by Wilbur Smith
‘You have seen it, Tamre,’ she accused him gently, stroking his head. She was intrigued by the boy’s guilt. ‘You can tell me. I will not tell the priests.’
‘Only once,’ he admitted. ‘The other boys. They sent me to touch the tabot stone. They would have beaten me if I had not. All the new acolytes are made to do this.’ He began to babble with the horror of the memory of his initiation ordeal. ‘I was alone. I was very afraid. It was after midnight when the priests were asleep. Dark. The maqdas is haunted by the ghost of the saint. They told me that if I was unworthy the saint would strike me down with lightning.’
Nicholas removed the hat from his face and straightened up slowly. ‘My word, the child is telling the truth,’ he said softly. ‘He has been into the Holy of Holies.’ Then he looked across at Royan, ‘Keep questioning him. He may just give us something useful. Ask him about the tomb of St Frumentius.’
‘Did you see the tomb of the saint?’ she asked, and the boy nodded vigorously. ‘Did you go into the tomb?’ This time he shook his head.
‘No. There are bars across the entrance. Only the abbot is allowed into the tomb, on the birthday of the saint.’
‘Did you look through the bars?’
‘Yes, but it is very dark. I saw the coffin of the saint. It is wood and there is painting on it, the face of the saint.’
‘Is he a black man?’
‘No – a white man with a red beard. The painting is very old. The picture is faded, and the wood of the coffin is rotting and crumbling.’
‘Is it lying on the floor of the tomb?’
Tamre screwed up his face in thought, then after careful consideration shook his head. ‘No, it is on a shelf of stone in the wall.’
‘Is there anything else you remember about the tomb of the saint?’ Royan tried to prod his memory, but Tamre shook his head.
‘It was very dark, and the opening in the bars is small,’ he apologized.
‘It does not matter. Is the tomb in the back wall of the maqdas?’
‘Yes, it is behind the altar and the tabot stone.’
‘What is the altar made of – stone?’
‘No. It is wood, cedarwood. There are candles, and a big cross, and the many crowns of the abbot, and the chalice and staff.’
‘Is it painted?’
‘No, it is carved with pictures. But they are different from the pictures inside the tomb of the saint.’
‘What is different? Tell me, Tamre.’
‘I don’t know. The faces are funny. They wear different clothes. There are horses.’ He looked puzzled. ‘They are different.’
Royan tried for a while to get a clearer description from him, but he became more and more confused and contradictory when she pushed him, so she changed tack.
‘Tell me about the tabot,’ she suggested, but Nicholas forestalled her.
‘No, you tell me about the tabot,’ he demanded of her. ‘Is it similar to the Jewish Tabernacle?’
She turned to him, ‘Yes, at least in the Egyptian Church it is. It is usually kept in a jewelled box and wrapped in an embroidered cloth of gold. The only difference is that the Jewish Tabernacle is carved with the ten commandments, but in our Church it is carved with the words of dedication of the particular church that houses it. It is the living heart of the Church.’
‘What is the tabot stone?’ Nicholas frowned with concentration.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Our Church does not have a tabot stone.’
‘Ask him!’
‘Tell me about the tabot stone, Tamre.’
‘It is so high, and so square.’ He indicated a height of a little above his own shoulder, and the width of his spread hands.
‘And the tabot stands on top of this stone?’ Royan guessed.
Tamre nodded.
‘Why did they send you to touch the stone and not the tabot itself?’ Nicholas demanded, but Royan shook her head to silence him.
‘Let me do the talking. You are too harsh with him.’ She turned back to the boy. ‘Why the stone, rather than the Ark of the tabot that stands on top of it?’
Tamre shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know. They just did.’
‘What does the stone look like? Are there paintings on it also?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked distraught at not being able to satisfy her. He wanted desperately to please her. ‘I don’t know. The stone is wrapped with cloth.’
Nicholas and Royan exchanged startled glances, and then Royan turned back to the boy.
‘Covered?’ Royan leaned closer to him. ‘The stone is covered?’
‘They say that it is only uncovered by the abbot on the birthday of St Frumentius.’
