The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [78]
He hadn’t succeeded in cheering his father. Emerson’s brow darkened even more. “It’s ridiculous,” he grumbled. “I resent having to waste time tracking down a miserable little rat like Jamil.”
Ramses understood how he felt. They had faced a number of formidable enemies in the past. To be defeated, even temporarily, by such a feeble adversary was what his father would call a damned insult. It is easier to trap a lion than a rat, though. He decided not to voice this comforting adage aloud. It sounded like something his mother might have said.
“We’ll find him, Father,” he said.
“Hmmh. Yes. Er . . .” His father patted him awkwardly on the arm. “You’ll get a chance at your chapels, my boy. I promise.”
“But, Father, I don’t want—”
“This way.”
They located two pit tombs which had been ransacked in antiquity, many shards of pottery, and a number of hieratic inscriptions scratched onto the rock by necropolis inspectors who had visited the area in pharaonic times. Several of the names were known from similar graffiti in the Valley of the Kings. It was additional evidence that there were tombs, probably royal tombs, in the wadis. To Emerson’s extreme annoyance, they found modern graffiti next to many of them: the initials “H. C.” and the date “1916.”
“Carter, curse him,” he muttered.
“You shouldn’t hold it against him just because he got here before you,” Ramses said.
“I was here thirty years ago,” Emerson retorted. “But I didn’t scratch my name all over the scenery.”
“It is a courtesy, Father, telling any who may follow that he has copied these inscriptions. I presume he did?”
“I would ask him if I could lay hands on him,” Emerson snarled. “He wasn’t in Cairo, he isn’t in Luxor. Where the devil is he?”
“Off on some errand for the War Office, I presume. He said he was working for the intelligence department.”
“Bah,” said Emerson. “Ramses, I want copies of these graffiti. Carter doesn’t understand the language. Yours are bound to be more accurate.”
“You want me to do it now?” Ramses demanded.
“No, there won’t be time. Another day.”
Another day, another distraction, Ramses thought, concealing his annoyance. There was no man alive—or dead, for that matter—whom he admired more than his father, but sometimes Emerson’s obstinacy rasped on his nerves. I’ll try again to explain about Deir el Medina, he thought. Perhaps I didn’t try hard enough. Perhaps if I tell him . . . He was thinking how to put it when he heard a strange sound. Clear and high, it might have been a bird’s trill, but it was unusual to find a songbird this far from the cultivation.
He got to his feet and turned slowly, raking the cliffs with narrowed eyes. The sun was high, reflecting off the barren rocks, dazzling the vision.
“What—” Emerson began.
“Listen.”
This time Emerson heard it too. He jumped up.
“There,” Ramses said, pointing.
The figure was too far away and too high up to be distinct. Without taking his eyes off it, he knelt and got the binoculars out of his pack.
“Jamil?” Emerson asked hopefully.
“No.” The small figure jumped into focus. “Goddamn it! It’s Jumana. What the hell—”
Emerson cupped his hands round his mouth and let out a bellow whose reverberations brought down a shower of rock from the cliff.
“Did she hear me?” He picked up his coat and waved it like a flag.
“The entire Western Desert heard you,” Ramses said. “She’s seen us. She’s coming. Good God, she’ll break her neck if she doesn’t slow down. Let’s go and meet her.”
Leaving their belongings, they hurried up the path they had recently descended. She descended even faster, slipping and sliding, waving her arms to maintain her balance. When she was ten feet above them she glissaded down the last slope, straight into Emerson’s outstretched arms.
“Hurry,” she gasped. “Quick. We must find him.”
Her face glowed with heat and exertion. Scowling blackly, Emerson held her off at arm’s length, and Ramses saw that she was wearing a belt like that of his mother,