by Anna Butler
“You look lovely, child. The style becomes you.” The corner of his mouth lifted as he turned his gaze on me. “You make a perfect Borgia, Rafe.”
A comment calculated to discompose me. I gave him a courtly bow and a flourish of the hat to show him it hadn’t.
One more glance over us and he nodded. “You both look very well indeed. Go and enjoy yourselves, and never forget you’re Stravaigors. Do the House proud, backs stiffened against anything the Cartomancer may throw at you, and tell me all about it tomorrow.”
Even such a brief discussion had worn away at him. He lay back against his pillows more heavily than he had when we came in and waved a thin hand in dismissal. Nell gave him a peck on the cheek, and we wished him good night.
Nell laid down the law as we made slow progress from Kensington to the Cartomancer House on the other side of Holland Park. A short distance, but our autolandau was caught in the queue of luxurious vehicles decanting their fabulously costumed occupants onto the paved walk leading to the house’s grand entrance hall. We’d jerk forward a carriage length, then stop. Jerk forward and stop.
“I intend to have a good time this evening, Rafe,” she said out of the blue, between jerks, “so please don’t hover over me. I’ll let you know when I want you to be the heavy-handed elder brother.”
“Am I to intimidate anyone in particular?”
She wrinkled her nose, all the better to indicate her distaste. “Piers Lee, for one. The Cartomancer’s cad of a nephew.” She shuddered. “He has the weediest moustache and snorts when he laughs. He’s a warthog in evening dress. Quite foul.”
“Ah, the sort you don’t want to bother with, in case you spoil your shoes while spurning him?”
An approving nod, and she added, “Bella always tries to foist him on me. She says it would make the Cartomancer look on our House with more favour.”
“Too high a price to pay.”
“Far too high. I refuse to allow anyone to pander me for the good of any House, ours or theirs.”
A sentiment with which I had every possible sympathy.
We went through the formal reception line. Nell showed exemplary good manners in greeting our host and his family. She and Miss Arabella displayed mutual delight on seeing each other, kissing cheeks with gusto. If she rolled her eyes at me and sneered at the reviled nephew, she at least waited until we had progressed along the line and she could be discreet about it.
The ballroom was magnificent in navy and silver, ablaze with aether lamps set in chandeliers so big and bright they could light up entire cities. It was a terrible crush of people in exotic costumes, the women dripping jewels as if their diamonds were worth no more than water droplets. With such a crowd, the dancing would be an inelegant set of wriggles to avoid other dancers’ elbows and feet, and when I poked my head into the anteroom designated as a card room for those who preferred to worship at the shrine of Tyche rather than Terpsichore, the atmosphere was already so thick with smoke it could kipper an entire trawler full of herrings. Then, no doubt, the queue to escape the place would be as long as the one to get in.
When I made some airy remarks along these lines, Nell took her attention from the ornate ivory carnet de bal gifted to each lady as she arrived, and raised one delicate eyebrow at me instead. “You’re quite foul. Dyspepsia?”
I bit back a sigh. “Old age.”
She laughed. “Just for that I’m putting you down for the polka. Let’s see if you can loosen those aged joints.”
Nell’s carnet was cleverly fashioned in the shape of a brisé fan, each ivory stick representing a dance on the program. My name was pencilled onto the requisite stick despite my protests, and we circulated to greet friends and acquaintances. Nell stayed with me until the orchestra struck up. The moment the violins scraped out a note or two for the opening Grand March, she thrust the golden fleece into my arms and went off to cavort with some young scion of one of the Houses whom she knew, though I didn’t recognise him from Adam.
Ned was there of course, dressed as a Norse god. Playing to his strengths, I fancied. If I were of a poetic bent, I’d say my heart took wing at the sight of him, although to be honest, the sensation of soaring internal organs did make me wonder about Nell’s diagnosis of dyspepsia. Ned wore a figure-hugging jerkin that left his arms deliciously bare, over tight leggings embellished with a crisscross of leather thongs coming up from the tops of his low boots. I admired them and the legs they encased.
