Young was somewhat of a guess, as at the moment Ky could see only her eyes above the veil as she was wearing a full abaya. Those eyes, though, caught his attention. They were beautiful, truly incredible, lovely, long lashed and a deep sky blue.
It was too much to hope that the rest of her face might match those eyes.
No Egyptians would have eyes that shade… Was she Berber, perhaps, or some blend of European?
“Excuse me,” she said, softly. “I’m looking for Professor Farrar?”
Everyone turned to look at the sound of a feminine voice. They didn’t hear many of them here.
The accent was unusual, too, not Arabic, although there was the hint of it in it with some blend or mix of other accents. That wasn’t unusual either in this polyglot of a country. It was lilting and lovely to the ear, though.
She stood a little less than average height and save for the abaya and her eyes, nothing else could be seen of her beneath the black material. It was a fair guess she was slender even beneath the black abaya.
Although that was only a guess.
“Can I help you?” Ky asked, puzzled.
Those beautiful eyes found his, widened a little with surprise as she looked at him.
It wasn’t an uncommon reaction, that moment of surprise, fortunately or unfortunately. Most of the time fortunately, although with one or two students it had become awkward. Ky knew he was an attractive man. It wasn’t vanity. If he chose he rarely suffered for lack of female companionship but he was particular and so far there had always been something missing.
He sighed.
Those eyes looked over his shoulder.
“You look like him,” she said, tilting her head toward the shelf behind him.
He followed her gaze and nodded in understanding.
Reaching for the figurine, he picked it up.
“So I’ve been told. A souvenir from when I was a boy,” he said, smiling fondly at the figure of General Khai he’d picked up in the Museum gift shop.
He kept it with him for luck. Next to statues of Nefertiti and King Tut, it had become one of the iconic images of Egypt, used in a thousand pamphlets and videos.
Looking at it he supposed there was a slight resemblance, his heritage contained enough Middle Eastern blood to convey that―black hair, dark eyes, strong bone structure.
“It’s probably the reason I got into archaeology,” he said, putting the figurine back. “So, what can we do for you?”
“More accurately,” she said, with a smile he could only see by the light in her eyes and the way they crinkled, “perhaps I can help you. I understand you’re looking for an ancient language translator?”
He looked at her. Egypt was one of the more progressive Arabic countries. It wasn’t unusual for women to be highly educated, but she didn’t have the accent. Even so, here in the hinterlands it was somewhat of a rarity, education was a more cosmopolitan thing.
“Might I come in?” she asked.
“Yes, of course,” Ky said, gesturing. “Please do.”
Shutting the door behind her the girl reached up to unfasten the veil and push back the hood of the abaya to reveal a face that easily matched the eyes, fine-boned and fair-skinned. With one hand she freed an abundance of lush, gorgeous, wavy blonde hair, a sunny pale gold in color.
Few Muslim women would have revealed their hair, much less of that color.
“You’re not Muslim,” he said.
Her eyes sparkled with amusement. “Now I see why you have the title. Very good, Professor, what was it that gave me away?”
So, she had a sense of humor. That was very promising.
“Ohhhh, she’s got you there, boss,” Ryan commented, chuckling. “She’s quick. She’s gonna fit right in.”
Those deep blue eyes looked at Ky, twinkling. They really were beautiful.
He had a thing for eyes. Especially pretty blue ones.
She smiled wryly.
“I would suggest it’s probably best if you don’t ask where I come from and my skills…?” she continued, and then sighed. “Well, my last employer was not quite, um, legitimate. For that matter, neither am I. My credentials are questionable, although you’re not the first archaeologist I’ve worked for. I have references and recommendations from the others if you’d like to see them.”
