Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [33]
The stench was vile, but he preferred it to the scented smoke of the brazier. Picking himself up, he leaned against the wall and inspected his surroundings, trying to orient himself. He knew the old city fairly well, but the streets were all similar, narrow and winding, walled in by high buildings, ending in unexpected cul-de-sacs. He rubbed his eyes. Then a sound from above made him look up. Against the faint light from the window was the black outline of a man’s head and shoulders. He moved away, as quickly as he dared in the darkness, turning at random into one tunnel-like passage after another.
Luck was with him; the soft sounds of pursuit faded, and finally he emerged into a plaza so small it didn’t even have a name. He’d been there before. The time-stained sabil in the center spouted a dribble of water. On one side was a disreputable coffeeshop that he and David had occasionally frequented. The coffeeshop was shuttered and dark. The place was deserted except for the motionless shape of a beggar huddled in a doorway.
Movement and the passage of time had brushed most of the cobwebs out of his head. He knew where he was: not far from the Rue Neuve, less than a mile from the hotel. He paused long enough to wash the blood and odoriferous muck off his hands and arms in the fountain. Before he started off toward the hotel, he dropped a few coins onto the ground by the sleeping man. An offering to some god or other seemed appropriate. Some god—or goddess. The woman’s costume had been that of Hathor, Lady of Turquoise, Golden One.
THE WINDOWS OF THE SITTING room began to pale with the approach of dawn. Nefret and I had been waiting for hours. We had expected Emerson back long before this; he had promised to let us know the results of his search before morning. Nefret bore the delay better than I. Since childhood she and Ramses had shared an odd rapport; she claimed—and a number of events confirmed it—that she could always tell when he was in imminent danger. No such terror afflicted her now, she assured me. Logic informed me that Ramses got into scrapes like this all the time, and that he usually got himself out of them. But logic is poor comfort when the fate of a loved one is unknown.
Despite Nefret’s composure, she was the first one on her feet when a knock sounded at the door. A sleepy-eyed suffragi handed her a note and stood waiting hopefully for baksheesh. I supplied it, while Nefret opened the paper and read it. A tremulous expletive burst from her lips.
“Language, my dear,” I said, taking the paper from her.
“No harm done,” it read, in Ramses’s unmistakable scrawl. “I’ll be with you shortly.”
“Thank God,” I breathed. “Sit down, Nefret.”
Nefret snatched the note back. “He might at least have said ‘Love.’ Damn him! Where is he?”
She pulled away from my affectionate grasp and started for the door. Before she reached it, Ramses opened it and stepped into the room.
Ramses’s tentative smile faded as Nefret flew at him, her hands gripping his arms. “Where have you been? What happened? How dare you send that stupid message instead of coming here straightaway?”
“The last time I appeared without advance warning, you collapsed in a dead faint,” said Ramses. “Good evening, Mother. Or rather, good morning. Where is Father?”
“Looking for you, of course.” My voice was a trifle husky. I cleared my throat. “Nefret, stop trying to shake him.”
“And don’t come any closer,” Ramses said, holding her off. “I’m absolutely filthy and I smell like a rubbish heap.”
She pushed his hands