The Alexandria Affair

by Ashley Gardner

  Beatrice had intimated that she was finished with such things, that her old life was over. But why should I suppose she spoke the truth? She hadn’t out-and-out told me that, in any case. By her own admission, she had Celia now to please a gentleman’s physical longings, while Beatrice supplied the sophisticated conversation.

  I saw, as I watched them, not a pair of ordinary women who’d stumbled into affection for each other, but a well-rehearsed team who knew exactly how to pull in a mark for mutual benefit.

  And in that moment, I knew what had happened to the Alexandrian book.

  Chapter 28

  Suspected, rather. Now to prove it.

  I turned and sought out Miguel, who for a change, stood by himself, peering into the darkness on the other side of the river.

  “Captain,” he said in his pleasantly accented English when I reached his side. “How might I assist you?”

  I said nothing for a moment, gazing with him at the far bank, where the Egyptians of old had built cities for the dead. I had nearly met my own death out there.

  I remembered Miguel’s worried face when he’d leaned down to help me out of the hole. He’d been distressed for me and my friends. A compassionate gentleman.

  “You can give me the Greek book,” I said in a low voice. “The one by Aristarchus, from Alexandria.”

  Miguel sent me a look of profound astonishment. “What do you mean?” He lifted his spread hands. “I have not this book—I know nothing of it. How would I know what it is?”

  “You are a scholar,” I said. “An artifact from the Alexandrian library would be extraordinary treasure to you—far better than gold statuary or jewels. You would know what the scroll was—I imagine you are able to read it.”

  Miguel said nothing. He returned his gaze to the west bank as though seeking solace from the ancient dead.

  “Celia seduced you,” I said, working it through my mind. “Whether on her own or at Signora Beatrice’s behest, I am not certain. Perhaps they thought to obtain money from Lady Mary through you. Lady Mary had come to visit Beatrice to tell her of my interest in the book. You go where Lady Mary goes. I am fairly certain a man of your intelligence would see through Celia’s ploy, but it gave you the opportunity to go belowdecks and steal the book. I had been thinking Lady Mary had taken it. Then I remembered that where Lady Mary goes, you follow.”

  Miguel remained silent for a few moments longer. When he spoke, his accent had softened, and his English was perfect.

  “I have tried for a long time now to remove myself from under Lady Mary’s thumb,” he said, no more struggling with words. “I took what I believed her kind offer of employment because I had no money, nowhere to go. My wife’s passing robbed me of my senses for a long time, and I lost my post at the university in Barcelona. I was once a highly respected man of letters, Captain. Now I fetch and carry for a boorish Englishwoman whose wealth and power cannot compensate for her very shallow mind. She does not act from kindness, I discovered to my dismay, but from a love of controlling others. She has her hand around my throat, and she toys with me day and night.”

  “Are you lovers?” I asked with some sympathy.

  “No.” Miguel’s look turned to disgust, then relief. “Thank God she sets her sights on young and prominent men, like Mr. Grenville. He is, as you say, rather long in the tooth for her tastes, but his fame and fortune outweigh that fact. This book will set me free, Captain. I will not only have the reward for it but be restored in the eyes of learned men.”

  “It is not yours,” I pointed out.

  “Nor is it yours,” Miguel said, his anger rising. “You want to hand it over to an unscrupulous collector, who will lock it away and gloat when he looks upon it. You have no claim on this book. I feel no shame keeping it from you.”

  “It belongs to Signora Beatrice,” I said severely.

  “It belongs to no one.” Miguel’s eyes flashed in the darkness. “It belongs to scholars, those who seek knowledge. It was written in a cradle of learning, in a time when learning was meaningful. Now a book that explains the mechanism of the universe is valued not for its information but because it is old and came from a famous place. So be it. I will turn that value into my freedom and work to copy, translate, and publish the information inside.”

  A noble goal, and what Chabert had wanted. I ought to simply give the damn thing to Miguel and wish him well.

  “The man who sent me to find the book,” I began slowly, “told me to offer any price for it. I could buy it from you and let you walk away. If you take my offer and disappear tonight, I will not divulge that you stole it. I can arrange to have it found where it will have no connection to you.”

