Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [70]
Shooting his mother wouldn’t be much fun either.
If worse came to worst, a quick death was preferable to slavery, especially for a woman…Wasn’t it? Or was that one of those hoary old sayings that people recited but never really thought about? Like “England expects every man to do his duty” and “Better death than dishonor.” Did women really believe that, or was it something men wanted them to believe?
At least he was no longer in doubt as to how his mother felt. Hearing that brisk, matter-of-fact voice propose the unthinkable had shaken him. But he oughtn’t have been surprised; that was his mother for you. She could look a fact in the face without flinching, no matter how unpalatable it was.
Which was more than he could do. He closed his eyes, as if that could shut out the image of Nefret; and then it wasn’t Nefret, but the girl Daria, her blood soaking into the sand and her wide, dead eyes staring emptily, and he knew he had killed her…And he started out of a half-doze to see dawn pale in the eastern sky, and close ahead the twin black columns that had been their first landmark.
Knowing his father would want him to spend most of the day investigating the miserable ruin, he walked back and forth, stretching his legs and trying not to look at Nefret. Emerson had apparently decided his old acquaintance had “stayed bribed,” but Ramses wasn’t so confident. His eyes kept straying toward the east, hoping not to see an ominous cloud of sand. What he did see eventually was not so much ominous as strange. The beast could only be a camel, but what was a single camel doing here?
His mother’s surprised identification of the camel’s rider brought them all to attention. “He appears to be in distress,” she added, raising her voice to be heard over Emerson’s curses. “And he is holding someone before him on the saddle. Someone who is unconscious or…Oh dear.”
She started impetuously forward. So did Nefret. Emerson threw out his arms and barred their path. “Stay back, both of you. What the devil did I do with my…Give me that, Selim, and keep the women back!” He snatched Selim’s rifle and stalked off to meet the approaching riders.
Ramses followed more slowly. Unlike his father, who had divested himself of binoculars, weapon, and extraneous clothing, he was armed, but he didn’t draw the pistol. Newbold was not fool enough to start trouble with an enraged Emerson. He had both arms round the girl. She was a limp white bundle, wrapped in dusty garments, except for her head, which had fallen back against his shoulder.
“What the devil are you doing here?” Emerson demanded.
“Following you, what do you suppose?” Newbold’s haggard face twitched as if he were trying to smile. “Ran into trouble, though. Barely got away. No water. Please…”
Emerson nodded at his son, and Ramses caught the girl as she slipped through Newbold’s failing hold. She was as light as a bird. Her eyes opened, and a dreadful ripple of déjà vu ran through him. It was the face he had seen in his dream, pale and empty-eyed. Then her eyelids fell and she turned her face against his breast.
“Take her to your mother, Ramses,” Emerson ordered. He held the heavy rifle in one hand, as easily as he would have held a pistol. “Come ahead, Newbold. You can stick on for another twenty feet, I presume.”
Nefret broke away from Selim and came running to meet Ramses. “Is she hurt? Poor little thing, that brute had no business forcing her to come with him on a trek like this. Put her in my tent, Ramses.”
Ramses left her crooning reassurances as she divested Daria of her muffling garments. The girl hadn’t spoken, but she was awake and aware; the wide dark eyes followed him as he went out of the tent.
His mother was ministering to Newbold—in her