by Wilbur Smith
‘You encountered no let or hindrance along the way, I hope? These are troubled times and the Ibis is well known.’
‘She is the Ibis no longer but the Durkhan Soma, the Wisdom of the Skies. Her appearance is much altered. No one would recognize her for what she once was. My boatbuilders at Aswan have lavished much attention on her. I paid my dues to the men of God in Omdurman when I passed that pestilential if holy city.’
‘Where is she moored now?’ Ryder demanded eagerly.
Bakhita looked at him quizzically. ‘She is at Roseires.’ That was the small port at the uppermost limit of navigation on the Blue Nile. It was still within the Sudan, but less than fifty miles from the Abyssinian border.
Ryder was pleased. ‘Is Jock McCrump still the engineer?’ he asked.
Bakhita smiled. ‘He is captain also. I think it would be difficult to dislodge him from his berth.’
Ryder was even better pleased. Jock would be a useful man to have aboard if they were to use the steamer in any rescue attempt. ‘You seem interested in your old steamer, Effendi. Do I imagine it, or is it indeed so?’
Immediately Ryder was wary. He knew little about this woman, except that she was wealthy and had influence in high places in many countries. He had heard it said that even though she was a Muslim she was favourably inclined towards British interests in the Orient, and opposed to those of France and Germany. It was even rumoured that she was an agent of Sir Evelyn Baring in Cairo. If this was true she would not support the Dervish jihad in Omdurman, but it was best not to trust her.
‘Indeed, Sitt Bakhita, I did have some idea of chartering the steamer from you for a short period but I am not sure that you would be agreeable to the proposition,’ he said.
She dropped her voice when she spoke next: ‘General Ras Mengetti speaks only Amharic. Nevertheless we should continue this conversation in private. I know the whereabouts of your compound. May I call upon you there? Say, tomorrow an hour before noon?’
‘I will be at your disposal.’
‘I will have matters of mutual interest to relate to you,’ she promised. Ryder bowed and moved away.
Saffron was still with Alice, but the moment Ryder was free she came across to join him. ‘Who was the fat Arab lady?’ she asked tartly. ‘She was making huge cow eyes at you.’
‘She may be useful to us in uniting us with friends and family.’
Saffron considered this, then nodded. ‘In that case I forgive her.’
Ryder was uncertain as to how Bakhita had transgressed, but before he made the mistake of pursuing the subject, a flourish of trumpets announced the entrance of the Emperor and his wife.
Much later that evening when they returned to the compound, Saffron brought Ryder his slippers and poured him a nightcap. Then she unpinned the Star of Solomon from his lapel and examined it in the lamplight. ‘I am certain they are real diamonds,’ she said.
‘If you are correct then we are probably millionaires.’ He chuckled, and noted that he had picked up the habit from her of using the plural pronoun. It seemed somehow to constitute a formal link between them. He wondered if that was wise, and concluded that perhaps it was not. In future I shall be more circumspect, he promised himself.
The following day Bakhita arrived at the compound in a closed coach drawn by four mules. Ryder recognized the coach and driver and knew that they had probably been put at her disposal by the Emperor. This was further proof, if any were needed, of Bakhita al-Masur’s influence and importance. Behind the coach half a dozen armed bodyguards followed closely. They waited in the courtyard while Ryder ushered Bakhita into the main room, where Saffron served coffee and little honey cakes.
When she stood up and excused herself, Bakhita held up her hand. ‘Please do not go, Sitt Benbrook. What I have to say concerns you above all others.’ Saffron sank back on the sofa, and Bakhita went on, ‘I have come to Entoto for the main purpose of meeting you and Mr Courtney. The three of us have affairs of great concern that are all linked in Omdurman. I have a friend to whom I owe complete loyalty, and close members of your family are held in captivity by the Dervish. I am certain that you are as anxious to procure their release as I am. To this end I wanted to pledge to you all the assistance and support of which I am capable.’ Ryder and Saffron stared at her in silent astonishment. ‘Yes, I know that your elder sister and your twin are in the harem of the Emir Osman Atalan. My friend is the slave of the same man.’
