by Overton, Max
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Bashir took his leave of his friend and went up to his room. Excitement and fear warred within him and he was very afraid that Sarraj had spotted his hesitation. If the military man got wind of Bashir's suspicions, his life would be in danger, his position as a Minister and as a friend of the Colonel notwithstanding. Bashir shut the door of his room and locked it before going to his bed and pulling out the suitcase that lay beneath it. Within the small case lay two of the notebooks that contained the scribbled notes taken down as Dr Hanser had translated the hieroglyphs on the chamber walls. Bashir was not sure, but he hoped very much that the answer to the riddle of how Dr Hanser had found the chambers lay within its stained and creased pages.
He lay on the bed and leafed through the pages, reliving the story of a young woman's battle against the usurpers of her brother's kingdom. Interspersed with the text were sketches of the incredible artistry found on the chamber walls--pictures of lion hunts, spearing hippos in the river lagoons and hunting ducks with bow and arrow in the marshes and reed beds.
"Somewhere here," he muttered. "I've seen it, I remember it--I think--but I must make sure."
Bashir read through both books without finding the passage he was looking for and threw them both across the room in anger. The leaves of the notebooks fluttered like the wings of the wildfowl brought down in agony by the archer in the Amarnan art.
"God curse it." Bashir forced his anger and frustration down, taking deep breaths to calm himself. "Nazim will be here in a couple of days and he is bringing the rest of the material. The passage I seek lies in one of the other books and I will find it." He smiled. "And when I do, I will have Dr Hanser's secret and then perhaps I will not need Michel's help any more. He can whistle for his gold."
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Chapter Ten
Dani's first view of the open desert evoked feelings of wonder mixed with a disturbing sense of familiarity. She knew she had never been there before--or even in any other true desert--but she was definitely experiencing a sense of d�j� vu. The land stretched out before her in waves of sand and rock, capped by a pale arch of sky while the disc of the sun--the Aten--fiery and white, poured molten heat down on the little caravan. Dust dried her mouth and she reached out again for her water bottle, sipping at the warm fluid. For some reason, her right eye ached and she pressed her hand against it gingerly, half expecting to find ruin under her fingertips. Her face was whole and untouched, but Dani found it hard to shake the idea that she had been damaged in some way.
Motion dragged her attention away from the desolation around her to the single file of camels heading southeast into the Great Libyan Desert. Immediately ahead of her rode a tribesman of Sheik Ali ibn Hawid, the reins of her camel attached to his saddle and beyond him the swaying bodies of her companions, each atop his own mount and under the control of a tribesman. The sheik had judged their riding abilities before they left, and ordered three men to guide the foreigners until they got used to their mounts. Only Muammar rode free, though his mastery of his beast was not as polished as that of his uncle's men. The young Libyan rode next to the leader of the tribesmen, talking animatedly to him, but everyone else sat in silence, as if cowed by the oppressive weight of limitless sand and sky.
She twisted in her saddle, gripping tightly as the camel's motion threatened to unbalance her, and glanced behind. Another tribesman followed, his hooded, dark eyes fixed unblinkingly on her. The man did not acknowledge her and she turned away again.
"Muammar," she called. "I need to speak with you."
Ahead of her, Muammar glanced behind for a moment, and then resumed his conversation with the tribesman. She heard laughter and anger rose in her.
Marc turned awkwardly in his saddle and called back to her. "What's up, Dani?"
"I just want to talk to Muammar," she said tightly.
Marc called. "Hey, Muammar. Dani wants you."
Muammar turned and stared at Marc for a moment and then said something to the tribesman, evoking another bark of laughter, before wheeling his camel round and ambling back to Dani. He turned his mount to walk alongside hers.
"I have the greatest respect for you, Dr Hanser, but please refrain from giving orders to me. These men are...primitives...and in their society a woman minds her tongue and is deferential to men."
"Is that how you view me too?"
"Of course not, Dr Hanser. I am civilised and recognise that a woman may have a mind as good as my own."
