Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [149]
He was familiar with the village, though he’d never had any reason to linger there; it was one of several small settlements between the southern end of Drah Abu’l Naga and the Seti I temple. He circled the place, fingering the torch in his pouch and wondering whether he would have to use it. The moonlight should be bright enough if he could attract someone’s attention.
From the ridge he selected as his vantage point, the small huddle of huts looked deserted. Most of the villagers went to bed as soon as it was dark; lamp oil was costly. A pile of rubble indicated the site of Sethos’s house. He’d done a thorough job. Not a wall had been left standing. The locals had probably added their bit, rooting in the ruins in search of some object they could use, or, if one was charitably inclined, for a body dead or alive.
Ramses picked up a handful of stones and began pitching them in the general direction of the village, spacing them so that the sounds would suggest they had been set rolling by approaching feet. He waited for a bit, listening. He threw one more stone, and was rewarded with the first response, a loud canine yelp. The stone must have struck a sleeping dog.
He headed down the slope, impatient to get the business over. Several other dogs had added their comments to the original complaint. A light showed at the window of one of the houses and a voice shouted imprecations in Arabic. All perfectly normal and harmless, just as Sethos had predicted.
The aroused sleeper had his head out the window, cursing the dogs. They were now following Ramses, snarling and barking. He stopped a few feet from the house, full in the moonlight. A halt in the curses, followed by a cry of surprise, assured him he had been seen, so he turned and trotted back the way he had come.
The dark form seemed to rise up out of the ground directly in his path. He flung himself to one side and flipped over, landing on his feet as a knife drove into the ground on the spot where he had just been. He caught one glimpse of a scarred, distorted face before he broke into a run, hurtling obstacles in his path and resisting the temptation to look back. Footsteps pounded after him, but he didn’t doubt he could keep ahead, and if he didn’t lose the fellow before he reached the edge of the cultivation, there were a number of handy bolt-holes in the temple ruins, with which he was thoroughly familiar . . .
Mubashir—it had to be Mubashir—was as familiar with the terrain as he was. He avoided several pitfalls Ramses had hoped he’d fall into, and came doggedly on. Finally, though, the sound of footsteps stopped. Ramses was about to risk a glance back when something slid past his ear and sliced through the shoulder of his borrowed garment before thudding into the ground ahead of him. He ran faster.
When he reached the back of the temple he collapsed, panting, onto the ground behind a tumble of fallen blocks and took stock. There was no sign of his pursuer. The Syrian had thrown the knife only when he realized he was going to lose the race. It had been an incredible throw, in moonlight and at a rapidly moving target, and Ramses was glad he hadn’t looked over his shoulder. He might be missing the end of his nose instead of a bit of his earlobe. It had stopped bleeding, but the gash on his shoulder was still oozing.
After removing his extraneous garments and beard, he entered the water, and before long he was pulling himself up to the open window. Nefret was there. She took the bundle from him and stood back while he climbed in.
“Go and change those wet clothes,” she ordered. Then her eyes widened. “Goddamn it, Ramses, what happened?”
The cuts had opened up and he was dripping blood as well as water on the floor.
“I told you not to show off,” his uncle remarked. He was sitting up in bed. The fever had passed. Fresh sheets were tucked neatly around him, and he was wearing a nice clean nightshirt. Except for his heavy growth of beard and a certain hollowness