"Perhaps you will be kind enough to explain something to me,” Gil said, knowing he wasn't speaking from any motivation except jealousy. He had chosen one of the few precious moments Peter had deigned give him, and Gil should have been enjoying it rather than being on the verge of shattering even that little pleasure. Still, he'd already kept to the peace far longer than he would have thought possible.
"If I can,” Peter said, turning toward Gil on the veranda of the house at Hierakonpolis where they were sitting. The sun had already set in all its glory, giving way to the blackness before moonrise. Stars were brilliant in the inky dome above. Khasekhemui's Fort was a darker shadow within the gathering shadows in the distance.
"Why were you so upset by the prospect of my accepting an Egyptian gold neck piece from Abdul when you turned right around and accepted a bird from him?” Gil asked.
"It's hardly the same thing, Gil,” Peter answered.
"Why not?” Gil pressed. “Although you can't wear the bird around your neck, you can, and do, wear it on your wrist often enough. Besides, it seems to me that Abdul has given you a few other things in the bargain, like that shed he so conveniently had whipped up so you wouldn't have to share your bedroom with your bird—although I imagine you probably would have far preferred your feathered lady friend every night right there beside you."
"Very funny!” Peter retorted, beginning to show signs of impatience.
"Like the trainer Abdul so graciously supplies to baby-sit the bird whenever your archaeological duties interfere with her training,” Gil added.
"Shed, trainer, and hawk, as I see it,” Peter said, “have all merely been lent to me."
Gil certainly wasn't willing to accept that. “The day Abdul gave you the falcon, he didn't say anything to me about his having lent you anything. He asked if I wanted to go take a look at your latest acquisition. The word acquisition does denote possession, does it not?"
"Please don't argue semantics with me!” Peter said gruffly. “The simple fact is that everybody involved knows it's quite impossible for me to take the bird back to England with me."
"Well, here's one person who doesn't know any such thing,” Gil contradicted. “Do you want to tell me how everybody, but me, has come to that particular conclusion?"
"If you knew as much about falconry as you profess to know, you would have figured it out,” Peter replied, his tone insinuating that Gil couldn't tell the difference between hack bells—heavy bells used to hinder falcons from hunting for themselves during certain periods of training—and bewit bells—smaller bells attached for tonal identification. In truth, Gil knew not only that but a lot more. “You would be aware that a peregrine like Phoenix requires access to vast acres of open land reasonably populated with game."
"You have a big house with lots of acreage in England, don't you?” Gil countered. So far, Peter hadn't succeeded in convincing Gil of anything. “As for game, all you have to do is buy enough pigeons to shake free of their cages, as Abdul does to keep his birds from having to fly too far afield for dinner."
"Actually, it's less a case of acreage and game than it is a simple case of time,” Peter amended. “Peregrines have to be flown at least once every day and more if they're to be kept in first-class condition."
"So, hire a trainer in England,” Gil said, wondering why he was so intent upon pointing out options. The last thing he wanted Peter to do was actually pack up the bird and take her home.
"She'll be far better off here,” Peter argued, obviously having thought the thing through. “Here, there is plenty of land with less chance of her being shot by farmers anxious to protect their chickens. Abdul has the best facilities for her care and continued training."
"Thinking only of the bird, are you?” Gil challenged, knowing what Peter was going to answer and knowing Gil was going to shoot him down as soon as he said it. Peter wasn't thinking of the bird, certainly not of Gil; only of Peter Donas.
"The hawk deserves the best,” Peter said, coming right in on cue. “She shouldn't be owned by someone who can only do a half-baked job by her."
"What are you doing now but a half-baked job by her, by me, and by everyone else here at the dig, because you don't really have enough time to do everything the way each-and-every should properly be done?” Gil asked. That left Peter momentarily speechless—and rightly so. Gil had seen Peter spend whole workdays that should have been devoted to the excavation, and whole nights that should have been devoted to Gil, walking around, just trying to keep the hawk on a gloved fist. The bird, obviously nervous, kept trying to fly away, only to be pulled up sharply each time by her jesses. Phoenix looked pathetic, head hanging down, wings flapping, until Peter would hoist her back up on his fist again. The procedure, technically called watching, taught the bird to perch on a master's fist. Later, the bird would trust enough even to fall asleep there. That was something Phoenix wasn't likely to do any time soon, and certainly not until she learned to trust Peter and to feel a whole lot more confident of her safety.
"Are you accusing me of being derelict as director on this dig?” Peter managed finally.
Gil had to admit that the dig was proceeding exactly according to schedule, but archaeological work was not Gil's primary concern. “Let's forget about archaeology for a minute, shall we?” he said. “Let's talk about us."
"It might be smarter if we broke off this discussion before we once again end up saying things that would be better off left unsaid,” Peter suggested and sounded angry.
"Hit a raw nerve, have I?” Gil asked, plowing right ahead. Any communication between them, even this disturbing sort, could only be an improvement as far as Gil was concerned; if Peter hadn't had ample time for his job, or for the bird, he certainly hadn't had enough time for Gil. “Well, let me tell you that what I see here is a simple case of unadulterated self-indulgence."
