Emerson returned with nothing to report, except that the town was full of soldiers, which we already knew. We were lingering over luncheon when there were sounds of a disturbance without. Emerson hurried to the door; when it opened I heard someone say in Arabic, “There is a person here, lord – I could not keep him away -”
Emerson let out a strangled cough, and a voice I knew well murmured deprecatingly, “Lord, your slave begs your mercy, it is not his fault he did not come before this, he was detained by the cursed British and made to dig holes – see, see how his hands are bleeding!”
A thump followed, as if of knees hitting the floor.
My curiosity could not be contained. Nefret was already at the door, peeping out.
Emerson stood staring down openmouthed at the form crouching at his feet. Ramses’s curly black head was bare and what I could see of his skin was almost as dark as his hair. I could see quite a lot of it.
His voice rose in a wail. “They took my clothes, lord, the fine clothing you gave me, my gibbeh and my sudarayee and my tarboosh and my shoes, and my -”
“God curse them,” said Emerson, recovering himself. “Come in, then, and tell me.”
Ramses straightened, smirking like a favored servant who has talked his way out of a beating; but the old man who had escorted him there croaked, “Into the harem, Effendi?”
Emerson drew himself up and skewered the presumptuous fellow with a fierce stare. “Did not the Prophet say, when he brought to his daughter the gift of a male slave, that she need not veil herself, for there was none present save her father and a slave?”
This interesting theological reference may have been too abstruse for the servant, but Emerson’s stare got the point across. “Come,” he added to Ramses.
Nefret and I quickly retreated from the door and Emerson propelled Ramses through it with a hard shove. “Now,” he said loudly, in Arabic, “make your excuses to your mistress.”
He slammed the door and Ramses looked quizzically from me to Nefret. “Which?”
“Me,” Nefret said breathlessly. “I’m the new favorite, aren’t I?”
“Speak French,” I said warningly.
Neither of them heard me, I believe. Nefret was staring at him as if she had never seen him before – which, in a way, she had not, for to the best of my knowledge this was a new role for Ramses, and when Ramses played a part he did it thoroughly. He was wearing only a pair of dirty cotton drawers and he had stained his body a rich dark brown. I observed several raw marks across his bare back, and remembered that I had heard one of the officers explain that “a few cuts of the whip” were advisable when dealing with recalcitrant members of the Labour Corps.
Nefret had seen them too. She let out a little cry and threw herself into his arms.
They made a picturesque tableau as they clung to one another, framed by the pointed arch of the alcove – his dark, muscular body and her slender, yielding form in its gold-embroidered blue velvet gibbeh. “Story pictures” were popular with a certain school of painting, and it was not difficult to think of a title for this one. “The Slave and the Sultan’s Favorite,” or “A Tryst with Death,” or -
Emerson let out a sound rather like one the sultan might have made if he had come upon such a scene, and the two drew apart.
“Careless,” I said softly. “I stopped up several peepholes in the walls, but I doubt I found them all.”
Ramses dropped to his knees in front of me and clasped his hands. “Your forgiveness, honored lady.”
“Yes, all right, just don’t do it again.” I added, just as softly, “I, too, am relieved to see you, my dear. What next?”
“I can’t stay. You had better send me on an errand – and find me some clothes,” he added, looking up at me with a smile. His thin dark face and cheerful grin and the curls clustering untidily round his forehead filled me with a strong desire to shake him. Men actually enjoy this sort of thing! So do I, if truth be told, but only when I am allowed to take an active part. It is the waiting I find so difficult, particularly when one waits for news of a loved one.
“When will we see you again?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I am to rendezvous with Chetwode this evening and go on to Gaza with him. Two days, perhaps three. I’ll come here as soon as we’ve finished the job, I promise.”
He kissed my hands and my feet and rose. “Is there a bab-sirr?” he asked Emerson. “I may want to use it next time.”
“A secret door? Oh, yes. Mahmud has too many enemies to do without that little convenience. I’ll show you, and get you some clothes.”
Ramses nodded. He turned to his wife. She stood as still as a prettily dressed doll, lips parted and braceleted arms folded over her breast. Ramses knelt and bowed his head.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “It will be all right.”
She put out her hand, as if to touch his hair, but stopped herself in time. “Come straight here after…”
“As soon as I can.” He took her hands and raised them to his lips.
FROM MANUSCRIPT H
Ramses hadn’t told her the part that worried him most. He shared that information with his father, as they tried to find him something to wear.
“I met Chetwode in Rafah, as we had arranged. He’s not awfully good at this sort of thing; his jaw dropped down to his chest when a filthy ‘Gyppie’ edged up to him and gave him the word we’d agreed upon.”
“Curse it,” said Emerson. “Can’t you go off on your own – leave him behind?”
“They’d stop me before I got out of Khan Yunus. You haven’t heard the worst of it. General Chetwode, the commander of the Desert Column, is our lad’s uncle. I was dragged off to his office, where I was required to report to him and his chief of field intelligence.”
“Hell and damnation! Who else knows about your ‘secret’ mission?”
“God knows.” Ramses picked up a shirt, grinned, and put it aside. “Mother would say He does. If the word has come down the chain of command, Chetwode’s superior Dobell must also have been informed. There’s nothing here I can use, Father.”
“What about that parcel you asked me to bring along?”
“I’ll take it with me, but I don’t want to wear those things in Khan Yunus. Selim must have a change of clothing he’ll lend me.”
“You mean to let him in on this?” Emerson asked.
“How much does he know?”
“Only that we are obviously bent on mischief of some sort. Selim doesn’t ask questions.”
“He deserves to be told – some of it, at any rate. It’s a poor return for his friendship and loyalty to be treated as if he were not completely trustworthy. Especially,” Ramses added bitterly, “when every idiot and his bloody uncle knows. I think Selim may have spotted me when I arrived; he gave me a very fishy look when I was arguing with the doorman.”
Selim had spotted him, but not, as he was careful to explain, because of any inadequacy in Ramses’s disguise. “Who else could it be, though?” he demanded. “I do not ask questions of the Father of Curses, but I expected you would join the others sooner or later.”
“You must have wondered what this is all about, though.” The clothes Selim had given him would suit well enough; Arab garments were not designed to be form-fitting.
Selim folded his arms and said stiffly, “It is not my place to wonder.”
Ramses grinned and slapped him on the back. “You sound exactly like your father. I and another man are going into Gaza, Selim. There have been rumors about a certain Ismail Pasha – that he’s a British agent who has gone over to the enemy. Since I am, er, acquainted with the gentleman in question, they are sending me to get a look at Ismail and find out whether the rumors are true.”