Mr Impossible (37 page)

They had come out
on the part of the mountain overlooking Asyut. The town stood in the
middle of the fertile plain, its minarets snow-white in the
moonlight. From it an earthen dike, built to contain the annual
inundation, wound its way to the Nile, whose own windings were
plainly visible over a great distance.

Clearly visible,
too, was the little village of El-Hamra, the port of Asyut, crowded
with boats. Among these it was impossible to distinguish the
Isis
.

The
dahabeeya
wasn’t the first concern at the moment, though. Getting to the
harbor alive was.

“
Shall we
chance going through the town?” she said. “If we go
around, that could take hours.”

“
If all the
gates are locked, we won’t have a choice,” he said. “But
I’d rather try the town first. It’s late, and most people
will be indoors. With luck, we’ll get through without
attracting attention.”

“
Those men,”
she said. “They might have found the tunnel. Or maybe they know
where it comes out.”

“
Then we’d
better move quickly,” he said.

NO ONE STOPPED them
at the southwest gate. The gatekeeper appeared to be asleep, like the
rest of the town. The men who wanted Mr. Carsington dead failed to
appear. Daphne and he nearly made it through the place with no
trouble. But as they approached the main gate, the one nearest the
river, a Turkish soldier accosted them.

Luckily, it was
only one, and he was drunk. When he started making difficulties,
Daphne “accidentally” lost her grip on her veil. It fell
away to reveal her almost fully exposed bosom. While the soldier
gawked, Mr. Carsington withdrew his pistol from his girdle and struck
the man in the back of the head. With a low groan, the soldier went
down. She helped drag him into the nearest alley.

Then, “Run,”
Mr. Carsington said.

They ran.

They arrived,
gasping for breath, at the main gate.

It was locked.

“
This,”
Mr. Carsington said, “is the last straw.”

He woke up the
sleeping gatekeeper and demanded to be let out. The gatekeeper yawned
and grumbled at him to go away.

Daphne tried making
the request in Arabic.

The gatekeeper
waved her away. They must stop their noise, he said. The gate would
be opened at the proper time and not before. If they made trouble,
they would go to the guardhouse.

Then from the
shadows of the wall, a young, sleepy voice piped up. “Master?”

“
Tom?”
Mr. Carsington said.

The boy came
running. “Oh, sir, oh, sir.” He fell to the ground and
commenced hugging his idol’s knees. “I knew you were not
dead.” He jumped up. “Oh, lady, I rejoice to see you.
The
jinn
of the sandstorm did not take you away.”

Daphne grabbed the
boy and hugged him. “And you are safe as well,” she said
in his tongue. “My heart is glad. And Yusef?”

“
We hid in
the big tomb, the one they call the Stable of Antar. When the
sandstorm ended, we looked for you, all the day and into the night.”

He turned to the
gatekeeper. “Behold, here is the master and his
hareem
. I told you they would come. The sandstorm tried to eat them, but
the master is powerful, and made the
jinn
spit them out. But he is angry at this place, because it holds evil
men who wish him ill. Let him go away with his
hareem
, and let none out after him, until the proper time. I beg you to do
this thing, before he casts the eye upon you.”

The warning alone
might not have had the desired effect, but the coins Tom held out
did.

The gate opened as
little as possible, and closed the instant they were out.

As they were
hurrying down to the harbor, Daphne heard angry shouts.

The gate remained
closed.

They reached the
boat and found the crew awake. They quickly hushed the cries of joy
and thanksgiving. Minutes after they were aboard, the
Isis
slipped out of the harbor.

THEY’D HARDLY
STEPPED upon the deck when the women came and bore Daphne away to her
cabin.

Rupert had only the
dimmest recollection of what happened thereafter. He bathed—or
someone bathed him. He ate—or someone fed him. He wasn’t
at all sure. Once he’d got her safely aboard the boat, a
profound weariness set in, and he went through the motions of bathing
and eating like a sleepwalker. He did not remember returning to his
cabin or falling asleep.

He remembered the
dream, though.

He stood at the
bottom of the mountain, at the cemetery, watching a hawk soar
overhead. Then he saw her at the entrance to a large tomb. He called
to her, but she appeared not to hear him. She entered the tomb. He
hurried up after her and inside. He heard her voice coming from the
depths of the tomb. He followed the sound, but it never grew any
closer. He came to the sepulchral chamber and, heart pounding, went
to the sarcophagus. It was open. He looked in. Empty.

He heard weeping
and followed the sound, but again it was some cruel trick. No one.
Nothing. Not even a mummy fragment. Only a dark, endless emptiness.
Then from a distance came a mournful cry.

He woke to heat and
bright sunlight streaming through the slits of the window shutters.
From outside came the wailing that he recognized as Egyptian music.
The sailors were singing, one of their number accompanying on the
pipes and another on the earthen drum.

He sat up and
looked about the cabin. His gaze met Tom’s. The boy, who’d
been squatting patiently by the door, now rose and brought the water
ewer, bowl, and towel.

Rupert washed.

“
Will you
shave, sir?” Tom asked.

Rupert felt his
face and grimaced. He hoped this was overnight growth. He hoped he
hadn’t scraped Daphne’s delicate skin with these deadly
bristles.

