The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [197]
“Would you care to have me explain, Peabody?” Emerson inquired in a devastatingly mild voice.
“That is what I have been asking you to do, Emerson.”
“Hmph,” said Emerson. “I presume you are familiar with the present uneasy political situation in
the Middle East?”
“I am not, sir,” Gargery said eagerly.
“Nor am I,” Nefret admitted.
“You really ought to make an attempt to keep up with modern history,” I said. Emerson, who had opened his mouth, closed it. “Palestine is of course part of the once-mighty Ottoman Empire, which during the sixteenth century of the Christian era controlled the entire Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Eastern Europe. Like all empires founded on conquest and injustice it could not endure; gradually its territories were lost and at the present time only the support of Britain and France, who fear the collapse of the aging giant would open the doors of the East to Germany and Russia keeps the Sultan on his throne in Constantinople.”
“Very poetically expressed,” said Emerson, who had been waiting for my breath to give out. “To look at it another way, Nefret and Gargery, the aging giant is rotten at the core. Provinces like Syria and Palestine are racked with poverty and corruption. Britain and France don’t give a curse about the misery of the people; what concerns them is that in the past decade or so German influence in the region has increased enormously. When Wilhelm the Second visited Istanbul and Jerusalem, he was greeted as a conquering hero. The Germans are constructing a railroad line from Damascus to Mecca, and one is entitled to assume that they aren’t doing it for altruistic reasons. If war should break out—”
“War!” Nefret cried. “And Ramses is there, in the thick of it?”
“Stop worrying about your brother,” Emerson said impatiently. “There won’t be a war, not for a few more years. But it’s coming, and Germany is already making preparations—such as that railroad. Very useful for moving troops and supplies.” This speech was presumably an attempt to reassure Nefret. Not surprisingly it failed.
“War or no war, if there is any way Ramses can get in trouble, he will,” she said vehemently. “If the situation is so unstable—”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Samaria—the modern Sebaste—is nowhere near the area where the Germans are working, and Mr. Reisner is a responsible individual. Emerson considers him one of the most qualified of the younger generation of Egyptologists.”
“Hmph.”
“Or would, if he considered any other Egyptologists qualified,” I amended.
“He’s not so bad,” Emerson admitted. “Though one would suppose he had enough on his plate with his excavations at Giza and in the Sudan, without taking on another responsibility in an area he knows nothing about—”
“Reisner would argue that the basic techniques of excavation are the same in all parts of the world,” I said.
“Well, well,” said Emerson. “Hmph.”
The ambiguity of this response ought to have raised alarm bells. It is not like Emerson to be ambiguous. In my defense I must say that I was more concerned with calming Nefret. “George Reisner is a mature, dedicated individual who lives only for his work. Not even Ramses can get in trouble while he is in Reisner’s charge.”
About the Author
ELIZABETH PETERS was born and brought up in Illinois and earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago’s famed Oriental Institute. Peters was named Grand Master at the inaugural Anthony Awards in 1986 and Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America at the Edgar® Awards in 1998, and was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at Malice Domestic in 2003. She lives in an historic farmhouse in western Maryland.
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Books by Elizabeth Peters
The Amelia Peabody Series
A RIVER IN THE SKY • TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD