A Grave Celebration

by Christine Trent

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  A Grave CelebRation Copyright © 2016 by Christine Trent

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All Twopence Press titles are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational, or institutional use.

  eISBN-13: 978-1-944745-01-1

  eISBN-10: 1-944745-01-7

  First Twopence Press Electronic Edition: November 2016

  ISBN-13: 978-1-944745-00-4

  ISBN-10: 1-944745-00-9

  First Twopence Press Trade Paperback Printing: November 2016

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  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover Design and Interior Format by The Killion Group Inc.

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  THE LADY OF

  ASHES MYStERIES

  Lady of Ashes

  Stolen Remains

  A Virtuous Death

  The Mourning Bells

  Death at the Abbey

  A Grave Celebration

  ALSO BY CHRISTINE TRENT

  By the King’s Design

  A Royal Likeness

  The Queen’s Dollmaker

  In memory of

  Georgia Carpenter

  March 30, 1945–October 24, 2015

  Mother, voracious mystery reader, and my irreplaceable

  grammar editor

  Cast of Characters

  THE BRITISH

  Violet Harper—undertaker

  Sir Henry Elliot—British ambassador to Constantinople

  Asa Brooks—Elliot’s man of affairs

  Commander George Nares—captain of HMS Newport

  THE FRENCH

  Ferdinand de Lesseps—mastermind behind the Suez Canal

  Louise-Hélène Autard de Bragard—de Lesseps’s much

  younger fiancée

  Isabelle Dumont—lady’s maid to Louise-Hélène

  Eugénie de Montijo—empress of France

  Julie Lesage—lady’s maid to Eugénie

  Théophile Gautier—poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist,

  and art and literary critic

  Auguste Mariette—director of the Museum of Cairo

  THE EGYPTIANS

  Isma’il Pasha—khedive (viceroy) of Egypt

  Tewfik Pasha—Isma’il’s eldest son and heir

  Hassan Salib—cultural attaché to the khedive

  Rashad Salib—Hassan’s brother; porter to the khedive

  Samir Basara—archaeologist working at the Museum of

  Cairo

  THE AMERICANS

  Samuel Harper—Violet’s husband and a Civil War veteran

  Thaddeus Mott—adventurer, sailor, soldier of fortune

  Ross Keating—Civil War veteran

  Owen Morris—Civil War veteran

  Caleb Purdy—Civil War veteran

  THE AUSTRIANS

  Franz-Josef—emperor of Austria and king of Hungary

  Karl Dorn—Franz-Josef’s chamberlain

  THE RUSSIANS

  Grand Duke Michael—brother of Tsar Alexander II of

  Russia

  Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatiev—Russian ambassador to

  Constantinople

  THE PRUSSIANS

  Crown Prince Frederick—heir to the throne of Prussia

  Richard Lepsius—Prussian Egyptologist

  The names of the Egyptian sovereigns who erected the Pyramids, those useless monuments of human pride, will be ignored. The name of the Prince who will have opened the grand canal through Suez will be blessed from century to century down to the most distant posterity.

  — Ferdinand de Lesseps to Egyptian ruler Muhammad Sa’id, ca. 1854

  Chapter 1

  November 10, 1869

  Cairo, Egypt

  The handwritten letter was quick, to the point, and left Auguste Mariette blustering in a rage he hadn’t known since he’d caught an employee snoring inside a fragile Eleventh Dynasty limestone sarcophagus. He scanned the note again in disbelief.

  You are hereby notified that crates being shipped to Cairo along the Nile have been intercepted and are now en route to Port Said for my inspection. This inspection will be conducted aboard El Mahrousa as it sails the Suez Canal toward the opening ceremonies in Port Ismailia. From there, items in the shipment that I do not select will be forwarded on to you in Cairo via the Fresh Water Canal for inclusion in the museum’s collection.

  Isma’il Pasha

  Khedive of Egypt

  Impossible, Mariette thought. Damn the khedive and his shameful arrogance.

  The museum director crumpled the letter with both hands and threw it, grimacing when it barely cleared the other side of his desk and dropped to the floor with an unsatisfying smack. He was itching to summon a servant just to have someone to vent his rage on. How dare the khedive once again intercept a precious shipment of antiquities, treating them not as if they were to be preserved for Egyptian posterity, but as if they belonged in his own personal curio cabinet?

  Bile rose in Mariette’s throat, and he hawked a ball of phlegm into a nearby spittoon of carved bronze. A reproduction, of course. He would never dream of sullying a genuine antique article.

  After everything Mariette had done to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, including writing the scenario for an opera, Aida, for which the khedive had professed great admiration, this was how he was to be treated.

  This had all started a decade ago, after Mariette had established the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. For the love of Anubis, the Egyptian government had practically begged him to take the role of director, especially given his success in conserving no fewer than thirty-five important dig sites around the country—including the necropolis at Memphis, no less. Supposedly they wanted all of these precious items brought together and kept out of the hands of other countries, which were constantly attempting to spirit them out of Egypt and sell them into private hands.

