Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [144]
“You will smother her, Emerson,” I said, controlling my own emotion. “Nefret, my dear, will you unveil, if that is permitted?”
“Oh, sorry,” muttered Emerson. He loosened his grasp and with his own hands put the veils aside—making quite a tangle of them, I might add. When he saw her face smiling up at him he embraced her again.
The king watched with folded arms. “She is dear to you,” he said softly.
It was irrelevant and self-evident, so I did not waste time responding. “Nefret,” I said urgently. “You have been brought here to translate for His Majesty. Try, if you can, to interpolate questions and answers to my questions without his noticing. Emerson, do stop squeezing the breath out of her.”
“No, Professor, don’t stop, I feel fully alive for the first time in…how many days has it been? I’ve lost track.”
Zekare had listened with mounting suspicion to the exchange. He said something to Nefret that wiped the smile of happiness from her face. “He says we must not talk until he gives permission.”
A brusque gesture dismissed the guards, and another indicated that Selim and Daoud should also leave the room. Nefret insisted upon embracing them both before they did. That left only the handmaidens, the king, and ourselves.
“We may as well sit down and be comfortable,” I said. “Emerson, offer His Majesty a cup of wine.”
His Majesty refused the wine. “Suspicious bastard, isn’t he?” said Emerson, drinking the wine himself.
“He is taking something of a chance by letting us talk with Nefret.” I accepted the cup he gave me and sipped it genteelly. “It is an indication, if one were needed, that there are few he can trust, including his own—”
The king interrupted with a long speech, to which Nefret listened attentively. She had settled onto a pile of cushions, with the handmaidens standing behind her like pillars of salt.
“He wants to know what happened to Daria, whether it was Ramses who got her away, how he accomplished it, and where he has taken her.” Nefret added vehemently, “I too want to know. I couldn’t believe it this morning when they told me she was not in her room.”
“We took her away by means of our magic, of course,” I replied. I used the Meroitic word for magic. The king snarled, and Nefret smiled faintly.
I was convinced the king understood more English than he had let on, so I had to choose my words with care. It made the ensuing conversation challenging, but if I may say so, I thrive on challenges. Naturally I denied any knowledge of Ramses’s whereabouts or activities. He was, I explained, a venturesome lad who did not like being cooped up. This disingenuous statement made the king’s eyes bulge with fury, so I went on, “It was against my wishes that he acted as he did, but alas, I have never been able to control him.” I added, for Nefret’s benefit, “A subsequent repetition would be inexpedient because of your sequestration, but ‘my brain it teems with endless schemes.’ ”
I flatter myself that I got more out of His Majesty than he got out of me. We had decided not to raise the question of Merasen’s underhanded dealings, since we were not certain what he had in mind and how it might be turned to our benefit. “When your enemies fight, they may leave one less enemy for you,” as Emerson put it. (He claimed it was not an aphorism, since he had made it up.) My question about Captain Moroney elicited only a shrug of indifference. He was a person of no consequence and we could have him with us, to deal with as we liked—after the ceremony.
“What are we expected to do?” Emerson inquired. I had been about to ask that myself.
“She will tell you what to say.” The king indicated Nefret. “After I have told her. You will stand at my side, at the Window of Appearance, before the people, and say that the gods have chosen me to be king and that any who fight against me will be visited by the wrath of the gods. I will honor you, with high office and collars of gold, as loyal officials