Mr. Impossible

  But of course he could not be lost. The indecent embrace yesterday must have disarranged her mind as well as her morals.

  The unusual expression quickly vanished, though, and his gaze returned to the mongoose. “I suppose you want me to take the shirt away from her.”

  The creature still watched them, garment in her teeth. Her fur bristled.

  “I’m not sure that’s wise,” Daphne said. “She looks ready to fight about it.”

  By this time, Leena having apprised Nafisah of the situation, the young mother approached and asked if she might look.

  Daphne and Mr. Carsington moved out of the way. Nafisah looked in. The baby pointed and said something in baby gibberish.

  “I think this is my neighbor’s mongoose,” Nafisah said. “She is tame but lately she has become troublesome. One night, I catch her near my chickens. I chase her away with a stick. In a little while, my neighbor comes, and he is angry with me. He says I hurt her foot. Now she limps, he says, and she is worthless to kill snakes, because she is too slow. I think he was the one who hurt her. She came to steal my eggs because it is easier than killing snakes. But my husband is dead and I have no one here to stand up to this man. This makes him bold. See if she is lame,” she urged. “He put her down to show me, and she ran away from him. I could see her foot pained her, and I felt sorry for her. Later I went out again to look for her, but I saw the ghost, and I was afraid. See if she is lame,” she repeated.

  The art of brevity was not highly prized in Egypt. Daphne was able to condense the tale to a few English sentences. When she was done, Mr. Carsington crouched down, held out his bit of pastry, and called to the animal, “Come, my dear. Wouldn’t you rather a bit of sweet than that dirty old shirt?”

  The creature stared at the pastry without moving.

  “She’s Egyptian,” Daphne said. She crouched down beside him. “Ta’ala heneh,” she crooned. Come here.

  The creature looked up at her and sniffed.

  “Ta’ala heneh,” Daphne repeated.

  The mongoose advanced a few steps, dragging the shirt along. Then she stopped, chittered at them, and sat down on the garment, her teeth still firmly clamped on the sleeve. Those few steps showed her favoring the front left paw.

  “That’s the way Alistair walks,” said Mr. Carsington.

  “Your brother,” she said. “The one who was injured at Waterloo.”

  He nodded. “Such a melting effect the limp had on women. They sighed. They swooned. They threw themselves at him. Maybe what I need is a limp.” He shot her a glinting sidelong glance.

  It was not merely a glance. It was purposeful and intimate. It conjured the taste of his mouth and the feel of his hands and his hard body and the rush of mad joy she’d experienced when she fired the pistol for the first time, and when she’d kissed him. Her knees softened first, then her muscles, then her head.

  While Daphne struggled to reclaim what used to be her brain, Nafisah said, “This is my neighbor’s mongoose. I am sure of it.”

  Daphne’s intellect sorted itself into order and her attention reverted to the girl and the crucial words she’d uttered moments ago. “You saw her the night you saw the ghost, Nafisah,” she said. “Tell me about the ghost.”

  DAPHNE TRANSLATED FOR Mr. Carsington later, when they returned to the front cabin. He’d already got the gist of it from Leena, though.

  Nafisah had seen the ghost last Thursday night. The next morning, she reported the sighting to her neighbor’s wife. Before long, some of the kashef’s men came to her house and questioned her for a long time about the ghost. She described what she’d seen and where. They gave her money and went away. Later, she saw a group of men go out to the tombs. They were strangers and foreigners. They weren’t from her village or from Minya, but most of the villagers seemed to know who they were, and they were afraid of these men.

  “Shall we return to the kashef?” Daphne asked. “A large enough bribe will probably elicit the information we want.”

  “I’ll deal with him, first thing tomorrow,” Mr. Carsington said. “I’ll take Tom.”

  “Tom’s grasp of English is haphazard at best, and his vocabulary is exceedingly limited,” Daphne said.

  “That’s all right,” Mr. Carsington said. “I don’t mean to do much talking.”

  “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 kashef’s 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 Isis 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 h
as 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 English, 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. Carsington. 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.”

  “In other words, Miles has been caught in the middle,” she said.

  “So it seems.” Rupert went on eating, occasionally glancing up now and again to watch her green eyes shift from side to side. He knew she was only thinking and it wasn’t about seduction. She was working out the implications of what
he’d said. He wondered why he found it so fascinating, watching her think.

  “A war,” she said finally. “And since Lord Noxley’s men now have Miles, we can expect Duval’s men to come after me.”

  “You’d be a valuable bargaining chip,” Rupert said. He paused before adding, “If I understood correctly, they’re all headed south. If you think it would be wise, at this point, knowing what we do, to —”

  “Absolutely not,” she said sharply. “I’m not turning back. They can fight over the silly papyrus, if they want, but I am not leaving Miles in the hands of brigands and assassins, no matter who employs them. I’m not going back to Cairo without my brother. I did not come this far only to run away at the first difficulty.”

  “It’s hardly the first difficulty,” he said. “Have you forgotten we were trapped in a pyramid? Have the various corpses we stumbled over slipped your mind? We were arrested, recollect. There was the intimate encounter with a viper. And we’ve been invaded by a lunatic mongoose.”

  She dismissed this with an airy wave of her hand. “We knew early on that Duval might come after me to use me against my brother. The threat did not deter me then, and it will not deter me now.”

  “I rather thought not.” Rupert grinned stupidly. He couldn’t help it, any more than he could help feeling so stupidly pleased. He would have taken her back if she wished, though he wasn’t at all ready to cut short their adventure.

  She rose. “We shall continue as planned. Lord Noxley’s men must meet up with their employer sooner or later. We’ll retrieve Miles and let them proceed with their war without us. For the present, however, I need to collect my thoughts. In solitude.” She opened the door, and the mongoose entered, shirt trailing. “Marigold will keep you company.”

  THE WIND GREW stronger with each passing mile. It subsided at sunset only to return with increased force when the sun rose the next day. Fortunately, it was in their favor, and it did give Daphne an excuse to remain cloistered in her cabin.

  The wind-driven sand often kept the women inside, in cabins whose chinks were stuffed with rags. Leena spent a good deal of time with Nafisah and the baby, leaving Daphne to study her new cartouches in peace.