He Shall Thunder in the Sky (47 page)

     However, before we reached the breakfast room, our ears were assaulted by one of the most horrible noises I have ever heard. It grew louder and louder. I was about to clap my hands over my ears when it stopped, and in the silence I heard another sound — a sound as sweet as music to my anxious ears — Emerson’s voice bellowing my name.

     Nefret must have recognized the significance of the racket before I did. She ran to the door. Ali had opened it, and stood staring.

     I did not blame Ali for staring. Never had the Father of Curses appeared in such a contrivance. Motorcycles had always reminded me of enlarged mechanical insects. This one, which was bestrode by a pale young man in khaki, had a bulging excrescence on one side. The sidecar, as I believe it is called, was occupied by Emerson. A delighted grin indicated his enjoyment of the experience.

     It took three of us, including Ali, to get Emerson out of the contraption. He is so very large that he fitted rather tightly, and — as I soon observed — he had not the use of his left arm. Eventually we extracted him, and I thanked the young man who was still sitting on the vehicle. He turned a glazed stare toward me.

     “Are we there?” he asked stupidly.

     “You are here,” I replied. “Dismount, or get off, as the case may be, and have breakfast with us.”

     “No, thank you, ma’am, I was told to come straight back.” He shook his head. “He kept shouting at me to go faster, ma’am. I never heard such — such . . .”

     “Language,” I supplied. “I don’t doubt it. Are you sure you wouldn’t like —”

     The motorbicycle roared and rushed off in a cloud of dust.

     “Splendid machine,” said Emerson, gazing wistfully after it. “I wanted to drive it, but the fellow wouldn’t let me. We must have one, Peabody. I will take you for a ride in the sidecar.”

     “Not while there is breath in my body,” I informed him. “Oh, Emerson, curse you, how could you worry me so? What happened?”

     Nefret had not spoken. Now a very small voice uttered a single word. “Ramses?”

     “Coming,” Emerson replied. “He insisted on bringing Risha home himself. The brave creature will want a day or two of pampering; he had a tiring experience.”

     “So did you, I see,” I remarked, inspecting him more closely. He was not wearing a coat. One arm was fastened to his body by strips of cloth. His shirt was torn and dirty, his face bruised, his hands scraped.

     “I apologize for my appearance,” Emerson said cheerfully. “They offered us baths and bandages and food and so on, but I was determined to relieve your mind as soon as I could.”

     “Considerate of you,” I said. “Come upstairs.”

     “Upstairs be damned. I haven’t eaten a decent meal since yesterday morning. You can clean me up after breakfast. I hope there is a great deal of it.”

     There was a great deal, and Emerson ate most of it. Nefret hovered over him, trying to examine him, but there was not much she could do when he refused to lie down and stop gesticulating. He was still eating when Ramses arrived. He had borrowed a mount and was leading Risha. He turned the stallion over to Selim, who crooned to the noble beast as he led him to the stable.

     “You don’t look much better than your father,” I said. “What happened to your shirt? And your nice new tweed coat? That one you are wearing doesn’t fit.”

     “Let him eat first, Aunt Amelia,” Nefret said somewhat snappishly.

     “Thank you,” Ramses said. “I will just put on a clean shirt before I have breakfast; this is Father’s coat, and you are quite right; it doesn’t fit.”

     It hid the bandages and the scars of his recent injury, however. I decided I had better go with him and make certain he was not in need of immediate medical attention, for he was not likely to tell me if he was.

     He was waylaid in the courtyard by the entire family, including Emerson. After embracing him, Daoud announced, “I will go home. It is well now that you are here.”

     “Hmph,” said Emerson indignantly. “What about me?”

     Ramses glanced at his father; his lips parted in a smile so wide I would have called it a grin if I had believed my son’s countenance capable of that expression. Then he slipped away and started up the stairs.

     I started after him. Emerson caught me by the arm and whispered into my ear, “Don’t ask him about his coat.”

     Emerson’s whispers are audible ten feet away. Everyone in the courtyard heard him, including Nefret. “Why not?” she asked.

     “He left it, you see,” Emerson gabbled. “Forgot it. New coat. Fuss at the boy . . .”

