Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2)

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  Julia heard the screams from both the women and a hand flew to her throat. Ammon was unpredictable and primitive but surely he wouldn’t…? She pressed her heels into the pony’s side to urge him a little closer down the ravine. She stopped halfway but close enough where she could see the people’s faces. One of the women, a portly middle-aged dowager, was crying hysterically and beating on the arm of the man next to her, presumably her husband. Both white men stood in the wagon as if to parlay with Ammon.

  She could hear Ammon bark an order to the witless dragoman who promptly turned to the couples and held out his hand. She could nearly understand his words from this distance but she didn’t have to. As she watched, one of the white men faced Ammon and his voice carried up the hill to Julia.

  “I say, you filthy wog, if you think we’re handing over our money to some—”

  The man’s indignant affront to Ammon was interrupted by one of Ammon’s men in response to a nearly imperceptible cue from his leader. The Bedouin rode up to the wagon, his khopesh flashing and glinting in the sun, and slashed at the dragoman’s head as the man stood listening to his employer rant. Julia’s own scream was involuntary and shrill. She clapped a hand to her mouth but it was too late. Ammon’s head jerked in her direction, as did both men on the wagon. It was but a momentary diversion, however, as the dragoman fell into the wagon and into the laps of the women, his head bleeding from where Ammon’s lieutenant had severed his right ear.

  The white man who had triggered the assault turned to Ammon and, stupidly, appeared more resistant than ever. Julia knew that to attack a colored man as some kind of inducement to a white man was useless. Her countryman stood in the wagon with his man bleeding and his women screaming and he continued to bleat like the insufferable ass that he was. Julia bit her lip not to make another noise although her eyes were on her lover. He wouldn’t be pleased that she had disobeyed him or that she had made herself visible to these people. She prayed he would not punish them for her foolishness.

  She wondered which woman Ammon would choose to raise the stakes on the idiot man defending a handful of gold when all their lives hung in the balance. With a nod of his head, another of Ammon’s creatures rode to the opposite side of the wagon where he could reach the white man’s woman, and with one vicious punch, grabbed the front of her bodice and ripped it clear to her waist. Her breasts, snow-white and pendulous, sprang free and for a moment, the woman only gaped down at herself in horror, her hands hanging uselessly at her side. A yelp came from her husband as he wrenched off his coat to cover up his wife. He twisted around to speak to the other man in now near hysterical tones: “Empty your purse, Carruthers! For the love of God, give them everything!” He needn’t have bothered for Carruthers was already tossing down wallets, purses and anything else they had of value onto the sand. The woman who had been bared sat huddled in her seat under her husband’s jacket, her eyes blinking like an owl’s.

  Julia watched as Ammon’s gang gathered up the loot and prepared to leave. When she turned her horse to wait for Ammon at the top of the ridge, she glanced at the dragoman who now sat hunched in the driver’s seat of the wagon, his hand to his ear. As she looked at him, he turned his head, and his eyes met hers.

  * * *

  Rowan spent the first three days back in Cairo scouring the city for any sign of Ella. He figured an American woman traveling alone could not be kept secret for long. If Ella was in Cairo, he would find her. If she wasn’t, where could she be? And that raised the question that Rowan really didn’t want to think about. What if Ella had gone back to 2013?

  With no trace of her in Cairo, and Digby’s so-called note clearly just a ruse to get rid of Rowan, 2013 was the only place left to look for her.

  “Effendi tired of searching?” Ra said. His earnest brown face was creased with worry. “We go back to hotel?”

  Rowan stood at the entrance of Khan el-Khalili, the old marketplace, and watched the labyrinth of narrow alleys stone archways crowded with people—tourists, hawkers, merchants—and the stalls, selling everything imaginable: spices, music, brassware, stones, antiquities, textiles, jewelry. The metallurists were at work hammering. The food vendors were waving sticks of roasted goat meat. The air was redolent of incense and the press of humanity.

  She wasn’t in Cairo. Even if he hadn’t spent the better part of three days searching for her here, somehow he just knew she wasn’t here.

