The Eleventh Plague (19 page)

L
ADY JOCASTA WAS
bathing in the privacy of her quarters, soaking her soft, olive-toned skin in a marble bath of warm water and soapsuds. She dripped water from a natural sponge onto her breasts, relishing the feeling upon her naked skin. It was a welcome opportunity to wash away the humidity that had clung to her flesh ever since she had entered this underground cavern. She was smiling broadly from ear to ear, which for Jocasta was as rare an occurrence as pigs taking flight. For the first time in a long while she allowed herself to relax. Her plan was proceeding nicely, everything was in place, and it was now just a matter of waiting for her time to shine. Baron Remus had left Fantoma for Rome, and Lady Jocasta was secure in the knowledge that she was mistress of all she surveyed.

That, however, was about to change.

A rattling cough alerted her to another’s presence in her bathroom, and she nearly leapt out of her skin. The bathwater slopped onto the dry stone floor, as she hid her nudity with her hands as best she could.

An old man stooped in the doorway, supporting his weight on a gnarled, wooden walking cane. A downy coating of white
fluff covered the whole of the man’s slightly misshapen head. He wore a blue three-quarter-length velvet jacket, with a crisp white shirt and silk cravat tucked into his collar. This man looked as if he was hundreds of years old, and yet his pale green eyes sparkled like finely polished emeralds.

‘
Sir George?
’ Jocasta gasped, reaching for her towel. She pulled it tight around her, and it clung to her sopping wet body. ‘I…I did not know you were en route!’

‘I was in the neighbourhood, so to speak,’ said Sir George Dray, in rasping Scottish tones. His eyes pierced into Jocasta, as if burning through the towel itself to view her naked body. ‘Didn’t disturb you, I hope?’

‘No, sir…you did not,’ answered Jocasta, somewhat guardedly. ‘I trust there is nothing wrong?’

‘You tell me, lass,’ said Sir George. A thin grin split a seam across his face, and the heavy wrinkles around his mouth parted like curtains of dead flesh. ‘So, tell me…where is Adolfo hiding about this wretched place? I’d have thought he would’ve wanted to greet me himself.’

‘You…you were not made aware?’ asked Jocasta.

‘Aware of what, lass?’ asked the Scot.

‘The Baron…he is not on site, sir. He is en route to Rome. Some issues arose that required his attention,’ said Jocasta, unable to stop her teeth chattering because of the cold – or was it something else? Sir George’s unexpected appearance sent a freezing sear up her spine. What was he doing here? And why now? What was Baron Remus playing at, deserting her at this time?

‘He’s gone to Rome?’ asked Dray, flicking his dry tongue around his taut lips like a serpent tasting the air. ‘Hmm. That’s a pity. I’ve got some interesting news that I wanted to share with him. Get dressed and meet me in the audience chamber in five
minutes, Jocasta. I want you to fill me in on this little project of yours, and I’m keen to learn if you really are as talented as the Baron says.’

Lady Jocasta hastily pulled on a long robe and fastened her dark waves of hair into a long ponytail that draped down her back to tickle the base of her spine. She glanced briefly at her fractious self in the tall, freestanding mirror.

If you do not wish Sir George to see right through you, you had best pull on your mask, Jocasta, she told herself.

A swarm of butterflies fluttered around her stomach as she contemplated facing the old man, one the most senior members of the Hades Consortium’s inner stratum, a man but one shade darker than the Devil himself. She cursed Remus for not being there – and then a succession of thoughts struck her.

What if Dray had been informed of his son’s death?

And what if he blamed her for the plot in London that led to it?

Had he come to Egypt seeking an explanation from her…or retribution?

There was only one thing she could do. She would hear what the old man had to say, maintain her resolve and deal with the consequences when they came along. Until then, she would remain confident of her plot. With her mind made up, Lady Jocasta rushed as fast as she could to the audience chamber.

Despite her best efforts, she arrived out of breath and anxiously pale. The frail old man was hunched in the comfort of a high-backed chair. His stooped frame melted into the seat’s upholstery as if he were an invertebrate sack of skin and bones. Jocasta announced her presence with a cough, and as Sir George Dray craned his neck in her direction, she almost expected to hear a sound like the creaking of a tree’s branches.

She lowered her head, and pulled out a chair from the table opposite him. ‘I am sorry to keep you waiting, Sir George,’ she said.

