“A few days ago, there was another note,” Eleanor said.
“Another note?” No matter his resolve, Virgil couldn’t stop himself from bolting out of his chair at that admission. How much else might she be keeping from them? And with Irving returned! He paced a line among the chairs and tables of Cleo’s sitting area. But, he decided, it was unkind of him; Eleanor hadn’t withheld anything, had she? She was not like Caroline—she was not. “Forgive me. Start at the beginning.”
“I was about to,” she said with ill-disguised impatience. Still, her eyes were bright and Virgil was coming to know that look, half amusement, half annoyance. “This first note also contained a poem, but not in hieratic. I thought it was from you.”
Virgil paused in his pacing to stare at her, while Auberon, Gin, and Cleo, all perched like birds in a row on Cleo’s couch, stared at Virgil in return. There was a long silence as Eleanor’s words sank in.
“Poetry,” Auberon eventually said.
“From Virgil?” Gin asked.
Cleo cleared her throat, but said nothing.
Virgil silently thanked Eleanor when she pressed on. “The poem suggested climbing the Great Pyramid in an effort to trust each other more, and the following day, we went to Giza. What was I to think?”
“Reasonable enough, and considering nothing untoward happened on that jaunt . . . ” Cleo agreed.
“The poet evidently did not anticipate you arriving with us,” Auberon added before another heavy silence could fall, but Gin couldn’t get over the idea of Virgil leaving poetry and enthusiastically said so.
“I did not leave the poem,” Virgil said.
“The balcony doors were open when I—” Eleanor paused strangely, eyes flicking to Cleo and then back up to Virgil. “I contacted my father. I couldn’t sleep after you two left. Cleo helped me reach him, and when I came back to my locked room, the poem was there.”
“And while Virgil may be moved to write poetry,” Gin said, still amused and pressing the idea, “you don’t think he would scale your balcony to leave some?”
“I didn’t scale the balcony,” Virgil said. Did women like such dramatic displays? Did Eleanor? “That’s not to say I wouldn’t . . . ”
Eleanor continued on, before he could. “When I traveled with Christian, I attempted to teach him hieratic. He had problems with it, but joked that one day he would write poetry in it. I think now that he has.”
“And that he’s guiding us to Deir el-Bahri?” Auberon asked with a headshake.
Virgil crouched beside Eleanor’s chair, wanting to take her hand but not doing so. She looked down at him and gifted him with an uneasy smile. “Did you talk to your father about the Lady?” he asked.
As Virgil was coming to know Eleanor’s various expressions, he knew the one crossing her face now. This was sorrow. He closed his own hand into a loose fist in an effort to not take hers, to not let the others here see such a private moment. And yet, her conversation with her father was a private thing, too.
“My father admitted that my mother believed the Lady was her own mother,” Eleanor said, and related the conversation they’d had, including the original discovery of the four rings and that Sagira had vanished with them.
“And he always knew,” Eleanor finished in a whisper, her eyes on Virgil alone. “He knew and he never told me, but that’s for another day.”
Now Virgil did touch Eleanor’s hand, the rest of the people in the room be damned. “Add to this that Irving has returned,” he said, swinging his look to the others. “We just parted company with him. Have you two finished poking through the collection?”
Auberon reached into his pocket and withdrew a browned and battered box. It was the size that could hold a ring, and Virgil realized he was holding his breath; he didn’t release it until Auberon took the lid off to reveal a gold and lapis lazuli ring inside. Auberon met his look—even but filled with a good many things unspoken—and placed the box beside the poem on the table.
Eleanor slid out of her chair, her hand whispering free from Virgil’s as she knelt. She didn’t touch the box, hands coming to rest flat upon the table. Virgil was certain she had as many questions about the ring as he did, but for the moment they went unasked.
“The ring is damaged,” Auberon said. “The lapis is chipped on its left side.”
Even damaged, the ring was a beautiful piece of Egyptian craftsmanship. The deeply blue lapis stone nestled between ropes of carefully twisted and gleaming gold.
