Barnabas Tew and The Case Of The Missing Scarab Page 9

  “Indeed!” agreed Barnabas, seeing the sense of the suggestion. “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” he said, although he had been thinking no such thing until just that very moment. “But,” he asked, “how might we do that?”

  “Well,” answered Set, “if it were me, since the problem is that the land is drying up, I might go see Khnum, who is in charge of flooding the river. He lives on Elephantine Isle. Perhaps he could be of assistance.”

  “Excellent idea,” said Barnabas.

  “Never fear, we shall treat this matter as our top priority,” agreed Wilfred.

  “Very well then,” said Set by way of dismissal. Barnabas and Wilfred, however, were unsure of where, exactly, Elephantine Isle might be and how, exactly, they might get there. Therefore, they simply stood looking blankly back at Set.

  “Off you go!” said Set, a bit of annoyance creeping into his voice. It seemed that the god of chaos, whilst quick to mirth and a great deal more pleasant than expected, was also a bit short of patience.

  Barnabas swiveled as though to obey, but then he stopped and turned back. He performed this quick little half turn, back and forth, forward and back, first facing Set and then the door, several times before at last stopping to face somewhere midway. “Um,” he said carefully. The change in Set’s mood had made Barnabas nervous again, and he felt very uncertain of what to do.

  “Um, what?” asked Set, his jaw working in irritation.

  “Well, it’s just, you see, we are from quite far away, so… Well, where, exactly, did you say Elephant Isle was?”

  “Elephantine Isle…” Set sighed.

  “Yes, yes, of course!” said Barnabas. “So, it’s…” He looked about in every direction as though his gaze might chance upon the proper course and the testy god could simply point him in that way.

  “Bah!” exhaled Set loudly, exasperated. “One of my servants will take you in a chariot. You’ll get there much quicker that way.” He waved them off violently this time, dismissing them with finality. He’d had his amusement and now wished for the interview to be over so that he might pursue other, more enjoyable, chaotic pastimes.

  Barnabas and Wilfred bowed as they took their leave. Eager to be out of the presence of the moody god, they hurried back to the door through which they had entered. They were led now by an attendant (which was a merciful change from being carried in by the rough hippo-headed guards). At last they reached the door, and were about to pass through it (and therefore out of the throne room and into the relative safety of the castle proper, which at least put them out of Set’s immediate eyesight), when they heard his voice once more.

  “And please,” called the god, “do take a bath first. That smell is abominable.”

  Barnabas, his nerves bow-string tight, jumped. Wilfred blushed in embarrassment, but he managed to turn and bow respectfully once more. Then they were through the doors and in the hallway, and being bustled along by various servants who fluttered around them, preparing them for their trip.

  Their clothes were stripped unceremoniously from them, even as they protested. They themselves were then thrust into two large wooden barrels filled with heated water (which, they had to admit, felt quite good), before being dressed in long tan robes.

  Their trousers and jackets were never seen by them again, which they much regretted, although both were far too intimidated to ask questions or make demands about the matter. And, in truth, they had to admit the new robes were quite comfortable and much more appropriate for the warm weather here than their heavy British suits.

  Soon enough, Barnabas and Wilfred found themselves in a horse-drawn chariot, proceeding at a goodly pace down an extremely bumpy road, their robes billowing about them in the wind. As the nervousness of being in the castle wore off, both began to relax, and Barnabas secretly thought that he must indeed make quite a dashing figure as he raced about the countryside in a chariot, his robe blowing dramatically about his legs.

  When at last Wilfred felt that they had got far enough away from the castle to risk conversation, he said, “So, Set was not at all what I expected.”

  “Shhh!” hissed Barnabas, casting a meaningful look at the chariot driver, who was blithely paying them no mind whatsoever (nor did he intend to, if truth be told).

  Wilfred dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “What did you think about Set?” he asked.

  Barnabas scratched his chin, thinking. “Well,” he said, “he was not quite as, well, evil as I had thought he might be.”

  “Not at all,” agreed Wilfred. “And he seemed to have quite a good sense of humor.”

