Joan Wolf (4 page)

“Yes, I can believe that. But I can assure you, Julianne, that there were no English soldiers sold into slavery by the pasha. Mohammed All is fully aware of the importance of keeping Britain’s goodwill. When Fraser evacuated from Alexandria after the Treaty of Tilsit was signed, the pasha released all the British prisoners who had fallen into his hands. All that was left were the heads of a few decapitated British soldiers which were decorating the pleasure grounds of Ezbekiah. Barbarous, true, but it was not that long ago that we stuck heads up on London Bridge.”

“If what you say is true, how did the other story get started in London?”

“Well, for one thing, British public opinion is against Mohammed Ali. He has put down the Mamelukes and the Mamelukes are popular in Britain. The press likes to dwell on their Oriental splendor and the fact that they fought against Napoleon. The fact that they have plundered and raped Egypt for centuries means nothing to the fine British reading public. It would much rather read about how Mohammed Ali eats babies for dinner than about the economic havoc Mameluke rule has wreaked on Egypt.”  His mouth grew grim. “Even in the Ottoman dominions it would be difficult to discover a people more oppressed, an economy more decayed.”

Julianne was surprised by the bitterness of his voice. “When you first came into the room I thought you were a Mameluke,” she said softly.

A singularly unpleasant expression crossed his face. “Well, I’m not.”

She shivered a little. “I read Volney before we came to Egypt and I remember something he wrote about the Mamelukes. ‘Strangers among themselves, they are not bound by the bonds that bind other men. Without parents or children, the past has done nothing for them; they do nothing for the future.’ “

“That sums them up perfectly.”

She frowned a little. “I do not understand what he means by saying they have no parents or children, though.”

“The Mamelukes are children of Christians whose parents sold them into slavery for profit,” he explained. “They were trained as a military guard, and centuries ago one of the Mameluke captains seized the sultanate and made himself master of Egypt. From then on the Mamelukes ruled in Egypt. The successor of each sultan was usually secured by the violent death of his predecessor. Lesser Mameluke chiefs ruled the provinces under a kind of feudal system. But there was no hereditary system of power. The strong prevailed and the weak fell by the wayside.”

His nostrils flared. “The ruling passion of any Mameluke is self-interest. It’s as simple as that.  He is not Egyptian so he feels no ties to the people of this country. His sons are to him what he was to his father: a threat. The result of this pitiless pursuit of self-interest is that for six hundred years they have held Egypt in a tyranny which nobody in the world, except the very misinformed British government, has ever attempted to condone.”

There was no mistaking the genuine disgust in his voice. “And Mohammed Ali is different?” she asked softly.

His straight black brows rose slightly and he looked down at her, a gleam of amusement in his eyes. “He is different. I won’t try to tell you he is a great humanitarian, because he’s not. But he wants to bring Egypt out of the Middle Ages and into the modern world and to do this he has instituted quite a few necessary reforms.”

“And you are helping him?”

“Yes. I am helping him.”

“By training his armies?”

His eyes narrowed. “That is one of my duties.”

She longed to ask him if he had led the siege against the British in Alexandria, but she didn’t quite dare.

“Well, I will be extremely grateful if you can find the means to transport me home to England,” she said instead. “My grandmother will repay you for any expenses, I am certain.”

He made a dismissive gesture. “It may take a little time for me to make the arrangements. In the meantime I think it would be best if we kept your presence here a secret. If there was a respectable Englishwoman I could turn you over to, I’d do it at once, but there is no one.” He gave her a mocking smile. “Your reputation would be irreparably damaged if it became known you were staying with me, I fear.”

“Then we must be discreet,” she said serenely, meeting his eyes with cool composure.

He smiled a little crookedly. “Not much frightens you, does it?”

“Not much,” she replied with perfect truth. Then she too smiled a little. “But I was frightened when you came into this room. More frightened than I’ve ever been in my life.”

“You didn’t look it.”

“No. Well, one has one’s pride.”

“So I gather.” He glanced around the room. “You will be perfectly free here in the house to go where you wish. Please make yourself comfortable. I’ll have Fatama get you some clothes, although”—and his eyes glinted—”from my point of view, what you have on is very nice indeed.”