“Eleanor?” Virgil looked to her, still frozen before the ring. She said nothing, only nodded a confirmation; she recognized the ring. Feeling as if time were suddenly slipping away from them with Irving in the building, Virgil looked to the others. “What else have you found?”
Gin slid to the edge of the couch. “Since Auberon got the ring reveal . . . ” He lifted a notebook and offered it to Virgil. “There are plenty of local legends about the Glass of Anubis. Sirocco has been collecting them for centuries. No one knows what it does or is—there are reports of light, of a portal and god-like creatures, but if anyone has gone through—in either direction—they’ve not been interviewed. By all accounts, it sounds dangerous—the light sets the land ablaze—”
“The information also mentions the pharaoh Hatshepsut,” Cleo said, and Virgil was thankful she picked up the thread of information before Gin went on at length about the portal and its potential for danger and doom. What they needed now were simple facts, not embellishments. “Hatshepsut may have owned the rings, or known the person who did, but in either case, her temple is at Deir el-Bahri, which ties to Eleanor’s poem.”
They were all quiet; then each spoke at once, every voice overlapping with conflicting theories until Cleo raised hers and silenced them.
“You all have to leave immediately,” Cleo said to Virgil. “If Irving is back and has seen you with Eleanor, he knows exactly what you’re doing. There is only one reason to have a Folley in this building.”
“We’ll need transportation,” Gin said, thinking ahead as he so often did. The young man moved off to arrange it without another word.
“You can’t stay, either,” Auberon said to Cleo. Without Gin between them on the couch, Auberon slid closer, reaching for Cleo’s hand. Her metal fingers closed around his. “With Irving here and you in charge of the Lady—” Auberon’s voice faltered. “He’ll suspect you played a part.”
“I can’t go,” Cleo said, shaking her head. “This is my post, and I may yet be able to do some good here.”
A muscle in Auberon’s jaw flexed, and Cleo drew her hand out of his. This had been their constant argument through the years. Virgil looked from them to Eleanor, still poised near the ring. His scrutiny brought her gaze to him at last, and she exhaled. She made no arguments; they could only leave before Irving prevented them from doing so.
Their belongings were few, but they all left the security of Cleo’s office, returning to their rooms to pack. When Virgil finished with his own, he came to collect Eleanor. He worried he might find her unpacked and refusing to go, but her bags stood ready. She allowed him into the room, pacing a restless path between him and her luggage.
“You should have this,” he said, and withdrew the lapis ring from his pocket.
“Mallory, I couldn’t.”
He understood the worry in her eyes. It wasn’t worry that she would outright vanish with the ring in her possession, but that the memory of her mother doing so might consume her. That she might be drawn into that abyss from which she couldn’t escape. It was how he often felt when the wolf pulled him down.
“Only for safekeeping,” he said, and gently reached for her. “No other should have it, Eleanor.”
He undid the buttons of her collar, eyeing the faint bruise that still marked her neck. He stroked the gold chain that lay against her skin, then lifted it. His hands were steady when he unfastened the clasp and added the second ring to the first.
“You aren’t going to vanish, at least not without
me by your side,” he said as he buttoned her collar once more and smoothed it to rights. “If you go, I go. We ride this out, remember?”
Eleanor covered his hand with her own as it came to her cheek. “I couldn’t do this without you,” she said.
Virgil shushed her with a fleeting kiss. “You damn well could and would. You did this for years on your own.” Had circumstances dictated, he had no doubt she would have flown into the face of the danger alone. He supposed it might yet come to that, but shushed that voice.
Eleanor laughed. “It’s like you’ve always been there.”
He slid his arm around the curve of her waist, drawing her closer. He supposed some would have taken offense at the sentiment, the implication that Mistral had constantly hounded her in one way or another, but he didn’t. “Hampering you.”
“Addling my brain with your quignogs,” she returned.
“Quignogs! Making you liversick?” He rubbed his cheek into hers and looked down into her bright eyes. “My tesorina.”
