The Serpent on the Crown Read Online Free PDF Page B

across the pillow, white arms and shoulders bared by the narrow straps of her nightdress. It seemed impossible that they had been married for six years. He had worked longer than that to win her, almost as long as the fourteen years Jacob had served for his beloved Rachel.
    He lifted a tangled strand away from her eyes. They opened. After a moment the hazy look of sleep was replaced, not by the appreciation he had come to expect, but by consternation. “Oh dear,” she groaned. “It can’t be morning already.”
    “Stay in bed,” Ramses said, wishing he could do the same. “I’ll tell Father you’re a little under the weather.”
    “No, don’t do that. He’ll think…you know what he’ll think.”
    “Yes.” The twins were four years old and his father had taken to dropping not-so-subtle hints about another grandchild. Oddly enough, his mother had not.
    “There’s no need for you to get up,” Ramses insisted. “Today is Friday. The men won’t be working anyhow. If I know Father, and I believe I do, he’s planning one of two things: tracking Sethos down, or calling on Mrs. Petherick. I’ve never seen him so fascinated by an artifact.”
    Nefret sat up, knees raised, arms wrapped round them. “I wouldn’t miss that for the world!”
    “Which?” Ramses asked, returning her smile.
    “Either.” She flung the covers back. “Though I can’t imagine how he hopes to get on Sethos’s trail.”
    Leaving the children eating—and dropping bits of egg and buttered toast into the waiting jaws of the Great Cat of Re—they made their way along the winding tree-shaded path that led to the main house, where they found the parents at their breakfast. Emerson greeted them with his habitual complaint: “Why didn’t you bring the twins?” and his wife countered with her habitual response. “Not until they stop throwing food at each other and the cat.” The Great Cat of Re had stayed behind. Ramses was his preferred companion, but Ramses didn’t drop as much food on the floor as the twins did.
    His mother was looking particularly bright-eyed and alert, her hair the same unrelieved, improbable jet black, her chin protruding. Ramses deduced that they had interrupted a parental argument. These disagreements were not uncommon; his mother and father both enjoyed them, and they were seldom deterred by the presence of their children. As soon as Fatima had served them and returned their greetings, his mother went back on the attack.
    “Your proposal to go to Cairo in search of Sethos is perfectly ridiculous, Emerson. He could be anywhere in the Middle East, or in the world. I don’t know why you have got this particular bee in your bonnet. Not only must we cope with Mrs. Petherick and her eccentric children, but you cannot abandon your work.”
    “Who said anything about abandoning Deir el Medina?” Emerson demanded. “I will only be away for two days. The rest of you can carry on quite well without me for that length of time. Which reminds me—where the devil is Jumana?”
    Ramses had finished his eggs and toast. Fatima, who thought he was too thin, immediately replenished his plate. He looked up with a smile of thanks. Her round, friendly face, framed by the neat folds of her headcloth, bore an uncharacteristic frown.
    His mother had got the bit in her teeth and was going full steam ahead. “You know perfectly well, Emerson, that Jumana goes to the site with the Vandergelts, since she is living with them for the time being. Which reminds me that you never settled her precise duties with Cyrus. He needs her even more than you, since he has only Bertie to supervise his men. I have been meaning to talk with you about this for some time. The fact is that we are shorthanded and—”
    “Excuse me, Mother,” Ramses said, knowing she could go on like that indefinitely. “Fatima, you look worried. Is something bothering you?”
    “Thank you, Ramses, for asking me,” said Fatima. “I want to know whether those two