Mr Impossible (43 page)

“
Find knives,
whatever weapons you can,” she whispered to the women. “If
anyone tries to get in here, attack first, ask questions after.”

For once, Leena did
not launch into a prophecy of calamities to come. She only nodded.

Daphne quickly
wrapped a shawl about her waist and tucked one pistol into it. The
other she carried in her hand. She went out into the passage. At the
door that opened onto the deck, she paused and listened.

The matter was
quite simple, one of the strangers was saying. The Englishman was
invited to accompany them to the house of the local sheik.

Rupert answered
that he was honored by the invitation, but he had made other plans
for the evening.

The man said he
feared that the sheik would be deeply offended. In this case, every
member of the crew must be bastinadoed, to soothe the sheik’s
wounded feelings.

“
I must
invite you to leave,” Rupert said. “We’re having a
wedding, you see. We’ve just cleaned the boat, and you don’t
want to be spilling a lot of blood on it, do you?”

The man muttered
something to somebody nearby. The second man grabbed the nearest
sailor and started beating him with a stick.

Then several things
happened very quickly.

The mongoose leapt
at the leader and sank her sharp teeth into his leg. He shrieked. A
rifle went off. Rupert had an oar in his hands and was swinging it at
the two men rushing at him. A man fell overboard. A lantern fell onto
the deck. Daphne cocked the pistol, opened the door a little wider,
aimed, and fired at one of Rupert’s attackers. The villain
screamed and went down, clutching his leg.

After that it was
hard to sort anything out. The crew had picked up oars and tools and
cookware and were using them to fight. She was pulling out the second
pistol and cocking it when a hand closed round her wrist like a vise,
forcing her to drop the weapon. Her assailant dragged her away from
the door. She kicked it closed behind her, then kicked out at him.
Her boot connected with a limb. He swore but didn’t let go. He
was dragging her to the back of the boat, away from the fray at the
front. She swung the first pistol at his head. He knocked it away,
grabbed both her hands, and pinned them behind her.

“
Rupert!”
she cried. “Tom! Yusef! Somebody!”

She thought she
heard Rupert shout back. She looked toward the sound of his voice.
There was a flash that lit his face in the instant before he clutched
his chest and stumbled backward… and over the side.

“
Rupert!”
she screamed.

“
You come,
your people live,” said the man who held her. “You fight,
they die. All.”

She went.

Chapter 19

28 April

MONSIEUR DUVAL WAS
IN ABYDOS, SOME SIXTY miles downriver from Dendera. The site lay well
inland, in the Libyan Desert at the edge of the mountain range. With
him were several of his countrymen and local allies, who’d
hastily retreated from Dendera when word reached them that the
Memnon
was headed that way. Their numbers being small and Lord Noxley’s
feelings about the zodiac ceiling being well known, they decided to
play least in sight until he’d moved on to Thebes.

When the man Jabbar
arrived, Duval was inside an immense edifice that Strabo and Pliny
had called the Memno-nium. While his companions made the best of
matters by trying to dig the building out from under centuries of
accumulated sand and rubble, Duval spent his time staring at a wall
in a small inner apartment. Carved into the wall were three long rows
of cartouches, a list of kings.

There should have
been twenty-six ovals in each row, but the wall was damaged, and a
number of names were lost. None of those remaining resembled the one
he remembered from the papyrus, the simpler of the two cartouches it
had contained.

Now the papyrus was
in Noxley’s hands.

The news had come
late last night: Faruq was dead. Noxley had both Archdale and the
papyrus, and they were in Thebes, beyond Duval’s reach, thanks
to the Golden Devil’s reign of terror.

Still, all was not
lost, Duval had thought.

He’d sent a
large party downriver to intercept the
Isis
and capture Archdale’s sister. He planned to trade her for the
papyrus and Archdale’s key to deciphering the hieroglyphs.

Then Jean-Claude
Duval might still achieve the triumph he’d dreamt of: he would
discover an untouched royal tomb, filled with treasure. The discovery
would make him famous, more famous than Belzoni. The bulk of the
treasure would go to the Louvre, not the British Museum. He would win
honors. Medals would be struck in his name. And at last France would
be avenged for the theft of the Rosetta Stone.

That was the dream,
the ideal. He knew matters might not turn out quite that way. The
papyrus might lead him to a royal tomb as empty of treasure as the
others found so far. He knew it might take many years to find the
tomb. He knew it was possible he’d never find it.

Still, even in the
worst of cases, he would have the papyrus, which would go to the
Louvre. And he—and therefore France—would have the key to
decipherment, which was far more valuable, for it was a key to
unlocking the secrets of the ancients.

No, all was not
lost, he’d thought… until now.

Heart sinking, he
gazed at Jabbar’s haggard face and said, “What has
happened?”

“
A
slaughter,” Jabbar said. “The Golden Devil’s men
were waiting for us. Most of our men are dead. A few escaped into the
hills. Ghazi has the woman.”

“
What, again
we lose her?” Duval said. “First, the men in Asyut let
her slip through their hands when she was unguarded, practically
alone.”

“
Drunken
fools,” Jabbar said bitterly. “We took care, but our
enemy had word of our doings. Sometimes I think even the jackals and
snakes and vultures spy for the Golden Devil, for he knows
everything.”

