by Holly Rayner
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said, kissing her hand as he stepped away. “I do hope you remember me.”
“I think I’ll remember this evening for the rest of my life,” Vanessa said earnestly.
Abraham chuckled, shaking his head as he helped her into his rented car.
“I’ll make sure she remembers,” he told the Sheikh. “Good evening, and thank you, Your Highness.”
He climbed into the car beside Vanessa and she watched through the car window as they pulled away. Ramin remained on the curb, watching them go until they were out of sight.
“Well, you certainly had a good time,” Abraham said with a deep laugh as Vanessa sighed. She was beginning to sober up.
“Oh, I did,” she said honestly. “What a wonderful man. I’ve never met anyone outside of academia with such an extensive knowledge of Middle Eastern archeology. And such a good sense of humor! And he listened to me talk about Assyrian burial practices for what must have been an hour, and, you know, I think he was genuinely interested! He made the most fantastic point about the direction the bodies face in mass graveyards and he actually knew more about their spirituality in relation to death than I do! Oh, I could have talked to him forever…”
“I’m sure you could have,” Abraham said kindly. “Just be careful, my dear. I did tell you he’s a heartbreaker.”
“He can’t be that bad,” Vanessa said, refusing to believe it. “He certainly wasn’t making any passes at me. We just talked about history the whole time.”
“I’ve been living and working in his circle for a year now, girl,” Abraham said with the air of a scolding father. “The gossip in the city talks about practically nothing else but his affairs. I’ve seen the women come and go myself. However kind he seemed, you should be careful. He’ll try to take advantage of you; I’m certain.”
“He wasn’t like that,” Vanessa insisted, but she was less sure now.
Abraham insisted she stay with him rather than the hostel, and they picked up her things before returning to the apartment he kept downtown. It was a spacious and richly appointed home which Vanessa saw little of before she exhaustedly retired to the guest bedroom. She did wonder briefly how Abraham was doing so well. That consulting work must have been incredibly lucrative.
She fell into bed, but found herself restless, thinking about what Abraham had said. Eventually, she pulled out her laptop and ran a search on Ramin’s name, not expecting to find much. And at first, she didn’t.
International news outlets regarded him as a minor royal of little importance, mostly mentioned in conjunction either with his father or with his archeological exploits. But then she stumbled onto the local news sites, tabloids out of Khartoum and the Gulf states to which Ksatta-Galan was connected. They were filled with nothing but talk of Ramin and his romantic adventures.
Every week was a new dramatic breakup or exposé or interview with an old girlfriend. It seemed as though he’d hardly had a single relationship that lasted beyond a month or two. And no sooner had he started a new one than there were a dozen articles predicting when and how it would end.
She read for more than an hour, scrolling through article after article about his philandering before she finally closed the laptop and fell back into her sheets, frowning at the ceiling in dismay. None of what she’d seen of the Sheikh tonight seemed to match with what she was reading, but she could hardly ignore the plethora of evidence that proclaimed him a womanizer.
Oh well, she thought as she rolled over. So what if he was! She didn’t intend to let him run off with her heart, no matter how charming he was. This was just business. He was helping her discover the tomb in return for a claim to half the credit.
And even if he weren’t a playboy, she was planning to betray him by stealing from the tomb when they found it. It really wouldn’t do to be getting involved with someone in a situation like this. She’d just have to keep him at arm’s length. She could do that. She was sure of it.
Chapter Six
Vanessa woke up a bit late the next morning to the smell of coffee and breakfast cooking. Groggy and a little hungover, she dressed and stumbled out to find the professor in the kitchen, whistling cheerfully as he flipped pancakes.
“Good morning!” he called sunnily. “Go on and pour yourself some coffee and sit down. Breakfast will be along in just a moment!”
“You’re a saint, Abraham,” Vanessa said gratefully, and, coffee in hand, shuffled off to the dining room.