Again Nicholas and Royan stared at each other, and then he smiled thoughtfully. ‘I would rather like to have a look at the tomb of the saint, and the tabot stone – in its uncovered state.’
‘You’d have to wait for the saint’s birthday,’ she said, ‘and have yourself ordained. Only the priests—’ she broke off and stared at him again. ‘You aren’t thinking of – no, you wouldn’t, would you?’
‘Who, me?’ he grinned. ‘Perish the thought.’
‘If they caught you in the maqdas, they would tear you to little pieces.’
‘The answer, then, would be not to let them catch me.’
‘If you go, I am going with you. How are we going to manage it?’
‘Throttle back, dear girl. The thought only occurred to me ten seconds ago. Even on my good days, I need at least ten minutes to come up with a brilliant plan of action.’
They both stared out across the chasm in silence, until Royan whispered softly, ‘The covered stone. Taita’s stone testament?’
‘Don’t say it aloud,’ he pleaded, and made the sign against the evil eye. ‘Don’t even think it aloud. The Devil is listening.’
They were silent again, both of them thinking furiously. Then Royan started, ‘Nicky, what if—’ she broke off. ‘No, that won’t work.’ She relapsed into frowning silence again.
Tamre broke the quiet with a sudden squeak of excitement, ‘There it is. Look!’
They were both startled by the interruption. ‘What is it?’ Royan turned to him.
Tamre seized her arm and shook it. He was trembling with emotion. ‘There it is. I told you.’ With his other hand he was pointing out across the river, ‘There at the edge of the thorn bushes. Can’t you see it?’
‘What is it? What can you see?’
‘The animal of John the Baptist. The holy marked creature.’
Following the direction of his outflung arm, she picked out a soft, brownish blur of movement at the edge of the thicket on the far bank. ‘I don’t know. It is too far—’
Nicholas scrabbled in his pack and brought out his binoculars. He lifted and focused them, and then he began to chuckle.
‘Hallelujah! Great-grandpa’s reputation is safe at last.’ He passed the binoculars to Royan. She focused them and found the little creature in the field. It was three hundred yards away, but through the ten-power lens she could make it out in detail.
It was almost half as large again as the common dik-dik that they had seen the previous day, and instead of drab grey its coat was a rich red brown. Its most striking feature, however, was the distinct dark bars of chocolate colour across its shoulders and back – five evenly spaced markings that did indeed look like the imprint of fingers and thumb.
‘Madoqua harperii, no less,’ Nicholas whispered to her. ‘Sorry, great-grandfather, for doubting you.’
The dik-dik stood half in shadow, wriggling its nose as it snuffled the air. Its head was held high, suspicious and alert. The soft breeze was quartering between them and the animal, but every so often a wayward eddy gave it the faint whiff of humanity that had alarmed it.
Royan heard the snick of the rifle action as Nicholas worked the bolt and chambered a round. Hurriedly she lowered the glasses, and glanced at him. ‘You aren’t going to shoot it?’ she demanded.
&n
bsp; ‘No, not at that range. Over three hundred yards, and a small target. I’ll wait for it to get closer.’
‘How can you bring yourself to do it?’
‘How can I not? That’s what I came here to do, amongst other things.’
‘But it’s so beautiful.’
‘I take it, then, that it would be perfectly all right to whack it if it were ugly?’
She said nothing, but raised the binoculars again. The eddy of the wind must have changed, for the dik-dik lowered its head to nibble at a tuft of coarse brown grass. Then lifted its head again and came on down the clearing in the thorn scrub, stepping daintily, pausing every few paces to feed again.
‘Go back!’ She tried to will it into safety, but it kept on coming, meandering towards the edge of the chasm.
Nicholas rolled on to his stomach and settled himself behind the root of the tree. He screwed up his hat into a soft pad on which to rest the rifle.
‘Two hundred yards,’ he muttered to himself. ‘That’s a fair shot. No further.’ Resting the cushioned rifle on the twisted root, he aimed through the telescopic sight. Then he lifted his head, waiting to let it come within certain range.
