Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [157]
“If that’s supposed to be funny, I am not amused,” said the voice coldly.
“Sorry,” Ramses said. “I guess I’m still a little light-headed. My name is Emerson—the younger. I met you on the boat from Halfa.”
“Good Lord, are you really? I got a glimpse of you when they dumped you in here, but I didn’t recognize you. Thought you were one of the local laddies.” He came closer and hunkered down next to Ramses. “I guess you’re entitled to ramble a bit. You look as if you’ve taken a beating.”
“It wasn’t a beating. At least,” Ramses amended, “I don’t think so. I fell off a cliff. With a little assistance from one of the local laddies.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Water, if there is any.”
“Oh, yes, we have all the customary amenities. Water, dry bread once a day, the most elegant of sanitary facilities.” He indicated a clay pot in the far corner.
“So it was you who guided Merasen here,” Ramses said, accepting a cup of water.
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“You were the most obvious suspect. I never believed Merasen’s boasts of escaping the slavers. I suppose it was one of your patrols that freed him and the others.”
“You seem to have figured it all out.”
“Just as you figured out who Merasen was and where he came from. You’d heard about Willy Forth’s lost civilization and you knew about our expedition ten years ago. Well done. In the best traditions of the service.”
He sensed rather than saw the other man wince. “I don’t blame you for despising me. But I swear to God I meant no harm to you and your family, or to anyone else. I’ve been in this hole for two days, long enough to realize that I am a miserable sinner and that I am about to pay the price.”
“You’ve found religion, have you?” Ramses inquired skeptically.
“Sneer if you like. I don’t expect to get out of here alive, but I’ll do anything I can to help you.”
Ramses stood up and moved around the perimeter of the cell, stiffly at first, then more easily. The room had been cut out of the mountainside. The only breaks in the solid stone were the square opening in the ceiling and a heavy wooden door.
“It’s barred and chained,” MacFerguson said, watching him push against the door.
“Naturally.” Ramses looked up at the opening in the ceiling. It was less than four inches across. The beam of light was brighter now.
“What time of day do they bring you food and water?” he asked.
“Around midday, to judge by the light. There are always four of them. One replaces the water jar and the basket of bread while the others pen me in a corner with the points of their spears. Now that there are two of us—”
“We’ll both be penned in a corner and held at spearpoint. I don’t think impalement is a sensible way out of here.”
“Only one of us need risk that. If you get behind me—”
“Don’t talk like a fool,” Ramses said roughly.
“What other chance is there?”
“That isn’t a chance, it’s double suicide, even supposing I’d allow you to do it.” He went back to his original corner and lowered himself to a sitting position. “If all else fails, we’ll try the old ‘Help, help, he’s dying,’ trick. Merasen won’t want to lose me, not when he can hold me like a club over my parents’ heads. And I have a feeling he won’t wait until midday to pay us a visit.”
It was not long until he was proved correct, but it seemed long to Ramses, since he had plenty of time for bitter reflections on his own ineptitude. He had only made matters worse. The plan he and Tarek had worked out would fail if his parents weren’t able to play their part, and if Tarek didn’t hear from him before the night of the ceremony, Tarek’s advisers, who obviously had serious reservations about the idea, might be able to persuade him to go back to the original plan. Carrying Daria off had been a mistake too. He had acted on impulse, and he knew what that impulse was. “Love clouds the brain and the organs of moral responsibility.” Nefret would be guarded even more closely now. And if Tarek lost, Daria would end up as a prize for one of the victors.
Moroney