It was apparent that the professor had been using the room as an extension of his office. Half of the table was covered in papers and reference books and a large, detailed map of the Nubian Desert. There were several spots circled, one of which Vanessa recognized at once as the location of their last, aborted expedition.
Sipping her coffee, she ran her fingers over the spot in remorseful memory, until a paper lying near the map caught her eye. She frowned, reaching for it, already scanning the text—a scholarly piece from the 1800s about the Sons of Ham.
“Here we are!”
She looked up as Abraham bustled in carrying a tray full of food.
“Pardon the mess,” he said, scooting papers out of the way so he could set down the breakfast plates. “I’ve been preparing for a little expedition. You know how I get when I’m engrossed in my research!”
“Expedition?” Vanessa asked, forgetting the paper and sitting down. “Where to?”
“Oh, it’s just a little thing into the Nubian desert,” he replied dismissively. “Part of my consultation work. To tell the truth, I’m hardly even interested in the subject matter, but the pay is substantial and, well, a man my age needs to stay busy.”
“I’d love to hear about it,” Vanessa said, loading her plate with a pancake, fruit, and eggs.
“No, no, it’s not interesting, I promise,” Abraham said, waving the butter knife he was using to spread jam on his own pancake. “I’d much rather hear about your plans with Sheikh Ramin this morning.”
Vanessa had nearly forgotten her agreement with the Sheikh. She checked her watch and cursed.
“He’s showing me some of the exhibits he’s planning for the museum,” Vanessa lied, standing up and grabbing some fruit for the road. “And I’m late.”
Abraham chuckled. “I’ll call you a cab. Hurry and get ready.”
Pancake still in her mouth, Vanessa rushed to her room, dressing quickly in a simple white cotton button-up and khaki shorts with sturdy hiking shoes.
Saying a quick goodbye to Abraham, she hurried out to the cab and was soon standing on the steps of the museum where she’d arranged to meet Ramin. He was already there waiting, and he smiled when he saw her.
“I was starting to fear you weren’t coming,” he said when he saw her.
“I overslept,” she explained. “I drank a bit too much last night, my apologies.”
“I guessed as much,” he said with a laugh. “But don’t worry. The extra time allowed me to ensure we are fully prepared. I don’t expect us to find much today, but we can scout the area. Did you bring the map?”
“Of course,” Vanessa said, lifting the wooden case out of her backpack. Ramin showed her inside to a room where she opened the case, showing him the spot the map indicated, then unrolling a modern map.
“Calculating for changes in the landscape and borders,” she said, running her hand over the map, “it should be somewhere around here. Not such a huge area to search after all.”
“Not at all,” Ramin said, nodding. “We can take this road up to here, then horses the rest of the way.”
“If we’re very lucky,” Vanessa said with a smile, “we may find evidence of it today! We could start proper excavation tomorrow!”
“One can only hope,” Ramin agreed.
They drove out into the desert in a jeep, pulling a trailer behind it with a pair of strong horses within, from Ramin’s personal stables.
“I don’t actually know how to ride, you know,” Vanessa told him, talking lo
udly to be heard over the jeep as it rambled down the dirt road, surrounded by desert on either side. “I’ve ridden a camel before, but it was being led by someone else.”
“Well, being able to sit without falling off is half the battle,” Ramin assured her. “I’ll teach you, don’t worry.”
They soon reached the point where the road turned away from the direction they needed to go and Ramin pulled over, concealing the jeep behind a dune before he opened the trailer and brought out the horses.
“Watch carefully,” he instructed as he lifted down the blankets and saddles from the trailer’s storage. “I’ll show you how to saddle them. You can’t hope to ride a horse you can’t saddle properly.”
“What about bareback riding?” Vanessa asked.
“Much more difficult than it looks,” Ramin said with a small laugh.
Vanessa watched carefully as Ramin saddled the horses, talking to them and soothing them as he worked.
