The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [141]
Ramses considered the question. It was loaded with potential pitfalls, and the genial conversational tone, the comfortable surroundings, were designed to lower his guard. A new interrogation technique? He preferred it to the methods the Turks usually employed, but he would have to be careful.
“My affectionate family came to the rescue,” he said, feeling certain that this information must have reached Sahin’s ears. “You know my father.”
“By reputation only. It is a formidable reputation. I hope one day to have the honor of meeting him. So he heard of your—er—dilemma—from your friend, whom I did not succeed in killing after all? I might have done, had you not spoiled my aim.”
“Possibly.”
Sahin drew the smoke deep into his lungs. “You also spoiled a pretty little scheme which had been long in the making. What are you after now? Why are you here?”
“Just having a look round.”
“I do admire the imprecision of the English language,” Sahin said. “So useful when one wishes to avoid answering a question.”
“Would you prefer to speak Turkish? I don’t find it as easy to equivocate in that language.”
Sahin’s beard parted, showing his teeth. “I think you could equivocate in any language, my boy. In this case, it is a waste of time. You were caught in the act. A particularly futile act, I might add. In that jostling crowd you had little chance of killing him.”
“I didn’t succeed, did I?”
“You hit the governor,” Sahin said, his smile broadening. “A flesh wound in a particularly awkward place. He’s very annoyed with you.”
No mention of anyone else. Did that mean Chetwode had got away? Good luck to the young fool, Ramses thought sourly. He had only been obeying orders. He put his head in his hands. Thinking about Chetwode worsened his headache.
“What can I offer you?” Sahin asked solicitously. “If you don’t want brandy, what about coffee or mint tea?”
He clapped his hands. The servant who entered was so anxious to show the proper deference, he was bent over at the waist, his face only a few inches from the tray he carried. Obeying a brusque gesture from Sahin, he deposited it on a low table beside Ramses and backed out, still at a right angle. The heavy curtains closed after him. “Please help yourself,” Sahin said. “They have not been drugged.”
Ramses’s throat was painfully dry, and he concluded it would be expedient to accept something. To refuse hospitality was an affront, and it was unlikely Sahin had ordered the drinks to be drugged. And what difference would it make if he had?
So he picked up the glass of tea and sipped it gratefully, holding the hot glass by the rim, while the Turk smoked in pensive silence. Then he said suddenly, “I have a daughter.”
“My felicitations,” Ramses said, wondering what the devil this had to do with anything. “When did the happy event occur?”
“Eighteen years ago.”
“Eighteen—”
“Yes, she should have been married long before this. It is not for lack of offers. She is beautiful, well born, and educated. She speaks and writes English. She is somewhat headstrong, but I believe you prefer women of that sort.” He looked hopefully at Ramses, who had begun to feel like Alice. What sort of rabbit hole had he fallen into? Surely Sahin Pasha didn’t mean . . . Silence seemed the safest course.
“The war cannot last forever,” the Turk went on. “We will not always be enemies. You have the qualities I would like in a son.”
“But . . .” Ramses tried to think of a tactful way of refusing this flattering and appalling suggestion. He blurted out, “I’m already married!”
“I know that. But if you were to embrace Islam, you could take another wife. I don’t recommend more. It requires a brave man to manage two women, but three are six times as much trouble as two, and four—”
“You’re joking.”
Sahin’s mouth stretched wider. “Am I? It is in the best tradition of our people and yours—forging an alliance through marriage. Think it over. The alternative is far