River god tes-1

by Wilbur Smith

  'Taita!' Tanus called back at me. 'Are you all right?' He had paused on the brow of the slope, and was looking back anxiously. Memnon had crossed over and was out of sight.

  'I am arrowed!' I yelled back. 'Go on and leave me. I cannot follow.'

  Without a moment's hesitation, Tanus turned back, and came leaping down towards where I lay. The Ethiopian chieftain saw him coming and bellowed a challenge. He . drew the glittering blue sword and brandished it as he came on up the hillside.

  Tanus reached the spot where I sat, and tried to lift me to my feet. 'It's no use. I am hard hit. Save yourself,' I told him, but the Ethiopian was almost upon us. Tanus dropped my arm, and drew his own sword.

  The two of them came together, going for each other in a murderous rush. I was not in any doubt as to the outcome of this duel, for Tanus was the strongest and most skilled swordsman in all Egypt. When he killed the Ethiopian, we would all be doomed, for we could expect no mercy from his henchmen.

  The Ethiopian swung first with a full-blooded overhand cut at Tanus' head. It was an imprudent stroke to aim at a swordsman of his opponent's calibre. I knew that Tanus' response would be a parry in the line of the head and a natural riposte, with all the momentum of his shoulder behind it, that would drive the point through the chieftain's beard and into his throat. It was one of Tanus' favourite strokes.

  The two blades met, but there was no ringing clash. The blue blade hacked clean through Tanus' yellow bronze, as though it were a wand of green willow. Tanus was left with the hilt in his hand and a finger's-length remaining from that once long and deadly bronze blade.

  Tanus was stunned by the ease with which the Ethiopian had disarmed him, and he was slow to defend himself from the next stroke that followed like a thunderbolt. He leaped backwards just in time, but the blue point opened a long, shallow cut across the bulging muscles of his naked chest, and the blood came swiftly.

  'Run, Tanus!' I screamed. 'Or he will kill us both.'

  The Ethiopian went for him again, but I was lying in the middle of the narrow path. He was forced to leap over me to get at Tanus. I seized him around the knees with both arms, and brought him down on top of me in a snarling, thrashing heap.

  The Ethiopian was trying to drive the point of the blue sword into my belly, as I lay under him, and I twisted so violently aside that both of us rolled off the path and began to slide away down the steep slope of loose scree. As we rolled more swiftly, gathering momentum, I had one last glimpse of Tanus peering down over the edge of the path, and I screamed in a despairing wail, 'Run! Take care of Memnon!'

  The shale and loose scree were as treacherous as swamp quicksands, and gave no anchor or purchase. The Ethiopian and I were flung apart, but both of us were carried to the edge of the torrent. I was battered and hammered to the edge of consciousness, and lay there groaning until rough hands dragged me to my feet, and blows and harsh curses rained upon my head.

  The chieftain stopped them from killing me and throwing my body into the river. He was covered with dust, as I was, and his robe was torn and filthy from the fall, but the blue sword was still gripped in his right fist and he snarled at his men. They began to drag me away towards the encampment, but I looked around me desperately and saw my medicine chest amongst the rocks. The leather harness had snapped, and it had come off my back.

  'Bring that,' I ordered my captors with as much force and dignity as I could muster, and pointed to the chest. They laughed at my insolence, but the chieftain sent one of his men to retrieve it.

  Two men were obliged to support me, for the shaft in my thigh was beginning to cause me crippling pain. Every pace back to the camp was agony, and when they reached it, they threw me roughly to the ground in the open space in the centre of the ring of tents.

  Then they argued long and fiercely. It was obvious that they were puzzling over my origins and my motives, and trying to decide what they should do with me. Every once in a while, one of them would stand over me and kick me in the ribs, while he shouted questions at me. I lay as quietly as I could, so as not to provoke further violence.

  There was a distraction when the party that had pursued Tanus and Memnon returned empty-handed. There was more shouting and arm-waving as bitter recriminations and insults were exchanged. I was cheered by the thought that the two of them had got clean away.

