The God's Eye (Lancaster's Luck Book 3)

by Anna Butler

  Archaeologists were a strange lot.

  Reitz dropped into a seat beside me when all the courtesies were over and the newcomers supplied with champagne. He leaned over to speak to Ned in excellent English. Most of Europe’s Aegyptologists had been educated in London—the Britannic Imperium Museum still held premier position in archaeological scholarship, though the Berlin Institute was fast catching up. They were impressive linguists with a good working command of English, though some of our more creative idioms escaped them. Reitz was more fluent than most.

  “Your name, mein lieber Ned, is being spoken in the corridors of the Stadtschloss. And not in admiration.”

  Ned blinked. “Really?”

  “I heard this, too. Several of my fellow Ägyptologen would like to mummify you alive! Our claim to the Hermopolis concession has left several noses discomposed. Disjointed?” Willem Baumann pushed his own nose to one side with a fingertip in illustration.

  “Out of joint.” But Ned offered the correction in a rather abstracted tone. “Why? Hermopolis is so ruinous the original temple is dust. There’s nothing of huge architectural significance.”

  Reitz inclined his head. “Which begs the question of why you gave up a prime site like Abydos.”

  Ned ignored Reitz’s hint. “I can’t imagine why my taking Hermopolis should cause anyone a moment’s concern. Especially anyone in the Kaiser’s entourage in the Stadtschloss. In fact, I wasn’t aware he had any interest in archaeology, unless it were in the Holy Land.”

  Reitz shrugged. “I do not understand his interest either, but he is said to be unhappy that one or two of our expedition teams wanted Hermopolis, but you got it instead. I supported their complaint, of course.”

  “You don’t want Hermopolis, Günni?”

  “Not at all. I am happy to be in Amarna this season, and for the next few years. I have an entire city to excavate.” Reitz’s sly smile broadened. “I am not an intimate of the Kaiser or his set, since I am neither Prussian nor high-born. But it is all about patriotism, and we Germans are very patriotic. We can sing all the verses to the “Deutschlandlied”. Loudly, and to the beat of beer steins on the table.”

  “Oh, ja.” Baumann gave the table a gentle tap with his champagne glass in demonstration.

  “Several choruses of ‘God Save the King’ would seem to be called for,” I said. “But I don’t know all the words.”

  “You can’t sing, either.” Hugh added a belated, bland, “Sir.”

  God’s truth. So I huffed out a “Cheek!” that had no effect on Hugh whatsoever.

  Ned raised both hands and spread them, in a gesture both helpless and indifferent. “I’m sorry to give your countrymen pain, but I’m not giving up Hermopolis. I fear they—and you—will have to live with the disappointment.”

  Reitz laughed.

  “Ah, Friedrich.” Baumann brightened as our old friend Friedrich Lansbach hove into view, and if his tone warmed with an extra degree or ten of pleasure, I’m sure I didn’t begrudge it him. He and Lansbach were close friends and colleagues. Very close friends, I fancied.

  Lansbach shook hands with hearty goodwill. Three young men were in his wake. Two of them, the image of the bullet-headed Prussian beloved by our satirical cartoonists whenever they felt compelled to take a jab at Bismarck’s imperial legacy, veered off towards the dining room. The third stood just behind Lansbach.

  Lansbach tugged him forward. “I am glad to see you all. May I present the leader of my current expedition to you, Ned? This is Leopold von Saxe-Eichshofen-Altenfeld.”

  Well, that was a mouthful and a half.

  “Leo, this is Professor Ned Winter, of the Britannic Imperium Museum, London.” Lansbach clapped his team leader on the shoulder. “Leo was a pupil of mine at the Berlin Institute after he completed his degree at Heidelberg.”

  Lansbach introduced the rest of us and Altenfeld—I refused to tangle my tongue around the rest of it—bowed in the fashion popular with the Prussian Junker class, with a sharp inclination of the head and a distinct clunk of heels tapping together. He was as tall as Ned, and possessed a shock of bright auburn hair framing a face showing several of the duelling scars so coveted by German students.

