“You’ve got a long walk ahead,” David said.

“Not as long as yours.”

“I slept most of the day. How was the ball?”

“Jolly.”

“I’m sure it was. Here, watch out.” He steadied Ramses with a hand on his arm.

“Stubbed my toe,” said the latter, hopping. “Damn these sandals.”

“Let’s go back to the road. It’s easier walking.”

There was no sign of the cart or the motorcar when they reached the road. The dusty surface lay like a pale ribbon in the moonlight.

“How are you and Nefret getting on?” David inquired.

“Why do you ask?”

“Something has happened,” David said calmly. “I can always tell.”

“Yes, you can, can’t you?” He was tired, and the comfort of David’s companionship loosened his tongue. “The truth is I… It’s been more difficult than I expected, staying at a safe distance and trying not to be alone with her. I slipped a few times. And then, tonight, she asked me to dance with her—I couldn’t refuse—and I wanted to—God, how I wanted to! I got the hell away as soon as I could, but she followed me into the garden, and I—I couldn’t stop myself.”

“From doing what?”

“What do you suppose? The options were limited in those surroundings. I kissed her, that’s all.”

“Finally!” David exclaimed. “Then what happened?”

“Damn it,” Ramses said, half laughing and half angry, “you’re as bad as Mother. She gave me plenty of advice. I don’t need any more from you.”

“About Nefret and you?” David asked in surprise. “I thought you didn’t want her to know.”

“I didn’t. I was afraid she’d do precisely what she did tonight, after she saw us together—lecture, sympathize, advise. She was… in fact, she was very sweet. And she told me a few things about her and Father that came as a considerable shock!”

“Did you tell her you and Nefret had…” David hesitated delicately.

“Tell my mother we’d been lovers? Good God, David, are you out of your mind?”

“The Professor doesn’t know either, I suppose.”

“Not from me,” said his son grimly. “He’s a Victorian gentleman, and you know how he feels about Nefret. If I’d confided in anyone, it would have been you, but I didn’t think I had the right. Lia shouldn’t have told you either.”

“I’m glad she did. It helped me to understand why Nefret acted as she did.”

“You never showed me that letter she wrote Lia.”

“Lia never showed it to me—nor should she have done, it was meant for her eyes only. She told me enough, though. Ramses, you damned fool, Nefret was head over heels in love with you, and I believe she still is. Why won’t you tell her how you feel? Haven’t you forgiven her for doubting you?”

“I forgave her long ago, and I would trust her with my life. But I won’t trust her with yours, David. She’s been seeing Percy. Secretly.”

David sucked in his breath. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. She’s met with him several times, and he was hiding in the shrubbery while we—er—talked. I spotted him before I lost complete control of myself, but the only way I could keep matters from proceeding further was to say something utterly unforgivable to Nefret.”

“Ah,” said David. “So she was not unwilling? Hang it, Ramses, when are you going to stop making a martyr of yourself?”

“As soon as this is over. Once we’re in the clear I’ll plead with her, humble myself, or drag her off by her hair—whatever it takes. Just now I daren’t risk it. Percy’s on to me, you know. Oh, not the Wardani business, at least I hope to God not, but he suspects I’m involved in something and he’s trying to find out what it is. That’s why he’s been paying me those extravagant and very public compliments. He probably approached Nefret in the hope that he could learn more. She’s the weak link in our circle, or so Percy would assume. He’s such a conceited bastard, he thinks no woman can resist him.”

“And she, in turn, is hoping to learn something from him? That sounds like Nefret, all right. I don’t understand, though. Why should Percy care what you’re doing?”

“Doesn’t a possible reason occur to you?”

“Aside from the fact that he hates you and would stop at nothing to injure you? There’s no chance of that. Even if he found out what you’re doing, which God forbid, he couldn’t use it against you.”

“You don’t understand,” Ramses said angrily. “Even after all the other things he’s done, you don’t realize what he’s capable of. Why do you suppose I wanted Sennia to stay in England this winter? I knew I’d be preoccupied with this other business and unable to watch over her as closely as I’ve done before. Percy hates the lot of us, and the sweetest, neatest revenge he could find would be through that child. Can you imagine the effect on Father if anything happened to her?”

“On all of us.”

“Yes. She’s safe from him, but Nefret is another matter. You may think I’m making a martyr of myself without sufficient cause, but I had to do what I did tonight. Have you forgotten what happened the last time he saw Nefret and me in what he took to be a lover’s embrace? His vanity is as swollen and fragile as a balloon. God knows what he might do to her if he thought she was only feigning interest in him in order to trick him. She’s too brave and reckless to recognize danger, and too impulsive to guard her tongue when a slip could be disastrous, and he’s always wanted her, and he—”

“Stop it.” David put an arm round his shoulders. “Don’t do this to yourself. Not even Percy would injure Nefret to get back at you.”

Ramses felt like Cassandra, howling warnings into deaf ears. He forced himself to speak slowly and calmly.

“He raped a thirteen-year-old girl and left her child—his child!—to be raised as a prostitute. If he didn’t kill Rashida with his own hands, he hired someone to kill her. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do if his safety and reputation were threatened.”

“He wouldn’t dare harm Nefret,” David insisted. “She’s not a poor little prostitute, she’s a lady, and the beloved daughter of the Father of Curses. Your father would tear Percy to pieces if he laid a hand on her.”

Ramses realized he hadn’t a chance of making David understand. He was too decent and too honorable to recognize evil. Or—Ramses rubbed his aching forehead—was he the one who refused to recognize reality? Had his loathing of Percy turned into dementia?

They tramped on in silence until they reached the train station at Babylon . Ramses stopped.

“I’m tired,” he said dully. “There’s a cab. I’m going to hire it, unless you want to.”

“You take it; I can sleep as late as I like. Are you angry?”

“No, just a bit on edge. This will boil over within the next few days; the signs are all there. I need to be able to reach you in a hurry if that does happen. Any ideas?”

“I’ll be peddling my wilted blossoms outside Shepheard’s every day, as we arranged.”

“Fine so far as it goes, but I can’t always be certain of getting away during the day. Give me an alternative.”

David thought for a minute. “There’s always the useful coffee shop or cafй. Do you remember the one that’s just off the Sharia Abu’l Ela, near the Presbyterian church? I’ll be there every night from now on, between nine and midnight .”

“All right.”

David’s hand rested for a moment on his shoulder. “Get some rest, you need it.”

Ramses woke the sleeping driver and got into the cab. He was tired, but his mind wouldn’t stop churning. Had his father made it home safely? And what the devil was his mother doing? Emerson had pointedly refused to answer questions about her.

Worst of all was the mounting conviction that had been forced on him by one fact after another. He doubted he could convince anyone else, especially when a crucial clue had been supplied by a transvestite Nubian pimp. He could picture Russell’s face when he heard that one!

But he had gone to el-Gharbi to ask where the ineffectual terrorist had procured his grenades, and el-Gharbi had kept dragging Percy into the conversation. El-Gharbi knew everything that went on in the dark world of prostitution, drugs, and crime—and he had kept talking about Percy, hiding his real motive behind a screen of fulsome compliments and pretended sympathy. El Gharbi was approximately as romantic as a cobra; that final sting, about Percy’s role in tricking Nefret into marriage, had been designed to give Ramses a single piece of vital information.