Children of the Storm (8 page)

“How did you hurt your hand, Ramses?” she asked. “They are like the marks left by the claws of an animal.”

He glanced at his wrist, where the cuff of his shirt had been pulled up. The scratches were deeper than he had realized, ragged and ugly. “A little souvenir from a man named François,” he said. “Though he does have some beastly habits, including sharp nails and a willingness to use them. It’s nothing.”

He tried to pull his cuff down but was prevented by Davy, who clutched his hand and pressed damp kisses on the scratches, murmuring distressfully (or perhaps chanting incantations).

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Nefret demanded, putting the baby down.

“It’s nothing,” Ramses repeated.

Kadija rose and went into the house.

“Not the famous green ointment,” Ramses protested. “It leaves indelible stains on one’s clothes. Thank you, Davy, that’s done the job. All better now.”

“I’ve never been able to isolate the effective ingredient, but the ointment certainly has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory qualities,” Nefret said. “Human fingernails are filthy, and I doubt if our François visits a manicurist. Those scratches should have been disinfected immediately.”

“What is this?” Selim demanded. “Who is this man like a wild animal? A new enemy?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Ramses replied. Kadija came back, carrying a small pot, and Ramses submitted to having the stuff smeared over his wrist while he told Selim about the encounter. Selim’s handsome face fell. He had been with them on several of their wilder adventures, and he thoroughly enjoyed a good fight.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Selim,” Ramses said. “They are tourists, and it is most unlikely that we will encounter them again. Anyhow, the whole business was a misunderstanding. The fellow bears me no ill will.”

“Huh,” said Selim.

Before long the children had reached a stage experienced parents know well; tears and howls of juvenile rage became more frequent, and Labiba slapped Davy for pushing the baby. He slapped her back.

“Time we were going home,” Nefret said, holding the combatants apart by main force. “They’re getting tired.”

“Right.” Ramses collared his daughter, who began an indignant explanation—or perhaps it was a protest. He recognized two words. One sounded like Swahili and the other like Swedish. Neither could be said to have any particular bearing on the situation.

Daoud enveloped both squirming, grubby children in a loving embrace and handed them up to Ramses and Nefret after they had mounted their horses. “You’re disgusting,” Ramses informed his daughter. “What is that purple stuff on your face?”

She gave him a wide grin and rubbed her face against his shirt.

As usual, the women took forever to say good-bye. While they were exchanging final farewells and last-minute gossip, Selim came and stood by him.

“Will you tell the Sitt Hakim about Hassan and my father’s tomb?”

“She’ll find out sooner or later. What’s the trouble, Selim? I could see something was worrying you.”

“It is not important.” Selim tugged at his beard. “Only . . . what did Hassan do, that he should feel guilt and the need for forgiveness?”

EMERSON STORMED WHEN HE DISCOVERED I had finished his article for him. We had a refreshing little discussion, and then he set about revising my text, muttering under his breath and throwing pens at the wall. I congratulated myself on this idea, which served two useful purposes: it forced Emerson to finish the article, which he would never have done without my intervention, and it stopped him from brooding about the theft and his inability to do anything about it. Emerson is always greatly relieved by his explosions, which in my opinion are an excellent method of reducing an excess of spleen.

As I had expected, our telegrams produced no new information. Thomas Russell’s reply arrived on the Saturday. Like Emerson’s, his epistolary style was terse. No one of that description or name had been on the train. He had not wasted extra words demanding an explanation; he knew Emerson well enough to know none would be forthcoming.

Emerson crumpled the flimsy paper into a ball and tossed it to the Great Cat of Re, who sniffed it, decided it was inedible, and ignored it.

By the time we prepared to take the Sunday-evening train, there had been no response from Sethos. Emerson had telegraphed him at both his residences. At my request he showed me the telegram, and I must say he had communicated the necessary information without giving away the truth. That would have been disastrous, since the clerks at the telegraph office would have spread the news all over Luxor.

