The Most Loved of All Page 5

  Slow tears began to roll down my cheeks. I dampened my handkerchief and pressed it to his cheeks and forehead.

  “Oh, Charlie,” I whispered. “What’s wrong? Why wouldn’t you share the knowledge of this illness with me?”

  “Roddy.” He roused briefly, and had heard my question. “I’m sorry. I wanted to spare you this.”

  I sank down next to his camp bed and enfolded his hand in both of mine. “Charlie…”

  He brought my hands to his mouth and kissed them. “I’m done for, little Rev. I’ve got a cancer that’s been eating away inside me.”

  “How long?” How long had he known?

  “According to the doctor I saw in South Africa, it’s just a matter of time.”

  If he’d seen a doctor back in South Africa, that meant he had to know for at least nine months or so. Had that been why he’d struck me when I’d pleaded with him to see what was wrong? He’d already known? “We shouldn’t have come here.”

  “No, this was the only way I could leave you anything. Carter’s an honest man. He’ll see you get my share of this.”

  “Do you think I care about money?” I wept openly now.

  “You’ve got to have it, little Rev. You’ll lose the farm otherwise.”

  “Bugger the farm!” I said fiercely. “All I want is you.”

  He chuckled, the sound changing to a painful wheeze, and I understood why he no longer wanted me to kiss him. His breath had the sickly-sweet odour of imminent death. I bowed my head until it rested on his chest.

  “Re-remember the last time we made love?” he asked faintly.

  “Just before we left for the desert.” That had been the last time. He hadn’t touched me since.

  “Yes. I…I felt so good, thought I’d beat this thing that was eating me from the inside out. And there you were on the veranda, half naked. I couldn’t resist…I hurt you.”

  “No!”

  “I did. But thank you for forgiving me.” He laid his hand on my hair. “Reach into my pocket, Roddy. I want you to have this. I found it on the farm, after the doctor told me…Meant to have it made into a pendant for you, but…well…I never had the time.”

  I pulled out a chunk of rock with green crystal imbedded within. “What is it, Charlie?”

  He smiled with difficulty. “That’s a diamond in the rough, sweetheart. That’s why you’ve got to keep that farm. If we’ve got a diamond mine on it, you’ll be fucking rich.”

  “But I’ll still be fucking alone!”

  “Ah, now, sweetheart, don’t take on so. We had us a good run.”

  “It isn’t long enough. Not nearly long enough. Please, give me just six months more.”

  “Is that all you want?”

  I shook my head against him. “No,” I said on a choked laugh. “In six months I’ll bargain for another six.”

  His hand touched my hair again, stroking over it gently. “I’m sorry, my own beautiful boy. I’d give you forever, if I could. There’s nothing I can do about it.” He struggled up and unfastened the money belt from his waist. “Never without it these days. Not to say I don’t trust these men, but…”

  “But you don’t trust them.”

  He nodded and gave a gasping chuckle. “Take this. It has all our important papers.”

  My tears dripped onto the worn leather, and I placed it around my own waist.

  “Promise me something.”

  “Anything.”

  “I know you. You’ll grieve for me, and that’s all right. Just don’t grieve too long. I want you to find someone, and when you do, love him and treasure him. Settle down and raise a family.”

  “Charlie—”

  “I don’t want you to be alone. Spending the rest of your life that way—you deserve better than that. So I want you to promise me…” He lost the spurt of energy and sank back down onto his camp bed.

  “I promise.” At that point I would have given him whatever he asked for.

  “Good. That’s good.” He plucked at the strips that covered his chest. “‘m so hot, little Rev.”

  I dipped my handkerchief into a water jug and wiped it over his torso, aghast to find him covered in red welts that he scratched at fitfully.

  “I’ve been a…a proper bastard these last months, sweetheart, and I’m…sorry for that. Want you to…know, you’re my…last love, but you…were my first…love, too.” He panted with the effort to speak.

  I buried my head under his chin and held him. His struggle for breath became more desperate, the wheezing loud in the sudden quiet of the afternoon. “Can’t…breathe, Roddy.”

