Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [164]
I explained in my best Arabic that I thanked them for their kindness, but that I had just eaten, and drew Ramses away.
“Can you give them some money?” I whispered. “Without offending them?”
“Poverty does not allow a man the luxury of pride,” said Ramses, with a twist of his lips. “I will take care of it, but if I start handing out baksheesh openly, everyone else will ask.”
The train tracks stretched emptily into the distance, shining in the sunset. “Curse it,” I burst out. “Where is the cursed train? We are going to be very late, and your father will be fuming.”
“So will Nefret. But they will forgive us—inshallah!—when they hear. Mother, we’re within a few hours of ending this business. Be patient.”
“Emerson will be knocked into a cocked hat,” I agreed, not without a certain relish.
Ramses’s face relaxed. “I don’t think you mean that, Mother.”
“It is the wrong expression? I am endeavoring to improve my command of current idiom,” I explained. “Some of the new slang words are extremely expressive. Never mind, you know what I meant.”
“Quite.” A pigeon flapped between my feet, and he took my arm. “I was knocked for a loop too. Who could have suspected that Bertha had two children?”
“The children of the storm,” I mused. “Is it only an odd coincidence that Set was the god of storm and chaos?”
“Yes,” Ramses said curtly.
“Quite. I believe you have never known me to succumb to— Oh, thank heaven, there is the train at last.”
FROM MANUSCRIPT H
* * *
Nefret had wrapped a bit of cloth round the head of the nail. It served as some protection, but her fingers kept cramping. The wood was soft. She had scraped away enough to expose a half-inch length of the shaft. It moved a bit when she tried to wriggle it, but it was too deeply sunk to be pulled out with her fingers and she had nothing to use as a lever.
The lamp had long since expired. It seemed long, but there was no way of measuring time in the stifling darkness. Her throat was dry and the slosh of water in the invisible jar was a constant temptation.
She knew now that she wouldn’t break down. Being with one of the Emerson men—and at least one of the women—even briefly, was like a shot of adrenaline for a faltering heart. She couldn’t imagine what Emerson could do, but he had promised he would get her out of this and against all reason she believed him.
The others wouldn’t be idle, but it might take them a while to put two and two together—her absence and that of Emerson, the departure of the Isis. At least they knew where she had gone; Nisrin would tell them. Emerson might not have bothered to inform anyone. He had come after her as soon as that mysterious memory returned—on the road to Deir el Medina, since he had been only a few minutes behind her.
If they hadn’t been interrupted, she would know what it was he had remembered, and why it had sent him rushing after her. If the village of El-Hilleh was the key, Ramses and/or his mother must know too, and if the knowledge was so important they might also be in danger. She thought of her husband, picturing him in her mind—the tall strength of him, the curling black hair he kept trying to flatten, the smile that warmed his lean brown face—reaching out, stretching the mental sense that bound them together. She had always known when he was threatened with death or injury. There was no such feeling now.
She wiped her stinging eyes on her sleeve. Perspiration, not tears, she told herself.
Maryam. It all came back to Maryam. Emerson refused to believe the girl was the one primarily responsible, but that was only because he was soft-hearted and sentimental. Nefret dug viciously into the wood. The nail slipped, digging a long ineffectual gouge, and her