     I left him telling lies and went after Ramses.

     His door was open. I was somewhat startled to hear him say, “Most kind. However, I am about to eat breakfast. Perhaps we might put it aside for later.”

     He was standing by the bed holding a dead mouse by the tail.

     “So that is what she did with it,” I remarked. “I was the first recipient, and I fear I did not accept the gift as graciously as you. I wish you wouldn’t talk to the cat as you do to a human being, it is very disconcerting. Take off that coat and let me have a look at you.”

     Ramses put the mouse on his bureau. Seshat sat down and began washing her face.

     “Leave it, Mother.” He removed the coat and tossed it onto the bed. Except for the half-healed wounds, his tanned chest and back were unmarked. “I’m as hungry as a pariah dog. Father needs your care more than I. I’m surprised you haven’t been at him already.”

     “He was too hungry.” I watched him pull a shirt from the cupboard and slip into it. “He said he’d fallen off his horse when the poor creature stepped into a hole and broke its leg. What happened?”

     “He fell, yes. So did the gelding, when it was struck by a bullet.” He finished buttoning his shirt. “Can you wait for the rest of it? No, I suppose not. We were ambushed. The fellow had us pinned down, and with Father injured it seemed advisable to stay where we were until dark. The man was a German spy. He came out of hiding, and we had a little skirmish. He killed himself rather than be taken prisoner. We started back. When we got onto the caravan road I fired off a few shots, which eventually attracted the attention of the Camel Corps. They escorted us to the barracks at Abbasia.”

     The narrative had been as crisp and unemotional as a report. I knew he had not told me everything, and I also knew it was all I was going to get out of him.

     Ramses tucked his shirt in. “May we go down now?”

     Everyone was having a second breakfast, to Fatima’s delight; she liked nothing better than feeding as many people as she could get hold of. As soon as she saw Ramses she concentrated her efforts on him, and for some time he was unable to converse at all as she stuffed him with eggs and porridge and bread and marmalade.

     Emerson was telling Selim and Daoud — who had not gone home — about the ruins in the desert. “A temple,” he declared dogmatically. “Nineteenth Dynasty. I saw a cartouche of Ramses the Second. We’ll spend a few days out there, Selim, after the end of our regular season.”

     Oh, yes, of course, I thought. A few peaceful days in the desert with German spies skulking about and the Turks attacking the Canal and the Camel Corps shooting at anything that moved. What had they done with the body of the dead spy? That would be a pretty thing to come upon in the course of excavation.

     Finally I put an end to the festivities by insisting that Emerson bathe and rest. Selim said they would return to Atiyah and await Emerson’s orders. “Tomorrow —” he began.

     “Tomorrow?” Emerson exclaimed. “I will join you at Giza in two hours or less, Selim. Good Gad, we’ve missed half a morning’s work as it is.”

     I took Emerson away. We had a great deal to talk about.

     “Two more shirts ruined,” I remarked, cutting away the remains of both garments. “I want Nefret to have a look at your shoulder, Emerson. I am sure Ramses did the best he could, but —”

     “No one could have done better. Did he tell you what happened?”

     “A synopsis only. He was distressed about something, I could tell.”

     Emerson gave me a somewhat longer synopsis. “The fellow was no older than Ramses, if as old. No one could have stopped him in time, and Ramses’s finger was on the trigger when the gun fired.”

     “No wonder he was upset.”

     “Upset? You have a gift for understatement, my dear. It was a ghastly sight, and so damnably unnecessary! I hope the bastards who fill the heads of these boys with empty platitudes and then send them out to die burn in the fires of hell for all eternity.”

     “Amen. But, Emerson —”

     A tap on the door interrupted me. “That must be Nefret,” I said.

     “May as well let her in,” Emerson muttered. “She’s as bull — — as determined as you.”

     Nefret’s examination was brief. “I am glad to see Ramses paid close attention to my lecture. It will be tender for a few days, Professor; I suppose there is no point in my telling you to favor that arm. I will just strap it properly.”

     “No, you will not,” said Emerson. “I want to bathe, so take yourself off, young lady. Why are you still wearing your dressing gown? Put on proper clothing, we will leave for the dig as soon as I am ready.”

