Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [123]
It was late afternoon before we got off. Mohammed had been vague about the precise time of the meeting between the impostor and his hireling, probably because he did not know himself. “After nightfall” might be any hour between dusk and dawn, so we needed to be in position before sunset. We had a little less than a mile to walk from the place where we left the horses, and there we assumed Arab dress. Emerson enjoyed this part of the business, since in my guise of a Moslem female I was obliged to follow him at a proper distance. We approached the village from the south, where ridges of rock offered concealment. The sun was low in the west by then. He and Selim settled down to wait. I went on.
Emerson had not given in to this part of the scheme without argument, but in my opinion it was imperative that we have someone actually inside the house, and I was the only one who could approach it without arousing suspicion. Many of the poorer local women went unveiled, and so did I, but the head scarf shadowed my face, which I had darkened with one of the concoctions Ramses kept for that purpose.
I met no one as I shuffled toward the house. Even the dog had disappeared. During our earlier visit the inhabitants had hidden in their houses; now they appeared to have made a hasty exodus. They might be uneducated and ignorant but they were not stupid. “When the Father of Curses appears, trouble follows,” as Daoud was wont to say. They must have known the trouble was not over—that the Father of Curses would hold someone accountable for Sennia’s abduction—that he would return, breathing fire and summoning all the demons of Egypt to his aid. I did not believe any of the others had been directly involved, but it is not only the guilty who flee when no man pursueth.
I doubted they would have taken the old woman with them. She would have been an encumbrance, and would serve as a scapegoat. Sure enough, she was there, huddled in the corner by the brazier, looking as if she had not moved since we last saw her. She raised her head when I entered and closed the door after me.
“Do not be afraid,” I said softly. “It is the Sitt Hakim.”
She nodded. “I knew you would come back. The others knew too. They have run away.”
“Your son has not returned?”
“No.” In the same lifeless voice she went on, “He will not return. The story of your coming here has spread now, and if he hears of it he will go far away and never come back, and I will be alone, with no one to care for me. Is the child safe?”
“Yes. Safe and happy.”
“She is a good child, kind and gentle. He swore he would not harm her. She would not eat the honey cakes . . .”
Her voice trailed off into mumbles and she began rocking back and forth, her arms folded across her breast as if she were nursing an infant. She had spent some of her windfall on opium. I recognized the smell. Well, who could blame her for wanting to escape from a life of blindness, poverty, and loneliness?
I looked round the room, trying to decide what to do. The sky outside was darkening, and soon the interior would be pitch-black. The only place to sit was the floor, which was crawling with insect life; my ankles were already under attack. I decided to stand on one side of the room, where I would be concealed by the door when it opened. The old woman paid no attention. She was lost in memories of a happier past, when she had cradled a child.
It was entirely possible that our attempted ambush was doomed from the start. The villagers, dispersed across the landscape by now, would report the exciting events of the morning to everyone they met. One of them might even take the risk of heading Saleh off and warning him that his plot had failed. If he did not hear of it beforehand, he would certainly realize something was amiss when he found the door unbarred.
In my opinion, these possibilities did not justify abandoning our plan. They were possibilities, not certainties, and I felt sure Emerson would agree that we ought not miss even a remote chance of capturing