  He acknowledged the introductions and made formal conversation with us, his manner grave and restrained. Punctilious, even. He stood beside Lansbach, as stiff and erect as a young fir tree, while chairs were dragged away from nearby tables and the circle expanded. If not for his stroking his neat moustache with one hand, he was the embodiment of the parade ground, all squared-back shoulders, thrust out chest, and direct gaze. Only when Hugh, smiling, offered the chair he’d pulled up, did Altenfeld’s posture relax. He gave Hugh a charming smile in return, a bow of the head, and a murmured, “Danke.”

  Beside me, Reitz chuckled around the mouthpiece of the disreputable pipe he had jammed between his teeth. Its bowl was empty, and he was employed in preparing his tobacco. He spread a measure onto his handkerchief, and from a folded paper taken from his pocket, he added a pinch of dried herbs and stirred the mix with one finger. I was reminded of the Chinese soporific my father used.

  Reitz must have noted my reaction and removed the pipe from his mouth. “Does this bother you, that I pollute my tobacco so?”

  “Not at all. Your herbs look similar to those my father takes to help him sleep, that’s all. The apothecary calls the decoction mafeisan.”

  “It is the same. I get mine from a Chinese herbalist in a backstreet in Berlin. He told me it was a mix of herbs, rare in the Occident but common in China. I use it when I have overdone and my leg aches.” He stretched out his left leg. “And, like your father, I have found it a potent sedative. I mix it with my bedtime tea, since its effects are stronger when taken in that fashion.”

  I hoped my grimace conveyed sympathy. “Yes, my father does the same. I’m sorry the leg’s still bothersome.”

  “To be honest, it is not too bad. It aches when I am tired, but I can walk and work, which is all that matters. As for this”—Reitz waved his pipe at me while tamping in the tobacco—“truth be told, I like the taste.”

  “In my father’s case, it’s easing his last days.”

  “It has great efficacy. I am sorry about your father’s ill health.” He took my proffered pocket lucifer with a word of thanks and applied the flame to the bowl.

  I nodded, and we turned our attention back to the others, who were being passionate on the subject of mummification. Altenfeld appeared to have unbent. He threw himself right into the discussion, his eyes alight and the stiffened shoulders relaxed.

  Reitz, having puffed furiously on the pipe to get it started, waved it at the discussion after returning my lucifer. “Von Saxe-Eichs—verdammt! What a mouthful.”

  “His name is too long. Altenfeld should do it.”

  “Indeed. Well, Altenfeld should know better than to argue about mummification rites. Ned was Peter Le Page Renouf’s protégé in that very specialism, and he—Sir Peter, I mean—was the most respected Aegyptologist of his time.” The tones making their way out around the pipe stem became wistful. “I wish I had been taught by him. He was a great man. Altenfeld must realise Ned is the expert and knows what he is talking about.”

  “Ned can hold his own.” I hoped he planned to do so without my support anyway, because the extent of my expertise in mummification techniques could be inscribed on the head of a pin and still leave room for a sizeable cohort of angels to stand thereon.

  “I am sure of it. As for Altenfeld, I believe he has the concession for Antinoë, across the Nile from Hermopolis.” Reitz curved his mouth into a lopsided grin. “Antinoë is Romano-Aegyptian. Not even Ptolemaic. Not what an aspiring archaeologist wants. But it is his first year as an expedition head, and he must learn his place in the hierarchy. Ned is above him, that is all. We all are. His day will come.”

  “At least he’s more polite than the little man over there.” I nodded towards the offender, who stood glaring at us from a distance.


  “Who?” Reitz turned. “Oh, Henri Pasquier. He was after Hermopolis too.”

  “What about him?” I indicated a dark-haired man who stood farther off and whose every jagged, jerky movement betrayed tension and impatience. “Do you know him?”

  “Only by repute. I have never spoken to him. Vikentyev from St Petersburg.”

  “Who also wanted Hermopolis?”

  “Along with two or three Italians. Altenfeld, too, was set on it, and bitterly resented getting Antinoë. His is a nose very much out of joint. I am astonished he is speaking to Ned at all.” Reitz’s nose wrinkled as if smelling a six-day-dead codfish. “He made the complaint to the Kaiser’s people.”

  “You dislike him?”

