by Wilbur Smith
When all had eaten their fill and the mood was as warm as the sunshine, with laughter rippling like the waters of the Nile, Osman rose, made a short speech of welcome and commended them on their loyalty and duty. ‘Now let the entertainment begin!’ he ordered, and clapped his hands.
A finger drum began to tap a staccato rhythm and then a murmur of surprise went up. Every head craned towards the side gate of the courtyard. Two men led in a creature on a leash. It was impossible at first to guess the nature of the animal. It moved slowly and painfully on all fours, forced by its handlers to make a torturous circuit of the yard. It was only gradually that they realized it was a human female. Her hands and feet had been crudely amputated at wrists and ankles. The stumps had been dipped in hot pitch to staunch the bleeding. She crawled on elbows and knees. The rest of her naked body had been whipped with thorn branches. The thorns had lacerated her skin. The mutilations were so horrible that even the hardened aggagiers were silenced. Slowly she crawled to where Penrod sat. The handlers tightened the leash and forced her to lift her head.
Cold with horror Penrod stared into Lalla’s little monkey face. Blood was trickling from her torn scalp into her empty eye-sockets. They had burned out her eyeballs with hot irons. ‘Lalla!’ he said softly. ‘What have they done to you?’
She recognized his voice, and turned towards him. Blood was still oozing down her cheeks. ‘My lord,’ she whispered, ‘I told them nothing.’ Then she collapsed with her face in the dust, and though they yanked on the leash they could not rouse her.
‘Abadan Riji!’ Osman Atalan called. ‘My trusted aggagier of the famous sword arm, put this sorry creature out of her agony.’ A terrible silence hung over the gathering. Every man looked at Penrod, not understanding but enthralled by the drama of the moment.
‘Kill her for me, Abadan Riji,’ Osman repeated.
‘Lalla!’ Penrod’s voice trembled with pity.
She heard him and rolled her head towards him, blindly seeking his face. ‘My lord,’ she whispered, ‘for the love I bear you, do this thing. Give me release, for I can go on no longer.’
Penrod hesitated only a moment. Then he rose and drew his sword from its sheath. As he stood over her she spoke again: ‘I will always love you.’ And with a single blow he struck her head off the maimed body. Then he placed his foot on the blade and, with a sharp tug at the hilt, snapped it in two.
‘Tell me, Abadan Riji,’ said Osman Atalan, ‘are those tears I see in your eyes? Why do you weep like a woman?’
‘They are tears indeed, mighty Atalan, and I weep for the manner of your death, which will be terrible.’
‘With the help of this creature, Abadan Riji was planning to escape from Omdurman,’ Osman explained to his aggagiers. ‘Bring in the shebba, and place it round his neck.’
The shebba was a device designed to restrain and punish recalcitrant slaves, and to prevent them escaping. It was a heavy Y-shaped yoke cut from the fork of an acacia tree. The prisoner was stripped naked, to add to his humiliation, then the crotch of the shebba was fitted against his throat. The thick trunk extended in front of him. They lifted it to shoulder height, and bound the fork in place behind his neck with twisted rawhide ropes. Finally Penrod’s bare arms were lashed to the long pole in front of him. With both arms pinioned, he was unable to feed himself or lift a bowl of water to his lips. He could not clean himself of his bodily waste. If he allowed the pole to sink from horizontal the fork would crush his windpipe and choke him. To move he had first to raise the whole massive contraption and keep it balanced. He could not lie on his side or back, nor was he able to sit. If he wished to rest or sleep he must do so on his knees, with the end of the pole resting on the earth in front of him. At best he could only totter a few paces before the weight of the unbalanced pole forced him to his knees again.
The feast continued while Penrod knelt in the centre of the courtyard. Afterwards he was driven back to the courtyard of the aggagiers. Mooman Digna whipped him along like a beast of burden. He was unable to eat or drink, and nobody would help him. He could not sleep for the pain of the shebba goaded him awake. It was too large and cumbersome to allow him to enter his cell so he knelt in the open courtyard, with an aggagier assigned to guard him day and night. By the third day he had lost all feeling in his arms, and his hands were blue and swollen. Although he staggered around the wall of the courtyard to keep in the shadow, the sun’s rays reflected from the limewashed walls and his naked body reddened and blistered. His tongue was like a dry sponge in his parched mouth for the heat in the noonday was intense.
