'I thought you said you'd climbed the Pyramid before.'
'Only about a dozen times,' the Egyptian grinned. 'We always come here on holidays.'
'It's true,' sighed Mrs. Sedjet. 'He has to climb to the top every time.'
'The view is great!'
'View? What view?' Ace waved her hand at the desert. 'Look, why don't you go ahead?'
'Are you feeling alright?' Sedjet said, pouting. 'The climb isn't that hard.'
Ace shook her head. 'I'm fine. You go ahead. Go on.'
After a bit he did, leaping up over the ruined face of the Pyramid. Ace sighed, sitting down on the sand with her back to the sandstone.
Suddenly one of the tourists did not turn out to be the Doctor.
One of Mrs. Sedjet's servants brought her a stool. She gave Ace a maternal smile. It occurred to the time traveller that Sedjet's wife was not much older than she was. People grew up fast here, same as they had in Uruk and Tenochtitlan. They grew up fast and died young. They were short and had terrible teeth and died of little things like dirty water and small scratches stupid things.
There were some compensations, though. No-one here was going to die of fall-out or air pollution or too much junk food. If they wanted to kill one another they had to do it the old-fashioned way, eye to eye, shoving forged metal through one another. And you couldn't destroy a whole country, let alone a whole planet.
Life was lived on a smaller scale here, she thought, leaning back on the Pyramid.
Mrs. Sedjet said, 'This is a pleasant place to visit. Though there are a few too many tourists for my tastes.'
Ace laughed shortly. 'They're really old, even now, aren't they?'
'The Pyramids? They're the oldest thing in the world. I suppose Egyptians should be proud of them.' She folded her hands in her lap, looking a bit lost 46 without her daughters. The servants were looking after the infants back at Akhetaten. 'Why didn't you care to go to the top?'
Ace blinked up at her, shading her eyes with her hands. 'I don't know. I guess I'm not that interested.' She blew out a sigh. 'Sedjet's probably going to sulk for a week.'
'He does like to take you everywhere.'
'Yeah.' Ace squirmed against the warm stone. 'I've been meaning to say to you um, well there's nothing going on between us,' she blurted.
'Oh, I know that.' The laugh lines around Mrs. Sedjet's eyes stood out as she spoke. 'He's always had a passion for foreign women. I won him away from a Babylonian, a very exotic lady. He was smitten with her, but there was one difficulty.'
'What?'
'He can't speak a word of Babylonian.'
Ace grinned, despite herself. 'Look, there really isn't anything going on.
He's a married man, right?'
Mrs. Sedjet nodded. 'Yes, I was aware of that. It doesn't bother me when he has the occasional affair. I even had one myself that came as a shock to him, I think. Ours is a business relationship: not only can't he speak any foreign languages, he can't add up to save his life. I supervise the books and the foreign traders.'
'Where I come from,' said Ace, 'people are supposed to get married because they're in love. Doesn't always work that way, though.'
Mrs. Sedjet nodded. 'I do love Sedjet. He's a good man, Tepy, a gentle man.'
A gaggle of children wandered past, following their mother and father, tripping over one another as they gawked at the Pyramid. Ace folded her arms.
'So if he did I mean, I keep expecting him to say something, but I if he did say '
'I would not be offended. After all, if he's serious about you, he can always take you on as a concubine.'
'Oh.'
'You don't look very happy, my dear.'
Ace shook her head. Mrs. Sedjet, looking a little puzzled, peered up at the receding form of her husband.
It was a seething hot day when Sedjet decided to visit his uncle. He chose four of his bodyguards for the trip. Only one of them came back alive.
They took a short-cut across the desert in chariots, the horses' hooves kicking up great plumes of dust. The thugs were dressed in loin-cloths and not much else, showing off their muscles and scars. Ace wore what any leisured 47 lady might wear: white linen, the pleats ironed carefully into place by servant girls going cross-eyed with the precision, and half a kilo of jewellery.
The arrows came showering down from the cliffs, killing one of the horses, scattering the chariots. Something slapped Ace's face, hard, and she realised there was an arrow caught in her hair.
When the thieves ran down to attack, waving clubs and swords, they mis-took her for a harmless noblewoman. She killed two of them before they realised what was going on.
Centuries in the future, when the art of damaging human beings was honed to fine technological precision, she could have left them alive. But a khopesh khopesh is a bloody great lump of soft metal with a nasty hook, and all you can do with it is hack out your enemy's guts and hope he dies quickly. That was how the half-Hittite died, groaning in the sand, hairy hands pressed against the gash in his armour. is a bloody great lump of soft metal with a nasty hook, and all you can do with it is hack out your enemy's guts and hope he dies quickly. That was how the half-Hittite died, groaning in the sand, hairy hands pressed against the gash in his armour.
