She was a good halfway up, two hundred feet from the ground, sitting bolt upright on one of the stones, with her feet sticking straight out. He couldn’t make out details at this distance—only a bare dark head and a slender body clad in a light-colored frock of European style. Not far away, but not too close either, were two men in the long robes of the Egyptians.

He turned to Sheikh Hassan, the nominal chief of the guides who infested Giza . “What is going on?” he demanded. “Why don’t they bring her down?”

“She won’t let them.” Hassan’s round face broke into a grin. “She calls them bad names, Brother of Demons, and strikes them with her hand when they try to take hold of her.”

“She slapped them?” Ramses was tempted to laugh. The situation was too serious for that, however. The wretched female must have become hysterical, and if the guides took hold of her against her will, her struggles could result in injury to her and charges of assault—or worse—against them. No proof of malicious intent would be needed, only her word. He swore in Arabic, and added irritably, “Can someone stop that woman yelling? Who is she?”

The woman in question pulled away from the arms that held her and ran toward Ramses. “Why are you standing there?” she demanded. “You are English, aren’t you? Go and get her. Save the child!”

“Calm yourself, madam,” Ramses said. “Are you her mother?”

He knew she wasn’t, though. She might have had “governess” printed across her forehead. The ones he had met fell into two categories: the timid and wispy and the loud and dictatorial. This woman was of the second type. She glared at him from under her unplucked eyebrows and rubbed her prominent nose with a gloved hand.

“Well, sir? As an English gentleman—”

“English, at any rate,” said Ramses. He was tempted to point out that his nationality did not qualify him to tackle the job, which any Egyptian could do better, but he knew there was no sense arguing with a frantic female. He detached the large hand that gripped his arm and pushed her into the reluctant grasp of Selim. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll go after her.”

And if she tries to slap me, he thought, I’ll slap back. A sovereign cure for hysteria, his mother always claimed. What the deuce was wrong with the damned fool governess, allowing a child to attempt such a dangerous feat? Either she was incompetent or the kid was unmanageable.

Like a certain unmanageable boy whose competent mother hadn’t been able to prevent him from attempting equally dangerous feats. As he started up, he remembered the first time he had climbed the pyramid alone. He had been ten years old, and he’d come close to breaking his neck several times. His mother seldom employed corporal punishment, but she had spanked him soundly after that escapade. Perhaps he was in no position to be critical of adventurous children.

Pulling himself from step to step, he looked up only often enough to orient himself. He’d climbed all four sides of the Great Pyramid at various times, but he wasn’t fool enough to take unnecessary chances. Some of the stones had crumbled at the edges, some were broken, and they were of different heights. Nor did he raise his eyes when a voice from above hailed him.

“O Brother of Demons! We came with her, we did what she said. Then she sat down and would not move, and she struck at us when we tried to help her. Will you speak for us? Will you tell them we did our best? Will you—”

“Make certain you are paid?” Ramses stepped onto the same level as the speaker. He was a wiry little man, his long robe tucked up to expose bony shanks, his feet bare. He and his wife inhabited a hut in Giza Village with several goats, a few chickens, and two children. Two others had died before they were a year old.

Ramses reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. “Here. Go down now, I can manage her better alone.”

Blessings showered him as the two guides began the descent. He made certain his expression was stern before he turned to face the object of the emergency. He’d formed a picture of her in his mind. She’d be eleven or twelve, with scabs on her knees and elbows, freckles on her nose, a stubborn chin.

He had been right about the chin. There was a scattering of freckles too. His guess about her age was verified by her hideous and impractical garments. The dress looked like a female version of the sailor suits his mother had forced on him when he was too young to fight back; the knotted tie hung like a limp blue rag from the base of her throat. The skirt reached just below her knees, and the legs that stuck out at a defiant angle were encased in thick black stockings. He could only begin to wonder what she was wearing underneath—several layers of woollies, if his understanding of the governess mentality was accurate. Mouse-brown hair hung in damp tangles down her back, and her rounded cheeks were wet with perspiration. Her eyes were her most attractive feature, the irises a soft shade of hazel. He put their penetrating stare down to terror, and decided she needed reassurance, not a scolding.

He sat down next to her. “What happened to your hat?” he asked casually.

She continued to stare, so he tried another approach. “My name is Emerson.”

“No, it’s not.”

“That is odd,” he said, shaking his head. “To think that for over twenty years I have been mistaken about my own name. I must have a word with my mother.”

Either she had no sense of humor or she was in no mood for jokes. “It’s your father’s name. That’s what people call him. I’ve heard about him. I’ve heard about you too. They call you Ramses.”

“Among other things.” That got a faint smile. He smiled back at her and went on, “You mustn’t believe all you hear. I’m not so bad when you get to know me.”

“I didn’t know you looked like this,” she said softly.

The stare was beginning to bother him. “Has my nose turned blue?” he asked. “Or—horns? Are they sprouting?”

“Oh.” The color flooded into her face. “I’ve been rude. I apologize.”

“No need. But perhaps we should continue this conversation in more comfortable surroundings. Are you ready to go down now?” He stood up and held out his hand.

She pressed herself farther back against the stone. “My hat,” she said in a strangled voice.

“What about it?”

“It fell off.” Her slender throat contracted as she swallowed. “The strap must have broken. It fell… it bounced…”

He looked down. One couldn’t blame her for losing her nerve. The angle of the slope was approximately fifty degrees, and she was two hundred feet up. Watching the pith helmet bounce from step to step to step, and picturing one’s body doing the same thing, must have been terrifying.

“The trick is to never look down,” he said easily. “Suppose you keep your back turned. I’ll go first and lift you from one level to the next. Do you think you could trust me to do that?”

She inspected him from head to foot and back, and then nodded. “You’re pretty strong, aren’t you?”

“Strong enough to manage a little thing like you. Come on now. No, don’t close your eyes; that does make one giddy. Just keep looking straight ahead.”

She gave him her hand and let him raise her to her feet.

He went slowly at first, till her taut muscles relaxed and she yielded trustingly to his grasp. She didn’t weigh anything at all. He could span her waist with his hands. They were still some distance from the bottom when she laughed and looked up at him over her shoulder. “It’s like flying,” she said gleefully. “I’m not afraid now.”

“Good. Hang on, we’re almost there.”

“I wish we weren’t. Miss Nordstrom is going to be horrid to me.”

“Serves you right. It was a silly thing to do.”

“I’m glad I did it, though.”

A crowd had clustered round the base of the structure. The upturned faces were ovals of coffee-brown and umber and sunburned red. One of them was a particularly handsome shade of mahogany. His mother must have sent his father to fetch him home; he’d lost track of the time, as usual.