Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [165]
I’ll just rest a little, she thought, slumping against the wall. Rest and try to think. Emerson, soft-hearted and sentimental . . . And jealous. Jealousy was responsible for the case he had constructed against Sethos. It had sounded convincing when he stated it, but the case against Maryam was even stronger. She knew something about disguise, enough to fool a vague old woman and seduce a vain man. Her mother had been deeply involved with the criminal underworld. Bertha had even formed her own group, a criminal organization of women. Enlisting prostitutes had been one of Bertha’s brighter ideas; exploited and mistreated, they had unique opportunities to gather information that could be used for blackmail or murder. What had become of those women? Women like Layla, who had in the end turned against her leader and saved Ramses’s life; women like the formidable female, strong and sturdy as a man, who had been Bertha’s aide-de-camp in several of the latter’s crimes.
The stories had become part of family legendry, told and retold, wild as any romance and embroidered with the passage of time. There had been equally preposterous stories about Sethos in his unregenerate days, and about Bertha, who had been Sethos’s mistress after she left the man known as Schlange . . . another of the innumerable enemies the parents had encountered . . . what a long list it was . . .
Her head dropped with a jerk, bringing her back to consciousness. Breathing was an effort. Swallowing was impossible. There was no air in the room, only darkness and heat and thirst. She knew she would have to risk a drink soon or fall into a stupor that could end in death. Perhaps that was what they intended. No marks on the body, no signs of violence.
It was impossible to think of oneself as a body, a thing, the thinking mind, the laughter and loving obliterated forever, to imagine the world going on without one. She thought of her children, and anguish wrenched her. But they were so young, so surrounded by loving care; in a few years she would be nothing more to them than a face in a faded photograph. Ramses wouldn’t forget, any more than she could ever forget him. But there would be other women. She couldn’t expect him to remain celibate forever, not Ramses. He would marry again, if only for the sake of the children.
The thought of him holding another woman in his arms, kissing her upturned face, gave her energy enough to pull herself to her knees. If he does, I’ll come back and haunt him, she thought. Like that woman whose husband wrote asking what he had done to offend her, that she continued to torment him after death. Maybe she only wanted to make sure he wouldn’t forget her.
She crawled along the wall, feeling for the water jar. Her fumbling hands found it at last—lying on its side in a pool of water. It had cracked when it fell.
She was lying flat, sucking up the tepid liquid, grit and all, when suddenly there was light. She raised herself on her elbows and turned her head. Even those few drops of water had helped, and so did the air, cool and fresh as a night wind by comparison to the noxious mixture she had been breathing. The light was dazzling to eyes long accustomed to darkness. She could see only an outline, standing motionless in the doorway. Then the glow behind it strengthened, shining on a halo of golden curls. She tried to speak, but could only croak like a frog.
“Hello, pretty Mrs. Emerson,” said the clear, sweet voice. “Would you like to come out now?”
DARKNESS HAD FALLEN BEFORE THE train arrived in Luxor with a series of self-satisfied chugs and congratulatory blasts on the whistle. So they sounded to me, at any rate; I had taken a strong personal dislike to the train, as if it were deliberately dawdling in order to annoy me. I could hardly wait to tell Emerson that I had solved the case.
As the car slowed and the platform came into sight I peered out the window, braving the smoke and dust. I fully expected I would