The Quest

by Wilbur Smith

  With so many humans and animals to provide shelter for, the stockade was crowded. However, because of the respect and affection in which they were held, there was always a small but private enclosure for Taita and Fenn. When they were alone in their haven their talk turned often to their homeland. Although in her other life Fenn had once worn the double crown of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms, all she knew of Egypt now she had gleaned from Taita. She was hungry for every detail of the land and its peoples, their religion, art and customs. In particular, she longed for descriptions of the children she had borne so long ago, and their descendants who ruled now.

  ‘Tell me about Pharaoh Nefer Seti.’

  ‘You already know everything that there is to know,’ he protested.

  ‘Tell me again,’ she insisted. ‘I long for the day I meet him face to face. Do you think he will know that I was once his grandmother?’

  ‘I will be astonished if he does. You are much less than half his age, so young and beautiful that he might even fall in love with you,’ he teased her.

  ‘That would never do,’ she replied primly. ‘First, it would be incest, but far more important, I belong to you.’

  ‘Do you, Fenn? Do you truly belong to me?’

  She opened her eyes wide with surprise. ‘For a magus and a savant, sometimes you can be obtuse, Taita. Of course I belong to you. I promised you that in the other life. You told me so yourself.’

  ‘What do you know of incest?’ He changed the subject. ‘Who told you about it?’

  ‘Imbali,’ she replied. ‘She tells me the things that you don’t.’

  ‘And what did she have to say on the subject?’

  ‘Incest is when people who are related by blood gijima each other,’ she replied evenly.

  He caught his breath to hear the coarse word on her innocent lips. ‘Gijima?’ he asked cautiously. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You know what it means, Taita,’ she said, with a long-suffering air.

  ‘You and I gijima each other all the time.’

  He caught his breath again, but this time held it. ‘How do we do that?’

  ‘You know very well. We hold hands and kiss each other. That is how people gijima.’ He exhaled in a sigh of relief, at which she realized he was holding something back. ‘Well, it is, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so, or at least part of it.’

  Now her suspicions were thoroughly aroused and she was unusually quiet for the rest of the evening. He knew that she would not easily be fobbed off.

  The next night they camped above a waterfall they remembered from their journey upstream. Then the river had been almost dry, but now its position was marked by the tall column of spray that rose high above the forest. While the shore party cut the thorn bushes to build the stockade and make camp, Taita and Fenn mounted Windsmoke and Whirlwind and followed a game trail along the riverbank that was deeply scored with the tracks of buffalo and elephant and littered with piles of their dung. They carried their bows at the ready and went forward cautiously, expecting at every turn of the trail to run into a herd of one species or the other. However, although they heard elephant trumpeting and breaking branches in the forest nearby, they reached the top of the falls without glimpsing them. They hobbled the horses and let them graze, while they went forward on foot.

  Taita thought of this section of the river when it had been a mere trickle in the depths of the narrow rocky gorge. Now the waters were white and foaming, leaping from rock to black rock as they flowed between the high banks. Ahead the unseen falls thundered and spray drizzled on their upturned faces.

  When they came out at last on the headland above the main falls, the Nile had been compressed from a width of two hundred paces to a mere twenty. Below, the torrent plunged through brilliant arches of rainbows hundreds of cubits down into the foaming gorge.

  ‘This is the last waterfall before we come to the cataracts of Egypt’,’ he said. ‘The last barrier in our path.’ He lost himself in the splendour of the spectacle.

  Fenn seemed equally entranced by it, but in fact she was engrossed in other thoughts. With a half-smile on her lips and a dreamy look in her eyes, she leant against his shoulder. When at last she spoke, it was in a husky whisper that was almost, but not quite, lost in the thunder of the Nile waters. ‘Yesterday I spoke to Imbali again about how people gijima each other.’ She slanted those green eyes at him. ‘She told me all about it. Of course I had seen horses and dogs doing it, but I’d never thought that we would do the same thing.’

  Taita was at a loss for an adequate response. ‘We must go back now,’

  he said. ‘The sun is setting and we should not be on the path after dark when there are lions abroad. We shall discuss this later.’

