to think. I’m paid to find out the facts, whatever they are. My guess is that you know nothing about it, but that it’s more than likely you’ll lead me to whoever does.”

  “You mean you’re going to use me as bait?” She hoped she didn’t sound as frightened as she felt.

  “You’ll be all right,” he said roughly. “You may even enjoy most of it. It seems a long time since I slept in a tent in the desert. What more can you want?”

  “I want to go back to the hotel,” she said. “It must be nearly dark outside.”

  He stood up, capturing her hand in his. “If it is, you’ll be able to see the Sphinx by moonlight as I promised.”

  “I don’t know that I want to,” she denied.

  He let go her hand and followed her closely through the passage back to the Grand Gallery. “I want to show it to you,” he said. He caught up her hand again, bringing her to a standstill so that he could pass her to down the ramp first. “Turn round and come down backwards,” he commanded her. “Slowly!”

  Victoria looked resolutely ahead of her and tried not to think of the great, gaping shaft below her. One step at a time and she would manage it. One step at a time, making sure he had no opportunity of touching her. Perhaps Sakkara would be fun. England might be safe, but it would also be lonely.

  She felt a strong sense of satisfaction when she found herself on level ground again. A smile spread over her face. “I did it! You didn’t think I would, but I did it all by myself!”

  “Il hamdu li’llah! Thank God,” he said devoutly.

  “He may have had something to do with it,” she acknowledged, “but you didn’t have to do a thing. You needn’t have been there at all!”

  “That’s something you’ll have to answer for yourself,” he said drily.

  “Perhaps. But at least I did it. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  She stepped out of the pyramid before him, shivering a little in the coolness of the evening. “Oh, look!” she exclaimed. “It isn’t quite dark! Isn’t it a beautiful sunset?”

  “Beautiful,” Tariq agreed without evident interest.

  “You could at least pretend to look at it,” she said.

  “I can see it reflected in your eyes,” he said easily. “If you came closer, ya habibi, I’d see it better still.”

  She had no intention of obliging him. For one thing, many of the camel-drivers
had not yet gone home and, for another, she didn’t trust herself anywhere within his vicinity. His hands pulled her roughly against him and his lips claimed hers, warm and searching, until she flung her arms round his neck and began to kiss him back. She thought she had known it all, but she had never known anything before that moment. He made a movement to put her away from him, but ended by pulling her closer still, putting his mouth against hers again, and she forgot everything else in her urgent need to respond to him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Tariq, no!”

  He lifted his head. “I’m afraid you’ve missed your sunset.”

  “Have I?” She turned her head to look at the western sky, still ruddy from the sun that had just sunk below the horizon. “Even my mother admits that there’s nothing more beautiful than a sunset in the desert,” she said. She didn’t have to make conversation, but how else could she make the transition back to reality?

  “There will be others,” he said.

  She nodded her head. “You don’t have to worry,” she told him. “This has hardly been the biggest moment of my life.”

  He shrugged his shoulders without apparent regret.

  “You don’t have to feel sorry,” she said coldly. That would be the last straw, that he should retract in any way from that moment which had stirred her to the depths of her being. Of course he hadn’t meant it! He would have kissed anyone who had been to hand. But, just for a few moments, she wanted to pretend that it had meant as much to him as it had to her. “Or do you want me to apologise too?”

  “I’m not apologising for kissing you, Victoria Lyle. I’m only sorry about the timing.” But he did not seem at all sorry.

  “Then you don’t have to worry, do you? It was nice, but it meant nothing to either of us, habibi. I shan’t make any demands on you - none at all! I don’t even like you very much!”

  “Then you shouldn’t call me your darling,” he observed. “If you want to use it of a man, it should be habipi - habibi is strictly for the birds!”

  “I’ll never use it!” she retorted. “I don’t intend to learn any of your bad habits. I wish you’d go away and leave me alone!”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t care in the slightest what you do!”

  It was too dark to read his expression, but she felt his tap on her cheek and knew that he would have liked to have made it much harder. “Do you still want to go and look at the Sphinx, or do you want to go back to the hotel?” he asked her.

  “I want to see the Sphinx.” Her tone was even. She could see his teeth shining white in the gloaming, as he replied, “You’re not half as sophisticated as you pretend, my dear. It’s a pity, because I’m not used to having to resist temptation, and I intend to see this Sakkara business through from start to finish!”

  “I’m not stopping you.”

  “You could, if you tried hard enough. That’s what’s worrying me. You should have been your brother after all!”

  Her temper stirred within her. “I didn’t ask you to flirt with me,” she said. “You can’t accuse me of inviting—”

  “The very look of you is an invitation!” he mocked her. “When this is over—” He broke off. “Never mind,” he went on. “At least you’ll be able to see the rise of the moon, even if you did miss the sunset.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Tariq, you don’t have to come with me to the Sphinx if you’d rather not. I shall be quite all right by myself.”

  “While I have nightmares thinking about the scrapes you might be getting yourself into? No, thank you! We’ll go and see the Sphinx together. All right?”

  “All right,” she agreed, against her will acutely aware of him.

  She walked beside him, stiff-legged in her anxiety not to betray her feelings, through a barrier that had been erected to stop the cars using the road that led down past the Pyramid of Cheops to where the Sphinx guarded the whole burial complex of the three large and six small pyramids of Giza. One of the watchmen came hopefully towards them, looking for an easy tip for escorting them down the road towards the Sphinx. When Tariq waved him away, he angrily retorted that the road was closed, but a few words of Arabic sent him back into the shadows from whence he had come, muttering beneath his breath.