Eleanor leaned further into him at the Italian endearment—his treasure—which allowed him to feel the press of the rings against his own chest. Her mouth erased the world around them, until there came a sharp knock at the door and Gin calling to see if they were ready.
Virgil lifted his mouth from Eleanor’s. There was no doubt in her eyes, nor in the line of her body. Whatever would come, she stood ready, as Virgil knew she would.
“Ready,” she said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gin took an inordinate amount of pleasure in the fact that the ship he secured for their journey was named The Jackal. She was sleek, with a sharply pointed face, patinaed bronze cradling sails and balloons of cream parchment. The Jackal was smaller than the Nuit, which suited Eleanor fine. Maybe this time, they would be less of a target and would make it to their destination without being shot from the sky. Eleanor had no lack of anxiety as she boarded the ship, yet when she finally looked down upon Hatshepsut’s temple crouched in the sepia sands, all worry fled.
She had only ever seen poorly rendered photographs of the temple and could only vaguely remember her parents speaking of it; the location hadn’t been a consideration in the search for the Lady’s rings until now. Djeser-djeseru snuggled against sharp cliffs, seeming to emerge straight from them and into the honeyed midday light. Pillared colonnades stretched the length of two tiers, dramatic, sweeping ramps leading from one to the next. It looked nearly Greek in its style with the pillars, though the roofs were flat, dusted with windswept sands.
“Have you been here before?”
Despite the seriousness of their visit, Eleanor couldn’t help but grin at Mallory, who stood by her side at the observation rail. He had procured a worn leather jacket and linen scarf before their flight, but had given the scarf up to Eleanor, tucking it into the neck of her own jacket. At this elevation, the air was cool, The Jackal less enclosed than the Nuit had been. Eleanor and Mallory stood framed by one of many observation nooks; leather loops and a brass rail provided support.
“Never,” she said, “which is odd, given how close the Valley of the Kings is. I’ve been there more times than I can count, but not here.” Her eyes went back to the temple, drinking it in. “You?”
“Once,” Mallory said. “On a work-related tour.”
“What can we expect down there?” Auberon asked from his position beside Gin at the controls. The interior of the ship was so small, he had no need to shout; those in the control deck could easily be heard by those in the passenger cabin observation nooks.
“It’s a beautiful temple,” Mallory said, eyes still on it as they neared.
Eleanor took the opportunity to watch him and the light that reflected gold in his eyes. He seemed as eager as she to explore this place, and she had to remind herself they weren’t on vacation. What they discovered here might lead them to her mother, to the last of the rings.
“Plenty of ruin though,” Mallory added. “Be on the lookout for cobras and vipers. This remote, hopefully there won’t be any wandering tourists.”
As Gin began their descent, the temple looked empty, and Eleanor was thankful for that. Most who came to Egypt did it the traditional way, cruising down the Nile to see the ruins cluttering her shores from a safe distance. Wise visitors who came into the desert had guides, but Eleanor had crossed paths with more than a rogue few who thought they could tame the waste single-handed.
While Auberon and Gin secured the ship, Eleanor adjusted the veil on the pith helmet Cleo had loaned her and took the small case of gear Mallory offered. The case had a long leather strap, which she wore across her body, to leave both hands free. Mallory then offered her a brown leather holster, meant for one’s belt. Inside, her own revolver was snugged.
“Mallory.” She ran her fingers over the leather. “This is lovely.” It was old, the leather soft enough to conform around the weapon, and slid easily onto her belt.
“Lovely,” he said in a low tone, touching her chin before withdrawing as Auberon and Gin came back for their supplies. “Highly practical, that,” he added, then stomped outside, every inch the wolf surveying new territory.
“ . . . unless Miss Folley’s poet simply wanted us out of the way,” she heard Gin murmur in Mallory’s wake. She looked to Gin and Auberon, each with a supply case and a canteen of water.
“What’s that?” Eleanor asked, and Gin looked up.