  Especially the British. Bon sang, but they made an avocation out of stealing everything from everybody under the auspices of preservation. The Elgin Marbles from the Greeks, imperial relics from China’s Old Summer Palace, and they had been rapaciously excavating Egypt’s pyramids and temples for decades. Ironically, the British Museum contained more precious Egyptian artifacts than Mariette had been able to gather since the inception of Egypt’s national museum in 1858.

  As if it weren’t enough to battle foreign governments, he was forced to do battle with the Egyptians themselves. What was he supposed to do to keep the khedive—formally elevated from governor to his new position of khedive, or viceroy, by the Ottoman sultan—from perpetually confiscating his own country’s valuables? The man was incorrigible, Mariette concluded, as ten years ago the khedive had intercepted a boatload of antiquities from the tomb of Queen Ahhotep I, on its journey from Thebes to Cairo, forcing Mariette to race out, crossing the khedive’s orders to rescue the cargo. Mariette had periodically intervened to save treasures ever since, but it was most upsetting when the culprit was the ve
ry authority who had granted his position to protect Egyptian treasures.

  So was this what it meant to be the director of antiquities? To perpetually pluck valuables out of the grasping, thieving hands of the very people who should most respect the antiquities as possessions of the Egyptians? It was scandaleux, an outrage.

  Mariette spat again, but it wasn’t particularly satisfying, especially when he reached up and realized there was a bit of dribble in his beard. Several epithets came to mind, and he pounded his fist on the desk as he uttered each one with as much venom as he could muster. Spent from that, he sat down heavily in his tufted leather chair. His nearly fifty years were catching up with both his patience and his girth.

  Had he wasted his entire career in this double-dealing country, despite all of his magnificent discoveries? Of what use was it if the artifacts would all end up in private collections? Should he have simply stayed in Boulogne and never come here?

  Perhaps his wife wouldn’t have died if she hadn’t been brought here. He laughed hollowly, recalling how she routinely complained that he was becoming an Egyptian, with his dense, curling chin-curtain beard and his propensity for Egyptian-style dress. He could have made no such claim of her, given that she received shipments of the latest French fashions, books, and outdated magazines on nearly every boat docking in Cairo from their home country until she was carried away by fever five years ago.

  He sat with his elbow on the polished sycamore desk, specially crafted for him with locally harvested trees after he had become the director of antiquities. He smoothed his mustache with a thumb and forefinger as he thoughtfully regarded the artifacts and wood crates lining the shelves and floor of his office. Normally, this activity would have calmed him, reminding him of the importance of his life’s mission. Today, however, there seemed to be more heat billowing from within Mariette than could be seen emanating from the funnel of an Atlantic steamer ship. He had to do something about this intolerable situation. He knew that he could not fight the British single-handedly, but surely there was a solution to the khedive’s endless plundering of Egypt’s treasures. Mariette’s ego and pride simply could not bear the thought of leaving behind a legacy that wasn’t positively sterling.

  The director continued compulsively smoothing his facial hair as he picked up a canopic jar from the corner of his desk. He ran his thumb over the smooth base of the jar as he looked into the blank, carved eyes of Duamutef, the jackal-headed god representing the east. Inside the jar was a dried-up stomach, but Mariette respected ancient Egypt’s burial practices enough not to open the jar to gawk sacrilegiously at its contents, even if he did keep the jar sitting on his desk as decoration.

  As he deliberated his options over the next two hours, he ignored several raps on his door. He even barked at a servant who had arrived with his ritual afternoon coffee, sending the frightened man scurrying back into the hallway. Finally, though, Mariette’s good humor returned, almost as if Duamutef of the canopic jar had reminded him of the importance of protecting the organs of the dead. He knew what he had to do. The khedive might not believe Egypt’s precious antiquities rightfully belonged in a museum, but that didn’t mean the man couldn’t be . . . persuaded.

  Chapter 2

  November 16, 1869

  Port Said, Egypt

  The man who had just been stabbed stared in horrified disbelief at his attacker, then pulled a calloused hand away from his chest. His palm was smeared in dark red mixed with the fine wood shavings that habitually covered him like a tightly fitted glove.

  The thrust of the blade had been so sudden and so deep that he had hardly realized what had happened, so quickly had the conversation gone from casual inquiry at the lumberyard to violent argument with his attacker, whom he didn’t even recognize.

  The attacker stood over him now, leering wolfishly over what had been done, as the victim sank to his knees. He tasted the nauseating, metallic tang of his own blood.

  Not just an attacker, a murderer.

  The man gazed beyond his attacker at the magnificent ships pulling into the port—yachts, corvettes, gunboats, and other gleaming white vessels—all flying colors of their respective countries.

  Tonight was supposed to be the gateway to a week of celebrations fit for the royalty who traveled aboard the ships, and especially for the glory of Monsieur de Lesseps, who had spent so much time in Egypt that he was practically accepted as a native.

