The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [147]
“Stop berating yourself and tell us what happened,” I said. “From the beginning, please, and in proper order.”
His narrative agreed for the most part with the one Chetwode had given us, up to the point where Chetwode had fired at the suspect. He had then fled—obeying Ramses’s order, as he had claimed.
“I did tell him to run,” Ramses admitted. “The damage was done, and in the confusion no one could tell which of us had fired. The governor’s guards went after me and matters went as one might have expected. I got on reasonably well until someone threw a stone. They were about to escort me to the governor when who should appear but . . . This is the part you’ll find hard to believe.”
In his youth Ramses had been appallingly verbose and given to an excessive use of adverbs, adjectives, and other descriptive flourishes. I had found this extremely exasperating, but the sparse, uninformative narrative style that was now his habit sometimes vexed me even more. Admittedly, the events themselves were enough to hold us spellbound; no one uttered a word until he had finished.
“So,” I said. “He attempted at first to win you over with kind treatment and flattering words. When you refused to tell him what he wanted to know, he chained you to the wall of a cell and left you. You managed to free yourself, found the guard had left his post, and escaped. As simple as that.”
“You have often told me,” said Ramses, “to stick to the facts, avoiding rhetorical flourishes and—”
“Curse it,” I exclaimed.
“Er, hmph,” said Emerson loudly, while Nefret laughed and Ramses gave me one of his most charming smiles. “What about another nice cup of tea, Peabody? And you, my boy. Perhaps just a few words of additional explanation—”
“There was a woman involved,” I said. “Wasn’t there? Who?”
Ramses’s smile died a quick death. “You’d have been burned at the stake in the seventeenth century.”
“Quite possibly,” I agreed, taking the cup Emerson handed me. “Again, Ramses, from the beginning.”
So we were treated to a description of Sahin Pasha’s beautiful, desirable daughter, and the pasha’s remarkable offer. Once he had been forced to speak, Ramses made an entertaining story of it, and even Emerson grinned reluctantly when Ramses quoted the Turk’s comments about multiple wives.
“Excellent advice, my boy. It’s cursed strange, though. He couldn’t have been serious.”
“You think not?” Nefret asked. It was the first time she had spoken since Ramses began his story. He gave her a quick look and shook his head.
“He couldn’t have supposed I would agree—or keep my word if I did.”
“Oh, you’d have kept your word,” Nefret murmured.
“I didn’t give it. It does seem to me,” Ramses said emphatically, “that I am entitled to some credit for preferring torture and death to infidelity. She was a damned attractive girl, too.”
“Now, now, don’t quarrel,” I said. “It was the girl who helped you escape?”
Ramses nodded. “There was no way I could get those chains off by myself. She’s an efficient little creature,” he added thoughtfully. “She’d brought me a caftan and headcloth, and even a knife. She also offered to steal a horse for me, but I pointed out—somewhat rudely, now that I think about it—that it would only have made me more conspicuous.”
Nefret looked as if she wanted to say something—I knew what it was—but she restrained herself. It was Emerson who voiced the same thought that had, of course, occurred to me.
“He let you go. The girl was acting under his orders or with his cooperation.”
“That idea had, of course, occurred to me,” I said. “But it doesn’t make sense. He might have intervened to take you from the governor’s men, but why would he connive in your escape so soon thereafter?”
“Damned if I know,” Ramses said. “No doubt you are prepared to speculate, Mother. It is a useful process that clears away the underbrush in the thickets of deduction.”
I did not at all mind his teasing me. It was such a relief to have him back with us, alive and relatively undamaged. “Certainly,” I said. “Let us begin with the assumption that he intended