Children of the Storm Read Free Page B

won’t be necessary. I—er—don’t need it just now.”
    “Yes, you do,” said his wife, somewhat acerbically. “Emerson, you promised that article to the Journal weeks ago. You haven’t finished it, have you?”
    Emerson fixed her with a formidable glare and she abandoned the subject. Ramses was pretty sure she had not put it out of her mind, though. She had her own ways of managing her husband.
    “Ah well, enough shop talk,” she said cheerfully. “We need to discuss the arrangements for our guests.”
    “It’s all settled, isn’t it?” Nefret asked. “Sennia has kindly consented to give up her little suite to David and Lia and their brood, and Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Walter can stay with us or on the dahabeeyah, whichever they prefer.”
    “If I were in their shoes I’d choose the dahabeeyah,” Ramses said lazily. “With four children under the age of six in residence, this place is going to be a zoo. I wonder how Dolly and Evvie will get on with our two.”
    “Badly, I should think,” said his mother. “Yours are accustomed to our full attention, and Dolly will be hurt if Emerson neglects him.”
    “What nonsense!” Emerson exclaimed. “As if I would neglect little Abdullah!”
    “You have only two knees, Emerson, and mark my words, they will all want to occupy them simultaneously.”
    “There you go again, borrowing trouble,” Emerson grumbled.
    “Anticipating difficulties,” his wife corrected. “Ah well, I am sure it will all work out. Your Uncle Walter will be delighted with the inscribed material we have found, Ramses.”
    “There’s no better philologist in the business,” Ramses agreed.
    “And I mean to ask David to paint a group picture of you and Nefret and the children,” his mother continued. “Or perhaps Evelyn; it has been a good many years since she practiced her skills, but I feel sure she will—”
    “Now just a bloody minute, Peabody,” Emerson exclaimed. “I won’t have you assigning extra duties to my staff even before they arrive. I will need them on the dig.”
    His use of his wife’s maiden name indicated that he was in a more agreeable state of mind than the speech might have suggested. The family had learned to interpret those signals: Amelia when he was genuinely annoyed; Peabody when he was in a good humor, in fond recollection of the days of their courtship, when he had paid her the high compliment of addressing her as he would have done a man.
    Ramses exchanged glances with his wife. The argument wasn’t over; his mother would go right ahead with her plans, and his father would continue to complain. His parents enjoyed those “little differences of opinion,” as his mother called them—though “shouting matches” might be a more descriptive term. She was smiling to herself; her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled.
    Hers was, her son thought, a rather forbidding countenance, even in repose; when she was annoyed about something, her prominent chin jutted out and her dark-gray eyes took on a steely shine. The years had not changed her appearance much; her carriage was as erect and the new lines in her face were those of laughter. The thick black hair was, according to Nefret, no longer the original shade. Nefret had made him promise he wouldn’t say a word, to his mother or father. In fact, he had found that evidence of feminine vanity rather touching.
    Catching his eye, she broke off in the middle of a sentence. “What are you smiling at, Ramses? Have I a smudge on my nose?”
    “No. I was just thinking how well you look this evening.”
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    WHEN RAMSES AND EMERSON ARRIVED at the site next morning the sun had just lifted over the eastern cliffs and the little valley of Deir el Medina lay in shadow. High barren hills framed it on the east and west. The main entrance was to the north, where the walls of the Ptolemaic temple enclosed some of the earlier shrines to