Page 52 of A Translation of Desire
He shook his head. The driver knocked on the carriage door, and Augustus looked down at her mouth one more time before saying. “We are ready.”
*
Augustus and Rosestepped into the inn, with the carriage drivers flanking them. They weren’t only his drivers but also guards he used when needed. The man at the front desk looked at all of them nervously.
He’d intentionally taken a carriage without his crest, not wanting to alert those in the area who he was, but there was no mistaking he was someone of importance. He stepped forward and said, “I’m looking for a lodger you have staying here, a Mr. Abbas.”
The innkeeper frowned at him. “Is he in some kind of trouble?”
Rose smiled at him. “No, we just want to have a conversation with him.”
The innkeeper snorted. “I don’t want any trouble here. This is a decent place.”
Augustus slid coins across the front desk. “No trouble. I promise. We only want to speak with him.”
The man quickly picked up the money, his concerns vanishing. He nodded towards a door behind them. “He is in the tavern having a meal. He is the only one in there right now.”
“Thank you,” Augustus said.
Augustus hoped this man had the tablets. If that wasn’t the case, he was unsure what their next step would be. They stepped down through the tavern doorway just as Mr. Abbas looked up. His face was filled with concern, but not that of someone who had just been caught. He stood. “Your Grace, I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Rose leaned in and said, “Maybe your guards are a bit much. I didn’t realize Mr. Abbas was shorter than me.”
Augustus felt slightly foolish but didn’t know what to expect after her attack. He nodded to the men with him, and they stepped back out of the door into the inn’s entryway. Mr. Abbas’s gaze darted between him and Rose, still looking lost.
“Is something wrong?”
Rose shook her head. “Please sit. We would like to speak with you.”
He sat back down but fidgeted nervously. “And you are?”
“I’m Rose Calvert. I—”
His eyes filled with excitement, and he leaned over the table to shake her hand. “I know who you are. You are the world-renowned philologist. It is an honor.”
Rose blushed at the praise. Augustus smiled at her, amused by her bashfulness. This woman’s talent was known throughout the world. He didn’t know too many people who could say that.
She and Augustus sat, and Mr. Abbas said, “What can I help you with?”
“Miss Calvert is deciphering cuneiform tablets for the opening of the Historical Society for Female Curators. Two of them have recently gone missing.”
The man nodded, waiting for them to continue, but when neither said anything, he gasped. “You can’t believe I had something to do with it.”
“You are the only person I know who has inquired about those types of relics. The innkeeper at your last lodging mentioned that you left in a hurry around the same time they were taken,” Augustus pointed out.
The man shook his head and leaned down to his satchel, pulling papers out and placing them on the table. “I left because someone had broken in and threatened me. They took a tablet I’d acquired—it wasn’t yours. They insinuated there was a collector who would pay handsomely for anything with cuneiform text. I left because I planned to catalog and acquire more artifacts and didn’t want them to return.”
Augustus frowned. “Then why all the secrecy?”
The man sighed. “As a solicitor, I work on behalf of the original owners of various artifacts, ensuring they are properly compensated or have the option to have them returned. There are those who get angry about my work, especially when I confront them about how their tablets were acquired.”
Augustus and Rose looked at each other, confused, before turning back to him. Rose said, “Please continue.”
He nodded and said, “My father is English, but my mother is from southwest Syria. Since I was a child, I’ve spent a few months a year there. Since becoming a solicitor, I take on a few cases where artifacts have been acquired illicitly or by mistake each year. As a boy, I often witnessed these transactions, and it has always bothered me.”
Rose frowned. “Are you saying that my tablets were acquired nefariously?”
Mr. Abbas shook his head vehemently. “No, but they were never meant to be sold. The tablets you have are considered precious and are suspected of telling one of the oldest stories handed down in the southwestern area of Syria. The village elders I’m working for hope you will allow them to repurchase them.”
