Guardian of the Horizon by Elizabeth Peters

Newbold let out a hearty guffaw. "A few. Why not, there are plenty of the brutes and the ladies will have their ivory combs and hairbrushes." Peaceful, herbivorous brutes, who didn't attack unless they or their young were threatened. Unlike human beings. Newbold was the type of Great White Hunter Ramses particularly despised; the man was in demand because he always found impressive game for the parties he led into the interior, but there were a number of unsavory stories about him--rumors that he abandoned his bearers when they became ill or too weak to travel, tales of wounded animals left to die slowly and painfully when pursuit was dangerous-- and worse. It was said that not all the ivory he brought back came from beasts he had killed. The previous owners had been handed over to the slavers who still operated in remote regions. Like everyone else in Cairo, Newbold knew Ramses's views about hunting. His smile was derisive. He drained his glass and snapped his fingers to summon a waiter. "Join me in a whiskey, Mr. Emerson? And you, Your Highness--what will you have? Lemonade?" Feisal nodded his thanks. "So you didn't find King Solomon's diamond mines? This," he added, glancing at Ramses, "is another man with an idee fixe." "Africa is full of them," Ramses said. "Laugh all you want," Newbold grunted. "Africa is also full of unexplored territory, and some of the legends must have a basis in fact. Maybe I've been looking in the wrong area. Been thinking of transferring to the Sudan." "There are no diamonds there," Ramses said. "But there's other things." Newbold ordered a third drink--or maybe it was his fourth or fifth. The whiskey had begun to affect him. His eyes glittered and his face was flushed. "When I was in Wadi Haifa I heard an interesting story about a native boy who came out of the Western Desert carrying bars of gold. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you? I hear you and your notorious family are heading for the Sudan." "We are planning to excavate," Ramses said, trying to hold on to his temper. Newbold laughed offensively. "Like the last time you were there. Where'd you find the girl, in some rich sheikh's harem? She must have cost you a pretty penny." Ramses's chair fell over as he rose. Several people turned to stare, and Feisal put a restraining hand on his arm. "He's drunk, Ramses. Newbold, you damned fool, watch your mouth." Newbold wasn't that drunk. He studied Ramses with cool calculation. "You wouldn't hit a crippled old hunter who is more than twice your age, would you, boy? Not even when he offends your outdated notions of chivalry toward women? A knight in shining armor, eh?" Ramses shook off Feisal's hand, and Newbold got unsteadily to his feet. "All right, I apologize. See you in the Sudan." "Stay out of his way," Feisal advised, as Newbold wove an erratic path toward the door of the clubhouse. The limp was new. Ramses hoped it was an elephant that had gored him. "Can you imagine telling my father to stay out of the way of a miserable swine like that?" He had got the information he wanted--or rather, the information he had hoped not to get. His notorious father wasn't going to be happy about it, and neither was his equally notorious mother.
    "Dear me," I said. "How disconcerting. I suppose we ought to have anticipated--" "I certainly did not." Emerson chewed fiercely on the stem of his pipe. We had been enjoying a little preprandial libation in the saloon when Ramses came in. "Didn't you ask the swine from whom he heard about Merasen?" "Everybody knows he has dealings with slavers," Ramses said. "I assumed . . . You're right, Father, I ought to have pursued the matter. I lost my temper." "You?" Nefret inquired in exaggerated surprise. "What on earth did he say to bring about that astonishing result?" "Something about you, perhaps," I said. "You had better tell us, Ramses." "The point is not his precise words but what they implied," said Ramses. "Merasen and his bloody--excuse me, Mother--his