The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [45]
“Hmmm, yes,” I said, studying my son with mixed emotions. Like his father he seized every excuse to remove his clothing, and since by hook or crook (design or accident, rather) he managed to ruin his nice little Norfolk suits, no matter how many of them I brought along, I was forced to allow him to rely to some extent on locally available attire. At this time he was wearing the trousers of one of his suits and a pair of boots, but from the waist up he might have passed for an Egyptian youth. Upon his black curls he had clapped a cap woven in bright red, yellow, and green patterns, and his coarse cotton shirt was one I had fashioned from a native robe by cutting off several feet of the length.
“Well,” I said, “so long as you are here, Ramses, you may as well make yourself useful. Go and meet Mr. Forthright’s servants and take them… somewhere. Anywhere that is suitable for a temporary camping site—er—so long as it is some distance from—”
“From the tent of Papa and yourself,” said Ramses.
“Quite. I am afraid you will have to rough it tonight, Mr. Forthright. We have no extra tents or cots. We were not expecting guests.”
“But of course I brought my own equipment and supplies, Mrs. Emerson,” said the young man, adding with a little laugh, “You had no way of knowing when I might arrive, so I could hardly expect you to provide for me.”
His eyes were as candid as those of Ramses. (More so, in fact.) “When you might arrive,” I repeated. “Quite so. We have a good deal to talk about, Mr. Forthright. Follow me, if you please.”
The shades of night had fallen before Emerson called a halt to the excavation and dismissed the men. The last half hour of work had been punctuated with curses and exclamations of pain as individuals fell into or over various obstacles, for it was really too dark by then to see what one was doing. Emerson had gone on beyond the usual time, in order to prove… Well, one wonders precisely what. But that is the way of the masculine sex, and a woman can only accept these minor aberrations in what is in many ways a thoroughly satisfactory part of the human race.
Mr. Forthright and I were sitting in front of the tent, enjoying the crackle and color of our little fire when Emerson brushed past us with a mumble of greeting and vanished into the tent. I had thoughtfully lit a lantern for his convenience; he promptly kicked it over and proceeded with whatever he was doing in utter darkness and relative silence. Only the splash of water and an occasional swear word betokened his presence. However, when he emerged at last, with his black hair curling on his brow and a clean shirt clinging to the muscular breadth of his shoulders, he was obviously in a better mood, for he gave me a surreptitious caress in passing and actually nodded at Mr. Forthright. Our evening ablutions were a great deal of trouble because every drop of water had to be fetched from the Nile, over a mile away, and filtered before it could be used, but I felt they were a necessity rather than a luxury, raising the spirits even as they cleansed the body. I am sure I need not say that they were my idea. Left to himself, Emerson would not have changed his shirt from the beginning of the week to its end. If, that is, he wore a shirt at all.
“We have been waiting for you, my dear,” I said pleasantly. “Late as it is, I believe there is time for a sip of our usual beverage. We should drink a toast to Mr. Forthright, and the perils he has survived.”
Emerson filled the glasses and passed them around, ignoring the hand Ramses had extended. Ramses never gave up hope that Emerson would absentmindedly include him in the evening ritual—not so much, I think, because he liked the taste of whiskey as because it represented maturity and equal status with his parents.
“And what perils has Mr. Forthright survived?” Emerson asked sarcastically.
“Only the ordinary dangers of travel in this region,” the young man replied modestly. “Mrs. Emerson has convinced me that the attack this afternoon was one of them. A