By the morning of the fourth day he was becoming weak and disoriented, hovering on the verge of unconsciousness. Even his eyeballs were drying out, and still no one would help him. As he knelt in a corner of the courtyard he heard the voices of the aggagiers arguing nearby. They were discussing how much longer he would be able to hold out. Then there was silence and he forced open his swollen eyelids. For a moment he thought he was hallucinating.
Amber was coming towards him across the yard. She carried a large pitcher balanced on her head in the manner of an Arab woman. The aggagiers were watching her, but none tried to intervene. She took the pitcher off her head and placed it on the ground. Then she dipped a sponge into it and held it to his lips. He was unable to speak, but he sucked it gratefully. When she had given him as much as he could drink, she replaced the empty pitcher on her head and said softly, ‘I will come again tomorrow.’
At the same time the following day Osman Atalan entered the yard and stood in the shade of the cloister with al-Noor and Mooman Digna. Amber came in shortly after his arrival. She saw him at once and stopped, balancing the pitcher with one hand, slim and graceful as a gazelle on the point of flight. She stared at Osman, then she lifted her chin defiantly and came to where Penrod knelt. She dipped the sponge and gave him drink. Osman did not stop her. When she had finished and was ready to leave, she whispered, without moving her lips, ‘Yakub will come for you. Be ready.’ She walked past Osman on her way to the gate. He watched her go impassively.
Amber came again the next day. Osman was not there and most of the aggagiers seemed to have lost interest. She gave Penrod water, then fed him asida and dhurra porridge, spooning it into his mouth as though he were an infant, wiping the spillage off his chin. Then she used another sponge to wash his filth from the back of his legs and his buttocks. ‘I wish you did not have to do that,’ he said.
She gave him a particular look and replied, ‘You still do not understand, do you?’ He was too bemused and weak to try to fathom her meaning. She went on, with barely a pause, ‘Yakub will come for you tonight.’
Darkness fell and Penrod knelt in his corner of the courtyard. The aggagier Kabel al-Din was his guard that night. He sat nearby, with his back against the wall and his sheathed sword across his lap.
The muscles in Penrod’s arms were cramping so violently that he had to bite his lip to stop himself screaming. The blood in his mouth tasted bitter and metallic. Eventually he slipped into a dark, numb sleep. When he woke he heard a woman’s soft laughter nearby. It was a vaguely familiar sound. Then the woman whispered salaciously, ‘The enormity of your manhood terrifies me, but I am brave enough to endure it.’ Incredibly Penrod realized that it was Nazeera. What was she doing here, he wondered. He opened his eyes. She was lying on her back in the moonlight with her skirts drawn up to her armpits. Kabel al-Din was kneeling between her parted thighs, about to mount her, oblivious to everything about him.
Yakub came over the wall as silently as a moth. As Kabel al-Din humped his back over Nazeera, Yakub sank the point of his dagger into the nape of the man’s neck. With the expertise of long practice he found the juncture of the third and fourth vertebrae and severed the spinal column. Al-Din stiffened, then collapsed soundlessly on Nazeera. She pushed aside his limp body and rolled out from beneath him. Then she scrambled to her feet, pulling down her skirts as she came to help Yakub, who was stooped over Penrod. With the blood-smeare
d dagger Yakub cut the thongs that pinioned his arms and Penrod almost screamed as the blood coursed back into his starved arteries and veins. While Nazeera took the weight of the yoke to prevent it crushing Penrod’s larynx, Yakub cut the thongs at the back of his neck. Between them they lifted it off.
‘Drink.’ Nazeera held a small glass flask to his lips. ‘It will deaden the pain.’ With three gulps Penrod swallowed the contents. The bitter taste of laudanum was unmistakable. They helped him to his feet and half carried him to the wall. Yakub had left a rope in place. While Nazeera propped him up, Yakub settled the loop on the end of the rope under Penrod’s armpits. As he straddled the top of the wall and heaved on the rope Nazeera pushed from below and they hoisted Penrod over. He fell in a heap on the far side. Nazeera slipped quietly away in the direction of the harem. Yakub dropped down beside Penrod and hauled him on to his numb feet.