  I pressed my lips to his and exhaled into his mouth. “Take my breath, Charlie.”

  “Love…you…sweetheart…” His last breath sighed out and he went limp.

  And I sobbed my loss.

  Chapter 7

  “I’m sorry, Mr Sayer, but we’re going to need to bury him immediately.”

  Howard Carter stood behind me. He had returned to see how Charlie was doing, only to find me clinging to his remains. I got slowly to my feet, feeling ancient. “Yes, I know. I’ll prepare the body.”

  He pressed my shoulder. “I’ll see you get his share of this venture also.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I sniffed hard and rubbed my eyes on my sleeve.

  Another press to my arm, and he left me alone with the man who had been all I’d wanted in life.

  I ignored my vague feeling of malaise, rationalizing it as the result of having lost my loved one, and took care of what needed to be done. Then I sought out the leader of our expedition.

  “He’s ready, Mr Carter.” I scratched at my palms, and shuffled my feet, trying to ease the itching in my soles.

  “That was very expeditious.”

  “Yes, I’m nothing if not expeditious,” I said bitterly.

  “I’m sorry, we have no choice but to rush this. The grave has been dug just across the Valley.”

  I borrowed Lord Carnarvon’s Bible and read from it as Charlie was laid in the hard Egyptian soil. “Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of death, I will fear no evil…” Kneeling beside the grave, I tossed in a handful of sand. “Heavenly Father, this is a very good man. Welcome him into heaven. And never let him forget I love him. Amen.” I added hastily and rose to my feet.

  “Here, now, are you all right?” Mr Carter caught me as I stumbled and would have fallen.

  “I’m…I’m feeling a trifle…warm…”

  From behind him, Edward Cramdon came running up, waving something. “I say, Mr Carter, I’ve found it! The Scroll of Thoth!”

  The other man released me and turned so quickly I went to my knees. His excitement was evident—Charlie and I were forgotten.

  “Where did you find it, dear boy?”

  Cramdon laughed giddily. “Do you remember that small tomb I found some months ago? As it turns out, a passage from the Boy King’s tomb connects to it. The Scroll was in a box beneath the depiction of Anubis. There were all kinds of nonsensical warnings and such scratched into it. Superstitious heathens.”

  If that was the case, why hadn’t we discovered it earlier? I’d seen nothing when we’d been in the tomb.

  Wearily, I climbed to my feet and staggered to my tent, finding it difficult to catch my breath. Our tents pitched side by side was the closest Charlie let me get to him on this dig. I was already regretting that I hadn’t objected more strenuously when he’d insisted we sleep apart. I dropped onto my camp bed, unable to untie my work boots for fear I would pitch headfirst onto the ground.

  And as I struggled to breathe, swallowed up by the terror of being unable to draw a breath, I was sucked down into another dream, one that was totally unlike any I’d had before. This wasn’t an erotic dream as the others had been. This was a flat out nightmare…

  * * * *

  A face I had only seen in drawings etched on the wall of a nondescript tomb—the dark god Anubis—loomed over me, and I would have shied away, but I was unable to move.

>   “Take me into your mouth,” he ordered.

  “Can’t…” I gasped, struggling to breathe. The only man I’d ever sucked off was Charlie, and he wasn’t as…endowed…as the god. Was any man?

  “Teremun, you must!”

  “I am not—” An enormous prick forced my lips apart and buried itself deep in my throat. I gagged, and the shaft was slightly withdrawn, enough for me to take a breath before being thrust forward again.

  “You did not use to fear me,” the god said, sorrow in his voice.

  What did he mean, did not use to? I had no time to puzzle it out though. I gulped convulsively, and his prick quivered, pouring the bitter fluid of life down my throat and into my lungs. I was drowning in the god’s semen.

  Panicking, truly terrified, I looked up into that beautiful, pitiless jackal’s-head visage. Helpless to struggle any longer, I surrendered to my fate, certain I was doomed but taking a measure of relief in the knowledge I’d be joining the man I loved.

  And then blackness engulfed me, and I sank into it.

  Chapter 8

  “Mr Sayer? Mr Sayer? I say, young man, are you feeling any better?”

