King of Kings Read online

  He was nearly at the club. His hand closed around his rescued watch. The gold was cool to the touch. He knew the inscription without looking at it: To Penrod, Always, Amber. A shy and simple declaration. Perhaps Lady Agatha did not mean to say anything offensive to Amber, perhaps she was only curious. Perhaps he would find them both talking fashions and wedding arrangements and his only punishment for his indiscretions would be that sly, sensual look from his former lover. He began to walk more quickly, and that small flame of hope tried to flicker into life, even though he knew it was false.

  Saffron Courtney, née Benbrook, was already tired of Cairo. It had taken them two weeks to reach the city, traveling through the Ethiopian highlands on ill-tempered donkeys, then by steamer from Djibouti up the Red Sea to Suez and then here. After the first excitement of seeing Amber was over, Saffron had felt listless and bored. If she had had a studio here, a home, it would have been more bearable, but stuck in the hotel in the middle of the city she had nothing to fill her days. Ryder was out from morning until evening, and Penrod kept taking Amber to the stupid Gheziera Club. Ryder Courtney was not deemed worthy to be a member, so Saffron refused to go anywhere near the place. Penrod, who of course played polo at the club, was always taking Amber onto the little island on which the clubhouse stood. Saffron snorted. They had even made the gardens look like an English estate. Idiots. Why come to Africa at all if you wanted to pretend you were still living in Chelsea?

  Saffron liked the bazaars and narrow streets of Cairo, how the light was softened by the balconies of the old houses, which hung so close together in places the women could pass each other sweetmeats across the alleyways, and the great stacks of glinting metal goods, mounds of dates and almonds, and open sacks of red and yellow spice. She went out to paint what she saw, but found herself surrounded and harassed. Once she dressed as a boy and wandered around with her sketchbook. She was thrilled with the drawings she made that day, but even Ryder’s friends had been horrified at the idea of a European woman going about dressed in men’s clothing and they had made her promise not to do it again. In her luxurious suite in the Shepheard’s Hotel, all she could do was paint still lifes: bowls of fruit and flowers, which irritated her so much that when Ryder said he thought her work in progress “very pretty,” she had pelted him with oranges.

  She was also profoundly bored with being pregnant and feeling sick made her cross. When Ryder told her they might have to be in the city several months longer while he made his arrangements for his next enterprise, she had burst into tears. She was not a woman who cried often, and the incident had surprised her as much as it had Ryder. He had said something about taking a house, something small and not in the European Quarter, so she might feel less confined, but she had been so sick and miserable by that point, she couldn’t tell if he really meant it. The people at the Gheziera Club might not approve of the Courtneys setting up in such a place, but Saffron thought they could go hang. In her own house she’d be able to entertain her husband’s Arab friends and get their children to pose for her. She bit her fingernails and hoped very hard that Ryder had meant it. However, he had a great deal on his mind at the moment.

  While hunting mountain nyala in the mountains east of Adrigat some years ago, Ryder had discovered signs of what might be a large deposit of silver-bearing ore. He had sent the sample to the assay office of the Cape Colony and when they escaped from Khartoum and made their way to the court of Emperor John in Abyssinia, they found the report waiting for them. It confirmed the ore was rich with the precious metal. She and Ryder were both favored in the Abyssinian court. Ryder had brought the emperor news of the dervish activities on his borders, and the empress had made a pet of Saffron, proudly wearing dresses of her design. They had acquired all the proper permits, agreed what percentage of the silver mined would go to the emperor’s treasury and sent agents to purchase the land and negotiate with the local chiefs. Since then, Saffron knew her husband’s every second thought had been of the strike and how to exploit it. Now they were in Cairo he was spending all his time with mining engineers and experts in metallurgy.