In other words her previous employer was an illegal antiquities dealer―a thief, a tomb raider. Highly illegal these days as the Egyptian government didn’t take well to their treasures being looted and sold to those outside of Egypt. Not that that stopped anyone. As a result there was a huge black market in antiquities, especially these days with religious passions on the rise in the Middle East and US. That made her a bit of a thief, too, if only by association and the knowledge of what they were doing. If she was here illegally then her status was very tenuous, especially as a non-Egyptian and a non-Muslim. She had to be some blend of European with that hair and those eyes, or at least of European descent.
“What happened to your employer?” Ky asked.
Her eyes met his, steadily and slightly wryly. “It’s not a trade made for a long life as you probably know. Like many thieves I’m afraid he met someone meaner that he was and he was quite an unpleasant man. They killed him. Quite thoroughly. Although it doesn’t seem to have benefited them much. His sons inherited.”
She looked at him evenly and then looked away. Color tinted her cheeks.
Judging by her expression, the death had been messy.
She took a breath.
“The old thief was one thing, his sons quite another.”
Ky could easily imagine, judging by her face. If the rest of her was as attractive she would have been in a difficult position. If she had no family to protect her she would have been considered almost a possession.
“So I’m a bit at loose ends,” she finished, softly.
“Do you have any documentation at all?” he asked.
A lack of documentation might cause some problems but if she truly could read ancient languages as she said… It would have been a valuable skill for antiquities thief, the age of the script determining how much higher in value some items might be over others.
Her look was speculative. “I’m sure I can get some if you’d like but you probably don’t need to know about that either. Or where I got them from.” She shook her head. “I’m not looking for charity, I can do what you need but I do need the money, if only for the documentation so I can leave here.”
If she had no papers then she was desperate.
“What can you read?”
With a small shrug and a grin, she said, “Everything, pretty much. Hieroglyphics, of course, hieratic and demotic, the cursive and other forms, Coptic, Greek, Babylonian…all of it…even some of the older European languages.”
Ky looked at her in frank surprise. She looked barely old enough to be a grad student, slightly older than Ryan but younger than John…and himself. It seemed a little…surprising.
Of course, if she worked for an illegal antiquities dealer she had to be good. The people who bought illegal antiquities were often rich, powerful and didn’t tolerate mistakes well. One bad sale was all it took to ruin a tomb raider’s reputation, one mistake on the part of the translator and she’d have been dead.
If she was telling the truth.
“You said you have references?” he asked.
She nodded, reached into the voluminous folds of the abaya, produced a sheaf of papers and handed them to him.
Ky glanced through them, at least one―from the last Egyptologist to come even reasonably close to what he sought―raised his eyebrows.
If it was true, she had to have been little more than a child at the time.
“Where did you learn all this?” he asked.
There was no sign of a formal education in those papers but she was clearly well spoken and well educated.
She looked at him for a moment, clearly debating what she would say.
“From those I was sold to,” she said, evenly, steadily.
The truth of it was in her eyes.
He went still, not shocked, sadly, but surprised.
White slavery was still quite common throughout the world and children were sold for a variety of reasons. Sex among them. A bright child, though, one with wit and reason, clever and resourceful?
He looked into those calm blue eyes. Unafraid, she looked back.
“Prove it,” he said, gesturing to the papyrus on the desk. “Ryan?”
“Got it, boss,” Ryan said, knowing what Ky wanted as always.
He turned to his computer to call up another document.
A little startled, the girl – young woman – paused to look at him again and saw the challenge in his eyes.
She smiled, then nodded. “A test? Do you mind if I take the rest of this off, first, as it’s a little warm and cumbersome?”
The smile was very pretty, brightening her eyes.
It was more than a little warm in the room, despite the open window, and there was no air conditioning to be had. It was actually quite hot in the room but he’d become accustomed to it, he thought, until she’d entered the room.
Beneath the abaya it had to be stifling.
“Go right ahead,” he said.
Stripping the rest of the abaya over her head, she tossed it carelessly over a nearby chair, revealing a short, simple, pale blue linen dress beneath it. The dress clung nicely to all the right places, the top just low enough to reveal full cleavage, the hem fluttering around her shapely thighs.