  Blearily I opened my eyes and jerked away, startled by the face that appeared directly above mine. Then I realised it was not the one I had dreamed of the night before.

  “Oh. Mr Carter.” I covered my mouth, certain my breath would smell of semen, although it had just been a dream. I levered myself up on my elbows. “What happened?”

  He sat down heavily on a camp chair and threaded his fingers through his hair. “You’ve been ill, young man. Lord Carnarvon and I were concerned. After we lost Pearson, we feared we would lose you as well. How are you now?”

  I stretched and flexed my body. “I…I feel well, thank you. A bit of a sore throat, but other than that…How long was I ill?”

  The older man scrubbed his face. “It seemed like forever but it’s only been a little more than forty-eight hours. No one noticed until last evening that you were missing.” He was unable to meet my eyes. “Do you feel well enough to return to Cairo? I think, perhaps, it might be best if you left.”

  “Of course I’ll leave. There’s nothing here for me anymore, not with Charlie gone.”

  He handed me an envelope that contained a sheaf of banknotes. “Yours and Pearson’s,” he murmured, still avoiding my eyes. “I regret it couldn’t be more, but it was what we agreed upon. Er, you’d better leave as soon as possible. The men have been pointing to you as the source of bad luck we seem to be having.”

  “Me?”

  “I’m sorry, young man. As Cramdon insists, they’re just superstitious heathens, but once they get something in their heads…well, it takes an act of God to remove it.”

  “It’s almost sunset, sir. Will you let me stay until first thing in the morning?”

  “Of course. I’ve had all Pearson’s possessions brought here. The blighters would have looted his tent if I hadn’t got there first. Actually saw one of them lurking nearby. As soon as he spotted me, he made himself scarce, I can tell you.” Mr Carter looked annoyed.

  “Thank you, sir.” If ancient grave robbers hadn’t feared the wrath of the gods in order to achieve some wealth, it wouldn’t have mattered to their descendants if they thought Charlie was perhaps a cause of the illness going around.

  “Yes, well, I’ll just leave you to it, shall I? Oh, and Mr Sayer?” Mr Carter hovered in the doorway. “It might be wiser if you remained close to your tent until you left. Least in sight, don’t you know?”

  “Of course. But I’ll need to care for my animals.”

  “There’s no need. Rashid is handling that.”

  “I’ll have to thank him before I leave.”

  “Yes. Well, as to that, he’ll be accompanying you.”

  I sat there as he walked out, then heaved a huge sigh before I rose, pulled out my carpetbag, and began to pack my possessions, including that scrap of blue blanket. I folded it carefully around the diamond in the rough that my love had given me, and tucked it away in a corner of the bag.

  I went through Charlie’s things and selected the few items I would take with me. His clothes were too large for my thinner frame, but I wanted his shirts—I planned to wear them when my despair became too great—and of course his slouch hat, and for some reason, the trousers he wore the day he grew so ill.

  I wasn’t hungry, although I hadn’t eaten in more than forty-eight hours. I ventured out of my tent only long enough to brew myself a pot of tea to soothe my throat, then retired within the confines of the canvas shelter.

  I barely finished one cup. My loss surged over me like a tidal wave, and I curled on my camp bed, hugging my knees to my body, and silently mourned the man with whom I had thought to grow old.

  Having slept away the greater portion of the time since I had buried Charlie, I didn’t expect to fall asleep again. I thought simply to rest for the long trip back to Cairo. Once there, I would need to make decisions—about going to Damascus to return the horses to Sheik Abd Al-Malik, about journeying back to the Veldt, about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, about…

  I fell into a dream-tormented sleep…

  Chapter 9

  The personal guards of the high priest of Anubis escorted me through the airy corridors to Lord Khentemsemet’s private quarters. Once inside the huge carved entrance of his sleeping chamber, they stepped back, bowed deeply, and departed.

  I stood by the door, enthralled as always by the beauty of this powerful man. And he loved and valued me, which meant a good deal, since my own brother had been ignoring me for months, something I couldn’t understand. We had shared our mother’s womb and had been close even after our father died when we were nine.

