Mr Impossible (29 page)

“
But—”

“
You’re
not coming with me,” he said. “I need you to take charge
of the boat while I’m gone.”

“
Take
charge?”

“
I need
someone here I can rely upon,” he said. “You must
persuade Nafisah to travel with us. It isn’t safe for her to go
back to her village. Her neighbor is one of the
kashefs
spies,
I don’t doubt, and they all seem to be in league with our
villains.”

“
But you—”

“
If anyone
attempts to board, shoot them,” he said. “You’re
the only one I can count on to keep a cool head if there’s
trouble.”

“
But I don’t
shoot straight!” she cried.

“
Hardly
anyone does,” he said. “However, men are struck cold with
terror at the sight of you cocking a pistol. Just start shooting, and
tell Reis Rashad to make sail.”

“
But you—”

“
If Tom and I
run into difficulties, we’ll catch up with you later,” he
said.

THEY WOULD CATCH up
if they survived the encounter with the
kashef
, that is. Rupert expected trouble. He was looking forward to it,
actually. But he kept his expectations to himself.

The next morning,
when he visited the fat liar, Rupert simply offered to teach him to
fly. Then Rupert demonstrated his teaching method by picking up the
largest of the guards and throwing him against a wall.

Several other
guards started for Rupert then.

He told Tom to run,
then stood, arms open in welcome, and grinned at the oncoming guards.

A fight was exactly
what Rupert was hoping for.

He was not in a
good mood.

He’d had a
disturbing experience the previous evening, when his gaze had turned
from the demented mongoose to the woman beside him. He’d looked
into Mrs. Pembroke’s remarkable green eyes and realized he
hadn’t endured a dull moment since the moment she’d
entered the dungeon in Cairo.

He couldn’t
say why, but this made him uneasy.

He was never uneasy
and didn’t like the feeling.

Meanwhile, he was
still horny and hadn’t spied a single attractive female in this
provoking town.

So he’d
settle for the next best thing: a fight.

* * *

DAPHNE PACED THE
deck, rifle in hand. Leena and Nafisah—the latter with naked
baby astride her shoulder, Egyptian style—paced alongside her.

“
He will
return safely,” Nafisah assured Daphne. “The mongoose is
a good omen. Everyone recognizes this.”

“
The boy will
say the wrong thing,” Leena said. “The
kashef
will take offense and cut off his tongue, maybe his head. You should
not have let your Englishman go this morning, mistress. You should
have gone to his bed and taken off your clothes. If you had kept him
happy in this way, he would not notice or care if the boat set sail.
We might have departed this accursed place when the sun came up. What
shall we do if the town turns against us and the wind fails? All the
men will be killed, and we will be sold in the slave market. Or else
they will rape us and leave us in the desert for the vultures and
jackals to eat.”

The wind showed no
signs of failing. If anything, it had grown stronger in the course of
the morning. If the town turned hostile, the
his
could be off
at a moment’s notice. Daphne and Mr. Carsington had consulted
with Reis Rashad at daybreak. All was in readiness for a quick
departure.

If the wind held.

“
Be of good
heart, lady,” Nafisah told Daphne. “This boat is magical.
You have healing magic, and the English master has power over
snakes.”

“
No one fears
snake charmers,” Leena said scornfully.

“
But in
Saqqara he commanded a wild viper, not a tame snake with no fangs,
like those in the snake charmers’ baskets,” Nafisah said.
“Everyone here has heard of his magic at the Pyramid of Steps
in Saqqara. Everyone has heard of his strength, like a genie. Why do
you think only one man came to rob your boat the other night? The
others feared the magic.”

Daphne paused in
her pacing. “Really? How disappointing for Mr. Carsington. He
was so looking forward to fighting bandits.”

“
He is
looking for a fight,” Leena said grimly. “Anyone can see
this.” Lowering her voice she added in a still-audible aside to
Nafisah, “They desire each other. But they are
En-

glish, you see, and
the English people have strange—“

A shout cut her
off.

Daphne’s
attention swung back landward.

The man they spoke
of was sauntering down toward the landing place, Tom behind him.
Yusef, who’d gone ashore, was running to meet them.

Daphne was tempted
to do the same.

The sun glinted on
hair as black as a raven’s wing. The wind whipped the
kamees’s
billowing shirtsleeves against Mr. Carsington’s powerful arms
and his loose Turkish trousers against his long legs.

Her heart felt
wind-whipped, too, beating with a mad happiness against her ribs. He
was
alive
. He looked toward Udail/Tom, who was talking, then
laughed at whatever it was the boy said. Then Mr. Carsington’s
gaze came to her, and he grinned and waved, and she thought,
I’m
lost
.* * *

THE
ISIS
GOT
under way the instant Mr. Carsington and his youthful devotees came
aboard. By this time, Daphne had herself under control.

“
You are
alive,” she said with wonderful composure. “In one piece.
No visible bruises.”

“
That’s
Tom’s fault,” Mr. Carsington said. “Just as things
were about to get interesting, he started jabbering. It went on
forever. Something about
jinn
and
afreets
, I think. At
any rate, the
kashef
turned pale and sent everyone away except
his interpreter. Then, suddenly, His Honor began ‘remembering’
things.”

A sound near their
feet made him look down. The mongoose stood on her hind legs, peering
up at him. The creature still held the shirt in its sharp little
teeth.