“Horses are incredibly intelligent animals,” Ramin said. “Smarter than dogs. Smarter than some people I’ve met. But they must be treated with respect. Some trainers think you can bully or frighten a horse into obeying you. They will harass an animal until it is terrified of them and obeys because it knows it will be hurt otherwise. But a frightened animal is an unpredictable animal. When you make yourself the greatest danger to your own horse’s safety, you can hardly be surprised when they eventually, inevitably, fight you or run from you.”
Ramin’s horses were calm and comfortable. Even with as little experience as Vanessa had, she could see how easily they moved around each other.
“Do you train them yourself?” she asked.
“I work with a professional trainer,” Ramin explained. “I prefer it to be done by an expert. But any horse I am going to personally ride I make sure to be involved in the training of. I want them to know and trust me.”
“It seems like they do,” Vanessa said, a little awed as she stroked one of the animal’s noses.
“I’ve spent many years with these two,” Ramin said proudly, tightening a strap under the horse’s belly. “I know them better than almost anyone.”
“How often do you ride them?” Vanessa asked as he helped her up into her seat.
“It depends,” Ramin said. “I try to ride at least once a week. Sometimes, I’m in the stables twice a day.”
He laughed, but Vanessa could see bitterness there.
“It helps to keep my mind off of things,” he said, then shook off the lingering shadow of sadness and took her horse’s lead. “All right, I want you to squeeze your legs gently around him. A good rider on a well-trained horse should be able to control it with just their thighs.”
Vanessa did as he told her and made a small surprised noise as the horse started moving.
“Good,” he said. “Now, press in with your left heel.”
Vanessa did and the horse turned away from the pressure, moving right. He had her try in the opposite direction next, and Vanessa smiled proudly when it worked.
“This is much easier than I expected,” Vanessa said, surprised.
“Well, not to be immodest,” Ramin said. “But she is a very good horse. You could still use a lot of practice.”
“I have the basics,” Vanessa insisted. “Let’s get going!”
“All right, if you’re certain,” Ramin said with a laugh, swinging onto his own horse with easy grace and pulling a compass from his shirt. “This way.”
They set off into the desert, the sand swallowing the jeep and the road behind them in what seemed no time at all.
Chapter Seven
The sun beat down, casting iridescent heat shimmers across the reddish-gold dunes. The horses were built for this kind of terrain and walked on tirelessly even after Vanessa began to feel hot and stiff and sore.
Vanessa found herself often watching Ramin. He seemed at home in this environment, sharing jokes and coaching her on her riding as they went. His dark skin glowed in the sunlight. He looked like a prince from one of his fairy tales, off to adventure. Vanessa reminded herself that she wasn’t interested, and even if she was, it would only lead to heartbreak.
He’d never met a woman he hadn’t left behind, and she was planning to steal from him. Hardly an ideal situation for romance.
“We must be getting close,” she said as the day wore on, pulling out a modern map of the area which they’d marked. “Keep an eye out for any unusual dune structures or sinks that might be a sign of something buried.”
Ramin took out his compass, comparing it to her map.
“Our best bet is in that direction,” he said, pointing. “You seem to have got a hang of riding. Let’s see how well you gallop.”
He grinned at her, then suddenly urged his horse on with a shout, exploding into a gallop that carried him away from her at impressive speed. Vanessa fumbled for a moment, then remembered the signal he’d taught her for speed and held on tight as her horse rocketed away after Ramin.
She laughed victoriously as she caught up with him, the horses straining beside one another as they loped over and down a huge, wave-like dune. Vanessa smiled at Ramin, exhilarated, and he grinned back, his delight dazzling.
Vanessa’s heart raced, half from the excitement, half from the sight of him cheering as he stood in his saddle, spreading his arms to the sunlight as they raced across the sand. All she could think was that he really was making this difficult for her.
By the time the horses needed to rest, Ramin had spotted an oasis on the horizon. They turned aside to stop there and rest in the shade of the palm trees which clustered around a clear desert spring. The oasis was beautiful, a garden of lush greenery in the midst of the endless sand. They and the horses drank, then relaxed in the shade.
