The Hippopotamus Pool - Elizabeth Peters [172]
Taking her cue from this, Nefret remained limp and unresponsive as she was lifted out of the trunk and onto a litter. To her annoyance the woman then covered her, even her face, with a cloak or coverlet. She could see nothing as she was carried rapidly along, but other senses told her when they left the cultivation: the scent of moist vegetation was replaced by the drier air of the desert, and then by the sounds and smells of habitation. Someone lifted her from the litter, carried her up a flight of stairs, and placed her on a hard surface. There was a murmured exchange in Arabic; a door closed; and then the cloak was removed. She dared not open her eyes, but she knew the hands that smoothed her hair and straightened her garment even before Miss Marmaduke spoke.
‘She still sleeps.’
‘She will wake soon. Get her to take more tea.’
‘But you said –’
‘This place is no longer safe. As soon as the lady comes, we will move on.’
‘She may not take it from me. She has no reason to trust me.’
‘There are other ways.’ Impatience and contempt hardened the woman’s voice. ‘That is the easiest for her, but if you cannot manage it –’
‘Oh, I don’t like this,’ Miss Marmaduke moaned. ‘I was told it would be tonight. Surely, if I explain to her –’
‘That she is Tetisheri reborn and that she must confront the remnants of the body she once inhabited in order to progress along the Way?’ A contemptuous laugh. ‘Never mind the tea, I will deal with her.’
The door closed and a key turned in the lock. Nefret ventured to open her eyes a slit. The first thing she saw was her erstwhile governess, pacing up and down and wringing her hands. The room was lit by a single lamp. The walls were of plastered mudbrick, the single window shuttered. The furnishings were meagre – a few sticks of furniture, a few baskets, a few pottery vessels.
Her heart pounding, Nefret knew she must think as quickly as she had ever thought in her life. The outlines of the plot were clear now. Miss Marmaduke was just what she had appeared to be, a simpleminded believer in occult religion who had been duped by . . . By whom? The leader must be a woman, that mysterious ‘lady’ to whom the other female had referred. And she, Nefret, was to be held hostage until Emerson gave up the mummy and the treasures of the tomb.
All this raced through her mind as she tried to decide what to do. She might learn more, including the identity of the unknown leader, if she remained; but the perils of that outweighed any possible advantages. There was no longer any reason for them to continue the pretence that had delivered her into their hands. She would be drugged or bound and carried off to another place from which escape might be impossible. And if she was to act, it must be instantly, before the other woman returned with the means to ‘deal’ with her.
‘So I hit Miss Marmaduke with the chamber pot,’ Nefret said. ‘She didn’t even see me; she was standing at the window mumbling to herself.’
As soon as Nefret looked out, she recognized the houses and walls of a village. Behind the dwellings, silvered by moonlight, rose the cliffs of the high desert. The room was on the upper floor; she was considering how she might best manage the descent when she heard heavy footsteps approaching. Climbing quickly out the window, she lowered herself by her hands and dropped onto a surface of hard-baked earth liberally sprinkled with animal droppings.
‘Then you can lead us back to the house,’ I exclaimed. ‘Was it that of Abd el Hamed?’
‘I don’t know. The village was Gurneh, but I never saw the front of the house. The window was at the back, and after I got out the window I was too concerned with escaping to notice my surroundings. If I had not found the donkey, they might have caught me.’
Ramses tried not to look pleased at this admission of fallibility. I thought he succeeded rather well, but Nefret saw the look.
‘The place is a maze – no streets, hardly even alleyways! I had only been there once before, and . . . I suppose you think you could have done better!’
‘No,