The khopesh khopesh had a clumsy swing and a lousy recovery time, but if you hit with it, it was very palpable. Ace came silently up behind one of the bandits as Sedjet tried to fight him off. Whoosh, wallop, sounds of parting air and parting flesh, head rolling on the ground. had a clumsy swing and a lousy recovery time, but if you hit with it, it was very palpable. Ace came silently up behind one of the bandits as Sedjet tried to fight him off. Whoosh, wallop, sounds of parting air and parting flesh, head rolling on the ground. Next? Next? She dragged the hooked sword through the side of the largest bandit, feeling organs tear like paper against the force of her swing. She dragged the hooked sword through the side of the largest bandit, feeling organs tear like paper against the force of her swing.
Something hit her, missing her face but crunching into her collarbone She screamed, enraged, striking out gracelessly with her khopesh khopesh and her foot. and her foot.
One or the other connected, sending the luckless bandit stumbling back into Sedjet's hands. He twisted the man's neck until it made a satisfying crack and dropped him.
Ace discovered she sat down hard in the dust, a ferocious line of pain spitting blood from her left shoulder. Sedjet loped over. 'Sister! Does it hurt?
How bad is it?' His face loomed over her like a dark-skinned sun, eyes black as night-time, their corners creased with concern.
Ever so romantic, she had thought, as the pain thumped up into her skull and laid her flat out against the sand. she had thought, as the pain thumped up into her skull and laid her flat out against the sand. I bet Benny's having an even worse time. I bet Benny's having an even worse time.
Cairo 1798 CE Benny was eating grapes. She was lying on soft cushions in a voluminous drawing room, a silken sheet drawn up to her neck. Flickering candles illuminated the room, picking out Vivant's features.
'Do try to hold still,' he admonished, waving his charcoal stick at her playfully.
' Excusez-moi. Excusez-moi. These are delicious. Do you want one?' These are delicious. Do you want one?'
48.' Non, merci, Non, merci, now stop wriggling.' His charcoal moved quickly over the paper, tracing the lines of her body. 'You're an excellent subject or would be, if you didn't move about so. now stop wriggling.' His charcoal moved quickly over the paper, tracing the lines of her body. 'You're an excellent subject or would be, if you didn't move about so.
'I'll bet you say that to all the girls.' She lobbed a grape at him. It bounced off his nose. His features were ruddy with Egyptian sunlight, well-fed and pleasant, small mouth hooked into a permanent smile. He was handsome in a comfortable way. He didn't look all of fifty-one.
' Je cede. Je cede. ' He put his unfinished sketch to one side. ' He put his unfinished sketch to one side.
Benny picked up a sheaf of the day's earlier work, gripping her sheet. Mostly the pyramids, which Vivant had fallen hopelessly in love with. The Sphinx, buried to the neck in sand, tiny savants crawling over it with plumblines and notebooks. All drawn in tiny, precise pencil strokes.
She raised her head at the sound of distant cannons. 'Perhaps you'd better put on your clothes,' said Vivant. He gripped the case of pencils under his arm and stepped outside.
Benny waited until she was sure he wasn't going to pop his head back around the door. Smiling to herself, she tugged on her battered trousers and loose brown shirt. They were good clothes, working clothes, the sand and the dirt ground into them so deeply they'd never be washed clean.
She picked up the half-finished sketch. The picture had been her idea; while Vivant had been showing her some of his earlier works, she'd found a copy of l'uvre Priapique l'uvre Priapique.
' Ah, oui, Ah, oui, ' he had said, not quite blushing as Benny casually flipped through page after page of drawings of the sex life of the citizens of Pompeii. ' he had said, not quite blushing as Benny casually flipped through page after page of drawings of the sex life of the citizens of Pompeii.
'No wonder the volcano erupted,' she had teased.
'The reception of that work was somewhat mixed . . . '
She considered her portrait, done in light, almost playful strokes. A flick of charcoal showed where the dark roots were starting to peep through her long blonde hair. Her hair felt as grubby as her clothes. She'd never get another colour treatment in an eighteenth century desert, but she'd settle for a decent shampoo.
Vivant Denon was about due for his great southern expedition with General Desaix. Ol' Boney was pretty impressed with Denon, and didn't mind him nipping down the Nile to sketch a few antiquities all for the greater glory of La France La France, of course.
That was why Napoleon had brought over a hundred of his favourite savants to Egypt. Denon had made sure that his strange (English?) assistant was among their number, charming Bonaparte into letting him bring a woman along.
To the rest of the savants, the scholarly gentlemen in their scholarly suits, she was merely Denon's latest conquest. Their conversations stopped when 49 she approached, and they wouldn't let her attend the seminars. When they gave her those glances, condescending, almost pitying, she wanted to spit in their faces.
But she was a guest here, on her best behaviour. She had no choice; after all, she wasn't going anywhere. It bothered her more because, despite his reputation for charming the ladies, Vivant treated her better than any of them.
