Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [86]
At first we were too hungry to converse. Roast goose and fresh vegetables, bread still warm from the oven were a welcome change after days of short rations. Even the thin, rather sour wine was refreshing. Daoud refused to touch it until I explained that the local water was probably not safe to drink. “Does not the law admit exceptions in cases of necessity?” I asked.
Daoud allowed that perhaps it did, and after a time we all became very cheerful. Selim, who had spent most of his life working in the tombs and temples of ancient Egypt, was intelligently fascinated by everything around us. He kept jumping up to peer closely at a row of hieroglyphs or a painted bird, and bombarded Emerson with questions, which the latter was of course delighted to answer. While the others were laughing over one of Daoud’s stories (which would probably not have been quite so funny without the wine), Ramses got up and began prowling round the room. I joined him.
“Is something troubling you?” I asked.
“A good many things trouble me.” He glanced at his father and lowered his voice. “There is something wrong here. Can’t you feel it?”
“You intended to do a little exploring, I believe. Did you find anything to make you uneasy?”
He drew me behind one of the columns and leaned against it. “I didn’t have time to explore the whole place. It’s even larger than the other palace we stayed in, with a confusing maze of rock-cut chambers at the back. I suspect there is a back entrance, as was the case in the other house, but it is well hidden, and when I started prodding at the walls, I was politely but decidedly urged to leave.” He hesitated for a moment and then said, “The front entrance through which we came is now closed by a heavy door. It is locked or bolted on the other side.”
“That could be for our protection.”
“Against what? Oh, I agree it means nothing in itself, but…”
I patted his arm. “Perhaps such uneasiness is solely the result of fatigue. We have been welcomed as honored guests—they didn’t even blindfold us when we passed through the tunnels.”
“Yes.” His face softened. It was not quite a smile, but close to it. “I didn’t mean to cause you uneasiness, Mother. You must be very tired. Why don’t you go to bed?”
“All that food and wine has made me uncommonly drowsy,” I confessed. “We should all retire, I believe. I do not doubt that all our uncertainties will be resolved in the morning.”
Emerson gave me a reproachful look when I sent him off with the other men, but he was too shy about such things to announce his preference publicly, or to take me by the hand and lead me into my bedchamber with everyone looking on. As for me, I had no intention of going to bed with that beard.
The two girls took one of the sleeping chambers and I another. The room was cool and dim, lit by a single lamp. The bed had springs of woven leather with pads of folded linen atop; after the surfaces on which I had reclined of late, it felt as soft as a feather bed. Weary as I was, I had no trouble in falling asleep, but my slumber was not sound. Fragments of dreams slipped in and out of my sleeping mind. Once I thought I saw Abdullah’s face, but he did not linger or speak. Another image was that of Nefret, clad as I had first beheld her in the white robes of the High Priestess of Isis, with her loosened hair falling over her shoulders. There were birds too—the jewel-bright birds of the fabled city of Zerzura, fluttering and swooping and uttering high-pitched cries, more like human voices than birdsong.
I woke quite refreshed, however, to find rays of sunlight piercing the shadows through the high clerestory windows. The first creak of the leather springs brought one of the serving women, who helped me into a loose robe and bowed me into the next room, where breakfast was being brought in. It was not long before Emerson joined me, similarly attired