Tomb of the Golden Bird - Elizabeth Peters [17]
A curtained doorway behind the counter led to a storage room and a narrow flight of stairs. The rooms on the first floor were unoccupied except for one, whose door was held fast by a wooden wedge. Emerson pulled it out and opened the door, to be greeted by wails and shrieks from a group of people huddled together in the far corner.
“It is I, the Father of Curses,” Emerson bellowed over the uproar. He took Ramses’s hand and turned the torch onto his own face. “You are safe. The evil men have gone.”
It took a while to calm the terrified family—man and wife, aged grandmother, and six children. Emerson had to take the old lady by the shoulders and shake her before she stopped screeching.
“Gently, Father,” Ramses said in alarm.
“Ah,” said Grandma, subsiding. “It is indeed the strong hands of the Father of Curses. Alhamdullilah, he has saved us.”
They knew nothing of the men who had burst into the shop as it was closing and herded them upstairs. The intruders had threatened to cut their throats if they called out or tried to escape.
Relief changed to groans when they saw the mess in the shop. “A full bag of salt!” The owner groaned. “It was worth ten pounds!”
The bag had only been half full, and it wasn’t worth a tenth of the price he had mentioned, but Emerson dispensed coins with a lavish hand. On the whole, the family had probably made a profit from the affair, as their smiling faces indicated.
As Ramses had expected, there was no sign of their attackers. Roused by the disturbance, the neighbors had turned out to help, and lingered to find out what was going on. Several of them claimed to have seen sinister figures, robed in black like afrits, running away from the shop. The descriptions included long fangs and burning red eyes.
In other words, no one had seen anyone. Emerson handed out more coins to the wide-eyed children in the crowd and patted a few on the head. They were unable to escape their admirers until the shopkeeper and Grandma had finished telling everyone about the hideous dangers from which they had been saved by the Father of Curses and the Brother of Demons. (Ramses had never been entirely certain whether this Egyptian epithet was meant as a compliment.) After assuring the audience that the evil men would not return, they made their way back to the river.
“Damn,” said Emerson. “Did you get a good-enough look at any of them to be able to recognize him again?”
“One of them had a scar on his jaw. I saw it when the scarf slipped. But I doubt they’ll stay around to be identified. They’re a ruthless lot. D’you think they’d actually have let the place burn, with those poor devils locked in upstairs?”
“My dear boy, you exaggerate. The family could have got out the window at any time, and the fire was no more than a distraction to keep us from following them. If they had meant us harm they’d have jumped us as soon as we entered the room. Six to two are reasonably good odds. All in all, I would say they were among the less competent of the opponents we have encountered over the years.”
“You know who they’re after, don’t you?”
“One name leaps to mind,” Emerson admitted. “What the devil do you suppose he’s been up to?”
Between concern for her husband and fear for the children, Nefret was understandably uneasy. I prescribed a glass of warm milk, and would have slipped a little laudanum into it if she had not been watching me closely.
“Really,” I said, “it was too bad of Emerson to imply there was danger to the children.”
“I should be with them,” Nefret murmured.
“If you pop into their room at this hour you will alarm them unnecessarily. The dog is outside their window, and I sent Jamad to stand in the corridor. Now come to the sitting room. There is no use trying to sleep until they get back.”
No one else was asleep. The servants knew what was going on, they always do; Fatima hovered, offering food and a variety of drinks. Nefret was finally persuaded to drink her milk, nicely seasoned with cardamom and nutmeg.
“Has Ramses discussed the idea of