Helen lifted a shoulder.“It’s not so difficult.Well, unless he runs off and almost gets eaten by a crocodile, or manages to escape from his bed in the middle of the night, takes off his nappy, and pees all over the floor.”
“Oh, dear,” Diana replied.Laughing, she settled back in the squabs.“I cannot imagine having a babe,” she said.“But I’ll have to, of course.At least two if I’m to do my duty as a future countess.”
“You’ll have a nurse to help,” Helen reasoned.“And given Lord Forster’s brothers and sister Grace, I expect he’ll do fine with having children of his own.”
“He has said as much,” Diana admitted.“He seems to think I’ll simply pack up a babe much like I do my satchel when I’m off to do some digging.”
Helen lifted a shoulder.“That will work until the baby starts to crawl,” she commented.“Once he starts walking, though...”She shook her head from side to side.“You’ll be chasing him more than you will be digging.That’swhen you’ll leave him with his nurse.”
Diana didn’t reply, her attention on the scene directly ahead of them.She inhaled softly.
“What is it?”Helen asked, her gaze following Diana’s.
“The Red Pyramid,” Diana said in awe.She glanced to the left, searching the horizon for signs of another pyramid.An odd shape protruded from the ground, darker in appearance than the red sandstone that made up the Red Pyramid.“That’s the Black Pyramid,” she murmured.“Or what’s left of it,” she added sadly.“It’s in worse shape than I thought.”
“Are we going to stop there?”
Diana shook her head.“We will at the Red Pyramid, and if you look off beyond it, you can just make out the last one we’ll see today,” she explained, referring to a distant bump on the otherwise flat horizon.
“I can’t imagine how they built these out in the middle of...nowhere,” Helen commented, leaning forward to gaze out beyond the side curtains.
“The Nile has changed course over the centuries,” Diana commented, sniffing the air.“It’s closer than you think, and I would bet money they cut a canal into the desert leading to the site so they could bring all the blocks by way of a river barge.”
Helen’s eyes rounded at hearing Diana’s comment.“You would bet money?”she repeated in shock.
Diana grinned.“Don’t tell anyone else I said that.My father used to say it when he was sure of some find he uncovered.”The driver’s sudden yelp had the Arabian slowing his quick trot to a walk until it was in the little bit of shade provided by the pyramid.The other hantours lined up next to them, their occupants slowly stepping down and stretching their stiff limbs after the hour-long ride.
“This, my friends, is the Red Pyramid,” Omar announced, his arm held out as if he was introducing a friend.“It is named for its rusty red color and is the largest of all the pyramids here at Dashur.Come into the shade and I shall tell you all about it.”
Although she stood with Randy for a few minutes, listening to the dragoman’s recitation, Diana pulled her sketchpad from her satchel and soon slipped away to explore on her own.