"You are very generous," Dani said dryly.
Muammar flashed a quick smile. "I only ask you to be circumspect in your speech and actions. Now, what was it you required?"
"I don't appreciate being treated as baggage and being led by someone else. I can manage my own camel."
"I understood that none of you had ridden camels before."
Dani hesitated. "Daffyd and Marc haven't, but..." She bit her lip and frowned. "I know I haven't either, but I think I can manage it."
"It's not as easy as it looks."
Dani closed her eyes and breathed deeply, letting her strange feeling of familiarity take hold of her. "I can do it, Muammar."
Muammar pondered and then shrugged. "You are a woman and a foreigner, so they will not expect much of you. You will be in no worse a position when you fail, though you will have to put up with their laughter."
"I won't fail."
"We'll see." He urged his mount alongside that of the man guiding Dani and spoke to him. The man answered and Muammar replied forcefully, after which the tribesman grinned and handed the reins to his Sheik's nephew. Muammar held the reins and waited for Dani's camel to catch up.
"Here you go," he said, handing Dani the leather cords.
The tribesman fell back also, calling to his fellows to watch, and as Dani passed him, flicked the rump of her camel with his quirt. Her camel bellowed and surged forward, Dani clinging desperately to the saddle and fighting to stay on the plunging beast. The tribesmen roared with laughter.
The camel ceased bucking and settled into a straight, rapid rolling gait back in the direction they had come. Dani dragged on the reins but had little effect on the camel's determined desire to return to the oasis at Al Jawf, despite that being close on a hundred miles away. Muammar urged his own mount into motion and rapidly overhauled the fleeing beast. Coming alongside, he leaned across and grabbed the reins, easing both beasts to a walk before turning them back.
"Not as easy as it looks, is it, Dr Hanser?"
Dani flushed with embarrassment. "I'd have been fine if that man had left my camel alone." She sat in silence as Muammar guided them both back to the waiting caravan.
Daffyd and Marc carefully hid any feelings of mirth and only enquired as to whether Dani was alright. The tribesmen made many laughing remarks, luckily unintelligible, as they started the party back onto a south-easterly path. Once again, the three foreigners were led by the tribesmen, and everyone rode in silence, suffering the heat and dust without complaint.
Daffyd was the one who eventually changed their status from children to adults. Two evenings later, when they camped in the shelter of a rocky outcrop, he approached the leader of the tribesmen, Zufir ibn Hawid, with Muammar as translator.
"The desert is a hostile place," Daffyd said.
"Only to strangers," Zufir replied.
"Teach us to know the desert, so we are no longer strangers to it."
Zufir laughed. "It would take a lifetime to teach you the wisdom of the badaw�."
"Then guide our feet on the path to wisdom. Teach us how to ride the camels properly. If we could control our own mounts then we would be less trouble."
Zufir stroked his beard thoughtfully and then nodded. "Looking after you is a burden," he conceded.
In the cool of the evening, as the heat of the day dissipated, lessons started. Zufir issued instructions and Muammar translated. He started with basic care of their animals, the proper position in which to sit, and how to mak
e their camel recline for ease of mounting and dismounting. Then followed basic manoeuvring at walking speed, first with tethered camels and then untethered ones, moving up to trotting and pacing. Dani, despite her previous misadventure, proved adept at controlling her mount and Daffyd was almost as good. Marc's mount was recalcitrant though, and refused to cooperate, spilling its rider to the sand more than once, amidst general merriment. Zufir put him on another camel, one of the placid baggage carriers, and Marc soon learned to control it.
They were sore that night, Marc especially, and sat around the campfire wrapped in blankets against the chill of the desert night, sipping mugs of hot, honey-sweetened coffee. The tribesmen talked among themselves and occasionally Muammar translated stories of tribal life which, though almost inconceivable to western experience, still proved to be fascinating. They listened to stories of a harsh existence where ferocity and cruelty were common and kindness seldom occurred. Honour ruled every aspect of Bedouin life, and wrongs were wiped out by blood more often than by peaceable means.