  After a while my captors remembered me, and they came back to vent their frustration on me with more kicks and blows. In the end their chieftain called them off, and ordered them not to torment me further. After that, most of them lost interest in me and wandered away. I was left lying on the bare ground, covered with dirt and bruises, with the arrow still lodged in my flesh.

  The Ethiopian chieftain resumed his seat in front of the largest tent, which was clearly his own, and while he stropped the edge of his sword, he regarded me with a steady but inscrutable expression. Occasionally he exchanged a few low words with one of his men, but it seemed that my immediate danger was past.

  I judged my moment carefully, and then addressed him directly. I pointed to my medicine chest, which had been thrown against one of the tents, and I made my voice mild and placatory. 'I need my chest. I must tend this wound.'

  Although the chieftain did not understand the words, he understood my gestures. He ordered one of his men to bring the chest across to him. He made them set it down in front of him and opened the lid. He unpacked the chest methodically, examining each separate item. Anything that particularly caught his attention he held up, and asked a question to which I tried to give an answer with signs.

  He seemed satisfied that, apart from my scalpels, the chest contained no dangerous weapon. I am not sure if he realized at this stage that these were medical items. However, with signs I showed him what I needed to do, pointing to my leg and making a pantomime of pulling the arrow. He stood over me with the sword in his hand, and made it clear that he would lop off my head at the first sign of treachery, but he allowed me to use my instruments.

  The arrow had entered at an angle and position which made it awkward for me to reach. In addition to this, the pain that I inflicted upon myself, as I used the Taita spoons to trap and mask the barbs that were buried deep in my flesh, brought me more than once to the point of fainting away.

  I was panting and drenched in sheets of sweat when at last I was ready to draw the arrow-head. By this time I had an audience of half the men in camp. They had returned to crowd around me and watch my surgery with garrulous interest.

  I took a firm hold on the handles of the spoons, placed a wooden wedge between my teeth and bit down on it hard, and drew the clamped arrow-head out of the wound. There were shouts of wonder and amazement from my audience. Obviously none of them had ever seen a barb drawn with such ease and with so little damage to the victim. They were impressed even further when they watched the skill and dexterity with which I laid on the linen bandages.

  In any nation and in any culture, even the most primitive, the healer and the physician have a special place of honour and esteem. I had demonstrated my credentials in the most convincing manner, and my status in the Ethiopian camp was drastically altered.

  At the orders of the chief, I was carried to one of the tents and laid on a straw mattress. My medicine chest was placed at the head of my bed, and one of the women brought me a meal of corn-bread and chicken stew and thick sour milk.

  In the morning, when the tents were struck, I was placed in a pole-litter behind one of the horses in the long caravan, and pulled along the rough and precipitous tracks. To my dismay, I saw from the angle of the sun that we were headed back into the fastness of the mountains, and I feared that I was lost to my own people, probably for all time. The fact that I was a physician had probably saved my life, but it had also placed such value on me that I would never be turned free. I knew that I was now a slave in more than name alone.

  DESPITE THE JOLTING OF THE LITTER, MY leg began to heal cleanly. This further impressed my captors, and soon they were bringing to me a
ny member of the band who was sick or injured.

  I cured a ringworm and lanced a whitlow under a thumbnail. I sewed together a man who had won too much gambling with his quick-tempered friends. These Ethiopians had a penchant for settling arguments with the dagger. When one of the horses threw its rider down a gul-ley, I set his broken arm. It knitted straight, and my reputation was enhanced. The Ethiopian chieftain looked at me with a new respect, and I was offered the food-bowl after he had made his selection of the choice cuts, before any of the other men were allowed to eat.

  When* my leg had healed sufficiently for me to walk again, I was given the run of the camp. However, I was not allowed out of sight. An armed man followed me and stood over me, even when I was on the most private and intimate business amongst the rocks.