  Saffron knew Ryder loved the highlands of Tigray. The landscape was an astonishing series of high plains and steep valleys studded with ancient churches cut into the rocks and monasteries perched on the highest peaks, only accessible by rickety rope ladders. Like the desert it was burning hot in the day and cold at night, but its beauty was more striking than the austere grandeur of the Sahara. Lush after the rains, its meadows would fill with game, exotic birds and strange purple and white blooms. In the dry season, when the landscape turned to the color of a lion’s pelt, the villages would stand out as vivid patches of emerald green. The people were farmers who measured their wealth in friends and livestock, but they were also storytellers and singers of wit and grace, inheritors of a culture rich with myth and mystery. The site of the prospective mine was in an isolated and uninhabited valley three miles from the nearest village, and Saffron longed to be there with her husband. Every night after they made love she asked Ryder to describe it all to her again and explain every detail of how the camp would be laid out, where they would grow their food and keep the animals, the workers’ huts, the buildings they would need to process the ore. After years of trading across Africa, Ryder wanted to build something permanent. He believed the mine could make him very wealthy, but he also wanted to bring wealth to the people of Tigray. He talked of training engineers and metalworkers from the local population, of how the profits of the mine might protect them all from the vicissitudes of famine or war. Saffron could imagine no higher happiness than helping him, bringing up their children as the mine grew, and she desperately wanted this exciting future to start at once. However, such an undertaking needed a huge amount of planning. Ryder wanted to recruit a handful of American and European mining experts. He needed men experienced in working in isolated locations, so began looking for veterans of the great Comstock silver strike in Western Utah. He also needed time to gather the equipment required to process the ore. Saffron was not very interested in the details of the machinery. When Ryder began talking about quicksilver, amalgamating pans, feeders and stamps, she stopped listening. It all seemed very expensive, and very heavy, so difficult to transport into the mountains, but she had complete faith in her husband’s ability to arrange everything to perfection. She only wished it wasn’t taking so long.

  In the meantime she gazed dreamily out of the window. So it was she who saw Amber return to the hotel from Zamalek Island. Even from this angle Saffron could tell something was wrong with her sister. She felt it in her chest, a sudden sick squeeze of the heart. She jumped up from her seat, her own troubles forgotten, and hurried to Amber’s rooms.

  •••

  Penrod asked after his fiancée at the club gates. The servants all knew Miss Benbrook—an English girl who looked like a flower grown from the first rains, who could also speak a fluent, classical Arabic that made them feel as if they were all poets, was not quickly forgotten. Penrod could also tell from their narrowed eyes and short replies that Amber had not looked happy when she left, and they, her champions, blamed him. Let them think what they liked. While he was asking his questions, Captain Burnett sauntered past. The captain stopped by Penrod and paused to light a cigarette. The flame swayed slightly.

  “Miss Benbrook’s run off again, Ballantyne,” he said in a drawl. “Was taking tea with Lady A, then dashed off in the most peculiar manner.” He blew a lungful of blue-gray smoke into the afternoon air and chuckled to himself. “Tried to throw herself into the arms of one of the Arab servants on her way out. I suppose you can take the girl out of the harem, but old habits die hard!”

  Penrod’s hand went to the hilt of his saber, but Burnett was swept out of the way by Lieutenant Butcher.

  “Shut up, you idiot,” he hissed at his friend before turning to Penrod. “Apologies, Major. Man’s had too much sun.” He hustled Burnett in the direction of the shade, while still bowing and smiling slavishly toward
Penrod.

  Penrod watched them go, then stepped into the carriage waiting at the top of the line. He gave his orders for the Shepheard’s Hotel brusquely. The driver set off with a sharp jerk, which Penrod was sure was deliberate.

  •••

  When Penrod was shown into the private sitting room of Amber’s suite, his fiancée was alone. Her small face was very pale, but her manner was calm. Too calm. Amber was a girl of quick smiles, a keen, witty observer of the world around her. Not until he saw her as she was now, her expression so blank she might have been carved from marble, did he realize how much he loved that liveliness, that enthusiasm for life she wore like some women wear jewels. Jewels. A sparkle of diamonds caught his eye: it was the engagement ring he had given her so recently, a simple circlet of small but perfectly cut diamonds lying on the small rosewood table in front of the empty fireplace. He had sent Yakub to buy it and barely glanced at it himself, but he remembered the look in her eyes when he gave it to her—she had shone with happiness.