“They’re glued on,” he said in answer to my bewilderment as to how the thongs stayed up, even given calves as well shaped as my own. We retreated to one of the many small tables around the perimeter of the vast room, out of the way of the dancers. He slapped the large gilded sledgehammer and his winged helmet onto the table in front of us and scratched at his chin. “As is this damnable beard.”
A point with which I had a great deal of einfühlung. My own false beard was shorter and sparser than Ned’s, and it was irritant enough. Hugh had warned me that I’d hate it. Hugh was right. As usual.
Sam Hawkins’s greeting was a “Who are you meant to be? Nice hat, by the way.”
“Cesare Borgia. And I’ll have you know, hats like this were all the stare back in 1500.” Would I need to defend my poor maligned headgear all evening? I looked Sam up and down. “I see you’ve come as a lethally armed House guard. Staying in character, then.”
Ned wore a chagrined expression. “I couldn’t persuade him into costume, and he defied a direct order.”
“Shame. He’d make a brilliant Valkyrie.”
“Watch it.” Sam touched the butt of the aether pistol on his belt. But he spoke without real animus, so I counted myself as safe.
We settled at the table. Nell promenaded past on the arm of her young swain, who was, Ned told me, Henry Palliser, the Venator’s eldest grandson. He wouldn’t do. He’d inherit one day, and for my plan to work, I needed Nell to marry a second or third son who wouldn’t baulk at one of his sons changing his name and inheriting in a different House.
“I’ve made some decisions about this year’s dig,” Ned said when we’d exhausted the topic of why I should have known young Palliser without being prompted—Sam had summed it up as “A matter of self-preservation, o’course, and you don’t have the sense the Good Lord gave a goldfish” and Ned had nodded agreement, which was irksome. “I’ve arranged a change of concessions with an American team. They’ll take over Abydos, and I’ll take their projected dig at Khmunu.” His expression that of a man required to eat raw liver dipped in ripe Époisses cheese, he added, “Khmunu became known as Hermopolis Magna in Graeco-Roman times, you benighted classicist.”
“Hermopolis.” I tried for a mildly provocative, yet thoughtful, tone while I reviewed the geography of the country. Where the deuce was Khmunu-cum-Hermopolis?
Ned divined my difficulty. “It’s about halfway between Cairo and Luxor, at the boundary between Upper and Lower Aegypt. It was the capital of the Hare nome.” He stared at me for another moment before sighing. “Near the village of el Ashmunein on the west side of the Nile across from Amarna. Not directly opposite Amarna, mind, but it’s the nearest point of reference.”
“Ah.” I waited for a heartbeat, for the best effect. “Well, I’m sure I’ve flown over it.”
Ned’s eyerolling had more of an impact on me than Nell’s, inducing a soft, fuzzy feeling that definitely wasn’t dyspepsia. “You have no idea where it is, do you?”
“A vague one. But Ned, are you giving up Abydos?”
“I am. It was a struggle, but I want to take a gander at Khmunu.” He laughed. “I’m not the only one. The Americans told me they’d also been approached by two German teams. I could offer them more, both in terms of an alternative site and”—his neck, what I could see of it under the false beard, reddened—“some help with funding.”
Ah, the joys of being a rich man.
“Why?”
“Because it’s Khmunu.”
I waited.
Ned
sighed again, in what seemed to me to be a rather pointed fashion. “You should take those classes at the museum you keep promising to attend. Khmunu was Thoth’s main cult centre.”
Ah. The mist of ignorance lifted. “The strange machine you’ve been so fascinated by. The one from… where was it now? Anti-something.”
“Antikythera. Yes. I want to explore it further. Thoth was credited with so many of the ways man has measured himself against our world. It struck me that if Thoth was based upon some early scientist at Khmunu, then we might uncover an explanation of the machine, and perhaps yet more mysteries to intrigue us.” His smile was incandescent. “I’m not bored with Abydos, and I’ll admit the remains at Hermopolis are not, on the surface, anywhere near as grand as the Osireion, but this is a new and exciting direction. I can’t turn it down.”
“Mmn.” I gave him a nod and a close-mouthed smile and looked away, seeking Nell and young Palliser amongst the dancers. The Grand March had given way to the first dance, a graceful polonaise, but as I’d thought, the crush out on the floor was horrific with nowhere near enough space between each terpsichorean pair. I thought I caught a glimpse of Nell’s dark hair and a swish of the white chiton, but I couldn’t be sure. Madame Recamier and Attila the Hun blocked my view.
