Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [18]
“That is very kind of you.”
“Are you being sarcastic, Peabody? Hmph. My dear, I am speaking not as your devoted husband but as your professional superior. Am I or am I not the director of this expedition?”
“Yes, of course you are.”
“Then give me a kiss.”
“That is a very unprofessional request.”
“We aren’t at the dig yet,” said Emerson, folding me in his arms.
Eventually the sound of voices outside the room made him leave off what he was doing. “Well, well, we had better get on,” he said. “Is Sennia coming with us again today?”
I had permitted Sennia and Gargery to join us the past two days. She was never happier than when she could play archaeologist, trying to copy an inscription or pretending to act as Ramses’s clerk while he called out measurements and descriptions to her, or, when she became tired of sitting, scrambling around the plateau looking for potsherds and bones. Gargery, who insisted on accompanying her wherever she went, thoroughly disapproved of the bones, which he believed to be both morbid and unsanitary, but there was nothing he could do about it since the rest of us considered bones a perfectly legitimate subject of inquiry.
We were soon on our way, since—as Ramses pointed out—they had been waiting for us for quite some time. The beautiful Arabian horses, which had been gifts to Ramses and David from our friend Sheikh Mohammed, had had offspring; there were now six of them, including Nefret’s mare Moonlight and the splendid stallion Risha, patriarch of the little herd. We had hired a fat, placid donkey for Sennia and another for Gargery. This arrangement had not been arrived at without arguments from both parties. Sennia demanded to know why Ramses could not take her with him on Risha. Gargery had declared he would prefer to walk.
“Nonsense,” said Emerson. “If you cannot keep up, Gargery, you will have to go back to England. You have ridden donkeyback before.”
Gargery’s countenance lengthened. He had ridden donkeyback and he had hated it, but as Emerson remarked—chuckling at his rather clumsy play on words—he hadn’t a leg to stand on. He left it to me to convince Sennia, which I did by pointing out that Gargery would have no one to keep him company if she went with Ramses, and that if she intended to take Horus along, he would have to ride in a basket fastened to her saddle. Horus did not like donkeys, or the basket, but he would have allowed himself to be dragged at the end of a rope rather than let Sennia go off without him. His grumbles and growls formed an unpleasant accompaniment to our conversation.
Leaving the horses and the donkeys at Mena House, we proceeded on foot, with Sennia on Emerson’s shoulder and Horus stalking along after them. Everyone we met stared and smiled at them: Emerson, tall and stalwart as some hero of legend, the big cat following like a faithful dog, the little girl laughing and chattering and waving at her friends—for by then every gaffir and guide at Giza knew her and adored her. They were always offering her little presents, and we had to keep a close eye on her to keep her from eating the questionable sweetmeats which were presented.
She looked very picturesque in her “working clothes,” as she proudly termed them. We had had a pith helmet made to her measure, and after some discussion I had agreed that boys’ clothing would be more sensible than frocks. I had allowed her a voice in the selection of these garments (leaving several clerks in the Young Gentlemen’s Department at Harrods in a state of shock) and I was not surprised when she favored tweeds and flannels similar to the ones Ramses wore. Except for the long black curls that escaped from under her