  “Why doesn’t he want us to go this way?” Victoria asked.

  “They’re about to hold a rehearsal of the Son et Lumiere and so they’ve closed the road. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t go on, though, they only want to stop the cars because of their headlights.”

  At that moment all three of the major pyramids were bathed in light, a light that changed from green to red, to blue, and back to green again. It seemed as though a whole concert of music was coming from the centre of the Great Pyramid and it was hard to believe that the sound was a reflection from the microphones that carried the sound to the seats in the arena below them.

  Then, before them, Victoria could make out the lionate shape of the Sphinx’s head. They were standing above the left shoulder and she could see the clean line of the cheek and jaw as the spotlight came into play, highlighting the age-old face that had awed the world for more centuries than any other monument made by man.

  “Oh, it’s beautiful!” she said.

  She knew that Tariq was smiling at her enthusiasm and she didn’t care at all. Let him laugh at her if he wanted to.

  “When the lights go out, you’ll be able to see the rising of the full moon,” he told her. “Do you want to go further down?”

  She did. “Can one go right down to the bottom and climb up there below the face? I’m sure I’ve seen people there on postcards.”

  “When the lights stop. But you can see the face much better from a distance. The ravages of time are more obvious when one stands on the paws of the beast.”

  “I don’t care! I want to sit at his feet and feel romantic!”

  “And this is the girl who doesn’t invite people to flirt with her!”

  She gave him a mischievous look. “You can stay here if you like,” she suggested.

  “I could,” he agreed, “but I don’t think you’d make out without me. You’ll need me to get past the guard.”

  “Oh.” She hesitated. “I would like to see it properly, but if you don’t want to, I shan’t mind very much.”

  The moon, rounded and very white, burst up over the horizon, looking four times as large as it would when it climbed higher into the star-spangled blackness of the night sky.

  “You’ve talked me into it,” he drawled. He crossed the road and stood by the parapet, watching the lights playing on the face of the Sphinx. “I don’t want to hurt you, Victoria,” he said at last. “I have to do my job.”

  “Does that prevent you being my friend?”

  “It depends what you mean by friend. Your father wouldn’t have approved of any kind of friendship between us. He thought I had far too much success with the ladies without getting involved with his own daughter.”

  “But you’re not involved,” she pointed out. “I’d like you to be my friend, though. I think I’m going to need someone on my side at Sakkara, if Juliette’s reaction is anything to go by. Is that asking too much?”

  “It may be. It isn’t your friend I’m tempted to be, but if that’s the way you want it, I’ll do my best to oblige - from tomorrow on!”

  She was silent for such a long time that he turned and came back to her. “What about tonight?” she said.

  “Tonight you’d better stay out of my way,” he said.

  She stared at him, trying to make out his expression. “It’s only the moonlight,” she said in her brightest manner. “The sun will be shining tomorrow.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “I hope it shines for you,” he said. “I hope it shines for us both. But what if your father was involved in this business himself? Have you thought about that? You could end up by hating me pretty thoroughly.”

  The lights of the Son et Lumiere rehearsal flickered and died. Victoria blinked in the sudden bl
ackness and suddenly began to run down the hill towards the Sphinx before Tariq should read the emotions written on her face. He caught up with her at the foot of the hill, his longer legs gaining on her with an ease that defeated her.

  “You could have a broken your neck dashing off like that,” he said. “But I suppose you didn’t think of that?”

  “No, I’m reasonably sure-footed,” she told him. “I very seldom take a tumble.”

  “Maybe, but when you don’t know the path that might not have helped you much!”

  She forced herself to laugh at his concern because she didn’t want him to know that she had been running away from him as much as anything. She had to make up her mind about him, and she couldn’t do that when he was close to her. She had to make up her mind whether she really trusted him or not. That her father had not done so didn’t weigh much with her either way. It didn’t sound as though he entirely trusted her father either. Her instinct bade her allow him a free hand where she was concerned, with her money, with everything, but her instinct remained an unreliable guide, for she had never been tested in this way before. Of course, he had taken the sting out of her panic for heights by forcing her to admit that she had known he wouldn’t allow harm to come to her. But could she be as certain that he would protect her from her own ignorance at Sakkara?

  “If I’d fallen, would you have picked me up?” she asked.

  His grasp on her shoulder tightened. “Are you deliberately trying to be provocative?” he demanded.

  “No! I was trying to make up my mind about you.”

  “And what did you decide?”

  “I didn’t come to any decision,” she said. “I can’t make you out at all!”

  “I’d say you already have, in your heart, where it counts.” His tone was confident. “You don’t like me much, but you’ve made up your mind about me.”

  “Oh? And what conclusion have I come to?”

  “That I’m the best bet you’ve got!”

  “Do you really?” She pretended a nonchalance she did not feel. “I think I’ll keep my options open.”

  They had reached the foot of the Sphinx and an armed guard stepped forward, startling her. Tariq spoke to him and he pulled back part of the barbed-wire fence and let them through. It was easy enough to climb up to the feet of the huge man-headed lion, and even up on to the beast’s chest from where one could look directly up at his chin.