Beside me, Ned drew a quiet, long breath. “Not that it matters much, this year. You aren’t coming with me, are you, Rafe?”
Bless the man, he knew me far too well.
“No.” I met his steady gaze.
“I didn’t think you’d be able to come, considering.”
Considering my House had once again interrupted the smooth tenor of my life, he meant. Of course, that wasn’t fair. Not even my father would go to the trouble of dying just to be as disobliging as possible. I could hardly ask him to reschedule to a more convenient time that didn’t cut into the archaeological digging season.
“I can’t see my way to it,” I said. “Not with the way things are. The old man will be lucky to last beyond Christmas. I can’t leave him or the House. Not in such uncertain times.”
“A sense of responsibility is the very devil.” Under cover of the table, Ned caught my hand in his, gripping it for comfort.
“I’m torn. I have responsibilities to you, too.”
“It can’t be helped.” Ned sighed, and turned to Sam when he coughed to attract our attention. “Sam?”
Sam scowled. “It’s the right thing to do,” he said, a concession that had me gawking, “but it leaves us in a bind over a pilot. How’s Hugh getting along?”
“He’s a natural, but I’m not certain he’s quite ready to take on the Brunel just yet.” The Brunel Sky King aeroship belonging to House Gallowglass was a behemoth, too much for a new and inexperienced pilot. Hugh could cope very well with the small two-seater aeroplane the Brunel carried in its hold, and Sam grunted when I told them so, his hard mouth softening when I added, “I’ll fly you out there—or oversee Hugh, at least—and leave Hugh and the two-seater with you at the site. I’ll take the Brunel back to Cairo for storage and return on a commercial flight. I can manage a few days away. A week at most. I can’t take more.”
Ned looked away and back again, his lips tightening. He unclenched them enough to say, “I’m grateful for that much, Rafe.” And then he blinked and rubbed his hand over his mouth. The timbre of his voice changed. Trembled. “But, oh God, I’ll miss you. It won’t be the same. Aegypt won’t be the same.”
I stared five Ned-less months in the face, and swallowed against the sick feeling cramping my gut like cholera.
I didn’t have time to speak. The first dance was over, and Nell swanned up to join me, fanning her face with the tiny carnet de bal. She greeted Ned with pretty grace, was courteous to Sam, checked that I hadn’t lost her golden fleece, and declared the ball to be “Not too foul, I suppose,” with all the world-weary cynicism I understood to be de rigueur with modern youth.
I looked at her, not at Ned. It was easier. “Dyspepsia?”
She laughed, allowing me the hit. “It’s the fashion to be unimpressible.”
We were joined by a highwayman, elegant in the dress of the 1750s. I was pleased he hadn’t brought his horse with him, otherwise Nell might have been inspired to return to her first idea for a costume.
It took me a moment to recognise young Theo Winter, quite resplendent in lace jabot and rakish wig. He bowed to us all.
Ned managed a thin smile for him. “I hadn’t realised you’d arrived, Theo.”
“Just now. Good evening, Rafe.” Ned’s younger brother nodded at me but appeared to have eyes only for my little sister. “I say, it’s Miss Lancaster, isn’t it? I do hope you remember me from the Abercrombies’ dance? Theo Winter.”
Nell, not being a fool, would have acknowledged him even if she’d had full amnesia. She peeked up at him through her eyelashes, a devastating manoeuvre I assumed she practised religiously, and assured him he had made an indelible impression on her. She was charmed to see him again and hoped he was well. And in answer to further enquiry, the second dance was indeed free. And the supper dance. And the last dance? But of course! She would be delighted to put Mr Winter’s name against all three. Which she did at once, in firm black lettering, so he couldn’t escape. Not that he showed signs of wanting to. Subject to the highwayman’s code of honour and gallantry, perhaps.
The next few minutes of small talk were torture. We allowed Theo and Nell to dominate it, spotting mutual acquaintances and trying to work out who was dressed as whom, and goodness, but doesn’t Daisy Tomlinson look perfectly fou—perfectly splendid as Marie Antoinette? As for Ned and me, doorposts couldn’t have less to say for themselves.