Cyrus’s initial frenzy had been replaced by a state of profound gloom. He had been torn between rushing off to Cairo in pursuit of the thief and mounting guard over the remaining artifacts. The latter consideration won out, after I explained to him that although Martinelli might well have eluded the police, we had no certain proof that he was in Cairo. The very idea that the evildoer might be lurking, waiting for an opportunity to make another raid on the treasure, made Cyrus break out into a cold sweat. He did not even come to the railroad station to see us off.

Other friends and family members were there. Daoud considered it his duty to send us away with the proper blessings; he had dressed in his most elegant silken robes, as he always did on such occasions, though he was sulking a bit because he had wanted to come along. The twins were not coming either. If I understood the tenor of their remarks, they were extremely indignant at being left without parents and grandparents for several days. Emerson, who is a perfect coward with children and women, had wanted to creep away without telling them, but Nefret had insisted that we could not suddenly disappear without explanation and reassurance of return. I agreed with her, and began quoting from various authorities on child-rearing until Emerson cut me off with his usual shout of “Don’t talk psychology at me, Peabody!”

After bidding the others an affectionate farewell, I turned last of all to Selim. A little pang, half pleasure, half pain, ran through me, for he looked so like his father—more slightly built and not as tall, but with the same aristocratic bearing and finely cut features. He was the only other person we had taken into our confidence.

“Remember, Selim,” I said softly, “you are to open all telegrams and send the information on to us at Shepheard’s if it is from . . . him. Keep on the alert for any rumors that may—”

Emerson shouted for me to board the train, and Selim showed his white teeth in a smile. “Yes, Sitt, you have told me. Do I not always obey your slightest command? A good journey. Maassalameh.”

The train chugged away into the night—it was, as usual, late—and we went at once to the dining car, where I prescribed a glass of wine for Nefret.

“I know you hate to leave the children,” I said sympathetically. “But take my word for it, dear girl, you will find that a little holiday from the adorable creatures will do you good. In time you will come to look forward to it.”

Nefret’s pensive face broke into a smile, and Ramses said, “Good advice, Nefret, from one who knows whereof she speaks. Did you look forward to your holidays from me, Mother?”

“Enormously,” I assured him. Ramses laughed, and so did the others; but I thought there was a shade of reproach in Nefret’s look. I prescribed another glass of wine.

The lamps on the table flickered and the crockery rattled, and it was advisable to hold on to one’s glass. We lingered over our wine, since there are no companions as compatible as we four. However, the car was full and we could not talk confidentially there. Before we settled down for the night we had a little council of war in Emerson’s and my compartment.

“Mark my words,” I declared. “Mr. . . . What did you say, Emerson?”

“I said, we always do.” Emerson muttered round the stem of his pipe.

“Oh. Thank you, my dear Emerson. As I was saying, if Mr. Russell learns we are in Cairo he will be chasing after us, demanding to know why we asked him to detain a harmless traveler and what we are up to now. We must decide how much, if anything, to tell him.”

Emerson opened his mouth. I went on, raising my voice slightly, for I believe in an orderly exposition. “Even more important is what to tell Walter and Evelyn. They know nothing of our relationship—their relationship, that is—with Sethos, yet he is also Walter’s brother, and in my opinion—”

“It is also my opinion,” said Emerson, taking advantage of my pausing to draw breath.

“I beg your pardon?” I exclaimed in surprise.

“Did you suppose I would dare to differ with you?” Emerson grinned at me. “I agree that the time for secrecy has passed. We may get ourselves in trouble with the War Office by exposing Sethos’s role as an agent of British intelligence, but I can’t see that we have any choice. The rest of it makes little sense unless that is admitted—and, as you might say, my dear Peabody, half-truths are more confusing than out-and-out lies. If I know Walter, the poor innocent chap will be delighted to find he has another brother.”

“Aunt Evelyn may not be so delighted,” Ramses said. Like his father, he had loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt as soon as we were in private. “The poor innocent woman has hoped for years that we would stick to archaeology and stop messing about with criminals.”

Curled up on the seat next to Ramses, with her head on his shoulder, Nefret said sleepily, “Then she should be relieved to learn that the greatest criminal of them all is no longer an enemy but a friend and kinsman.”

