Whispers in the Sand

3

O keep not captive my soul. O keep not ward over my shade but let a way be opened for my soul and for my shade and let them see the great God in the shrine on the day of judgement …

Rejected by their gods, and fleeing retribution the two priests sleep in the darkness of the tomb. The scent of oil of cedar and myrrh and cinnamon hangs in the hot dry air. There is still no sound. Far above them the cliff is the haunt of kite and vulture. The call of the jackal rends the night sky as the stars fade and the sun disc returns from its voyage beneath the earth to rise again over the eastern desert. In the darkness time is without meaning or form.

On the shelf between the pillar and the wall the small bottle sealed with blood lies hidden. Inside, the life-giving potion, dedicated to the gods, made sacred by the sun, thickens and grows black.

Tired and dusty they returned to the boat late in the evening to be greeted by fragrant hot towels, handed out at the door to the reception area by one of the crewmen from a steaming metal platter. Next they were given fruit juice and then at last their cabin keys. Anna made her way to her cabin without glancing round to see if Andy and Charley were nearby. On the coach she had sat at the back with Joe, relieved to be excused from talking by his instant somnolence. In her cabin she threw her bag on the bed, and as exhausted as Joe had been, she kicked off her shoes and began to pull off her dress.

Abruptly she stopped. Her skin was prickling. The cabin had grown cold and for a split second she had the feeling that there was someone in there close to her; watching her.

‘This is stupid.’ She said the words out loud, staring at herself in the mirror. The cabin was a scant ten feet by eight. The tiny shower had room for barely one person. There couldn’t be anyone there. She pushed the door open with her foot and it swung back to reveal basin and shower, fresh towels ready on the rail.

She glanced up suddenly at her case on top of the cupboard. Had it been moved? She didn’t think so. With a sigh she shook her head. She was just very tired. She had imagined it. It wasn’t cold at all. On the contrary, she felt as hot and sticky as she had on the bus, after her day in the sun. Peeling off her dress she shook it to remove the creases and dust and hung it on the door, then shaking her hair free and sweeping it back off her face she stepped into the shower and turned on the blissfully cool water.

The only empty chair at her table when she arrived at dinner was between Ben and Joe. Slipping into it with a sympathetic smile at the now wakeful Joe, Anna saw Charley link her arm through Andy’s and give it a proprietorial squeeze.

‘So, how did you enjoy day one?’ Ben said quietly in her ear as he poured her a glass of wine.

‘Wonderful.’ She smiled at him and caught his wink. ‘I could get used to all this very easily.’

‘And so you shall. But today is not over yet. Did you see the noticeboard outside the dining room? Omar is going to give us a talk in the lounge after dinner, then the boat leaves at about eleven, so when we wake up in the morning we shall be well on our way up the Nile.’

There was a sudden roar of laughter from one of the other tables and Anna turned. Glancing up Toby caught her eye. With a sardonic wink he raised his glass and mouthed a toast at her, but in the general noise of conversation and laughter she couldn’t hear it. She raised her own glass back and saw Andy turn quickly to see who it was she was smiling at. He frowned. ‘So how did your visit today compare with Louisa Shelley’s?’ He leant across his plate, raising his voice so that it reached her across the table. ‘Has the valley changed a great deal?’

‘Out of all recognition in some ways.’ She glanced from him to Charley and back. ‘In others not at all. There really is a timelessness, isn’t there?’

‘As there is all over Egypt,’ Ben put in.

‘Louisa had the valley all to herself, of course. It must still be wonderful when all the tourists go and it’s empty. That’s a problem all over the world nowadays, I suppose. There are so few places left where one can get away from other people.’

‘The cry of a true misanthrope.’ Andy grinned at her.

She felt herself blushing. ‘No, I like people, but I like to be able to get away from them too, especially when it’s somewhere where atmosphere is part of the attraction. It’s the same in great cathedrals. It should be possible to get away from parties of noisy tourists and uninterested school children who are just ticking the place off their list of trophy visits, or being dragged around by desperate teachers without the slightest genuine interest.’

‘Hear, hear! Well said.’ Andy clapped solemnly. ‘A great speech.’

‘And a sensible one.’ Ben smiled at her. ‘Which I think we would all agree with deep down in our heart of hearts.’

There was a moment’s silence. At the table next door Anna noticed that Toby had turned to listen. She looked down at her soup in confusion. It was a novelty, she suddenly realised, to be listened to!

Exhausted, she went back to her cabin early. Glancing out of the window, shading her eyes against the reflections, she could see the dark river; they had not as yet moved away from the bank. With a shiver of excitement she got ready for bed, and at last reached up for her case, to retrieve the diary. She was looking forward to reading another section before she fell asleep.

‘Sitt Louisa?’ Hassan’s shadow fell across the page of her sketchbook. Louisa glanced up. Her easel, her parasol clipped to the canvas, had been set up in the bows of the dahabeeyah as it slowly sailed south. Of the others on the boat there was no sign. Succumbing after their midday meal to the heat of the afternoon they had returned to their cabins, leaving her alone on deck with her watercolours. Only the steersman at the opposite end of the boat, the tiller tucked under his arm, had kept her company up to now. She glanced up at Hassan and smiled.