‘May we know the name of your friend?’ Ryder asked cautiously.
Bakhita did not answer at once then said, ‘My English is not good, but I think we must use your language for very few people in Abyssinia understand it.’
‘Your English is very good, Sitt Bakhita,’ said Saffron. Her latent antagonism towards the other woman had undergone a sea-change.
‘You are kind, but it is not so.’ She smiled at Saffron, then turned back to Ryder. ‘I could refuse to answer your question, but I want us to be honest with each other. I am sure that my friend is well known to both of you. He is Captain Penrod Ballantyne of the 10th Hussars.’
‘He is a valiant officer and a fine gentleman,’ Saffron exclaimed. ‘We last met him at the Atbara gorge not more than five months ago.’
‘Oh, please tell me how he was!’ Bakhita exclaimed.
‘He was well, although indistinguishable in dress and deportment from his captors,’ said Saffron.
‘I knew he had been captured by the Dervish, but I heard he had been terribly abused and tortured. Your assurances are of much comfort to me.’
While they discussed Penrod, Ryder was thinking swiftly. From Bacheet he had heard a rumour, which Nazeera had told him, that Penrod had an intimate Egyptian friend. From the depth of her concern for him there was little doubt that Bakhita must be the lady in question. Ryder was shocked. Penrod was a highly decorated officer in a first-rate regiment. A liaison of this nature, if it came to light, might easily cost him his commission and his reputation.
‘From all that you have told us, Sitt Bakhita, it is clear that we must pool all our intelligence and resources,’ he said. ‘Our first concern, which has been troubling me deeply, is how to get messages to and from our friends in Omdurman.’
‘I believe I am able to offer a means of communication.’ Bakhita stood up and went to the door that led into the courtyard. She clapped her hands, and one of her bodyguards appeared before her. ‘I think you know this man,’ said Bakhita, as he removed his headcloth and made a deep salaam towards Ryder.
‘May God always protect you, Effendi.’
‘Yakub!’ Ryder was truly astonished. ‘I heard bad things about you. I heard that you had betrayed your master, Abadan Riji.’
‘Effendi, sooner would I betray my father and mother, and may Allah hear my words and strike me down into hell if I lie,’ said Yakub. ‘The only remaining purpose in my life is to bring my master safely out of the clutches of the Dervish into which my uncle so treacherously led him. I will do anything . . .’ Yakub hesitated, then qualified his statement: ‘I will do anything except have any truck with the despicable Bacheet to save my master from the Dervish. If there is no other way, I may even abide with, for some brief time, the company of the nefarious Bacheet. However, I shall probably kill him afterwards.’
‘On the matter of killing,’ Ryder told him grimly, ‘Abadan Riji believes that you were as much the traitor as your uncle. He slew your uncle, and he means to do the same to you.’
‘Then I must go to him and place my life and loyalty in his hands.’
‘While you are about it,’ said Ryder, drily, ‘you may as well take your master a message and return to us with his reply.’
It took five more days for Ryder and Bakhita to evolve an escape plan for the prisoners in Omdurman that had a reasonable chance of success.
On the following day Yakub left alone for the Sudan.
Osman Atalan was well pleased with the report that Penrod brought him back from the passes of the Abyssinian highlands. He li
stened with great attention to his suggestions concerning the conduct of the campaign against Emperor John, and they discussed all these in exhaustive detail during the course of the long return journey to Omdurman.
Once they reached that city, Penrod found that the conditions of his imprisonment were much relaxed. He had achieved a position of conditional trust, which had been his objective from the first day of his capture. It was what he had set out to achieve by indulging Osman Atalan, and pretending to submit to his will. However, he was still accompanied at all times by selected aggagiers of Osman’s personal bodyguard. During the months after their return to Omdurman Osman spent much time with the Khalifat Abdullahi. Al-Noor told Penrod that he was trying to persuade Abdullahi to allow him to return to his tribal domain in the desert. However, Abdullahi was too foxy and devious to allow a man of such power and influence as Osman Atalan to escape his direct supervision and control. Osman was allowed out of Omdurman only for brief punitive raids and reprisals on those persons and tribes who had incurred Abdullahi’s displeasure, or for hunting and hawking excursions into the desert.
