Page 5 of Tomb of the Sun King

As Sir Robert was cheerfully, obliviously,painstakinglygood at his job, it would undoubtedly make him a burr in the side of any government officials who hoped to rig the books in their own favor.

Constance had always been eagerly willing to assist in any adventures that might involve trespassing, fisticuffs, or a bit of light burglary. Ellie’s current race against Professor Dawson and Mr. Jacobs would most likely entail all of the above, making Constance a useful ally.

“As to what I am doing—at the moment, I am trying to determine whether this fellow is attempting to sell me a genuine New Kingdom funeral shabti, which would be a blatant violation of Egyptian law.” Ellie flashed the looming vendor a disapproving glare.

“Are you quite certain that’s a good idea?” Constance craned her neck back to give the large fellow an assessing look.

“Now let me see,” Ellie continued, returning her attention to the shabti. “The figure is inscribed with an excerpt from Chapter Six of the Book of the Dead, as one would expect. And then there is a nice little spell that empowers Paw-er—that would be the name of the servant this shabti is meant to represent—to do all the necessary works for his master in the Beyond.”

A pair of women nearby whispered behind their face veils, casting a nervous look at the increasingly red-faced hawker before hurrying away through a growing crowd. Ellie paid them only half a mind as she plucked up another shabti from the line of solemn-faced figures in the vendor’s cart.

“Let’s see.” She twisted the second figure in her hand and raised an eyebrow. “This one is Paw-er as well. Our Paw-er really gets around, doesn’t he?”

The hawker’s jaw twitched.

“I knew I should have come armed,” Constance sighed, snapping closed her parasol.

Back at the carriage, the motorcar blared its irritated horn a second time. In response, a long figure ducked through the carriage door and unfolded to a substantial height.

The imposingly tall fellow was dressed in an excellently tailored French linen suit with a crisp black bow tie and an elegant silk pocket square. A dapper red fez topped his close-cropped hair. The appearance of unimpeachable respectability was only slightly offset by the three deliberate horizontal scars that marked his mahogany cheeks.

He tugged on the ends of his jacket as he straightened, setting his suit back into perfect order, and then strode purposefully toward them with an air of resigned exasperation, seemingly oblivious to the crowd that parted around him like a shoal of fish.

Ellie stared up at the newcomer in surprise, the shabtis in her hands momentarily forgotten.

“Oh—Hello, Mr. Mahjoud,” Constance said cheerfully. “Ellie, this is Aai’s dragoman, whom she insists accompany me when I am out in the city to make sure I don’t run into any trouble.”

Ellie was familiar with the Turkish term,dragoman, which referred to a general guide, translator, and facilitator for foreign travel. It did not surprise her that Constance’s grandmother would assign someone in that position to herd Constance about. The noble lady in question gave her granddaughter a longer leash than most grandmothers might, but she was still an extremely practical sort of person.

“I might even succeed in keeping you from running into trouble,” Mr. Mahjoud declared in precise English, “if you refrained from leaping out of moving carriages.”

“It wasn’t moving very fast,” Constance pointed out before returning her attention to Ellie. “Mr. Mahjoud is from the Sudan, where I have heard all the boys are raised fighting with lances and swords on horseback.”

Constance shot Mr. Mahjoud a challenging look as though daring him to either confirm or deny the assertion.

Mr. Mahjoud raised a disdainful eyebrow.

“Miss Eleanora Mallory. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Ellie went to extend a hand to the dragoman and realized that she still held a shabti in it.

“Charmed,” Mr. Mahjoud replied flatly. He shifted an assessing gaze to the glowering vendor. “And were we hoping to start a riot?”

“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Constance scolded.

Ellie glanced back at the figurine in her hand. “Oh! But they are numbered! I had heard that many sets of funerary shabtis came in sequences.” She looked closer. “This one is seven of forty-six. And this one…” She flipped over the statue in her other hand and squinted down at the tiny characters painted into the glaze by its feet. “This one isalsoseven of forty-six!” She waved the figurine playfully at the simmering hawker. “Why, you very nearly had me! These are excellent reproductions. Really, I don’t know why you are misrepresenting them as originals. You ought to simply promote them as very high quality copies. I am sure that you would find even more customers eager to purchase them as souvenirs if they knew that in doing so, they were not removing part of Egypt’s cultural heritage from her borders without permission.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Constance cut in dryly. She plucked the two shabtis from Ellie’s hands and thrust them at the vendor, who fumblingly managed to catch them. “Thank you. Excellent work. Best of luck to you.”

With the shabtis disposed of, Constance hooked Ellie by her elbow and unceremoniously hauled her away from the cart with a strength that belied her diminutive size.

Mr. Mahjoud gave a deliberately audible sigh of relief as he followed after them, his long legs needing only a stroll to keep up.

“Now that we’ve settled the matter of those dolls—” Constance began.

“Dolls!” Ellie protested, stiffening. “Egyptian funerary shabtis, authentic or otherwise, can hardly be categorized as—”

“—it is high time that you explained what you are doing here in Egypt!”

Constance steered Ellie to the edge of the pavement. They stopped near the boy who still stood over Ellie’s bags. He had been watching her exchange with the hawker with morbid interest.

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