Mr Impossible (30 page)

“
In other
words, Miles has been caught in the middle,” she said.

“
So it
seems.” Rupert went on eating, occasionally glancing up now and
again to watch her green eyes shift from side to side. He knew she
was only thinking and it wasn’t about seduction. She was
working out the implications of what he’d said. He wondered why
he found it so fascinating, watching her think.

“
A war,”
she said finally. “And since Lord Noxley’s men now have
Miles, we can expect Duval’s men to come after me.”

“
You’d
be a valuable bargaining chip,” Rupert said. He paused before
adding, “If I understood correctly, they’re all headed
south. If you think it would be wise, at this point, knowing what we
do, to—”

“
Absolutely
not,” she said sharply. “I’m not turning back. They
can fight over the silly papyrus, if they want, but I am not leaving
Miles in the hands of brigands and assassins, no matter who employs
them. I’m not going back to Cairo without my brother. I did not
come this far only to run away at the first difficulty.”

“
It’s
hardly the first difficulty,” he said. “Have you
forgotten we were trapped in a pyramid? Have the various corpses we
stumbled over slipped your mind? We were arrested, recollect. There
was the intimate encounter with a viper. And we’ve been invaded
by a lunatic mongoose.”

She dismissed this
with an airy wave of her hand. “We knew early on that Duval
might come after me to use me against my brother. The threat did not
deter me then, and it will not deter me now.”

“
I rather
thought not.” Rupert grinned stupidly. He couldn’t help
it, any more than he could help feeling so stupidly pleased. He would
have taken her back if she wished, though he wasn’t at all
ready to cut short their adventure.

She rose. “We
shall continue as planned. Lord Noxley’s men must meet up with
their employer sooner or later. We’ll retrieve Miles and let
them proceed with their war without us. For the present, however, I
need to collect my thoughts. In solitude.” She opened the door,
and the mongoose entered, shirt trailing. “Marigold will keep
you company.”* * *

THE WIND GREW
stronger with each passing mile. It subsided at sunset only to return
with increased force when the sun rose the next day. Fortunately, it
was in their favor, and it did give Daphne an excuse to remain
cloistered in her cabin.

The wind-driven
sand often kept the women inside, in cabins whose chinks were stuffed
with rags. Leena spent a good deal of time with Nafisah and the baby,
leaving Daphne to study her new cartouches in peace.

Except that she
wasn’t peaceful.

She couldn’t
concentrate. She wasn’t at all easy in her mind about Miles,
but that wasn’t the whole trouble.

She knew she’d
crossed a line on the day they left Minya. The outburst itself wasn’t
unreasonable in the cir-cumstances, but what she’d said wasn’t
half of what she’d felt.

She’d become
attached to him, which was the stupidest mistake, because he was not
the sort of man who could become attached to anybody, and most
especially not to a dull bookworm nearly thirty years old.

She was glaring
with helpless incomprehension at a set of cartouches in her notebook
when she heard footsteps in the passage, then a tap at her door.

She flung the
notebook aside, went to the door, and opened it. And her heart opened
up, too, and had a little party, with dancing.

Udail/Tom stood in
the passage bearing the coffee tray. Behind him stood Mr. Carsington,
in one of his Arabian Nights costumes. Deeply tanned, his black hair
windblown, he looked more untamable than ever.

“
Leena says
you’re cross,” he said.

“
I am not,”
Daphne lied. “I was working.”

“
No, you
weren’t,” he said. “You haven’t got ink all
over you.” He looked over her shoulder into the cabin. “Your
papers and notebooks are not scattered about the divan.”

“
Arranged
,”
she said. “My materials are carefully arranged. I told you,
there must be order.”

“
Your idea of
order looks like a muddle of books and papers to me,” he said.
“But then, I’m an idiot.”

“
Mr.
Carsington.”

“
You need
coffee and sweets to stimulate that immense brain of yours,” he
said. He patted Udail on the shoulder, and the boy carried the coffee
tray into her cabin and set it down on the low stool near the divan.

Having completed
his assignment, the boy departed.

The aroma of
freshly brewed Turkish coffee filled the small cabin. Daphne settled
onto the divan once more. Mr. Carsington set one broad shoulder
against the doorframe and lounged there.

“
Oh, come
in,” she said. “You know I cannot eat all this
fateerah
by myself. Not to mention how ridiculous it is to pretend you meant
to go away directly when the tray is set for two.”

“
You’re
so clever,” he said. “I did have an ulterior motive,”
From the folds of his shirt he withdrew a roll of heavy paper. “We
need to look at the map and decide how many stops we ought to make
before we come to Asyut, where we’re obliged to stop.”

While he spoke he
came in and sat on the divan, folding up his long legs as easily and
naturally as though he were the Arabian prince he so closely
resembled.

“
Asyut,”
she repeated, blank for a moment, then, “Oh, yes. The crew
bakes bread there.”

“
We must give
them the whole day,” he said. He poured coffee for them both.

She would not let
herself think about how intimate the gesture seemed, even with the
door properly open. She would not let herself be stupid anymore.

“
I can think
of no reason to stop before then, except for the night,” she
said. “It’s most unlikely anyone will give us
information. One of the two warring sides will have bribed or
terrified the locals to hold their tongues, and you cannot go into
every single village and knock people about to encourage them to
talk.”