  “Stay here,” he said to Ra. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  “Ra come with you, effendi.”

  “No, it would be really great if Ra would just do what I tell him to do,” Rowan said tersely. He left the boy standing at the entrance to the market and walked to the place Yeena’s stall would be eighty years later. If he couldn’t find Ella, and he didn’t really expect to he would find the alley that had brought him here.

  On the corner where Yeena’s coffee shop would one day stand was a shop selling textiles and incense. Rowan stood outside and stared into the window for a moment, then began walking back toward where he remembered the bakery was located.

  “Effendi?” A slim brown hand tugged at his sleeve and when he looked to see who was trying to get his attention, he saw a very old woman sitting on a blanket, her back up against the stonewall that surrounded the market.

  “Ma’am?” Rowan was about to toss his last Egyptian coin onto the blanket at her feet when she stood and placed her hands on his chest.

  “She has not gone back,” she said, her face crinkling with happy wrinkles.

  “Excuse me?” But he had heard her. His heart thudded in his chest at her words. He took her by her elbow and led her to a small alcove off the main walkway. “Who hasn’t gone back?”

  “Your wife,” the woman said.

  Rowan studied her face closely, trying to find some resemblance to Yeena in 2013.

  “I am Olna,” she said. “You cannot leave yet. Your wife is here still.”

  “You know this how?”

  The woman patted his hand as if trying to reassure him. “You cannot go. She needs you.”

  “Where is she?”

  “This I do not know,” Olna said sadly. Then her expression brightened. “But I know she and the child live. And that they wait for you.”

  “Wait for me where?” Rowan’s frustration was building in waves. He’d already wasted two weeks sitting on his ass at Carter’s camp and three more days in Cairo. He gripped the woman’s arm as if he could wrestle the information out of her.

  She cried out in alarm and her eyes filled with fear. Instantly, Rowan felt ashamed and released her.

  “I’m sorry, Olna. I’m just very worried about my wife. I need to find her.”

  “No, effendi,” Olna said, rubbing her arm where he had gripped her. “You cannot go to her.”

  “What are you talking about? I must find her but I cannot go to her?”

  “That is exactly right.”

  “That is exactly bullshit, ma’am,” Rowen said. “I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing with me. If you know where Ella is you need to tell me now.”

  “What I know, effendi,” Olna said, beginning to move away from Rowan, “is that you will not find her by searching for her.”

  Rowan watched her shuffle back to her mat at the base of the wall. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. What the hell did that mean? I have to find her but I can’t search for her?

  His eyes darted in the direction of the alleyway that hid the conduit that brought him to this timeline. Finally, however, he turned away from the alleyway to walk back to where he left Ra. As he passed Olna, he heard her humming to herself. She was staring at her hands like a simpleton. Or a mad woman.

  That afternoon, after lunch with Marvel at the hotel, Rowan walked her to her suite of rooms. His mind was a swirl of discontent. He knew he was bad company but he also knew she would indulge him.

  “You’re thinking of her, aren’t you?” Marvel stood up from her daybed and straightened out
the blue silken folds of her new Egyptian tunic.

  Rowan smiled at her. “I don’t mean to be rude,” he said.

  She waved away the notion with her hand and came to stand next to him. “No, of course, you’re worried,” she said. “She’s not at the camp. She’s not in Cairo. So do you believe she is lost in the desert?”

  “She’s alive,” Rowan said. “That’s all that I know but I know at least that.”

  Marvel frowned. “Then living somewhere in the desert? Perhaps with one of the desert tribes?”

  Rowan looked out the window of Marvel’s hotel suite at the legendary gardens of the hotel. The sunset created pink steaks of light delicately descending to earth.

  “Look, Rowan,” Marvel said, taking his hand in hers. “Why not take me up on my offer? Be my head of security. Stay here at Shepheard’s for as long as your search takes. You know she’ll end up here. I mean, even if she is living with some desert sheik and I’m not saying she is but sooner or later she’ll want a hot bath and meat that hasn’t been fermented in the bladder of a goat. And she’ll come to Cairo.”

