The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [100]
“You’re right, though, Jumana,” she went on. “He’d want some place away from people. Not toward the cultivation, but back that way, along the base of the cliffs. A place he could trick them into entering without exposing himself.”
“But then,” said Daoud, “they would come out again. How could he prevent them? Unless . . .”
Quick wits were not Daoud’s most notable characteristic, but every now and then he confounded them all by reaching a conclusion that had escaped everyone else. They waited for him to continue.
“Unless it was a very narrow space,” Daoud went on, his brow wrinkling. “With no other way out. Then, when they tried to come out, crawling or bent over, he could prevent them—standing to one side with a long heavy stick. If he was quick and lucky, one blow might be enough.”
The simple words had created a vivid and very ugly picture. “You’re talking about a tomb,” Ramses said slowly. “Or a cave. Surely they wouldn’t be stupid enough to enter an obvious trap—not both of them . . .” He caught Nefret’s eye and threw up his hands. “Hell and damnation! They would, wouldn’t they? Especially Mother. Daoud, you reason well, but there are hundreds of such places in the cliffs. We wouldn’t know where to start looking. I’m going back and talk to Yusuf. There’s an outside chance—”
“Wait—wait!” Jumana was bouncing on her toes, her face flushed with excitement. “I have remembered something—something Jamil said when we first met at Luxor. He was talking about the tomb of the princesses and how he had been cheated, and then he talked very fast and very angrily, saying that he had discovered two rich treasures and had nothing to show because everyone had cheated him of what was rightfully his, and—”
She paused to draw a long breath. Ramses was about to express his impatience with her dramatic, long-drawn-out narrative when Nefret said softly, “Let her tell it her way.”
“I am trying to remember exactly what he said,” Jumana explained. She hadn’t missed Ramses’s signs of impatience either. “These are the words, the exact words. ‘They took it, the Inglizi, but I have taken it back; the dwelling place of a god is not too good for me, and they will never find me there, and someday . . . ’ It was then he threatened to kill you, Ramses, and I forgot what he said before because it made no sense and I was very worried and—”
“Ah, yes.” Daoud nodded. So far as he was concerned, the matter was settled. “The shrine of Amon-Re. I should have thought of it.”
“The place certainly fits your specifications,” Ramses said. He was afraid to let his hopes rise. “I suppose it can’t do any harm to have a look.”
“Shall we go back for the horses?” Nefret asked.
“They went on foot,” Ramses said. “We may find some trace of them along the way.”
They took the most direct path, straight toward the western cliffs, over rising rocky ground interrupted by occasional outcroppings. Remembering the shrine chamber they had cleared the previous year, Ramses had to admit it would make an ideal spot for an ambush, assuming Jamil could trick them into entering the place. It might not have been difficult. They had thought they were following Jumana, and if they had believed Jamil was inside the man-made cavern, Emerson would not have hesitated to go down after him. And his mother would have followed, of course—“to protect him!” If they had found the place empty they would have returned to the shaft, which was perpendicular and not very deep. If he was standing on the bottom, Emerson’s head would be less than two feet below the surface. The picture that formed in Ramses’s mind was even uglier than the first: a long, heavy club crashing down on his father’s bare head.
Their precipitate pace aroused the curiosity of the people they encountered. Several of them followed along, in case something of interest might occur.