“It’s a good thing I brought lunch,” Ramin said as he unpacked bread, hummus, and cheese from one of the saddle bags. “Plus this.”
He pulled out the bottle of wine with a cheeky grin, holding it over his head as Vanessa reached for it.
“Ah-ah,” he said, laughing. “No way, I need you coherent for the ride home.”
“Oh, come on, I can handle one glass,” Vanessa said, flustered.
“All right, one,” he teased. “But I’ll be watching you, missy.”
“Excuse you,” she said primly as he uncorked the bottle. “You are neither my father nor my husband. I believe you have precisely no right to judge my drinking habits, sir.”
“It’s ‘Your Highness,’ actually,” he pointed out, grinning playfully as he continued to hold the wine out of her reach. “And seeing as it’s my wine, I think I actually have every right.”
Vanessa had no answer for that, so she just scowled as he finished opening the bottle and took a long swig directly from the neck. As soon as he lowered the bottle, she lunged for it and, laughing, he moved it out of her way again.
“All right,” she said, rolling up her sleeves. “I see how it’s going to be. Fine. I’ll wrestle you for it.”
He looked over all 5’4” of her and laughed.
“I’ve squashed bigger flies than you!” he teased.
“You underestimate me!” she declared. “And that is why you will lose!”
She threw herself at him as ferociously as she was able and he caught her, surprised and still laughing, and in the struggle, she snatched the bottle from his fingers and rolled away, victorious.
“All right, all right, I conceded defeat,” he said, eyes teary with mirth. “The wine is yours.”
Vanessa punched the air with a fist, the other busy pouring wine into her mouth.
Both giddy with the beautiful day and each other’s company, not to mention the wine, they lounged in the shade through the hottest part of the day, talking idly and enjoying themselves. For once, Amanirenas—normally Vanessa’s first priority at all times—felt secondary to just spending this day with Ramin.
“…and then he jumps in with the faux invitation to join his expedition to find Cush,” Vanessa was saying, her toes
in the warm water of the spring. “As though I would ever work with him—as though he genuinely wanted to! He’d probably already hired that Dubois woman and just wanted to humiliate me.”
“Kush as in Amanirenas’s kingdom?” Ramin asked with a confused frown.
“No, not quite,” Vanessa explained. “The biblical Cush-with-a-C. One of the sons of Ham, son of Noah.”
“No relation to Amanirenas, I take it?”
“Of course not.” Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Unless you’re a particularly ossified kind of biblical archeologist. The kind of people who think the world literally flooded for forty days think Cush, son of Ham, was the founder of the kingdom of Kush. Because the names sound the same, you see.”
“That’s really it?” Ramin leaned back on his hands, unconvinced.
“That, and an outrageously racist theory from before World War One,” Vanessa explained. “Rather misleadingly called the ‘Curse of Ham.’ Supposedly, Noah fell asleep drunk and naked in his tent, and his son Ham came in and saw him. Ham laughed at him, then went and got his brothers, who entered the tent walking backward and dropped a blanket over their father so they wouldn’t have to see him.
“But Noah wakes up and finds out Ham saw him and laughed at him and flies into a rage, in the course of which he curses Ham’s son Canaan, saying he will be a servant of his brother’s servants forever. At the time, the curse of Ham was used to justify the slavery of the Canaanites to the Israelites, but a few hundred years later the story was twisted to declare that the curse had turned Ham’s sons, including his eldest, Cush, black. The so-called Curse of Ham was commonly invoked as a justification for the slave trade.”
“Occasionally, in the study of history,” Ramin said bitterly, “one finds too many reasons to be ashamed of humanity.”
Vanessa nodded in weary understanding.
“Anyway, if you believe in the Curse of Ham,” she continued. “Then the mere fact that the Kingdom of Kush was a nation of sub-Saharan Africans is ‘evidence’ that Cush must be its founder, and thus there must be evidence of him somewhere in the country.”