He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [97]
“Sssh. Behave normally and follow my lead. Ah, there you are, Nefret, my dear. How pretty you look.”
Like the rest of us she was informally dressed, in a neat tweed walking skirt and matching coat. The golden-brown cloth, flecked with green and blue, set off her sun-kissed face and bright hair, which she had twisted into a simple coil at the back of her neck.
“You have a button off your coat,” she remarked, inspecting Ramses. “And cat hairs all over the shoulder. Stand still, I’ll brush them off.”
“You are a fine one to criticize my appearance, with that big purple lump on your forehead,” Ramses jeered.
“Damn. I thought I’d arranged my hair to cover it.” Her fingers played with the waving locks framing her brow.
“Not quite.” He watched her for a moment, and then put out his hand. “Let me.”
She stood facing him like an obedient child with her chin lifted and her arms at her sides, while his thin, deft fingers gently loosened the gold-red strands and drew them down over her temple. One long lock curled round his hand and clung. He had to unwind it before he took his hand from her face.
“I’ve made it worse,” he said. “Sorry. Excuse me for a minute.”
“Go and tell the Professor we are ready,” I said to Nefret, and waited until she had started up the stairs before I went after Ramses, who had disappeared behind the statue. I found him leaning against the wall, staring intently at nothing that I could see.
“You are as white as a sheet,” I told him. “What is wrong? Sit down. Let me get you—”
“Nothing is wrong. A passing dizzy spell, that’s all.” His eyes came back into focus and the color began to return to his face. “I’m hungry,” he said in surprised indignation.
“Nothing surprising about that,” I said, greatly relieved. “You only had a few sandwiches for lunch and it has been a hard day. Here, take my arm.”
“I thought you wanted us to behave normally. Mother, why are you . . . I appreciate your concern, but I don’t understand what . . .”
I knew what he meant and why he could not say it. Perhaps we were more alike than I had believed. “It has cost me a great deal of mental and physical effort to get you to your present age,” I explained. “I would hate to have all that effort go to waste.”
“Yes, I see.”
A bellow from Emerson ended the discussion. “Peabody! Where have you got to? We are waiting, damn it!”
“Just having a look at the statue,” I said, coming forth with Ramses at my heels.
There were three of them waiting—Emerson, Nefret, and the cat. They looked rather comical lined up in a row, with Seshat as expectant as the others. She was sitting bolt upright with her tail curled prettily around her front paws.
“I think she wants to come with us,” Nefret said.
Seshat confirmed her assumption by approaching Ramses. Looking up at him, she let out a peremptory mew.
“You will have to wear your collar,” he informed her. The response was the equivalent of a feline shrug.
“I’ll get it,” Nefret offered. “Where is it?”
Ramses looked blank. “I don’t know.”
“Fatima has it,” I said. “I gave it to her to keep, since you were always losing it.”
Nefret darted off.
In fact, the collar was seldom used since Seshat was not fond of travel. When she was not hunting hapless rodents in the garden or climbing around the exterior of the house, she spent most of her time in Ramses’s room. She seeemed to consider it her duty to watch over his possessions—or else (which is more likely) she considered it her room, and Ramses only a congenial and rather incompetent roommate, who required a great deal of looking after. I had never understood what prompted her occasional forays away from the house, and her determination to accompany us that night, of all nights, roused certain forebodings. Did she know something we did not?
Nefret came back with the collar and gave it to Ramses, who knelt to buckle it around Seshat’s neck. Emerson moved to my side. “If you so much as shape the word with your lips, Peabody,” he said softly,