  Sharkey was dead and would make a convenient scapegoat. I would claim I had found it on the ship and pocketed it before the palace guards realized what it was.

  I felt a bit unclean as I proposed this—it was Signora Beatrice’s book, entrusted to her by the man who found it, the man she’d loved.

  However, I agreed with Miguel, as much as I thought him wrong for stealing from Signora Beatrice. The book was a special thing from an amazing period in history—when all the world had gathered in Alexandria to study in peace.

  Should the scroll not be returned to a library, a museum, for scholars of today to examine? By selling the book to me, Miguel could be quit of Lady Mary, could stand with dignity once more.

  Miguel’s expression, if anything, grew more outraged. “If I thought you would value this book, I might take your money and go. But you will hand it to the dilettante who hired you. He will lock it in a case to admire alone, until it crumbles to dust and is lost forever.” Miguel drew himself up. “It was kept, treasured, all this time, waiting to come to light again. I will not let it be returned to darkness.”

  He reached a trembling hand into a pocket inside his coat and brought out a small canvas bag.

  “Good Lord.” I bent to it. “Is that it?”

  Miguel turned so that his back shielded what we did from the others. He opened the bag and showed me a corner of rough, browned paper rolled tightly in on itself. I saw Greek letters on the papyrus but he hid it in the bag again before I could read them.

  The sight of the scroll made my mouth go dry. I’d just seen paper and writing from the Hellenistic age, when art, learning, music, and philosophy had been at its height, moments before ignorance and darkness had swallowed the world for a thousand years.

  “Take the money, Miguel,” I urged. “Go to England. I will make certain you have access to the book. I promise you.”

  Denis could by all means grant me this favor for the trouble I’d been to.

  Miguel hesitated, and for a moment, I thought he would agree.

  But being Lady Mary’s dogsbody must have worn him down. His lip curled into a sneer.

  “I will not be bought like a slave,” he said in a clear voice. “Your master will not have the book, nor will the duplicitous Signora Beatrice. Chabert protected it for knowledge’s sake, and she has kept it like a trophy.”

  Miguel lifted the canvas bag high, snatching it out of my reach as I lunged for it. He held the bag aloft, moonlight flashing on the canvas, then he hurled it into the Nile.

  The bag burst open as it fell, the papyrus shattering as the wind caught it. The brittle paper fluttered westward, toward the land of the dead, then lost momentum and rained to the water below.

  I was ready to rush down the gangplank to the murky river and rake up as much of the paper as I could find when the waters began to roil. A hungry crocodile rose up, snapped his mouth over the fragments, and sank down again in disappointment.

  “Bloody hell.” The words dragged from my throat. I clung to the railing, my legs giving way. I found myself on my knees on the damp deck. “Damnation, man, you’ve just …” My voice died. I couldn’t even form words to express my dismay.

  The others had noticed Miguel’s grand gesture and were closing on us.

  Miguel straightened his spine and looked Lady Mary in
the eye. “I am finished with you.”

  He held her gaze as she gaped at him, the haughty imperiousness in his stance making me wonder from what lofty family Miguel had sprung. The Spanish had lost much when their country had become a battleground between France and England, fortunes drained, families broken. Now a scholar poured tea and carried things for a vain Englishwoman, who did not even use his surname—I speculated that she couldn’t pronounce it.

  Miguel turned on his heel, marched from the deck and down the gangplank, and was lost to darkness.

  “Well,” Lady Mary said in confusion “He certainly can be bad-mannered, can’t he? I’ve had to admonish him about it before.”

  * * *

  I never saw Miguel again. He disappeared from Lady Mary’s employ, leaving without a word. Whether he’d returned to Spain or continued to travel the world, I could not know.

  But I had many things to do. Now that Sharkey was dead and the book lost, and Marcus had ceased trying to kill me, at least for now, I settled in to enjoy the remainder of my stay in Egypt.

