Twenty-Five
E llie stepped from the train into the smoldering heat of late afternoon that hovered over the dusty platform at Al Mutiah, just south of the broken line at Asyut. She had to fight her way through a crowd of farmers carrying chickens and wealthy travelers frantically organizing mountains of baggage. Piles of freight—most of it bales of raw cotton—were stacked in towers around the station as those charged with their transport wrangled loudly with the drivers of donkey carts and wagons.
The sight of all those stranded travelers made her worry about just how they were going to get to Tell al-Amarna in time to stop Julian Forster-Mowbray from finding Neferneferuaten’s tomb. If the train line was out, and they could not hope to catch up to him by boat—what other option remained to them?
She supposed she would find out once they made their way through the packed chaos of the platform. The disruption to Egypt’s major railway had clearly wreaked havoc—as Ellie suspected it had been meant to.
The thought made her take a closer look at the sturdy, black-cloaked figure of Umm Waseem, whom Jemmahor had described as Zeinab’s ‘munitions expert.’ The squat older woman wore her black abaya and headcloth, blending in with dozens of other sun-weathered farmer’s wives crowding the platform.
Ellie wondered just how much Umm Waseem knew about the use of incendiary materials. The thought was desperately intriguing—though as the old smuggler didn’t speak any English, Ellie would require the cooperation of a translator if she was to pick her brain for any useful tips.
Not that she planned on blowing anything up. Her questions would be prompted purely by scholarly interest.
If Ellie did happen to spot an appropriate situation for the use of a small detonation, she wondered if she would need to inform Adam before setting it off. Back in British Honduras, she had technically promised to check with him before exploding anything. That had been weeks ago, but strictly speaking, he had not yet released her from the commitment.
Umm Waseem was carrying her black canvas satchel slung across her back. Ellie gave it a surreptitious study, trying to determine whether there might be anything explosive inside. She wondered how heavy such things were. Her only previous contact with dynamite had been Padre Kuyoc’s breastplate back in British Honduras. As she recalled, the garment had been rather hefty.
Umm Waseem didn’t seem to struggle under her burden—which could mean the bag held nothing more than some spare clothes and a toothbrush. Ellie knew she would have relished having those items along for herself.
“Want me to carry that for you?” Adam offered.
Umm Waseem snorted in lieu of reply, otherwise ignoring him. Ellie tried to determine whether that indicated the presence of TNT or extra stockings. She couldn’t be sure.
“This way,” Zeinab ordered, finding a gap in the crowd and leading them out into the relative quiet of the thoroughfare.
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They took a ferry across the river to the eastern bank, where only a narrow band of fields lined the Nile before the ground rose steeply up to a scrubby desert plateau. Ellie began to weary as they hiked to the top—but after all, hunting for ancient clues, narrowly avoiding being murdered, and escaping with a band of revolutionaries did tend to wear one out.
She stepped off the path into a sprawling wilderness. Nearer to hand, little shrubs and wind-blasted trees clung to the stony ground, but beyond them lay open desert interrupted only by a distant, hazy range of mountains tinted peach by the setting sun.
Zeinab led them along a dusty track. Around a bend lay a cluster of low, broad tents of black wool secured by well-tied ropes. They glowed with the light of hanging lanterns and crackling cookfires. Fluffy white sheep grazed on tufts of desert grass nearby, looking plump and well-fed.
The still evening air resounded with the sound of barking, and a pack of long-legged, fawn-hued dogs came bounding toward them from the camp. Ellie stopped with an instinctive wariness at the sight of them.
“Don’t worry,” Adam said, coming to her side as he watched the animals approach.
“Don’t worry?” Ellie echoed skeptically.
Adam looked down at her. His eyes were bright. “Those are happy dogs.”
“They are?” Ellie frowned. “How on earth do you know that?”
“Just look at them,” he replied as though the answer were obvious.
Then the pack was upon them, and Adam stepped out to meet it. The dogs slammed into him—and immediately turned into a mess of wiggling tails and lapping tongues as the animals wrangled to get closest to him.
“Awww—who’s a good boy?” Adam cooed happily, reaching down to scratch every available ear. “You’re a good boy! And you are!”
