The Hippopotamus Pool - Elizabeth Peters [163]
The cat Bastet sat down in front of the door and looked at me expectantly. I closed the shutter on the dark lantern and leaned close to David. ‘I think there will be a guard.’
‘Aywa. If it is locked, let me speak. If it opens, I will go first.’
Not likely, my lad, I thought, reaching for my pistol. I hoped I would not have to fire it and alarm the entire house, but if Ramses was there I would do anything I had to do in order to get him out. The sight of the pistol might be enough. Most people obey the orders of an individual who is pointing a gun at them.
David got to the door before I did. He pressed the latch and flung the door open in a single movement.
There was a guard. He was the very large man I had seen once before.
It is a mistake commonly made by criminals, I have observed, to hire a very large man instead of a smaller, quicker person. This fellow heaved himself up out of his chair with the ponderous deliberation of a moving mountain.
‘Stop,’ I said softly but emphatically. ‘Do not make a sound or I will fire.’
The large person stopped. David stopped too. He was holding his knife in the manner he had suggested and I did not doubt he would have used it.
‘Lie down on the floor,’ was my next order. ‘Quickly!’
Instead of complying, the fellow looked from me to the boy. His brow furrowed. He was thinking. It was obviously a painful process, but unfortunately he appeared to have sense enough to weigh his options accurately. His curious gaze moved to the cat, who was sitting to one side, watching as coolly as a spectator at a play; then it came back to me, and a slow unpleasant smile spread across his face.
I much regretted having had to abandon my parasol; it must have been the sight of that magical weapon that had frightened him off before. Now he had decided that a child and a woman deprived of her magic presented no real threat. Any sound, a pistol shot or the sound of a struggle, would bring the others running. We seemed to be at something of an impasse.
With a sound like a snort of disgust, the cat Bastet crouched and leaped, straight at the man’s face. He staggered back, his scream muted, first by ten pounds of cat and then by the chair David smashed over his head. He fell sideways across the bed, and across the feet of Ramses, who was lying on the bed.
I had seen Ramses, of course, but I had been too intent on the guard to give him more than a fleeting glance. Nor was I able as yet to attend to him. I had to strike the man several times with the butt of my pistol before he stopped squirming. Since I did not want to kill him (not very much), he had to be bound and gagged. There was no sheet on the hard cot, not even a blanket. David had to give up his robe, which we tore into strips.
I suppose the whole business only took a few minutes, but it seemed to go on for hours. Expecting at any second to hear feet in the corridor – frantic to assure myself that my son yet lived – wondering how the devil we were going to get him out if we could not rouse him – well, it was not a pleasant interval. When I turned to the bed, Ramses had not moved. The cat sat beside him, licking his head. She was kind enough not to object when I pushed her away and gathered Ramses into my arms.
His head fell back against my shoulder. There was no doubt as to what was wrong with him; his dirty, bruised face bore a look of utter bliss. Ramses had always wanted to experiment with opium – in a purely scientific fashion, he claimed. He had got his wish.
‘Drugged,’ I gasped. ‘We will have to carry him. Take his feet.’
I much regretted that Ramses had grown so much the past year. He was heavier than I had expected – not, heaven be thanked, a dead weight, but near enough. Getting him down the stairs was the most difficult part. My arms and shoulders were very tired by then, and his posterior kept bumping on the steps.
My goal was the room through which I had entered the