Commanding the donkey took some getting used to, but I'd learned to ride horseback as a boy and found that experience helped. Much command used body language, but what movements and vocalizations were used came from a tradition of training that was foreign to me. Hakim was helpful in teaching me. David seemed to have only as much trouble as I did, but that we both struggled prevented us from conversing easily.
I had wanted to ask about this particular religious festival, but it was not until we were at the Sphinx Temple that there seemed a chance.
I had visited this area the night before, and now saw the ruins of the ancient structure in daylight. Unlike the pyramids, or the neighboring structure labeled on our map as Valley or Kafre Temple, there was little architecture remaining. There was stone underfoot, rough enclosure of massive, worn blocks, and some standing stones within, in pale, sandy colors.
Chief Custodio and David walked separately about the roughly defined interior. I
I approached David as he knelt to examine a recess in the floor. "Excuse me, Sir."
"David." He lifted his face and smiled.
"David." I saw him return his attention to the stones. David poured a bit of water from his canteen onto the rock and then circled his fingers over the wet stone. "Since you mentioned the holy day, do you know anything more about it?"
He glanced up again. "You wish to know if I'm Jewish?"
"Oh. Not if that's too forward a question. I was only curious if the day was related to the Equinox or if that were coincidence."
David rose to his feet. "I believe in our creator, but I can't say I follow any organized religion. Though, in my line of work, it helps to be familiar with a variety of spiritual and mystical traditions." He made a coin appear between his fingertips, and then in a flourish seemed to make it disappear.
"You're a magician."
David nodded. "Among other things. Played the Egyptian Hall in Picadilly. Now, care to share about yourself, Julien?"
"I--" He made me feel rather put on the spot, but I realized this was what I must have done to him. "My parents kept a Bible in the house, but--" Mother had stopped going to Church, before neighbors had invited either of us to syncretic Hindu temples in our London neighborhood. "I follow Minerva-Sarasvati now."
"A fellow seeker of wisdom, then," David said. He put his right hand on my shoulder.
"Ah, yes, wisdom." I wasn't sure about the familiar touch, but before I might have protested the hand was quickly removed. "But, also the crafts and battle, if necessary."
David raised his hands, as if to show he would keep them to himself, or else to show he'd nothing up his sleeves. "The limestone's badly weathered here. Walk with me to the Valley Temple?"
"That's my job."
"But we could be friends."
"We could--" I did not mean that we were.
"A man can always use friends, especially when in a foreign land." David gestured toward an opening in the enclosure leading to the walkway before the temples.
I made a wave to the Chief and saw him nod back. Hakim was on the walkway with the animals. Here there remained several openings into the interior of the Valley Temple. It was most unlike the Sphinx Temple in that it had some remaining layer of harder stone blocks on the walls.
That was what it seemed, for the yellow-like stone in the core of the walls had a lumpy appearance as if being worn with age or weather, while the more reddish stone surrounding it retained some sharp angles and planes.
"Will you come with us?" I asked Hakim, as David was already moving inside.
The boy gave a nod and left the donkeys tied together.
The temple was open to the sky now, if it had ever had a roof, but once inside I felt suddenly enclosed by the height of the walls. David, Hakim and I stood in an entry hall that ran to the left and right.
"I say," David breathed, "this is it." He reached to touch the wall.
"They call this-- how do you say? Rose granite or pink?" Hakim asked.
"In French rose I should think, but in English rose and pink can mean the same. Though, in current textiles, rose is a particular shade of pink." I tried to think of a comparison. "A dusky pink."
"This is what they mean 'English rose'?" Hakim asked.
David laughed.
I might have blushed.
"A fair-skinned lass," David said.
Hakim seemed to have lost interest, for which I was grateful. "This stone comes from Aswan," he said, touching the granite wall. "In the south."
"Do your family work as guides?" I asked.
"Yes. They are guides here for many generations. Now, many work for Dr. Hassan. I want to be like him when I am bigger. A doctor of archeology."
David moved through the next passage in a stoop. "The floor is ancient as well. Alabaster perhaps."
"You'll have to do well in school," I told Hakim. His life seemed like mine had been in America, with hours of the day for chores or exploration. In England, they had been more strict about school, because children then were not doing jobs which could be assigned to adults, and might be occupied with lessons while parents worked.
I'd only been excused after my mother's arrest.
Hakim went before me. When I followed, he and David were at the right side of the T-shaped chamber with many intact interior columns. David took an instrument from his satchel that I supposed to be a carpenter's square.
"The joinery," David said. "That they carved this so precisely. They must have been master masons. And the slots above. Roof support, or...lighting?"
David laid his tool against one of the columns then turned toward another doorway.
"And here an internal ramp."
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Chapter 66.
The Media is the song 'Magic' by Coldplay. (There is also a story cube photo.) I did not have the song picked when I started the chapter. I got stuck while working on it, and then found this song, which helped me finish.
I really did intend to get back on a schedule. I can't give a reason.
So I thank my readers all the more for staying with The Iron Man. I have many more ideas, still.