  He hitched his chair around until its high back was angled towards the mummification discussion. “He is Prussian.”

  “A lot of them about.”

  His face could have been that of any pharaoh carved from adamantine granite, stony and hard. “I was born in Württemberg, which resisted being pulled into the German Empire until after the war with France.”

  I blinked. “Wasn’t that about thirty years ago?”

  “It was. But we have long memories. Württemberg only came into the confederation under the threat of Bismarck’s blood and iron, and the Prussians have ruled our roost ever since.”

  “German politics sound as convoluted as ours.”

  “Ja. I am not fond of Prussia, nor people like Altenfeld who glorify the Kaiser.”

  “So you’re singing the ‘Deutschlandlied’ with a lot of hot air?”

  He smiled, and the granite melted out of him. He clinked his glass against my own. “Of course. Odd that he is in favour with the Kaiser, though. The Stadtschloss is more used to dealing with true gentlemen, and whatever he claims, he is not entitled to use the Saxe-Eichshofen-Altenfeld name.”

  I glanced at Altenfeld. The conversation over that side of the table was easy and convivial now, all of the participants laughing as they talked. Perhaps they’d settled the mummification question to their own satisfaction. I looked back at Reitz, raising an eyebrow in quizzical fashion.

  “His mother was.” Reitz inclined his head in a slow knowing sort of nod, and winked.

  Ah. The wind blew from that direction, did it?

  Reitz leaned in closer. “Duchess Victoria Leopoldine, an unmarried daughter of the reigning Duke. It is said his father was a footman.”

  Reitz’s sense of humour was not only sardonic and dry, it was mischievous. If not malicious. I glanced Altenfeld’s way with a great deal of fellow feeling. “I see.”

  “You are not shocked?”

  “No. Nor hypocritical. My father is the Princeps of a Minor House, but I suppose you can describe him as the footman in the case.”

  Reitz stared before breaking into a laugh, his shoulders shaking with such hearty Teutonic mirth I thought he’d burst something. He was the embodiment of those awful laughing automata to be found in penny arcades of every seaside town in the kingdom, letting out raucous guffaws whenever a dropping coin galvanised the machine into life. While I was pleased to be as entertaining and amusing as the next man, I was rather sorry to have inserted the penny into his slot. So to speak.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was late, and most people in Cairo were sleeping. Not all of them. Outside in the street, a voice said something light and amused as its owner walked past, fading into laughter, and a cart rumbled by with the slow plod of hooves echoing against the midnight quiet.

  We weren’t sleeping, either. Not yet even in bed.

  Ned slid his hands through my hair and along my jaw, the touch light and caressing. Loving.

  The curtains blew apart to let in the moonlight, stirred by a breeze bringing the scent of roses from the Ezbekiah Gardens with a faint underlay of the city’s prevailing tang of camel dung.

  Ned’s mouth met mine.

  And the world outside our hotel window, the warm, fervid Aegyptian night, vanished away. Its sounds muted into a stillness in which my heart beat a wild tattoo in my chest. The whole universe sharpened to the nucleus that was Ned, and Ned’s hands, and Ned’s kisses.

  When Ned drew back and the kisses became the gentle brush of lips against lips, he unbuttoned my evening jacket. He was a most efficient valet. He worked swiftly, slipping the coat from my shoulders while I wrenched away my cravat myself, tossing it over a nearby chair before tugging the hem of my shirt free of my trousers. I smiled at him as I raised my arms, letting him pull the shirt up over them. It joined the jacket on the chair. Hugh would tut-tut in the morning over how creased it was. Not that I cared.

  Ned stopped to look at me. His eyes were eclipsed, the greeny-golden hazel a mere corona around his dark, widened pupils, and his breathing was harsher than normal. He licked his lips, his tongue flickering out to pass over their fullness. I bit back the moan the wicked, lascivious sight drew from me. The pure wantonness of it.

  Ned gave me a sly little smile and ran his tongue over his lips again. I might have whimpered. I am as affected by beauty as much as the next man.

  Our last real night together. The next day I would take them to Hermopolis, and the day after I’d be returning to Cairo alone. The following five months’ worth of nights would be Ned-less, blank and empty. That night in Cairo was to treasure and savour, to be my bulwark against loneliness.

