Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [149]
“He placed himself in the path of death to save the lady! I did not know of it. He will be honored in the hereafter as a hero, he will sit in the bark of the god.”
“He’d like that,” Ramses said. “I hope so, Tarek.”
“And my little sister? She is still a maiden?”
“She’s not married,” Ramses said after a somewhat confused pause.
“Why not?”
His voice was quick and hard, and the expression in his dark eyes made Ramses strangely uneasy. “In our world women do not marry unless they choose to. She has not chosen to.”
Tarek’s eyes fell. “She is as beautiful as ever, I am told,” he said, as if to himself. “Many men must have wanted her. Perhaps she has set her heart on one she cannot have.”
Ramses had no intention of going down that road. “She hasn’t opened her heart to me,” he said curtly. “Tell me of yourself, Tarek. Your wife—uh—wives. Your sons.”
“I have no son. No true son. My queen—Mentarit—died giving birth to the last, stillborn like the others.”
Ramses expressed sympathy, though the news did not surprise him. For generations the rulers of the Holy City, like the Egyptian pharaohs, had married sisters and half sisters. What the royal house needed was an infusion of new blood.
Tarek gave Ramses a quick, businesslike summary of his resources and their disposition, with occasional contributions from his staff. “Our plan is to come through the pass on the night of the ceremony, when all the people will be gathered together. The rekkit will rise and so will many others. They will attack from the rear and we will crush the usurper’s troops like grain between two stones.”
“It might succeed,” Ramses said slowly. “But at the cost of how many lives?”
The hard-faced spymaster cleared his throat. “Men die in a war. Has the Brother of Demons a better plan?”
“No, but the Father of Curses will,” Ramses said. “Let me go back to him and the Sitt Hakim with what I have learned from you. You must delay the attack until after the ceremony. They have thought of a plan.”
Not just one—but he didn’t want even to consider some of his mother’s more imaginative ideas, much less explain them to his skeptical audience. The invocation of the dread Father of Curses kept them silent, but Ramses could see they were not convinced.
After a long pause, Tarek nodded and reached for a piece of paper. “We will wait until tomorrow to learn the word of the Father of Curses. I will write the names of those who are loyal to me in the city and where to find them. Memorize them and destroy the paper.”
Ramses stared. It was paper, ordinary writing paper—and Tarek held a pencil—an ordinary pencil. “Where did you get this?” he demanded.
“He brought it. He brought many useful things, medicines for fever and wounds, seeds of new kinds of grain, books and writing tools, swords harder than iron—”
“Who?”
Tarek’s eyes widened in surprise. “Who else could it be? Your friend.”
Twelve
As soon as Zekare and his entourage left, Emerson charged out into the garden. He returned empty-handed. His failure to find a message from Ramses did not improve his temper, which was already explosive. He had been deeply distressed by our parting with Nefret. I too had found it difficult to let her go; she was acting very strangely, and the last look she gave me was one of pitiful appeal. What had they done to reduce a girl of her spirit to such a state?
“I will take a little stroll in the garden with you,” I offered. “It must be lovely in the moonlight.”
“Lovely, bah,” said Emerson, sitting down with a thump. “The only thing about the garden that interests me is that which was not there. What’s this?”
It was, self-evidently, a tray of food. Daoud’s admirer had taken to producing one every hour or so. This one included fruit, bread, and a platter of some variety of small bird, plump and nicely browned. They looked quite tasty, but I can never bring myself to eat little birds.
Emerson also declined. Instead he fetched the bottle of whiskey.
“We will have to start rationing