He Shall Thunder in the Sky (61 page)

     Nefret darted forward, with me close on her heels. She did not even pause in the doorway but flew like a stone from a catapult at the man we had followed, pushing him aside with such force that he dropped the knife he held and staggered back. I do not believe she saw him as an individual, only as an obstacle between her and her goal. Standing on tiptoe, she drew her own knife and sawed at the ropes binding Ramses’s wrists to a hook on the wall. His bare back was a sickening sight, covered with blood and raised weals, and he appeared to be unconscious; when his hands were free he sank to the floor, clasped tightly in her arms.

     I leveled my pistol at the man who stood against the wall. “Don’t move! I might have known I would find you here!”

     “And I ought to have anticipated you would turn up.” He had the effrontry to smile at me. “We always meet under the most extraordinary circumstances. Perhaps someday —”

     “Be quiet!” I shifted position slightly, so that I could keep him covered while I shot quick glances at the tableau slightly behind me. Ramses lay sprawled across Nefret’s lap, her arms pressing him to her breast and his head resting against her shoulder. His face was bruised and bloodstained and his eyes were closed — but I saw his lips move, in a sigh or a groan, and I knew he lived.

     “See if you can rouse him, Nefret,” I ordered. “We must make haste, and I doubt we can carry him. You might try . . . Oh.”

     “He is less of a man than I believe him to be if that doesn’t rouse him,” Sethos remarked. “I assure you, Amelia, your kisses would bring me back from the dead.”

     Nefret’s bowed head hid Ramses’s face, but I saw him raise one arm and place it over her shoulders. The ensuing conversation was extremely incoherent. Most conversations of that nature are. I do not believe Ramses was aware of where he was or why he was there, but I will say for him that he went straight to the point.

     “I love you. I was a fool. Forgive me.”

     “No, it was my fault, all of it! Tell me you love me.”

     “I did. I do. I —”

     Her voice rose. “So you went off, without a word, when you knew you might never come back?”

     “That wasn’t how . . . I didn’t intend . . . Damn it, I left you a letter!”

     “Telling me what? That you loved me and were sorry you were dead?”

     “Yes, well, what about you? Coming here with that filthy —”

     “Stop it at once!” I ordered. “There will be ample time for that sort of thing later. At least I hope there will. Nefret, did you hear me! Oh, curse it! Ramses!”

     “Yes, Mother,” Ramses murmured. He looked round, blinking. “Good Lord. It
is
Mother. What’s going on? Is David —”

     “He’ll be all right,” Nefret said. She kissed him, and for a time I was afraid I would have to shout at them again. However, Ramses seemed to have got a grip on reality at last. Leaning on Nefret, he got slowly to his feet.

     “I need you to bind and gag this villain while I hold him at gunpoint,” I explained.

     Sethos’s smile faded. “Amelia, you are on the verge of making a disastrous mistake. I came here to —”

     “To murder my son, you villain,” I cried. “You have betrayed your country and broken your word to me.”

     “Wrong as usual, my obstinate darling. But do you think this is an appropriate time for a discussion of my character?”

     “Possibly not,” I admitted.

     “Definitely not,” Ramses said. “Though I was not entirely myself at the time, I got the impression that my amiable host was dragged away by two large angry men. However —”

     “However,” said a voice from the doorway, “he got away from them. You didn’t suppose I would allow someone else the pleasure of finishing you off, did you?”

Fifteen

H
is well-bred friends would have had some difficulty in recognizing him. His coat was torn and his shirtfront speckled with small drops of blood; the features I had once thought bore a slight resemblance to my own were dark and distorted with choler and his lips were drawn back over his teeth. “Put your little gun away, Aunt Amelia. Now be honest for once; you never suspected me, did you?”

     Rapidly I appraised the situation. It was not promising. Percy’s gun was one of those large ugly German weapons and at such close range he could hardly have missed any target he selected. At the moment he appeared to have selected me. If I shot him, Sethos would overpower me before I could fire again, even supposing Percy did not kill me first.

     “Not of this,” I said. “I had not believed that even you could stoop so low.”

     Ramses straightened, with what effort I could only imagine. “Give it up, Percy. The game is over. You’ve lost.”

     “To you?” His lips writhed. “No. Not to you, damn you! I’ll get out of this. No one would believe —”

     “Russell knows,” Ramses said. “He knows about this place. My failure to report back to him will confirm my accusations.”

     The words fell as quietly and deadly as stones piled on a grave. Another sort of man might have heeded them, but not Percy. His face was twitching uncontrollably and a look of cunning narrowed his eyes.

     “Report back,” he repeated. “Not for a while, though, eh? Aunt Amelia and dear little Nefret are all the rescue party? Excellent. There’s plenty of time for me to get to the border. I can still be of use to them, and the reward they promised is waiting for me — a handsome villa in Constantinople, with everything I’ve ever wanted.

     “Let me see now,” he mused. “How shall I go about this? One bullet for dear Aunt Amelia and one more for the lovers, so closely entwined? Or shall I shoot the gun out of her hand first? It will be extremely painful, though perhaps not as painful as watching me put half a dozen bullets into her son. Then there is Nefret. I hold a grudge against her, for tricking me. A more suitable punishment would be to let her live — with me, in that pleasant villa. Yes, I think I’ll take her along when I leave Cairo.”

     “Over my dead body,” I exclaimed.

     “Precisely what I had in mind,” said Percy.

     I grasped at the last frail straw. “Your confederate is unarmed. I will shoot him if you don’t drop your gun.”

     Sethos, who had not moved, now shook his head and sighed. Percy laughed.

     “Go ahead. You would probably miss, but our association was about to end anyhow. All right, Ramses, old chap, here’s your chance to die like a hero. Shove her out of the way and let me have a clear shot, or I’ll put a bullet through the two of you.”

     The gun turned in their direction. Mine turned back toward Percy. Before I could fire, the weapon was swept from my hand and a hard shove sent me staggering back. Unable to keep my balance, I sat down with such force that I was momentarily paralyzed, and my ears were deafened by a series of explosions so rapid they sounded like those of a machine gun. Too many things were happening at once. My eyes would not focus. Where was Nefret? Where was Sethos? Percy was screaming and pawing at his chest, but he was still upright and the gun was in his hand. Ramses launched himself at Percy and the two fell to the floor. Ramses could not hold him; they rolled over and as his scored back struck the floor Ramses cried out and lay still. Percy crouched by him, groping for the gun he had let fall — and as I half-crawled, half-stumbled toward them, Nefret ran back with her knife in her hand.

     The look on her face stopped me like a blow. It was as remote and merciless as that of the goddess whose High Priestess she had once been. Raising the knife in both hands, she brought it down with all her strength, up to the hilt into Percy’s back. For a moment she stood unmoving. Then her face crumpled like that of a frightened child, and she turned with a cry into the arms of . . .

     Emerson?

     Emerson! He was not alone. Men in uniform pushed into the room. There were others in the corridor outside.

     Still on hands and knees, I turned my head.

     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.