Mr Impossible (47 page)

Lord Noxley leapt
up.

The noise
intensified. From nearby came the patter of bare feet at a run. A
servant shrieked, and others called on God to preserve them.

Miles made out the
word “fire.” He quickly rose, too. Daphne came up more
slowly.

Noxley ran out of
the room. Miles started after him. Daphne grabbed his arm. “Wait,”
she said quietly.

She gathered up an
armful of papyri and looked about her expectantly.

A cloaked and
hooded figure appeared in the doorway. “Trouble outside,”
he said in thickly accented English. “This way. Come.”

“
Who are
you?” Miles demanded. “What kind of trouble? Let me see
your face.”

Daphne pushed him,
hard, toward the door. “Don’t ask questions,” she
said.

“
But he might
be one of Duval’s—”

“
He isn’t!”
she snapped. “Stop talking. Start running.”

ONCE HE’D GOT
them out of the main room and into the less well-lighted passage,
Rupert had to throw back his hood, so he could see.

He heard Archdale
whisper, “Who
is
he?”

“
Rupert
Carsington,” Rupert said.

“
But you’re
dead.”

“
Not
anymore,” Rupert said. They’d reached the stairway. He
paused, withdrew the pistols from his girdle, and handed them out.

The brother said,
“Better give her a knife. Daphne doesn’t—”

“
Is it
loaded?” Daphne said.

“
Yes. Be
careful.”

“
But Daphne
doesn’t—”

“
Yes, she
does,” Rupert said. He unhooked the rope from his sash. “Your
room,” he told Daphne. “I’ve people waiting below
your window.” He sent Archdale up after her, and followed,
listening for signs of pursuit.

The boys had
started a conflagration at the front door, where it would cause the
most spectacle and confusion. But they could hardly haul a load of
firewood, even if Egypt could supply such a thing. Straw and dung
fueled the fire, and it would soon be seen for what it was.

Rupert had mere
minutes.

LORD NOXLEY HAD
reacted instinctively: he was under attack—Duval, no doubt—and
he must organize his forces.

He’d grabbed
a rifle and was nearly at the front door— after having to fight
his way past panicked servants—when he realized his mistake. An
open attack wasn’t in Duval’s style.

This was a
diversion.

Lord Noxley hurried
back into the
qa’a
.

They were gone, and
most of the papyri with them.

He ran out of the
room, shouting for Ghazi, then raced up the stairway to the large
bedchamber he’d planned to transform into a bridal suite before
too much time had passed.

She wasn’t
there.

But
he
was.

When Lord Noxley
burst in, the tall figure was at the window. He turned.

Carsington.

The dead man.

Not dead enough.

Lord Noxley cocked
the rifle, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

RUPERT DOVE FOR the
floor, rolled, and grabbed Nox-ley’s legs, bringing him down.
The weapon discharged, and the ball pinged against the wall.

Rupert grabbed
Noxley’s wrist and banged it on the stony floor. The man let go
of the rifle—then shoved his elbow into Rupert’s gut,
broke free, and scrambled onto his feet. He ran toward the window,
but Rupert was quickly up again and close behind. He grabbed Noxley
and flung him against the wall. Noxley bounced back, and came at him
fist first. He thrust it into Rupert’s jaw with surprising
force.

Rupert drove his
fist into Noxley’s gut.

It was a harder gut
than you’d think, and the man only grunted instead of crumpling
in a heap as men usually did when Rupert hit them. In a flash, Noxley
struck again. So did Rupert, and he was not gentle.

But Noxley went on,
furiously giving back blow for blow, though he soon began to weaken.

“
Give it up,”
Rupert gasped. “You’re good, but I’ve got stamina.”

“
She’s
mine
,” Noxley said. His hand moved, and something glinted there.

And Rupert
thought
knife
, an instant before it thrust into him.

DAPHNE WAS AWARE of
her brother, below, calling to her, but she went on climbing back up.
She’d heard the gun go off, and waited, holding her breath, for
Rupert to come out.

He didn’t.

But it wasn’t
over, she realized a moment later. She heard thuds and thumps, the
clatter of broken crockery. They were still fighting.

It wasn’t a
great many men. Three at most. Perhaps only two.

She had to help
Rupert before any more came, and he was outnumbered.

She found a place
for her foot, and was looking for the next foothold to get her back
to the window when something flew over her head. It made a small arc,
then, as she watched, horrified, dropped to the rocks below. A body.
It was human.

“
Rupert!”
she cried.

“
Coming,”
said an impossibly deep voice from over her head.

She looked up.
Rupert leant out the window. “Don’t dawdle,” he
said. “We haven’t got all night.”

THEY HAD NEARLY
reached the landing place when they heard the shouts. Daphne glanced
back. Men seemed to be coming from every direction. Some carried
torches, in whose light she saw weapons gleaming. She saw a pair of
figures pause at the body, before Rupert grabbed her arm and turned
her about. “Run!” he said. “Archdale, get her to
the boat.”

“
No!”
She drew her pistol. “You’re not facing them alone.”

A shot rang out.
Men were running at them. She cocked her weapon and fired.