‘I won’t hear you all the way over there, lass. Come and sit next to me, I won’t bite!’ Dray said. His old face, cracked and flaking like brittle plaster, tried its best to entertain a smile. ‘Don’t look so worried, lass…I’m not here to check up on you! Well, not entirely. I’m just here to tie up a few loose ends. Seeing as I’ve missed the old wolf, I might as well learn more about this poison plot you’ve been cooking up…just so there are no surprises…such as the ones we experienced in London a few weeks back, hmm?’ He grinned at Jocasta, a grin that sent icecold flames shooting through her veins.

As the old man’s green eyes scoured her face, Lady Jocasta felt far more naked than she had done in the bathtub. She prayed that he could not see the nervousness in her demeanour, but it clung to her words nevertheless.

‘I understand. I am sure that you will be pleased,’ she said.

‘We shall see, lass. I’ve been following your career for some time, ever since Adolfo brought you in,’ Dray said, shifting gawkily in his seat. ‘The Baron speaks very highly of you. You’re confident, strong willed – if a mite too headstrong at times. Eager to please, sometimes at the expense of the bigger picture.’ He stared into Jocasta’s eyes, and seemed to take for ever to blink.
‘But as much as I value the Baron’s opinion…I like to make up my own mind. This poison of yours is the one that we obtained in London, I understand. I read your report on the way here, lass. Most thorough…in parts. And you have the stuff in your possession now, correct?’

‘Yes, Sir George, and we are sched—’

‘Good,’ interjected Dray curtly. ‘We can begin then. The longer we tarry, the more we open up ourselves to exposure!’

‘Exposure, Sir George?’ she asked. ‘Exposure by what?’

‘Don’t you mean by whom?’ asked the Scotsman. ‘We can’t afford to risk—’

‘But, Sir George, there
is
no risk. My calculations—’

‘Are
wrong
, Jocasta…trust me,’ snapped Dray, waving a shrivelled finger.

‘Sir, I can assure you that there is nothing to be concerned about,’ Jocasta said.

‘Oh, I seriously doubt that.’ Sir George licked his dry lips, the sound like crushed autumn leaves underfoot. He leaned closer to Jocasta, close enough for her to smell the stench of alcohol on his breath. ‘Our organisation went to a lot of effort to procure that poison and it was not without its losses, so this plan of yours had better pay off. Do I make myself clear, Lady Jocasta?’

Jocasta’s nerves were at the point of shattering.

Losses? What did the old man mean by that? Was he referring to the death of his pet psychopath, Renard? Or his son, Oliver? Or was it just her paranoia tainting everything? She was seeing ghosts everywhere, hearing undertones of mistrust in every syllable. Every word was layered with an accusatory edge, as if the old man was trying to force a confession out of her.

‘Sir George, this plan is not like London,’ she said. ‘Renard
was unhinged! He refused to be reined in. My project is not reliant upon the fragile constraints of just one man.’

‘Or woman?’ said Sir George, eyeing her with a dull flicker in his eyes.

‘Sir, my plan
will
be a success!’ Jocasta insisted. ‘I will make sure of it.’

‘Aye, lass…I’m sure you will,’ said Dray. ‘You’ll have to excuse me being jumpy. I’m a product of the old days, you see. More comfortable with the twist of a blade…the feel of a pistol in my hand…the smell of gunpowder.’

‘With respect, sir…the old ways are gone,’ said Jocasta. ‘As I am constantly reminding the Baron, the Hades Consortium must learn to adapt if we are to retain our position of dominance.’

‘The pupil becomes the teacher, eh?’ sniggered Dray, as he pushed himself up awkwardly from his chair. ‘Now I need to rest, lass. I’ve had a long journey from Rawalpindi and my back’s giving me gip.’ With a brief nod, he shuffled away from the table, back up the stone steps towards an archway into the shadowed caverns. At the top of the steps, he snapped his fingers. ‘And make sure I am kept apprised of any problems that may arise whilst I sleep…especially any
unwanted
visitors that might show up at our door. A fly can drop into the ointment at any time…especially this particular fly.’

L
IKE MADAME DESTINE
, Cornelius Quaint also relied upon an element of prescient awareness, but his was nowhere near as refined as the Frenchwoman’s gifts had been. He relied solely on instinct. He still had no idea where the poison was, nor from where the Hades Consortium planned to use it. Umkaza was miles away from the Nile, far too far for any effective demonstration of the poison’s power. Yet, his gut feeling told him that the place was an essential part of the plot somehow – and Cornelius Quaint’s gut feeling was seldom wrong.

