“That is very flattering, my dear.”

“Flattering be damned! He thinks I am only fit to sit in an office and give advice to pompous young fools who won’t listen to it anyhow. He thinks I am too old to take an active part in this war.”

“Oh, my dear, that is not true!” I threw my arms around his waist and kissed him on the chin. I had to stand on tiptoe to reach that part of his anatomy; Emerson is over six feet tall and I am considerably shorter. “You are the strongest, bravest, cleverest—”

“Don’t overdo it, Peabody ,” said Emerson.

His use of my maiden name, which had become a term of affection and approbation, assured me that he was in a better humor. A little flattery never hurts, especially when, as in the present case, it was the simple truth.

I laid my head against his shoulder. “You may think me selfish and cowardly, Emerson, but I would rather you were safe in some boring office, not taking desperate chances as you would prefer, and as, of course, you could. Did you accept?”

“Well, damn it, I had to, didn’t I? It will interfere with my excavations… but one must do what one can, eh?”

“Yes, my darling.”

Emerson gave me such a hearty squeeze, my ribs creaked. “I am going to work now. Are you coming?”

“No, I think not. I will wait for Nefret and perhaps have a little chat with her.”

Emerson departed, and after assuming a comfortable garment I went up to the roof, where I had arranged tables and chairs, potted plants and adjustable screens, to create an informal open-air parlor.

From the rooftop one could see (on a clear day) for miles in all directions: on the east, the river and the sprawling suburbs of Cairo, framed by the pale limestone of the Mokattam Hills; to the west, beyond the cultivated land, the limitless stretch of the desert, and, at eventide, a sky ablaze with ever-changing but always brilliant sunsets. My favorite view was southerly. In the near distance rose the triangular silhouettes of the pyramids of Giza , where we would be working that year. The house was conveniently located on the West Bank , only a few miles from our excavations and directly across the river from Cairo . It was not as commodious or well designed as our earlier abode near Giza , but that house was not one to which any of us cared to return. It held too many unhappy memories. I tried, as is my habit, to keep them at bay, but Emerson’s gloomy remarks had affected me more than I had admitted to him. The war had certainly cast a shadow over our lives, but some of our troubles went farther back—back to that frightful spring two years ago.

Only two years. It seemed longer; or rather, it seemed as if a dark, deep abyss separated us from the halcyon days that had preceded the disaster. Admittedly, they had not been devoid of the criminal distractions that frequently interrupt our archaeological work, but we had become accustomed to that sort of thing and in every other way we had good cause to rejoice. David and Lia had just been married; Ramses was with us again after some months of absence; and Nefret divided her time between the excavation and the clinic she had started for the fallen women of Cairo . There had been a radiance about her that year…

Then it had happened, as sudden and unexpected as a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. Emerson and I had come home one morning to find the old man waiting, a woman and a small child with him. The woman, herself pitiably young, was a prostitute, the old man one of the city’s most infamous procurers. The sight of that child’s face, with its unmistakable resemblance to my own, was shock enough; a greater shock followed, when the little creature ran toward Ramses, holding out her arms and calling him Father.

The effect on Nefret had been much worse. In the clinic she had seen firsthand the abuses inflicted on the women of the Red Blind district, and her attempts to assist the unhappy female victims of the loathsome trade had taken on the dimensions of a crusade. Always hot-tempered and impetuous, she had leaped to the inevitable conclusion and fled the house in a passion of revulsion with her foster brother.

I knew, of course, that the inevitable conclusion was incorrect. Not that Ramses had never strayed from the paths of moral rectitude. He had toddled into trouble as soon as he could walk, and the catalog of his misdemeanors lengthened as he matured. I did not doubt his relationships with various female persons were not always of the nature I would approve. The evidence against him was strong. But I had known my son for over twenty strenuous years, and I knew he was incapable of committing that particular crime—for crime it was, in the moral if not the legal sense.

It had not taken us long to ferret out the identity of the child’s real father—my nephew Percy. I had never had a high opinion of my brothers and their offspring; this discovery, and Percy’s contemptible attempt to pass the blame on to Ramses, had resulted in a complete rift. Unfortunately, we were unable to avoid Percy altogether; he had joined the Egyptian Army and was stationed in Cairo . However, I had at least the satisfaction of cutting him whenever we chanced to meet. He cared nothing for his little daughter, and it would have been impossible for us to abandon her. Sennia had been part of our family ever since. She was now five years of age, a distraction and a delight, as Ramses called her. We had left her in England with the younger Emersons this year, since Lia, mourning the absence of husband and brothers, was even more in need of distraction than we. Emerson missed her very much. The only positive aspect of the arrangement (I was still trying to look on the bright side) was that Nefret’s surly, spoiled cat, Horus, had stayed with Sennia. I cannot truthfully say that any of us, except possibly Nefret, missed Horus.

Before she learned the truth about Sennia’s parentage, Nefret had married. It came as a considerable surprise to me; I had known of Geoffrey’s attachment to her, but had not suspected she cared for him. It was a disaster in every sense of the word, for within a few weeks she had lost not only her husband, but the small seed of life that would one day have been their child.

Ramses had accepted her apologies with his usual equanimity, and outwardly, at least, they were on perfectly good terms; but every now and then I sensed a certain tension between them. I wondered if he had ever completely forgiven her for doubting him. My son had always been something of an enigma to me, and although his attachment to little Sennia, and hers to him, displayed a side of his nature I had not previously suspected, he still kept his feelings too much to himself.

This was not the first time he and Nefret had been together since the tragedy; ours is an affectionate family, and we try to meet for holidays, anniversaries, and special occasions. The latest such occasion had been the engagement of Emerson’s nephew Johnny to Alice Curtin. Ramses had come back from Germany , where he had been studying Egyptian philology with Professor Erman, for that. Of all his cousins he had a special affection for Johnny, which was somewhat surprising, considering how different their temperaments were: Ramses sober and self-contained, Johnny always making little jokes. They were usually rather bad jokes, but Johnny’s laughter was so infectious one could not help joining in.

Was he able to make jokes now, I wondered, in a muddy trench in France ? He and his twin Willy were together; some comfort, perhaps, for the boys themselves, but an additional source of anguish for their parents.

Hearing the tap of heels, I turned to see Nefret coming toward me. She was as beautiful as ever, though the past years had added maturity to a countenance that had once been as glowing and carefree as that of a child. She had changed into her working costume of trousers and boots; her shirt was open at the throat and her red-gold hair had been twisted into a knot at the back of her neck.