  We found no more treasure as we excavated the tomb, but as I’d hoped, the paintings were copied then chiseled out whole and prepared for transport to the British Museum. I reveled in every moment of the excavation, every tiny fragment of painting or revealed hieroglyphs a joy to me. I copied out whatever hieroglyphs I could find, intending to see what I could make of them.

  We were allowed to keep the jewels we’d found. The cache on Sharkey’s boat, which was much grander and more extensive, had been presented to Henry Salt by the pasha. Salt was so pleased with the pasha’s gift to England that our find paled in comparison. And so, we kept our treasure, dividing it into the equal shares we’d agreed in the tomb. We each gave Bartholomew and Matthias a trinket, which they took in delight.

  I felt compelled to tell Signora Beatrice what had happened to Chabert’s book. She was saddened, but resigned. “It was cursed,” she said. “It brought no pleasure to anyone. Poor Chabert.”

  The morning after I’d visited her to explain, Signora Beatrice set sail upriver again, with Celia, continuing her wandering.

  Marcus and I formed an uneasy truce. He confronted Brewster one day as we worked at the tomb, putting himself in front of the man until Brewster finally conceded to listen to him.

  “I wish to offer my abject apologies,” Marcus said. “You are a good man, and I hurt you. The fact that I did so inadvertently is no excuse. If I had not been certain that only violence would do, you would not have suffered.”

  The speech was pretty, and I wondered how long Marcus had practiced it. It sounded sincere, though, no matter how rehearsed.

  Brewster regarded Marcus for a long time. “Make no mistake, Mr. Lacey, by no stretch of the mind am I a good man. I was born a villain and always will be. You’re a fool to think otherwise.” He shrugged. “The captain now, he is a good man. No matter what you want to fink.”

  “I am coming to suspect that,” Marcus said dryly. “At least, all his friends say so.”

  “He’s rash and sometimes a great fool,” Brewster went on, knowing full well I was within earshot. “But I’d leap in front of your gun again, if I had to. Remember that.”

  “I will indeed, Mr. Brewster.” Marcus did not sound as meek as he might. “Please convey my apologies to Mrs. Brewster as well.”

  “Ah. Well.” Brewster moved uneasily, and rubbed his nose. “My Em, she’s not as forgiving as me. I’ll tell her, but I can’t answer for her if you darken my door. As much as your life is worth, I’m thinking.”

  “Tell her anyway,” Marcus said. He touched his forehead in a salute and walked away.

  I caught up with him. “What will you do?” I asked. “When your stay here is at an end? Continue to follow me and try to make my life a misery?”

  Marcus sent me a wry smile. “I will return to England when you do. As you suggest, I will seek a solicitor and prove that I am Gabriel Lacey, rightful heir to the Lacey estate. Will you try to stop me?”

  “If your story is true, then no,” I said. “If you are a confidence trickster, then I will fight you. But know this.” I made Marcus halt, and we faced each other under the hot blue sky. “If you are my cousin, regardless of whether your father was a legitimate child or a by-blow, you shall not lose by it. You do not have to be a rightful heir to win my friendship or my trust. Family.” I echoed Sharkey’s words. “It is important to me.”

  Marcus studied me for a time, his brows drawn, as though he decided whether to believe me sincere or not. Then he shrugged.

  “We shall see what happens,” he said, and stuck out his hand.

  I took it. “We shall see.”

  Our handshake was a little more firm than necessary, and we each waited to see who would give way first, but I had not expected otherwise.

  * * *

  I made a nuisance of myself exploring the pyramids when I wasn’t at our tomb, though I could not bring myself to enter dark passages where I had to crawl. It would be a while before I could do such a thing again.

  Even so, I marveled at the pyramids’ construction, and to my delight, I did get to meet the great Mr. Belzoni.

  He returned from his journey to the Red Sea and began digging around the pyramids, looking for more entrances and burial chambers. He found them, to the annoyance of the wealthy aristocrats who did not like being outdone by a former circus performer. His wife, a small, slim, tightrope dancer who dressed in man’s clothes, was a tough but friendly woman who was happy to point out to me all that her giant of a husband was unearthing.