  Rowan gave her a wry grin and carefully retrieved his hand. “You might have a point,” he said.

  “I definitely do. So you’ll let me hire you?”

  “Turns out I could use a job. If you’re sure I can be of service to you.”

  “Oh, you can,” Marvel said, grinning. “You definitely can.”

  Rowan pretended to listen as Marvel chattered happily on about how they would live in her rooms and how she hadn’t given up on getting into Carter’s camp. From her balcony view he could see the minarets of the many mosques above the treetops.

  The fact was, he wasn’t sure if Ella had gone back to 2013 or was still wandering around the desert. But short of going back to Dothan, Cairo seemed as good a place as any to wait for her. After his talk with Olna, he was starting to think—as hard as it was to believe—that this might be a case where going looking for the thing he wanted was the least effective way of finding it.

  As incredible as it sounded, maybe he really did just need to do nothing.

  Chapter Twenty

  What Ella knew for sure about her new life was that she was living in paradise. She was waited on for her every need by gentle and caring hands. A cadre of Egyptian female servants moved silently about her world. She had spent what felt like weeks in a dream. She often knew when she was walking—or being helped to walk—but she felt no urgency to go from one place to another. She remembered the boat and the hours and days of sunlight and the feeling of being rocked by the waves beneath the dahabiya. She couldn’t remember when she had arrived at the palace. She couldn’t remember entering it or what the grounds looked like. Halima told her that the palace belonged to Dr. Zimmerman and that its gardens were very beautiful, a true oasis of greenery in the hostile desert.

  The other thing Ella knew for sure about her new life was that she was a prisoner, watched and guarded every moment of every day.

  The doctor visited frequently. Ella often took tea with him although the visits were hazy in her memory. Halima served them both, handing Ella her teacup, delicately spreading a thin linen napkin across her lap, and then recounting the visits to Ella afterward. What would she do without Halima? The woman was mother, friend, guide and guard all in one. She was a beautiful woman, older than Ella, with dark, almond shaped eyes and a wide, generous mouth.

  When Dr. Zimmerman asked after her health, it was Halima who answered for Ella. Halima said he was an important physician from Europe. She said he was going to help Ella have a big, healthy baby and that Ella should be grateful. Not all mothers in Egypt had happy outcomes.

  The baby was growing bigger inside her with each passing week.

  One day, as Halima was helping her into her bath, Ella reached out and grabbed the woman’s arm. Halima looked at her with surprise. “Effendem?” Halima said, clearly puzzled. “You are safe. I will not let you fall.”

  “Halima?” Ella said, releasing her and easing herself into the warm tub. “Do you have children, yourself?”

  The Egyptian woman sucked in a quick breath. She reached for the bath sponge and soaked Ella’s back with lilac-scented soapy water. “I am not a mother in that sense,” she said.

  Ella had skipped her breakfast that morning. Now she found herself more lucid, and more clear headed than she had felt in weeks. In fact, for the first time since coming to the palace, Ella noticed her surroundings. The room she sat in now was constructed of rose marble, it held a wide western-facing window where the desert sun heated the room and cast a warm glow on the walls. Stacks of thick towels sat on pristine wooden counters, sanded to a polished sheen. Ewers of oil and soap and precious water sat on the floor by the tub—a marble basin that had been painstakingly hand-filled for Ella’s bath.

  It was clear to Ella that she had been drugged. A rising panic accompanied the knowledge and she fought to camouflage it from her servants. From Halima. As she sat in the tub, Ella looked around the bathing room and felt a chill emanate through to her very bones. “How long have I been here?” she asked.

  Halima held the wet sponge to the front of her tunic and stared at Ella in mounting horror. She turned to glance at the entrance of the bath and then at Ella. “A month,” she said quietly.

  Ella put her hand to her abdomen, astonished at how much bigger she was. She looked back at Halima who was still staring at her. “Why am I here?” she asked.

