Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [10]
“Oh, no. I’ve looked forward to killing him for a long time. Take him downstairs.”
Down to the filthy little room in the cellar, where the greasy coils of the whip hung from a hook on the wall and old bloodstains darkened the floor. Suddenly he was there, sight and feeling restored: the air clammy against his bare back, the ropes tight around his wrists. Once he had believed he feared the kurbash more than death itself. Now, watching his enemy lift the heavy length of hippopotamus hide, he knew he’d been wrong. He was sweating with terror, but he didn’t want to die, not yet, not like this, without a chance of fighting back. He closed his eyes and turned his face away . . . and felt against his cheek, not the rough stone of the wall, but a surface rounded and warm and gently yielding.
“It’s all right,” she said softly. “I’m here. Wake up, my love. It was only a dream.”
He had reached out to her in his sleep and she had moved instantly to meet his need, drawing his head to her breast. Ramses let his breath out and relaxed the arm that had gripped her. There would be bruises on her fair skin the next day, where his fingers had closed over her side.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” said his wife. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have brought the subject up tonight.”
“How did you know that was what—”
“You talked.”
“Oh.” He knew he was being even more of an idiot when he pulled away and turned onto his back. They had been married a little over six months, and he still hadn’t got over the wonder of winning her, of a closeness of mind and body and spirit greater than he’d ever dared imagine. He no longer minded admitting his weaknesses—not to her . . . not much—but whimpering like a frightened child with a nightmare . . .
Nefret got out of bed. Surefooted and silent in the dark, she found the candle that was standard equipment in case the electricity failed. Ramses wondered what unfailing instinct had told her he couldn’t have endured the abrupt glare of electric bulbs. The gentle candlelight left his face in shadow and sent shimmers of gold through the tumbled masses of her hair. She had left it to hang loose, as he loved to see it and touch it.
“You’re still shutting me out,” she said, sitting down on the side of the bed. “I know why. You want to spare me. You can’t. I saw what he’d done to you. Do you suppose I don’t think of it, dream of it? I wish he were still alive so I could do the same to him.”
She meant it. Her face had the remote, inhuman calm of a goddess delivering judgment. Sometimes he forgot that his sophisticated, beautiful English wife had been High Priestess of Isis in an isolated region where the old gods of Egypt were still worshiped.
“At least you had the satisfaction of killing him,” he said, and then wished he had bitten his tongue off before he spoke. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. Of all the filthy things to say!”
“Why? It’s true. That’s what has been preying on your mind, isn’t it? After all those years of being tormented by him, hating him as much as he hated you, you never got the chance to pay him back. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t resent me just a little.”
“That’s bloody nonsense. Resent you for saving my life?”
“Thereby adding insult to injury.” She was smiling, but her lips were tremulous. “I’m glad we can talk about it now. Dear heart, don’t you realize you couldn’t have punished him as he deserved, even if he had been in your power, with no one to see and no one to stop you? You’re too damned decent even to gloat over a fallen enemy.”
“You make me sound like the most ghastly prig,” Ramses muttered. He could feel his taut muscles relaxing, though. Maybe she was right. As she frequently reminded him, she knew him better than he knew himself.
Nefret leaned over him and took his face between her hands. “You do have a few faults.”
“Thank you. That makes me feel a great deal better.”
“And one of them,” said Nefret, turning her head as he raised his, so that his lips came to rest on her cheek instead of her mouth, “is being too hard on yourself. Don