The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [15]
“How?” Ramses demanded with unusual heat. “How can we locate other forgeries unless we admit that that’s what we’re looking for? Would you care to estimate how many Egyptian antiquities have appeared on the market recently? We don’t even know how long this has been going on! If the other forgeries (and yes, we must assume there are others) are as good as this, they’d never be suspected.”
“The scarab is a bit too much,” Emerson remarked.
Ramses nodded. “It’s a superb piece of work, but the text is so intrinsically preposterous, one can’t help wondering if he meant it as a private joke or a kind of arrogant challenge. The others may not be so easily detectable.”
He had been pacing up and down. Now he stopped by the fireplace and stood looking at an object over the mantelpiece, shielded from heat and smoke by a recessed frame. The little alabaster head of Nefret was one of the first sculptures David had produced after he joined our family. Crude though it was compared with the work he had done since, it was an unnerving reminder of David’s unique talent.
The firelight warmed Ramses’s thin, impassive brown face. It also illumined the bloodstains on his shirt, the rents left in trousers and coat by the kitten’s claws, and the curling locks that fell untidily over his forehead. His hair always curled when it was wet, and the kitten had been busily trying to dry it.
“For pity’s sake, go and change, Ramses,” I said. “And put the cat back where you got it.”
Emerson jumped up. “No time. Here they are. We’ll talk about this later. Not a word to anyone at present, is that agreed?”
A beam of light crossed the window and a series of triumphant hoots signaled the safe arrival of the motorcar and its occupants. Emerson started toward the door. Ramses returned the kitten to his pocket.
“Give me the scarab,” I said quickly. “I’ll put it back in your father’s desk.”
As I hastened from the room I heard the front door open, the sound of laughter and cheerful voices and, rising over them all, Emerson’s hearty shout of greeting: “Salaam aleikhum! Marhaba!”
TWO
The Oriental man is keen about the white woman. If hemarries her, his standards are such that he soon degrades her; and of course we are not going to allow our wives and sisters and sweethearts to have anything to do with them.
Thank goodness that is over!”
I did not utter the words aloud. The ceremony was not over, and a reverent silence filled the ancient chapel of Chalfont Castle. But the fateful challenge had passed without a response, and they were husband and wife in the eyes of God.
I am not a sentimental person. My best lace-trimmed handkerchief was quite dry, but when the strains of the recessional burst out and David started down the aisle with his wife on his arm, the sight of their faces brought just a touch of moisture to my eyes. Lia carried a simple spray of ferns and white roses, and wore her grandmother’s veil; the priceless old Brussels lace lay like snowflakes on her fair hair. They passed in a flutter of white and a sweet fragrance and David turned his head to smile directly at me.
They were followed by Ramses and Nefret, who were the only attendants. Nefret looked like the personification of spring, her white throat and coronet of golden-red hair rising out of the soft green fabric of her gown like a flower on a stem. I assumed it was she who had managed to keep Ramses from tugging at his cravat, mussing his hair, or smudging his linen; I had been too busy with other arrangements to watch him. With pardonable maternal pride, I concluded that he did both of us credit. In my opinion Ramses’s appearance will never be as impressive as that of his father, but he carried his slender height well and his features were not unpleasing. Like David, he glanced at me as he passed. Ramses seldom smiled, but the solemnity of his countenance lightened a trifle as his eyes met mine.
Those glances acknowledged that without my support and intervention the match might never have taken place. In the beginning