  “Indeed! Quite a smashing fellow, really. Good of him to give us this chariot to speed us on our way.”

  Wilfred nodded. They both stood quietly for a moment, before Wilfred began again.

  “Although,” he said, “his mood did change quite quickly towards the end. Honestly, it made me extraordinarily nervous. I was becoming afraid that he might do something…chaotic.”

  “Quite so!” agreed Barnabas. “Until that point, things were going along so nicely that I had quite relaxed. But then he became irritable so that I was on edge all over again.”

  “Very moody, is Set,” said Wilfred.

  “Mercurial, even,” said Barnabas, pronouncing the large word slowly and carefully so that its gravity wouldn’t be impaired by a mispronunciation.

  The driver stopped the chariot then (having neither heard nor cared to hear anything whatsoever of their loudly whispered conversation). “Here we are,” he said as he gestured for them to vacate the chariot. “Elephantine Isle. There’s a bridge to cross the river just there, on the other side of that little village. Just be wary of crocodiles. This is Sobek’s country as well as Khnum’s, you know.”

  “Sobek?” asked Wilfred.

  “Crocodiles?” gulped Barnabas.

  The driver hid a smile. “Yes, Sobek, the god of the crocodiles. You are on the Nile River, so of course there will be a few about. Just keep out of the water and you’ll be fine.”

  Barnabas and Wilfred exchanged a glance, quite certain that they were not exactly fine, not when they were in a place where crocodiles were likely to be about. Still, they thanked the driver politely, then made their way uncertainly towards the village at the edge of the water.

  The village was quite small and the two detectives attracted quite a bit of attention. Because the village sat near the bridge that led to Khnum’s island retreat, the villagers were not entirely unused to seeing strangers. Many people made pilgrimages to pray to the god of fertility and abundance. However, despite the robes that looked exactly like those that everyone else was wearing, there was something innately foreign, something so very British, about Barnabas and Wilfred that the people in the village all stopped what they were doing and stared as they walked past.

  The attention was such that Barnabas began to feel quite the celebrity. Indeed, he felt so important he began looking regally from side to side at the onlookers, waving to them as though he were the queen of England herself. “I say, Wilfred,” he said, nodding at a small child who had, whether by accident or design, dropped a flower onto the street in front of them. “I do believe they must have heard of us and our exploits. We are quite famous here, it would seem!”

  “So it seems,” agreed Wilfred, who was very much enjoying the feeling of being the center of attention as well.

  “And I am very glad these people are, well, actually people,” whispered Barnabas, leaning in towards Wilfred so he could speak without offending anyone. “You know, with normal heads and such rather than the business with the animal heads that seems so common here.”

  Wilfred, seeing a man with the head of a crocodile standing nearby, jabbed at his employer with his elbow. “Shhh!” he hissed, inclining his head suggestively towards the man.

  “What’s the matter? Huh? Oh!” said Barnabas, seeing the reptilian fellow at last. He shuddered as he took in the long snout and the wickedly cruel teeth that protruded from it. He did n
ot like to think of offending someone such as this.

  “Do you think he heard?” he whispered loudly to Wilfred.

  Wilfred looked at the crocodile man, who was standing about ten feet away on the street ahead of them. He searched the man’s face for any indication that he had heard, or for any other sign of offence (or aggression for that matter; Wilfred, too was quite unnerved by the nasty-looking teeth) but the creature’s flat, glossy eyes were quite impossible to read. “I don’t know,” he whispered back. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you quite sure?” asked Barnabas nervously as they drew closer to the subject of their speculation.

  “No, I’m not sure at all,” said Wilfred. “But we’d best stop talking about it or he will hear us, for certain.”

  “Yes, yes, quite right,” said Barnabas. “I don’t much like the looks of… Oh!” He broke off, distracted by the sight of a woman carrying an enormous basket of what looked to be a very exotic, very spiny variety of fruit upon her head. “I wonder what those are. I think I could fancy a nice, juicy piece of fruit after all we’ve been through!”