‘Before we left Luxor I went to the bazaar,’ he said. ‘I have a gift for you.’

She bit her lip. ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Hassan –’

‘I am pleased to do it. Please.’ He held out his hand. In it there was a small parcel. ‘I know you wanted to visit the souk yourself to buy a memento.’

Sir John and Lady Forrester on hearing of Louisa’s plan to visit Luxor again had decided almost wilfully that now was the time to sail south.

Taking the parcel from him Louisa looked at it for a moment.

‘It is very old. More than three thousand years. From the time of a king who is hardly known, Tutankhamen.’

For a moment the angle of the boat changed and the shadow of the sail fell across them. She gave an involuntary shiver.

‘Open it.’ His voice was very quiet.

Slowly she reached for the knotted string which held the paper closed. Untying it she let the string fall. The paper crackled faintly as she pulled it away. Inside was a tiny blue glass bottle. With it was a sheet of old paper, crumbling with age, covered in Arabic script. ‘It is glass. From the 18th dynasty. Very special. There is a secret place inside where is sealed a drop of the elixir of life.’ Hassan pointed to the piece of paper. ‘It is all written there. Some I cannot read but it seems to tell the story of a pharaoh who needed to live for ever and the priests of Amun who devised a special elixir which when given to him would bring him back to life. It was part of a special ceremony. The story on the paper says that in order to protect the secret recipe from evil djinn their priest hid it in this bottle. When he died the bottle was lost for thousands of years.’

‘And this is it?’ Louisa laughed with delight.

‘This is it.’ Hassan’s eyes had begun to sparkle as he watched her pleasure.

‘Then it is truly a treasure and I shall keep it always. Thank you.’ She looked up at him and for a moment their eyes met. The seconds of silence stretched out between them, then abruptly Hassan stepped back. He bowed and turned away from her.

‘Hassan –’ Louisa’s voice was husky. The name came out as a whisper and he did not hear her.

For a long time she sat still, the little bottle lying in her lap, then at last she picked it up. It was little taller than her forefinger, made of thick opaque blue glass decorated with a white, twisted design and the stopper was sealed in place with some kind of resiny wax. She held it up to the sunlight, but the glass was too thick to see through it and after a minute she gave up. Slipping it into her watercolour box, she tucked it safely into the section where the brushes and water pot lived. Later in her cabin she would put it away in the bottom secret drawer of her wooden dressing case.

Picking up her brush again, she turned back to her picture, but she found it difficult to concentrate.

Her thoughts kept returning to Hassan.

Anna laid down the diary and glanced at the slatted shutters over the window. The boat had given a slight shudder. Then she heard the steady beat of the engines. Climbing to her feet she went to the window and pushing back the shutter she opened it. Already they were moving away from the bank. She watched the strip of dark water between the boat and the shore widen slowly then the note of the engines changed and she felt the steady forward thrust of the paddle wheels. They were on their way. She stood for several minutes watching the luminous darkness, then leaving the window open she went back to her bed and sliding under the cotton quilt she picked up the diary again. So, the bottle lying there in her bag, had originally been a gift from Hassan. And what a gift! It wasn’t a scent bottle at all. It was some kind of ancient phial, a holy artefact from the time of Tutankhamen, whose tomb of course had not yet been discovered in Louisa’s day, and it contained nothing less than the elixir of life!

She shuddered. For an instant she was back in that dark inner burial chamber looking down at the mummy case of the boy king and she remembered how she had become instantly and totally aware of his body lying there before her, and how she had dropped her bag – and the bottle – virtually at his feet.

Pulling the quilt more closely under her chin she picked up the diary again, soothed by the gentle rumble of the engine deep in the heart of the boat, and she began to read on.

That night, dressed in her coolest muslin Louisa lingered at the saloon table after Augusta had retired to her cabin. Sir John raised an eyebrow. ‘We sail as soon as the wind gets up a little. The reis tells me that should be with the dusk. The wind comes in off the desert then.’ He reached for the silver box of cheroots and offered it to her. Louisa took one. She had never smoked before coming to Egypt. To know how shocked her mother-in-law would be to see her was enough reason. The scandalised lift of Lady Forrester’s eyebrow had been a second. With a silent chuckle she leant forward and allowed Sir John to light it for her.

‘Can I ask you to translate something for me?’ She reached into her pocket for the paper which had been wrapped around the little bottle.

Sir John took it. Leaning back he inhaled deeply on his own smoke and rested it on a small copper ashtray. ‘Let me see. This is Arabic, but written a long time ago, judging by the paper.’

He glanced at her for a moment. ‘Where did you say you found this?’

She smiled. ‘I didn’t. One of the servants found it in the souk with a souvenir he bought for me.’

‘I see.’ He frowned. Laying it down on the table he smoothed out the creases and peered at it in silence for several moments. Watching him, Louisa could feel her first casual interest tightening into nervous apprehension. He was frowning now, a finger tracing the curling letters over the page. At last he looked up.