To Ky’s surprise a sharp burst of sheer lust went through him.
All the boys perked up as well as she bent over the table, holding her abundant hair back with one hand to study the fragment of papyrus and his own laborious translation next to it.
They weren’t the only ones to perk up. The little skirt rode up a little, tantalizingly, as she bent.
For a moment she hesitated as she looked at the papyrus at his translation and then she took a breath. To Ky’s amusement he realized that she recognized whose work it probably was and she was trying to be kind.
He looked at her. “I need a correct translation. Don’t worry about politeness.”
Those blue eyes met his directly and then she inclined her head, in both respect and acknowledgement.
“All right then. You are close,” she said, and pointed. “It’s easy to mistake the ligature here as being part of the character because of the hand that drew it, changing the meaning…it’s more closely true written this way…and here…this will help.”
Ky was hardly concentrating any better than the boys, with a quite firm female bottom pointed in his direction.
The rest of her was easily as attractive, with a trim waist and nicely rounded curves in all the places that counted and none of the ones that didn’t. Bending to lean over the desk, with one slender hand holding back her hair, only emphasized her considerable attributes. Having an attractive female around would have its benefits and its distractions, obviously. Given the circumstances and location, it had been some time since any of them had spent any time with an attractive female.
Any of them.
Including himself.
Shaking himself mentally, Ky joined her at his desk, looking where she pointed.
That wasn’t helping, he could smell the scent rising from her skin, something soft, just a little spicy, exotic and lovely.
“This is also done in a book hand so the man was likely a professional, a builder or an architect,” she said, her fingers tracing lightly above the fragile papyrus. “He had his own particular shorthand for some things as such people do.”
Her eyes met his.
“Where did you find this, if you don’t mind my asking? You are working on the site of the old fort?”
Almost every archeologist and anthropologist around the small town was. It was no secret he was, too, but where exactly this particular fragment had come from was a well-kept secret. Already Ky was having a problem keeping his areas of the site preserved. As it was a joint effort between universities there were other archaeologists on site. Security was a problem for everyone. Even hiring a guard hadn’t prevented thieves from entering at night to wander about with metal detectors searching for gold, coins, old weapons. No one knew how much they were losing to them.
He had only her word her previous employer was dead.
Those very lovely blue eyes met his. She saw far too much for all her youth, seeing the caution in his eyes quite clearly.
Inclining her head, she smiled a little. “Ah. So. Perhaps I should simply translate?”
“I’m sorry,” Ky said.
He’d looked for this for far too long to take the risk.
She shrugged, grinned engagingly. “I understand your concern, all things considered. No offense taken.”
Moving her hand above the text, careful not to touch the fragile papyrus too much, she pointed to one place and then another. “Here and here, he notes building materials…fine marble, gold…but also more common materials like mud bricks, iron…a great deal of iron.”
Her voice was puzzled, but she moved on.
Lightly she ticked off on his handwritten translation where his errors had been or where he hadn’t completed it for gaps in the text she filled in for context and content.
“If you’d like surely there is someone you can send this to for verification,” she said, “to confirm my translation. It can easily be misinterpreted.”
As he had.
There were others but not for this particular information. What he had here was far too…indicative. Ky couldn’t take the chance, he was getting close and he knew it. The fort wasn’t the end of his search, instead it was merely the beginning, a signpost along the way. He was looking for something much bigger.
If her translation was correct, and even with his own mistakes he knew hers were more accurate… Excitement made his heart race. He was closer, he knew it. What he found here would bring him another step closer, maybe more.
Close enough to find it…?
It seemed as if he’d been looking for this all his life, ever since that day as a boy when they unveiled the wall from the Pharaoh’s tomb. He still remembered the voice resounding through the room, telling the tragic story of the great Egyptian general and the beautiful priestess he’d loved. The story had caught his twelve year old imagination. For years he’d daydreamed he was the General, the brave warrior fighting to defend ancient Egypt, the beautiful priestess at his side.