  The woman heard Barnabas’ exclamation. She reached up a hand into her basket and extracted two fruits. With a warm smile, she handed a fruit to Barnabas and one to Wilfred. Both accepted gratefully. However, unfamiliar with the things, they were unsure of how, exactly, to eat it.

  Barnabas turned his piece this way and that, staring at it doubtfully whilst Wilfred contemplated his own with a frown of consternation. Not wanting to be rude, Barnabas felt that, after a few moments of considering the thing with the friendly woman watching them to see how they liked her gift, he had better just take a bite of this fruit with no further delay. So thinking, he made as if to stick it directly into his mouth, spines and all.

  The woman gasped and reached out to stay his hand, an amused smile on her face. Barnabas saw other people smiling and laughing at his faux pas as well, and he felt himself flushing in embarrassment.

  “Oh no,” she said. “Like this!” She reached up to her basket again and took out another fruit. Expertly, she pulled at one of the spines, which gave way; and grasping the loose piece between her fingers, she pulled it in a spiral motion around the fruit so that the skin came off entirely, spines and all. Beneath the skin glistened juicy red flesh shining with juice.

  Smiling bashfully, Barnabas and Wilfred did the same to their own pieces, and soon they were enjoying the most succulent, refreshing piece of fruit either had ever eaten. They thanked the woman profusely.

  “Truly,” said Wilfred, “I think that I have never tasted anything so divine!”

  “We are lucky to be blessed with bountiful crops of such delicious things,” said the woman with a smile. But then she looked up at the glaring sun, held perpetually in the noon position, and her smile faded. “I think that we must enjoy it whilst we can,” she said sadly.

  “Fear not, my good lady!” proclaimed Barnabas gallantly. “For we are here to help you.”

  “Are you the detectives hired by Anubis, then?” asked the woman. “The ones who are going to find Khepre so that the sun can move again?” The people nearby cheered at her words, and those who were out of earshot cheered merely because they could hear the others cheering.

  Really, thought Barnabas, shooting a glance at Wilfred, it was most astonishing how quickly news traveled in this place. He wondered how it was that, if everyone knew so much about everything, no one knew anything about what had happened to poor Khepre.

  “Indeed, we are,” he said, keeping his thoughts to himself.

  “Have you found him yet?” asked a man, rather stupidly since the sun clearly had not moved an inch.

  “Well, no…,” began Barnabas.

  “Where can he be?” asked one voice plaintively. “Why haven’t you found him?” demanded another. “Is he dead?” wailed yet another. Suddenly the entire street was a cacophony of curious people, angry people, scared people, and people who continued to cheer because they hadn’t yet caught up with the change in mood on the street.

  Barnabas, who did not much like crowds much less angry, volatile ones, looked about in growing panic. Wilfred saw his employer’s discomfort, and he knew by Barnabas’ frightened glances and twitchy movements that he was about to bolt entirely. Therefore Wilfred took it upon himself to attempt to quell the situation.

  “Quiet please,” he asked politely as he stepped forward. When no one paid him any mind, he raised his voice to a level that was quite rude indeed. “I say, quiet please!” he yelled. The people hushed and looked at each other as though to imply that Wilfred was quite obnoxious for carrying on so, although only a moment ago they themselves had been shouting as well.

  “Thank you!” said Wilfred testily. He was quite irritated at being looked at as though he were a naughty child creating a scene in public when these very people had forced him to raise his voice in the first place. He looked to Barnabas for assistance, but Barnabas’ face had gone entirely white and his eyes still darted about wildly. Wilfred knew he was on his own.

  “Quite sorry for yelling,” he began, “but honestly! Sometimes one must yell if one wants to be heard over an incredible racket.”

  “Well,” replied one onlooker, “say what you’re going to say, then, since you’re making such a big deal of it.”

  “Really!” said Wilfred, affronted. “Oh, never mind,” he continued, as he saw that the man was about to argue further. “I merely wanted to say that, whilst we have yet to find Khepre, we are here to petition Khnum in order to solve your problems with the drought and such. We were sent here by Set himself!” he concluded to give their presence the air of official business.