When he returned to the city, Osman found himself with much time on his hands. One day he sent for Penrod. ‘I have watched the way you wield a blade. It is contrary to usage and custom, and lacks even the semblance of grace.’
Penrod lowered his gaze to hide his anger at the insult, and with an effort refrained from reminding him of their first meeting at El Obeid in which the mighty Khalif Atalan had countered Penrod’s feint by raising his targe and blocking his own view of the thrust that followed, a riposte that passed close to his heart.
‘However,’ said Osman, ‘it holds some interest.’
Penrod looked up at him and saw the glimmer of mockery in his eyes. ‘Exalted Khalif, from such a master swordsman as you are, this is praise that warms my soul,’ he mocked in return.
‘It will amuse me to practise at arms against you, and to demonstrate the true and noble usage of the long blade,’ said Osman. ‘We will begin tomorrow after the morning prayers.’
The next morning as they faced each other with naked blades, Osman set out the rules of engagement. ‘I shall try to kill you. You will try to kill me. If I succeed I will hold your memory in contempt. If you succeed, my aggagiers,’ he indicated the fifteen men that formed a circle around him, ‘will immediately kill you, but you will be buried with much honour. I shall commission a special prayer to be recited in the mosque in your memory. Am I not a benevolent master?’
‘The mighty Atalan is fair and just,’ Penrod agreed, and they went to it. Twenty minutes later, when Osman was slow on the recovery, Penrod nicked his forearm in warning.
Osman’s gaze was murderous. ‘Enough for now. We shall fight again in two days’ time.’
After that they fought for an hour every second day, and Osman learnt to recover swiftly and riposte like a hussar. Gradually Penrod found himself more seriously taxed, and was forced to exert all his own skill to restrain his opponent. At the end of Ramadan Osman told him, ‘I have a gift for you.’
Her name was Lalla. She was a frightened and abused little thing, a child of war, pestilence and famine. She did not remember her father or mother, and in all her short life nobody had ever shown her kindness.
Penrod was kind to her. He paid one of al-Noor’s concubines to wash her as though she were a stray puppy, and to dress her tangled hair. He provided her with fresh clothing to replace her rags. He allowed her to cook his meals, launder his clothes, and sweep the floor of the small cell off the courtyard of the aggagiers, which was his lodging. He let her sleep outside his door. He treated her as though she was human, not an animal.
For the first time in her life Lalla had sufficient food. Hunger had been part of her life from as far back as she could remember. She did not grow fat, but her bones were gradually covered with a little flesh. Sometimes he heard crooning softly over the fire as she cooked his meal. Whenever he returned to the courtyard of the aggagiers she smiled. Once when Osman had succeeded in touching his right shoulder with the long blade, Lalla dressed the wound under his instruction. It was a flesh wound and healed swiftly. Penrod told her she was an angel of mercy, and he bought her a cheap silver bracelet in the souk as a reward. She crept away with it to a corner of the yard and wept with happiness. It was the first gift she had ever received.
That night she crept shyly on to Penrod’s angareb, and he did not have the heart to send her away. When she whimpered with her nightmares, he stroked her head. She woke and cuddled closer to him. When he made love to her it was without lust or passion, but with pity. The following evening while she was cooking his dinner he spoke to her quietly: ‘If I asked you to do something dangerous and difficult for me, would you do it, Lalla?’
‘My lord, I would do whatever you ask.’
‘If I asked you to put your hand in the fire and bring out a burning brand for me, would you do it?’ Without hesitation she reached towards the flames and he had to seize her wrist to prevent her thrusting her hand into them. ‘No, not that! I want you to carry a message for me. Do you know the woman Nazeera, whom they call Ammi? She works in the harem as a servant of the white concubines.’
‘I know her, my lord.’
‘Tell her that Filfil is safe with al-Sakhawi in Abyssinia.’ Filfil, or Pepper, was Saffron’s Arabic name.
Lalla waited her chance to accost Nazeera discreetly at the well, which was a gathering place for all the women, and delivered the message faithfully. Nazeera hurried back to give the news to Rebecca and Amber.