Muammar suggested the three foreigners tell some stories too--something about their homeland. They responded, much as they had when talking to the Sheik, but enlarged on their tales, more relaxed with these warriors than with the man who ruled them all. Daffyd told tales of the Welsh valleys where he had grown up and of his father and grandfather who had been coal miners. The desert tribesmen had difficulty comprehending a place where rain fell regularly, or why men would willingly go underground to search out dirty stones for a pittance. Coal meant nothing to them, and the idea of working for wages was abhorrent. 'Where is the honour in such an arrangement?' they asked.
Dani told of the cities and what could be found there, including the university at which she worked. Zufir and one of the other men had been to Libyan towns and agreed that such things were found there, but found it hard to believe that women were allowed to attend a university. Dani did not tell them she lectured there, on Muammar's advice, as they would not believe such an outlandish concept. Marc told a story that he had heard from his grandfather, who had fought in Palestine during the Great War.
"He was a Second Lieutenant in the Camel Corps and the officers there used to run him ragged sending him on errands for useless items or giving him the worst jobs possible. They would tell him tall tales of the desert and, being young and inexperienced, he'd believe them all. Some were true, like shaking your boots out because of scorpions, and others were just plain invention, like the sand worm that would crawl into your er, nether anatomy if you sat on the sand. That's why Arabs always squatted, they said."
Muammar translated, and added a few comments of his own, eliciting laughter. "Go on, Dr Andrews."
"One of the tallest tales they told was of bricking the camels. They said that bull camels could be vicious unless they were bricked. He asked what this meant and he was told that you stood behind a male camel with a couple of bricks and slammed them together suddenly, crushing the animal's testicles. After this, the bull camel would be quite docile. 'Good Lord', asked my grandpa, 'Doesn't that hurt?', only to be told, with a perfectly straight face, 'Only if you catch your thumbs between the bricks'."
Daffyd choked and spluttered over his coffee, before coughing and chuckling, whereas Dani just raised an eyebrow and muttered something about 'juvenile humour'. There was silence from the tribesmen for a minute after Muammar translated the joke. Zufir could not see the humour and said so.
"There are better ways of castrating a male camel."
Marc tried to explain the joke, but only got bogged down in details of camel care and double meanings. After several minutes, he shrugged and would have given up, but Zufir made him tell the story again, with Muammar translating after every sentence.
The tribesman listened intently and then said. "I thank you for the story, but I cannot see the point of it. Of course you would hurt your thumbs if you caught them between the bricks."
"My grandfather was concerned that the camel would feel the pain," Marc said, offering one last ditch explanation. "The humour is in the misunderstanding."
"Of course it would hurt the camel. That is why we would not weaken a bull camel by castrating it in such a manner. And why would a man deliberately misunderstand another on such an important subject? A camel is valuable."
"No bloody sense of humour," Marc muttered.
"Actually, they do," Daffyd corrected. "It's just different from ours. Read some of Jack Glubb's writings if you want to understand the Bedouin."
Marc thought for several minutes and then tried again, with Muammar translating.
"A man owned seventeen camels and had three sons. On his death bed he called his sons to him and told the eldest, 'I leave you half my camels'. He told the second son he left him a third of his camels, and the youngest was to receive a ninth part. Then the man died. When the sons came to divide up the camels, they found that you cannot divide seventeen by two, three, or nine."
Zufir nodded his agreement. "The wits of the old man were wandering as death approached."
"Naturally, the sons wished to honour their father's dying wishes, but could not decide on how to do it," Marc went on. "So they consulted a wise man, who told them to borrow a camel from their neighbour and make the division. They did so, and now the herd comprised eighteen camels."
The Bedouin nodded to show they were following the story.
"The eldest son now took half, which was nine camels; the second son took a third, which was six camels, and the youngest took a ninth, which was two camels. Nine plus six plus two equals seventeen, so they gave the extra camel back to their neighbour and everyone was satisfied." Marc grinned broadly as he finished the story, and looked around the faces of his audience for signs of appreciation.
