Mr Impossible (24 page)

“
That would
tell me which goddess she was,” she said. “But at present
I am altogether in the dark about her.”

He bent nearer to
look over her shoulder, and she caught a whiff of shaving soap.

“
Light as a
feather,” he said. “Light-fingered. Lightheaded.
Lighthearted. Wait.” He closed his eyes. “I saw it
somewhere. That feather of hers on a scale. What was on the other
side? Something weighed in the balance. A judgment scene of some
kind, it looked like. You smell like a goddess, like incense.”

He opened his eyes
and gazed straight into hers. She stared into those dark depths,
wondering if she’d heard aright.

“
I must have
seen it in one of Tryphena’s picture books. One of the French
lot.” He stepped back. “Where do I find the pistols?”

She was still
reeling from the smell-like-a-goddess remark. It took her brain a
moment to attend to the other revelation. Picture books. French lot.
“The
Description de I’Egypte
?” she cried.
“
You studied it
?”

“
There is no
need to become hysterical,” he said. “It was wonderfully
popular with the ladies, who liked to sit close and comment on the
pictures.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I don’t
remember where I saw the scene. Tryphena has countless books and
drawings. Maybe the feather-headed goddess herself sat on one scale.
Weighed against…” His brow knit. “I think ajar or
vase stood on the other.”

He was playing
battledore and shuttlecock with Daphne’s brain.

Still, habit and
obsession soon reasserted control. She quickly thrust to the back of
her mind his familiarity with Miss Saunders’s Egyptian
collection and its usefulness in luring women to his side.

“
Scales like
the scales of justice, you mean?” she said eagerly. She turned
away, hurried to the divan, and snatched up one of her pictures. “The
Egyptian goddess of justice, do you think?”

“
No, Mrs.
Pembroke,” he said. “I don’t think. You do. But I
am happy to see you so… excited. If, however, I might have a
moment—a mere moment—of your attention? The pistols? The
fine Manton pistols?”

Chapter 11

Zawyet el Amwat,
Thursday 12 April

A FEW MILES SOUTH
OF MINYA, A ROW OF ROCK tombs had been carved into the Arabian hills
on the Nile’s eastern bank. Miles had taken refuge in the first
one he reached. He’d expected to die there.

But three days
after crawling in more than half dead, he was beginning to recover.
He waited until the sun was setting before exploring his
surroundings, though. Superstitious Egyptians, fearing ghosts and
ghouls, avoided tombs and burial grounds after dark.

Most of the tombs,
he found, were ill-preserved. Some were destroyed, the locals having
carried away the stones for building elsewhere. He decided to move to
one of the better ones, the next to last toward the south. Its walls
contained scenes of agriculture, fishing, shipbuilding, and
weapon-making.

By the time night
fell, he was starved. The food scenes reminded him that he’d
eaten almost nothing in the last few days. He’d nothing in the
tomb to eat. Something had eaten his stale bread. He was down to his
last mouthful of water.

And so, as the
stars came out, Miles took up his basket and made his way in the
moonlight to the river, to the place where he’d hidden the
little boat.

It was gone.

No great surprise,
really. The region was notorious. Why shouldn’t someone steal
his boat? He’d return the favor and steal someone else’s.
Tomorrow.

Tonight, though, he
wanted a proper dinner.

He set about
fashioning a fishing line.

IN THE EARLY
morning hours, he sat in his tomb by his little fire, cleaning a sad
assortment of very small fish. A faint sound made him look up.

A pair of beady
eyes reflected the firelight.

“
You’ll
have to fight me for them, friend Rat,” Miles said.

The creature drew
nearer. It was not a rat.

It had long, bushy
grey fur and a black tail and reddish legs and feet.

Miles smiled. “A
mongoose, by gad.”

They could be
pests, killing poultry and stealing eggs. On the other hand, they
were also partial to rats, snakes, and other vermin. As a result,
they were not unpopular. Some natives domesticated them. This
appeared to be one of the tamer ones. It was small, a female or an
adolescent perhaps. As it came closer, he noticed it limped.

“
That had
better not be an act,” he said. “I had a dog once who
used to do that whenever he’d done something deserving a
scold.”

The mongoose eyed
the fish.

“
No,”
Miles said firmly. “I worked hard for these. Go find yourself
some rats. Lots of them about. Snakes, too.”

He watched it
warily. Mongooses were very quick. That was how they survived their
battles with venomous snakes.

But this one
couldn’t be as quick as its fellows, given the wounded foot.

It looked at him.
It looked at the fish.

“
Rats,”
Miles said. “Lots of nice, tasty rats down by the river, I’ll
warrant. Oh, and big, delicious snakes.”

The creature
regarded him with sad, glistening eyes.

“
I’ll
wager anything you’re a female,” Miles muttered.

He scooped up one
of the uncleaned fish and tossed it to the mongoose. “The rest
are for me,” he said. “Big journey ahead. Fraught with
peril. Need my strength.”

He finished
preparing the rest of the fish and cooked them. She ate hers and
didn’t beg for more. But she didn’t leave, either. She
was still there when he woke up the next morning, just as the sky was
beginning to lighten.

But later in the
day, when the men came for him, one of them kicked her, and she ran
away.

Sunday night, 15
April

CONTRARY TO
RUPERT’S hopes and Leena’s predictions, the
Isis
and all aboard it passed the two nights after leaving Beni Suef
without mishap. Thanks to a strong and steady north wind, they
reached Minya on the third.

