Journey to the Lost Tomb (Rowan and Ella Book 2) (28 page)

Chapter
Nineteen

           
Julia
prayed desperately that Ammon and his men wouldn’t find Ella. While she had little
hope that Ella had any real chance of eluding him, she worried, on the other
hand, that if Ammon
did
return to
camp empty handed, Julia wouldn’t know if that meant he had murdered Ella in
the desert or just failed to find her. When, a full day and a night after they
had gone roaring off into the desert in search of her, Julia watched them ride back
into camp—Ammon the picture of mounted vitriol and rage—her first reaction
to their obvious failure was shock and disbelief. Her second was,
Well done, Ella. God speed.

           
When
Gita saw the returning group, she dropped the pan she was cleaning and grabbed
Julia by the arm to drag her out of sight. For the better part of an hour, Julia
sat quaking in Gita’s tent listening to the destruction of Ammon’s maniacal rage
in the camp. When he finally came to the tent, Julia watched in horror as the
old woman allowed him to enter. Later, Julia would realize that Gita’s goal had
only been to spare Julia’s life during the worst of Ammon’s tirade. Whether or
not he then chose to beat Julia within an inch of her life was not the old
woman’s concern.

           
As
Ammon entered the tent, Julia watched Gita quickly slip away. It was watching
the confident, sassy old woman
fleeing
from Ammon that scared Julia the most. Without looking at her or speaking, he turned
to Julia and pushed her down on the floor. When he pulled her legs apart and entered
her in one brutal thrust, she cried out and covered her face with her hands. Within
moments and after a long shuddering breath, he lay heavy and spent on top of
her. She held her breath and thought she could hear both their hearts pounding
as one.

           
Slowly,
he lifted himself off of her and gently touched her cheek. To Julia, it felt
like an apology, but it was just a moment and then he wrenched himself away and
was gone, leaving only a wave of chilled desert air across her naked thighs
where before there had been such heat.

           
The
next morning, Julia knew that something had changed between them. He woke her
in her tent before dawn and led her outside to her saddled pony. He handed her
the reins and indicated that she would ride with him and the other men today. At
first, she thought it was because he was afraid she might try to escape like
Ella did. But as she watched him ride down to the waiting group in the valley, she
realized in amazement that he simply wanted her with him.
 

           
That
had been three weeks ago. Today, Julia sat on her pony and watched Ammon and
the other men descend into a rocky valley toward a nervously waiting wagon of
tourists. All it would take would be a scream or for her to kick her pony down
the incline to join the group to be rescued and back in the world of steaming
baths and hot tea. But Julia knew she wouldn’t scream. And Ammon knew it.

           
Ammon
and his band rode quickly down on the small group. There were five tourists in
the party. Two couples and their
dragoman
in a horse-drawn wagon. The women’s dress looked to be middleclass, Julia
thought. She watched with excitement as Ammon, dramatically handsome in his
robes with the ends of his
hijab
flying behind him, reached the wagon. Two of Ammon’s men grabbed the bridles of
the wagon horses in order to keep them steady.

           
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.