The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [96]
Emerson retreated, blushing furiously. “I say, Peabody, this is cursed embarrassing. What the devil is wrong with her?”
I bent over the little woman but she refused to move until Emerson spoke to her. He was so flustered he had a hard time finding the proper words. “Arise, honored lady—er— woman—oh, curse it! Fear not. You are well. Er—the young male child is well. Oh, come along, Peabody, I can’t stand this sort of thing.”
This last in English, of course. The woman must have understood something, for she hoisted herself to her knees. Covering her face as a sign of great respect, she addressed a brief speech to Emerson and, finally, indicated she was ready to retire.
We had to detach the baby from the nose of Ramses, which made him yell lustily—the baby, I mean, not Ramses. The roars went on until they were muffled by the door hanging falling back into place.
Murtek was not inclined toward conversation during the return trip, and for some time we also were silent, as we considered the dramatic incident and its possible ramifications. Finally Ramses (it would, of course, be Ramses) spoke.
“Did you understand what she said to you, Papa?”
Emerson would like to have claimed he had, but he is at heart an honest man. “Did she call me her friend?”
“That was one of the words she used,” said Ramses with insufferable assurance. “The entire phrase was something like ‘friend of the rekkit.’ The word ‘rekkit’ appears to be derived from the ancient Egyptian for ‘common people.’”
“Hmmm, yes,” said Emerson. “Like other words in the speech of the nobility. The little woman appeared to be speaking a different form of the language. I confess I could hardly understand her.”
“She and the servants we have seen are also different physically,” Ramses said. “They might belong to another race.”
“They don’t, though,” Emerson replied. Imprecision of speech always irritates him. “That word is often misused, Ramses, even by scholars. However, there are subdivisions within races, and it may well be… Hi, Murtek.”
He poked the high priest, who was trotting along ahead of us, muttering under his breath. Murtek jumped. “Honored sir?”
“Do your people mate with the rekkit?”
Murtek pursed up his lips as if about to spit. “They are rats. People do not mate with rats.”
“Yet some of the women are not ugly,” said Emerson, giving the priest a man-to-man smirk.
Murtek brightened. “Does the honored sir wish the woman? I will fetch her—”
“No, no,” said Emerson, trying to conceal his disgust and giving me a sharp poke in the ribs to keep me quiet. “I want no woman except the honored madam.”
Murtek’s face fell. Shoulders bowed, he tottered on up the stairs.
“Well, really,” I exclaimed indignantly. “Apparently your interference would have been condoned, even approved, if you had wanted the woman for a concubine! To think that old reprobate would offer her to you like a pet cat! And in front of me, too.”
“Monogamy is not universal, Peabody,” said Emerson, taking my arm as we began to ascend the steps. “And I believe that in many societies women welcome additional wives, for companionship and help with domestic duties.”
“That would not be my attitude, Emerson.”
“I am not surprised to hear that, Peabody.” Emerson sobered. “It appears you were right, though; the rekkit are little better than slaves. They may have been the original inhabitants of this oasis; the present ruling class is descended from Egyptian and Meroitic emigrants, and marriage between the two groups is forbidden, or