Darkness had
already fallen by the time they moored, and stars winked in the deep
blue sky. Yet in the west, a beam of light lingered on the horizon
for an hour or more. Long after this light was altogether gone and
the party had supped and gone to bed, Rupert lay awake.

He vowed he
wouldn’t do it again. Minya was a large town, the largest until
they reached Asyut, nearly a hundred miles away. They must spend all
of tomorrow here, replenishing supplies. While the others haggled in
the marketplace and Mrs. Pembroke looked at rocks, he would go to one
of the cafes where a man could find dancing girls and other women
untroubled by morals.

A short celibacy
wouldn’t kill him, he knew, but he couldn’t go on like
this. He hadn’t enjoyed a good night’s sleep since the
night he’d made the tactical mistake outside Mrs. Pembroke’s
door.

He was a man of the
world who could tell when a woman wasn’t ready. But once he got
close enough to inhale her tantalizing fragrance, once he touched his
lips to her skin, he didn’t know what he knew anymore.

All the same, you’d
think he’d have settled down by now. But no. It was worst at
night, when he’d nothing else to do and no warm body to take
his mind off hers. Six days had passed, and the restless nights were
making him short-tempered and dull-witted.

First thing
tomorrow, then, he’d find himself a warm, willing body, and get
his humors back in balance.

He was trying to
remember the Egyptian word for
dancing
girl
when he heard the splash.

Instantly he was
up, and in another moment he was out of the cabin, onto the deck,
knife in hand. Something slammed into him, and he went down.

DAPHNE WAS AWAKE,
too, sharply awake, her heart pounding because of the dream, so real
that when she first woke, she thought she’d actually done it
all, every forbidden, unwomanly act.

In the dream she
wore only a transparent veil. She stood in the doorway of Mr.
Carsington’s cabin and smiled at him and let it drop to the
floor.

He lay on his back
on the divan, looking up at her, a light dancing in his dark eyes. He
laughed a deep, wicked laugh and beckoned with his forefinger.

She went down on
all fours and crawled to him, and over him. She bent and trailed her
tongue along the bronzed skin near the opening of his shirt. She let
her hands roam over his big chest. She undressed him. She kissed him
everywhere, touched him everywhere. She used her tongue as boldly as
she did her hands. She took him inside her and rode him until she
collapsed, satisfied, exhausted.

She broke every
single one of Virgil’s rules.

She’d always
hated those rules, because she wasn’t like other women. She had
a brain that belonged in a man’s head, attached to a man’s
body. It put unfeminine ideas in her head, aggressive, animal ideas.
It made her want to go after what she wanted instead of waiting for
it to come to her. It made her want to crawl on top instead of lying
quietly underneath. It made her want to
do
as well as be done to. It made desire a wildcat inside her instead of
the sweet kitten Virgil wanted.

She lay there, eyes
wide, staring into the darkness, her nerves taut as though she’d
been caught doing what she’d dreamt.

She knew the
wildness and wickedness were inside her. But it was like the
experience in Saqqara: she knew there were snakes. She knew they
sheltered from the burning sun in dark places. But that was an
abstract idea, worlds away from the real thing appearing suddenly,
fangs bared, carrying instant death.

She was supposed to
have grown tamer, to have quieted with maturity and learnt to rule
her passions instead of letting them rule her. But Mr. Carsington had
come into her life, and then…

She’d thought
he was the genie let out of the bottle, the dangerous force released.
But she was the one set free. Discovering who and what she’d
become was like lifting the rock and seeing the snake spring up.

She lay staring
into the darkness, wide awake, painfully alert. That was why she
noticed the splash, then the movement shortly thereafter—in a
nearby cabin or the passage, she couldn’t tell. But the sound
brought her bolt upright. She grabbed her wrapper and shrugged into
it.

She didn’t
waste time fumbling about in the dark, looking for a weapon, but
snatched up one of her boots. She tiptoed past the sleeping Leena to
the cabin door and slipped into the passage.

Even before Daphne
reached the deck she heard the muffled grunts and thuds. The rational
part of her brain told her to run the other way, back to her cabin.
She almost did so. Then she noticed the door to Mr. Carsington’s
cabin was ajar. He was out there—in trouble, very likely.

She muttered a
quick prayer and burst through the en-tryway onto the deck. A dark
form came at her. Not his. She struck with the boot as hard as she
could, and the man stumbled backward. Why hadn’t she brought
something heavier, deadlier? Where was Mr. Carsington? Not dead. Dear
God, he could not be dead.

She was opening her
mouth to call for him, when the man growled a curse and sprang at her
again—

And let out a yelp
and fell hard upon the deck. He did not get up.

The boat was
stirring, men coming to life, sleepy voices calling to each other.

Out of the darkness
came Mr. Carsington’s deep voice, cool and calm: “Pray
don’t trouble yourselves, gentlemen. It is merely a villain
come to cut our throats, rob our stores, and ravish our women. No
need for alarm. Mrs. Pembroke has the matter in hand.”

LATER, IN THE front
cabin, while she picked splinters from Rupert’s hand, Mrs.
Pembroke told him the Egyptians didn’t understand irony or
sarcasm in any language.

“
Perhaps not,
but it made me feel better,” he said. “I think you missed
one.” He didn’t know or care how many splinters his
collision with the deck had given him. He only wanted her to go on
holding his hand and peering closely at it while he watched the
lantern light make red-gold and garnet and ruby threads in her hair.
It streamed over her shoulders, a fiery waterfall against the muslin
nightclothes.