“That is the approach we must take,” I agreed. “Very good, my dear. David already knows of Sethos’s involvement with intelligence and I expect he has told Lia—he tells her everything.”

“No doubt,” Nefret said. “Neither of them has referred to it in their letters, but then they wouldn’t take the risk, would they?” She raised her hand to her face to hide a yawn. “Sorry.”

“Not at all,” I said. “Ramses, take your wife off to—er—your compartment, she is half asleep.”

After they had gone, Emerson indicated that he was ready to follow suit, so I rang for the porter to make up our berths. We stood in the corridor while this was being done. Emerson chuckled.

“I rather look forward to informing Walter he has an unknown brother who was not only born outside the blanket—”

“A vulgar phrase, Emerson.”

“Not as vulgar as certain others that come to mind. As I was saying: but who has broken at least five of the Ten Commandments.”

“It will be a shock,” I agreed.

“It will do him good,” said Emerson heartlessly. “He has led a very sheltered life and is in danger of becoming narrow and intolerant.”

That thought, and another that he acted upon immediately following the departure of the porter, distracted him from further discussion, and soon after he returned to his own berth I heard the deep respirations that betokened slumber. It did not come so easily to me.

Our failure to hear from Sethos was frustrating but not fatal. He might be away—temporarily, one could only hope. I considered it possible that the dastardly Italian had sought refuge with his former acquaintances in Sethos’s criminal network—supposing any of them were still in Cairo. Curse it, I thought, turning over with difficulty in the narrow bunk, how can we take action when we are ignorant of so many things? I ought to have cornered Sethos years ago and demanded a full accounting of the present status of the organization and the whereabouts of his confederates. Well, but his visits had been brief and infrequent, and there had been too many other things to talk about—his stormy relationship with the journalist Margaret Minton, the tomb and its amazing contents, the twins, the house in Cornwall—which was legally Ramses’s property but which he had willingly lent to his uncle—and Sethos’s daughter Molly.

Despite—or perhaps because!—of the fact that women found Sethos attractive, his relationships with the female sex had been far from satisfactory. For years he had professed an attachment to my humble self—a lost cause if ever there was one, since Emerson would never have allowed it even if I had faltered in my devotion to my spouse. In recent years he had transferred his affections to Margaret, who returned them with (at least) equal intensity. But Margaret had her own hard-won career, as a writer and newspaper correspondent specializing in Middle Eastern affairs, and she was unwilling to commit herself to a man who put his hazardous occupation ahead of her. Patriotism is all very well, but a woman likes to know where a man is and what he is up to, particularly when there is a possibility he may walk out of the house one day and never come back.

Then there was Bertha, Sethos’s mistress and accomplice during his criminal years. Passionately devoted to him at the beginning of their relationship, her tigerish affections had turned to rage when she learned of his purported love for me. She had met a violent death at the hands of my friends after several attempts to kill me, but not before giving birth to Sethos’s daughter.

We had encountered Molly—or Maryam, to use her proper name—only once, when she was fourteen years of age, before we were aware of Sethos’s real identity and hers. Soon after that she had learned certain disturbing facts about her mother’s death and had fled from her father’s house. Despite his habitual insouciance I knew Sethos felt guilt and deep concern on her behalf, but his efforts to trace her had failed. We hadn’t seen her or heard of her for years.

The waning moon slid long silver fingers through the gaps in the curtains. It was late. I cleared my mind of distractions. Finally Emerson’s rhythmic breathing and the swaying of the carriage lulled me to sleep.

A YEAR AFTER THE ARMISTICE Cairo still had the look of an armed camp. Below the very terrace of Shepheard’s, a crowd surrounded a young orator who held forth in eloquent Arabic on British injustice and the inalienable right of Egypt to independence. The attempts of the doormen to silence him were frustrated by the pushing and shoving of his followers, and the more timid of the foreign residents of the famed hostelry hung back, fearing to pass the mob. We stopped to listen.

“Anybody you know?” Emerson inquired of Ramses, who had once been involved in a somewhat unorthodox manner with one of the nationalist groups.