The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [149]
“There’s no need for you to stay, Father,” Nefret said. “She needs to rest.”
Ramses didn’t want to go either, but he understood what Nefret had not said: that his mother stood a better chance of resting if everyone was out of the house. He was fully prepared to argue with his uncle if he had to, but Sethos went without demur. He pitched in more energetically than he had ever done, even offering to sift the debris and brushing aside Emerson’s doubts that he could do it properly.
“If I can’t spot a shaped object among the rubble I’ve wasted a good many years in the wrong profession.”
He was working in order to keep his mind off what might be happening back at the house. So were they all. Movements were slower and clumsier, voices louder. Fear was like a small, distant cloud, no matter how Ramses reassured himself. “Only to be expected,” Nefret had said. “A little feverish.” And those two faint lines on her forehead…
The only one who was unaffected was Daoud. He had absolute confidence in Nefret, and he had prayed for long hours. When they sat down to lunch he talked of nothing but the golden statue and the thief’s confession. “To think it was here all the time,” he said, waving a chicken leg in the general direction of the temple.
Emerson, enveloped in frowning silence, did not reply. “Not at this temple, Daoud, it is much later than the Eighteenth Dynasty,” David said. “There were older temples to Hathor. We worked at one of them last year, d’you remember?”
“Yes,” said Daoud, who never forgot any site where he had excavated. “And still we did not find it!”
“We may have missed it by only a few feet,” Ramses said. “But it doesn’t matter now, Daoud. There’s nothing else there. The thief mentioned only the statue.”
“Back to work,” said Emerson mechanically.
He called a halt much earlier than was his habit. Daoud and Selim went back to the house with them, the former carrying a silver charm in the shape of a hand of Fatima.
The lines on Nefret’s forehead were deeper but she welcomed them with a smile. “We’ll have tea early,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “Oh, Daoud, how thoughtful of you! It’s beautiful; I’m sure she’ll love it.”
“I will give it to her,” Daoud said.
“I’d rather you didn’t disturb her,” Nefret said. “She’s slept most of the day.”
Sethos sat down. “She’s worse,” he said heavily.
“No! Her temperature is up, but that doesn’t mean—Father, wait.”
“I want to see her,” Emerson said. “Only see her. Only for a second.”
Nefret’s face twisted as if she was trying not to cry. “All right,” she said gently. “Just for a second. Look in and don’t speak.”
Daoud rose ponderously to his feet. “I will look too. I will not speak.”
He followed Emerson into the house. “Daoud is a restful person, for all his size,” Nefret said with that painful smile. “Soft-spoken and slow moving.”
Her need of comfort was so transparent that for once Ramses didn’t give a damn about his audience, not even his supercilious uncle. He took his wife in his arms and held her close.
“It’s just that the responsibility is so enormous,” she whispered.
“It’s not your fault, you’re doing everything you can and more. If I had moved a little quicker—”
“Stop it, both of you,” Sethos said roughly. “Nefret, she couldn’t have a more competent physician or one who cared more for her. As for you, Ramses—do you suppose she would rather it were you lying there? She knew what she was doing, she always does.”
“He’s right,” David said. “This is no time to give way, Nefret, you said yourself that the wound wasn’t mortal.”
It might have been his gentle reassurance, or Sethos’s blunter variety of comfort, that made Nefret laugh even as she brushed the tears from her eyes. “Do you know what saved her life? That blessed belt of tools! The bullet was deflected by her canteen and went at an angle through that leather belt, so that it penetrated her side instead of going straight into her intestines.”
Emerson and Daoud came back to find Sethos pouring the whiskey. “She’s asleep,” Emerson reported.