Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [53]
Hot air replaced the cool breeze of a Luxor morning. I felt Emerson’s arm round me and the wet cotton of his shirt under my cheek. So wonderful had been that vision that I was loath to see it vanish. Vision or dream—or something more?—it had taken away some of the pain of Abdullah’s death. I smiled to myself, remembering his complaints.
“She’s smiling,” said Nefret’s voice.
“Don’t wake her.” Emerson’s grumble was his best attempt at a whisper.
“The heat seems to bother her quite a lot,” Ramses said, his even voice softened by concern. “Father, can’t you persuade her to remain at Gebel Barkal instead of—”
“Certainly not,” I said, and sat up. “What time is it?”
A single lamp, with a cracked shade, smoked redly, casting gruesome shadows across the faces of my companions.
“Time for a bite to eat,” said Emerson, avoiding the question of how much longer the jolting journey would take. “We have waited for you, my dear. It was clever of you to think of purchasing food.”
“I knew you wouldn’t think of it,” I retorted. “Have Selim and the others been supplied?”
Ramses assured me they had, and we tucked into the food with good appetite. “You look much better, Aunt Amelia,” Nefret remarked. “You were smiling in your sleep. Did you dream of something pleasant?”
“Quite pleasant, my dear. I saw—”
My voice cracked, and Ramses at once handed me a cup of tea. Sipping it, I reconsidered what I had been about to say. There was no way I could convey the potency of that dream and its effect. They would think me silly and sentimental if I spoke of Abdullah. Emerson might pat me on the head. He means it to be comforting, but he pats too hard and musses my hair.
“I dreamed about Luxor,” I explained. “The cliff above Deir el Bahri. The air was beautifully clear and cool and the sun was rising.”
Emerson cleared his throat noisily. “It won’t be long before we are there again, Peabody, my dear. I promise.”
He patted me on the head. “Ouch,” I said.
The interminable trip dragged on. I dozed fitfully in the circle of Emerson’s strong arm. Nefret had also succumbed, curled up on the seat with her head on Ramses’s lap. He was reading, or trying to, by the dim light, but he seldom turned a page.
At last the first faint blush of dawn lessened the darkness. “There it is!” Emerson shouted in my ear. “Gebel Barkal!”
In fact it was not. The great mountain temple of the ancient Cushites was still several miles away. However, the train was slowing, and I was willing to make allowances for Emerson’s imagination.
Ramses closed his book and put his hand lightly on Nefret’s shoulder. She murmured sleepily and turned her head, her face rosy with sleep.
“Wake up,” Ramses said. “We are arriving. Mother, how are you feeling?”
“Perfectly fit,” I assured him. “What now, Emerson?”
“Everything is quite in order,” said Emerson proudly. “You remember my old friend—”
“Not Mustapha, Emerson! I hoped he was dead!”
“Peabody!” said Emerson in shocked surprise.
“I meant—that is to say—I thought he must be dead.”
Ramses had turned away, his hand raised to hide his mouth. He remembered Mustapha and my blistering comments on that gentleman’s ideas of a comfortable dwelling. A tent in the desert—a cave in the cliffs—would have seemed like Shepheard’s compared with the house Mustapha had furnished us.
“Oh,” said Emerson. “Well, he’s not. And there he is, right on time. Admirable chap!”
The years had left no mark on Mustapha, possibly because he had already been as wrinkled and cadaverous as he was likely to become—and as dirty. As before, he was so very glad to see us, it was difficult to resent the old fellow. There were real tears in his eyes when he embraced Emerson and saluted me. He praised Nefret’s beauty and grace, looked wonderingly at Ramses, who had been a boy of ten at their last meeting, and burst into a litany of praise with which I was becoming only too familiar. “Just like your honored father! Tall and handsome and strong, pleasing the women with your—”
“Quite,” said Emerson,