  They saddled the horses and started back along the riverbank.

  Usually the flow of their conversation was endless, each idea leading on to the next. But for once neither had anything to say and they followed the game trail in silence. Every time he glanced at her surreptitiously she was still smiling.

  When they rode into the stockade the women were busy at the cooking fires and the men were gathered in small groups, talking and drinking beer, resting aching muscles after their long day at the oars.

  Meren hurried to meet them as they dismounted. ‘I was about to send out a search party to find you.’

  ‘We were scouting the trail,’ Taita told him, as they dismounted and handed the horses to the grooms. ‘Tomorrow we will have to dismantle the boats to carry them round the falls. The track down is steep, so there is much hard work ahead.’

  ‘I have called all the captains and headmen into council to discuss that very matter. We were waiting for your return to camp.’

  ‘I will bring your dinner to you,’ Fenn told Taita, and slipped away to join the women at the cooking fires.

  Taita took his place at the head of the gathering. He had instituted these meetings not only to plan specific actions but also to give each an opportunity to raise any subject of interest or importance to the group. It was also a court of justice and discipline before which miscreants could be called to answer for their sins.

  Before the conference began, Fenn brought him a bowl of stew and a cup of beer. As she left him she whispered, ‘I will keep the lamp burning and wait up for you. We have much of importance to discuss, you and I.’

  Intrigued by this, Taita hurried the meeting along. As soon as they had agreed on how they would transport the boats, he left Meren and That to deal with a few matters of lesser consequence. As he passed the women at the fires they called goodnight, then giggled among themselves as if at some delicious secret. Meren had placed their hut at the far end of the enclosure behind a screen of freshly cut thatching grass. When Taita stooped through the open doorway he found that Fenn had indeed left the oil lamp burning, and was already under the kaross on their sleeping mat. She was still wide awake. She sat up and let the fur fall to her waist. Her breasts shone softly in the lamplight. Since her first moon they had become fuller and more shapely. The nipples peeped out cheerily, and their areolas had taken on a deeper shade of pink.

  ‘You have come sooner than I expected,’ she said softly. ‘Throw your tunic into the corner. I will wash it tomorrow. Now come to bed.’ He bent over the lamp to blow out the flame, but she stopped him. ‘No, let it burn. I like to watch you.’ He came to where she lay and stretched out on the mat beside her. She remained sitting, and leant over him to study his face.

  ‘You wanted to tell me something,’ he prompted her.

  ‘You are so beautiful,’ she whispered, and brushed the hair off his forehead with her fingers. ‘Sometimes when I look at your face I am so happy I feel like crying.’ She traced the curves of his eyebrows and then his lips. ‘You are perfect.’

  ‘Is that the secret?’

  ‘Part of it,’ she said, and ran her fingers down his throat and the muscles of his chest. Then, suddenly, she took one of his nipples between her thumb and forefinger and pinc
hed it. She purred with laughter when he gasped.

  ‘You have not too much there, my lord.’ She took one of her own breasts in her hand. ‘I, on the other hand, have enough for both of us.’

  They made a serious assessment of the discrepancy in sizes, then Fenn went on, ‘This evening I watched Revi feeding her baby while we sat by the fire. He is a greedy little piglet. Revi says that it feels nice when he suckles.’ She leant closer to him and proffered her breast, touching his lips with the nipple. ‘Shall we pretend you are my baby? I want to know what it feels like.“

  Then it was her turn to gasp. ‘Ah! Ah! I never thought it would be like that. It makes something in my belly clench.’ She was silent for a while, then gave a throaty little chuckle. ‘Oh! Our mannikin has woken.’

  She reached for him. Her fingers, with practice, were becoming more cunning and skilful. ‘I have been thinking about him ever since I spoke to Imbali this evening while you were in council. Do you know what she told me?’ His mouth was still busy, so his reply was muffled. She pushed his head away from her breast. ‘You will never believe what she told me.’