Outside the Bara Mephista tavern, he and Aksak Faroud finished preparing for their journey to Umkaza. They fastened saddles to their horses, and stocked the panniers with enough food and water for the long ride. Faroud slotted his curved sword into the scabbard affixed to his horse’s saddle. He glanced up as he caught Quaint looking at him.

‘It is not for you,’ he said, nodding towards the weapon. ‘You have earned my trust, Cornelius…as I hope I have earned yours.’

Quaint nodded firmly at Faroud. He did trust him. He had to. He had no one else left
to
trust. The Aksak was risking his standing within the Council of Elders by throwing his lot in
with him. That was firm proof of trust as far as Quaint was concerned.

‘Your plan is foolhardy…but its recklessness suits you,’ said Faroud. ‘However, if we are to clash with the Hades Consortium, we had best make sure we have more than just courage in our hearts. We shall need a great deal of cunning and a lot of good luck! So, what of the Professor whilst we are gone?’

‘She’s coming,’ answered Quaint.

Faroud stopped what he was doing.

‘Why, is that a problem?’ Quaint asked.

‘Are you certain that you wish to be saddled with her on this journey? I much preferred her with a sack on her head,’ grinned Faroud, raising one in turn from Quaint. ‘I can ensure her safety here in Bara Mephista, if you fear for it. She will be treated like visiting royalty.’

‘Which I’m sure she would just adore, but no one knows Umkaza like the Professor,’ replied Quaint. ‘Until we can figure out the Hades Consortium’s connection to that dig site, I want her where I can keep an eye on her. I’m certain that Umkaza is crucial to working out the mechanisms of the Consortium’s plot…then once we’ve figured it out, all we have to do is stop it!’

‘You make me nervous,’ said Faroud. ‘I have no idea what you are thinking.’

‘You’d be amazed how often I hear that,’ said Quaint.

Just then, there was a sound of shuffling of feet behind them, and Polly North appeared from the rear exit of the tavern.

‘Talking about me?’ she asked of Quaint.

‘Heavens, no!’ he lied. ‘We were just discussing our plan.’

‘Plan?’ Polly laughed mockingly. ‘Oh, well, I’d love to hear it. What is it? Are you going to sell your soul to Satan and ask him
if he wants to accompany us on this little jaunt
as well as
this Scarab dog?’

‘I could always get that sack, Cornelius,’ muttered Faroud.

‘Keep it on standby just in case,’ said Quaint from the corner of his mouth.

Faroud knew that he was only aggravating the situation, also he was reluctant to be in Polly’s company for long. ‘I have a few things to finalise with my men. I will leave you two to it,’ he said, as he removed himself from the stable and re-entered the tavern.

The Professor eyed him devilishly all the way. ‘Mongrel,’ she hissed.

‘I thought we’d been through all this,’ said Quaint, as he tried to break through the brittle carapace of her anger. ‘The Aksak’s help is essential to—’

‘To what? To torture me some more? To remind me what I’ve had to sacrifice?’

‘Professor, I really don’t think that—’

‘Don’t you “Professor” me, Cornelius Quaint!’ seared Polly. She flopped herself down on an upturned wooden barrel and gazed disconsolately at the barren landscape around the encampment. ‘I really don’t understand you at all. One moment these Scarabs are nothing but scavenging animals picking at the carcass of life, and then you’re prepared to fight alongside them as if they were your brothers! Does that not even
bother
you?’

‘Bother me? Of course it bothers me! I don’t relish throwing my lot in with the sort of people that on any other day I would probably be up against – but this is not any other day.’

‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend?’

‘Something like that,’ said Quaint. ‘The Hades Consortium is a big foe to fight, Polly, and I cannot do it alone. Allying myself
with the Clan Scarabs was a hard choice to make…but it was also a
necessary
one.’

‘And you’re an expert in necessary choices, are you?’ asked Polly.

‘I don’t expect you to understand, Polly,’ Quaint replied, unsure if he really wanted to win this argument. ‘I’ve learned a lot about human nature…particularly the darker side. I’ve travelled the world and I’ve seen much that turned my stomach – things that I could not just stand by and watch. So I interfered in matters that I knew little about. I intervened because I thought them to be wrong. But I wasn’t qualified to make that judgement, don’t you see? I judged them on
my
terms, by
my
ethics!’