  “Major Ballantyne, please take the ring. Our engagement is over.” Now she spoke quietly, with no inflection or emphasis in her voice.

  Penrod forced an indulgent, affectionate laugh and held out his hands. “My darling girl, I have no idea what poisonous rubbish that woman has told you, but please ignore it. Agatha arranged for that little pickpocket to steal from me to get the chance to speak to you alone and slander me. She is jealous, that is all.”

  Amber stepped swiftly away from him so the low coffee table was between them. “I know that, Penrod. She was your lover, wasn’t she?”

  He did not reply, but let his hands fall to his sides.

  “I thought so,” Amber continued. “Whether she said it out of jealousy or not, I still think everything she told me was true. She wouldn’t have enjoyed saying it so much if she were lying. So I cannot marry you.”

  Penrod had felt fear very rarely in his life, but he felt it now. He pushed it down.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  Amber turned toward him. He saw in her eyes a flash of sudden rage and her cheeks were flushed.

  “Ridiculous? Did you or did you not seduce my sister Rebecca?”

  Her anger awoke his own, and he held on to it like a friend. “I did. Your sister, my dear girl, was rather easy to seduce. Ryder Courtney had her too before she was bundled into a harem. A place for which she has a natural talent, I can assure you.”

  “You monster! She saved my life! If she had not protected me . . .” She rested one hand on the mantelpiece, looking away from him. He could see her thin shoulders shaking as she struggled to control herself. “I know about my sister and Mr. Courtney, so you can’t throw that at me. Ryder Courtney is a better man than you are. He told Saffron all about it. He felt that Saffron should know everything before they married. He asked Rebecca to marry him but she hoped that you were coming back, so she refused him. Ryder told Saffron everything because he is a good man, not like you and your stupid friends at that stupid club who think you are all so superior. Officers and gentlemen? The morals were better in the harem.”

  Penrod’s voice was icy. “I did come back. I came back for both of you.”

  “But you’d already decided you could never marry her by then, hadn’t you, Penrod? That she would be an embarrassment to you? I bet you were relieved when you found that she was staying there, choosing to remain in the hands of that monster Osman Atalan to protect her baby. She did everything to save me. To save me, Penrod. Then you go to that viper Lady Agatha’s bed and dare to call my sister Rebecca a whore.” She made no attempt to hide her disgust.

  He tried to soften his voice. “Rebecca gave herself to me. Very willingly. Was I supposed to be pleased to find myself tied to a concubine? I know you are just a child and can’t possibly understand such things, Amber, but yes, I am glad she stayed. If I’d been forced to marry her, my career would have been ruined. Now be sensible, my silly girl, and put your ring back on.”

  He had turned away slightly as he spoke, wanting to hide his own rising emotion from her. When he turned back he was gazing into the muzzle of a Webley revolver. Amber’s hand was steady now, and her finger was on the trigger.

  “You, Major Ballantyne, were never fit to touch a hair on my sister’s head. You are not worthy of licking the dust from her feet. And you are not worthy of me either. Was I a silly girl when I washed your filth off you while you were dying, tortured by Osman Atalan? Was I a silly girl when I killed the dervish who was about to split you in half by the river in Khartoum? Do you think I am silly now?” She cocked the hammer of the revolver with her thumb. David Benbrook had taught all his daughters to be experts with firearms.

  “Get out of this room, Major Ballantyne, or I swear to God, for Rebecca’s sake, I will shoot you dead where you stand.” She was staring at him with an expression of utter contempt. She was brave, beautiful, and implacable.

  Penrod drew in one deep breath, then bowed to her. “I see you have made up your mind and nothing I can say will change it. I will leave you then with my warmest wishes for your every happiness.” He walked out of the room, closing the door calmly behind him as he left.

  Amber lowered the gun, carefully uncocked it and removed the bullets, like her father had taught her, before laying it down in its box on the mantelpiece. Then her strength finally gave way and she fell to her knees and wept quietly.

  Penrod descended the wide mahogany staircase to the hotel lobby in a sort of stupor. She didn’t mean it, he told himself. She was upset. Agatha had shocked her, but once Amber had been given time to think, she would come back to him. No one need know anything about it. A note would be waiting for him at the club or at his house before nightfall.

