Leaning against the wall, drenched in blood, Sethos tossed my gun away and gave me a twisted smile. “As usual, I have been upstaged. Don’t waste a bullet on me, Radcliffe; I haven’t much time left.”

“You shot Percy,” I gasped. “And he shot—”

“I hit him first,” said Sethos, with a shadow of his old arrogance. “Twice, and both square on target. I don’t mean to sound critical, Amelia dear, but you might consider carrying a larger…”

He swayed and would have fallen if I had not hastened to support him. Almost at once my hands were pushed aside and replaced by the strong arm of Emerson. He lowered his old enemy carefully to the floor. “It might be advisable for you to talk fast, Sethos. The Turks are advancing and ten thousand lives depend on you. When will the attack come, and where? Kantara?”

“What in heaven’s name are you talking about, Emerson?” I cried. “The man is dying. He gave his life for—”

“You? No doubt, no doubt, but what concerns me at this moment is the fact that he is an agent of British intelligence, and that he was sent here to get that information. Don’t stand there gawking at me, Peabody , raise his head. He is choking on his own blood.”

Stupefied by disbelief, I sat down and lifted Sethos’s head onto my lap. Emerson opened his coat and ripped the bloody shirt away from his body. “Damn,” he said. “Nefret, come here. See what you can do.”

She came, and Ramses with her; they were interwined like Siamese twins and both looked as dazed as I felt. After she had examined the gruesome wound she shook her head. “It has penetrated his lung. We must get him to hospital immediately, but I don’t think…”

“Can he talk?” The man who had spoken was a stranger to me, one of General Maxwell’s aides, to judge by his uniform. “An ambulance is on the way, but if he can tell us where—”

Sethos opened his eyes. “I don’t know. They burned the papers. I couldn’t find…” Then a spark of the old malicious amusement shone in the gray—brown—green depths. “You might ask… my nephew. I rather think he… got a look at them.”

“Who?” Emerson’s strong jaw dropped.

“Who?” I gasped, glaring wildly round the small chamber.

“Me, I think,” said Ramses. “By a process of elimination. I had begun to wonder—”

“Don’t try to talk, Ramses!” I cried. He was leaning heavily on Nefret, and under the bruises and streaks of blood his face was ashen.

“I think I had better,” Ramses said, drawing a long, difficult breath. “Kantara is a feint only. The main attack will come between Toussoum and Serapeum, at half past three . They have steel pontoons to bridge the Canal. Two infantry brigades and six guns are to hold a position two miles northeast of Serapeum—”

“ Half past three —today?” The officer broke in. “It is already after midnight . Damn it, man, are you sure? Headquarters expected the attack would be farther north. It will take at least eight hours to get our reserves from Ismailia to Serapeum.”

“Then you had better get them started, hadn’t you?” said Ramses.

“Damnation,” Emerson exclaimed. “The only troops near Toussoum are the Indian infantry, and most of them are Moslems. If they don’t hold—”

“They will hold.” Ramses looked down at the man whose head rested on my lap. “As I was saying, I began to wonder about Major Hamilton earlier. His suggestion that they leave me alive was a bit too disingenuous. Double agent, I thought—prayed, rather—but it never occurred to me he was…” His voice cracked. “Uncle Sethos?”

Emerson had gone white. “You were the boy in the snow. My father’s…”

“Your father’s bastard, yes,” Sethos whispered. “Did you never suspect why I hated you so? The sight of you that night, the young heir and master, in your handsome coach, while I struggled to help a fainting woman through the drifts… She died a week later, in a charity ward in Truro , and was buried in a pauper’s grave.”

“She loved you,” Emerson said, in a voice that cut me to the heart. “You had that, at least. It was more than I had.”

“I am mean enough to be glad of that,” Sethos said in a stronger voice. “You had everything else. We are more alike than you realize, brother. You turned your talents to scholarship; I turned mine to crime. I became your dark counterpart, your rival… I tried to take her from you, Radcliffe, but I failed in that as in all the rest…”

“Listen to me.” Emerson leaned forward. “I want you to know this. I tried to find you that night. After my mother told me what she had done I went out to look for you. She sent two of the servants to drag me back and lock me in my room. If there is anything I can do to make it up to you—”

“Too late. Just as well; we would all find it a trifle difficult to adjust to these new relationships.”

Emerson said gruffly, “Will you give me your hand?”

“In token of forgiveness? It seems I have less to forgive than you.” His hand moved feebly. Emerson grasped it. Sethos’s eyes moved slowly over the faces of the others, and then returned, as if drawn by a magnet, to mine. “How very sentimental,” he murmured. “I never thought to see my affectionate family gathered round me at the end… Fetch the light closer, Radcliffe. My eyes are dimming, and I want to see her face clearly. Amelia, will you grant me my last wish? I would like to die with your kiss on my lips. It is the only reward I am likely to get for helping to save your son’s life, not to mention the Suez Canal .”

I lifted him in my arms and kissed him. For a moment his lips met mine with desperate intensity; then a shudder ran through him and his head fell back. Gently I lowered him to the ground and folded his bloody hands over his breast.

“Bid the soldiers shoot,” I murmured. “And bear him like a soldier to the stage. For he was likely, had he been—”

“Amelia, I beg you will leave off misquoting Hamlet,” said my husband through his teeth.

I forgave him his harsh tone, for I knew it was his way of concealing his emotions. The scene did rather resemble the last act of the drama, with bodies here and there and soldiers crowding in to assist and to stare.

Sethos and Percy were removed on litters and carried to the ambulance Emerson had commandeered—“just in case,” as he explained. Ramses kept insisting he could ride and Nefret kept telling him he could not, which was obviously the case; even Risha’s smooth gait would have jolted his back unbearably and the ropes had cut deep into his wrists. He was still on his feet and still arguing when Emerson and I left them, but two of the soldiers were closing in on him, and Nefret assured me they would get him to one of the motor vehicles, with or without her active participation.

Emerson and I took the horses back, leading the one I had ridden. We went slowly, for we had a great deal to talk about. When we arrived at the house we found the others already there. Ramses had insisted on seeing David, who was still deep in a drugged slumber but, Nefret assured us, no longer in danger. After Emerson had left for Cairo , she and I got to work on Ramses, and a nasty job it was. None of his injuries was life-threatening, but there were quite a lot of them, ranging from bruises and cuts to the bloody marks of the whip.

It was not long before Nefret told me to leave the room. She was very nice about it, but I could see she meant it, and the look I got from Ramses indicated he was of the same opinion. So I went to my own room and sat there for a time, feeling very odd. I supposed I would get used to it. There comes a time in every mother’s life…

Ramses slept most of the day, and I snatched a little nap. It felt strange to lie down with a mind at ease, vexed to be sure by a number of unanswered questions, but free of the anxiety that had tormented every waking and sleeping moment. I do not believe Nefret slept at all. I managed to persuade her to bathe and change her crumpled, filthy, bloodstained garments. I had barely time to adjust the pillows that propped Ramses on his side, and inspect his back (it was, as I had expected, green), and indulge myself in a few small demonstrations of maternal affection (which did not disturb him in the slightest, since his eyes remained closed throughout) before she was back. She had left her hair to hang loose, and she was wearing the pale-blue sprigged muslin frock which, I now realized, someone other than Emerson must have admired.