This was a different Nile from the one she had encountered in Ethiopia.
This was not the Abbay, but the true Nile. It was broader and slower,
and the muddy stink of it was familiar and well beloved. This was her
river and her land. She found that her resolve to do what she had come
home to do was reinforced. Her doubts were set at rest, her conscience
soothed. As she turned away from it she felt strong and sure of herself
and the course that she must take.
She visited Duraid's family. She had to make amends to them for her
sudden departure and her long, unexplained absence. At first her
brother-in-law was cool and stiff towards her; but after his wife had
wept and embraced Royan and the children had clambered all over her -
she was always their favourite ammah - he warmed to her and relented
sufficiently to offer to drive her out to the oasis.
When she explained that she wanted to be alone when she visited the
cemetery, he unbent so far as to lend her his beloved Citron.
As she stood beside Duraid's grave the smell of the , desert filled her
nostrils and the hot breeze rid'eted with her hair. Duraid had loved the
desert. She was glad for him that from now onwards he would always be
close to it. The headstone was simple and traditionaclass="underline" just his name and
dates, under the outline of the cross. She knelt beside it and tidied
the grave, renewing the wilted and dried bouquets of flowers with those
that she had brought with her from Cairo.
Then she sat quietly beside him for a long while. She made no rehearsed
speeches, but " imply ran over in her mind so many of the good quiet
times they had passed together. She remembered his kindness and his
understanding, and the security and warmth of his love for her. She
regretted that she had never been able to return it in the same measure,
but she knew that he had accepted and understood that.
She hoped that he also understood why she had come back now. This was a
leave-taking. She had come to say goodbye. She had mourned him and,
although she would always remember him and he would always be a part of
her, it was time for -her to move on. It was time for him to let her go.
When at last she left the cemetery, she walked away without looking
back.
She took the long road around the south side of the lake to avoid having
to pass the burnt-out villa; she did not wish to be reminded of that
night of horror on which Duraid had died there. It was therefore after
dark when she, returned to the city, and the family were relieved to see
her. Her brother-in-law walked three times around the Citron, checking
for damage to the paintwork, before ushering her into the house where
his wife had set a feast for them.
'an Abou Sin, the minister whom Royan had Come specifically to see, was
out of Cairo on an official visit to Paris. She had three days to wait
for his return, and because she knew that Nahoot Guddabi was no longer
in Cairo, she felt safe and able to spend much of that time at the
museum. She had many friends there, and they were delighted to see her
and to bring her up to date with all that had happened during the time
that she had been away.
The rest of the time she spent in the museum reading room, going over
the microfilm of the Taita scrolls, searching for any clues that she
might have missed in her previous readings. There was a section of the
second scroll which she read carefully and from which she made extensive
notes. Now that the prospect of finding the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose
intact had become real and credible, her interest in what that tomb
might contain had been stimulated.
The section of the scroll upon which she concentrated was a description
that the scribe, Taita, had given of a' royal visit by the Pharaoh to
the workshops of the necropolis, where his funerary treasure was being
manufactured and assembled within the walls of the great temple that he
had built for his own embalming. According to Taita they had visited the
separate workshops, first the armoury with its collection of
accoutrements of the battlefield and the chase, and then the furniture
workshop, home of exquisite workmanship. In the studio of the sculptors,
Taita.
described the work on the statues of the gods and the lifesized images
of the king in every different activity of his life that would line the
long causeway from the necropolis to the tomb in the Valley of the
Kings. In this.workshop the masons were also-hard at work on the massive
granite sarcophagus which would house the king's mummy over the ages.
However, according to Taita's later account history had cheated Pharaoh
Mamose of this part of his treasure, and all these heavy and unwieldy
items of stone had been abandoned and left behind in the Valley of the
Kings when the Egyptians fled south along the Nile to the land they
called Cush, to escape the Hyksos invasion that overwhelmed their
homeland.
As Royan turned with more attention to the scribe's description of the
studio of the goldsmiths, the phrase which he used to describe the
golden deathmask of the Pharaoh struck her forcibly. "This was the peak
and the zenith. All the Unborn ages might one day marvel at its
splen&ur." Royan looked up dreamily from the micro film and wondered if
those words of the ancient scribe were not prophetic. Was she destined
to be one of those who would marvel at the splendour of the golden
deathmask? Might she be, the first to do so in almost four thousand
years? Might she touch this wonder, take itup in her hands and at last
do with it as her conscience dictated?
Reading Taita's account left Royan with a sense of ancient suffering,
and a feeling of compassion for the people of those times. They were,
after all - no matter how far removed in time - her own people. As a
Coptic Egyptian, she was one of their direct descendants. Perhaps this
empathy was the main reason why, even as a child, she had originally
determined to make her life's work a study of these people and the old
ways.
However, she had much else to think of during those days of waiting for
the return of Atalan Abou Sin. Not least of these were her feelings for
Nicholas Quenton Harper. Since she had visited the little cemetery at
the oasis and made her peace with Duraid's memory, her thoughts of
Nicholas had'taken on a new poignancy. There was so much she was still
uncertain of, and there were so many difficult choices to make. It was
not possible to fulfill all her plans and desires without sacrificing
others almost equally demanding.
When at last the hour of her appointment to see Atalan came around, she
had difficulty bringing herself to go to him. Like somebody in a trance
she limped through the bazaars, using her stick to protect her injured
knee, hardly hearing the merchants calling their wares to her.
>From her skin tone and European clothing they presumed she must be a
tourist.
She hesitated so long over taking this irrevocable step that she was
almost an hour late for the appointment.
Fortunately this was Egypt, and Atalan was an Arab to whom time did not
have the same significance as it did to the Western part of Royan's
make-up.
He, was his usual urbane and charming self. Today, in the-privacy of his
own office, he was comfortably dressed in a white dishdasha and a
headcloth. He shook hands with her warmly. If this had been London he
might have kissed her cheek, but not here in the East where a man never
kissed any woman but his wife and then only in the privacy of their