  As his polished boot hit the tile of the lobby he heard his name called. It was Ryder Courtney, leaning up against the bar with his mining cronies. Ryder was a tall man, broad-shouldered with thick, black, tousled hair and deeply tanned skin. While every other Englishman in the city was either in uniform, or wearing a high starched collar and tie, Ryder was dressed with his usual casual disregard for custom or fashion. He wore a scarf as a loose cravat and a long leather traveling coat. He looked as if he still had the dust of the Abyssinian highlands on his boots.

  “Ballantyne, come and raise a glass with us! Saffy and I have a house here. Our wives will be able to fuss over weddings and babies, then when they start fighting, Saffy and I will head to Axum. We are going to mine silver and these fine gentlemen will find me the expertise and the materials. Come have a drink to the latest Courtney enterprise.”

  Penrod crossed the space between them in three short strides. He grabbed Courtney by the collar and brought his face close to his.

  “Couldn’t keep your mouth shut about the sister, could you?”

  Ryder stopped smiling, set his tumbler carefully down on the bar and looked at Penrod calmly. “I told my wife the truth about what happened between me and Rebecca, if that’s what you mean. Saffy deserved to hear it. If you’ve lied to Amber and have been found out, that’s your problem, soldier-boy.”

  The men either side of them could hear the low growl of threat in Ryder’s voice. They picked up their drinks and moved quietly to a discreet distance.

  Penrod felt his rage blossom in him like a dark flower. “You’re a disgrace, Courtney. You make me ashamed to be an Englishman. Spilling your guts out to a woman. Well, you’ve done it now. Amber has decided she doesn’t want to marry me anymore, so I suppose you are saddled with her.”

  Ryder moved fast, bringing his hands up and through the hold Penrod had on his collar and bursting it apart with the explosive force of his broad, muscled forearms. Penrod staggered back and Ryder hunched his shoulders and bent his knees a little, ready to move. One of the waiters had stopped in the middle of polishing the glasses and was staring at them open-mouthed. His colleague, obviously better at spotting the signs of trouble, was swiftly removing the better bottles of champagne from the cut-glass shelving behind the bar and sec
uring them under the mahogany countertop.

  “Amber’s a good girl, better than you deserve, and she will always have a home with me and Saffy if she wants one. She’ll breathe cleaner air in the highlands rather than in that swamp of a club with you.”

  Penrod charged at him. Ryder was waiting for him to move and was the larger man, but he recognized a murderous rage in Penrod’s eyes that startled him. Penrod delivered an explosive uppercut to Ryder’s jaw. Ryder felt the pain burst in a white blast through his skull, and realized with amazement that Penrod was going to try and kill him with his bare hands. He blocked Penrod’s following left and concentrated his own power into a punch into Penrod’s kidneys. It was a blow that would have slowed a bull elephant; it lifted Penrod off his feet and slammed him back into a pyramid of champagne glasses. They exploded into a storm of shards and scattered across the marble floor. Penrod didn’t even seem to feel it. He grabbed on to the brass rail that ran along the upper edge of the bar and used it to launch himself into a flying kick at Ryder’s chest. It forced all the air from Ryder’s lungs and he staggered back. Penrod grabbed a solid soda siphon behind him and lifted himself up to smash it across Ryder’s temple. Somewhere a woman screamed. Ryder dodged the blow, twisting sideways, but it caught him on his forehead. The skin split and blood ran into his eyes, but he trusted his gut and his answering left hook connected. The siphon was knocked from Penrod’s hand and spun across the floor, but Penrod leaped forward like a lion attacking a buffalo. Ryder went down heavily on his back, with Penrod on top of him, and felt Penrod’s hands close around his throat. Ryder got his left hand free and struck Penrod again and again in the ribs. He felt the bone crack under his fist, but the grip on his throat never weakened. Ryder looked into Penrod’s eyes and saw in them the killing fury of a carnivorous animal. For the first time in his life, Ryder was afraid he was taking his last breaths. Black spots appeared in his vision and he felt the strength draining from his limbs.