The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [37]
I must confess that even I recoiled. All I could think of was the Countess Magda’s tales of vampires and werewolves. Then Daoud came charging up. He was too out of breath to speak at first; he grabbed hold of the creature’s collar and forced it down. It immediately collapsed at his feet, rolled over, and waved four enormous paws.
Ramses was the first to recover himself. “I said a dog, Daoud, not a lioness! Where on earth did you—”
“It is a dog, Brother of Demons,” Daoud panted. “A fine dog, a gentle dog. And you hear how loud it can bark!”
Fatima had fled into the house. Opening the door a crack, she cried, “Daoud, you are a crazy man. We cannot have that creature near the children.”
“We’ll see,” said Nefret. “Bring it in, Daoud.”
Daoud raised the creature to its feet and led it in, maintaining a firm grip on its collar. There was a moment of suspense, while the dog looked from one of us to the other, with an expression of intense interest. I could not but suspect it was considering which throat to tear out first, but in this case I was wrong and Nefret, who had advanced to meet it, was right. She had always had a knack with animals of all species. The dog dropped at her feet and repeated its performance of submission, paws flopping, tail thrashing. Nefret scratched the great jaws.
“You see? It’s perfectly harmless,” she said.
“You could put your hand in its mouth,” said Daoud proudly. “It belongs to Mohammed ibn Rashid, from Gurneh. He has eight children, and they pull its ears and ride it like a pony. He is happy to give it to you.”
“What is its name?” Nefret asked.
Daoud looked blank. Only domestic pets have names, and pets as such are a luxury in a country where a man must struggle to feed his children. Veterinarian medicine is almost nonexistent, even if the ordinary fellah could afford it. Now that I examined the dog more closely, I saw its ribs were too prominent, and that there were untended sores on various parts of its body. Wriggling with pleasure, the dog sat up and leaned heavily against Nefret’s lower limbs, lifting its head to invite additional caresses.
“I shall call her Amira,” Nefret said.
“She does not look like a princess,” said the voice of Fatima, still behind the door.
“She will, when I’ve fed her up and tended to her,” Nefret said. “And when she gets her full growth.”
“You mean she is not full grown?” I exclaimed. “How large is she likely to get?”
Nefret laughed. “Goodness only knows. But she’s barely out of the awkward puppy stage. Look at the size of those paws, and at her teeth.” Unconcernedly she pried the dog’s jaws apart. The teeth certainly looked healthy.
Fatima opened the door a little wider, and out came the Great Cat of Re. He stopped and stared. His huge plumy tail began to switch back and forth. Then he marched up to the dog and smacked it across the nose. The dog lay down and covered its head with its paws. The Great Cat of Re swaggered to the settee, jumped up, and began cleaning his foot.
Nefret led Amira off toward the clinic, and I said, “Well, Daoud, it seems the creature is as docile as you claimed. But why did she fling herself at the door?”
“She wanted to come in,” said Daoud.
Looking a trifle bemused, Mr. Ayyid took his leave and the rest of us sat down for an enjoyable gossip—Daoud’s specialty. It was sometimes necessary to winnow the grains of truth from the chaff of rumor, but his report was a good deal more entertaining than the terse comments of Mr. Ayyid. He had got the news of Luxor from his son Sabir, who operated a popular boat service to the East Bank, and the views of the West Bank villagers during his visits to friends early that morning. Contrary to what some might believe, the supposedly enlightened European and American tourists were as given to wild superstition as the fellahin of the West Bank.
“Many ladies in the hotel saw the black afrit last night, walking in the