“Goodness, what a mess you’ve made of this,” I said.
“I was in something of a hurry.”
I paused for a moment in what was admittedly a delicate operation, and looked more closely at his face. When I ran my fingertip along his jaw it encountered several slightly sticky patches. “What happened to the beard and the turban, and the other elements of your disguise?”
“I don’t remember. I was in the water at one time…” He stiffened as I slid the point of the knife under the next layer of cloth, and then he said, “How did you find out?”
“That you have been engaged in some sort of secret service work? Not from any slip on your part, if that is what is worrying you. I knew you would not shirk your duty, however dangerous and distasteful it might be.”
The corners of Ramses’s lips tightened. He turned his head away. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I am trying not to hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me. But you will have to, you know. I daren’t risk allowing a doctor to treat what is obviously a bullet wound.”
“These injuries were not made by a bullet,” I said, flinching as another fold of cloth parted, to display a row of ragged gashes just above his collarbone.
Ramses squinted, trying to see down the length of his nose and chin. “Not those, no,” he said.
“Curse it,” I muttered, cutting away the last of the cloth. There was unfortunately no doubt about the nature of the bloody hole in his upper arm. “Where were you tonight?”
“I was supposed to have been at the bar at Shepheard’s. The habituйs only snub people they dislike, they don’t shoot at them.”
“You might have been attacked on your way home, by a thief.”
“You know better than—” His breath caught painfully, and Seshat put a peremptory paw on my hand. Her claws were out just enough to prick the skin.
“Sorry,” I said—to the cat.
“It’s all right,” said Ramses—to the cat. “That story won’t wash, Mother.”
“No,” I admitted. “ Cairo thieves don’t carry firearms. The only people who do… Are you telling me you were shot by a policeman or a soldier? Why, for heaven’s sake?”
Before I could pursue my inquiries Emerson came back carrying my medical kit and, I was pleased to note, wearing his trousers. Between us we got Ramses out of his filthy garments and into bed, removing from it the heaped-up pillows and black wig. Emerson filled a basin with water from the jug, and I began cleaning the injuries.
“Could be worse,” Emerson announced, though his grave look belied his optimistic words. “How far away were you when the shot was fired?”
“As far as I could get,” said Ramses, with a faint grin. “It was pure bad luck that—”
He broke off, sinking his teeth into his lower lip as the alcohol-soaked cloth touched one of the ragged cuts, and I said sharply, “Stop trying to be heroic. Ramses, I don’t like the look of this. The bullet has gone straight through the fleshy part of your arm, but it must have scraped another surface immediately afterward. You appear to have been struck by several fragments of stone. One is rather deeply imbedded. If Nefret is not already on her way home we can send for her. I would rather leave this to her.”
“No, Mother! Nefret mustn’t know of this.”
“Surely you don’t think she would betray your secret!” I exclaimed with equal vehemence. “Nefret?”
“Mother, will you please try to get it into your head… I’m sorry! But this isn’t one of our usual family encounters with criminals. Do you suppose I don’t trust you and Father? I wouldn’t have told you either. I wasn’t allowed. This job is part of a larger game. The Great Game, some call it… What an ironic name for a business that demands deceit, assassination, murder, and betrayal of every principle we’ve been taught is right! Well, I won’t kill except in self-defense, no matter what they say, but I swore to follow the other rules of the game, and the most important of them is that without permission from my superiors I cannot involve anyone else! The more you know, the greater the danger to you. I shouldn’t have come home tonight, I should have gone—”
He stopped with a sharp catch of breath, and Emerson, who had been watching him with furrowed brows, put a hand on his perspiring forehead.
“It’s all right, my boy, don’t talk anymore. I understand.”
“Thank you, Father. I suppose it was Seshat who gave me away?”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank God she did! But how do you plan to explain to Nefret why you are bedridden tomorrow?”
