He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [207]
“Who?” Emerson’s strong jaw dropped.
“Who?” I gasped, glaring wildly round the small chamber.
“Me, I think,” said Ramses. “By a process of elimination. I had begun to wonder—”
“Don’t try to talk, Ramses!” I cried. He was leaning heavily on Nefret, and under the bruises and streaks of blood his face was ashen.
“I think I had better,” Ramses said, drawing a long, difficult breath. “Kantara is a feint only. The main attack will come between Toussoum and Serapeum, at half past three. They have steel pontoons to bridge the Canal. Two infantry brigades and six guns are to hold a position two miles northeast of Serapeum—”
“Half past three—today?” The officer broke in. “It is already after midnight. Damn it, man, are you sure? Headquarters expected the attack would be farther north. It will take at least eight hours to get our reserves from Ismailia to Serapeum.”
“Then you had better get them started, hadn’t you?” said Ramses.
“Damnation,” Emerson exclaimed. “The only troops near Toussoum are the Indian infantry, and most of them are Moslems. If they don’t hold—”
“They will hold.” Ramses looked down at the man whose head rested on my lap. “As I was saying, I began to wonder about Major Hamilton earlier. His suggestion that they leave me alive was a bit too disingenuous. Double agent, I thought—prayed, rather—but it never occurred to me he was . . .” His voice cracked. “Uncle Sethos?”
Emerson had gone white. “You were the boy in the snow. My father’s . . .”
“Your father’s bastard, yes,” Sethos whispered. “Did you never suspect why I hated you so? The sight of you that night, the young heir and master, in your handsome coach, while I struggled to help a fainting woman through the drifts . . . She died a week later, in a charity ward in Truro, and was buried in a pauper’s grave.”
“She loved you,” Emerson said, in a voice that cut me to the heart. “You had that, at least. It was more than I had.”
“I am mean enough to be glad of that,” Sethos said in a stronger voice. “You had everything else. We are more alike than you realize, brother. You turned your talents to scholarship; I turned mine to crime. I became your dark counterpart, your rival . . . I tried to take her from you, Radcliffe, but I failed in that as in all the rest . . .”
“Listen to me.” Emerson leaned forward. “I want you to know this. I tried to find you that night. After my mother told me what she had done I went out to look for you. She sent two of the servants to drag me back and lock me in my room. If there is anything I can do to make it up to you—”
“Too late. Just as well; we would all find it a trifle difficult to adjust to these new relationships.”
Emerson said gruffly, “Will you give me your hand?”
“In token of forgiveness? It seems I have less to forgive than you.” His hand moved feebly. Emerson grasped it. Sethos’s eyes moved slowly over the faces of the others, and then returned, as if drawn by a magnet, to mine. “How very sentimental,” he murmured. “I never thought to see my affectionate family gathered round me at the end. . . . Fetch the light closer, Radcliffe. My eyes are dimming, and I want to see her face clearly. Amelia, will you grant me my last wish? I would like to die with your kiss on my lips. It is the only reward I am likely to get for helping to save your son’s life, not to mention the Suez Canal.”
I lifted him in my arms and kissed him. For a moment his lips met mine with desperate intensity; then a shudder ran through him and his head fell back. Gently I lowered him to the ground and folded his bloody hands over his breast.
“Bid the soldiers shoot,” I murmured. “And bear him like a soldier to the stage. For he was likely, had he been—”
“Amelia, I beg you will leave off misquoting Hamlet,” said my husband through his teeth.
I forgave him his harsh tone, for I knew it was his way of concealing