Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [135]
She raised her head. “Is it over?”
He answered the childish question as he would have answered a frightened child. “Yes. You were very brave. You can let go now.”
He set her down, pulled the rope free, and coiled it. She said softly, “Why?”
She stood motionless, her arms at her sides, and his heart failed him as the enormity of what he had done finally sank in. She wore a simple white robe; her head was uncovered and her slim brown feet were bare. They would be cut and bleeding before she had gone a mile, and as for scrambling up the cliffs…
There was no help for it, they had to go on; and there was only one place that might offer refuge long enough for him to think of a way out of the spot he had got her into. He shouldered his pack. “Come.”
There was no one abroad at this late hour. After they had left the lighted areas around the palace and temple behind them they moved through the shadows, as quickly as they dared. She followed without a murmur of complaint or question until they reached the doorway of the abandoned villa. He didn’t blame her for holding back; there was not a ray of light to be seen within, and the dry, rustling sound might have been that of rats or bats or something worse, and the tattered curtain blew in the wind like a bodiless spirit.
“It’s all right,” he said softly. “Take my hand.”
He led her, feeling his way, around the turns of the corridor until they emerged into the desolate reception room he remembered so well. Starlight entered through the high windows and the opening that led to the garden. The room had been stripped of its furnishings except for a few cushions, full of holes and leaking feathers. He looked out on to the garden. The pool was dry and the plants withered.
“I’m sorry it’s not very comfortable,” he said. “But it should be safe, at least for the time being. Please sit down, you must be tired. It will have to be the floor, I’m afraid; I think the cushions are already occupied by mice.”
She sank into a sitting position. Ramses rummaged in his pack. She accepted a sip of water but shook her head when he offered a handful of dates.
“I am not hungry.”
“You’re shivering. Here, put this around you.”
He wrapped her in the cloak and sat down beside her.
Look on the bright side, his mother would have said. There was a bright side; he knew how to find Tarek, and he had got Daria out of the place without leaving any sign of how she had disappeared. That wouldn’t do any good, though, unless he could get her clean away. Even if he succeeded, she was in for a hard time.
He glanced guiltily at the small huddled figure next to him. She had pulled the hood up over her head and looked like a miniature monk.
“Why?” she said again.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Ramses said, sparring for time. He knew perfectly well what she meant.
She pushed the hood back. “Why did you do it? Why me? She is the one you hoped to rescue.”
“I didn’t suppose there was much hope of that, but I had to try. There was always a chance. You didn’t suppose we would have left you there, did you? In fact,” Ramses said slowly, “if I had had to make a choice, if I could have got only one of you away, it would have been you. Nefret would have been the first to realize that. She’s in no more danger than she was before, but if she had disappeared into thin air, they might have…”
“Tortured me to make me tell where she had gone?” She finished the sentence he had left incomplete. She sounded quite matter-of-fact.
“Or threatened to harm you if she didn’t give herself up. She would have done it too.”
“Yes. I understand.” She shivered and drew the cloak more closely around her. “What will happen now? We cannot stay here for long without food and water.”
“That’s right.” Relieved at how coolly she was taking the situation, he gave her the bare facts: Tarek’s loss of the crown, the usurper’s demands for their support,