Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [200]
Sweat poured down the man’s face. “I am willing to strike a bargain. No, listen! You cannot get her away from Mubashir without my help, I am the only one he’ll listen to. I will go with you and order him to release her if you promise to let me go.”
Emerson is accustomed to get his own way, without compromise or bargaining. His eyes narrowed into slits of sapphirine fire.
“We must discuss it,” I said. “Come with me, Emerson. Selim, watch him.”
We went together out into the sunlight. Under my restraining hand Emerson’s arm was hard as granite. “We must agree, Emerson,” I said softly. “I share your admiration for Ramses’s abilities, but even he has his limits. He may also be a prisoner, or . . . Kuentz has nothing to lose. He already faces the death penalty.”
“So we let him get away with . . . how many? Three murders? Four?”
I remembered something Nefret had once said. “Is it wrong to care so much about someone that nothing else matters?” In the last extremity, when a loved one is at risk, nothing else matters. Certainly nothing so abstract as justice. It is, after all, a concept defined by men.
“Yes,” I said.
Instead of replying, Emerson emitted a wordless shout and began to run. I turned and saw them coming, holding one another’s hands, the sunlight bright on Nefret’s golden hair. I started toward them, rather quickly, but not running . . . Not very fast, at any rate.
Emerson had enveloped his daughter in a close embrace. I looked at my son. He gave me a rather tentative smile.
“I apologize for my appearance, Mother. We came straight here, since we thought you might be . . . Mother?”
Arms, breast, face, side, hand . . . I gave up the attempt to tally his wounds. “Another shirt ruined,” I said, and threw my arms around him.
The remainder of that day was something of a bustle, what with arranging for the shrine to be guarded and the prisoner removed, tending to the wounded, and bringing one another up-to-date. Our celebratory preprandial gathering in the beautifully appointed sitting room of the Castle included only part of the group. Sennia was with Jumana, delighted to have another sick person to look after. Sethos was tucked up in bed with Margaret watching over him—or standing guard over him, to put it another way. What would transpire with those two I did not know, but it had been evident to me for some time that he had now, if he had not had before, a certain interest in her. I had sent William to relieve Daoud. My necessarily brief explanations confused him a great deal, I believe, but he was obviously pleased to have such responsibility rested upon him.
“He suffers from a lack of self-confidence,” I explained, as Cyrus handed round the whiskey. “That is why he behaved so suspiciously. Self-doubt leads to paranoia and feelings of guilt. It is a well-known psychological fact—”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” said Emerson.
“Me neither,” said Cyrus. “I’ll give Amherst a job if he wants one; I can use him. But I don’t want to talk about him. Well, what shall we drink to first?”
My eyes moved round the room—from Bertie, whose ingenuous countenance still displayed some perplexity; to his mother, relieved at last of her anxieties; to Ramses and Nefret, seated side by side on the sofa, their fingers entwined; to Cyrus’s lined, smiling face; and to my dear Emerson, who was not even listening.
“What?” he said.
“To friends and loved ones,” I said.
“To another miraculous escape,” Cyrus amended.
“There was nothing miraculous about it,” Emerson declared. “Good Gad, we have had considerable practice at this sort of thing; all that is required is courage and strength, superior intelligence, quick wits, the ability to respond