‘You’re only proving my point for me. You’re allowing your judgement to be impaired by circumstance, Cornelius. You talk about things like ethics, and yet where are they when you make a deal with the Devil?’

Quaint glanced down at the ground, kicking at a clod of dried dirt. ‘Professor, this is a fight that neither of us can win unless we have walked in each other’s shoes. I have experience with the Hades Consortium. Close up. I know what they’re capable of, and the Clan Scarabs are insects compared to them! When you understand that, maybe you’ll understand why I choose to lay down with dogs. Desperate times call for desperate measures.’

‘And uneasy alliances,’ said Polly.

‘Sometimes,’ said Quaint. ‘But make no mistake, Professor – these are most desperate times indeed.’

Soon after, three streaks of dust cut a path through the desert sands towards Umkaza. The afternoon sunlight cast long shadows
across the uneven territory as Cornelius Quaint, Aksak Faroud and Polly North rode side by side. The conjuror had been forced to change many of his opinions about the Clan Scarabs of late, and was now convinced the band of thieves at least had a semblance of civility about them. They had allowed him to change his ragged, bloodied clothing for some of their own garments. Clad in much more suitable attire for a desert trek, he wore a pair of loose-fitting khaki trousers and a plain white cotton collarless shirt, with a scarf wrapped around his head to shield himself from the unrelenting sun. Quaint did not ask where the clothes came from, guessing that the answer might sit uneasily on his mind.

Riding at his side, a disgruntled Polly North took every available opportunity to scowl at the hooded Scarab leader. She had an intense dislike of him – that much would have been obvious to a blind man, but she had been notably silent on the journey from Bara Mephista. Despite the fact that Faroud had joined Quaint on his mission, it did nothing to change her opinion of him.

Soon, Aksak Faroud raised his hand into the air, signalling the trio to stop.

‘Umkaza, dead ahead,’ he said to the conjuror.

They rode through a semblance of a wooden gate, wide enough for two carts side by side and twenty feet high. Quaint dismounted and took a slow look around.

‘Dead ahead, indeed,’ he said.

The ground was strewn with personal belongings of all kinds, an obvious sign that the inhabitants left in a hurry. A pair of spectacles lay bent and crushed in the sand, and notebooks, various pieces of ceramic pottery and a range of personal effects were discarded where they had fallen. A row of canvas tents up on the rise had been slashed into rags, the material flapping loosely from bamboo frames in the wind.

As his eyes gradually took in the sight before him, Quaint was numbed at how ghostly the place felt, how silent. It was hard to believe that just the day before it had been a thriving excavation site, buzzing with excitement. He looked cautiously at Polly, who had also dismounted, and he wondered how on earth she felt. She was uncharacteristically quiet, and now he understood why.

Polly was near to tears. She walked forwards slowly up the gentle incline, past several pits that had once been areas of excavation, now nothing but empty holes in the ground. She collapsed onto her knees at the edge of the pit. Her own notebook was lying in the dirt, the corners bent, the pages torn. After so many dead ends, so many fruitless searches, it had been her dream to uncover the resting place of the fabled Pharaoh’s Cradle. Now, that dream was lying spreadeagled in the dust.

Quaint rubbed the back of his neck, uncertain what to say. ‘Look…this doesn’t have to be the end, you know. I’m sure you can put another crew together…start digging afresh.’

Polly’s voice was upset. ‘Not enough time.’

‘Oh, come on! The treasures in this place have laid here for hundreds of years, what’s a couple of weeks going to hurt? We can get you to Cairo, or Mos Nettair or somewhere to get a new crew,’ offered Quaint. ‘I know a few folk at the British Museum, surely they can—’

‘No, Cornelius!’ yelled the Professor. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about! It’s too late, all right? I don’t have the time to crew up. The paperwork alone takes weeks out here! It’s over, don’t you see?’ She stood and kicked a crooked spade into the pit. ‘The only thing I ever found even the remotest bit interesting in this place was a pile of bones anyway! And not even ancient ones…at least then I might have been able to salvage something from this trip. Stumbling across a mass grave only twenty
or thirty years old is hardly a great historical find, Cornelius. No…it’s far too late to repair the damage now.’