Ramses’s lips set in a stubborn line. “I’ll be at the dig tomorrow as usual. No, Mother, please don’t argue, I haven’t the energy to explain. Can’t you just take my word for once that this is necessary, and get on with it?”
He fainted eventually, but not as soon as I would have liked.
Chapter 4
After I had extracted the last fragment of stone I handed it to Emerson, who wiped it off with a bit of gauze and examined it intently. “No clue there, it’s just a bit of ordinary limestone. Where was he tonight?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“We’ll have to get it out of him somehow,” Emerson said. “But not now. Shall I do that, my dear?”
“No, I can manage. Lift his arm—gently, if you please.”
By the time I finished bandaging the injuries, Ramses had regained consciousness. “The novocaine will wear off before long,” I said. “Would you rather have laudanum or some of Nefret’s morphine? I think I can get the needle into a vein.”
“No, thank you,” Ramses said, feebly but decidedly.
“You must have something for pain.”
“Brandy will do.”
I doubted it very much, but I could hardly pinch his nose and pour the laudanum down his throat. I prepared the brandy and Emerson helped him to sit up. He had just taken the glass in his hand when I heard footsteps in the hall outside.
“Hell and damnation!” I ejaculated, for I knew those light, quick steps. “Emerson, did you lock the—”
The haste with which he sprinted for the door made it evident that he had neglected to do so. Emerson can move like a panther when it is required, but this time he was too slow. However, he managed to get behind the door as it was flung open.
Nefret stood in the doorway. In the light from the corridor her form glimmered like that of a fairy princess, the gems in her hair and on her arms sparkling, the chiffon skirts of her gown surrounding her like mist. I had just presence of mind enough to kick the ugly evidence of our activities under the bed. The smell of blood and antiseptic was overcome by a strong reek of brandy. Ramses had slid down so that the sheet covered him clear to his chin, except for the arm that held the glass. Half the contents had spilled onto the sheet.
“How kind of you to drop in,” he said, with a curl of his lip. “You missed Mother’s lecture on the evils of drink, but you’re just in time to hold the basin while I throw up.”
She stood so still that not even the gems on her hands twinkled. Then she turned and vanished from sight.
Not until we had heard her door close did any of us move. Emerson shut Ramses’s door and turned the key. Ramses tipped the rest of the brandy down his throat and let his head fall back against the pillow. “Thank you, Mother,” he said. “There’s no need for you to stay. Go to bed.”
I ignored the suggestion, as he must have known I would. Indicating the basin and the stained cloths that filled it, I said, “Dispose of this, Emerson—I leave it to you to find a safe hiding place. Then make the rounds and—”
“Yes, my dear, you need not spell it out.” His hand brushed my hair.
No sooner had the door closed behind him than Ramses’s eyes opened. “I still hate this bloody war, you know,” he said indistinctly.
“Then why are you doing this?”
His head moved restlessly on the pillow. “It isn’t always easy to distinguish right from wrong, is it? More often the choice is between better and worse… and sometimes…
sometimes the line between them is as thin as a hair. One must make a choice, though. One can’t wash one’s hands and let others take the risks… including the risk of being wrong. There’s always better… and worse… I’m not making much sense, am I?”
“It makes excellent sense to me,” I said gently. “But you need to rest. Can’t you sleep?”
“I’m trying.” He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You used to sing me to sleep. When I was small. Do you remember?”
“I remember.” I had to clear my throat before I went on. “I always suspected you pretended to sleep so you wouldn’t have to listen to me sing. It is not one of my greatest talents.”
“I liked it.”
His hand lay on the bed, palm up, like that of a beggar asking for alms. When I took it his fingers closed around mine. My throat was so tight I thought I could not speak, much less sing, but the iron control I have cultivated over the years came to my aid; my voice was steady, if not melodious.
