"A Catholic priest? In southern Egypt? Sounds intriguing."

You have no idea. "No, not Catholic. A little closer to home than that. But it's a story that will have to wait for another day."

Najya fi nally slid her ballpoint pen into a pocket, but she still didn't sit down. "Yes, I suppose it will. It seems that one or another of us is always in a hurry. I wish we'd talked more yesterday."

"I do too. Especially since the rush was all for nothing anyhow . I met other obstacles."

"Yes, you did rush of f, didn't you? And with a provocative last remark. Do you remember? You said 'the story that you tell is the story that tells you.' Maybe you can let me know now what that was supposed to mean."

Valerie paused, ordering her thoughts. "It's the Rashomon effect,"

if you know the great fi lm by Kurasawa. The idea that absolute truth is impossible because each person has their own story , so to speak.

And whatever story you inherit colors your perception of all reality , including, in the eyes of some, your experience of death."

"'Including the experience of death.' Now there' s a remark that begs discussion." Najya drummed her fi ngers on the back of a chair .

"Look, Harry's waiting for me to show up and start the next interview, and we've got them all day tomorrow. But maybe we, you and I, can get together the day after. It seems like there's a really great conversation just waiting for us to have."

Valerie smiled. "I think so too. Unfortunately , I've got ur gent family business that will involve a trip to El Kharga to my relative. But I'd love to get together when I get back."

"Ah, the mysterious priest of the mysterious religion."

"It's not such a mystery. If all goes well with him, I'll give you a call and we can talk about him. It's a story you won't have heard before."

"Don't forget, I'm a journalist. I've spent much of my adult life reporting other people's stories. I'm hard to surprise."

Najya glanced past her , and Valerie turned her head to see what had caught her eye. But it was just Harry standing in the shadows outside the coffee house.

"Yes, please call me. See if you can shock me," Najya said and went to join him.

Valerie watched the two of them disappear. "No problem."

* 86 *

Vulture's Kiss

21.

Graven Images Valerie checked the scrap of paper in her hand. "This is the corner, the crossing of Sharia' Suyufi a and Shari'el Muzafar."

She squinted, struggling to read the heavily calligraphied Arabic letters. "That must be it right there. The shop called Mahal Tamaatheel Manhoota."

Derek squinted as well, in solidarity. "What does that mean?"

"Shop of Graven Images."

"Well, duh." He indicated the rows of plaster and ceramic fi gurines displayed on the steps at both sides of the entrance.

It was the usual: Anubis in large and small, Horus in three sizes and two colors, Isis and infant, clunky and mass produced. "It' s the same stuff they sell all over Cairo," she agreed, a little disappointed.

They stepped from the bright light of the market street into the dimly lit shop. A man stood behind a narrow counter-small, turbaned, and clean shaven. The sleeves of his galabaya were rolled up to the elbows, exposing well-muscled forearms and knotted hands. The hands of a craftsman in some hard material.

"Sabah el kheer, " Valerie said.

"Sabah el noor ," he replied, but made no attempt to sell. He seemed to wait, rather, for them to explain themselves.

"I...uh, see you sell statues,"

Valerie began awkwardly . She realized suddenly that she hadn't planned what to say. The ordering of a statue with a personal identity, the identity of a dead man, was not a transaction you could initiate without explanation.

The merchant nodded, his hands fl at on the counter in front of him. "Do you also make them?" Derek asked.

"Yes, I do," he answered cautiously in English.

"Oh, then could you make one of me?" Derek laid his open hand on his chest, in case there was some doubt as to who "me" referred to.

The man's eyes shone with sudden interest. "Yes, yes, of course. A very good one." He studied Derek's face as if smitten.

* 87 *

"In what material?" He took up a small sketch pad and walked a half circle around Derek, scrutinizing, then sketching each feature. He nodded faintly to himself as if in some inner dialogue. "And how large?"

"Whatever you can make fast. And about this high." Valerie held one palm about forty centimeters above the other. "Small enough to fi t into a knapsack."

"That would be wood. Painted, of course," the shopkeeper said.

Valerie thought for a moment. "Yes, but a shade lighter than him, and slightly more slender. The face should be the same, but with a braid of hair on one side of his head."

"Ah, like a priest, you mean." The craftsman made another circle around Derek's head, sketching him in profi le and three-quarter, then from front and back.

"Yes, exactly. Like an ancient priest. Oh, and one other thing.

Please add a small scar." She turned Derek by the arm and pointed to a spot under his right shoulder blade. "Right here."

Derek looked doubtfully at the sketch. "I can leave you a picture, you know. Not to take anything away from your drawing."

"If you like," the Egyptian said, laying the pad aside. "A picture will be fi ne."

Valerie couldn't tell whether he was offended.

Derek fi shed a small leather calendar book from his shoulder bag. From its middle he drew a glossy fl yer folded in quarters and opened it. Dashing black man, in tuxedo and white tie. The caption was straightforward. Derek Ragin. Countertenor.

"You carry publicity photos with you?" Valerie asked, surprised.

"Of course. Opera singers aren' t like archaeologists. We have to advertise."

Taciturn, the Egyptian laid the photo on the counter. "In two days.

You can pick it up and we will discuss price."

Valerie hesitated, instinctively reluctant to agree to a transaction without a stated price. Then she realized that under the circumstances, they were prepared to pay almost anything anyhow.

Derek hesitated too, scratching something just below his ear .

"Um...maybe I'm vain. I dunno. But could you show us some of your work? I'm just curious. Do you have any fi gures like this that you've already made? Of real people, I mean."

* 88 *

Vulture's Kiss The Egyptian looked at him for a long moment, as if having to make a decision. Finally he nodded. "In the back."