Lost, Duval
thought. His last chance lost.

What now?

He didn’t
know. Yet. But he would find a way. He could not let the English
fiend win.

DAPHNE’S
CAPTORS HAD kept their word. They’d stopped fighting her
people. As soon as she was aboard their boat, they cut the
Isis’s
mooring ropes and let the swift current carry the
dahabeeya
downstream.

It would be a
while, probably, before her crew had the boat under control.
Meanwhile, the
Isis
might collide with a sandbank or another boat. Still, those aboard
were far more likely to survive such mishaps than a battle with these
villains. With Rupert dead, who could stop them from slaughtering
everyone aboard and sinking the
dahabeeya
?

Rupert dead.

She ought to feel
something, but she was numb.

After a short time
on the river, her captors took her overland on horseback. Wherever
they were going, they were going swiftly, with only the shortest
possible pauses to rest and refresh the animals and themselves.
Still, they treated her well enough, allowing her privacy to deal
with nature’s needs and a small tent of her own to rest in. She
didn’t know if she rested or not or ate or not. Food didn’t
matter. Sleep didn’t matter.

She didn’t
care how they treated her or what would become of her.

Time had stopped
for her. The scene in her mind’s eye was clearer to her than
the passing landscape: the flash of fire from the pistol aimed at
Rupert’s heart… the surprised expression on his face…
his hand clutching his chest while the impact knocked him backward…
and over… the splash as his body hit the water.

She couldn’t
weep. She felt frozen, the way she’d felt six months into her
marriage, when she’d fully understood how immense and serious a
mistake she’d made.

She’d been a
prisoner then, too.

She’d trained
herself not to think about the hurt, to concentrate instead on her
work and how to hide it from Virgil and how to communicate with the
scholarly world outside. The rage and despair remained, but she kept
them locked inside. She couldn’t live the rest of her life in
open hostility with her husband. She could only build a wall around
herself, and make a world inside it where she could live.

She had no work now
to distract her, and she wasn’t the girl she’d been then.
She wasn’t even the same woman she’d been a few weeks
ago.

And in this new
woman, the one she’d become, the rage and despair grew, hour by
hour, until there was no more room for it inside.

It was the second
evening of her captivity, and Ghazi had brought her food. He smiled
and spoke so smoothly, and all she could think of was Rupert’s
smile, and the sound of his deep voice… and his hands, his
large, capable hands.

She looked at
Ghazi’s hands, holding the bowl, and at her own as she reached
to take it from him. Her right hand balled into a fist, and she
knocked the bowl away, and the rage and despair poured out in a
stream of Arabic invective.

The other men,
gathered about the fire, all turned and stared at her, eyes wide and
mouths open. They remained that way, like statues, during the short,
deadly silence that followed.

Then Ghazi laughed.
“Your Arabic is very pretty,” he said. “You know
all the curses. My men, I know, would like to teach you love words. I
myself would like so much to teach you some manners. But we must
leave all the lessons to the master. He will tame you soon enough.”

“
If your
master Duval is foolish enough to try to tame a viper, let him try,”
she said.

“
Duval?”
Ghazi laughed. “Ah, no wonder you are so fierce, little viper.
You have mistaken us. Duval is not our master. Can you not see where
we go, angry serpent? South, to Thebes, where your brother is, and
where the Golden Devil rules. And so, you see, you are safe, and have
nothing to fear.”

She knew she wasn’t
safe. But she had nothing to lose now, and so, nothing to fear.

THE LADY ARRIVED in
Luxor on Sunday night, having made the last leg of the journey on the
river. Lord Noxley was at the landing place to meet her. Though the
moon hadn’t yet risen, and the torches only dimly illuminated
the scene, he could see that all was far from well. She was stiff and
formal. He heard no pleasure or even relief in her voice when she
returned his greeting. She declined his arm.

“
My brother,”
she said, drawing away from him. “These brutes of yours said
Miles was here.”

Brutes of yours. A
very bad sign. Something had gone wrong. Someone had bungled.

Lord Noxley
concealed his displeasure. His face showed only puzzlement. Still,
those who knew him saw the thundercloud forming as clearly as if it
had been broad day and a storm truly threatened.

“
Archdale is
quite safe,” he said. “Merely indisposed at the moment,
else he’d be here.”

“
Sick?”
she said.

“
No, no. I
wish you would not distress yourself. Come, let us postpone
discussion until you’ve had time to rest. You must be weary and
wishing—”

“
What’s
wrong with him?” she cut in.

“
A trifle too
much to drink,” Noxley said. Dead drunk was more like it. “I
hadn’t expected you before tomorrow. He will be so—”

“
One of your
men killed Rupert Carsington,” she said.

The thundercloud
swelled and darkened. “Surely not,” Lord Noxley said. “I
cannot conceive how—”

“
I saw it,”
she said. “Pray do not tell me I must have imagined it. I will
not be humored or patronized. I am not a child.”

“
No,
certainly not.”

“
I shall
insist upon a full report to the authorities,” she said. “I
shall wish to make a statement. Tomorrow, as soon as may be. In the
meantime, I want to see my brother, indisposed or not. Then I want a
bath. And a bed.”