Page 130 of Tomb of the Sun King

The women’s tentat the camp of the Ibn Rashid was swathed in the softer gloom of the hour before sunrise when Ellie was shaken awake.

“It is time,” Zeinab ordered, then moved away without further ceremony.

Ellie forced herself up from her pillow, still groggy. She tidied herself quickly and silently before slipping out of the tent to where Zeinab and the other ladies waited in their black abayas and headscarves.

Adam and Sayyid stood beside them. Adam was still without a jacket, which Ellie knew he did not mind in the least. That he had kept on his braces seemed like a minor concession to propriety.

He was holding something in his hand, flipping it distractedly in his fingers as he gazed out at the desert. It winked gold as it caught a fragment of the low lamplight from the entrance to the tent, and Ellie recognized it as Adam’s compass. The case was dented and scratched, the hinges dulled with a hint of rust.

She recalled the engraving she had seen inside the lid back in British Honduras.

To A—May you always know your path. GB

GB. George Bates.

“How did you sleep?” she asked.

He turned to her, and the pensive creases at the corners of his eyes were replaced by a smile like a slowly dawning desert sun.

“Great,” he replied with a look that felt like a caress. “You?”

His sun-stained hair stuck out at odd angles, and his jaw was darkened by a day’s growth of beard. He appeared… well, delectable, really. Ellie’s cheeks heated a bit at the sight.

“Very well, thank you,” Ellie managed to reply.

One of the leggy gold-hued dogs from the evening before sat at Adam’s feet, gazing up at him adoringly as it panted. Adam gave it a happy rub between the ears as he looked back over the camp. “I like this place.”

Ellie followed his gaze. A cluster of Bedouin men were roasting beans for another pot of coffee. A few of the dogs chased around the open ground beside them. Quiet laughter rose from the women’s tent nearby.

Ellie flashed him a warm smile. “They probably have splendid sunsets,” she noted meaningfully.

Adam met her eyes. “You remember that, huh?”

The echo of his words sang through her mind, coming to her as readily as a note from an old book.

When I get to the end of the day, I just want to take off my boots and watch the sky change for a little while.

“I remember,” Ellie replied simply, looking up at him.

Zeinab cast an assessing gaze over the group, which included both Jemmahor and Umm Wasseem, who was just finishing up her dawn prayer.

Her eyes lingered for an extra breath on the figure of her husband.

“Yalla,” she ordered. She picked up a bundle of gear that included ropes, lanterns, and an iron crowbar, then set off across the desert.

They walked across the dry, flat ground of the plateau for about half a mile, the dog trotting happily in their wake. As they approached a low, stony ridge, Ellie startled at a strange sound from around the corner ahead of them. It was a distinctly animal noise somewhere between a grunt and a yawp, utterly unlike anything she had heard before.

“What was that?” she demanded with a dart of alarm.

“Our transportation,” Zeinab replied.

They rounded the ridge, revealing a scrubby patch of grass where a herd of lumpy, intimidatingly large animals grazed contentedly.

Adam’s eyes lit up with delight. “Camels!”

The dromedaries were decked out in double-horned saddles covered in thick, colorful blankets. Tassels dangled from their harnesses, giving them a festive air that did nothing to offset the deep misgiving that Ellie felt as she looked at them. The beasts looked taller even than horses, with the added complication of their enormous humps. Where was one supposed to sit when a great big mound stood in the way?

“Sheikh Mohammed has granted us the use of his caravan for the journey to Tell al-Amarna,” Zeinab reported. “His younger son Mustafa and nephew Yusuf will guide us.”

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