Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [59]
Your affectionate son,
Ramses
From Manuscript H
Ramses was well aware of his parents’ real reason for sending him away from Cairo. His father’s hints had the subtlety of a cavalry charge: in case you didn’t get the idea the first time, he turned round and rode over you again. He understood their concern—he’d given them the devil of a time last season—but sometimes he wished they would back off and let him manage his own affairs.
It was good to be back in Luxor, though. The morning after their arrival he finished dressing before Nefret and went up on deck. They had a new steward, a fresh-faced boy who was having a little trouble getting used to his new duties. He kept dropping things, especially when Nefret was present. She reassured him so sweetly, Ramses had begun to wonder whether young Nasir did it on purpose.
While he waited for Nasir to pull himself together and bring the coffee, he leaned on the rail looking out across the cultivation toward the western mountains, flushed with the reflection of sunrise. They were moored at the dock Cyrus Vandergelt had built for his Valley of the Kings, and Ramses could make out all the familiar landmarks: the narrow road that led to the Valley of the Kings; the rocky slopes of Drah Abu’l Naga; and dim in the distance the ruined temple of Hatshepsut, where he and David had copied some of the reliefs. He missed David, but not as much as he would once have done; marriage was turning out to be a much more time-consuming business than he had expected and more confusing. He had loved her so long, and had finally won her; yet his need of her grew stronger every day, and with it the fear of losing her. It was on her account that he had agreed to leave Cairo. She’d have stuck with him wherever he went, and fought with him if the need had arisen—and she had the right—he couldn’t deny that, no one had a better right—but it had been hard enough for him to accept her as an equal companion and ally when she had been only (only!) the woman he loved. Now she was also his wife, caring for him as he had never dared hope she would, and he wanted to lock her up and keep her safe. She wouldn’t stand for that, nor should she . . . but the thought of harm coming to her made him break out in a cold sweat of terror. I wonder how the hell Father does it, he thought.
He felt her presence and turned.
“Damn,” she said, laughing. “I was trying to creep up on you.”
“I always know when you’re near.” He took her hands and drew her to the rail. They stood side by side in companionable silence until a crash of crockery announced the arrival of Nasir.
“He does it on purpose,” Ramses said, after the boy had carefully swept up every splinter of china and Nefret had dismissed him. “Sweeping up the broken bits gives him an excuse to linger. You must start scolding him, or we won’t have a cup left.”
“We can always buy more.”
Ramses laughed and shook his head.
“What were you staring at so intently?” she asked.
“Everything. I’ve missed it. I didn’t realize how much.”
Her eyes followed the same sweep his had made, from one end of the plain to the other. The rosy light on the cliffs had faded into pale gold. “I think Mother and Father miss it too,” she said. “She has her pyramids, but this was home for a long time. There are so many memories . . .”
“My God, yes. Murder and torture and every year another dead body, as Abdullah used to say.”
“Some of them quite horrible,” Nefret agreed. “Poor mummified Mrs. Bellingham—”
“And the two who were mutilated by the mechanical crocodile, and Dutton Scudder, and Bellingham himself. I must have left someone out, that can’t be all.”
He was trying, with fair success, to emulate her detached tone, but she saw his long, sensitive lips tighten and cursed herself for not changing the subject. She had learned during her medical training that sardonic