The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [168]
“And something to wear,” said my brother-in-law resignedly. He pulled off the sodden lump of his turban and the fez round which it had been wrapped. “This is as far as I am prepared to go, Amelia, while you remain in the room.”
Anxious as I was to hold the long-delayed discussion—urgent as were the questions to be asked and answered—physical needs took precedence. Sethos had had malaria before. It would be extremely inconvenient if he came down with it again.
“Come with me,” I ordered, and led the way out of the room.
Selim, still lying romantically across the girl’s threshold, woke instantly when we approached—and no wonder, on that hard floor. He sprang up, reaching for his knife.
“He is a friend, Selim,” I said. “Perhaps you would be good enough to help him change his wet clothing.”
“I do not require a damned valet,” Sethos snarled.
“Selim isn’t a valet. You require assistance, and that is what you are about to get. Follow me, both of you.”
A large cupboard in the other bedroom contained an extensive wardrobe, ranging from abas and galabeeyahs to a nice tweed suit that Sethos had borrowed from Ramses the year before. I left them to it, and returned to the saloon. Mustafa had scraped together a rather extraordinary meal—tinned tongue and bread and fruit, and, of course, tea. Before long, Selim and Sethos joined us, the latter in dry garments, his unruly hair still damp.
“Well, this is cozy,” said Sethos, with a decidedly sardonic inflection. “A jolly little family gathering. I’ve been chasing you across the countryside all night.”
“Were you at the rendezvous?” I asked.
“Not until after you’d left. Would you like to know what happened?”
“Very much so,” said Emerson, with a snap of his teeth.
“I had to make a run for it,” Sethos explained. “I—er—miscalculated a trifle, you see. I didn’t expect Sahin would move so quickly or so decisively. He’s a very efficient man, with a well-organized network of supporters hereabouts. It didn’t take him long to find out you were in Khan Yunus. You weren’t exactly discreet, were you?”
“The disclosure of our true identities was unavoidable,” I said. “And if I may say so, criticism from you is unwarranted, under the circumstances.”
“Possibly,” Sethos admitted. “If I may continue my narrative?”
“Pray do,” I said.
“As I was about to say, the disappearance of his daughter hit him hard and he acted instantly. He sent orders to attack your house. There was a chance the girl was with you. If she wasn’t, he hoped to acquire a hostage—one or all of you.”
“How do you know all that?” I asked.
“He told me.” Sethos had been eating ravenously, between sentences. He swallowed a bite of fruit and went on, “We had one of those friendly little chats—you know what they’re like, Ramses. He explained in detail what he meant to do, and added, more in sorrow than in anger, that he was going to lock me up, since he had been forced to the conclusion that my conversion was not sincere.”
He bit into a piece of bread. The pause was for effect, as I knew; the man could not resist making a dramatic story of it.
“So you hit him?” Ramses was as intrigued as the rest of us. “What with?”
“Not my fist, I assure you. He was waiting for that. I was nibbling daintily on a nectarine. I shoved it in his face. He was trying to claw the pulp out of his eyes and spit it out of his mouth when I broke his water pipe over his head. It made a frightful mess and rather a loud noise, so I didn’t wait to tie him up. I calculated I had about sixty seconds before a servant got nerve enough to investigate, so I started running—straight out of the house and past the guards. If you don’t have time to be cautious, speed and effrontery are your only hope. It was a spectacle dreadful enough to throw most people into a panic,” he added with a grin. “The holy infidel, waving his arms and screaming broken phrases from the Koran. Nobody tried to stop me. Religious frenzy is dangerous. I kept running, divesting myself of my elegant ornaments as I went and scattering them about the streets, to the additional confusion