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could keep
track of them? He had no idea where the tainted tobacco had come
from—assuredly not from Wadid’s usual source, one
ofCairo’s more respectable coffee shops.

    As to who had
invaded the house and driven the other servants away, Wadid was
equally in the dark. He’d been in a beautiful dream, he said.
People came and went. Dream people or real people, he could not say.

    On learning that
someone had stolen the master’s beautiful papyrus, he wept and
blamed himself. He hoped the master would return soon and beat him,
he said.

    But please, he
begged, would the good lady tell her giant not to tear him limb from
limb? The lady was kind and merciful, everyone knew. Had she not
brought Akmed back from the dead? The men carry him in, and all the
breath is gone from his body. Then she gives him a magic drink, and
behold, he breathes again.

    Akmed had in fact
been breathing, and the “magic drink” was tea from
Daphne’s precious stores, the sovereign remedy for every
ailment, physical, emotional, or moral. But having started talking,
Wadid showed no signs of stopping. She let him carry on his monologue
while she wondered what had become of her “giant.”

    He’d been
gone rather a while.

    Gone back to the
consulate, no doubt, she thought grimly. And who could blame him?

    She had a man’s
mind in a woman’s body. The feminine arts were a far greater
mystery to her than Egyptian writing. She had at least a rational
hope of solving the latter. But when it came to femininity, her case
was hopeless. Virgil’s efforts to change her had only
infuriated her—quite as though she were a man.

    Had she learnt
those mysterious arts, had she behaved more prettily with Mr. Salt,
he might not have been so quick to dismiss her concerns and fob off
on her his aristocratic lummox of an aide.

    She had behaved
even less prettily with Mr. Carsington. A proper woman would have
exercised more tact. Even dumb beasts had feelings, and men could be
sensitive about the oddest things.

    She rose. She would
have to find him. She would return to the consulate, if necessary,
and apologize.

    “ We’ll
speak more of this later, Wadid,” she said. “Go back to
your place. Perhaps while you sit quietly, you’ll remember
more.” She hurried across the room and out of the door through
which Mr. Carsington had vanished.

    “ Mistress?”
Leena called behind her.

    Daphne turned her
head to answer.

    And collided with
something big, hard, and warm. Very big. Very hard. Very warm.
Physical sensation knocked out thought, and she tottered, unbalanced.

    A large hand
clamped on her upper arm and steadied her.

    “ What a
dervish you are, always hurrying this way and that,” Mr.
Carsington said. “Pray consider the heat and the possibility of
a brain fever.” He released her arm.

    The warmth
lingered, and she still felt the impression of long, strong fingers
on her skin.

    She retreated a
pace.

    “ I came
looking for you,” she said, her voice strained, as though she’d
labored up a pyramid to find him. “I thought you were…
lost.”

    “ Oh, I never
get lost,” he said. “Not for long, at any rate. I only
went looking for coffee. Turkish coffee is a wondrous beverage, and I
thought we all needed a stimulant.”

    “ Coffee,”
she repeated stupidly.

    “ Yes. And see
what I found.” He moved aside. Behind him the twelve-year-old
Udail carried the coffee service. “Lucky thing I was in front,
eh, Tom, else she might have bowled you over.”

    “ His name is
Udail,” Daphne said.

    “ Tom,”
said the boy, gazing worshipfully up at Mr. Carsington. “ Esmi Tom.”

    My name is Tom.

    In mere minutes,
the man had frightened one servant into submission and cajoled
another into idolatry.

    And he was tying
her mind in knots.

    Daphne did not
believe in genü. At that moment, however, she had no doubt that
her trip to the Citadel dungeon had released a dangerous force.

     

     

    HER MOUTH, RUPERT
noticed, was not only