“You are too kind, Madame,” said the heavy man in gray. “How auspicious that I have found the two of you. You see, these men have been quite on edge of late. The Turkish fleet is anchored not ten leagues away in Aboukir Bay. Word is that they’ve swarmed ashore by the thousands. Most inconvenient for our work here, wouldn’t you say? In fact, this very road is growing ever more dangerous for travelers. Won’t you be so kind and accompany me to town? I have sent for a carriage, which should arrive at any moment.” He winked at the French Captain as he spoke. “Why, there it is now!”
LeGrand pointed at a distant silhouette on the road to the east, backlit by the blazoning sun. He spoke quickly to the soldiers in French, and they regarded the carriage with a look approaching disdain.
“Monsieur Fauche, the good Captain here, is somewhat bothered by civilian doings these days. It has been an arduous campaign this past year, you understand. He has had his hands quite full, and needs no bother from the likes of scholars and hangers on, or so he describes the men of letters these days.”
“Of course,” said Maeve, her wits about her now. “Please thank the Captain for his gracious escort. You say the Turks have landed nearby?” She feigned surprise, casting a fearful glance over her shoulder toward the sea. “A lady cannot be too careful under such circumstances, yes? Please tell the Captain how comforting it is to have the protection of his guard.” She offered a smile, and the Captain met her glance with a pleased expression as Le Grand conveyed her thanks. The Frenchman tipped his cap with a gentlemanly nod of the head, sitting a bit taller in the saddle now.
“Bonjour, Madame,” he said with a smile, then nodded to Nordhausen in farewell as he pulled his mount about and gestured at his compatriot. The two men rode off, heading west on the road to Alexandria.
“A patrol,” LeGrand explained. “Wanted to know what I was doing out here, in fact. How lucky for me to happen upon the two of you as I did.”
“Oh?” Nordhausen’s suspicions needed an answer now. “And just what were you doing out here at the break of dawn, Doctor, if you do not mind my asking?”
“Why, I was waiting for you, of course.” LeGrand smiled at them, gesturing warmly at the approaching coach. “I believe the lady dropped something a moment ago, and I thought to return it.”
Nordhausen looked at Maeve, and they were both bewildered again, but LeGrand let out a hearty laugh and reached into a pouch that was sewn into the lining of his riding cape. “Madame,” he said warmly as he held out an object.
It was all Maeve could do to stop her jaw from gaping open, for LeGrand was holding her beaded purse.
15
The carriage arrived in a flourish of dust, a small covered gig drawn by a single horse. LeGrand gestured magnanimously, though his eyes were wells of apology. “Forgive me, but it is simply impossible to find a decent carriage in Egypt these days. I managed to hitch this together in the bazaar. The French have confiscated most of the good riding stock, but I found a plough horse and got him for a good price.”
Robert and Maeve were still taken aback, Maeve staring from the beaded purse, to Robert, to LeGrand in bewilderment.
“Oh, do hop on,” said their host. “The driver knows the way, and when we reach town I’m sure you’ll have a lot of questions. I’ll meet you there soon. Good Day!” He rode ahead, and Robert shrugged his shoulders.
“Ladies first,” he said. “We may as well ride. It will be quite warm soon, and who knows how far the town is.”
They climbed into the carriage and the driver, a surly looking peasant in a soiled white tunic, goaded the horse with a thin stick to get it moving. They sat on a plain wood seat, and the carriage cover was little more than a stretch of canvas draped over a trellis of thin cedar.
“What do you make of this?” Maeve was still gawking at the beaded purse, her mind trying to grasp how it could have come into LeGrand’s hands.
“That’s the same purse you took through the Arch?”
“Exactly the same. I had it on my shoulder… but now that you mention it, I can’t recall having it with me when we manifested here. I think it must have slipped off my shoulder when we first arrived—in that house—wherever that was.”
“Very strange…” Nordhausen eyed the purse with a furrowed brow, considering. “Perhaps it shifted to this milieu separately?”
“And LeGrand just happens across it by chance and makes a miracle guess that it must certainly belong to a hapless American couple who would be arriving soon along that very same road.” The tone of her sarcasm quickly dispatched any rational argument the professor had thought to make.
“Yes… a bit sticky, isn’t it? Did you hear that French Captain call us Americans?”
“He did.”
“I thought the same, but I’ll be damned… What’s going on here?”
“Well,” said Maeve, “at the very least I’d say our cover is blown.”
“Could it be our dress? Are you sure this clothing is appropriate?”
“The costume is fine. No, I had the sense that LeGrand expected us. He said as much when he gave me this.” She held up the purse
“Perhaps he was only being coy. I mean, suppose the purse did shift separately, and he happened upon it by chance. He spies us on the road and makes the natural assumption that we dropped it—that you dropped it. Why, if I found such a thing I would certainly assume it to be the possession of a lady. And you’re the only one who matches that description in these parts right now.” He resurrected his first argument, but Maeve just shook her head.
“This is simply too much of a coincidence to have happened by chance, ” she said. “His actions were very telling; very deliberate. He was making subtle implications from the first word out of his mouth. I think he meant exactly what he said, Robert. He expected us here. He was riding out with this carriage to find us and, if that’s the case, then he’s—”
“Not from this milieu?” Nordhausen finished her thought. “Well, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit. I go off to Jordan to recover my Ammonite, and look who I run into—an Arab on a courier mission to the twelfth century! It’s clear now that these people are operating throughout the continuum, whoever they are. But how would this LeGrand fellow know we would be here?”
“You forget that if he is another time traveler, they have hundreds of years to research what we do… what we’ve done… what we’re going to do. It’s maddening, but how else to explain this?”
“I think we had best get some answers from LeGrand.”
The way was not far, and they soon found themselves at the outskirts of a dry and dusty looking town. There were a few small farms, brown fields watered by narrow irrigation channels, with clusters of date trees lining the way ahead. The buildings seemed adobe mud for the most part, though farther on they began to encounter a few more substantial stone structures. It was to one of these, a single story inn at the edge of town, that the driver took them. Nordhausen was pleased to see that LeGrand was already waiting for them, his horse tied to a rickety hitching post.
Dismounted he turned out to be a fairly short man, broad in the shoulders, yet with a sturdiness that tended more to brawn than to excess weight. Gray-brown tresses of hair dangled freely from beneath a floppy headpiece, framing his round face and high, ruddy cheeks. As the carriage pulled up he smiled broadly, his eyes alight with a mischievous glint that seemed ignited by his wit. “Greetings, my American friends. I trust your ride was enjoyable. Lovely morning, though I’m afraid it will get very hot this afternoon. Then we’ll have the flies, the French soldiers, and all the rest. But for now, may I offer you a quiet place to shelter from the sun? Perhaps a cup of tea?”