“There were three ra’ens sat on a tree
Down a down, hey down a down…”
There are ten interminable verses to this old ballad, which is not, as persons unfamiliar with it might suppose, a pretty little ditty about birds. As soon as he was old enough to express an opinion on the subject, Ramses had informed me that he found lullabies boring, and had demanded stronger stuff. This attitude was, perhaps, not unnatural in a child who had been brought up with mummies; but I would be the first to admit that Ramses was not a normal child.
His lips curved slightly as he listened, and his eyes closed; by the time I got to the verse where the dead knight’s lover “lifts his bloody head,” his breathing had slowed and deepened.
I bent over him and brushed the damp curls away from his brow. I had been in error; he was not quite asleep. His heavy lids lifted.
“I was a bloodthirsty little beast, wasn’t I?”
“No,” I said unsteadily. “No! You never harmed a living creature, not even a mouse or a beetle. You put yourself constantly at risk in order to keep them from being hurt, by cats or hunters or cruel owners. That is what you are doing now, isn’t it? Risking yourself to keep people…” It was no use, I could not go on. He squeezed my hand and smiled at me.
“Don’t worry, Mother. It’s all right, you know.”
The tears I had held back burst from my eyes, and I wept as I had not wept since the day Abdullah died. Dropping to my knees, I pressed my face into the covers in an attempt to muffle my sobs. He patted me clumsily on my bowed head, and that made me cry harder.
When I had stopped crying I raised my head and saw that he was asleep at last. Shadows softened the prominent features and the strong outline of jaw and chin; with the cat curled up next to him on the pillow he looked like the boy he had been, not so very many years before.
I was sitting by the bed when the key turned in the lock and Emerson slipped in. “All quiet,” he whispered. “No sign of anyone about.”
“Good.”
He crossed the room and stood behind me, his hands on my shoulders. “Were you crying?”
“A little. Rather a lot, in fact. I don’t know that I can bear this, Emerson. I suppose I ought to be accustomed to it, after living with you all these years, but he courts peril even more recklessly than you did. Why must he take such risks?”
“Would you have him any other way?”
“Yes! I would have him behave sensibly—take care—avoid danger—”
“Be someone other than himself, in short. We cannot change his nature, my dear, even if we would; so let us apply ourselves to thinking how we can help him. What did you put in the brandy?”
“Veronal. Emerson, he cannot get out of bed tomorrow, much less work in the tomb.”
“I know. I am going to find David.”
“David.” I rubbed my aching eyes. “Yes, of course. David is here, isn’t he? That’s how Ramses managed to be in two different places tonight. David was at Shepheard’s and Ramses was… I apologize, Emerson, I am a trifle slow. What role has he been playing?”
“Think it through, my dear.” He squeezed my shoulders. “You have been under something of a strain, but I don’t doubt your quick wits will reach the same conclusion mine have reached. I mustn’t stay, if I am to get David back here before morning.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“I think so. I will be as quick as I can. Try to rest a little.”
He tilted my head back and kissed me. As he walked to the door there was a spring in his step I had not seen for weeks, and when he turned and smiled at me I beheld the Emerson I knew and loved, eyes alight, shoulders squared, tall frame vibrant with resolve. My dear Emerson was himself again, intoxicated by danger, spurred on by the need for action!
The night wore on. I sat quietly, resting my head against the back of the chair, but sleep was impossible. It was like Emerson to throw out that amiable challenge, so that I would tax my wits instead of fretting. And of course, once I got my mind to work on the problem, the answer was obvious.
The business in which Ramses was presently engaged had been worked out long in advance, and with the cooperation of someone high in the Government. It would take a man like Kitchener himself to authorize and arrange the deception, sending another man to India in place of David. I had wondered why he had been imprisoned there instead of in Malta , where the other nationalists were interned; now I understood. No one who knew David could be allowed to meet the impostor. There are secret methods of communication into and out of the most tightly guarded prison, and if ever the word got back to Cairo that David was not where he was supposed to be, interested parties might wonder where he really was.
