Evelyn Vaughn - Her Kind Of Trouble

A brass chalice-well pendant—two intersecting circles, also called a vesica piscis. Similar to the pendant I already wore, had worn in one version or another since I was fourteen, except for the Arabic flourishes.

Symbol of the Grailkeepers.

When the hopeful clerk repeated, “Rings for rings,” I finally understood her. I’d simply known the childhood rhyme as Circle to Circle.

But circles, rings…they were all eternal loops. It lost little in translation. And it was a recognition code.

“Never an end,” I greeted softly, purposefully giving the next piece of the Grailkeeper’s chant.

She clearly recognized it. She beamed. I even caught a pale hint of white teeth behind her veil as she reached across the counter and grasped my hand. Her grip was firm. Then her eyes closed and she drew in a long, deep breath, as if savoring…

What? Was she sensing the essence of goddessness that seemed to empower women whom I touched, of late?

It wasn’t like I expected her to rip off her veil and head scarf and demand equal pay for equal work. But when she opened her eyes, all she said was, “It is you!”

Uh-huh… “What is me?”

“You have come to reclaim the sultana’s magic,” she continued. “As in the tales.”

For a moment I had the sick feeling that there was an actual sultana out there somewhere. One more responsibility I hadn’t meant to take on. Then I realized that my word for the position would be queen.

“You mean like the fairy tale, about the queen and her nine daughters?” I asked.

“Seven,” corrected the clerk—but as surely as I’d heard different versions of the story, I’d heard different numbers. Sometimes the queen had as many as thirteen daughters, sometimes as few as three. “Seven beautiful daughters.”

Rhys, behind me, asked, “Does she mean the story where the queen gives her daughters magical cups?”

The clerk’s eyes widened. She backed away two steps, making what I assumed was a protective gesture.

“It’s all right,” I assured her. “His mother is a Grailkeeper.”

She stared at me blankly.

“A…Chalice Keeper,” I tried.

She nodded slowly and said, “A Cup Holder.”

“Um…yeah. A Cup Holder.” Now that one suffered in translation. “He knows the story.”

Pour your powers into these cups, the queen instructs. Hide them so that your energy can live on even though you be forgotten.

The veiled clerk continued to eye Rhys as if he meant to attack her. Or me. With his big, manly hands and all that…testosterone.

“Perhaps I should go look at…yes, there,” said Rhys, choosing the first thing he noticed. “One can’t have enough T-shirts, can one?”

Only after he’d backed away did the “Cup Holder’s” shoulders sink in relief. Poor, gentle Rhys.

“Let me try again,” I said. “Hello. My name is Magdalene Sanger.”

“I is Munira,” said the clerk, clearly pleased. “It is…honor…to meet champion.”

“To meet what?”

“Champion of the Holy One.” She opened her arms toward me, like a tah-dah move. “It is you, is not?”

“I’m looking for goddess cups, but I wouldn’t call myself a champion.” Certainly not the champion.

Even factoring in the number of women who’d forgotten or dismissed the legends, I suspect the number of hereditary Grailkeepers had to count in the hundreds, if not the thousands. The whole world had once worshipped goddesses, after all. We’d just kept such a low profile for so long, we’d lost track of each other.

There still had to be a handful who understood what the stories meant. Not just me.

“Blessings upon you, Champion,” said Munira.

I gave up arguing with her, in favor of better information. “Well…thank you. Would you happen to know where a goddess cup is hidden?”

Like the Isis Grail?

She stared, brow furrowed.

“Did your mother teach you a rhyme or song about where the Holy One’s cup might be waiting?” That’s how most of our knowledge had been kept. Power mongers rarely think to dissect fairy tales or nursery rhymes.

“Ah!” She nodded—and recited something singsong in Arabic.

I smiled a stupid half grin of ignorance, and Munira took pity on me, but her attempt at translating was clearly an effort.

“She…she sleeps, yes?” She mimed closing her eyes, head tipping sideways in illustration. “With no light. She is.”

“She is what?”

Munira shook her head. “She is. And much…always…will she be such.”

Then she nodded at her completely unhelpful attempt, proud of herself. To be fair, her English so far outshone my Arabic that I couldn’t do anything but thank her.

That, and make a mental note to come back with someone—a woman—who was fluent in both languages.

“May she smile upon you,” said Munira—then looked down at the wedding ring I’d set on the counter. “What is you wish for this ring, Champion? You say…trapping?”

No reason to confuse matters with the concept of a tracking device. “Is there anything unusual about this ring? Something that does not belong, embedded in it?”

I felt sick, just having to ask. Lex and I were working on trusting each other, damn it. If it turned out he’d bugged me again, the man would need more than a sword to defend himself.

Munira raised a jeweler’s loupe to her eye, a strange contrast to the veiling, and professionally examined the ring. If there was anything artificial there, she would surely see it.

“It is written,” she said. “Graven?”

“Engraved?”

Nodding, she found a pencil to trace the unfamiliar letters, right to left. They came out sloppy, like a child’s—but again, any attempt I made to write the beautiful flourishes of Arabic would have looked worse. All I needed was legibility.

That’s what I got. Virescit vulnere virtus.

Latin. Something about vulnerability and strength. I’d seen the words before—over Lex’s father’s fireplace.

It was the Stuart clan motto.

“Does this…understand…to you?” she asked, and I nodded tightly. “Is all I see. Is fine ring. Very old. Very expensive.”

So, just for giggles… “How expensive?”

She named a price—in American dollars, not Egyptian pounds—which staggered me. For just gold? No diamonds or anything?

“You have generous husband, no?” she asked.

No. What I had was a contradiction to Lex’s oh-so-casual, standard-for-women-overseas story. Was it also company policy for businesswomen to wear expensive, been-in-the-family-for-generations, complete-with-motto rings?

“We sell much fine jewelry,” offered Munira. “Very low price.” And like that the strange Grailkeeper interlude turned back to the assumed normalcy of souvenir shopping at the Khan el-Khalili.

I’d seen the Pyramids of Giza as we flew in, and caught glimpses while we were in the city, they were so close to urban Cairo. But they were the opposite direction from Alexandria.

The drive had its points of interest, for sure, like the occasional sight of fellahin, or peasant farmers, riding overpacked bicycles, donkeys or even camels down the road. Rhys pointed out the road we would take if I wanted to check out the oldest Christian monastery in existence. But contrasted against pyramids almost anything would seem anticlimactic.

Even speculating about who had attacked me with a scimitar—and what Munira had meant about me being “Champion.”

“Perhaps you’re special,” offered Rhys.

“I’m not special.”

He glanced toward me as if he wanted to contradict that but hesitated from propriety’s sake.

“I mean, I’m no more special than the next person. Certainly no more than the next Grailkeeper.”