At first their progress towards the riverbank was torturously slow, but then the laudanum took effect and Penrod pushed away Yakub’s hands. ‘In future, do not stay away so long, tardy Yakub,’ he mumbled, and Yakub giggled at the jest. Penrod broke into a shambling run towards the river, where he knew the felucca was waiting to take them across.
As the favourite of Osman Atalan, Rebecca had her own quarters and Amber was allowed to share them with her. The two waited by the small grilled window through which they had a glimpse of the silver moonlight reflected from the wide river. Rebecca had turned the wick of the oil lamp low, so they could just make out each other’s faces. Amber was wearing a light woollen robe and sandals, ready to travel, and she was quivering with excitement.
‘It is almost time. You must make ready, Becky,’ she entreated. ‘Nazeera will be back at any moment to fetch us.’
‘Listen to me, my darling Amber.’ Rebecca placed her hands on her sister’s shoulders. ‘You must be brave now. I am not coming with you. You are going alone with Penrod Ballantyne.’
Amber went as still as stone, and stared into her sister’s eyes, but they were unfathomable in the gloom. When she spoke at last her voice shook. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I cannot go with you. I must stay here.’
‘But why, Becky? Why, oh, why?’
In reply Rebecca took her sister’s hands and guided them under her shift. She placed them on her own naked belly. ‘Do you feel that?’
‘It’s just a little fat,’ Amber protested. ‘That won’t stop you. You must come.’
‘There is a baby inside me, Amber.’
‘I don’t believe it. It cannot be. I still love you and need you.’
‘It’s a baby,’ Rebecca assured her. ‘It’s Osman Atalan’s bastard. Do you know what a bastard is, Amber?’
‘Yes.’ Amber could not bring herself to say more.
‘Do you know what will happen if I go home to England with an Arab bastard inside me?’
‘Yes.’ Amber’s voice was almost inaudible. ‘But the midwives could take it away, couldn’t they?’
‘You mean kill my baby?’ Rebecca asked. ‘Would you kill your own baby, Amber darling?’ Amber shook her head. ‘Then you cannot ask me to do it.’
‘I will stay with you,’ said Amber.
‘You saw what a sorry condition Penrod is in.’ Rebecca knew it was the strongest lever she had to move Amber. ‘You have saved his life already. You fed him and gave him water when he was dying. If you desert him now, he will not survive. You must do your duty.’
‘But what about you?’ Amber was cruelly torn.
‘I will be safe, I promise.’ Rebecca hugged her hard, and then her tone became firm and brisk. ‘Now, you must take this with you. It’s Daddy’s journal, which I have added to. When you reach England, take it to his lawyer. His name is Sebastian Hardy. I have written his name and address on the first page. He will know what to do with it.’ She handed the book to Amber. She had packed it into a bag of woven palm leaves and bound it up carefully. It was heavy and bulky, but Rebecca had plaited a rope handle to make it easier to carry.
‘I don’t want to leave you,’ Amber blurted.
‘I know, darling. Duty can be hard. But you must do it.’
‘I will love you for ever and always.’
‘I know you will, and I will love you just as hard and just as long.’ They clung to each other until Nazeera appeared quietly beside them.
‘Come, Zahra. It is time to go. Yakub and Abadan Riji are waiting for you by the riverside.’
There was nothing left to say. They embraced for the last time, then Nazeera took Amber’s hand and led her away, with the bag that contained her legacy. Only once she was alone did Rebecca allow her grief to burst out. She threw herself on to their angareb below the window and wept. Every sob came up painfully from deep inside her.
Then something inside her was awakened by the strength of her sorrow, and for the first time she felt the infant kick in her womb. It startled her into stillness, and filled her with such bitter joy that she clasped her arms round her belly and whispered, ‘You are all I have left now.’ She rocked herself and the infant to sleep.
The felucca was anchored close to the muddy strip of beach below the old mosque. It was a battered, neglected craft that stank of river mud and old fish. The owner hoped to replace it with a new vessel paid for out of the exorbitant fee he had been promised for a single crossing of the river. Its amount warned him that he was at great risk, and he was edgy and fidgety as he waited.