Daffyd snorted and Dani smiled and shook her head.
Zufir accepted the tale at face value. "It is good that the father's wishes were met," he said.
The other Bedouin nodded their agreement, and their conversation turned to other matters.
"They've missed the point of the joke," Marc said. "Should I explain? You see, a half and a third and a ninth don't add up..."
"I would not bother, Dr Andrews," Muammar said.
"As I said," Daffyd added. "Their sense of humour is different from ours. Read Jack Glubb--Glubb Pasha--he lived among the Bedouin."
"I don't think I'll bother."
"Your loss, boyo." Daffyd took out his tobacco and rolled himself a cigarette, leaning back against some of their baggage and staring up into the star-littered sky.
When they set off the next morning, all ten riders controlled their own camels and, after a few hours, Zufir increased the speed of their little group from a plodding walk to a faster paced gait that ate up the miles. Every two or three days, the tribesmen found their way to a small stone-lipped well or dug-out seep covered with a stone slab, and though water was never plentiful, it was enough to keep them alive. Marc complained about the lack of water, saying the first thing he was going to do when they reached the Nile was go for a swim.
"I'd settle for a wash and the chance to do some laundry," Dani said. She plucked at her soiled and stained shirt and slacks and wiped sweat off her brow with one sleeve. "How much longer to Kharga?"
"We've been heading southeast these last few days to take advantage of known water sources," Muammar explained. "There's a major well another half day's ride away, and then we'll swing northeast for about ten days."
They reached the well just after nightfall, and spent the whole of the following day replenishing their water supplies and allowing the camels to drink their fill. Zufir ordered the goat they had carried on one of the pack camels to be slaughtered and prepared, roasting the meat over a bed of coals.
"The next few days will be hard," Zufir explained. "There is little water and you will need your strength. Eat, and rest."
Zufir had not exaggerated the hardship of the next few days as they steadily forged towards Kharga. They travelled slowly, not wanting to p
ush the camels too hard, often starting out each day in the pre-dawn and setting up camp for the night after the first stars sprinkled the eastern sky. The sandy desert became rocky, the camels having to pick their way carefully over a shifting, stony surface, and their pace slowed further. The heat remained though, and the dust, sapping their strength.
Dani thought it was incredibly beautiful, though harsh, and shared her thoughts with Daffyd. "I feel alive out here, as if this is my natural home."
"It is pretty spectacular," Daffyd agreed. "Though a tad stark. I'm glad we've got experts with us. I'd hate to be lost out here."
Dani smiled. "No chance of getting lost. The goddess would show me the way."
"Dani? Are you alright? You know as well as I do that you need the golden scarab, and even then..."
A shadow passed over Dani's face and she sighed. "Yes, of course...I don't know what I was thinking." She was silent for a few minutes. "I've been having daydreams...no, more like memories," she murmured. "Memories of being Scarab out here in the desert."
Daffyd frowned. "Scarab was never out in the western desert."
"Yes I was. When we marched with Smenkhkare from Nubia to Waset. We came the back way to throw Horemheb off the scent."
"That wasn't you, Dani--that was Scarab. I realise you got close to her emotionally while you were translating the account, but keep a grip on reality, for God's sake."
Dani shuddered and her shoulders slumped. "I'll be fine. I just need to...need..."
"What?"
"I need to find the golden scarab."
Two days out from Kharga they entered sandy desert again and they camped near a ravine that split a rocky outcrop, sheltering from a northerly wind that lifted the sand grains, stinging their legs when they walked. They wrapped themselves in blankets and fell asleep, but hours later, in the darkness before the dawn, they were shaken awake. Moonlight glinted on curved daggers as the tribesmen crouched beside each of the foreigners, holding knives to their throats.
Muammar was not under restraint and he immediately confronted Zufir. "What is the meaning of this? These people are under my uncle's protection."