  Halima plunged the sponge into the bath and gripped Ella by the arm. She drew her face close to Ella’s and whispered fiercely, “Horus is coming. You must not cover up. You understand?” She shook Ella’s arm, her nails biting into Ella’s flesh.

  Within a moment a tall, large black man wearing only a loincloth entered the bath. Ella’s first inclination was to throw her arms across her exposed breasts but then Halima’s words leapt into her head: You must not cover up. She forced her hands to stay in her lap as the man strode to the bath and stood next to Halima. His ebony skin was greased to a high sheen. Ella vaguely remembered him. He was Horus, the eunuch. Her eyes flickered to his face and she saw how he ogled her, how he took in every inch of her. Eunuch, my ass, she found herself thinking.

  Horus spoke abruptly to Halima and then backed away from the tub. Before he left the room, Ella realized she was shaking. She grabbed the side of the marble tub to prevent herself from slipping, and Halima held her gently by the arm.

  “Come, effendem,” Halima said quietly. “He is gone.”

  Ella allowed the woman to help her out of the tub and wrap her in long soft toweling. Halima led her to a couch by the window where Ella sat, feeling the strong rays of the sun penetrate the towel and warm her.

  “You did not eat your breakfast,” Halima said.

  “I guess I wasn’t hungry. Why are you drugging me?”

  Halima sat down next to Ella and looked out the window over the desert. “Dr. Zimmerman thought it would be easier this way.”

  “Easier for whom? Easier to do what? Why am I being held here?”

  “You will not be harmed, effendem.”

  “And my baby?”

  Halima paused for just a split second. “Your baby will not be harmed.”

  “Am I here because someone wants to take my baby?” Ella asked, her body suddenly flooded with anxiety.

  Halima glanced at the door of the bathroom where Horus had disappeared. She did not reply.

  * * * *

  Marvel Newton stood at the top of the stairs at Shepheards and surveyed the group of hotel guests in the lobby. In the crowd of dark and white faces, she was looking for only one. When she spotted Rowan—tall and handsome—standing out in the crowd like a movie star among peasants—a warm feeling started in the pit of her stomach and spread to her loins. His hair was tousled, worn longer than the fashion but it suited him. She waited for the moment when he would look up and see her, his eyes lighting up with pleasure. She knew he cared for her. She even knew he wanted her. As she watched,
he rose from his chair and began to move in her direction. She loved his confidence and swagger and the way the crowd parted for him as he moved through. She felt a throbbing between her legs and her face flushed pink as he bounded up the stairs to her.

  All she had to do was wait.

  “Hey, Marvel,” he said when he reached her. “You really gonna wear that get-up in public? Because we’re talking serious riot material here.”

  “You like it?”

  “I do. Being a red-blooded American male, I absolutely do.”

  Her dress was a bit showy for daywear, she knew that. Her mother would be appalled to see Marvel showing so much bosom before eight o’clock. But even Mama would recognize that special bait was needed to catch a big fish. And, oh, Mama, this one was definitely big.

  “You ready?” Rowan held out his arm and Marvel latched on and leaned into him, pressing her breast against his arm.

  “I am. I’m absolutely famished. Where are we going today?”

  “Your dollar, your call,” Rowan said, leading her down the stairs.

  Marvel felt a tinge of annoyance at his response. She didn’t enjoy being reminded that she paid Rowan for the pleasure of his company.

  Dear Lord, she thought. What was it going take to get this man into her bed?

  “Surprise me, my dear,” she said, batting her eyes.

  “Well, if you’re sure, we have had an invitation that might be interesting.”

  Marvel practically glowed at the thought that people regarded her and Rowan as a couple. They had lived in the hotel for over a month now, separated only by one thin wooden door. They ate nearly every meal together and except for those few times when he inexplicably disappeared after dinner only to return in the wee hours, they lived a comfortable, cozy and intimate life of an established couple.

  “Sounds fun,” she said as they entered the hotel’s grand dining room.