Abruptly the dik-dik lifted its head again and came to a halt, quivering with tension.
‘Something he doesn’t like. Dammit all, wind must have changed again,’ Nicholas growled. At that moment the little antelope bolted. It streaked across the clearing, back the way it had come, and disappeared into the thorn scrub.
‘Go, dik-dik, go!’ said Royan smugly, and Nicholas sat up and grunted with disgust.
‘I can’t make out what frightened him.’ Then his expression changed and he cocked his head. There was an alien sound on the air, growing each second – a harsh, rising clatter and a shrill, whining whistle.
‘Chopper! What the hell!’ Nicholas recognized the sound immediately. He took the binoculars from Royan’s hand and turned them to the sky, sweeping the cloudless blue emptiness above the crenellated tops of the escarpment.
‘There it is,’ he said grimly, adding, ‘Bell Jet Ranger,’ as he recognized the profile. ‘Coming this way, by the looks of it. No point in drawing attention to ourselves. Let’s get under cover.’
He shepherded Royan and the boy under the spread branches of the thorn tree. ‘Sit tight,’ he told her. ‘No chance they will spot us under here.’
He watched the approaching helicopter through the binoculars. ‘Probably Ethiopian air force,’ he said softly. ‘Anti-shufta patrol, most likely. Both Boris and Colonel Nogo warned us that there are a lot of rebels and bandits operating down here in the gorge—’ he broke off abruptly. ‘No. Hold on. That’s not military. Green and red fuselage, and the red horse emblem. None other than your old friends from Pegasus Exploration.’
The sound of the rotors crescendoed, and now with her naked eye Royan could make out the flying horse on the fuselage of the helicopter as it flew low across their front, half a mile out, headed down towards the Nile.
Neither of them paid any attention to Tamre as he crouched behind Royan, trying to hide behind her body. His teeth were chattering with terror and his eyes rolled until the whites showed.
‘It looks as if our friend Jake Helm has got himself some fancy transport. If Pegasus is in any way connected with Duraid’s murder and the other attempts on your life, then we can expect them to be breathing heavily down our necks from now on. They are now in a position to overlook us at will.’ Nicholas was still watching the aircraft through the binoculars.
‘When your enemy is up in the air, it gives you a helpless feeling.’ Royan edged instinctively closer to him, staring up.
The green and scarlet machine disappeared over the hump of the sub-gorge, down towards the monastery.
‘Unless he’s just on a joy-ride, he’s probably looking for our camp,’ Nicholas guessed. ‘Under orders from the main man to keep tabs on us.’
‘He will have no trouble finding it. Boris made no attempt to conceal the huts,’ Royan said uneasily. ‘Let’s get out of here, then.’ She stood up.
‘Good plan.’ Nicholas was about to follow her, when suddenly he caught her hand and drew her down again. ‘Hold it. They are coming back this way.’
The engine beat was rising again. Then they caught a glimpse of the helicopter through the canopy of leaves and thorn branches overhead.
‘Now he is following the river. Still searching for something, by the looks of it.’
‘Us?’ Royan asked nervously.
‘If they are under orders from the head man, could be,’ Nicholas agreed. The machine was very close now, and the shrill whine of the engine was deafening.
At that moment Tamre’s nerve broke. He let out a wail of terror, ‘It is the Devil, come to take me. Save me, Jesus Christ the Saviour, save me!’
Nicholas put out a hand to restrain him, but he was not quick enough. Tamre broke free and leaped to his feet. Still howling with fear of the pit and the flames of hell, he darted away down the path into the thorn scrub, the skirts of his shamma swirling about his skinny legs and his shiny black face swivelled back over his shoulder to watch the approaching machine.
The pilot spotted him immediately, and the nose of the helicopter sank in their direction. It came directly towards them, slowing as it approached the lip of the chasm. They could make out the heads of the two occupants behind the windscreen of the forward cabin. Still decelerating, the aircraft hung suspended over the river, pivoting on the spinning disc of its rotor, while Royan and Nicholas crouched down in the scrub, trying to avoid detection.
