Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [95]
“One more person for me to avoid,” said his uncle, so coolly that Ramses wondered if he had imagined that fleeting expression of regret. “I appreciate your telling me. Was that why you arranged this meeting?”
“Not entirely,” Ramses said. “There’s been a leak. Wardani’s people know I took his place last winter. At least one of them is free. We had a brief encounter in an alley in Cairo not long ago.”
“Who?”
“Asad. He was one of Wardani’s lieutenants.”
“I know who he was. That explains it.”
“Explains what?” Ramses demanded.
“Why you are in Luxor. Mama and Papa and your loving wife thought you’d be safer here.”
“Damn it,” Ramses began, caught himself, and started again. “I had another reason for wanting to see you. I never got the chance to thank you—”
“Let’s not descend into sentimentality, please. I didn’t do it for you.”
“You tricked the others into leaving before they finished me off,” Ramses said, sticking doggedly to the point. “You didn’t take that risk for Mother; you didn’t even know she was there.”
“Ah, but your death would have distressed the dear woman. I got my thanks,” he added, with a smile that certainly would have driven Emerson to violence. “When she kissed me. It was quite a touching scene, I believe.”
“She thought you were dying. We all thought so.”
“As you see, I was not obliging enough to finish the process. How did you know I was still alive and in Luxor?”
“I wasn’t certain,” Ramses admitted. “But those artistic symbols you carved outside various tombs were new, and the incident in the West Valley had your trademark. It was well planned.”
“Good of you to say so. If that’s all—”
“No, it isn’t all. How many people are aware of the fact that you are still alive?”
The other man’s face didn’t change. There was a brief pause before he replied. “Aside from Kitchener and General Maxwell—and you? What about your father?”
“He suspects, I think. Mother doesn’t.”
“Are you going to tell them?”
“That depends,” Ramses said, savoring a brief—and, as he was soon to discover, illusory—feeling of power. “Would you prefer that I didn’t tell them?”
“Yes, I would. But if you are thinking of using that threat to blackmail me into doing something I don’t want to do, dismiss the idea. I don’t care that much. It’s just that my life would be a good deal simpler without Amelia trailing me all over Luxor trying to catch me and reform me. Can you imagine the trouble she’d get herself into?”
Ramses could. Damn the man. Sethos had seen the trap and stepped neatly over it.
“Get back to the point,” he said harshly.
“Point? Oh, you mean is there anyone out for my blood at the moment?” He spoke slowly, thinking aloud. “When they carted me away that night, the only people who knew I was working for the department thought I was dying. The doctor and the nurses were told that I’d been an innocent bystander in an encounter between the police and a group of revolutionaries. Your repellent cousin is dead. The only other people who were there that night were Sahin Bey and Sidi Ahmed; they accepted me as one of theirs, and were long gone before the dramatic denouement. I can’t see how anyone could have made the connection. There’s even a neat little RIP after my name in the files of the department.”
“I thought you should be warned,” Ramses said.
“Your concern touches me deeply.” Sethos’s eyes narrowed, fine lines fanning out from their corners. “Did you think I was the one who betrayed you to Wardani’s people?”
The suspicion had never occurred to Ramses—until that moment. His silence provoked Sethos into heated speech. “For God’s sake, the two men who knew your real identity and the role you’d been playing were the head of the Turkish secret service and the chief of the Senussi! There are literally dozens of people, not counting the bloody Germans, who now have that information. Why suspect me?”
“The idea had never entered my mind,” Ramses said.
“Ah.” The