Daphne, he thought.
Her name was Daphne. It made him smile; he didn’t know why.

“
Sir?”

“
Yes,
yes.
Eywa
.”

He shaved and
thought about her body, and the way she moved under his hands, and
the way she tasted. He remem-bered her running after him, naked from
the waist up, holding her billowing trousers up with one hand.

Unself-conscious,
uninhibited, passionate…

…
and now,
he abruptly realized, out of reach.

They were no longer
cut off from the world.

They occupied a
large boat, but a precious small world, no one knew what had happened
in the tomb above Asyut. But everyone would know everything that
happened board the
Isis
.

Oh, this was not
good, not good at all.

He’d never
been good at resisting temptation. He was accustomed to doing as he
pleased—within bounds, of course, albeit fairly wide ones. His
father’s tolerance had its limits, and Rupert was not fool
enough to overstep them. He was not afraid of his father. Rupert was
not afraid of snakes, either. That didn’t mean he’d
thrust his hand deliberately into a viper’s nest.

Furthermore, even
Rupert wouldn’t dream of blackening a lady’s reputation.
This was far out of the bounds of gentlemanly behavior.

England was a world
away, true. But it was not out of reach of letters. English travelers
would pass on scandalous tidbits to their friends and family quite as
enthusiastically here as at home. He would have to be discreet. He
would have to keep away from her until…

Gad, who knew how
long?

He told himself not
to think about it. He had no solution, and fretting would only make
him disagreeable company. He finished shaving. He dressed.

“
I bring
coffee now?” Tom said.

“
Yes. No.
I’ll have it in the front cabin. Is the mistress awake?”

“
Awake, yes,”
the boy said. After a pause he added, “Not good. Sick, sir.
They showed the door to my face.” He put his hand in front of
his face.

Only then did
Rupert notice how quiet the lad had been. Normally, Tom jabbered away
at a ferocious rate in a bewildering mixture of Arabic and English.
Belatedly, the words sank in.

“
Sick?”
Rupert repeated, his heart racing.

Yes, very sick. The
women chased Tom away from the door because he made too much noise
with crying. But he couldn’t help it. The enraged
jinn
of
the sandstorm had struck the mistress’s heart because she
escaped from him. She was a very good mistress, Tom said, a good
mother to him. She would never allow him to be beaten, even when he
broke things. She took care of him when he was sick. She brought back
his uncle Akmed from the dead. The boy commenced bawling.

“
Stop that
row,” Rupert snapped. “She isn’t dying.” All
the same, he hurried from the cabin and down the cramped passage to
the stern cabin. He tapped on the door.

Leena opened it a
crack. “My mistress cannot come to amuse you,” she
whispered. “She is too sick.”

“
What is it?”
he said. “What’s wrong? She was well yesterday. Why
didn’t anyone wake me?”

“
She does not
wish to see you,” Leena said. She started to close the door.

Rupert pulled it
open.

Daphne lay curled
up on the divan. Her face was taut and bone-white with pain.

His chest hurt as
though he’d been running for miles.

“
What is it?”
Rupert said softly. “A bilious fever?” Had she caught it
from the baby, after all? But he knew what to do. She’d told
him. A cool bath. A decoction of… of what?

“
Go away,”
she said. Her voice was taut as well.

He knelt beside the
divan and laid his hand over her forehead. It was damp but not
feverish.

“
Go away,”
she said.

“
You have to
tell me what’s wrong,” he said. “Tom’s
bawling his head off. The instant the crew stop singing, they’ll
hear him, and everyone will be weeping and wailing.”

He leant closer,
dropping his voice still lower. “Daphne, you know how emotional
these people are. They all love you because you mend their broken
thumbs and sun-baked brains and bring their dying children back to
life. You must not let us—them—imagine the worst. What’s
wrong? Tell me how I can help you.”

“
You can’t
help me.” She turned a little to look at him. She winced. He
winced, too, in sympathy.

“
It’s
all right,” she said. “I’m not dying. You’ve
nothing to worry about. Really.
Nothing
.”

“
But you’re
not well. Even a great, dumb ox can see that. Shall I make you some
hot, strong tea? Or is there something you need from your medicine
box? A decoction of—of something.”

She turned more
fully toward him then and managed a wan smile. “All I need is
time,” she said. “It’s my monthly courses.”

He sat back on his
heels. “Oh.”

“
Perfectly
normal,” she said. “The pain is rather more unpleasant
than usual, but it won’t kill me. There’s nothing one can
do but wait for it to be over.”

Nothing to worry
about. He hadn’t impregnated her. He was relieved, yes, of
course he was. He needn’t think about… complications. It
was a female problem, not his fault and none of his business. The
women would look after her. He should go away, let her have her
privacy.

He did not like to
leave her alone, suffering, even if it wasn’t his fault and the
only cure was time.

“
For such a
clever woman, you are woefully ignorant,” he said. “There’s
a great deal one can do.”

He had no idea what
one could do. He had no sisters, and even if he had, they would have
kept this secret from him as every other woman did. Even his
mistresses had used a code phrase to signal that the time was not
convenient. They had certainly not expected him to nurse them. He had
not realized, in fact, that women were in need of nursing at such
times. He’d never seen one laid so low on such an account.