And hell, he was charming.
There was a knock at the door. 'Are you decent?'
'Never,' giggled Bernice. 'Come in.'
He reappeared, his eyes politely averted until he was sure she was dressed.
'Everything's ready for our departure,' he said, and coughed. 'Perhaps we can finish our studio session once we return.'
'Perhaps,' said Benny mischievously. 'Crack open another bottle.'
'Ah,' said Vivant, fishing a flask of absinth out from a hamper. 'It's rather warm, I'm afraid.'
Benny made a face. 'Never mind.' She unzipped her travel bag, started rummaging inside. Vivant eyed the zipper curiously. Benny turned her back slightly, so he couldn't see what she was doing.
Everything inside was mixed up. She pulled out a plastic box with a red cross on it made out of two sticking plasters, some clean underwear, her diary, and a hat.
She turned the hat over and over in her hands. Her diary fell into her lap.
'What is it that you are writing?' Vivant asked, easing the cork out of the bottle.
'A history of booze,' she said. 'Any booze gets near me, it's history.' But she was massaging the felt of the brim with her fingers, frowning.
'I haven't seen this before,' said Vivant, taking the hat from her hands.
Benny snatched it back from him, with more force than she had intended.
'It belongs it belonged to an old friend.'
He nodded, seriously, not wanting to intrude on her privacy. 'It's the only white Fedora ever made,' she explained, incomprehensibly. 'And it's all I've got left of him.'
She closed her eyes. She remembered the violent tugging, the burning lights inside her skull. Losing her grip. Feeling Ace and the Doctor being wrenched away from her. She remembered screaming, her voice swallowed by the hurricane noise of the rift.
'It's all I've got left,' she said again, Vivant passed her a glass of absinth, and she downed the bitter stuff in a single gulp.
50.For a while things were a bit fragmented, like jumping channels on the telly.
Grating pain as the physician messed with the wound, Ace trying to slap him away, swearing. Sedjet waiting by the bed, smiling at her as she wandered in and out of consciousness.
When she woke up properly, the room was full of lamps, filling the air with golden light and the smell of cooking fat. Sedjet was snoring in a wooden chair by her bedside, scaring off the evil spirits. Ill again, safe again, tucked into bed and watched over.
The scar was a long one, shallow but ragged. She explored it gingerly with her fingers, wishing she could see it properly. It burned dully when she moved her arm. She'd had far worse, but she was nervous as hell about being treated by people who were twenty centuries away from penicillin.
But if anything nasty got into the wound, the little machines inside her would gobble it up, running around in her blood like teenage gangs, leaving Gallifreyan graffiti on the walls of her arteries: THE DOCTOR WAS HERE.
She watched Lord Sedjet sleep for a while, his arms knotted over his chest.
He had a terrific-looking five o'clock shadow. Normally he had his chin and head shaved every morning. Now there was a tiny blur of black stubble on his scalp. Sweet. He had been worried about her.
Pity he was such a bore.
She had been here six months. Half a year on automatic, doing the things she did in any new environment: getting her bearings, finding ways of surviving. Searching for the Doctor and staying in one piece until he could explain the plan. And going to parties. And wearing pretty clothes. And playing games.
Sedjet's generosity was too convenient. Not that she didn't deserve some good luck after all the crap she'd been through. But surely it had been set up, was part of some plot going on just outside the range of her perception?
He wrote her love poems, sometimes, sketching out the hieroglyphs in his own hand slower than Sesehaten, but with firm, broad strokes. The scribe read them out to her, blushing. 'Let me see you step into the pool again, your white dress clinging to your body. Bring me a red fish from the pool, or a spotless lily.' Thank goodness Sedjet's wife couldn't read.
He was reasonably wealthy, sympathetic, and he had genuine affection for her. He could keep her alive in this alien world. And, after all, he did have a nice arse.
But she didn't want any babies, not here, where the women screamed and died in childbirth. There was no contraception. At least, no contraception she was planning on using. There are some places you just don't put crocodile dung.
She wondered if the little machines in her body would let her get pregnant.
51.Sedjet woke up. 'Sister,' he said. 'I hope you are feeling well.'
'I've been better,' she said, remembering not to shrug. 'Looks like you got away without a scratch.'
He smiled. It was the same old bland smile. 'Sister,' he said, 'I've been thinking again about the possibility of a marriage contract.'
Ace felt a great weariness descend on her. She shook her head, gently.
'I am wealthy enough for two wives,' he was saying, too quickly. 'I would not make you a mere concubine. You would spend your time playing music and senet senet, and the servants would bring you date wine. I would give you anything your heart desired.'
'No,' she whispered. 'No, Sedjet, no. I can't stay here, I can't stay in this place forever. I have to find my friends. I have to leave.'