Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [15]
“If you will forgive me for saying so, my dear, you are in no position to criticize,” I said. “To judge by his appearance, he is only a year or two younger than you, and you have not entirely conquered your habit of—”
“Hmph,” said Emerson loudly. “What makes you doubt his story, Ramses?”
“I simply pointed out that it cannot be substantiated.”
“Oh, bah,” said Emerson. He began ticking off points on his fingers as he mentioned them. “He resembles his brother. He speaks the language. He knows of our earlier visit, and”—he coughed modestly—“what we did there. In detail. How else could he have learned these things?”
“I don’t doubt that he comes from the Holy Mountain, or that he wants us to go there. It is his motive that is unproven. We’ve nothing in writing, not even Tarek’s alleged letter.”
“Your point is valid,” I admitted. “And there are a number of other points that, in my opinion, require to be explained. We need not make a decision this instant. I assure you, Ramses, that I will bring to bear all my expertise at subtle interrogation.”
“Yes, Mother,” Ramses said.
“Ha,” said Emerson.
“Put the map away, Emerson. It is time to dress for dinner.”
“I am dressed,” said Emerson, inspecting his ink-speckled shirt. “See here, Peabody, you don’t expect me to get myself up in boiled shirt and black tie, do you?”
I took him away. Ramses said he would lock the map in the dispatch case, and we left him brooding over it with a particularly vulturine air. I allowed Emerson to expostulate for a while before informing him that no, I did not expect him to assume formal evening wear, but that he might at least change his shirt and brush his hair. He did so without further argument, humming cheerfully and tunelessly. I supposed the song was one of his favorite vulgar music-hall ditties, but no one could have recognized the melody.
I knew why he was in such a pleasant frame of mind. Emerson enjoys adventure for its own sake, and his archaeological brain was all afire at the prospect of examining again the unique monuments of the Lost Oasis—a culture frozen in time, so to speak, for it had had almost no contact with the outside world since the fourth century A.D., when refugees from the fallen capital of Meroe found their way there, joining earlier immigrants from the late dynasties of ancient Egypt. Furthermore, Merasen’s proposal had relieved Emerson of the necessity of settling on an excavation site for the coming year—and it had put an end to Ramses’s plan of spending the winter in Germany.
I selected a rather becoming gown of my favorite crimson, for, to be honest, I needed to keep my own spirits up. No matter what precautions we took, the journey would be difficult and dangerous. And what would we find at the end of that journey? A dead child and a dying king—the end of a dynasty, with pretenders crawling round the bodies like flies? Even if we could make our way there without incident, our reception was in doubt. We too had broken the law of the Holy Mountain by the very act of leaving it—and we had stolen their revered High Priestess.
Two
“What shall we do about David?” Ramses asked.
The leaves outside the windows of his room dripped with water. Pale sunlight had replaced the misty rain of early morning.
It was the first time we had had an opportunity to speak in private since the arrival of our strange visitor. Over the past two days I had become increasingly uneasy about him, and Ramses was the only member of the family who appeared to share my reservations. Nefret’s warm heart had been won by the hope of helping her old friend and his child, and Emerson had yearned for years to return to the Holy Mountain.
Now Emerson would get his wish. The expedition was a settled matter. It had never been in doubt, really. No matter how slim the chance of success, the attempt must be made.