     I encouraged her departure, for I still had a good many questions to put to Emerson. To some of them he could only offer educated guesses, but it was evident that the ambush had been arranged by a man high in military or official circles, and that he was in communication with the enemy by wireless or other means.

     “We knew that,” I said, pacing up and down the bath chamber while Emerson splashed in the tub. “And we are no closer to learning his identity. You say a number of officers overheard your conversation?”

     “Yes. Maxwell also knew of our intentions. He may have let something slip to a member of his staff.”

     “Curse it.”

     “Quite,” Emerson agreed. “Too damned many people know too damned much. I don’t suppose you have heard from Russell?”

     “Er . . .”

     Emerson heaved himself up and stood like the Colossus of Rhodes after a rainstorm, water streaming down his bronzed and muscular frame. “Out with it, Peabody. I knew you were guilty of something, you have a certain look.”

     “I had every intention of telling you all about it, Emerson.”

     “Ha,” said Emerson. “Hand me that towel, and start talking.”

     Having determined — as I had said — to conceal nothing from my heroic spouse, I told him the whole story, from start to finish. I rather pride myself on my narrative style. Emerson certainly found it absorbing. He listened without interrupting, possibly because he was too stupefied to compose a coherent remark. The only sign of emotion he exhibited was to turn crimson in the face when I described Sethos’s advances.

     “He kissed you, did he?”

     “That was all, Emerson.”

     “More than once?”

     “Er — yes.”

     “How often?”

     “That would depend on how one defines and delimits —”

     “And held you in his arms?”

     “Quite respectfully, Emerson. Er — on the whole.”

     “It is impossible,” said Emerson, “to hold respectfully in one’s arms a woman married to another man.”

     I began to think I ought to have heeded Abdullah’s advice.

     “Forget that, Emerson,” I said. “It is over and done with. The most important thing is that Sethos has got away. I am afraid — I am almost certain — he knows about Ramses.”

     “You think so?”

     “I told you what he said.”

     “Hmmm, yes.”

     I had insisted upon helping him to dress, since it is difficult to pull on trousers and boots with only one fully functional arm. Frowning in a manner that suggested profound introspection rather than temper, he slipped his arm into the shirt I held for him, and made no objection when I began buttoning it.

     “What are we going to do?” I demanded.

     “About Sethos? Leave it to Russell. Ouch,” he added.

     “I beg your pardon, my dear. Stand up, please.”

     He stood staring into space with all the animation of a mummy while I finished tidying him up and wound a few strips of bandage across his shoulder and chest to support his arm. Then I said, “Emerson.”

     “Hmph? Yes, my dear, what is it?”

     “I would like you to hold me, if it won’t inconvenience you too much.”

     Emerson can do more with one arm than most men can do with two. Yielding to his hard embrace, returning his kisses, I hoped I had convinced him that no man would ever take his place in my heart.

There were three statues in the serdab. The most charming depicted the Prince and his wife in a pose that had become familiar to me from many examples, and one which never failed to please me. They stood close to one another, with her arm round his waist, and the two figures were of almost equal height; the lady was a few inches shorter, just as she may have been in life. She wore a simple straight shift and he a kilt pleated on one side. Their faces had the ineffable calm with which these believers faced eternity. Some of the original paint remained: the white of their garments, the black of the wigs, the yellowish skin of the lady and the darker brown of her husband’s. Women were always depicted as lighter in color than men, presumably because they spent less time under the sun’s rays than their spouses.

     There was another, smaller, statue of the Prince, and one of a youth who was identified as his son. By the middle of the afternoon we had them out; not even the largest was anything like the weight of the royal statue.

     “Get them back to the house, Selim,” Emerson ordered, passing his sleeve over his perspiring brow.

     Nefret announced her intention of going to the hospital for a few hours and started toward Mena House, where we had left the horses. As soon as she was out of earshot, Ramses said, “I’m off too.”

     “Where?” I demanded, trying to catch hold of him.

     “I have a few errands. Excuse me, Mother, I must hurry. I will be home in time for dinner.”