Whispers in the Sand (28 page)

Anna closed the door and leant against it, her eyes closed. Her heart was thumping unsteadily, and without knowing she had done it, she touched her lips with her fingers. She was a mass of conflicting emotions. Anger was still there, top of the list. Whatever this vendetta was that Andy was waging against Toby, it made her uncomfortable, not least because of her own suspicions. But then there was surprise, gratification, and, she had to admit, pleasure. Andy was an attractive man, and his kiss might have been nice but for the beer. At the same time, she had a slight, treacherous suspicion that he knew it and that he had taken advantage of her.

Moving away from the door at last, she picked up the diary again and looked at it thoughtfully. Just how valuable was this book?

Hassan had brought the felucca against the side of the larger boat in the soft, pre-dawn darkness. She could see the gleam of his white teeth in the shadows of his face as he smiled at her and put his finger to his lips conspiratorially. Silently she handed him her painting things and her bundle of clothes and shoes. Her feet, like his, were bare and silent on the wooden boards.

As she climbed over the side, she felt his strong brown hands grip her waist, and a shock of excitement knifed through her as he lifted her off the ladder and down into the boat. Then he had guided her to her seat and released her. Quietly he cast off the rope and steered the felucca out of the lee of the
dahabeeyah
and into the main channel. The river was totally silent.

She had lain awake most of the night. Long after dark, the noise of Aswan had drifted across the water towards them, and she could hear music and drums, laughter and shouting, all the noises of the eternal Arab town together with the smells of animals and the cooking from the neighbouring boats. Then, as the night intensified before dawn, the desert air freshened, and at last it grew quiet.

Louisa found herself gazing apprehensively at the neighbouring boats, the
Scarab
, which housed Lord Carstairs, and beyond it the Fieldings’
Lotus
. They lay in total darkness; there was no sound, even from the crew’s quarters.

Neither of them spoke. The breeze died almost at once, and they drifted to a halt as the current caught them and pushed them backwards. Quietly Hassan picked up the large oars and shipped them. With a powerful sweep, he turned the boat’s nose back towards the south and drove it on as the dawn call of the muezzin from a distant minaret began to echo softly across the water.

It was a long time before he turned and drove diagonally towards the bank. As the felucca nosed in at last, he smiled triumphantly. A boy was waiting for them with horses, three saddled and one carrying panniers.

“We will ride five miles up the side of the cataract.” Hassan spoke normally now, well out of sound and sight of the
Ibis
. Then we find someone to take us across to the island.”

He watched as Louisa slipped on her shoes. Already the light was much stronger. The boy, barefoot and ragged, having stuffed all their baggage into the panniers on the pack horse, had leapt onto his own mount and trotted ahead, the lead rein of the pack horse in his hand.

“You are worried, Sitt Louisa?” Hassan helped her into her saddle and stood for a moment looking up at her.

She shook her head. “I was afraid Lord Carstairs might see us and call me back to go with him. That was not what I wanted.”

“Then it shall not be.
Inshallah!
” He smiled and turned towards his own mount. “And the bottle, Sitt Louisa? It is well hidden?”

So he, too, suspected that, once it was established that she had gone, someone might be inclined to search for it.

She nodded. “It is well hidden, Hassan. It is in my paintbox.” The smallest of gestures towards the pack horse in front of them showed where, deep inside her basket of painting things, the little bottle nestled inside a carefully packed small box. “Lord Carstairs will not find it. Nor will any river pirates.”

Hassan swung into his saddle. “And the djinni, Sitt Louisa? What of him?” She saw him make the sign against the evil eye.

She shrugged. “We must pray that the djinni will not bother us, Hassan, and that our prayers, yours and mine, will keep us safe.”

A dozen times during the course of their ride, she wanted to stop, to sketch the cataract villages, the beauty of the river hurtling over the rocks; the carvings and drawings etched into the cliffs over thousands of years by pilgrims on their way to the temple of Isis, but he would not let her. “On our return, Sitt Louisa. We can stop then. Or while the
dahabeeyah
is dragged up the cataract, then there will be plenty of time for you to draw everything.” He glanced behind them nervously, but there was no sign of pursuit.

Once or twice, they saw glimpses of the distant pillars of the temple as they grew near, then at last they were at the top of the falls, where the river widened and calmed and they could see the island of Philae in front of them. They made their way towards the landing stage, where they could hire a boat to take them out to the island, and Hassan began to unload the pack horse. Giving the boy a few piastres, he bade him wait for their return, and once more he began to row.

Louisa could not take her eyes off the island. The beauty of the temple, reflected in the still, deep-blue water, was breathtaking. The contrasts were stunning. The yellow of the island where the desert came near the river; the intense blue of the water beneath the even bluer sky, the huge black rocks clumped around the island like sleeping monsters, the honey-coloured pillars, and in the distance, the eastern mountains which had taken on a purple hue in the heat haze.

Her transformation into the cooler, artistic lady painter had taken place this time in a secluded spot behind some rocks where the cliffs had come near the waters of the cataract. Now as Hassan rowed her towards the landing place, her hand trailed in the limpid water and her feet were bare once more. Her eyes were fixed on the columns of the temple. She had forgotten Carstairs and her fear that he might follow them.

“This place is called the Holy Island.” Hassan rested on his oars for a moment. “The heathen god Osiris was buried on the small island next to Pilak, which is what we call Philae, and the priests would visit him from this great temple. People came from all over the ancient lands of Egypt and Nubia to pay homage to him and to Isis.”

“I believe it is still holy.” Louisa lifted her hand, trailing water droplets, to shade her eyes from the glare. “Did you know that the worship of Isis spread all over the world, even to England.”

