LITMIR.BIZ

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There was no hint of weariness in the cool, unemotional voice, but she did not attempt to wrest the basket from him.

      ‘I have been resting while I conversed with Sir Philip.’

      ‘I doubt it was a conversation. A new audience always opens the floodgates. Here, sit down.’ She poured liquid into two beakers, pushed one across the table to him and sat carefully, as though her bones ached.

      They probably do. How old is she? Quin wondered as he took the drink with a word of thanks and sat opposite her, trying to recall his briefing. Only twenty-three. He sipped. ‘This is good.’

      ‘Pomegranate juice.’ She sat for a while, her fingers laced around her beaker as though she had forgotten what it was there for. Then she took a long swallow and called, ‘Father! Supper.’ She lowered her voice. ‘It will take several reminders before he comes, you may have your peace until then.’ That faint dimple ghosted across the smooth, sun-browned cheek and her tired eyes narrowed. He had not seen a real smile from her yet.

      ‘How do you bear it?’ Quin asked abruptly and watched all trace of amusement fade from her face. The sooner he got her out of here and back to the sort of life she should be living, the better.

      ‘The heat?’ She was quick, for he could have sworn she knew exactly what he meant. How do you stand this life, that man, the loneliness, the constant labour? ‘I am used to it, we have been in Egypt for five years now and one learns to live with it when there is no alternative.’

      Was she answering his real question after all? ‘What is your given name?’

      The arched brows lifted in silent reproof at his ill manners, but this time she did not evade the question. ‘Augusta Cleopatra Agrippina,’ she said evenly and waited for his response.

      Quin did not disappoint her. ‘Good God! What were your parents thinking of?’

      ‘We were in Greece at the time apparently, but Father was still in his Roman phase. I doubt Mama had any say in the matter. Look at it this way, I am fortunate that he had not become interested in Egypt then or I would probably be called Bastet or Nut.’

      He had heard of Bastet, the goddess with the head of a cat, but, ‘Nut?’

      ‘The goddess of the sky who swallows the sun every evening and gives birth to it each morning. Father!’

      Quin decided he did not want to contemplate the mechanics of that. ‘So which of your imposing names are you known by? What does your father call you?’

      ‘Daughter! Where are my towels?’

      ‘On the end of your bed,’ she called back. ‘He does not remember it most of the time, as you hear,’ she said to Quin. ‘He is in his head, in his own world. I doubt he recalls that Mama is dead, or my husband, most of the time. My husband called me Cleopatra, it appeared to amuse him.’

      ‘Queen of the Nile,’ Quin murmured.

      ‘Exactly. So appropriate, don’t you think?’

Chapter Three

      Queen of the Nile? Yes, very appropriate, Quin wanted to say, throwing her bitter jest back at her. You look like a queen with that patrician nose and those high cheekbones, that air of aloofness. A queen in exile, in disguise, in servitude. He was saved from answering by Sir Philip emerging from the tent, fastening a clean shirt with one hand and running his hand through his wet hair with the other.

      He sat without a word and reached for the platter of what appeared to be cubes of meat. Madame... No, Cleo, Quin decided, slid a plate in front of her father and passed one to Quin, then gestured to him to help himself. He realised his mouth was watering.

      ‘You should try to eat. It has been a while since you did, I imagine.’

      ‘Yes. I was hungry at first and then that vanished.’ He had been on foot and without anything but a small flask of water for two days after his camels were taken. Before that he had been eating sparingly, moving too fast to settle down in one spot and cook himself a proper meal.

      ‘It seems to with heat prostration. You must rest tomorrow.’

      ‘I will rest tonight. Tomorrow I will acquaint myself with your military neighbours.’

      ‘That is foolish. I can ask them what is the best thing to be done with you.’

      They would shoot me as a spy, if they knew who I was. ‘If I am to be disposed of, Madame Valsac, I prefer to organise it myself.’

      ‘Very well. I will not go and you will not be able to find them by yourself.’ She bit down sharply on a piece of flatbread as though to cut off all discussion.

      Confound the woman. Is she trying to keep me away from the military because of her own compromised situation or is she merely being inconveniently protective of an injured man?

      ‘No, I want you to go, Daughter,’ Sir Philip pronounced, reversing his earlier opinion without a blink. ‘I need you to take my correspondence for them to send north. I have finished my letter to Professor Heinnemann.’

      Correspondence? ‘The French are obliging enough to act as postmen for you, Sir Philip?’ Quin asked casually as he spread goat’s cheese on his bread.

      ‘Indeed they are.’ The older man put down his fork. ‘A fine example of the co-operation amongst scholars. As soon as Général Menou realised I was having problems receiving my letters he arranged for them to be handled through Alexandria.’

      And how did the general know? Quin shelved that question for the moment. He thought he had hold of the tail of the matter now and he had no intention of letting it wriggle out of his grasp. ‘You have an international correspondence?’ he asked, injecting as much admiration into his tone as he thought was plausible.

      He need not have worried about arousing suspicions. Sir Philip was smugly confident of his own importance. ‘Of course. England, France, Greece, Italy, Germany, India, Russia. Spain and Portugal...’ He droned on, complaining about the paucity of news from the Scandinavian countries.

      England, the Mediterranean, continental Europe—news from dozens of pens flowing into Alexandria, into the hands of the French. Traitors, agents and innocent scholars all writing to this man who was either so blinded by his obsessions that he had no idea how he was being used or was a willing participant in his French masters’ games. Every scrap of intelligence was like gold to skilled spymasters who could fit it all together from dozens of sources.

      ‘India,’ Quin said out loud. India, the real reason the French wanted Egypt. If they controlled the Red Sea and the overland route to the Mediterranean, then Britain’s vital link to its most important trading area was lost. And troops were on their way now from India to land on the Red Sea coast and march across the desert to the Nile, then downstream to join the British and Turks in the delta.

      Had letters from French agents in India already reached Menou in Cairo on their way to this man? A cold finger trailed down his spine, chilling the perspiration. If the French marched out to cut off General Baird’s long, desperate march through the desert, then the entire tide of the war in Egypt could turn.

      ‘Yes, India. I think I may well move on there next,’ Woodward said. ‘Fascinating country by the sound of it.’

      Quin was aware of the tension in Cleo’s still form. Yet another move where she was taken along like a piece of furniture with no choice and no opinion? She would be much better off back in England where she belonged than dragged around at her father’s heels like so much luggage.

      ‘I will go with you to the army camp tomorrow, madam,’ Quin said and turned to look her in the face. ‘I want to find out if they have news from any other engineers.’ And I want to get my hands on your damned correspondence, Sir Philip. I may yet be finding a hungry crocodile for you.

      ‘As you wish.’ If Cleo Valsac had any worries about letting him observe

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