Peter came to his feet.
"Sure, hurry off without listening,” Gil heckled. “That's just what I thought you'd do. You still don't realize your selfishness is cheating that bird of the time and devotion she has every right to expect from the man who has forced her to surrender her freedom.” Gil didn't know what was holding Peter to the spot, since it was obvious the man was anxious to bolt, but Gil was going to take full advantage of Peter's immobility to spit out all of the bile that had been accumulating these past few days. “What good is it for you to work so hard at forming any kind of relationship and trust with a bird that you've already admitted you're going to desert at the end of a month's time? Granted, it's all going to give you the satisfaction of knowing you once lived out a childhood fantasy of playing falconer, but playing is all it is, Peter. You don't take on anything, falcon, or a man who would be your lover, make them love you, and then simply move on to something else without there being emotional repercussions. Not, that is, unless commitment is nothing to you but a game. You wouldn't get involved if you truly cared about how those of us left in limbo suddenly don't have either you, or the freedom we enjoyed before you."
"I didn't take the bird's freedom,” Peter rationalized. She lost that before I ever came into the picture."
If Gil didn't see Peter immediately wanting to deal with whatever freedom he might have taken from Gil, they could discuss that in-depth later. “All I see is that you now stand between that falcon and her freedom,” Gil said, pushing home his point. He wasn't talking about just the bird, either, but about Peter and Gil's relationship. “And I don't know about you, but I see freedom as far more preferable to a bit of temporary affection."
"You know what you're doing, don't you?” Peter asked.
"You bet I know what I'm doing!” Gil answered with all the assurance of a zealot among disbelievers. “I'm pointing out a few facts of life that should have been pointed out to you a long time ago.
"No!” Peter contradicted. “You aren't doing that at all. You're coming right back to the old rut of looking at the whole world in the infantile terms of Frederic Donas and Geraldine Fowler—that's w
hat you're doing."
"You're crazy!” Gil replied, coming quickly to his own defense but afraid that Peter's accusation might have a grain of truth to it.
"Yes, you are back to that romantic hanky-panky before either of us was born,” Peter said. “You're still so unnaturally obsessed with it that you can't see anything but a variation and repeat. You see me playing Frederic Donas to you and to the bird to whom you've jointly assigned the role of poor Geraldine. Love you and the bird, leave you and the bird. Isn't that what you've just proposed here? Well, maybe I did take on Phoenix knowing I was merely fulfilling a fantasy, but I was at least prepared to surrender that fantasy at the end of the day and get back to reality. You're so immersed in this thing that happened between our grandparents at Thebes that I don't think you're ever going to come up for air."
"That's not true!” Gil insisted, his denial sounding weak, because Peter had only put into words what Gil had been thinking and fearing all along. “That simply is not true!"
"Well, you just think about it, Gil!” Peter insisted, “Because I'm suddenly beginning to wonder if you wouldn't be happiest if I did just run off and leave you standing here in the desert. Then, at least, you would have the satisfaction of moving one step closer to being an incarnation of Geraldine Fowler—which is what I think you've really wanted all along."
"That is fucking sick!” Gil accused.
"Damn right it is!” Peter said in ready agreement. “And the sooner you realize it's sick, the better it's going to be for you, for me, and for anyone else caught up in your morbid fascination with something in the past that would have been better left there."
Gil didn't wait for Peter to make another of his exits but got up and made one of his own. Reginald saw him coming and diplomatically removed himself from a collision course by slipping into the library, but Gil hardly even noticed. Gil had kept his problems from Reginald up until now, and he saw no sense in suddenly confiding in the younger man now. This left Gil pretty much without a shoulder to cry on. He certainly didn't have Abdul's obliging ear this time round, not because the sheikh wouldn't have been willing to volunteer it, but because Gil saw Abdul as the sole cause of the present predicament. If Peter hadn't been given—or lent—that bird, depending upon whose interpretation one accepted, none of this would have happened. If Abdul had any plans of benefiting from this catastrophe, he was sadly mistaken.
Gil went to his room and laid on his bed for a long time with his eyes shut. When he opened his eyes, it was to see the cracks in the ceiling and know that the whole house, like everything else, was slowly disintegrating around him. Everything in Egypt seemed in one state of decay or another, and it was probably the wrong place to have thought a romance could endure long without being subjected to the very same disintegration.
He felt shitty. Peter had actually accused him of wanting to be Geraldine Fowler. That simply wasn't true. Gil wanted to be Gil, not some woman dead for years and years. Gil wanted Peter to be Peter, not Peter's grandfather. He got up and walked over to the window, wishing there had never been a woman named Geraldine Fowler, or a man named Frederic Donas. He wished he could have found Peter somewhere other than in Egypt, to love him there, wherever there was, without constant remembrance of two haunted souls from the past.