She took the map
and turned a little away from him to unroll it and look for the
place. “Ah, yes. Asyut will do very well. It is an important
town. The caravans stop there. We can send the servants into the
marketplace to collect gossip.” She studied the map. “We
have passed Beni Hasan, I don’t doubt, at this rate.”

“
Long past,”
he said. “Reis Rashad expects to stop for the night at
someplace unpronounceable. Some famous rains nearby.”

“
West or east
bank? Antinopolis is to the east.”

“
West.”

“
El-Ashmunein,
then,” she said. “The ruins of ancient Hermopolis are
nearby. It was dedicated to Thoth, the Egyptian god of learning. He
is the equivalent of the Greeks’ Hermes and the Romans’
Mercury. According to Plutarch, Thoth was represented by the ibis,
and had one arm shorter than the other.”

“
I read
Plutarch,” Mr. Carsington said. “That’s all we
read. Greeks and Romans, Romans and Greeks.”

She looked away
from the map toward him. He was reaching for another piece of
fateerah
, the supply of which had noticeably dwindled in the last few
minutes.

“
You had a
sound classical education, in other words,” she said.

He ate his pastry,
his black brows knit, as though she’d said something vastly
puzzling.

She set aside the
map and sipped her coffee, wondering what on earth could cause him to
deliberate… about anything.

After a rather long
time, he spoke. “I daresay my schooling was sound enough,”
he said, “but it was ghastly dull. The same authors and
subjects are much more entertaining when you talk about them. I
thought at first that was because you are so agreeable to look at.”

It was nothing, a
mere handful of words uttered in the most offhand way. He drank his
coffee and scarcely looked at her.

She didn’t
know where to look. The idiotish dancing had recommenced in her
heart.

She knew men liked
her figure very well. Even Virgil. That, apparently, was all he’d
liked.

She was aware that
her face, while not pretty, was not repellent to men, either.

All the same, she
was moved. Everything inside her seemed to open up, like fresh
blossoms. “Oh,” she said, aware of the blush simmering in
her cheeks. “A compliment.”

“
It’s a
simple enough fact.” His voice dropped lower, to a ramble that
vibrated deep within her. “When I don’t understand what
you’re talking about, I pretend I’m in a picture gallery
and you are all the pictures.”

She thought she
must burst with pleasure. No one,
no one
had ever said anything
like that to her before. It was more than a compliment. It was…
it was… poetry, almost.

“
But it isn’t
simply your looks,” he went on, his gaze elsewhere, reflective.
“It’s the enthusiasm. The love of what you do. You make
it interesting because you love it. You may talk of the driest stuff,
yet I feel like Whatshis-name, listening to Scheherazade.”

His face changed
then, darkened. If it had been any other man she would have thought
he blushed.

But his dark gaze
came back to her, and he shook his head, and laughed in his usual
carefree way. “I am like a child, you see, easily entertained.
Why do you think the fellow—the god, I mean—was
misshapen?”* * *

April* * *

IT WAS NEAR
daybreak.

Lord
Noxley’s
dahabeeya
, which had stopped at Girga
overnight, set out well before the sun had cleared the horizon. A
mile or two upriver, the
Memnon
approached a sandbank where
half a dozen crocodiles slept. They were the first to be seen on the
journey thus far, for the creatures had, over time, retreated from
their haunts farther south.

Moments later, his
lordship watched as the two men who’d run away from the “ghost”
were bound and tossed into the water. At the first splash and scream,
the reptiles woke and had breakfast.

Most of the
company, accustomed to the Golden Devil’s methods, watched as
he did, with no evident emotion.

A few of the
company, who were not accustomed, turned away.

One of these was
Akmed.

Until now, he’d
thought Lord Noxley a good man. Like Akmed’s beloved master,
this Englishman paid well, never shouted or abused those who served
him, and did not permit beatings.

Now Akmed saw why
the shouting and abuse were unnecessary and why everyone aboard
worked diligently.

Now it dawned on
him that he might have made a terrible mistake.

But it dawned on
him, too, that his master needed him now more than ever.

Running away was
out of the question.

Chapter 14

Asyut, 21 April

THE
ISIS
SAILED ON, THE WIND CONTINUING true and strong, dying away at sunset
only to return, fresh, at dawn.

On the fourth day
after leaving Minya, they reached Asyut.

The bustling market
town was the site of ancient Ly-copolis, whose people worshiped the
jackal or wolf. The
Description
de l’Egypte
contained cross sections and other detailed illustrations of some of
the more elaborate tombs carved into the nearby hills.

It was nearly an
hour’s journey, over one of the Nile’s wider stretches of
fertile land, then over a bridge, to the mountain necropolis. The
openings to the tombs and caves were plainly visible from a distance.
A modern cemetery lay below.

The famous rock
tombs were not Rupert and Mrs. Pembroke’s destination, however.
They’d decided to venture into the hills and desert beyond,
where people might feel freer to answer their questions.

Accordingly,
dressed in Arab style garments that would not attract attention,
Rupert and Mrs. Pembroke set out on donkeys with Tom, Yusef, and a
pair of guards from the town.

Rupert noticed the
change in the wind as they reached the hillside. It had come up less
fierce this morning, though still favorable, and he’d regretted
the loss of time almost as much as Mrs. Pembroke had. But in the
course of this morning’s journey it had died away altogether.