After that was
chaos. Shouting, the clash of swords, the occasional blast of a
firearm. Men started running toward them from the other side, from
the river. She thought she recognized voices. The
Isis’s
crew had joined the fray.

She saw two men
tackle Miles and bring him down. She ran to them and started beating
the men with the butt end of her weapon.

It was a while
before she noticed the noise subsiding.

Then a familiar
voice called out. “Cease, lady, or the big
Ingleezi
dies, truly, this time.”

She turned, and saw
everyone was looking the same way. Rupert was clutching his side. A
dark stain was spreading outward from the place he held. Ghazi held a
pistol to Rupert’s head.

The last of the
fighting stopped.

“
The master
is dead,” Ghazi said. “I am master now.”

Daphne thought
quickly.

She remembered what
Noxley had said about his men:
thinking
is not what they do best
.

“
Very well,”
she said in Arabic. “Congratulations. You’re welcome to
be master. I’m sure you’ll make a fine one. But what has
it to do with us? It was the Golden Devil who wanted me—for a
bride. It was the Golden Devil who wanted my brother—to help
read the ancient writing. Surely you can find your own brides? You
don’t need to steal them.” She fervently hoped Noxley
hadn’t told anybody how much his future spouse was worth in
pounds, shillings, and pence. “But do you truly wish to devote
your life to digging in the sand to find holes in the ground with
painted walls? Did you want to be a leader of diggers and scavengers
or a leader of—um—the most feared assassins in all the
Ottoman Empire?”

While she spoke,
Ghazi’s expression took on a troubled and confused expression.
He glanced about him. His men were looking troubled, too. He quickly
regained his composure. “This is foolish talk,” he said.
“The big
Ingleezi
has killed the Golden Devil. You have
shot one of my men. And it is not the first time. You will not go
free.” With his free hand, he signaled to his men. “Take
her. And the other man.”

Rupert sagged.
“Oops,” he said. “Sorry.”

He folded up and
sank to the ground.

“
No!”
Daphne cried. She ran toward him, pushing the astonished Ghazi aside,
and sinking to her knees beside Rupert. “He’s no danger
to you, you great bully,” she cried. “Can’t you see
he’s hurt?”

“
I will put
him out of his misery.” Ghazi aimed the pistol at Rupert.
Daphne threw herself on top of Rupert.

“
As you
wish,” said Ghazi. “I kill two at once.”

“
Fire your
weapon,” Miles called out, “and pharaoh’s treasure
goes up in smoke.”

During the
momentary distraction, he’d grabbed somebody’s torch. He
held a papyrus close to the flame. “This is what the Golden
Devil wanted,” Miles said. “This is what Duval wants.
Worth a king’s ransom. Everybody play nice, or it’s
ashes.”

Some of the men
were muttering, “What’s he saying?” because Miles
made the speech in English. But Ghazi had no trouble comprehending.

Thinking wasn’t
what he did best. This, however, was simple enough to comprehend. He
knew the papyrus was valuable. He knew Duval wanted it. And he knew
that these old, crumbly
anteekahs
took fire easily.

Still, once he had
the papyrus, he’d no reason to let them get away, Daphne
thought.

“
Let them
go,” someone called from the crowd. “The Turkish soldiers
are coming. Remember what they did to the one they thought had killed
the big Englishman?”

Ghazi threw down
his pistol and advanced toward Miles.

Miles looked at
Daphne.

“
Give it to
him,” she said.

Miles gave Ghazi
the papyrus. Ghazi unrolled it a bit, gave it a glance, then quickly
tucked it into his girdle. He moved away, snatched up his pistol—

And kept on
walking, away from them.

His men turned away
and followed him.

All but one, the
one who’d warned about the Turkish soldiers.

He came forward.

“
Let me help
you, mistress,” he said. In English.

She had turned
away, to attend to Rupert, who was showing signs of consciousness.
But the English words and something in the man’s voice made her
look up again.

She gazed into a
familiar face, one she hadn’t seen in more than a month.

“
Akmed?”
she said.

“
This man
saved my life,” he said. “I will help you save his.”

Chapter 21

That night, aboard
the Isis, a few miles upriver

DAPHNE DID AN
ADMIRABLE JOB OF PATCHING Rupert up, scolding him all the while she
picked out bits of cloth from the knife wound. It was thanks to those
thick layers of cloth—the Arab-style sash he’d worn and
the lethal objects it contained—that Rupert was alive.

The wound was
rather more than the “scratch” he’d labeled it and
was rather more uncomfortable than he’d expected. Nonetheless,
she seemed to think he’d live. Her main concern, she said, was
infection. She did not think that leaving shreds of dirty cloth in
the wound would aid his recovery.

He lay upon the
divan of his cabin, occasionally peering down to see what she was
doing but mainly watching her face in the lantern light. He would
never grow tired of looking at her wonderful face. He was quite
pleased he’d live to do so.

He’d truly
thought the wound no more than a scratch, at first. It hadn’t
hurt at all. But he’d probably been too furious at the time to
feel anything. They’d been having a fan-enough fight, fists
only, he told Daphne. But then, when Noxley realized he was losing,
he
cheated
.