Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [148]
It was no wonder the usurper had been unable to get through the pass. Where it started to widen out, on Tarek’s side, it was bounded by stone walls, machicolated like those of a medieval castle. Any attackers who managed to get over the boulders would be funneled into the space between the walls, helpless against the bows and spears of the defenders, and if they tried to scale the heights on either side they would be swept away by a rain of stones and arrows.
Tarek wasn’t looking at the pass. Feet braced and shoulders thrown back, he watched the swollen red orb of the sun lift over the eastern mountain. “The god comes again,” he said softly.
Which god? Ramses wondered. Khepri, the beetle, the rising sun, Atum, the setting son, Re, Harakhte of the Horizon?
As if he had read Ramses’s thoughts, Tarek said, “He has many names but he is One.”
Ramses knew his father would have leaped on this intriguing theological development. Was Tarek becoming a monotheist? At the moment he didn’t give a damn.
By the time they reached the roughly built barracks that housed his garrison, Tarek was carrying Daria, and Ramses was wearily attempting to carry on a conversation with Harsetef. Did the Father of Curses remember him? Did he know that he, Harsetef, had been faithful to his trust? He had three sons now, the oldest ten years of age and already a good bowman. Had Ramses a wife? Children? He could see he went down in Harsetef’s estimation when he admitted he wasn’t even married and that—to the best of his knowledge—he was childless.
They were given the commander’s room and left tactfully alone after they had been supplied with food and water, a change of clothing, and, at Ramses’s request, a razor. The people of the Holy Mountain were clean-shaven, and his own beard was at its most un-sightly. If, as he suspected, he was about to meet the leading citizens of Tarek’s group, he had to make a good impression. Between the bronze razor and the bronze mirror he wasn’t sure he had succeeded, but he did the best he could.
Daria had fallen asleep instantly. She didn’t stir when Ramses took off her shoes and bathed her feet.
He forced himself to take the rest he needed, though it was hard to clear his mind of its multitude of worries. It was Tarek himself who wakened him, with courteous apologies. While he dressed in a fresh kilt and sandals, Tarek stood looking down at the sleeping girl.
“She is brave and very beautiful,” he said softly. “You are fortunate to have her.”
“I don’t…” Ramses stopped himself. He did, didn’t he? From Tarek’s point of view, the arrangement was entirely reasonable. “How did you hear of her?”
“Two of the men in the troop who brought you from the first oasis are loyal to me.” Tarek held the curtain aside and gestured him out. “There are others, who stayed at their posts to work from within.”
“I must hear about them.”
“And about other things.”
The room they entered served as a sort of office, with several tables and chairs covered with papers. There were three other men present, whom Tarek introduced by name and title. The Keeper of the Secrets of His Majesty was a hard-faced man of late middle age, with deep-set eyes like dull pebbles. Whatever the title had implied in ancient Egypt, this fellow looked like a spy. The others were Tarek’s vizier and the Commander of All the Armies of His Majesty. A resounding name for a force that probably didn’t number over a thousand men.
“Tell me first,” said Tarek, “of my friends. That the Father of Curses and the Sitt Hakim are well I know, for so it was reported to me. And you are still the only son.”
“Yes,” Ramses said, smiling a little as he remembered a candid statement of his mother’s which he had happened to overhear. “One is quite enough.” “But I have a friend who is close as a brother and dear as a son to them. He is an Egyptian, about to be married to my cousin.”
Tarek wanted to know why Ramses’s foster brother had not come with them. He seemed to be enjoying the news as much as any gossipy old lady, so Ramses obliged, describing their relationship with Selim