Mr Impossible (17 page)

“
Oh, it was,”
she said, and her voice grew wistful. “I wish you could have
seen it. The colors. The figures. There is a handsome papyrus
illustrated in color in the
Description
de VEgypte
, and it is not half so beautiful.”

She went on to
describe her papyrus—for it was hers, Rupert was sure, and
every word she uttered only confirmed what he’d suspected when
she knelt beside the table in the
qa’a
of her house in Cairo, when she’d discovered the theft.

She had the thing
memorized, practically. She described the illustrations, some in
large blocks, most in long lines across the top of columns of signs.
She told him the names of the easily recognized gods and speculated
about the others.

She must have
realized she’d said too much, because she stopped midsentence
to explain. “I made the copy for Miles,” she said. “That
is why I recall so many details.”

“
It sounds a
great deal of work,” Rupert said. “I vow, you must be the
most devoted of sisters.”

Telltale pink
washed across her wide cheekbones. “His penmanship was never
good and only grows worse. It is barely legible. He must have an
amanuensis—and it gives me something useful to do. And of
course one learns a great deal in the process.”

If she’d gone
about in Society more, Rupert thought, she’d know how to lie
better. He wasn’t sure why she lied. It was clear, though, that
she’d insufficient practice. It hadn’t occurred to her to
conceal her books, or mix them with her brother’s belongings,
for instance.

One had only to
glance at the collection in the cupboard to realize she’d
mastered at least a dozen languages.

Rupert wondered if
the same could be said of Miles Archdale.

Sunday night

WHAT COULD BE said
of Miles Archdale was this: he sat on a thin, vermin-infested
mattress in the dirty cabin of a shabby boat. He stared at the chain
fastened to his ankles. He was calculating how many blows with how
heavy an implement would shatter the rusty metal, and wondering how
to do it without breaking any of his bones in the process.

The boat seemed to
have stopped for the night, which meant a rat and mosquito invasion.
A pity he couldn’t train the rats to gnaw at the chain. Or to
gnaw on his hosts.

One of them looked
as though something had gnawed on him.

Butrus, the leader,
apparently, was a square block of a brute. His battered and scarred
face reminded Miles of the Sphinx’s mutilated visage,
especially the nose, for his was smashed flat. His right hand bore a
stump where the little finger should be. While the half dozen or so
men occupying the boat were not the most attractive lot of villains,
Butrus was by far the ugliest.

Miles was allowed
on deck to stretch his legs—in a manner of speaking—only
after dark and only with an armed escort. On the first night out,
he’d tried calling for help. Butrus struck him with the butt of
a pistol, which stretched Miles out on the deck unconscious for a
time.

When Miles came to
upon the filthy mattress, Butrus advised him not to try such tricks
again.

“
We are not
to kill you,” Butrus told him that first night. “We must
not cut out your tongue, because this organ is necessary. We must not
cut off your hands. But an ear? A few toes? A foot?” He
grinned, displaying a sparse collection of crooked brown teeth. “We
must keep you alive. But we need not keep you complete in all your
parts.”

Miles had assumed
they were holding him for ransom.

By the third day,
as the boat continued upriver, he grew puzzled. The farther they
traveled fromCairo, the more inconvenient the exchange of money for
captive would be. They’d been on the river for seven days now.
Where in blazes were they taking him, and why?

The sun had set,
and the slow nightfall had drained away the last traces of light in
the cabin. He sat in the darkness, his mind moving from the problem
of the leg shackles to his sister. By now she would know he was in
trouble. By now, he hoped, she’d gone to Noxley for help.

The door opened,
and a lantern shone, not very brightly, instantly inhabiting the
space with shadows.

Butrus carried the
lantern. Behind him came one of his shipmates, bearing the familiar
wooden tray. Butrus remained, as he usually did, while Miles ate his
supper. This, apparently, was to make sure the prisoner did not
secret away the single eating utensil, a wooden spoon. No doubt they
feared he’d use it later as a weapon or means of escape—
perhaps by waving it about until his captors died laughing. “Where
are we?” Miles asked.

He asked the same
question every night. Every night Butrus only laughed at him. He
laughed tonight, too.

Tonight, though,
Miles was tired of the game. While Arabic did not trip from his
tongue as smoothly and naturally as it did from Daphne’s, his
grasp of the language was more than adequate. Especially for dealing
with common louts like this one.

“
Shall I
hazard a guess?” Miles said. Butrus shrugged. “Who
cares,
Ingleezi
?” “We’ve traveled at a
fairly steady clip since Monday,” Miles said. “This tells
me the wind’s been favorable for the most part, and we’re
well provisioned.” He calculated briefly. Then, “Minya,”
he said. “I estimate we’re not far from Minya.” The
area had a bad reputation, if he remembered correctly.

Butrus nodded. “I
have heard that you are a man of great learning,” he said.
“Your cleverness does not surprise me. Before too long we will
take you.to a quiet place.

There, if you are
wise as well as learned, you will do what is asked of you.“

“
Ah, I’m
to do something,” Miles said.

Butrus shrugged.
“Perhaps you will, perhaps you will not. Perhaps you will be
unwise, and refuse. This will be better for me, because I have not
yet tortured any
Ingleezi
, and I am interested to improve
my
learning in this way.”

“
A man of
ambition, I see,” Miles said. “Most commendable.”