The laudanum made Penrod Ballantyne feel muzzy-headed and divorced from reality, but at least he was without pain in his limbs. He and Yakub were lying on the floorboards where they would be concealed from casual inspection. In a whisper Yakub was trying to tell him something that he seemed to think was of prime importance. However, Penrod’s mind kept floating off on the wings of opium, and Yakub’s words made no sense to him.
Then, vaguely, he was aware that somebody was wading out to the vessel. He lifted himself on one elbow and looked groggily over the side. Nazeera was standing on the beach, and the lithe figure of Amber Benbrook, with a large bag on her head, was moving towards the felucca. ‘Where is Rebecca?’ he asked, and blinked to make certain he was seeing straight.
Amber pulled herself aboard the felucca, then Nazeera turned away from the water and ran off.
‘Where is Nazeera going?’ he wondered vaguely.
Amber dropped her bag on the deck and stooped over him. ‘Penrod! Thank goodness! How are you feeling? Let me see your arms. I have some ointment for your bruises.’
‘Wait until we get to the other side,’ he demurred. ‘Where is Nazeera going? Where is Rebecca?’ Neither Amber nor Yakub answered him. Instead Yakub gave a sharp order to the boat-owner and scrambled to help him hoist the lateen sail. It filled to the night breeze and they bore away.
The felucca sailed closer to the wind than her age would suggest, and she kicked up such a bow wave that the spray splattered over them. On the Khartoum side they went aground with such force that the rotten keel was almost torn off her. Amber and Yakub helped Penrod ashore, and Yakub propped his shoulder under his armpit to steady him as they hurried through the deserted streets of the ruined city. They met not a living soul until they reached Ryder Courtney’s abandoned compound. There, a Bedouin boy was waiting for them with a string of camels. As soon as he had handed the lead reins to Yakub, he fled into the shadows.
The riding camels were fully saddled and equipped. They mounted at once, but Yakub had to help Penrod into the saddle and he was almost unseated as the animal lurched to its feet. Yakub took him on the lead rein and led the little caravan through the mud of the almost dry canal and into the desert beyond. There he goaded the camels onwards and they paced away, keeping the river in sight on their left-hand side. Within the first mile, Penrod lost his balance and slipped sideways out of the saddle. He hit the ground heavily and lay for a while like a dead man. They dismounted and helped him back into the saddle.
‘I will hold him,’ Amber told Yakub. She climbed up, s
at behind Penrod and placed both arms round his waist to steady him. They went on for hours without a halt, until in the first light of dawn they picked out the shape of the lagoon ahead in the river mist. There was no sign of the steamer out on the open water.
On the edge of the reed bed Yakub reined in his camel and stood upright on his saddle. He sang out over the lagoon in a high wail that would carry for a mile. ‘In God’s Name, is there no man or jinnee who hears me?’
Almost immediately, from close by in the reeds, a jinnee replied in a broad Scots burr: ‘Och, aye, laddie! I hear you.’ Jock McCrump had camouflaged his steamer with cut reeds so that it was almost invisible from the bank of the lagoon. As soon as they had turned the camels loose and were safely aboard he reversed the old Ibis, now the Wisdom of the Skies, out into the open water and turned her bows eastwards for Roseires, almost two hundred miles upstream. Then he came down to the cabin where Penrod was stretched out on the bunk with Amber anointing his blisters and bruises with the lotion that Nazeera had provided. ‘And now you’ll be expecting me to make you a cuppa tea, I hae nae doot,’ said Jock, morosely. It was Darjeeling Orange Pekoe, with condensed milk, and Penrod had never tasted anything so heavenly. He fell asleep immediately after he had downed a third mug, and did not wake again until they were a hundred miles upriver from Khartoum, and beyond the pursuit of even the swiftest camels of Osman Atalan’s aggagiers.
When he opened his eyes Amber was still sitting at the end of his bunk, but she was so engrossed in reading her father’s bulky journal that for some time she did not realize he was awake. Penrod studied her countenance as the emotions that her father’s writing evoked flitted across it. He saw now that she had become far and away the beauty of the trio of Benbrook girls.
Suddenly she looked at him, smiled and closed the journal. ‘How are you feeling now? You have slept for ten hours without moving.’
‘I’m a great deal better, thanks to you and Yakub.’ He paused. ‘Rebecca?’