  ‘Is this the secret you were keeping for me?’ He smiled up at her.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Tell me, then. I am all agog.’

  ‘It’s so rude, I have to whisper it.’ She cupped both hands round his ear, but her voice was breathless and broken with giggles. ‘It isn’t possible, is it?’ she asked. ‘Just look at how big our mannikin is. He could never fit. I am sure Imbali was teasing me.’

  Taita considered the question at length, then replied carefully, ‘There is only one way to be certain, and that is to put it to the test.’

  She stopped laughing and studied his face carefully. ‘Now you are teasing me too.’

  ‘No, I am serious. It would be unfair to accuse Imbali of making up stories if we don’t have any proof that she is.’ He reached down and ran his fingers over her belly and into the clump of soft curls at the base.

  She rolled on to her back and craned forward to give his hand her full attention. ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way. You are right, of course.

  Imbali is my dear friend. I don’t want to be unfair to her.’ She moved her legs slightly apart compliantly. Her eyes opened wider and she asked, ‘What are you doing down there?’

  ‘Trying to find out if your flower is large enough.’

  ‘My flower? Is that what you call it? Imbali calls it something else.’

  ‘I am sure she does,’ Taita said. ‘However, if we think about it, it is shaped just like a flower. Give me your finger and let me show you. These are the petals and at the top here is the stamen.’ As a botanist, she accepted this description without demur.

  ‘And I thought it was just for making water,’ she said, and then was silent a little longer. At last she lay back, closed her eyes and gave a gentle sigh. ‘I feel wet all over. Am I bleeding again, Taita?’

  ‘No, it is not blood.’

  They lapsed back into silence until Fenn suggested timidly, ‘Do you think we should try that with your mannikin rather than just your fingers?’

  ‘Would you like to?’

  ‘Yes, I think I would like that very much.’ She sat up quickly and gazed at his manroot with fascination. ‘It is impossible, but he seems to have doubled in size. I am a bit frightened of him. You may have to perform some of your magic to get him inside me.’

  So close was the bond that they had built up between them that he could feel the sensations she was experiencing as though they were his own. By reading her aura as they went along, he could anticipate her needs before she became aware of them. He paced her perfectly, never too fast or too slow. When she realized he would not hurt her she relaxed and followed his lead in total trust. With all the skills he had perfected in the Cloud Gardens, he played her body as though it was a sensitive musical instrument. Time and again he brought her to the very brink, then held her back, until at last he knew the exact moment when she was ready. Together they soared higher and impossibly higher. In the end she screamed as they plummeted back to earth, ‘Oh, save me, sweet Isis. I am dying. Help me, Hathor. Help me!’ Taita’s own voice blended with hers, his cry as wild and unrestrained.

  Meren heard their cries and sprang to his feet, dropping the beer pot he was holding. The contents splashed into the fire, sending up a cloud of steam and ash. He snatched his sword from its scabbard and, his features contorted in a warlike scowl, ran towards Taita’s hut. Nakonto was almost as swift: he bounded after Meren with a stabbing spear in each fist. Before they were half-way across the enclosure, Sidudu and Imbali barred their way resolutely.

  ‘Stand aside!’ Meren shouted. ‘They are in trouble. We must go to them.’

  ‘Get back, Meren Cambyses!’ Sidudu pounded on his broad chest with her small fists. ‘They do not need your help. You will get no thanks from either of them.’

  ‘Nakonto, you ignorant Shilluk!’ Imbali yelled at her man. ‘Put up your spears. Have you learnt nothing in all your stupid life? Leave them alone!’

  The two warriors stopped in confusion and stared at the women who confronted them. Then they glanced at each other shamefacedly.

  ‘Surely not… ?’ Meren started. ‘Not the Magus and Fenn—’ He broke off lamely.

  ‘Surely yes,’ Sidudu answered him. ‘That is exactly what they are at.’

  She took his arm firmly and led him back to his stool beside the fire. ‘I will refill your beer pot for you.”

  ‘Taita and Fenn?’ Bemused, he shook his head. ‘Who would have thought it?’