  Sunny October waned, and I became anxious to depart, wanting to be at Donata’s side when my daughter was born.

  We returned to Alexandria on the first of November. There we met Sergeant Porter and his wife—Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Belzoni had much in common, I noted. Porter had uncovered an intact tomb of one of the ancient bulls, and was quite pleased with himself.

  He listened with interest to my adventures and admired the jewelry. I’d carefully pieced it back together, using Grenville’s drawings and some guesses. In the end I had a small diadem of rubies and gold and a necklace of lapis lazuli, carnelian, and gold beads. Grenville had a similar collection. Brewster had elected to string every jewel and piece of gold into one long strand to lay around his wife’s neck when he returned. He enjoyed picturing her response.

  Porter shook his head when I told him about being sealed into the tomb. “A man doesn’t know what he’s made of,” he said, voice going quiet in sympathy. “Until he faces the darkness. I am pleased you survived, Captain.”

  Before we departed, Grenville and I visited Haluk, who’d given us his hospitality the day we’d arrived in Egypt.

  He again received us in his colorful sitting room, the tall Karem serving us.

  “What happened regarding Ibrahim’s death?” I asked. “Before I left, I had heard that the magistrates decided a man from a foreign ship had done it.”

  “Yes,” Haluk said, nodding comfortably. “They could not find out, and so they made up a story. The bey, he does such things.”

  “I have been thinking on it,” I said, cradling my small cup of coffee. “Ibrahim was meeting someone. He did not even tell his closest friend who it was, and so I think it was a lady. Or at least Ibrahim must have believed so.”

  There was a clatter of metal and a soft splash. Karem had dropped the coffee pot. Swiftly, and without apology, he dropped to his knees and began to wipe up the spilled coffee from the carpet.

  I’d pondered the question as I’d helped with the tedious chore of looking through the rubble for more gold or rubies, the sun beating on my neck, the end of my turban swinging against my cheek.

  “It is unlikely a young lady such as your daughter would be able to slip away from your house,” I said. “Even if she were truly enamored with Ibrahim and not disgusted by him as you implied. But Ibrahim might be eager enough to believe she would run off with him. Perhaps someone else met him, warned him and his friends to s
tay away from her, argued with him, struck him.”

  My words fell on dead silence. Grenville nodded thoughtfully. Karem remained in a crouch, unmoving.

  “Or the magistrates have it right,” Haluk said, clearing his throat. “A man from a foreign ship fought with him.”

  “Ahmed, Ibrahim’s friend, is a strong lad. A good fighter. I imagine Ibrahim was much the same.” I set down my coffee. “I doubt the woman’s father would be much of a match for him. Ibrahim became violent, and the man defended himself as he could. A rock was the best weapon he could use in his sudden fright. Perhaps the man did not mean to kill at all, only to fend off an attack.”

  Haluk’s eyes were wet with tears. He opened his mouth to speak, but Karem rose to his full height, his head lifted, his stern face filled with dignity.

  “Do not accuse my master of such things,” Karem said to me in fluent French. “Even if you choose fine words, we know what you mean. He had nothing to do with it.” He struck his chest with his forefinger. “I killed Ibrahim.”

  Haluk jumped to his feet, and Grenville and I struggled up from the floor. Haluk spoke to Karem in Turkish, his words impassioned. Karem remained stoic.

  Haluk turned to me. “I have done as you say. I did not mean to—you are right that Ibrahim was strong and agile, more than I understood. He tried to kill me. He disdained me because I had the courage to speak against the sultan. I lifted a rock, tried to fight …”

  Karem stepped in front of Haluk, cutting off his speech. “Do not listen. It happened as he said, but I met Ibrahim, I fought, I wielded the rock. I covered the body when I knew he was dead, hoping he would not be found.”

  Karem could be telling the truth—or Haluk could be. Karem was more robust than Haluk, but he was aging. Ibrahim would have been able to best either of them.

  I lifted my hands. “I am not a magistrate. I wanted to tell you my thoughts on the matter. That is all. The verdict was that a foreign man committed the deed but managed to escape. Let the conclusion stand.”