Julianne was immediately conscious of the curves of her body, so clearly visible to his knowing eyes through the thin fabric of her clothing. She felt the telltale color begin to stain her cheeks and her eyes fell. “No one will bother you,” he said, an undertone of amusement in the deep pleasant voice. “Just don’t go out.”

“I won’t,” she promised. “And thank you, Mr. Champernoun.”

“Call me John. We’ll probably be seeing a bit of each other in the next few weeks.”

He turned to leave and she said quickly, “I left some things—papers, notes—at the other house. Could you send for them?”

He looked surprised. “However did you manage to hang on to your papers?”

“It wasn’t easy.”

“I imagine not. I’ll send Said over there in the morning.”

“Thank you,” she said. “John.”

He smiled a little in acknowledgment but made no reply as he left her alone in the beautiful silken room.

Chapter Five

A path that leads to perill and mishap…

—Sir Walter Ralegh

John Champernoun’s house was magnificent, but as she wandered about it, admiring all the beautiful things it contained, Julianne got the distinct impression that he was as transient in it as she was. There was an adequate staff of servants. The house was immaculate and the food appeared regularly, but there was a museum-like quality to the place, she thought. There was no sign of domesticity. The harem was empty.

She mentioned her feeling to Said, one of the men who had escorted her on the night she first came to the house by Lake Ezbekhiah. It seemed that Said was John’s chief lieutenant and he also appeared to be a friend. “This is a very beautiful house,” she said to him, “but I get the impression that John regards it as little more than a tent where he is making a temporary stay.”

Said had looked at her cautiously. He was not comfortable in her company. He recognized that she must be treated differently from the women to whom he was accustomed, but he was finding it difficult to adapt himself. “He has only owned the house for a short time,” he finally answered. “The pasha gave it to him as a reward for his service in Arabia.”

Julianne looked for a moment at a priceless vase adorning one of the low tables in the room where she spent most of her time. “He must have done a very good job indeed,” she said dryly.

Said’s face became unusually animated. “He recaptured the holy cities of Medina and Mecca. The pasha’s armies had been in Arabia for two years before John went out. It was only when he arrived that we began to win.”

“I see.”

“Mohammed Ali is leaving for Arabia himself in a few weeks’ time to make an official entry into Mecca,” Said offered. “It will be a great moment for Egypt.”

Julianne felt a pang of anxiety. “Will John be going as well?”

Said looked shocked. “John cannot enter the holy city, lady. He is an infidel.”

“Oh,” said Julianne, much relieved. “I see.”

John’s assertion that they would be seeing a bit of each other was not exactly true, as Julianne found out in the following weeks. He was working on her problem, he assured her, whenever she did catch sight of him. There was a Frenchwoman, a Mme. Rioux, he thought could be persuaded to escort her to England. The lady was expected back in Cairo shortly, and he would speak to her then.

John seemed to be in constant motion, and often she would hear him returning to the palace in the early morning. She wondered where he had been, but wasn’t quite sure she wanted to know the answer. She had a feeling that the less she knew about his doings the more comfortable she would be.

One evening, after she had been in residence for ten days, Fatama came to tell her that the lord had requested her company at dinner. Julianne dressed herself carefully in a pair of full ankle-length trousers and a pretty soft cotton shirt, which had been bought for her by Fatama. She did her hair in a long single braid and tied it with a silver ribbon. Then she went downstairs to join her host in one of the rooms that led off the courtyard.

There was a table set for two in the room and next to it, looking out at the fountain, was John Champernoun. He wore Egyptian dress as usual and Julianne found herself thinking that the Eastern clothes looked remarkably appropriate on his tall broad-shouldered figure. He turned as she came into the room. “Ah, here you are. I thought it might be pleasant to have dinner together. I was finally able to get away from the citadel for a while.”

She smiled politely. “The pasha keeps you busy.”