  These words seemed to placate the mob, and the mood turned to one of welcoming joviality again. The people began to smile and to encourage them, and even to cheer again (indeed, some of the people farther away had missed the unpleasant detour the conversation had taken entirely, and had never stopped cheering happily at all).

  Thus, the crowd parted and Barnabas, who had gained some of his color back, and Wilfred were hastened along to the bridge to Elephantine Isle amid smiles and pats upon the back of encouragement and approval.

  “Well,” said Barnabas, once they had walked a good way along the bridge and thus were out of earshot of the waving people on the shore, “that was extraordinarily unpleasant.”

  “Indeed it was,” agreed Wilfred. “Quite frightening.”

  “I suppose they must be very irritable, what with it being daylight all of the time,” said Barnabas. “Still, there was no need for them to carry on so, as if any of this situation were our fault whatsoever!”

  “People always need someone to blame,” said Wilfred. “I suppose it can’t be helped.”

  “Still,” said Barnabas, “those fruits were quite nice. So, not everyone in that village was unpleasant.”

  “Most definitely,” agreed Wilfred.

  With that, they stepped off the bridge onto Elephantine Isle. As the sounds of the cheering villagers wafted towards them from across the river, they approached a large, ornately carved white marble edifice. An open archway formed the door, and assuming that this must be the entrance to Khnum’s abode, Barnabas and Wilfred, exchanging a glance for bravery (for who knew what might await them inside?), passed through.

  Chapter Nine

  They entered a vast antechamber, eyes blinking as they adjusted to the dimly lit interior from the bright sunlight outside. Their footsteps echoed on the marble floor, and they heard the soft sibilance of whispered conversations coming from the various nooks and crannies of the place.

  Discrete wall sconces holding small torches provided a soft light. Looking around, they saw, all too quickly, what they presumed must be Khnum.

  It must be the god, they thought, because the figure they beheld was quite tall (indeed, he must have stood a foot higher than anyone else present in the room). Additionally, he was possessed of a giant ram’s head. He was seated upon a great throne at the head of the r
oom and flanked by the ubiquitous attendants that seemed to surround every god in the underworld.

  Barnabas and Wilfred approached the throne and bowed low.

  “Rise!” said Khnum. “What is your business here?” The god spoke in a sonorous voice that seemed designed to cover a slightly sheep-like bleating quality of the vowels.

  “We are detectives,” said Barnabas, most unhelpfully.

  “Hired by Anubis,” added Wilfred.

  “To find Khepre, you see,” continued Barnabas.

  “And you need me for…?” asked Khnum.

  “Oh, well, the drought, you see,” said Barnabas, who was discovering that he found these Egyptian gods quite intimidating. It seemed they made him quite nervous, so that he couldn’t quite get his thoughts together. Indeed, he did not much like talking with them at all. The confused look on Khnum’s face told him that the god did not, in fact, see what he was getting at, not at all. “Because of the sun,” he concluded lamely.

  “You know,” said Khnum, “that I cannot move the sun. Only Khepre can do that.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Wilfred. “But perhaps you, being the god of floods and fertility and abundance and what not, might counteract the drying effects of the sun.”

  “Ah, yes!” bleated Khnum, clapping his hooves together and forgetting his serious voice in his excitement. “You wish for me to flood the river? Why didn’t you just say so? I do so love to do that, you know.”

  “Splendid!” exclaimed Barnabas.

  “Smashing!” said Wilfred.

  “When would you like for me to do this?” said Khnum, pulling out what looked to be an appointment calendar.

  “As soon as can be,” said Barnabas. “The crops are failing and people are beginning to grow hungry. They need water.”

  “Well, then, how about right now?” asked Khnum.

  “Oh, yes, that would be most excellent!” cried Barnabas. “See, Wilfred, we have solved an aspect of our case already! Anubis will be most pleased.”

  “I am pleased to be of service,” said Khnum, tilting his head downwards in mock humility.