Ambrosia Lost

The Bird That Sustains The Cage

Their time in Cairo would be no longer than a week. It was planned as a stopover for refuelling and maintaining the F.25 before their last stretch on to Luxor. This was also to be the first time the rest of the team would meet their distinguished client. Over the next few days Pieter met almost daily with the Count, usually just the two of them. This occurrence did not do much to settle the misgivings the rest of the team had started to feel about the upcoming mission. Not that Pieter was incapable, not at all - he had been known to single-handedly arrange the most intricate of plans down to the smallest detail. No, it was just the air of mystery which seemed to shroud the project and their patron which was hard to shake off.

The night before they were scheduled to leave for Luxor they had all been invited to the Count's hotel suite for a final meal in the city. Eliza was both nervous and excited by the appointment. She had felt that her first (and so far only) meeting of the Count and Countess of Ascania had not really shown any of them to their best advantage. She was determined to make a more memorable impression and, hopefully, have reason to feel more confident working for the project the Count had hired them for.

She had not been idle over the past few days in this intoxicating city. Finding a guidebook in her hotel room she had set forth each morning with new wonders and curiosities to discover and marvel at. Cairo had succeeded in quickly seducing Eliza. The rabbit warren of the ancient cobbled alley ways of the Khan el Khalili market had been one of her favourite surprises. Filled with life from all strata of society bustling together to haggle over sweet dates, gleaming copper kettles and brocaded textiles, the air thick with spice, hot cooking grease and earthy odour of animals. Every sense in her body was stunned by the experience. It would not be remarkable, she felt, if she were to witness a Djinn casually rise with the steam from one of the ornate tea pots which were settled on small tables surrounded by clusters of old men smoking and drinking sweet mint tea.

One of her excursions rewarded her with an unexpected finding of a small, unpretentious little boutique which specialised in the most gorgeous gowns she had seen since leaving Paris. She already had her one green dress which travelled with her as a faithful friend but today, infused with the heady excitement of exploration, she allowed herself to be bewitched by a long sleeved, very low backed silk gown in glowing ivory. An image of Pieter following the Countess Carmen like a lost puppy at the Count's last party stabbed at her memory. Wouldn't it be nice for him, just once, to have him turn those deep blues eyes upon her like that?

The afternoon of the dinner date she had her hair professionally set. Back in her room she slipped the cool fabric over her head and fastened an antique pearl hair clip, a family heirloom, just above her ear. Eliza took one last glance at herself in the mirror and was rewarded with the satisfaction of knowing she felt truly lovely. She then stepped her way nervously down the hotel stairs to the lobby where she was to meet the other three.

"Oh. Mon Dieu!" Breathed Gustave with feeling, "Mon Dieu, look at the petite chou. But she is exquisite."

The sun was just beginning to hang low in the evening sky. Shafts of rich, golden light shone through the high windows of the hotel bathing the stairs and Eliza with it's glow. Copper flecks in her carefully waved hair blinked in the brilliance and the ivory silk of the dress floated over her body with the gentle swaying of her movements.

She looked up from the foot of the stairs to find Gustave with his hand covering his heart and gazing appreciatively at her. Next to him stood Haru; eyes blank and mouth half open - looking for all the world as if he'd been slightly winded. But. No Pieter.

"Where's Pieter?", she enquired.

"Here I am, Little One." His voice answered from behind her. "Heavens, Liza! My! You do scrub up well. Now, where have I seen that gown before? Don't tell me, you wore this to the party the first night in Cairo didn't you? Yes, very pretty." And then marching on towards the door called out to the others over his shoulder, "Sorry I'm a bit late. We'll have to hurry to make good time for the Count."