“He does.” He held a chair for her and then sat down himself across the table. The servants came in with food and wine and, as they ate, John asked her about her travels in Africa. She spoke generally at first, but the intensity of his interest led her on. As she told him about their journey inland from Zanzibar the lines of his face sharpened and brightened. “You actually saw a snow-covered mountain near the equator!” he exclaimed in excited amazement.

“Yes. We saw its peak, at any rate. The Masai people called it Ngaje Nga—’House of God.’ I shouldn’t be surprised if it were over sixteen thousand feet.”

His eyes blazed.  “My God, Julianne, do you realize this means that Ptolemy’s map may be correct?”

“The Mountains of the Moon, you mean?” she responded.

“Exactly!”

“It very well may be. I questioned some ivory traders in the area about the local geography. On Ptolemy’s map he had the Nile’s sources as two lakes a little south of the equator. According to these traders, there
are
two great lakes. And beyond them a range of mountains.”

His face was brilliant, an adventurer’s face with glowing light eyes. “Almighty God. What I wouldn’t give to have been there.”

She took a sip of her wine and watched him over the rim of the glass. “But the Blue Nile rises at Lake Tana,” she said. “James Bruce reported that forty years ago. And when Papa and I visited the Ethiopian court we saw it for ourselves.”

He leaned toward her, formidable in his intensity. “I know, but the true source of the Nile is the source of the White Nile, Julianne; that is the longer branch. And no one has found that source. At least, not yet. I hope you kept a record of all this? Was that the papers you were so worried about?”

“Yes. Papa kept a journal.”

“And you?”

“Yes,” she said with palpable reluctance. “I did keep a journal.”

“Would you let me see it?” His intensity was palpable.

She dragged her eyes away from that blazing look. “They would not interest you. Papa wrote almost exclusively about his missionary work. And mine is—well, it is rather personal. Not at all scientific, I’m afraid.” She was slowly revolving her wineglass, watching the candlelight reflected in the crystal.
He said nothing, but she could feel his eyes on her face. “I wrote mostly about the animals I observed,” she said unwillingly.

“Lion and elephant and what else—hippo?”

“Yes. And waterbuck, impala, wildebeest. Sometimes leopard and rhinoceros. And birds—marvelous, beautiful birds.”

“I’d like to see your journal,” he repeated and she looked up from her glass to meet his eyes.

She had never intended to show anyone that journal. It was profoundly important to her.

“All right,” she heard herself saying.

 Silence fell and after a minute she pushed her wineglass toward the center of the table. She didn’t want to pick it up again as she was afraid her hand was trembling. “Tell me about the war in Arabia,” she said with outward calm. “Who are these Wahabis you were fighting?”

There was a brief pause, but then he answered readily enough, “They are a puritanical Moslem sect who are led at present by the house of Ibn Sa’ud. A few years ago Sa’ud drove out the sherif of Mecca, occupied the holy cities, and declared that the caliphate—the official leadership of Islam—belonged to Arabia and not to Constantinople. The sultan was furious and asked Mohammed Ali to put down the rebellion. The pasha, as a good vassal, could not refuse.”

“What do you mean by puritanical? How do they differ from the Moslems of Turkey and Egypt?”

He pushed back his chair. “If you’ve finished eating, let’s go outside and I’ll tell you.”

Obediently she rose and accompanied him out into the lovely garden that filled the large central courtyard of the palace. It was delightfully cool outside. Julianne had long since become accustomed to the African heat, but the soft breeze that stirred her cotton shirt felt very pleasant. They walked to the fountain, and she looked up at him as they stopped before the huge marble basin. The moonlight clearly outlined his strong aquiline profile, the line of his hard mouth.

“The Egyptians are largely Shafi Moslems,” he began. “It is a less rigorous form of religion than that practiced by the Wahabis. One of the major differences between the two sects is that the Shafis believe in saints and the Wahabis do not. The Shafis venerate the memories of holy men and set up splendid tombs in their honor. They believe, you see, that these saints function as intermediaries between them and God. To the Wahabis such a belief is idolatry. Their campaign in Arabia was largely a crusade against the cult of saints. They smashed venerated tombs in all the major cities of Arabia before the Sultan asked Mohammed Ali to take action against them.”