Ellie watched with surprise, Sayyid hanging back at her side.
“Is he always this fond of dogs?” Sayyid asked.
“I’m not actually certain,” Ellie replied with a little jolt of surprise. “This is the first time I’ve actually seen him with any.”
Two of the dogs jumped up, knocking Adam back. He collapsed under a pile of them, roaring out a delighted laugh. “Ouch! Ow! Watch the ribs! Aww—come here, you!”
A few figures rose from the fire in front of the largest tent, looking toward Ellie’s party. They wore elegant quftans over their galabeyas, and their heads were draped with banded scarves instead of the usual turbans.
“Are those Bedouin?” Ellie asked with a spark of interest.
“The Ibn Rashid clan of the Hamadyiin,” Zeinab confirmed.
Ellie had read about Egypt’s Bedouin, the nomadic people who herded their flocks across the desert that lay between the Nile and the Red Sea.
“But why are we going to the Arabs?” Sayyid pressed, clearly unsettled by the notion.
“Because they owe me a favor,” Zeinab replied shortly. “But the Hamadyiin keep the harem. I will need you to entertain Sheikh Mohammed while I speak with his wife.”
Ellie gathered that ‘keeping the harem’ meant the men and women would be in separate tents, and that their party would therefore be split accordingly. That would leave Sayyid and Adam charged with acting the part of gracious guests for a Bedouin chief—a prospect Sayyid did not look particularly happy about.
Ellie couldn’t tell what Adam thought about it, as he was currently covered in a mass of joyful dogs—a situation he appeared to be enjoying thoroughly.
She felt a pang of sympathy for Sayyid. He and Zeinab still hadn’t had a chance to talk about her revolutionary activities—a revelation that had clearly come as a shock to him and which would certainly require discussion. Entertaining a Bedouin sheikh would likely put that off for a while longer.
The two fellows who had risen from the campfire intercepted them.
“Salamu 'alaykum,” Zeinab said, stepping forward to meet the greeting party.
“Salam,” the older of the two men returned.
The greeting was courteous, but his eyes flashed with a note of caution—until they fell to where Adam was extracting himself from under a mass of wagging tails.
“Stop! Enough!” he laughed, stumbling back and pushing down on more wet noses as the dogs tried to leap up to him.
The Bedouin took in Adam’s bruised face, split lip, and dog-licked hair. He raised an eyebrow.
“He’s an American,” Zeinab said, as though that explained everything. “I have come to see Nur Hanim al-Rashidi. May we share your fire?”
“Ahlan wa sahlan,” the Bedouin replied. “You are welcome. Please, follow.”
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Their arrival at the tents was more unambiguously warm. Sheikh Mohammed—a large man with a luxuriant silver beard—greeted Sayyid with open arms and kisses to his cheeks as though they were the oldest of friends, though Jemmahor quietly informed Ellie that they had most certainly never met before.
Sayyid and Adam—trailed by a few hopeful dogs—were compelled over to the fire where the men of the family were gathered, and a great show was made of setting out a pan to roast beans for coffee. The nutty aroma soon filled the air.
Ellie found herself caught up in a mass of veiled and cloaked women who hurried her and the other ladies over to another tent. The space was warmly lit by hanging lanterns of pierced copper, while the ground was covered with brightly patterned carpets and soft cushions.
The black coverings fell away as they came inside, revealing colorful galabeyas and hijabs. The tent was packed with women who eyed the new arrivals with curiosity, from young girls whose heads were not yet covered to wrinkled great-grandmothers gossiping on comfortable pillows.
Zeinab crossed over to a plush seat where an elegant lady roughly Umm Waseem’s age held court. She sparkled with gold from the ring in her nose to the anklets that jangled at her feet. Her chin was decorated with three blue-inked lines Ellie realized were not paint but tattoos.
The lady rose as Zeinab approached, greeting her warmly and kissing her cheeks.
“That is Nur Hanim al-Rashidi,” Jemmahor whispered in Ellie's ear. “She is the first wife of Sheikh Mohammed.”
“ First wife?” Ellie’s eyebrows rose. “Is there a second?”
