hand towards her in appeal, and she ran to the pond and seized the
outstretched hand.
"In the name of the Virgin, what have they done to you?" she sobbed, but
when she tried to pull him from the pond the skin of his hand came away
in hers in a single piece, like some horrible surgical rubber glove,
leaving the bleeding claw naked and raw.
Royan fell on her knees beside the coping and leaned over the pond to
take him in her arms. She knew that she did not have the strength to
lift him out without doing him further dreadful injury. All she could do
was hold him and try to comfort him. She realized that he was dying no
man could survive such fearsome injury.
"They will come soon to help us," she whispered to him in Arabic.
"Someone must see the flames. Be brave, my husband, help will come very
soon."
He was twitching and convulsing in her arms, tortured by his mortal
injuries and racked by the effort to speak.
"The scroll?" His voice was barely intelligible. Royan looked up at the
holocaust that enveloped their home, and she shook her head.
"It's gone," she said. "Burned or stolen."
"Don't give it up," he mumbled. "All our work-'
"It's gone," she repeated. "No one will believe us without-'
"No!" His voice was faint but fierce. "For me, my last---2 "Don't say
that," she pleaded. "You will be all right."
"Promise," he demanded. "Promise me!"
"We have no sponsor. I am alone. I cannot do it alone."
"Harper!" he said. Royan leaned closer so that her ear touched his
fire-ravaged lips. "Harper," he repeated. "Strong hard - clever man-'
and she understood then. Harper, Of course, was the fourth and last name
on the list of sponsors that he had drawn up. Although he was the last
on the list, somehow she had always known that Duraid's order of
preference was inverted. Nicholas Quenton Harper was his first choice.
He had spoken so often of this man with respect and warmth, and
sometimes even with awe.
"But what do I tell him? He does not know me. How will I convince him?
The seventh scroll is gone."
"Trust him," he whispered. "Good man. Trust him-' There was a terrible
appeal in his "Promise me!'
Then she remembered the notebook in their flat at Giza in the Cairo
suburbs, and the Taita material on the hard drive on her PC. Not
everything was gone. "Yes," she agreed, "I promise you, my husband, I
promise you."
Though those mutilated features could show no human expression there was
a faint echo of satisfaction in his voice as he whispered, "My flower!"
Then his head dropped forward, and he died in her arms.
The peasants from the village found Royan still kneeling beside the
pond, holding him, whispering to him. By that time the flames were
abating, and the faint light of dawn was stronger than their fading
glow.
The staff from the museum and the Antiquities were at the funeral the
church of the oasis. Even Atalan Abou Sin, the Minister of Culture and
Tourism and Duraid's superior, had come out from Cairo in his official
black air-conditioned Mercedes.
He stood behind Royan and, though he was a Moslem, joined in the
responses. Nahoot Guddabi stood beside his uncle. Nahoot's mother was
the minister's youngest sister, which, as Duraid had sarcastically
pointed out, fully made up for the nephew's lack of qualifications and
experience in archaeology anj for his ineptitude as an administrator.
The day was sweltering. Outside, the temperature stood at over thirty
degrees, and even in the dim cloisters of the Coptic church it was
oppressive. In the thick clouds of incense smoke and the drone of the
black-clad priest intoning the ancient order of service Royan felt
herself suffocating. The stitches in her right arm pulled and burned,
and every time she looked at the long black coffin that stood in front
of the ornate and gilded altar, the dreadful vision of Duraid's bald and
scorched head rose before her eyes and she swayed'in her seat and had to
catch herself before she fell.
At last it was over and she could escape into the open air and the
desert sunlight. Even then her duties were not at an end. As principal
mourner, her place was directly behind the coffin as they walked in
procession to the cemetery amongst the palm groves, where Duraid's
relatives awaited him in the family mausoleum.
Before he returned to Cairo, Atalan Abou Sin came to shake her hand and
offer her a few words of condolence.
"What a terrible business, Royan. I have personally spoken to the
Minister of the Interior. They will catch the animals responsible for
this outrage, believe me. Please take as long as you need before you
return to the museum," he told her.
"I will be in my office again on Monday," she replied, and he drew a
pocket diary from inside the jacket of his dark double-breasted suit. He
consulted it and made a note, before he looked up at her again.
"Then come to see me at the Ministry in the afternoon.
Four 'clock," he told her. He went to the waiting Mercedes, while Nahoot
Guddabi came forward to shake hands. Though his skin was sallow and
there were coffeecoloured stains beneath his dark eyes, he was tall and
elegant with thick wavy hair and very white teeth. His suit was
impeccably tailored and he smelt faintly of an expensive cologne. His
expression was grave and sad.
"He was a good man. I held Duraid in the highest esteem," he told Royan,
and she nodded without replying to this blatant untruth. There had been
little affection between Duraid and his deputy. He had never allowed
Nahoot to work on the Taita scrolls; in particular he had never given
him access to the seventh scroll, and this had been a point of bitter
antagonism between them.
"I hope you will be applying for the post of director, Royan," he told
her. "You are well qualified for the job."
"Thank you, Nahoot, you are very kind. I haven't had a chance to think
about the future yet, but won't you be applying?"
"Of course," he nodded. "But that doesn't mean that no one else should.
Perhaps you will take the job out from in front of my nose." His smile
was complacent. She was a woman in an Arab world, and he was the nephew
of the minister. Nahoot knew just how heavily the odds favoured him.
"Friendly rivals?"he asked.
Royan smiled sadly. "Friends, at least. I will need all of those I can
find in the future."
"You know you have many friends. Everyone in the department likes you,
Royan." That at least was true, she supposed. He went on smoothly, "May
I offer you a lift back to Cairo? I am certain my uncle will not
object."
"Thank you, Nahoot, but I have my own car here, and I must stay over at
the oasis tonight to see to some of Duraid's affairs."This was not true.
Royan planned to travel back to the flat in Giza that evening but, for
reasons that she was not very sure of herself, she did not want Nahoot
to know of her plans.
"Then we shall see you at the museum on Monday." Royan left the oasis as
soon as she was able to escape from the relations and family friends and
peasants, so many of whom had worked for Duraid's family most of their
lives.
She felt numbed and isolated, so that all their condolences and
exhortations were meaningless and Without comfort.
Even at this late hour the tarmac road back through the desert was busy,
with files of vehicles moving steadily in both directions, for tomorrow
was Friday and the sabbath. She slipped her injured right arm out of the
sling, and it did not hamper her driving too much. She was able to make