Hassan looked surprised. “And the Christians allowed this?”

She shook her head. “It was before the time of Christ, Hassan. I suppose it was the Romans who brought her as their goddess from Egypt.” She paused, gazing at the scene. “Even from here, I can sense how sacred a spot this must have been. You can feel it still.”

They found a place to sit in the shade in the courtyard between two of the huge carved pillars which formed the great colonnade in front of the temple, and she began to draw at once, whilst Hassan was still unpacking their belongings.

Hassan squatted on his haunches beside her when he had finished, content merely to watch, and she became at once acutely aware of his presence near her. When she raised her eyes, she found his fixed on her face. For a moment, they stared at each other, then Louisa looked away. Hassan reached out and very gently touched her hand. She glanced at him again. “Hassan—” She found she couldn’t speak.

He gave her his serious, gentle smile and put his finger to his lips. There was nothing to say.

They stayed where they were for a long while. Slowly, she became lost once more in what she was doing, and it was several hours before she stopped at last and they began to eat the bread and cheese and hummus he had brought for their lunch.

Then it was time to explore. Even though Hassan said they would be safe, before leaving her paints and sketchbooks Louisa extricated the scent bottle in its small box and tucked it into her skirt pocket with a small notebook and a pencil. Hassan nodded. “It is better always to have it with you.” He laughed. “And my lady cannot be without her drawing book and her pencils. They too are part of her, are they not?”

Slowly they wandered across the island, totally covered as it was by the temple and its attendant buildings and the ruins of a Coptic village which had been built there many hundreds of years before and then been abandoned. Here and there she stopped to make a quick sketch of a palm tree or a piece of wall as they made their way towards the delicately elegant Kiosk of Trajan, perched on the eastern edge of the island. Set against the stunning blue of the water and the stark barrenness of the rocks, it was astonishing in its grace and beauty after the heavy stateliness of the main temple with its square pylon. Louisa laughed in delight. “I am going to have to paint this. As we saw it first. From the river. Or perhaps from down there, on the shore.”

Hassan smiled indulgently. He had grown to enjoy seeing her so excited.

“Perhaps both. That’s it! I must paint both. But we do not have much time if we are to go back to the
Ibis
tonight.”

“We can come again, Sitt Louisa. I see no signs of hurry from Sir John. I think he enjoys the excuse to linger. The
reis
tells me that he has rented the boat until the end of the season. We have a month or more before it grows too hot and we need to return to Luxor to travel north.”

“Then we shall come again. Can you feel the magic of this place, Hassan? It is in the air all around us. More than in the other temples we have seen. This is special.”

She leant against a piece of fallen masonry and pulled off her straw hat to fan her face. As she did so, her eyes fell on the dazzlingly bright sand of a small bay below them. A boat had been pulled up there, and a man in European dress was standing beside it. He, too, had taken off his hat and he was mopping his face with a large handkerchief. He had deep copper hair. Louisa stared at him through narrowed eyes, then she let out a little cry of dismay. “It’s Carstairs!”

“No, Sitt Louisa, that is not possible.” Hassan stepped closer to her, his eyes narrowed against the glare.

“It is.” Louisa felt a rush of anger and something not unlike fear. “I was afraid he would do this! How dare he follow me!”

“But he cannot know you are here,” Hassan protested. “It must be chance that has brought him.”

“Don’t say,
Inshallah
!” Louisa was infuriated. “It is not the will of God that has brought him! It is his own intelligence. After all, the
reis
knew where we were going, and Augusta told him yesterday in front of me that it was what I had planned! And they would both tell him anyway where I was if he asked, of course they would. They would think it the neighbourly, friendly thing to do, and they are clearly dazzled by his rank and fortune.”

Hassan raised an eyebrow. “There is no need for us to see him, Sitt Louisa. This is a small island, but there are places to hide.”

“But he will have asked the boy who waits with the horses. He will have asked the man from whom we hired the boat, or the woman who was washing her clothes on the beach, or the children over there by the ruins. They will all have told him we are here. ‘Yes, my lord. They are here. Give us baksheesh and we shall take you to them!’” She was almost stamping her foot in her vexation.

Hassan was staring at the shore, seemingly unworried, his face calm as usual. “We will prove them all wrong. We will disappear into the shadows.”

She looked at him sharply. “You’re serious?”

“Of course. Come.” He held out his hand.

Without any hesitation at all she took it, and they ran back the way they had come towards the great temple itself.

Hassan swept all their belongings together into a pile and threw the Persian rug over them. “See. There is no sign that a lady artist has been here. Merely a visitor who has gone to explore the ruins. Here, boy!” He beckoned a ragged urchin over and showed him a coin. The boy’s eyes grew huge. “This is for you, if you guard our belongings. If a gentleman asks, you do not know whose they are and you have seen no lady here at all. Hear me?” Louisa watched the boy’s face. She did not understand the quick stream of Arabic, but the meaning was clear. If the boy did his job well, there would be much more. A piastre changed hands. The larger coin went back into Hassan’s pocket. Louisa saw the boy watch it disappear and the emphatic way the child nodded. Moments later he was seated on top of the pile, his arms folded. Hassan smiled. “There are several groups of visitors going round the temple now, Sitt Louisa. This could belong to any of them. I promise you, the effendi will not search long.” Once more he took her hand. “It is best if we go inside. There are a thousand pillars to hide behind, a hundred small chapels and corners and robing rooms. There are chambers within chambers and walls within walls. There are stairs which lead to the top of the pylon. He will not find us.” His face was alight with laughter.

She couldn’t help but laugh with him. Like two naughty children they ran into the shade of the colonnade and hid behind the pillars.