“There is a third, ” Jemmahor informed her. “And he keeps them all very well, from what Ostazah Zeinab has told me. She delivered Nur Hanim’s grandsons in Cairo—twins, and a most difficult birth, but both were born healthy and the mother is well, praise be to God! It is Nur Hanim who will make the arrangements for us.”
“And what arrangements are those?” Ellie had been excited to find herself among the famous Bedouin, but now they had arrived, her worries about Julian Forster-Mowbray, her missing loved ones, and the lost tomb had all returned.
“Who knows?” Jemmahor shrugged. “But in the meantime, we can eat. I smell lamb!”
Ellie was handed a cup of sweet mint tea and settled by a great platter covered in rice, herbs, and roast meat, from which everyone ate neatly with their hands, plucking up morsels with little pieces of soft, flat bread.
By the time dinner was through, the sun was setting. The children flooded outside, racing through the open space by the sheep pen in a game, their voices high and bright in the evening air. The women washed up and made their evening prayer as Ellie watched from a little apart. Jemmahor, who remained behind as well, had acquired one of the many babies in the family and cheerfully tickled him, eliciting happy chirps and giggles.
As the ladies returned to the tent, one of the women took up a drum, tapping out a happy rhythm on it as others began to sing. Several of the women got up to dance, and the atmosphere devolved into that of a party.
It grew rather raucous for a group who forbade themselves so much as a drop of alcohol, and Ellie eventually discerned that one young woman with kohl-lined eyes and a softly rounded face had been picked out as the focus of much of the attention.
“There will be a wedding in two days,” Zeinab informed her, finally dropping down onto a pillow by Ellie’s side after talking with Nur Hanim all evening. “For one of the sheikh’s grand-nieces, Fatimah. She is to be married to Nur Hanim’s sister’s grandson, as was arranged.”
“Arranged?” Ellie echoed pointedly.
Zeinab flashed her a dry look. “You don’t approve?”
“Of a woman being bartered for like property?”
Ellie felt a little bad once the words had left her mouth. After all, she knew that the arrangement of marriages was considered a perfectly reasonable way to go about things in many parts of the world—including this one.
Zeinab didn’t respond right away. Instead, her gaze lingered on the figure of the soon-to-be bride. “The engagement was set for the length of a year. If the bride decided at the end of that time that she still did not want the match, the families would have found a way to call it off gracefully.”
“And is that always the case?” Ellie demanded. “That the girl is free to decide?”
“Not always.” Zeinab flashed Ellie a pointed look before returning her attention to the bride.
The girl was a little on the shorter side and adorably plump. She giggled as she danced, shooing at a few of her teasing cousins.
“Nur Hanim said Fatimah was opposed at the start,” Zeinab continued, her eyes still on the young woman and her friends. “But after a little while, she found the prospect of a kind and reliable cousin more charming than perhaps she had thought.”
She picked up her cup of mint tea and took a slow sip.
“Marriage is complicated,” she added quietly. “Choosing a partner who sets your blood on fire does not make it less so.”
“I suppose that must be true,” Ellie allowed, thinking of a laughing man covered in dogs, the fierce spark of passion she felt every time she was near him, and the host of unsettled questions that entailed. “Was your match to Sayyid arranged?”
Zeinab snorted. “Not until after we had already set our minds on it.”
Ellie fought the urge to pry further. She was aided in that effort by the sudden arrival of a hefty burst of guilt.
“I’m sorry I dragged you and Sayyid into this,” she spilled out.
Zeinab stiffened, fixing her with a glare. “You did not drag me into anything. I am here for Egypt, not for you.”
Her words were harsh, but Ellie didn’t find herself offended by them. After all, what did Zeinab owe her? Certainly not the dangerous rescue that she had executed that afternoon, however much Ellie had reason to be grateful for it.
“But I would not have known about the threat at all, had you not brought it to my attention,” Zeinab allowed. “And so I thank you for that.”
“You still might have preferred your husband had stayed out of it instead of being used for shooting practice,” Ellie noted a little ruefully. “If I hadn’t asked Sayyid to come, you might not be having such trouble in your marriage now.”
Zeinab sighed, setting down her cup. “My husband was made to pour over books and dig things from the sand. He is not a revolutionary. I kept my activities secret from him because I knew he would worry over it like an old woman—but it would never have been up for negotiation,” she added fiercely. “I will not betray what I know to be right—not even for someone that I love.”