He led them toward a corner of the already tiny shop to a hanging carpet that had seen much better days. Dust wafted off its fringes as he moved it aside to expose a narrow door . Taking a key from the pocket of his galabaya, he unlocked the padlock that hung through an iron loop over the door handle, then laid back the rusted hasp and tugged on the door. It hung badly with age and so scraped along the fl oor as he opened it.

"Just a moment. No light in there." He moved away briefl y and returned with a battery-powered lantern, then led them into an airless room.Shelves were hung on three sides, and on every one, from fl oor to ceiling, hundreds of faces stared back at them. Statues, dolls, fi gurines, from a few centimeters to a meter in height. They were made of wood, painted and plain, plaster, ceramic, and polished stone. Some had cloth costumes and woolen hair, like dolls. Others were statuettes, their hair and garments cut into the wood or carved on the stone.

"Did you make all of these?" Valerie asked incredulously.

"Only a few ," the Egyptian said. "It is my calling to look after them."

"May I?" Valerie took the lantern from his hand and held it up closer to the fi gures, trying to make sense of them. Finally, she realized that they were organized historically.

The most numerous ones on the highest shelves were pharaonic and mostly basalt: noblemen, military fi gures, priests, high-ranking women. On the shelf below stood similar statues, both in stone and in terra cotta, but more elaborately carved or costumed. Greco-Roman costumes identifi ed them as Ptolemaic. Below these, there were fewer, and their costumes varied greatly: rich Byzantine gowns, Saracen silks, and wide Bedouin haiks. In the corner were some dozen more, of various races. Black ones appeared to be Nubian, the white ones European peasants. Curiously , many of them had broken noses, and some even had their entire faces smashed away.

"Who are all of these people? I mean, who were they made for?"

Valerie asked.

"The lost ones," the Egyptian said enigmatically.

* 89 *

At her shoulder, Derek faced the shelves on the opposite side of the tiny closet. "What are those?" He pointed to an open ebony chest on the shelf above them where some of the fi gurines were set aside, though only the heads were visible. Without waiting for an answer, he reached overhead and took two of the fi gures from the open box.

He held one in each hand. "They're so beautiful-so realistic.

This one here with the pointy helmet looks like a Saracen, or whatever they call them. And this other one, with the big red cross over his armor, even has blond hair. It's a crusader, isn't it?" he asked the shopkeeper over his shoulder.

"Please leave them in their place." The man took them gently out of Derek's hands, set them back in their chest, and fl icked off the lantern.

"I think that will be all," he said, ushering them out. He closed the door behind them and threaded the padlock through the staple, pressing it from both sides until it clicked into place.

He was suddenly businesslike, impatient. "You must go now so I can make your likeness," he said and urged them through the front door of the shop. "Come back in two days."

The door closed behind them and they stared at each other. Derek pursed his lips, then threaded her arm in his. "Did that closet give you the creeps the way it did me?"

"A little bit. Those fi gures obviously weren't made for tourists."

"The two that I held were like chess pieces, except with real faces.

Like they were alive once. And the whole room was like a...I don' t know...like a haunted house. Didn't you feel it?"

She thought for a minute. "No, to me it felt like a graveyard."

"I'll tell you what the creepiest thing of all was. That crusader."

"Why?"

"Except for the blond hair, he looked a lot like you."

* 90 *

Vulture's Kiss

22.

Miles Christi-1097 Sir Ludolf of Tournai kneed his horse closer to the promontory and dismounted, dazzled by the sight.

Constantinople spread over the hills before him, and on the plain below, twenty thousand men were gathered. At the eastern edge of the encampment he could see the standards of Flanders with their green crosses. Beneath them he thought he could make out his own tent where his grooms cleaned his armor and prepared his supper.

The spring wind blew through his honey blond hair and cooled his sweat. So this was it, then. His quiet euphoria and the pounding in his chest were what the bishops had meant by the "rejoicing in the Lord."

How much his life had changed and was about to change since Antwerp.

He had far too long been the useless youngest son. His long face and too-full lips made him look effeminate, he knew, and his wide hips and long torso made him the butt of the men' s jokes. When his family had fi nally brokered a match for him with some tiny docile creature, he had known contentment of a sort, particularly when she informed him a child was on the way . But evil had touched his land and household, and his wife had died along with the babe she was trying to bear . For months he had wallowed in bitterness, resenting every offspring gotten by his brothers. But then he heard Pope Urban at Clermont, and had the Dream, and pledged his sword to God.

Suddenly he had a purpose, a noble one, that set him above the others. For a year he had been on the march, along with a troop of twenty vassals and their grooms and servants.

The preparations had at fi rst seemed endless, organizing horse and household. But fi nally he joined Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse, as they gathered infantry, then marched across the mountains to Genoa and down the western side of Italy.

Rome had been a disappointment. His Holiness had issued the call for the entire endeavor , but the Holy See from which he drew his authority held little glory. The ancient Basilica of St. Peter where Ludolf * 91 *

had gone to pray was in disrepair. And it disgusted him that sheep were grazing in the Forum and in many of the city's quarters.

No matter. He was sworn to a holier pilgrimage. The trip across the Adriatic had been the real test of his faith. One of their ships had foundered in the storm, dashed against rocks. But he himself felt no fear. His faith and the certainty that God had chosen him for a nobler contest had sustained him.

He startled at the sound of hoof on gravel and turned to see his cousin dismount. The ruddy knight tethered his horse and strode toward him. "What a sight, eh, Ludolf?" The other knight took off his helmet and held it in the crook of his arm, its plumes still fl uttering in the breeze that blew over the promontory . "Here we are, standing before the richest city in Christendom!"