  He skimmed his fingers over the skin under my trouser waistband, round from the small of my back and over my hip bone, making me jump and laugh, until he reached the button fly and worked it open. It was good to step out of them, and it was the work of a few seconds to shimmy out of the cotton drawers I wore beneath. Ned watched me, raking his wide, lust-blown gaze up and down.

  I licked my lips. “Either I’m underdressed for the occasion or you need to hurry to catch up.”

  Ned laughed. He splayed his hand over my chest, fingertips over my thumping heart. “You’re beautiful. And I am overdressed.”

  For a man who’d had a valet all his life, Ned was handy at getting out of his clothing in a trice. It was sheer pleasure to watch the swift unveiling of those long limbs and the pale skin which glowed in the soft light of the aether lamps on the table beside the bed. The scar from the accident that killed his wife, jagged and frosty-white, arced around his chest. The sight of it always hurt. Ned could have died that day, and I’d have lived without knowing him. The thought always left me feeling my heart was plummeting through the bottom of my chest. As I often did, I leaned forward to gentle the scar with my mouth and hands. The faint ridges of the damaged skin reassured me. Ned was alive. Loved.

  Mine.

  I pulled him close. When I pressed my face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, my nostrils filled with the citrusy scent of the Aqua Mirabilis he used as cologne. He carded his fingers through my hair.

  Ned laughed again when he felt my shivery response. “I think I need to warm you up.”

  He took my hand, pulling me towards the bed. I shuffled inelegantly across the soft linen sheets to make room for him, then let him take the lead in our lovemaking. He was a master at pleasuring me, using his fingers to glide up my outer thighs and hips, hands spanning my waist, stroking over my chest to tweak my nipples—I might have vocalised my satisfaction at that particular point and sought his mouth. Heat gathered, my cock heavy with anticipation, but Ned, damn him, was still working on smoothing his fingers up over my shoulders, stroking and caressing, leaning down to follow the line of my throat with his lips before drawing back and cradling my face between his hands. Then, at last, he kissed me.

  We were tangled, bare skin against bare skin, legs entwined, hands stroking and smoothing, ghost-touches leaving fire in their wake. Ned’s cock pressed against my hip.

  “I wish…”

  “Mmn?” Ned’s mouth covered mine for an instant, cutting off my voice.

  “I wish I could stay.”

  I was sorry, as soon as I spoke. It broke the mood. Ned froze, just for a moment, before shaking
his head, and he surrendered to a hectic urgency, a spiky desperation. Fingers tightened in my hair, his mouth hot and reaching for mine over and over again, once gentle kisses now savage and aching and demanding, the jerky movements of his hips rubbing his cock against mine with a frantic energy.

  Every sinew burned with the need to be closer, to soothe Ned’s desperation and hide my own. Ned let out a low, pained groan, and he kissed me, fierce as a striking hawk. He splayed his hands against my bare back, pulling me in, clutching me so ferociously his nails felt they were gouging into me. We moved in a wild rhythm, clinging to each other with grasping hands. Harder and faster. Faster. The cadence so rough as we rubbed against each other, mouths sealed in messy, fiery kisses, molten lava raced through my veins, choking my breathing into short, harsh gulps for air. My chest ached.

  “Rafe!” Ned pulled away his mouth long enough to let out my name in a low, broken cry as he juddered and shuddered to his fulfilment. I matched him, mirrored him, shaking with my own passion and need and the despairing sadness that we would be apart for so many months.

  For a long time, neither of us moved. Ned was a warm weight, familiar, so very dear to me. I could conceive of nothing better than to be entwined like this for the rest of our lives, listening to his breathing, feeling the beat of his heart against mine, watching him while he was sleeping.

  “I wish to God you could stay, too.” Ned’s voice was rough. “I’ll miss you.”

  Λαχτάρα, the ancient Greeks called it: lakhtara. Something more than the nostalgia of longing for a lost past, but a feeling close to it—the nostalgia of longing for something immeasurably dear. A deep melancholy, a sense of “missingness” cooled my blood. I’d miss him too. Be lost without him.