Guardian of the Horizon by Elizabeth Peters

on his own." Emerson frowned, and I said impatiently, "We will supply him with ample funds and specific directions. The longer he remains, the greater the danger that someone will become curious about his antecedents. What if Kevin O'Connell should drop in without warning, as he is inclined to do? What if Evelyn and Walter should decide to pay us a visit? One word from Merasen in the language of the Holy Mountain, and Walter's linguistic antennae would be quivering." "Hmph. I must admit," Emerson admitted, "that you have made a point. Very well, I will take the boy to London and make arrangements. What else?" "You will announce your intentions to the Department of Antiquities-- Yes, Emerson, you must. It might be a good idea for you to write to Mr. Breasted--he is back in Chicago, I suppose-- and ask him about his survey in Nubia last winter. It must all be open and aboveboard. I propose that we announce we are going directly to Meroe. It is three hundred miles south of Napata, where we were working in '97, and from which we disappeared into the desert, as the journalists so poetically put it. That should put people off the track." "It will put us off the track, too, by a long distance," Emerson protested. "We needn't actually go to Meroe," I said impatiently. "So long as people believe we are not going to Napata." Merasen was rather pleased than otherwise to leave us. We were not very entertaining company for a lively lad whose ideas ofamusement were quite different from ours. (I had not seen fit to mention to Emerson that one of the reasons why I wanted him out of the way had to do with the housemaids.) After all, what was there for him to do? We had forbidden him to leave the grounds, and the library was of no interest to him. The men of the Holy Mountain were noted archers, but he had haughtily refused to display his skill, claiming we had no bow worthy of his strength. From time to time Ramses resignedly consented to wrestle with him, but those sessions did not last long, since Ramses was uncommonly rough with him. After one such encounter, which ended (after approximately thirty seconds) with Merasen doubled up like a worm, whooping for breath, Nefret remonstrated. Ramses's only response was a curt "He asked for it." This did not improve relations between Ramses and Nefret, but even she did not object when Emerson took the boy up to London in order to put him on a boat to Port Said. His necessarily extended journey from the Sudan to Cairo, and thence to England, had familiarized him with the country and the language, and he assured us that he had made friends along the way. (I suspected, from his complacent smile, that most of the friends were female.) "He appears to be taking this delay rather lightly," said Ramses, after we had said farewell to the travelers. "One would have expected him to urge us to press on." "Why do you constantly find fault with him?" Nefret demanded. "We promised we would follow as soon as is humanly possible, and he knew we would keep our word." Ramses shrugged and looked particularly enigmatic. Seeing that Nefret was about to pursue the matter, I said, "He has the fatalism of his people--a quality we might be well advised to emulate at this time. What has happened, has happened. We cannot change the past. Nefret, have you any idea what this mysterious illness might be?" It was Nefret's turn to shrug. "Merasen wasn't much help when it came to describing precise symptoms. It could be something as simple as malaria, or something as deadly as an unknown tropical disease." "What did you two talk about then?" I asked, for I had wondered before. "All sorts of things." Her eyes shifted, avoiding mine. "He is immensely curious about England." "And I," said Ramses, "have been immensely curious about the Holy Mountain. Things must have changed a good deal in ten years, but I wasn't able to get much practical information out of him. Did you have better luck?" "There haven't been that many changes," Nefret