  “Has my brother asked for me?” I’d asked Khentemsemet a short time after we’d become lovers.

  “No, Prince. I’m sure he will if he has need of you.”

  But before this, Tutankhamun had always invited me to join him and his wife, our half-sister, for a meal at least once every decan.

  “Teremun.”

  “Yes, lord?”

  “Come to me.”

  “Yes, lord!” And I’d forgot all about my brother’s sudden lack of caring for me.

  Now the high priest looked up from the scroll that was unrolled on his desk. “Prince Teremun.” He smiled, and once again all I could see was him.

  “My lord. You wished to see me?”

  The tall, muscular priest made a show of selecting a handful of dates from a bowl. “Your brother, King Tutankhamun, has decided to send you away from his royal city.”

  “This is true, Lord.” My brother finally had need of me. He’d sent word to me through one of his chief minister’s servants. “As you know, he wishes me to meet with a delegation of Greeks.” As high priest, Khentemsemet would be privy to that information. I went up to him and touched his arm. “I do not wish to go.”

  “However, you must.” Khentemsemet tapped his lower lip. “I do not trust these Greeks. I hear they enjoy handsome princes such as yourself.” He whirled around to face me. “Drop your loin cloth,” he ordered sharply.

  Having been dedicated to the dark god Anubis from birth, of course I obeyed my high priest. But I would have done so even had I not been so dedicated. I unfastened the silver cloth and let it drop to the floor.

  “Ahhh,” he breathed. “Excellent. I see you wear the belt I had designed for you.”

  The deceptively fragile-looking silver links of the chain hung low around my hips. The clasp constantly brushed against the base of my shaft, keeping me in a state of semi-arousal.

  It was devised so that cunning appurtenances could be attached to the wearer’s—my—body at the high priest’s pleasure, a cock ring to prevent me from achieving orgasm. A sheath to prevent the wearer from touching the aroused flesh. Other things, as well.

  “Prostrate yourself before me, Teremun.”

  I sank to my knees and touched my forehead to the lush, dark-hued rug that co
vered the chill tiles of the floor.

  His footsteps were muted as he crossed to where I abased myself. “It would not do for a prince of Egypt to be used for the pleasure of a horde of Greek barbarians.”

  “No, my lord,” I said in a low voice.

  “It has been too long since you were in my bed, Teremun. When you return from your mission, I shall have to remedy that.”

  “So long, Lord? Must we wait?”

  “So impatient. Should I accommodate you, I wonder?”

  “Yes! Please—” I started at the cool, slick unguent that was inserted into my back passage, and moaned. Because it didn’t heat up within a matter of seconds, I knew it wasn’t the unguent that would result in a maddening itch that only Khentemsemet’s cock could truly ease. “Please, Lord.”

  “Please, what, Prince? Sodomize you? I fear I must deny us both that pleasure.” He removed his finger, and something blunt and hard pressed at my anus. I trembled at the sensation, for I knew what he was inserting into me. The onyx phallus—the huge phallus we’d played with on occasion, which he’d given me the same day as the ivory one, would fasten to the chain I wore.

  “In that case, whatever my lord desires.”

  He snapped the last link to the belt, then walked to where my head still touched the floor. He tipped up my chin until he was able to look into my eyes, and he stroked back my hair. “Such a handsome prince,” he mused. “None would be able to resist you, I fear. You will not remove this until you return to this palace. However,” he chuckled when he saw from my expression that I would willingly acquiesce to his request…his order, “you may remove it when you must visit the necessary, but other than that, if it leaves your passage, I shall know, and I shall be most unhappy about it. You don’t wish me to be unhappy, do you, Prince Teremun?”

  “Never, Lord Khentemsemet.” I touched my forehead to the carpeting again. “Thank you.”

  He raised my face once more, this time until it was opposite his groin. He had dropped his own loincloth and his rampant shaft brushed against my lips. I knew what he desired of me. I opened my mouth and took him in. “Your brother, the Pharaoh, would be amazed to see how well you suck my cock, princeling. And just think, if you had been born the elder, he would be on his knees before me now.”