“Could be a false trail, is all,” he said as he draped his own case and canteen around his shoulders. “A trap. Might not hurt to be on our guard against such.”
Eleanor’s fingers sought her new holster at her belt. “We will be on guard, for all manner of things. And he’s not my poet.”
Gin hefted a leather pack and flashed Eleanor a smile that had likely charmed other women but left her feeling a little cold. “All I’m saying is, a man scales a balcony to leave two poems, he’s not trifling about. He’s serious—”
“About potentially acquiring a head injury,” Eleanor muttered and turned from the men, refusing to believe that Christian had any emotional attachment to this scheme.
The way she had left him, taking the ring and keeping two steps ahead of him and Caroline—until Port Elizabeth—had to have left a poor taste in the man’s mouth. She didn’t imagine Christian as anything other than furious if they crossed paths.
Outside, as the heated wind teased Eleanor’s veil over her nose, she felt something she hadn’t felt since her first visit to Giza. There was anticipation—each shaded slot between the temple’s pillars looking like doors to her—and so too there was dread. She recalled all too well the feeling that had come over her inside the pyramid. She had felt small and suffocated, as if all those years would consume her and leave nothing behind, not even a desiccated corpse. She hoped this temple would be different. With most of the temple open to the wide sky, she was encouraged that any claustrophobia would stay at bay.
“Eleanor?”
She opened her eyes to look at Mallory, realizing only then she had closed them at all. She had been waiting for that voice again—not Mallory’s, but the voice that had long ago called her daughter. Mallory eased the veil from her nose, tucking it back down under her chin in the coil of the scarf she wore.
“There is always this feeling,” she said, “when I go into a new place.”
Mallory’s grin flashed before he bent to retrieve a camera case. “I think I know that feeling well.” He nodded toward the temple, and Eleanor followed him from the ship.
The air was hot and dry as they approached the temple, but Eleanor didn’t unwrap her scarf; she still felt chilled and tried to tell herself it was only from the ship’s flight, not from any worry attached to what they might discover. Auberon and Gin followed, one commenting about the lines of the temple while the other kept an eye on the cliffs above, looking for any danger, no matter how small. Eleanor found herself longing to draw her revolver, because the cliffs unnerved her. She could picture attackers atop them, another ai
rship setting down, those awful whinnying mechanical horses . . .
As they drew closer to the temple, Mallory began to speak, which lightened Eleanor’s mood. Much like her own father would have, Mallory told a story of the place they walked through, knowledge gleaned from Cleo and his prior work with Sirocco. He spoke of Hatshepsut, the woman who ruled as pharaoh, as if he had known her and been here when she ruled. Her temple stood empty now, but thanks to Mallory’s words Eleanor could easily picture the sandstone and granite sphinxes that had once lined the ramps; could imagine the myrrh trees they were said to have brought back from an expedition to distant Punt.
At the end of the second ramp, they found a likeness of a falcon still intact, and Eleanor drew her fingers across its broad head as they passed. Gritty sand clung to her fingertips.
The traveling party also brought back incense, Mallory said, and perhaps fruit trees. Eleanor imagined flourishing gardens and pools, fancy giving flight to birds that snatched fruit from the branches. The riches the traveling party had seen and possibly brought back with them still decorated the temple walls: leopards on long leads, massive elephant tusks, towering spotted giraffes, and the myrrh trees Mallory had spoken of.
Eleanor stumbled over the loose flooring as they began to walk through the colonnades and steadied herself with a hand on the nearest pillar. The stone was rough under her fingers; she could not resist digging her fingers into the hieroglyphs that remained. She pictured the person who had carved the words, likely a man. Had he possessed any hope the words would reach into the future? Eleanor wished she could tell the carver they had.
Inside the temple, Eleanor pressed her veil against her mouth to remove the sheen of sweat beaded on her skin. The day would only get warmer, and she stuck to what little shade there was as she made her way through the pillars, loosening the scarf at last. Conversation with the others was limited; for the time being, everyone was content to revel in the building around them.
Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure Page 25
