Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [189]
The shutters of the room on his right opened and his uncle climbed out the window. He had discarded his galabeeyah and was wearing only a pair of loose drawers—probably Yusuf’s, since they were bunched up around his narrow waist.
“Get back inside,” Ramses ordered.
“Can’t let them in the house, can we? I don’t suppose you had sense enough to accept that gun.”
“You gave it to Nefret, not me. Where did you get the knife?”
“Kadija. Here they come. You weren’t planning to fight fair, I hope.”
“No. We’ll take the one on the right.”
That would put him between Sethos and the other two. He wasn’t counting on much help from his uncle, whose lean body showed the debilitating effects of his illness, but he felt his spirits lift. Fighting side by side with a man of his own blood, as his mother might put it . . . On the whole, a stranger with a pair of revolvers would have been preferable.
“Now,” he said.
Faced with two opponents heading for him at a dead run, their quarry hesitated for a brief but vital second. Sethos slashed at his face, Ramses struck his arm up and plunged his own knife into the man’s belly. Spurting blood weakened his grasp on the hilt and when the man fell, his weight pulled the knife out of Ramses’s hand.
He felt the tip of a blade slice across his back as he bent over, trying to free his knife. It was stuck, caught on a rib, and the hilt was slippery with blood. He snatched up the knife the dead man had dropped, rolled to his feet and kicked out, deflecting the blade that was aimed at Sethos’s back. Sethos was on his knees, streaming blood from hands and face. Ramses parried a slash at his knife hand and chopped at an arm with the flat of his other hand.
The explosion sounded like a charge of dynamite, freezing all four of them for an instant. Christ Almighty, Ramses thought, it must have been that antique Martini of Yusuf’s. I hope it didn’t blow up in his hands. He stood over his uncle, trying to watch both men at once. They had got over their momentary paralysis and were coming at him again, from different directions. Ramses’s ears were still ringing, but he thought he heard . . .
The back gate gave way with a crash almost as loud as that of the gun. Hands on his hips, black hair wildly windblown, Emerson took in the scene in a single glance. His lips curled back, baring his teeth.
It was over in less than ten seconds. One of the two men was sprawled on the ground, with his neck bent at an impossible angle. Emerson had hit him in the throat. The other writhed in Ramses’s grasp, his arm twisted painfully behind his back.
“Thank you, Father,” Ramses said. “Again.”
“Just saving you a little time,” said Emerson with what his son could only regard as a wildly optimistic assessment of the situation. He wasn’t even breathing hard. “Er—all right, are you?”
It was his usual question, but Ramses knew it was not directed at him. Sethos, now sitting up, raised his head. “Just a few scratches. Nothing serious. Flesh wounds.”
“You aren’t very good with a knife,” Ramses said. He didn’t want thanks, and he was pretty sure he was not going to get any.
His uncle’s blood-streaked face broadened in a grin. “I’ve always preferred to hire other people to do the fighting.”
“Except on certain occasions,” said Emerson. “I still have a scar . . . Well, well. Shall we tie that fellow up, or kill him?”
“We might want to ask him a few questions before we kill him,” Ramses remarked dryly.
“Only one of my little jokes,” Emerson said with a chuckle.
He lifted the prisoner with one hand and held him on tiptoe. “Where is your Master?”
Answers to his questions were quickly forthcoming but not as informative as they had hoped. “The Master” had had other urgent business that morning; no, he had not explained what it was, he had sent the trio to rid him of Sethos and was to have met them later to settle their accounts before he left Luxor. Now, the prisoner admitted with refreshing candor, he would as soon not keep that appointment. The Master did not accept excuses or tolerate failure.