Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [127]
“So are those of the usurper,” Harsetef said with a tight-lipped smile. “He has lost many men trying to force the pass. We hold the heights and defend them.”
He rose. “On your way, young one,” he said to Khat.
Ramses thanked the boy again and told him to be careful. After he had gone, Harsetef said hesitantly, “There is a thing that troubles me. I did not want to speak before the boy.”
“What is it?” Ramses shouldered his pack.
“We were told,” said Harsetef, “that the Father of Curses showed himself with the usurper at the Window of Appearance. That you and the Sitt Hakim were with him. That you spoke to the people, telling them to obey the usurper.”
“It is true,” Ramses said. Harsetef sucked in his breath, and Ramses went on, “We told the people to go home. They would have been slaughtered, men, women, and children alike. Surely you do not think we would betray Tarek? We are waiting and planning for the right time to act.”
“I knew it was so,” Harsetef said with a sigh of relief.
Politics be damned, Ramses thought. These people believe, in their gods and in us. We knew that, of course; we knew it intellectually, but we are too trapped in our rationality to comprehend fully how powerful that belief can be. Faith can move mountains? Maybe not mountains, but it has toppled kings and transformed societies.
Matters were more serious than he had realized, and his disappearance might have made them even worse. Zekare might try to push the ceremony forward, demanding public acknowledgment of his legitimacy. Emerson would never give it. It would be just like him to burst into a speech of fiery denunciation, which would inspire a bloody war and, very likely, get him and his wife killed. It would be a small war, only a few hundred men on either side; the population of the Holy Mountain had never been great, and if Ramses was any judge, it was slowly but inexorably decreasing. But people died in war, and one futile death was one too many.
Could they get his parents—and Daoud and Selim—out of the city right away? It would be hellishly difficult, if not impossible, and then what? The mental image of his mother trying to scramble over these cliffs in the dark was pure nightmare. Oh, she’d try it, all right. She would try anything. Or die in the attempt, which was the most likely scenario. Then there was Nefret. They couldn’t leave her behind. If the rest of them escaped she would be guarded even more closely, and her value to the usurper was as at least as great as theirs—even greater, if the priests were able to control her by means of drugs or threats. Threats to Daria, perhaps? Nefret would never let fear for herself guide her actions, but she’d buckle if an innocent person were at risk. And why in God’s name was he thinking about Daria? She was only a pawn in the game. Nefret was the White Queen. But a pawn can become a queen if it moves all the way across the board…
Ramses’s brain felt as if it were infested with mice, running frantically back and forth, trying to find a way out of the cage of his thoughts. He looked up. A sickle moon swung low above the cliffs, silvery pure and curved like the horns of the goddess’s crown—Isis, divine wife and mother.
He turned to Harsetef. “I’m going back.”
Emerson was waiting for me at the foot of the ramp when I left the shrine.
“Well?” he demanded.
I told him what had transpired. His brow furrowed. “I don’t like the sound of it, Peabody. Do you think they are using drugs?”
“I fear it may be so, Emerson. She seemed brighter and more confident when I left her, but a reassessment of the situation is definitely called for. Where are Daoud and Selim?”
“Taking photographs of the temple pylons. And,” Emerson added, “keeping their eyes open.”
“For an Englishman with very large ears?”
We started back toward the Great Temple, accompanied by our escort. It was larger than before. Stamping along