The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [54]
Ramses let him lecture. He had a deep-rooted distaste for men who spoke of “my people” in that proprietary tone, but he didn’t question Wardani’s sincerity. The fellow was a born demagogue, with a resonant, flexible voice, a fine command of resounding clichés, and a superb sense of theater. Wardani was not his real name; he had adopted it as a gesture of respect for one of the “martyrs” of the cause—a young student who had assassinated the moderate prime minister, Boutros Ghali Pasha, the previous year. Another of those futile, flamboyant gestures that did more harm than good for the cause it claimed to serve, Ramses thought in weary disgust. The youthful assassin had been executed, and the murder had brought on harsher treatment of the nationalists.
The other man had left the room. He came back with a tray holding two small cups of Turkish coffee. The very sight of the black liquid made Ramses’s nerves twitch, but it would have been a grave error to refuse Wardani’s gesture of hospitality. Finally he interrupted the speech. “I’ve heard all this before.”
“Yes, of course you have. How is the bridegroom?” Wardani crossed his legs and smiled.
“Well and happy.”
“As he should be, having plucked such a blossom.” His smile broadened. “Now, my friend, don’t glower at me, you know I meant no offense. I respect and revere all women. They are the future of Egypt, the mothers of the new race.”
“Balderdash,” Ramses said rudely. They had been switching languages, from French to German to Arabic, as if Wardani were testing Ramses’s knowledge or displaying his own. Ramses continued in English. “I know the rhetoric. I sympathize with your aims but I deplore your methods. Leave David out of it, Wardani.”
“Ah, now we come to it. I wondered why you had gone to such pains to seek me out.”
“When they catch up with you—and they will, now that Kitchener is in the saddle—you’ll be sent to prison or to the oases—and David with you. He can work for the cause in other ways.”
“What ways?” Wardani asked softly.
The air was thick with smoke from the lamp and from the cigarettes Wardani had smoked incessantly, lighting one from the stub of another. Ramses shrugged and accepted a cigarette from the tin the other man offered.
“Writing articles and giving speeches,” he suggested. “Continuing the work that has earned him respect in a profession few Egyptians have been allowed to enter. His success and the success of others like him will force the British to acknowledge your demands for equality.”
“In another hundred years, perhaps,” Wardani said. “But perhaps …”
For God’s sake, get to the point, Ramses thought. He had a fierce headache but he wanted the other man to introduce the subject.
“Madame Todros is, I believe, the daughter of wealthy parents,” Wardani murmured.
Finally, there it was. Ramses lit another cigarette and began talking.
By the time he left the place his headache had assumed mountainous proportions, but he had accomplished his purpose. If Wardani had not abandoned hope of acquiring Lia’s money for “the cause,” he was less perceptive than Ramses believed him to be. That subject had led more or less directly to the one that really concerned Ramses, and there, too, he hoped he had made his point.
He decided he could forgo the healthful exercise of swimming, so he took a cab directly to the dock. There was no keeping this business a secret any longer. He’d have to confess next day, not only to Nefret, but to his parents.
The night watchman roused instantly at Ramses’s soft hail, and shoved a plank across the gap between dock and deck, displaying neither surprise nor curiosity. The men were accustomed to the peculiar habits of the Emerson family.
Ramses plodded along the corridor leading to his room. He was dead-tired, and his automatic defenses had dropped as soon as he was safely on board; when he opened his door and saw the slight form lying on his bed, the shock was so great he almost cried out.
She’d left a lamp burning. Apparently she remembered the incident some years ago when she had come on him without warning and