Quaint quietly approached her side. ‘If it’s a matter of cost—’

‘Cost has nothing to do with it! Cost is the least of my troubles. It is
time
that is against me…and not even my sponsor’s vast fortune can buy any more of that. It’s almost laughable really,’ Polly continued, rising to her feet, striding away from him. ‘I can still recall him telling me about the wonders of this place. He was so confident, so driven. He said that I’d unearth the greatest find of my career…a find that would cement my name in the annals of archaeology for ever. How wrong he was…how wrong we
both
were. And now I’ve got no time left. I’ve got a ship bound for England to catch. I have to attend a celebration…in
my
honour, would you believe? A celebration? What do I have to celebrate? Now I’ve got no choice but to return to the Queen as a failure!’

‘The Queen? As in…Queen
Victoria
?’ asked Quaint.

‘The one and only,’ confirmed Polly.

‘It sounds like your benefactor has quite a pull with aristocracy,’ noted Quaint.

‘Cho-zen Li is one of the richest men in the world,’ Polly said. ‘He has quite a pull with
everyone.
He was so sure that I’d find the Pharaoh’s Cradle that he organised a celebratory gala dinner for me at Buckingham Palace. The fifth of February, just over a month’s time. I’m supposed to present my
treasures
as a gift for the Queen. I’m in luck if she thinks that nothing but bones and dirt are treasure!’

‘Cho-zen Li? Now, where have I heard that name before?’ Quaint rubbed at his jaw, like an angler feeling for a bite on his line. Once he felt that familiar tug of curiosity, he would never give up without reeling in his prize. But this time, the truth
seemed to slip free off his hook and it was gone. ‘And this treasure, this Pharaoh’s Cradle…I suppose it must be valuable.’

Polly stared at him as if he were a simpleton. ‘Valuable? It’s the very crib that held the infant Rameses II, dating back to the thirteenth century BC – of
course
it’s valuable! It is supposedly made from solid gold, adorned with hundreds of precious stones – emeralds, rubies, sapphires, diamonds – the lot!’

‘No wonder you were so keen to find it,’ Quaint said.

‘Cho-zen Li had such faith in my abilities. He spent a small fortune hiring the best archaeologists that the world has to offer. His confidence inspired me…no, it
fooled
me…into believing that I would uncover it. I’ve let so many people down,’ Polly said, her eyes glazing. She believed every word of what she was saying. She believed that she had failed. For a scientist, that was a hard blow to recover from. ‘Cho-zen has donated hundreds of exhibits to the Cairo Museum of Antiquities, the British Museum, and the Paris Archives. It was his love for the reconstruction of history that drew me to him, and I’ve been trying to do him proud since the very first day I disembarked in Alexandria’s port.’

‘That’s it,’ exclaimed Quaint, snapping his fingers. ‘Alexandria!’

‘What?’ asked Polly.

‘That’s where I know that name from!’

‘Alexandria? Well, it
is
a fairly well-known port.’

‘Not
Alexandria
– Cho-zen Li!’ barked Quaint. ‘It all makes sense now.’

‘Not to me, it doesn’t,’ said Polly dryly.

Quaint shook his head impatiently. He hated being interrupted when he was rambling. Finding coherence within incoherence was a gift he had cultivated since a child, and he was exceptionally good at it.

‘Alexandria is a friend of mine. A seamstress from Hosni, and
I recall seeing this coat that she’d tailored for a client in her workshop,’ he explained breathlessly, his black eyes twitching left and right as he sifted through recent memory. ‘It was
his
order! His coat – Cho-zen Li’s coat…right there in a backstreet tailor’s shop…and now here we are…on an archaeological dig in the middle of nowhere with his name cropping up again.’

‘Well, I have to admit…that
is
a bit of a coincidence,’ muttered Polly.

‘That’s what worries me,’ said Quaint, his face the picture of discontent. ‘But surely it can have no connection to
this.
Let me think.’ The conjuror plucked at his ear lobes impatiently, and then began to stroll around in circles, all the while drilling his stare into the ground, as if trying to sift the truth from the sand beneath his feet. ‘Joyce wanted you gone from this place. Joyce works for the Consortium. But archaeology holds no interest to them…unless…unless they want to sell the Pharaoh’s Cradle to the highest bidder – which could be this Cho-zen Li chap if he’s as rich as you claim. Maybe they’re trying to get their hands on the treasure first! But that’s still out of character for them. They don’t need
money.
There’s more to it than that, there just has to be! Joyce went to a lot of trouble to scare you away, but if you’d been digging here for as long as you had, why all of a sudden take umbrage? Could it be that you were close to unearthing something…or perhaps already had done so?’