Ellie’s thoughts turned to her own situation. Adam had made it clear he didn’t want her to change her mind about marriage—but where did that leave them when any alternative ran straight up against his complicated sense of honor?
“But how do you manage it all, then?” she pushed back a little helplessly.
“We will sort it out,” Zeinab asserted. “We have been through hard times before.”
“ How hard?”
Ellie’s question carried a note of desperation. Zeinab flashed her a thoughtful look.
“I am barren,” Zeinab replied.
Surprise quieted Ellie’s voice. “I… I’m sorry.”
“A barren midwife,” Zeinab elaborated with a dark twist of her lip—and then slumped a bit, exhaustion showing in the lines at the corners of her eyes. “I believe it may stem from a fever I had as a girl. But who knows? There is no power but Allah. I did not learn it until after we had been wed. I offered Sayyid a divorce.”
“You can do that?” Ellie cut in, surprised.
Zeinab smiled wryly. “Our Muslim laws on the matter are less barbaric than your English ones. He refused, of course.” She paused, and a flash of old pain made her hard features vulnerable. “He would have been a very good father.”
Ellie’s heart twisted in unexpected sympathy. She hadn’t the least interest in children herself, but to have that choice taken away before you could make it for yourself seemed like a terrible burden. She found herself vividly imagining years of disappointed hopes, followed by the wrenching grief of realizing the truth—and the fear Zeinab must have felt as she bravely tried to offer her husband an honorable way out.
She was struck by an unexpected urge to reach out and take the other woman’s hand. Constance would have done it—but that sort of thing had never come naturally to Ellie. She settled for a few bracing words instead.
“Perhaps he would have been a good father—but he most certainly is an excellent husband,” Ellie asserted firmly.
“Yes,” Zeinab agreed, and there was a softness in her voice that Ellie had not heard before. “He is.”
“I am certain that the two of you will sort this latest trouble out,” Ellie declared—and then hedged uncomfortably. “But have you any notion how , by any chance?”
Zeinab arched an eyebrow, regarding Ellie thoughtfully.
“In a manner that will be messy, awkward, and imperfect,” she replied. “And yet it will work, nonetheless.”
“It will? But what does that even look like?”
Zeinab gave a dark laugh. “Perhaps I will let you know—when I find out.”
She rose in a fluid, graceful motion.
“The sheikh will loan us a guide and transportation to cross the desert,” she announced. “By traveling along the most direct route, we will cut thirty miles off our journey. That should allow us to arrive at Tell al-Amarna ahead of Mr. Forster-Mowbray—or near enough to it. We will leave before dawn. You should get some sleep.”
“Of course.” Ellie stood and brushed off her skirts. “And… thank you. I mean—I know you aren’t doing any of this for me. But I want you to know that I am grateful for your aid, all the same.”
Zeinab accepted her words with a careful nod, then walked away.
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Sleeping turned out to be easier said than done, as the pre-wedding celebrations continued late into the evening. When Ellie slipped away from the nosy aunts and the never-ending piles of pastries for a breath of fresh air, she caught sight of two figures silhouetted against the twilight purple of the sky, near to where the scrub land gave way to desert.
She recognized the solid set of Sayyid’s shoulders and Zeinab’s noble bearing as the pair of them slowly walked together. Zeinab’s hands gestured strongly. Sayyid shook his head in response.
Then he stopped her, turning her to face him under the blanket of the emerging stars. He stilled her hands by catching them gently in his own, then leaned down to speak to her with a heartfelt intimacy that Ellie could feel even from where she stood in the shadows outside the tent.
Zeinab slipped her fingers from his grasp. She raised them to the sides of his bearded face with an aching tenderness—and Ellie quickly looked away, only to realize that Jemmahor had come to stand beside her.
“Good,” Jemmahor said softly, gazing out toward the couple. She turned to glance down at Ellie, her eyes damp but happy, and said the word again with even more feeling. “ Good. ”
The tall young apprentice hooked her arm through Ellie’s elbow, hauling her back to the lights and music of the tent. “Now let’s go find some cake.”