  More blood gushing up caused the man to cough and gurgle involuntarily, and he immediately thought that he was shaming himself by responding so weakly. He should be able to die bravely, without fear or panic.

  He attempted to fix a steely glare at his murderer, but black spots danced before him, obstructing his vision. He struggled to both spit out and swallow his own blood in an attempt to clear his throat, and he found that he was becoming light-headed and dizzy.

  Before he toppled completely over onto the rough, dusty ground, an incongruous thought struck him. How disappointing it was that he would not get to revel in all the important people aboard the ships now docking who all held the polluted secrets that important people tended to keep, amassing them like curiosities in a cabinet, to be pulled out and inspected on occasion before being placed back on their orderly shelves.

  The man heard a mingling of voices around him, but he was pitching forward now and could see no one, not even his murderer.

  He felt nothing as he hit the ground, neither his nose breaking nor the jagged stone opening a gash in his forehead. He wasn’t even aware of the small cloud of dust that enveloped him as his body made contact with the hard earth. His last thought was of the indignity of being flipped over by someone’s foot, as the murderer laughed at him with malevolent amusement. But the man’s eyes had glassed over, and he could no longer attach a face to the raucous merriment above him.

  Chapter 3

  It was a relief to be on terra firma again, Violet thought. They had been nearly two weeks at sea, and although the journey had been uneventful, there was only so much sea air and salt spray she could take. Not to mention the fact that their quarters, while not uncomfortable, had given her some serious bouts of stomach roiling as she tried to sleep while they tossed to and fro in the water.

  Her gladness that they were docked, though, was nothing compared to how overwhelmed she was by what awaited them on shore. She knew that a major international event would attract a great deal of attention and fanfare, and the port didn’t disappoint her expectations. It looked like an enormous, glittering festival, dominated by two stages that faced each other, one flying the French colors and one flying the Egyptian flag. Throngs of people surged around every available square inch of space.

  The stages were simply the largest edifices in a sweeping vista of striped tents, garland-festooned buildings, and people of every imaginable nationality. Rows of buildings had signs in multiple languages identifying them as jewelry makers, butchers, gold sellers, and coffee shops, and there were others selling candies, vegetables, pigeons, and eggs. There was even a lumberyard, full of cut logs and sawn planks, as well as a place to hire out camels.

  Violet glanced down at her dress, a pale blue frock edged in black, unadorned except for a black bow with its ribbons trailing down the skirt. Was it stylish enough for such an international exposition?

  As she disembarked into the afternoon sunshine with Sam’s hand lightly, but protectively, at her back, she felt like a piece of glass in a necklace full of priceless gemstones. Heavens, why did she care about such a thing all of a sudden? She was a woman who wore mourning dress as a raven wears its black feathers—a natural part of her being, her raison d’être. What difference did it make if she wasn’t clad in a rich scarlet shawl over a royal blue tunic like that flawlessly complected woman welcoming newcomers? Or if she didn’t have the ability to carry off the rich burgundy-and-silver ensemble of that laughing woman standing next to a man in matching colors?

  As if sensing her sudden insecurity, Sam lifted his hand from h
er back, crooked his arm, and offered it to her as he smiled down at her. “I hope this country is prepared. The legends of Cleopatra have nothing on my wife.” He tapped his cane twice on the gangplank for emphasis. “Their scribes might have to start creating new mythology.”

  “Oh, Sam.” Violet knew it was foolish to feel so ridiculously pleased, as though she were a giddy young girl receiving her first compliment from a beau, yet she briefly leaned her head against his arm in appreciation. That arm was clad in a Union infantry shell jacket, with its single row of bright brass buttons running up the front and adorning the wrists. Their ship’s captain had initially expressed disapproval that a member of the British delegation would wear a foreign uniform, but he eventually just shrugged and said, “Americans,” before piloting back to Great Britain.

  The Harpers’ belongings were being transferred to HMS Newport, a vessel that carried the Prince of Wales and the ambassador to Constantinople. Newport had been part of a flotilla of foreign dignitaries sailing down the Nile for the past several weeks to tour Egyptian sites as guests of the khedive.

  Violet had only been invited to the opening ceremonies, not the luxurious sightseeing trip, and so she and Sam were now joining the British delegation’s ship.

  It was just as well that she hadn’t been invited on the exotic trip down the Nile, since at the time she was completing a murder investigation on a remote estate in Nottinghamshire for a very peculiar duke. If she had abruptly left for Egypt, a devious criminal might have gotten away with more than one murder.

  At Sam’s waist was a leather scabbard containing a saber given to him by a superior officer as a personal gift for brave service at Marye’s Heights during the battle at Fredericksburg, Virginia. Sam had been wounded in that battle, hence his limp that was either worse or better depending on the weather. Today, though, the jacket seemed to have the effect of making him as tall and erect and proud as she had ever seen him. Violet hadn’t been sure about his selection of clothing for the evening, but now she realized that it was perfect, given the number of men on shore ostentatiously adorned in epaulets, ribbons, and medals.