  I was kept away from Masara and only saw her from afar at the start of each day's journey, and again when we camped for the night. During the long day's ride through the mountains we were separated; I rode near the head of the caravan, while she was brought along at the rear. She was always accompanied by her female gaolers, and usually surrounded by armed guards.

  Whenever we did catch sight of each other, Masara cast the most desperate and appealing looks at me, as though I would be able to help her in some way. It was obvious that she was a prisoner of rank and of importance. She was such a lovely young woman that I often found myself thinking of her during the day, and trying to fathom the reason for her captivity. I decided she was either an unwilling bride, being taken to meet her future husband, or that she was a pawn in some political intrigue.

  Without a knowledge of the language I could not hope to understand what was taking place, or to learn anything about these Ethiopians. I set out to learn the Geez tongue.

  I have the ear of a musician, and I played my tricks upon them. I listened attentively to all the chatter around me, and picked up the cadence and the rhythm of their speech. Very early on, I was able to deduce that the chieftain's name was Arkoun. One morning before the caravan set out, Arkoun was giving orders for the day's march to his assembled band. I waited until he had delivered a long and heated harangue, and then I repeated it in precisely the same tone and cadence.

  They listened to me in stunned silence, and then burst into uproar. They roared with laughter and beat each other on the back, tears of mirth streamed down their cheeks, for they had a direct and uncomplicated sense of humour. I had not the least idea what I had said, but it was obvious that I had got it exactly right.

  They shouted excerpts from my speech at each other, and wagged their heads, mimicking Arkoun's pompous manner. It took a long time for order to be restored, but at last Arkoun strutted up to me and shouted an accusatory question at me. I did not understand a word of it, but I shouted the same question back at him, word for exact word.

  This time there was pandemonium. The joke of it was too rich to be borne. Grown men clung to each other for support, they screamed and wiped their streaming eyes. One of them fell into the fire and singed his beard.

  Even though the joke was on him, Arkoun laughed along with them and patted me on the back. From then onwards, every man and woman in the camp was my teacher. I had only to point at any object and the Geez word for it was shouted at me. When I began to string those words into sentences, they corrected me eagerly, and were inordinately proud of my progress.

  It took me some time to fathom the grammar. The verbs were declined in a manner which had no relationship to Egyptian, and the gender and plurals of the nouns were strange. However, within ten days I was speaking intelligible Geez, and had even built up a good selection of choice curses and invective.

  While I learned the language and treated their ailments, I studied their mores and manners. I learned that they were inveterate gamblers, and that the board-game that they played endlessly was a passion. They called it dom, but it was a simplified and rudimentary form of bao. The number of cups in the board and the quantity of stones brought into play varied from bao. However, all the objects and the principles were similar.

  Arkoun himself was the dom champion of the band, but as I studied his play, I saw that he had no inkling of the classic rule of seven stones. Nor did he understand the protocol of the four bulls. Without a thorough knowledge of these, no bao player could aspire to even the lowly third grade of masters. I debated with myself the risk that I would run in humiliating such a vain and overbearing tyrant as Arkoun, but in the end I decided that it was the only way to gain ascendancy over him.

  The next time he sat in front of his tent and set up the board, smirking and twirling his moustaches as he waited for a challenger to step forward, I elbowed aside the first aspirant and settled myself cross-legged opposite Arkoun.

  'I have no silver to wager,' I told him in my still rudimentary Geez. 'I play for love of the stones.'

  He nodded gravely. As an addict of the board, he understood that sentiment. The news that I was taking the board against Arkoun ran through the camp, and they all came laughing and jostling to watch.

  When I allowed Arkoun to lay three stones in the east castle they nudged each other and chuckled with disappointment that the game would be so swiftly lost. One more stone in the east, and the board was his. They did not understand the significance of the four bulls that I had banked in the south. When I loosed my bulls, they strode invincibly across the board, splitting his unsupported stones and isolating the east castle. He was powerless to prevent it. Four moves and the board was mine. I had not even been called upon to demonstrate the rule of seven stones.