He’d been
told the Arabs didn’t understand irony or sarcasm. He couldn’t
tell whether Butrus did or not.

The brute merely
shrugged and said, “Soon we come to the place where some
Feransa
await you. They have something for you to read.”

Feransa. Not
Ferangi
—the all-encompassing Frank, applied to Europeans in
general.
Feransa
was the word for the French.

“
It is
written in the old language of this country,” Butrus went on.
“A papyrus.”

“
Hmmmm,”
Miles said. He dared say no more until he’d collected his wits.
It was a joke, he thought first. It had to be a joke. The trouble
was, Butrus was not a joke.

Noxley had
mentioned having difficulties with the French and their agents.
Belzoni, too, had had several unfriendly encounters with them.

This went beyond
the usual rivalry, as intense as it was. This was madness. Did the
French truly believe that he— that anyone—could read a
papyrus?

Butrus must have
misunderstood.

Miles said
cautiously, “It’s going to be difficult without my
notes.”

“
When I
torture you, maybe you will remember what is in your notes. Perhaps
you would like to hear how I will torture you?”

Miles wondered if
it was possible to kill somebody with a wooden spoon, because
clearly, he must do something and do it quickly—

Which was when the
shouting started.

He heard heavy,
hurried footsteps over the decks, and the clank of weapons. Butrus
jumped up and started for the door. It flung open, just as the boat
gave a lurch. Butrus fell backward. A man burst into the room,
another behind him. Miles saw the glint of a blade before the lantern
toppled. A figure came toward him. He thrust out his shackled feet,
and the figure fell. A sword rose and came down. A scream began and
stopped suddenly. The last thing he saw was the sheen of metal
slicing through the air down toward him.

Chapter 8

THE SWORD STRUCK
THE DIVAN CLOSE BY HIM, then rose again. The boat shuddered, and the
attacker stumbled. Miles couldn’t see what happened next,
though he heard the ring of metal on metal. Then came a shriek, cut
short. A grunt. The thud of a falling body—was it more than
one? The cabin fell quiet. Outside, the fighting continued.

He felt about for a
weapon. He found a knife. Cautiously he made his way out, trying to
clank as little as possible and taking care not to trip over any
bodies.

He was inching his
way to the door when the vessel shuddered. He fell against the door,
whacking his head. He heard wood cracking and groaning: they’d
run aground.

The human noise
outside swiftly abated. A few low voices, none familiar, all speaking
Arabic. Splashing. Then no more voices. He waited a bit longer to be
sure. He thought he heard footsteps, but that might be the boat
breaking apart.

He headed outside
anyway, and found the tilting deck nearly deserted. He made out two
dark figures in a dinghy tied to the boat. Only those. No other
moving figures.

The small landing
boat offered his one chance of get-ting ashore alive. He couldn’t
swim; the chains would drag him down. He’d be a fool to wait
for rescue. The people hereabouts weren’t known for their
charitable impulses. They were probably friends of his kidnappers.
Whoever had attacked the boat must be a rival gang of brigands.
Freebooters would soon come to steal what they could. Or perhaps had
already come. Those two fellows in the dinghy, for instance.

If he didn’t
get their boat from them, he was a dead man.

Feet shackled, one
small knife his only weapon—the odds for a direct assault
didn’t look good.

He would have to
use his head.

He thought quickly.

Then he dragged his
hands through his filthy hair, making it stand on end.

He let out a groan.
The figures froze.

He began walking
slowly toward them, loudly clanking his chains and reciting the
“Tomorrow” speech from
Macbeth
in the wailing voice of a vengeful ghost.

Screaming, they
dove over the side.

THEISISDIDN’T
get far on Monday, because the wind turned against them. The
reis
—the captain—had the crew tow the vessel. This only
stopped her traveling backward with the current. Forward, it seemed,
was out of the question for the time being.

Despite Tom’s
and Leena’s arguing about vocabulary, Rupert did manage to
communicate with Reis Rashad, who proved helpful on several counts.
Leaving Leena and Tom to quarrel about which winds were the most
deadly, Rupert turned his mind to Mrs. Pembroke. She was not going to
be happy about the delay.

According to Leena,
the lady was awake. She hadn’t joined him in the salon for
breakfast, though, and he was impatient to see her.

He and Tom had
retired many hours later than the women last night. Rupert had stayed
on deck long after the crew was asleep, ostensibly to make sure the
boat was properly guarded. Actually, he’d needed to cool off,
though there was little the lower evening temperatures could do for
the kind of heat he endured.

It was the
wanting-to-get-her-naked kind of heat, the wanting-to-get-skin-close
kind of heat, the fire-low-in-the-belly kind of heat.

And it plagued him
partly because he’d fallen on top of her—well, maybe
mostly because of that: the suppleness of the soft body under his,
the luscious peach of a mouth with its tantalizing bit of pout, and
the green eyes, ocean deep, and the way they’d looked at him.

It was not a “get
off” look. It was the kind of look Helen of Troy must have
givenParis, the kind Cleopatra must have given Mark Antony. Wars
broke out because of looks like that.

But that wasn’t
all of it. When Sheik Salim admired her command of Arabic and
marveled at her large brain, Rupert wanted to get her naked. When she
talked about her papyrus and its beautiful little pictures and its
columns of perfectly drawn signs, he wanted to get her naked. When he
thought about those books in a dozen languages in her cupboard, he
wanted to get her naked.