Within days Nazeera had met Lalla again at the well. She had a message for her to take to Penrod. ‘Yakub is here in Omdurman,’ Lalla reported faithfully.
Penrod was amazed. ‘It cannot be the Yakub I know. That rascal disappeared a long time ago.’
‘He wants me to meet him,’ Lalla said. ‘What will you have me do?’
‘Where will you meet?’
‘I will be with Nazeera in the souk, at the camel market.’
‘Will it be safe for you?’ Penrod asked.
Lalla shrugged. ‘That is of no account. If you ask it, I will do it.’
When she returned he asked, ‘How was this Yakub?’
‘He has two eyes, but they do not follow each other. One looks east and the other north.’
‘That is the Yakub I know.’ How could he ever have doubted him, Penrod asked himself.
‘He said to tell you that the peerless Yakub is still your servant. He has languished a year and three months in an Egyptian prison, unjustly accused of trading in slaves. Only when he was released was he able to go to the lady of Aswan. Now she has sent him back to you with tidings that are much to your benefit.’
Penrod knew instantly who was the lady of Aswan, and his heart leapt. He had not thought of Bakhita recently, but she was still there, as constant as she had ever been. With her and Yakub he was no longer alone. ‘You have done well, Lalla. No one could have done better,’ he said, and her face glowed.
He had now established a line of communication to the outside world, but Lalla was a simple child, incapable of remembering more than a few sentences at a time, and the meetings with Nazeera and Yakub could be risked only at intervals of several days: Abdullahi and Osman had spies everywhere.
Planning the escape was a long-drawn-out and complicated business. Twice Yakub had to leave Omdurman and make the hazardous journey to Abyssinia to consult Ryder Courtney and Bakhita. But, very slowly, the plan took shape.
The attempt would be made on the first Friday of Ramadan, five months hence. Yakub would have camels waiting on the far bank of the Nile, hidden among the ruins of Khartoum. By some ruse or subterfuge, Penrod would find his own way out of the courtyard of the aggagiers. Nazeera would spirit Rebecca and Amber out of the harem to a waiting felucca that she would arrange. Penrod would meet them there, and the felucca would ferry them across the Nile. Then, on Yakub’s camels, they would dash up the south bank of the Blue Nile to where Jock McCrump
would have the old Ibis hidden in the Lagoon of the Little Fish. He would take them up to Roseires, where horses would be waiting for the final dash to the Abyssinian border.
‘Will you take me with you, my lord?’ Lalla asked wistfully.
What on earth would I do with her? Penrod wondered. She was not pretty, but had an endearing monkey face, and she looked at him with worshipful adoration. ‘I will take you with me wherever I go,’ he promised, and thought, Perhaps I can marry her to Yakub. She would make him a perfect little wife.
Only four weeks later, when everything was at last in place, Lalla brought Penrod another message, which struck him like the broadside of heavy cannon.
‘Ammi Nazeera says that al-Zahra has seen her first moon and become a woman. She can hide this from the exalted Osman Atalan, but in one month’s time her moon will rise again. She will not be able to conceal it longer from him. The mighty Atalan has already ordered Nazeera to watch for and report to him the first show of her woman’s blood. He has announced that, as soon as she is marriageable, he will offer al-Zahra as a gift to the Khalifat Abdullahi, who hungers for her.’
Even if he had to risk all of them, Penrod could not possibly allow Amber to go to Abdullahi. It would be worse than feeding her alive to some obscene carnivorous monster. The entire plan had to be brought forward. They had a month’s grace in which to change the arrangements. It would be a near-run thing. He sent the willing Lalla almost daily to carry messages to Yakub.
Two weeks before the new date of the escape attempt, the Khalif Osman Atalan announced a feast and entertainment for all his relatives and his most loyal followers. The main compound was decorated with palm fronds and two dozen prime sheep were roasted on spits. The low tables at which the company sat on soft cushions were piled with dishes of fruit and sweetmeats. Penrod found himself placed in a position of preference, close to the Khalif, with al-Noor at one hand and Mooman Digna on the other.