The musicians chimed out the opening bars of the Viennese waltz. The iniquities of other costumes forgotten, Nell and Theo scrambled to their feet and out onto the dance floor with little more than a bare acknowledgement to the rest of us.
I waited until they were well out of hearing range. “It won’t be good here, either. I’ll miss you like hell.”
He nodded, his face turned towards the dancers.
The crowds waltzed before us, faces smooth and smiling, voices warm with laughter and good cheer. Nell waved as she glided by in young Theo’s arms, her smile as brilliant as her diamonds, while the music made a series of sparkling chord shifts, echoing the glimmer of the lights sparking fire from a myriad jewels. The principal violin pierced through the babble of noise with a note to make the heart ache.
We sat in silence, watching the dancers pass.
CHAPTER SIX
We reached Cairo on the afternoon of 30th October. I had claimed supervisor’s rights to sit back, and made Hugh do most of the flying. He did well, showing a cool competence that filled me with pride.
Aside from the usual half-baked students, only two of the usual team were with Ned: Willem Baumann, the German archaeologist and anthropologist, and Raoul Archambault, the aged Frenchman who was the expedition’s philologist, hieroglyphics expert, artist—and my step-mother’s lover. Tom Causton, the American, had gone on ahead to Cairo to open negotiations with Gaston Maspero, the Director of Antiquities, to ensure Ned had the right permits to begin the dig as soon as possible after we arrived. Friedrich Lansbach, our other German team member, had opted to join the expedition of one of his star pupils from the Berlin Institute. He would be missed.
We went straight to Shepheard’s Hotel to join Causton, who greeted us with restrained delight. His week in Cairo had not been all unalloyed joy. “Maspero’s been the usual bureaucratic pain in the backside, despite promising us the concession over two months ago. He’s up to his eyes moving the museum from Giza into Cairo proper, but I pinned him down. If you make a visit of state tomorrow to soothe his ego, Ned, he’ll hand the papers over and we can be off. The donation you made to the new museum clinched the deal.”
“Excellent! The Khedive’s in Paris for a society wedding, so no need to waste time making a courtesy call.” Ned smiled. “We can be straight off.”
> I was less enraptured at the thought. The sooner Ned had his permit, the sooner I’d be on my way home. But single-minded Ned didn’t appear to see the personal advantages in delay.
I explained it to him with meticulous thoroughness that night, of course, with a practical demonstration rather than a lecture.
I flatter myself I made my point.
Several expeditions of varying nationalities made their headquarters in Shepheard’s Hotel, chomping on metaphorical bits as they awaited Maspero’s pleasure when it came to the granting of digging permits. Ned knew most of the expedition heads and many of their team members. When we entered the lounge the following evening for pre-dinner drinks, a chorus of voices hailed him, ranging from the enthusiastic (Tom Causton, who was cock-a-hoop about Ned’s collecting the permit that morning) to the polite-yet-jaded (our old friend Laurent Fouquet, who, despite aiding us at Abydos a couple of years earlier, still envied Ned) to the frankly jealous (everyone else).
Fouquet swallowed enough of his pride to approach our table to join us in a glass of celebratory champagne. He shook his head after the toast. “You have the luck of the devil, Winter, getting your permit so quickly.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it.” Causton was as smug as you like. “Planning, that’s what did it. I’ve sat in this benighted town for a week playing peekaboo with Maspero. My sacrifice was worth it.”
“And will not be forgotten.” Ned waved his glass with a profligate hand, baptizing more than one of us in the best Piper-Heidsieck. Next time he’d get water. Unblessed.
“Ha!” Causton said. “I’ll remind you about this when it comes to bonuses at the end of the digging season.”
Several others wandered over, including a German archaeologist, Günter Reitz, who was an old friend and teammate of Ned’s. I’d never worked with him, as he’d secured funding to start his own expeditions around three years earlier. Reitz had a noticeable limp following an accident the previous digging season when an unstable wall had collapsed onto him, but it hadn’t been enough to persuade him to take up a less risky profession. But then, it wouldn’t have persuaded Ned, either.
