The Ape Who Guards the Balance - Elizabeth Peters [77]
“I don’t believe for a moment in Ramses’s egotistical deductions,” I replied, taking the glass Emerson handed me and nodding my thanks. “It is impossible to tell one machine from another, and furthermore, the incident in Fleet Street lacked Sethos’s characteristic touch. He is not so crude or so . . . My dear Nefret, what are you staring at? Close your mouth, my dear, before an insect flies in!”
“I—uh—I had just remembered something, Aunt Amelia. A—a letter I promised to write.”
“I hope Sir Edward is not your correspondent, Nefret. I do not approve. He is too old for you, and you have seen entirely too much of him lately.”
“Only half a dozen times since Christmas Day,” Nefret protested. “And once was at the party, with a hundred people present.”
Emerson got to his feet. “If you are going to gossip I will leave you to it. Call me when dinner is ready.”
The eastern cliffs shone in the last rays of the setting sun. There is no color anywhere on earth like that one, nor can words describe it—pale pinky gold with a wash of lavender, glowing as if lit from within. The lovely dying light lay gently on Nefret’s sun-kissed cheeks, but her eyes avoided mine and she cleared her throat nervously before she spoke.
“May I ask you something, Aunt Amelia?”
“Why, certainly, my dear. Is it about Sir Edward? I am glad you want to consult me. I have had a good deal more experience in these matters than you.”
“It is not about Sir Edward. Not exactly. Speaking of experience in such matters—er—you seem to believe he—Sethos—is sufficiently—uh—attached to you that he would not . . . Oh dear. I didn’t mean to offend you, Aunt Amelia.”
“You have not offended me, my dear, but if I understand what you are driving at, and I believe I do, the subject is not one I care to discuss.”
“It is not idle curiosity that prompts me to introduce it.”
“No?”
Nefret’s slender throat contracted as she swallowed.
“Enough of that,” I said in a kindly manner. “Goodness, how dark it has become, and the boys not back. I wonder if they decided to spend the night on the dahabeeyah.”
“They would have told me if they had,” Nefret said. “Damnation! I knew I ought to have gone with them!”
From Manuscript H
The mummy wrappings fitted close around his body, muffling his mouth, blinding his eyes, binding his arms and legs. They had buried him alive, like the miserable man whose mummy his parents had discovered at Drah Abu’l Naga. Someday another archaeologist would find him, his body brown and shriveled, his mouth open in a silent scream of terror, and . . .
He came awake in a desperate spasm that tore at every muscle in his body. It was still dark and he was as incapable of movement as any mummy, but the cloth covered only his mouth. He could breathe. Concentrating on that essential activity, he forced himself to lie still while he drew air in through his nostrils and tried to remember what had happened.
They had been copying the reliefs in one of the side chambers off the hypostyle hall and were about to stop for the day when they heard the thin, high wailing. It was impossible to tell whether it came from a human or another kind of animal, but the creature was obviously young and obviously in distress. Scrambling over fallen blocks and along shadowy aisles, they followed the pitiful, intermittent cries back into the sanctuary, where shadows lay like pools of dark water . . . Then nothing. His head ached, but so did every other part of his body. How long had he been unconscious? It must be night now; if the sun were still shining he ought to see streaks of light from windows or door, even if they were shuttered.
With considerable effort he rolled over onto his side. No wonder he had dreamed of mummy wrappings; they had been extravagant with the rope. His hands were tied behind him and his arms were bound to his sides; the other end of the rope round his ankles must be fastened to some object he couldn’t see, since he was unable to move his legs more than a few inches in any direction. Flattering, in a way, he supposed. His father’s reputation must