  For some moments they all sat in shocked silence. I do not think that Arkoun realized the extent of his defeat for a while. Then, when it sank in upon him, he stood up and drew the terrible blue sword. I thought that I had miscalculated, and that he was about to lop my head, or at least an arm.

  He lifted the sword high and then swung it down with a shout of fury. With a dozen strokes he hacked the board to kindling and scattered the stones about the camp. Then he strode out into the rocks, tearing his beard and shouting my death threats to the towering cliffs, that hurled them onwards down the valleys in a series of diminishing echoes.

  It was three days before Arkoun set up the board again, and gestured to me to take my seat opposite him. The poor fellow had no inkling of what lay in store for him.

  EACH DAY MY COMMAND OF THE GEEZ language increased, and I was at last able to glean some understanding of my captor and the reason for this long journey through the canyons and gorges.

  I had underrated Arkoun. He was not a chieftain but a king. His full name was Arkoun Gannouchi Maryam, Negusa Naghast, King of Kings and ruler of the Ethiopic state of Aksum. It was only later that I learned that in this land any mountain brigand with a hundred horses and fifty wives was likely to set himself up as a king, and that at any one time there might be as many as twenty Kings of Kings on the rampage for land and loot.

  Arkoun's nearest neighbour was one Prester Beni-Jon, also claiming to be King of Kings and ruler of the Ethiopic state of Aksum. There appeared to be a certain amount of ill-feeling and rivalry between these two monarchs. They had already fought a number of inconclusive battles.

  Masara was the favourite daughter of Prester Beni-Jon. She had been kidnapped by one of the other robber chieftains, one of those who had not yet crowned himself, nor taken the obligatory title of King of Kings. In a straightforward trading arrangement, Masara had been sold to Arkoun for a horse-load of silver bars. Arkoun intended using her to gain political ground from her doting father. It seemed that hostage-taking and ransom were very much a part of Ethiopian statesmanship.

  Not trusting any of his own men with such a valuable commodity, Arkoun had gone himself to take possession of Princess Masara. Our caravan was carrying her back to Arkoun's stronghold. I gathered this and other information from the gossipy women slaves who brought me my meals, or in casual conversation over the dom board. By the time we reached Amba Kamara, the mountain fortress of King Arkoun Gannouchi Maryam, I was a
n expert on the complicated and shifting politics of the various Ethiopic states of Aksum, and the numerous claimants to the throne of the empire.

  I was aware of an increasing excitement running through our caravan as we approached our journey's end, and at last we climbed the narrow winding pathway, no more than just another goat-track, to the summit of yet another amba. These ambas were the massifs that made up the mountain ranges of central Ethiopia. Each of them was a flat-topped mountain with sheer sides that plunged like a wall into the valley that divided it from the next mountain.

  It was easy to see, when I stood at the top of the precipice, how the land was fragmented into so many tiny kingdoms and principalities. Each amba was a natural and impregnable fortress. The man on top of it was invincible, and might call himself a king without fear of being challenged.

  Arkoun rode up beside me and pointed to the mountains on the southern sky-line. 'That is the hiding-place of that horse-thief and scoundrel, Prester Beni-Jon. He is a man of unsurpassed treachery.' He hawked in his throat and spat over the edge of the cliff in the direction of his rival.

  I had come to know Arkoun as a man of not inconsiderable cruelty and treachery himself. If he conceded Prester Beni-Jon as his master in these fields, Masara's father must be a formidable man indeed.

  We crossed the tableland of the Amba Kamara, passing through a few villages of stone-walled hovels, and fields of sorghum and dhurra corn. The peasants in the fields were all tall, bushy-haired ruffians, armed with swords and round copper shields. They appeared as fierce and warlike as any of the men in our caravan.

  At the far end of the amba, the path led us to the most extraordinary natural stronghold that I had ever seen. From the main table of the mountain a buttress had eroded until it stood alone, a sheer pinnacle of rock with precipitous sides, separated from the table by an awe-inspiring abyss.