‘That’s the American from the prospecting camp.’ Royan recognized Jake Helm, despite the bulky radio earphones and the mirrored dark glasses. He and the black pilot were craning their necks to search the river banks.
‘They haven’t spotted us—’ But even as Nicholas said it, Jake Helm looked directly at them across the open void. Although his expression did not change, he tapped the pilot’s shoulder and pointed down at them.
The pilot let the helicopter sink lower until it hovered in the opening of the chasm, almost on the same level as they were. Only a hundred feet separated them now. No longer making any attempt at concealment, Nicholas leaned back against the bole of the thorn tree. He tipped his panama hat forward over one eye and gave Jake Helm a laconic wave.
The foreman made no response to the greeting. He regarded Nicholas with a flat, baleful stare, then struck a match and held the flame to the tip of the half-smoked cigar between his lips. He flipped the dead match away and blew a feather of smoke in Nicholas’s direction. Still without change of expression, he said something to the pilot out of the corner of his mouth.
Immediately the helicopter rose vertically and banked away to the north, heading back directly towards the wall of the escarpment and the base camp on its summit.
‘Mission accomplished. He found what he was looking for.’ Royan sat up. ‘Us!’
‘And he must have spotted the camp. He knows where to find us again,’ Nicholas agreed.
Royan shivered and hugged herself briefly. ‘He gives me the creeps, that one. He looks like a toad.’
‘Oh, come on!’ Nicholas chided her. ‘What have you got against toads?’ He stood up. ‘I don’t think we are going to see great-grandfather’s dik-dik again today. He has been thoroughly shaken up by the chopper. I’ll come back for another try tomorrow.’
‘We should go and look for Tamre. He has probably had another fit, the poor little fellow.’
She was wrong. They found the boy beside the path. He was still shivering and weeping, but had not suffered another seizure. He calmed down quickly when Royan soothed him, and followed them back towards the camp. However, when they neared the grove he slipped away in the direction of the monastery.
That evening, while it was still light, Nicholas took Royan back to the monastery.
‘I believe that the criminal fraternity refer to a reconnaissance of this nature as “casing the joint”,’ he remarked, as t
hey stooped through the entrance of the rock cathedral and joined the throng of worshippers in the outer chamber.
‘From what Tamre says, it sounds as though the novices wait until they know that the priests on duty are ones that will nod off during their watch,’ Royan told him softly, as they paused to gaze through the doors into the middle chamber.
‘We don’t have that sort of insider knowledge,’ Nicholas pointed out.
There were priests passing backwards and forwards through the doors as they watched.
‘There doesn’t seem to be any sort of procedure,’ Nicholas noted. ‘No password or ritual to allow them through.’
‘On the other hand, they greeted the guards at the door by name. It’s a small community. They must all know each other intimately.’
‘There doesn’t seem any chance at all that I could dress up like a monk and brazen my way through,’ Nicholas agreed. ‘I wonder what they do to intruders in the sacred areas?’
‘Throw them off the terrace to the crocodiles in the cauldron of the Nile?’ she suggested maliciously. ‘Anyway, you are not going in there without me.’
This was not the time to argue, he decided, and instead he tried to see as much as possible through the open doors of the qiddist. The middle chamber seemed much smaller than the outer chamber in which they stood. He could just make out the shadowy murals that covered the portions of the inner walls that he could see. In the facing wall was another doorway. From Tamre’s description, he realized that this must be the entrance to the maqdas. The opening was barred by a heavy grille gate of dark wooden beams, the joints of the cross-pieces reinforced with gussets of hand-hammered native iron.
On each side of the doorway, from rock ceiling to floor, hung long embroidered tapestries depicting scenes from the life of St Frumentius. In one he was preaching to a kneeling congregation, with the Bible in one hand and his right hand raised in benediction. In the other tapestry he was baptizing an emperor. The king wore a high golden crown like that of Jali Hora, and the saint’s head was surrounded by a halo. The saint’s face was white, while the emperor’s was black.
‘Politically correct?’ Nicholas asked himself, with a smile.