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Ellie’s gaze locked unerringly on a burly figure with a great black beard and a striped galabeya. The gentleman stood beside a bored-looking donkey tied to a wheeled display, which was thickly packed with trinkets.
“On second thought,” Ellie said, “why don’t you watch my bags for a moment?”
She plucked a pair of silver milliemes from her pocket and tossed them to the boy, who caught them deftly. He promptly took up an intimidating pose over the battered valise and slightly smelly rucksack, the unbothered cat lounging at his feet.
Her belongings secured, Ellie pushed through the shifting bodies to the hawker, where she cast an assessing gaze over the assembled objects that lined his cart. Her attention snagged on a row of identical statuettes roughly six inches in height, crafted from a softly gleaming blue ceramic.
“Salâmu ?alaykum, Sitt el Kol,” the large fellow said as he noticed Ellie’s presence. “You want very fine Egyptian artifact? Take home with you? These are very nice.” He picked up one of the figurines and held it out for her inspection. A gold tooth winked from within his grin.
The little statues had all the appearance of being shabtis—representations of servants and courtiers that were meant to offer service to the Ancient Egyptian dead during their afterlives. Shabtis were depicted in the form of mummies, with crossed arms holding the crook and flail of Osiris and bodies covered in hieroglyphic inscriptions.
They were found in great numbers in tombs dating from the New Kingdom to the Ptolemaic period. Ellie had previously studied several specimens that had found their way to England. The small blue statue that the hawker held in his hand looked like a perfectly reasonable example of the type.
“Authentic Ancient Egyptian,” he said proudly, offering the figure to her.
“I should certainly hope not,” Ellie retorted.
At Ellie’s words, the vendor’s face blanked.
“Because selling Ancient Egyptian objects is, of course,illegal.” Ellie paused, her mouth creasing into a frown. “Unless one is the director of the Antiquities Service of Egypt, of course, in which case one may pick any artifacts that one deems extraneous and offer them up for sale like a common street hawker.” She caught herself as she glanced up at the common street hawker in front of her. “No offense intended, of course.”
“Sitt?” the hawker said.
“It is only that no respectable gentleman can claim to be rigorously upholding his responsibility to preserve Egypt’s ancient heritage while at the same time offering mummy pieces and amulets for sale like a Portobello Road pawnbroker!” Ellie continued pointedly.
Ellie had strong feelings about the Service des Antiquités d'Egypte. For one thing, it wasn’t Egyptian at all. The department was directed by a bespectacled Frenchman and run under the auspices of the British Consul General—the English civil servant who had been ruling the country in everything but name for the last fifteen years.
The Antiquities Service claimed half of all the artifacts excavated in Egypt, allowing the rest to be carted back to whatever country the archaeologist—or the wealthy fellows who funded him—happened to hail from.
But even the relics retained by Egypt weren’t safe. The director of the Antiquities Service was also empowered to declare artifacts ‘duplicates’ of others in the collection, in which case they were put on sale in a designated room within the museum, where they might be bought as trinkets by any tourist who happened to pass through.
Like most aspects of Britain’s unofficial rule in Egypt, the system was designed to benefit privileged Europeans and Americans at the cost of the Egyptians—who likely had a thing or two to say about which parts of their heritage ought to be hawked off to the highest bidder.
Ellie plucked the shabti from the vendor’s hands and gave it a careful examination.
“It appears to be made from blue faience—a commonly used material for such objects,” she explained to a white-haired Turkish gentleman who had stopped beside her.
At her words, the gentleman cast an uneasy look up at the looming, narrow-eyed vendor, and then fled.
“The figure is in a traditional Osirian pose with crossed arms, tripartite wig, and false beard,” Ellie continued. “All typical for a New Kingdom funeral shabti. The faience also exhibits the patina one would expect for an artifact of this age.”
A crowd had gathered around Ellie, looking with nervous interest from her to the glowering street hawker. Ignoring her onlookers, Ellie flipped the shabti over for a peek under its feet. Her examination was interrupted by the cry of a familiar voice.
“There you are!”
Ellie turned to see a lacy peach parasol barreling through the crowd. The sunshade tilted back as it reached the souvenir cart, revealing the smiling face of Constance Tyrrell.
Ellie’s childhood best friend barely topped five feet in height, her petite figure currently shown off by an elegantly tailored summer dress in the same rosy hue as her parasol. Her rich black hair was pinned up under an expansive hat flush with soft feathers, while the white arc of her smile contrasted prettily with her warmly brown complexion.
Behind her, a motorcar beeped an irritated horn at a well-appointed carriage bearing Constance’s family crest, the door of which hung open.
“Eleanora!” Constance squealed happily as she threw her arms around Ellie. A pair of bystanders ducked back to avoid the sweep of her parasol. “But what are youdoinghere? How on earth have you come to be in Egypt? And why am I only hearing about it in a telegram reading ‘Arrived Alexandria. Three-ten train to Cairo. Transport appreciated.’”
“They charge by the word,” Ellie countered reasonably as she frowned at the tiny lines of painted hieroglyphs on the base of the shabti.
Ellie had known Constance since they were schoolgirls. Their paths had parted after that, as Ellie fought her way into university and Constance was shipped to finishing school to be polished up for a future husband. She had so far managed to avoid acquiring one, shaking off all the would-be suitors that her well-meaning parents threw at her.
When Ellie had last seen Constance two months before, she had been packing for the family’s move to Egypt, where her father, Sir Robert, served as the new Comptroller General charged with auditing the budgets and economic policies put together by the country’s British administrators.
