The Anubis Gates

“Indeed, my lord?” replied the other man politely.

The line shuffled past the display, which had shifted around to face away from them, exposing a wide, straw-leaking rip in the seat of the trousers. Several people laughed, and Jacky heard one whispered speculation on the circumstances of Dog-Face Joe’s capture.

Jacky felt a hysteria kindling deep inside herself. Are you aware of this, Colin? she thought. Can you see this… country fair side-show exhibit? You’re avenged at last. Isn’t that wonderful? And isn’t it wonderful of all these people to hang this wonderful memento of the fact? How grand and noble and satisfying it all is.

She was sobbing before she knew it was coming, and the heavy-set man in front of her took her elbow and led her out of the line to the exit point, a gate leading to the lane that the Guinea and Bun fronted on.

Once they were on the pavement outside, he said, “Parker—my flask.”

“Yes, my lord,” said the man who had docilely followed them out. He produced a pewter flask from under his coat, unscrewed the top and handed it to him.

“Here you go, lad,” said the portly man. “Drink up. Nothing in that silly show is worth tears on such a beautiful Christmas morning.”

“Thank you,” said Jacky, sniffing and wiping her nose on her sleeve after handing the flask back. “I believe you’re right. I don’t suppose anything is ever worth tears. Thank you again.”

She touched her cap, then shoved her hands in her pockets and strode away down the street at a sturdy pace, for it was a long walk back to Pye Street.

CHAPTER 13

“When the great tragedy was ended, and the last groan had died away by the Bab-el-Azab, Mohammed Ali’s Italian physician offered him his congratulations; but the Pasha did not answer, he only asked for drink, and drank a deep draught.”

—G. Ebers

More than seven miles distant across the noon-bright Nile Valley the pyramids stood sharply clear on the horizon, and, seeming to be only a little closer, though just two miles away from the Citadel wall on which the watcher stood, the green-bordered Nile stretched like a polished steel band from north to south. A few wavering pencil strokes of smoke stood up from what he knew was El Roda island, though it was not distinguishable as a separate land mass from this distance, and he could see individual palm trees and minarets and windows of buildings in the old quarter of Cairo on the hither bank. Some of our guests, he thought, the Bahrites, are probably coming through those streets right now. And a splendid parade it no doubt is, too—all the little boys will have stopped work to watch, and the dogs will be barking, and all the mashrebeeyeh lattices of the second-floor harems are sure to be glittering with kohl-darkened eyes peering down at the haughty war lords riding past below. Soon the bejewelled procession will be clear of the old district and will be visible riding this way over the old stone road that transects the mile of desert between old Cairo and the Citadel.

Doctor Romanelli shivered slightly in spite of the heat and turned to the north, squinting at the bristling, tangled maze of whitewashed walls and brightly colored enamelled domes that was the new section of the city, which had grown up like lush riverside vegetation around the highway, called the Mustee, that connected the Citadel with the ancient Harbor of Boolak. The bulk of this afternoon’s guests would be riding even now through the crowded Mustee.