They had not one, but two titles from the author Sibyl Parker. Neither was the one he'd read a few years ago, but a quick skim of the opening chapters told him they were both set in Egypt--rollicking adventures just like the one he'd enjoyed.
But there were no photographs or illustrations of the author included.
But still, the name, the connection to ancient Egypt. They were clues, were they not?
And then a cold suspicion gripped him, coating the pit of his stomach in ice.
Was she a madwoman? A madwoman who had read fanciful tales such as these and lost herself to them?
That couldn't be it.
That couldn't be the sum of it, anyway.
For it didn't explain her strength. It didn't explain the nurses who had sworn on their lives that she had recovered from horrific burns in a matter of hours. It didn't explain the striking similarities between her own face and those of the statues and coins hiding in the tomb outside Cairo.
But the nature of this connection, it lay somehow in these books. Not so much in the book as in their author.
Should he show them to her?
No, not yet. She was too fragile. She believed Sibyl Parker was in her mind, stealing her memories. It wouldn't comfort her to know the woman might be profiting from the endeavor.
No, for now, he must keep this to himself. Tend to her. Protect her. Guide her to the end of this journey. But he could not help but wonder if they were on the wrong journey. If it was not Ramses the Great they should be traveling to see but Sibyl Parker herself.
19
Havilland Park
Bektaten had not yet traveled this far north, and the great expanses of open country startled her. This stretch of Britain seemed far more isolated than the rugged coastline she now called home. There one found the spidery constructions of mines and the villages needed to house those who worked them. Here, great stone walls seemed to run forever. They fenced in seas of rolling green hills. Occasionally a grand house rode these hills like an ocean liner cut adrift.
Havilland Park was one such house, Aktamu had explained.
For most of the drive, she'd cradled Bastet on her lap. When they rolled to a stop, the cat sat up suddenly, pla
ced her paws against the window, and stared out into the shadows.
From this distance, the estate was but a halo pushing through a dense canopy of branches, like a star rising over a sea shrouded in fog.
The car in which they'd traveled was intended for taxi service, Enamon had told her: a Unic Landaulette. In back, it contained two facing bench seats, which offered plenty of room for her to recline while the men stood guard outside.
She'd ground several flowers of the angel blossom into a fine powder and placed all of it inside a vial she now wore around her neck. She emptied it onto her palms, rubbed them together. Once her hands bore an orange tint visible even in the shadows, she rubbed them through the cat's slinky fur, swirling the pollen across the cat's nose.
Bastet purred, licked at her mistress's fingers. Then once the cat had consumed her fill, Bektaten rubbed some across her own nose and lips.
A few yards from the parked car, Enamon had taken up his post like a sentry.
Aktamu held the Landaulette's back door open as he watched Bektaten work.
She'd demanded that both men find hats correctly sized for their giant heads, and they had. They wore them now, and together with their dark overcoats, these accessories helped them to merge with the shadows.
And then, silently, and without fanfare, the connection was forged.
The last thing Bektaten heard before Bastet's point of view claimed hers completely was the soft click of Aktamu closing the car door behind the cat as she sent it racing off into the night.
A small war with the creature's instincts was to be expected.
When Bektaten felt the scurry of a rodent through the nearby brush, she was forced to pull back against Bastet's desire to pursue it. Wordlessness governed this connection; she could control the cat best through visualizing what she wanted it to do next, and occasionally, great swells of want and need could drive the creature to respond. Language, for the most part, was useless.
They traveled up and over the stone wall bordering the estate, down onto the lawn beyond, and then the great house came into view.