‘I grew up in the Burren in Galway,’ he said. ‘Sure, my greatest joy was to run wild, until one day, I must have been eight or nine, ten at the most, I opened one of my father’s books and saw in there a picture that changed my life.’
‘Finn’s father was the village school master,’ Emma told the others, ‘so he had books in his house unusual at the time in such a small village.’
Finn glared at her.
Emma flushed. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply... but one wouldn’t have expected books on ancient Egypt to be common in those villages.’
‘In ancient times,’ he said haughtily, ‘the Irish race were in contact with civilisations as far away as Ethiopia. Egyptian faience beads were found in an Irish Bronze Age tomb. We have a legend about the daughter of a pharaoh coming to Ireland, and the inva
