Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [85]
The servants scattered, and Nefret said to us, “I have told them to bring our luggage and prepare food. Do you want to bathe before we eat, Aunt Amelia?”
“I believe we all should,” I replied.
“Go ahead, Father,” said Ramses. “I believe the menservants are indicating that our quarters are through that door. I will join you shortly.”
“Going to have a look round, are you?” Emerson inquired. “Hmmm. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, my boy.”
“Don’t do anything he might do,” I corrected. “Are we to go this way, Nefret?”
“There are several suites of rooms here,” Nefret said with the same unnerving assurance. “Come with me, Daria.”
Our suite consisted of several small bedrooms and a bath chamber. Daria pleaded to enter the bath with Nefret; she had scarcely spoken a word since we arrived and shrank away from the servants. Nefret, who did not suffer from false modesty, readily agreed. I, who did suffer from it, took my turn after they had finished. Pure physical pleasure drowned all thought as I allowed the women to minister to me with the skill I remembered, washing and drying my hair, rubbing oil into my dry skin after weeks of perspiration and dust had been removed, wrapping me at last in towels of linen. When I joined Daria and Nefret, I found them examining the clothing that had been laid out for us: robes of sheer pleated linen held in place by colorful sashes. “Dear me,” I said. “This won’t do. We will have to wear clean undergarments beneath them.”
“I haven’t any clean undergarments,” Nefret said with a grin. “And I doubt you do, Aunt Amelia.”
The bags containing our clothing and other personal necessities had been brought to the bedchamber. I didn’t have to open them to know Nefret was unfortunately correct. “Well, you cannot appear before persons of the male gender in that transparent garment. The men are joining us for dinner, I presume? Yes. Hmmm. Let me think…”
It took a while to convince the servants that I meant what I said, but they finally brought us robes like their own. We put the pleated linen on over these, and after I had inspected Nefret and Daria, I decided it would do.
“You have been very silent, Daria,” I remarked.
“I am in wonderment” was her low-voiced response. “I had heard…I had heard tales of such places, but believed they were only stories.”
I patted her shoulder. “You are adapting admirably to these new experiences. Continue to do so. Now let us see what there is for supper. I do look forward to a proper meal.”
As I had expected, the men were already in the sitting room, if I may so term it. Emerson’s beard was as ebullient as ever, but Ramses was clean-shaven and Selim had trimmed his beard. A thrill passed through me at seeing my spouse once again attired in the costume that became his stalwart form so well: a knee-length kilt of white linen fastened at the waist by a jeweled belt. Ramses and Selim wore similar garments, but Daoud, modest man that he was, had wrapped himself in a large piece of linen—probably a bedsheet.
Nefret clapped her hands again, and the servants began to carry in small tables and stools, two to each table, and dishes of food. Daoud sniffed appreciatively.
“But I cannot sit on one of those,” he protested, indicating the little stools.
“Sit on the floor, then,” I suggested. “The tables are low enough. Do sit down, all of you, you needn’t be so formal.”
“There is nothing formal about this costume,” Emerson grumbled. “They wouldn’t give me a shirt.” The fixed regard of Daria—fixed, to be precise, on the magnificent musculature of his bare chest—seemed to disconcert him. He turned red and subsided onto one of the stools.
“My dear, you look splendid,” I said, carefully not looking at his bare legs, which were of a considerably paler shade than the rest of him. “So do you all.”
“Yes,” Daria murmured. She had transferred her interested stare to Ramses. In the becoming but barbaric costume he bore an uncanny resemblance to the ancient Egyptians shown in statues and reliefs, broad of shoulder and slim of waist, his skin