Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [34]
“We expect him momentarily,” I said. “He should have been here before this. Proceed with your plan, my dear boy; you really do not smell very nice. I will order breakfast. If your father has not returned by that time, I will try and find him.”
“Thank you, Mother. Nefret, let go, will you? I won’t be long.”
“I’m coming with you.” She took his hands and turned them over. “You’ve torn those scratches open again, and cut yourself rather badly. What the devil—”
“Let him change first,” I cut in. “And—er—freshen yourself as well. He seems to have rubbed off on you.”
After calling the suffragi and ordering a very large breakfast I splashed water on face and limbs and changed my dusty, crumpled garments for a comfortable tea gown. Invigorated and by now very curious, I returned to the sitting room to find Emerson there, shouting orders at the suffragi.
“Don’t bully the poor man, Emerson,” I said. “I have already ordered breakfast, and Ramses has come back.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“You were singing, Peabody. The door was closed, but your voice is particularly penetrating when you are in a cheerful frame of mind.”
“Sit down and rest. You look very tired.”
Emerson passed his hand over his bristly chin and sank with a sigh into a chair. “I did not feel fatigued until just now. When I heard your voice raised in song, and saw that Nefret was not in the sitting room, I hoped—but I was afraid to believe. I stood outside their door for several minutes, listening, until finally I heard his voice.”
“Oh, my dear Emerson,” I began.
“Bah,” said Emerson, after a great clearing of his throat. “All’s well that ends well, as you are fond of remarking. I do wish you could come up with more original aphorisms. Has he told you what happened?”
“Not yet.”
A procession of waiters filed through the door, carrying trays; while they were arranging the food on the table, Ramses and Nefret joined us. Emerson greeted his son as coolly as if he had not been frantic about him for hours, and Ramses replied with an equally nonchalant “Good morning, sir.”
Emerson stared at his bandaged hands. “I suppose it would be unreasonable to expect you to come back without some injury or other,” he grumbled. “Er—can you hold knife and fork, my boy? If you like, I will just cut—”
“That won’t be necessary, sir, thank you. I hope you weren’t put to too much trouble on my account.”
“It was Russell who was put to the trouble,” said Emerson with satisfaction. He held a grudge against the gentleman because of a trick he had once played on us. “I suppose I had better tell him to call off the search before he comes round annoying us.” He went to the escritoire and scribbled a few words on a piece of the hotel stationery. “Take this to the concierge and have it sent at once,” he ordered, handing the paper to one of the waiters. “The rest of you chaps clear out of here. Now, Ramses, let’s have your story.”
I have heard a number of bizarre stories in my time. A number of the events that have befallen me personally might be described as bizarre, even preposterous, by those of limited imagination (for in my opinion life itself is often more extraordinary than any invention of fiction). Ramses’s tale unquestionably ranked high on the list. He told it without being interrupted by us and without pausing to eat. He had said he wasn’t hungry.
Nefret was the first to break the silence. “No wonder you aren’t hungry. What was in the brazier—opium?”
“Opium and somthing else I couldn’t identify.”
“Another hallucinatory drug?”
“No doubt.” Ramses had picked up his fork. Now he put it gently down. The effect was the same as if he had slammed it onto the table. “You don’t believe me, do you? Any of you? You think the whole thing was a hallucination.”
“What other explanation is there?” Nefret demanded. Her color had risen. “A room furnished like a bordello and the immortal