Interested parties, of whom there were, alas, only too many, might also wonder whether Ramses’s outspoken opposition to the war was a cover for the sort of clandestine activities for which he was particularly well suited. If he was playing another role, the only way in which he could disarm suspicion was to have David take his part at strategic intervals. Knowing Ramses, I did not doubt his loathing of the war was utterly sincere, but it had also been part of the plan. He had made himself so thoroughly unpopular, few people would associate with him—or, as the case might be, with David.
Emerson had been correct; the answer was obvious. If one man could be secretly removed from exile, another could be secretly sent into it. The militant nationalist for whom the British authorities were searching was not Kamil el-Wardani, but my son—and that was why Thomas Russell had taken the unusual step of inviting us to accompany him on his futile raid, and why Wardani had got away so handily. The raid had been meant to fail. Its sole purpose had been to supply unimpeachable witnesses who could testify that Wardani was elsewhere while Ramses made a spectacle of himself at the Club; and the reason for the substitution must have to do with what Russell had said that night. Something about fighting a guerrilla war in Cairo while the Turks attacked the Canal… Wardani the key… without him, the movement would collapse.
I had reached this point in my train of thought when a faint rustling sound brought me bolt upright. A quick glance at Ramses assured me that he had not stirred. The sound had not been that of the bedclothes. It was… it must have been…
Springing to my feet, I felt under the mattress and found Ramses’s knife where he had asked me to place it. I hurried to the window and slipped through the curtains, in time to see a dark form swing itself over the stone balustrade of the small balcony. It saw me. It spoke.
“Aunt Amelia, don’t! It’s me!”
My first impulse was to throw my arms around him, but I was sensible enough to draw him into the room before I did so. It was as well he had spoken; even in the light I would not have recognized the bearded ruffian whose scarred face was set in a permanent sneer. The scar ran up under the patch that covered one eye, but the other eye was David’s, soft and brown and shining with tears of emotion. He returned my embrace with such hearty goodwill that his beard scraped painfully across my cheek.
“Oh, David, my dear boy, it is so good to see you! Where is Emerson?”
“Coming through the house in the usual way. We thought it better for me not to risk that.”
“You ought not have risked coming here at all,” said a critical voice from the bed.
The key turned in the lock and Emerson slipped into the room. “Whew,” he remarked. “That was close. Fatima will be stirring soon. Peabody , put the knife down. What the devil do you think you are doing?”
“Defending her young,” said David, with a horrible, distorted grin. “She was about to fly at me when I identified myself.”
“You ought not be here,” Ramses insisted. Obviously I had not given him quite enough of the sleeping medication. His eyes were half-closed, but the extremity of his annoyance enabled him to articulate.
“We haven’t time to argue,” Emerson said coolly. “David, hurry and change, and get rid of that beard, and—do whatever else you need to do.”
“Don’t worry,” David said, peeling off his beard and turning toward the washbasin in the corner of the room. “I’ve played Ramses often enough lately to fool most people. But you’ll have to keep Nefret away from me. She knows both of us too well to be deceived. I need more light, Aunt Amelia.”
I picked up the lamp and went to him. After rummaging in a nearby cupboard he removed several bottles and boxes and studied his face in the small shaving mirror.
“May I be allowed to say a word?” inquired Ramses, still prone and still thoroughly exasperated.
“No,” said his father. “David and I have it worked out. Peabody , you will tell Fatima that Ramses is in the middle of some filthy experiment, and that she is not to allow anyone in the room. It won’t be the first time. I depend on you to make sure he is supplied with everything he needs before we leave the house this morning. Now get out of here so David can change his clothing.”
I put the lamp down on a table. David had wiped off the scar and removed the invisible tape that had pulled his mouth out of shape. He saw me staring and gave me a sidelong smile. “The resemblance needn’t be that exact, Aunt Amelia. They know Ramses is here and they know I’m not, so they will see him, not me. It will be all right—if I can get out of the house without encountering Nefret.”
He Shall Thunder in the Sky taps-12 Page 12