  ‘Everybody except you,’ she said. ‘It seems that you know nothing of women and what they need.’ She felt him bridle, and laid a hand on his arm to placate him. ‘Oh, you know very well what a man needs. I am sure you are the greatest expert in all of Egypt on that subject.’

  He subsided slowly and thought about what she had said. ‘I expect you are right, Sidudu,’ he admitted at last. ‘Certainly I do not know what you need. If only I did I would give it to you with all my heart.’

  ‘I know you would, dear Meren. You have been kind and gentle with me. I understand how dearly your restraint has cost you.’

  ‘I love you, Sidudu. Since the first instant that you ran out of the forest pursued by the trogs, I have loved you.’

  ‘I know that.’ She moved closer to him. ‘I explained to you. I told you much of what happened to me in Jarri, but there were other things that I could not bring myself to tell you. That monster Onka…’ She trailed off, then said quietly, ‘He left wounds.’

  ‘Will those wounds ever heal?’ he asked. ‘I will wait for that all my life.’

  ‘It will not be necessary. With your help, they have healed cleanly, without so much as a scar.’ She hung her head shyly. ‘Perhaps you will allow me to bring my sleeping mat to your hut tonight…’

  ‘We do not need two mats.’ His face in the firelight was adorned with a wide grin. ‘The one I have is large enough. Certainly there is space for a little thing like you.’ He stood up and lifted her to her feet. As they left the circle of firelight, Imbali and Nakonto watched them go.

  ‘These children!’ Imbali said, in an indulgent and motherly tone. ‘It has not been easy to make them see what lies before their eyes, but now my work is done. Both in a single night! I am well pleased with myself.’

  ‘Do not concern yourself with those others so that you neglect what lies closer to hand, woman,’ Nakonto told her sternly.

  ‘Ah, I was mistaken. My work is not yet done.’ She laughed. ‘Come with me, great chief of the Shilluk. I will sharpen your spear for you. You will sleep all the better for it.’ She stood up, and laughed again. ‘And so will I.’

  A road beaten by countless generations of elephant wound down the escarpment of the rift valley, but it was narrow and they were forced to spend much time and labour widening it before they could carry the boats to the lower reaches of the river below the Kabalega falls. At last they relaunched the flotilla
and rowed into the centre of the flow. The current was swift and sped them northwards, but it was also treacherous. In as many days they lost five boats on the fangs of the submerged rocks. Three men were drowned and six of the horses with them. Almost all of the other boats were battered and scarred by the time they came out into the open waters of Semliki Nianzu lake. Even in the short time since the Nile had begun to flow again, its waters had been replenished dramatically. They were no longer shallow and muddy and sparkled blue in the sunlight. Across the wide waters to the north the vague blue outline of the far shore was just visible, but to the west there was no glimpse of land.

  There were many new villages along the near shore that had not been there when last they passed this way. It was obvious that they had recently been inhabited, for freshly caught catfish were laid out on the smoking racks and hot embers glowed in the fireplaces, but the people had fled at the approach of the flotilla.

  ‘I know this tribe. They are timid fishermen and will not threaten us,’

  Imbali told Taita. ‘These are dangerous times and they are surrounded by warlike tribes, which is why they have run away.’

  Taita ordered that the boats be dragged ashore for repairs to their hulls. He left That and Meren in charge of the encampment. He and Fenn took Nakonto and Imbali with them to act as interpreters and set off in one of the undamaged boats towards the western end of the lake and the mouth of the Semliki river. Taita was determined to find out if this other large tributary of the Nile was flowing again, or if it was still dammed by the malevolent influence of Eos. When they reached Karnak he must be able to inform Pharaoh of all these matters, which were essential to the welfare of Egypt.

  The wind stood fair from the east and they were able to hoist the lateen sail to aid the efforts of the crew on the rowing benches. With a bow wave curling under the prow they bore away along a shoreline of white beaches and rocky headlands, with a rampart of blue mountains on the horizon. On the fifth day they reached the mouth of a broad, swift river discharging into the lake from the south.