‘I think this must be a practical joke. A piece of nonsense to frighten and amuse the credulous.’

‘Frighten?’ Louisa’s eyes were riveted to the paper. ‘Please, will you read it to me?’

He was breathing heavily through his nose. ‘I needn’t read it exactly. Indeed it is difficult to decipher all of it. Sufficient to say that it seems to be a warning. The item it accompanies –’ he looked up at her, his blue eyes shrewd – ‘you have that item?’

‘A little scent bottle, yes.’

‘Well, it is cursed in some way. It belonged once to a high priest who served the pharaoh. An evil spirit tried to steal it. Both fight for it still, apparently.’ His face relaxed into a smile. ‘A wonderful story for the gullible visitor from abroad. You will be able to show it to people when you go back to London and watch their faces pale over the dinner table as you recount your visit to Egypt.’

‘You don’t think it’s serious then?’ She tapped ash from her cheroot onto the little copper dish.

‘Serious?’ He roared with laughter. ‘My dear Louisa, I hardly think so! But if you see a high priest on the boat, or indeed any evil djinn, please tell me. I should very much like to meet them.’

He moved his chair closer to hers as he laid the paper down on the table between them. ‘There are real antiquities to be bought if you have the contacts. I could arrange for some to be brought to the boat when we return to Luxor. There is no need for you to send servants to the bazaar.’

‘But I didn’t –’ She bit off the words before she could finish the sentence, realising suddenly that it would not be wise to tell Sir John that the bottle had been a present from her dragoman.

He leant closer to her. ‘I have been looking at some of your watercolours.’ He nodded towards the corner of the cabin where she had left a folio of sketches. ‘They are very good.’

It was extremely hot in the cabin. She could feel the heat from his body so close beside her; smell his sweat. She edged away from him. ‘That is kind of you to say so. And yes, I should like it if it were possible to have some antiques brought to the boat. I have as you know very little spending money, but if I saw something I liked I could at least sketch it.’

He let out a roar of laughter. ‘First rate! Good idea! I shall look forward to seeing you do that.’ His hand came down on top of hers, suddenly, as she rested it on the table and he gave it a squeeze. ‘First rate,’ he repeated.

Louisa pulled her hand away, her anxiety not to offend him fighting with her desire to stand up and put as much distance as possible between them.

A sound in the doorway made them both turn. Jane Treece stood there, her eyes on the table where, a moment before, their hands had lain together on the piece of paper with its Arabic script.

‘Lady Forrester wondered whether Mrs Shelley would like me to help her get ready for bed.’ The voice was a monotone. Cold. The woman’s eyes strayed to the ashtray where Louisa’s cheroot lay, a thin wisp of smoke rising up towards the cabin lamp hanging from the ceiling beams.

‘Thank you.’ With some relief Louisa stood up. ‘Forgive me, it has been a tiring day.’ She moved away from the table, her black skirts rustling slightly. She could feel Sir John’s eyes on her and her face grew hot again.

‘Your note, my dear.’ He picked up the piece of paper and held it out to her. ‘You had better keep it safe. Your grandchildren will no doubt enjoy the story.’

Anna stopped reading for a moment. Beneath her she could feel the steady movement of the boat as it forged its way south. In the diary Louisa too was making her way over exactly the same stretch of river, heading towards Esna and Edfu. With her scent bottle. A scent bottle with a curse, haunted by evil djinn. In spite of the heat of the cabin Anna shivered.

She lay looking up at the shadows on the ceiling thrown by the small bedside light, the diary propped open on her chest. What had happened to that piece of paper with its story, she wondered.

Her eyes wandered over towards the little dressing table, where she had left her bag. It was dark there; she could just see the outline of the mirror, the glass faintly echoing the light the lamp threw onto the ceiling. She stared at it sleepily and then suddenly she frowned. Deep in the mirror had she seen something move? She caught her breath as a shaft of panic shot through her. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. She gripped the quilt tightly to her chest then she closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing. This was nonsense. She was dreaming, frightened by a fairy story. She pushed herself up against the pillows and groped for the switch to the main cabin light as the diary slid to the floor with a crash. In the harsh clarity the overhead lights threw on the scene she could see clearly that there was nothing there. The key was still in the cabin door. No one could have come into the room. Her bag was lying untouched where she had left it – or was it? Still trembling with shock she forced herself to push her feet out from under the sheet and, standing up, she went over to the dressing table. Her bag lay open, the scent bottle in full view on top of her sunglasses. Cautiously she touched her scarf. It had been wrapped round the bottle in the bottom of the bag, she was sure of it. Now the scarf lay across the dressing table, a swathe of fine scarlet silk against the dark-stained wood. She stared at it with a frown. Across the silk lay a scattering of some kind of brown papery stuff. Curious, she reached out to touch it and rubbed some of it between her fingers. Then she swept it to the floor. Under the scarf lay the hairbrush she had used before she climbed into bed, the hairbrush she had taken from her bag last thing before she rezipped it and put it on the shelf. She was sure of that too. She had closed it and put it away.