He could see the small shed that had been erected between the house and the desert. The sudden light that leaked through the palm-fronds roof hinted of Peter being there, now, stroking that speckled bird's feathers and cooing words of endearment. “What's happening to us, Peter?” Gil asked, and shook his head in accompanying dismay.
He leaned on a nearby table for support. The table, none too stable, tipped precariously under his weight and slid two books and a comb to separate sounds on the floor. Gil listened for footsteps on the stairs, someone come to investigate, and thanked God he didn't hear anyone. Maybe, the members of the group had merely decided, amongst themselves, that it was better not to become involved in Gil and Peter's personal problems. Gil suspected they would all side with Peter, anyway, if forced into making a choice.
He picked up the fallen objects and put them back on the table, rearranging them several different ways without getting them to look like he remembered them. He suspected his sudden anal-retentive fussiness was a diversion to keep him from thinking of Peter. Suddenly, though, he knew it was more than just simple puttering. The grouping of inanimate objects didn't look right because something was missing. He looked for the absent piece of the puzzle, even searched under the bed and between the wall and the bed. The toppled limestone fragment should have made a sound distinct from either books or comb—and certainly it would have left a dusty splotch where it landed.
The piece of the Scorpion mace head discovered by Gil at the site of the oil derrick seemed definitely gone. His immediate reaction was confusion, but he quickly decided it couldn't have been present when he had tipped the table. Peter must have picked it up earlier and laid it somewhere else. Peter could tell Gil where the piece had gotten to, and Gil welcomed the excuse to go back and ask him, hoping for the strength to use this perfect opportunity to confess jealousy because of a damned bird. Peter had been forthright enough, once, to confess his jealousy of Abdul; Gil had offered reassurance, then, and, now, he needed some reassurance of his own.
He stepped out on the veranda, descended the steps, and walked round the house, assured that whatever his differences with Peter, they could be cleared if Gil just made the extra effort. He was pulled up by human sounds of affectionate clucking and cooing coming from the shed. They were the sounds of a man lovingly trying to soothe and calm a bird when it was Gil who would have appreciated a bit of understanding love and affection at the moment.
He opened the shed door so loudly that he sent the falcon off her perch. He knew what would happen next, too, and it did: the sudden cessation of flight, the plunging earthward—the leash preventing actual contact with the ground—the frantic flapping of wings as the bird became more and more disoriented by being upside-down. The precarious dangle really did Phoenix no harm; the poor falcon had been in that position often enough during Peter's attempts to get her to sit obediently on his gloved fist. Gil felt a moment's guilt, though, in knowing he was responsible for the bird's present unnatural position. Then, his guilt turned to surprise as he realized the startled man, in desperate attendance on the startled bird, wasn't Peter but the trainer.
Gil didn't need to be told that those fingers suddenly squeezing his right shoulder, turning him around in an about-face that was almost a complete circle, were those of the man he had thought to find inside. Whenever Peter touched Gil, he delivered an electric shock that made Gil weak in the knees. “What in the hell are you doing out here?” Peter asked loudly, his fingers tightening. He didn't give Gil time to answer, apparently more concerned with the dangling-bird scenario. “Khalil, take care of the damned bird!” The trainer remained as seemingly disoriented as the struggling falcon.
Peter pulled Gil out of the shed and banged the door closed behind them with a force that sent the hawk into further spasms of panic. “Don't ever do anything so stupid again!” he commanded; his face was livid in the dim light supplied by a slice of moon on the horizon. “Do you hear me? Ever!"
Gil's resulting anger came not from being reprimanded. He had carelessly frightened a helpless bird that couldn't possibly have known what the fuss was all about. Phoenix undoubtedly would have preferred being out of Peter and the trainer's clutches to be free again. Gil should have considered Phoenix as a kindred spirit, not as the enemy. What infuriated Gil was the way Peter was telling Gil off. Peter should have had the intuitive sense to know Gil acted the way he acted only because of frustrated love. If Gil didn't care so much about his uncertain relationship with Peter, he wouldn't be there, now, grasping at whatever straw had given him the excuse to seek Peter out again that evening. “What did you do with the fragment from the Scorpion mace head?” Gil managed finally, interrupting whatever further comment Peter was about
to make on how stupid Gil had been.
"What do you mean, what did I do with it?” Peter asked, letting go of Gil's shoulders as if he'd been holding to an eel that released a powerfully electric shock.
"Just what I said,” Gil answered, knowing this wasn't going at all the way he had planned it. “What did you do with it? It's gone."
"Gone where?” Peter asked. “From your room? From the house? Gone from Egypt? Launched from the Earth and floating around somewhere in outer space?"
"Gone from my room,” Gil filled in the correct selecton, infuriated at his lover's sarcasm.
"And you naturally assumed I stole it,” Peter challenged.
"I didn't say anything about it being stolen,” Gil countered, trying to be calm and cool and collected but actually furious that Peter was, now, trying to put words into Gil's mouth. “I'd merely like to know what's happened to it."
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