I might have been tempted to lie, but I could not; Ramses had seen us and was approaching. It was not in his nature to avoid a confrontation. Nefret had hold of his arm. She was biting her lip, a sure sign of worry or annoyance.
If young Lieutenant Chetwode had fawned over us, he did all but genuflect before Ramses. He paid no more attention to Nefret than courtesy demanded, which was in itself highly suspicious; most men paid attention to Nefret.
Unsmiling and composed, Ramses shook hands with both men. “On holiday, are you?” he inquired.
“A brief holiday,” Cartright replied. “I have just got back from the Gaza front, and after I had reported to the general, he was good enough to give me a few days’ leave.”
“I’m sure you deserved it,” I said politely.
“Ha,” said Emerson. “What the devil are you people doing? You pushed the Turks across the Egyptian border early in January, and you’ve been squatting outside Gaza ever since. We need a victory in the Middle East, gentlemen; God knows the news on other fronts is bad enough. Why isn’t General Murray pushing ahead toward Jerusalem?”
“I’m sure you know the terrain, sir,” Cartright said deferentially. Glancing at me – a mere female, who presumably knew nothing about military matters – he explained, “The Turks are determined to hold Gaza; the town is heavily fortified and so are the ridges that run all the way from Gaza to Beersheba. It’s a natural defensive line twenty-five miles long. Water is one of our major problems; we have to pump it from the sweet-water canal at Suez clear across the Sinai, and the advance of the railroad has been delayed by difficult terrain. Intelligence is dreadfully vague at the moment. Our agents find great difficulty in getting through, and their aircraft -”
“Yes, yes,” Emerson said impatiently. “But the longer you delay, the more time the Turks will have to bring in reinforcements and dig more trenches. You’ll have to hit Beersheba at the same time you attack Gaza. There’s plenty of water there.”
“I’m sure General Murray would be interested in hearing your views, sir,” Cartright said.
I cleared my throat loudly, and Emerson recollected himself. “If he needs me to point out the obvious, his staff isn’t doing its job. Good day, gentlemen.”
He took me firmly by the arm and stalked off, leaving the two officers no choice but to mount and depart. “Hell and damnation,” he remarked.
“Quite,” said Ramses, catching us up. “Extraordinarily forthright, wasn’t he?”
“Too forthright,” Emerson muttered. “Why did he tell us so much?”
Ramses’s lips tightened. After a moment, he said, “There is no reason why you should remember; but Cartright was one of the three patriots with whom I had that rude encounter at the Turf Club two years ago. He was with the Egyptian Army at the time.”
“The man who struck you in the face while two others held your arms?” I demanded indignantly. “Good Gad. If I’d known that I would not have been so courteous.”
“No, he was one of the ones who held me,” Ramses corrected. “Something has brought about a radical change in his attitude.”
“We can guess what it is,” Emerson grunted. “He’s with intelligence now, and someone has told him about you. Secret Service! Good Gad, they might as well shout their business from the rooftops.”
I said, “The news of your heroism -” Ramses made a wry face, and I went on firmly, “That is what it was, and I will call it what it was. But perhaps the information has not spread as widely as we suppose.”
“I hope it has spread,” Nefret said. She raised her chin defiantly. “I hope everyone knows.”
None of us had to request elucidation of this statement. Nefret lived in constant fear of his becoming again involved in a mission like the one that had almost cost him his life two years ago. Accepting another assignment would have been dangerous enough even when his former activities were known only to a few – particularly when one of those few was the head of the Turkish Secret Service. It would have been suicidal if every intelligence officer in Cairo knew. As Ramses had once remarked, there is no point in being a spy if everybody knows you are one.
“I’ve told you before,” Ramses said, addressing his wife in a voice that brought a flush to her cheeks, “that the subject is closed. May we drop it, please?”
“Quite,” said Emerson quickly. Though he is, as his conduct proves, a firm believer in thrashing out differences of opinion on the spot and with vigor, disharmony between his beloved children upsets him. “We’ve wasted enough time on this nonsense. Back to work, eh?”
I had myself been a trifle surprised at the harshness of Ramses’s tone. However, I did not suppose that his ill humor would last or that she would be unreceptive to an attempt at apology; and so it proved. Sometime later I happened to observe that neither was in sight; and since it was almost time for luncheon I entered the vestibule of the temple, where I had set up my little shelter. They were not there, but I heard a murmur of voices from behind one of the columns that separated the vestibule from the pronaos. It was a very nice column, with the head of the goddess Hathor instead of a capital. I moved forward to examine it more closely.
I did not tiptoe or try to walk silently, but neither of them was aware of my presence until they saw me. “Damnation!” said Ramses, releasing her and turning rather red. “Er – I beg your pardon, Mother.”
“I should rather beg yours, my dear. I didn’t realize you were here. It is almost time for lunch.”
“I’ll get Father,” said Ramses, retreating in haste. Nefret, who was trying to twist her loosened hair into a knot, let out one of her musical chuckles. “Were you afraid we had gone off to quarrel in private?”
“Not really. I presume you were admiring those nice heads of Hathor. I believe I heard Ramses repeat one of her charming epithets – ‘Golden One.’ ”
“If you heard,” said Nefret, amused and not at all embarrassed, “you know he was addressing me.”
“Very appropriate,” I said. A ray of sunlight haloed the red gold of her locks. “Hathor was the goddess of love and beauty and – er -”
“Happiness.” She looked up at the carved face. It might not have struck some people as the epitome of beauty, for the ears were those of a cow, one of the goddess’s sacred animals. After so many years of viewing ancient Egyptian art, such elements had come to seem quite natural to us, however, and the other features were delicately rendered, the long hair curling over the shoulders. “Praising the Great Goddess, Lady of Turquoise, Mistress of the West,” Nefret recited. She bowed gravely and deferentially.
I couldn’t help myself. “What are you asking for?”
“Happiness,” Nefret repeated.
“Then – it is all right, isn’t it? Between you two?”
“Of course.” She took my arm. “Let’s eat.”
Emerson kept us so busy that it was not until later in the week that I was able to make my annual pilgrimage to Abdullah’s grave. I never felt any particular urgency about doing it, since I did not think of him as being there. I only went because… In fact, I do not know why. Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.
On this occasion my primary purpose was to look at his new monument. I had not seen it before, since Abdullah had not got round to mentioning that he would like one until just before we left Egypt the previous spring. The request had taken me by surprise; one would not have supposed that an immortal spirit – or, according to Emerson, a sentimental fantasy of my sleeping brain – would care about such things. Emerson raised no objection, however, and I had sent David’s sketch and plan to Selim, asking him to proceed.
I meant to go alone, but Ramses saw me slipping out of the house and intercepted me. “I thought we agreed none of us would go off by ourselves, Mother.”