The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [145]
Turning to the nearest man, whose face had gone a sickly greenish-brown when he heard the screams, thuds, and groans from beyond the wall, I said softly, “Is this how your master rewards faithful service? Is this the practice of justice (ma’at; lit. truth, right conduct)? What will he do to your wives and children when you are—”
At this point Emerson gripped me by the arm and dragged me away. “Good Gad, Peabody, aren’t we in enough trouble without you spouting sedition?”
“A little seed of sedition may bear rich fruit,” I replied. “It was worth a try.”
When Amenit returned she was accompanied by a troop of soldiers who, by dint of proddings and blows, persuaded their brothers-in-arms to retire. The soldier to whom I had spoken shot me a piteous glance, to which I responded with a nod and a smile and a “thumbs-up” gesture. It seemed to surprise him a great deal; I only hoped that I had not inadvertently done something rude in Meroitic.
By the time the last stragglers had been retrieved from the remote chambers where they were hiding, the shadows of evening had stolen into the room. Ramses was in the garden conversing with the cat, whose coming and going appeared to be unaffected by the presence of the guards beyond the wall. Amenit brooded like any normal housewife over the linens the soldiers had crumpled (a happy bit of serendipity for us, since the robes we had worn on our second nocturnal expedition were among them). Her mood seemed pensive, the moment propitious. I sidled up to her.
“What news?” I whispered.
She dropped the crumpled garments back into the chest and shrugged. “How would I know? I am as much a prisoner as you. He does not trust me.”
“Your brother Nastasen?”
The muffled head moved up and down, signifying affirmation, and I smiled to myself. She had made her first slip by admitting a relationship I had only suspected until then. It had been a logical deduction, however. Mentarit and Amenit, Tarek and Nastasen, were all children of the late king and were therefore brothers and sisters, half or full. As Emerson had once jestingly remarked, it was a close-knit family. To be sure, certain of them failed to display the affectionate loyalty siblings are supposed to exhibit toward one another, but I have known so-called civilized families in which similar deficiencies are to be found.
“What have they done with Reggie?” I asked. “Were you able to see him?”
“How could I ask, or plead for him? If my brother learned I planned to help him escape, I would die.”
I cursed the muffling veils that hid her features, for they often betray (to a keen student of physiognomy like myself) emotions that spoken words conceal. Her voice certainly failed to carry conviction; she spoke as flatly and unemotionally as if she were reciting by rote.
“It is a pity,” I said. “You would have been happy with him, in the great outside world.”
It was a random shot, but it struck home. Impetuously she turned toward me, clasping her hands. “He said that in your world women are the rulers. They wear wonderful garments, crimson and gold and blue; soft as a bird’s feathers and covered with shining jewels.”
“Oh, yes,” I said.
A hand emerged from the swaddling and plucked disdainfully at my sleeve. “Your garments are not soft and shining.”
“I have such garments at home, though. Would you wear your fine robes and ornaments on a long, hard journey?”
“No.… And is it true, as he said, that the women ride in chariots drawn smoothly along wide roads? That they eat rich foods, as much as they desire, and some of it is so cold it hurts the mouth, and the beds are so soft it is like lying on the air, and frozen water falls from the sky?”
“All those things are true,” I said, as she paused for breath, shaken by an agitation she had certainly not displayed on Reggie’s account. Honesty compelled