The animal had had
a dispute with the cats last night, but that was all. The cook, who
had reason to fear for his chickens, had actually fed her. And the
crew seemed to accept her. Everyone aboard—except the
cats—seemed to view the mongoose as a good omen, as Nafisah
said.

“
Ah, still
with us, I see,” Mr. Carsington said.

Far more
important,
he
was still with them. Alive. In one piece. Only
when she saw him strolling so casually to the landing place did
Daphne realize how much anxiety she’d suppressed.

“
It seems she
means to stay,” she said a little breathlessly. “Nafisah,
too. No difficulty there. She wasn’t at all eager to return to
her late husband’s village. Negotiations had begun, you see, to
add her to her neighbor’s collection of wives—the
neighbor whose mongoose this was.”

“
She’s
ours now,” Mr. Carsington said. “What shall we call her?”

“
Nafisah,”
Daphne said. “Surely you can pronounce that.”

“
I meant the
mongoose,” he said.

“
Oh.”
Daphne regarded the creature, who was still transfixed by Mr.
Carsington. Could anybody resist him?

The cats, Gog and
Magog. They were as majestically indifferent to him as they were to
everyone else aboard.

If only I were a
cat, Daphne thought.

“
Marigold,”
he said. “What do you think of the name Marigold?”

“
I think it’s
silly,” Daphne said, “which fits her perfectly. She’s
the silliest mongoose I’ve ever heard of.”

He crouched down.
“Marigold?” he said.

The mongoose chewed
on the bit of shirt in its mouth.

He rose. “She’s
thinking it over.”

“
While she
does so, perhaps you would be so good as to tell me what the
kashef
remembered,” Daphne said.

“
Oh, that.”
He frowned. “Come inside. I’m perishing for coffee.”*
* *

THE COFFEE CAME,
and food, too. The tray, crammed with dishes, none of them remotely
English, reminded Rupert he’d eaten nothing since his quick
breakfast at daybreak. Between mouthfuls, he began giving Mrs.
Pembroke a fuller account of his meeting with the
kashef
of
Minya.

When Rupert
described his initial diplomatic efforts— the flying
demonstration—she stared at him, green eyes wide. Then the
pale, stunned look reddened into anger.

“
How could
you be so irresponsible?” she said. “They might have
killed you—and Tom. Then where should we be? Did you forget
we’ve several females aboard, one little more than a girl and
another a baby?”

She stood up
quickly, in a flurry of muslin. “But why do I ask? Of course
you are irresponsible. If you were not, you would not have been in
that dungeon in Cairo. If you were a responsible, thinking
individual, Mr. Salt would not have jumped at the chance to be rid of
you.”

As you’d
expect, her brain was in excellent working order: she was right on
every count.

“
Come, don’t
be cross,” he said. “It was stupid, I admit. But I was in
a foul temper and not thinking clearly.”

“
We cannot
afford your indulging in ill humor,” she said. “I cannot
do this alone. I rely upon you, Mr. Carsing-ton. I do not like to—to
inhibit you. I know you are a man of action, who must find so much
responsibility oppressive. But I must ask y-you…” Her
voice wobbled.

“
Oh, no,”
he said,

She held up her
hand. “I am not going to weep,” she said.

“
Yes, you
are,” he said.

She came back to
the divan and sat down. She bit her lip.

He sighed. “Go
ahead.”

She shook her head.

“
It’s
all right,” he said. “I’d rather you hit me, but
this punishment is much more painful. Exactly what I deserve.”

She smiled
crookedly. “I’ll show mercy this time,” she said.
“But you must not do it again.”

The crooked smile
might as well have been a hook. It dug in sharply, into someplace
deep inside, and he stared at her stupidly, like the fish he might as
well be, caught on a crooked brink-of-tears smile.

“
I will
never, ever do it again,” he said.

“
Good.”
The smile smoothed out, and she settled back onto the divan, tucking
her feet under her. “Tell me what you learnt from the
kashef
.”

“
Noxious’s
famous boat did stop here, not quite a week ago.” Rupert
focused on the story and the food, to keep from thinking about what
she was doing to him. “It was a short visit, to load supplies.
He came with another man to call on the
kashef
. The ghost was
discussed. After Noxious left, the other fellow inquired in the area
about the ghost. A day or so thereafter, he went with a group of men
to the rock tombs to perform holy rituals to summon the ghost and
make it vanish. And lo and behold, a genie came in a sandstorm and
carried the ghost away into the desert. In other words, your brother
is traveling across the desert at present in the company of unsavory
characters of various tribes and nations. And these men are known to
be in Noxious’s employ.”

Her green eyes
widened. “Good grief.”

“
All the
consuls in Egypt—including our own—employ disreputable
persons on occasion,” Rupert said. “Noxious is trying to
recover your papyrus as well as your brother. The people who
kidnapped your brother are cutthroats, literally. Much as I dislike
defending him, I can well understand why his lordship should hire men
of the same breed.”

“
Perhaps
that’s understandable,” she said. “But leaving
Miles in their care is not.”

“
Yes, well,
matters are a bit more complicated than we thought,” Rupert
said. “There’s a war in progress, apparently, and it
isn’t mere unfriendly competition for antiquities. This one
seems to be personal, between Noxious and Duval—and it’s
more violent than the usual disputes.”