The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [152]
“But how—”
Emerson held up one hand, demanding silence, and reached with the other into his pocket. “I have another set of papers,” he announced proudly.
They were a good deal more impressive than the first set—spattered with blobs of crimson sealing wax, framed in ornate curlicues, and with quite a lot of gilt. The script was equally ornamental; it looked like Arabic, but I could make nothing of it. I handed the papers to Ramses.
“Turkish,” he muttered. “Father, do you have any idea what this says?”
“No,” said Emerson placidly. “Is there more coffee?”
“But—but—” Ramses ran one hand through his tumbled curls and brandished the papers in front of Emerson’s nose. “Were you planning to use these to get into Gaza? For all you knew, it might be a denunciation of you, or—or somebody’s laundry list!”
“Is it?” Emerson inquired.
Nefret served him and Ramses with fresh cups of the Turkish coffee she brewed so expertly, and Ramses inspected the papers again.
“No,” he admitted. “They appear to be in order—so far as I can tell. I’ve never been privileged to see a direct order from the Sublime Porte, signed by the sultan himself.”
“Few have,” said Emerson, and sipped his coffee. “Ah—excellent. Thank you, Nefret. I didn’t suppose el-Gharbi would play me false, but the very look of those documents is enough to overawe most people, especially since literacy is—”
“El-Gharbi,” Ramses broke in. “I might have known. What did you promise him in return?”
“My goodwill,” said Emerson, with an evil smile.
Ramses was not quite himself, and the effect of the stunning surprises his father had administered showed on his face, together with evidence of another, equally strong emotion. “So,” he said, trying without complete success to control his voice, “if I had not come back you would have marched up to the Turkish lines with a set of papers you couldn’t read and a broken arm and—”
“And your mother,” said Emerson.
He was, I believe, attempting to lighten the emotional atmosphere with a touch of humor. His comment did not have that effect. Ramses went pale, and I said firmly, “Quite right. All for one and one for all—that is our motto, is it not? You would have taken equal or greater risks for any of us, Ramses. Now that that is settled, let us get back to business. Are those papers adequate for the purpose your father had in mind?”
“Is my name on them?” Selim demanded.
“No one else’s name is on them,” Emerson replied. “If an honorable sheikh, a friend of the sultan’s, decides to take his servants—”
“And wives,” I said.
“Bah,” said Emerson. “He can take anyone he likes, I suppose. Do be quiet, all of you. I haven’t decided yet how to go about this. It might be better to make my way through the lines under cover of darkness.”
“With one arm in a cast,” said Ramses under his breath.
Emerson inspected the cast irritably. “I don’t see why I need it. My arm itches like fury. Nefret—”
“No, Father. Absolutely not.” She moved closer to Ramses, her shoulder against his. “We don’t have to come to a decision immediately. In fact, it would be the height of folly to go rushing into action until we know more. It’s all very well to say that Sethos must be in Gaza because only he could have got Ramses away, but we can’t be certain of that, can we? The most sensible course is to give him a chance to communicate with us, as Father suggested.”
And keep Ramses with her a few days longer. “I agree,” I said. “It behooves us, then, to make our presence known. Shall we pay a little visit to the suk, Nefret? Gracious, it will be good to get out of this house.”
Ramses’s limited wardrobe, and the fact that he had, as he remarked, seen enough of bloody Khan Yunus, made him agreeable to my suggestion that he remain in the house. Selim stayed with him. We left them deep in conversation, some of which had to do with Sahin’s interesting daughter.
Squashed into the tonneau of the motorcar and half-buried in bundles, I had not seen much of the town when we arrived. It had only one structure of artistic interest, a fine thirteenth-century