by Wilbur Smith
She visited Duraid’s family. She had to make amends to them for her sudden departure and her long, unexplained absence. At first her brother-in-law was cool and stiff towards her; but after his wife had wept and embraced Royan and the children had clambered all over her—she was always their favourite ammah—he warmed to her and relented sufficiently to offer to drive her out to the oasis. When she explained that she wanted to be alone when she visited the cemetery, he unbent so far as to lend her his beloved Citroën.
As she stood beside Duraid’s grave the smell of the desert filled her nostrils and the hot breeze fidgeted with her hair. Duraid had loved the desert. She was glad for him that from now onwards he would always be close to it. The headstone was simple and traditional: just his name and dates under the outline of the cross. She knelt beside it and tidied the grave, renewing the wilted and dried bouquets of flowers with those that she had brought with her from Cairo.
Then she sat quietly beside him for a long while. She made no rehearsed speeches, but simply ran over in her mind so many of the good quiet times they had passed together. She remembered his kindness and his understanding, and the security and warmth of his love for her. She regretted that she had never been able to return it in the same measure, but she knew that he had accepted and understood that.
She hoped that he also understood why she had come back now. This was a leave-taking. She had come to say goodbye. She had mourned him and, although she would always remember him and he would always be a part of her, it was time for her to move on. It was time for him to let her go. When at last she left the cemetery, she walked away without looking back.
She took the long road around the south side of the lake to avoid having to pass the burnt-out villa; she did not wish to be reminded of that night of horror on which Duraid had died there. It was therefore after dark when she returned to the city, and the family were relieved to see her. Her brother-in-law walked three times around the Citroën, checking for damage to the paintwork, before ushering her into the house where his wife had set a feast for them.
* * *
Atalan Abou Sin, the minister whom Royan had come specifically to see, was out of Cairo on an official visit to Paris. She had three days to wait for his return, and because she knew that Nahoot Guddabi was no longer in Cairo, she felt safe and able to spend much of that time at the museum. She had many friends there, and they were delighted to see her and to bring her up to date with all that had happened during the time that she had been away.
The rest of the time she spent in the museum reading room, going over the microfilm of the Taita scrolls, searching for any clues that she might have missed in her previous readings. There was a section of the second scroll which she read carefully and from which she made extensive notes. Now that the prospect of finding the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose intact had become real and credible, her interest in what that tomb might contain had been stimulated.
The section of the scroll upon which she concentrated was a description that the scribe, Taita, had given of a royal visit by the Pharaoh to the workshops of the necropolis, where his funerary treasure was being manufactured and assembled within the walls of the great temple that he had built for his own embalming. According to Taita they had visited the separate workshops, first the armoury with its collection of accoutrements of the battlefield and the chase, and then the furniture workshop, home of exquisite workmanship. In the studio of the sculptors, Taita described the work on the statues of the gods and the life-sized images of the king in every different activity of his life that would line the long causeway from the necropolis to the tomb in the Valley of the Kings. In this workshop the masons were also hard at work on the massive granite sarcophagus which would house the king’s mummy over the ages. However, according to Taita’s later account history had cheated Pharaoh Mamose of this part of his treasure, and all these heavy and unwieldy items of stone had been abandoned and left behind in the Valley of the Kings when the Egyptians fled south along the Nile to the land they called Cush, to escape the Hyksos invasion that overwhelmed their homeland.
As Royan turned with more attention to the scribe’s description of the studio of the goldsmiths, the phrase which he used to describe the golden death-mask of the Pharaoh struck her forcibly. “This was the peak and the zenith. All the unborn ages might one day marvel at its splendour.” Royan looked up dreamily from the microfilm and wondered if those words of the ancient scribe were not prophetic. Was she destined to be one of those who would marvel at the splendour of the golden death-mask? Might she be the first to do so in almost four thousand years? Might she touch this wonder, take it up in her hands and at last do with it as her conscience dictated?
Reading Taita’s account left Royan with a sense of ancient suffering, and a feeling of compassion for the people of those times. They were, after all—no matter how far removed in time—her own people. As a Coptic Egyptian, she was one of their direct descendants. Perhaps this empathy was the main reason why, even as a child, she had originally determined to make her life’s work a study of these people and the old ways.
However, she had much else to think of during those days of waiting for the return of Atalan Abou Sin. Not least of these were her feelings for Nicholas Quenton-Harper. Since she had visited the little cemetery at the oasis and made her peace with Duraid’s memory, her thoughts of Nicholas had taken on a new poignancy. There was so much she was still uncertain of, and there were so many difficult choices to make. It was not possible to fulfil all her plans and desires without sacrificing others almost equally demanding.
When at last the hour of her appointment to see Atalan came around, she had difficulty bringing herself to go to him. Like somebody in a trance she limped through the bazaars, using her stick to protect her injured knee, hardly hearing the merchants calling their wares to her. From her skin tone and European clothing they presumed she must be a tourist.
She hesitated so long over taking this irrevocable step that she was almost an hour late for the appointment. Fortunately this was Egypt, and Atalan was an Arab to whom time did not have the same significance as it did to the Western part of Royan’s make-up.
He was his usual urbane and charming self. Today, in the privacy of his own office, he was comfortably dressed in a white dishdasha and a headcloth. He shook hands with her warmly. If this had been London he might have kissed her cheek, but not here in the East where a man never kissed any woman but his wife and then only in the privacy of their home.
He led her through to his private sitting room, where his male secretary served them small cups of tar-thick coffee and lingered to preserve the propriety of this meeting. After an exchange of compliments and the obligatory interval of polite small-talk, Royan could come obliquely to the main reason for her visit.
“I have spent much of the last few days at the museum, working in the reading room. I managed to see many of my old colleagues there, and I was surprised to hear that Nahoot had withdrawn his application for the post of director.”
Atalan sighed. “My nephew is a headstrong boy at times. The job was his, but at the very last moment he came to tell me that he had been offered another in Germany. I tried to dissuade him. I told him that he would not enjoy the northern climate after being brought up in the Nile valley. I told him that there are many things in life such as country and family that no amount of money can recompense. But—” Atalan spread his hands in an eloquent gesture.
“So who have you chosen to fill the post of director?” she asked with an innocence that did not deceive him.
“We have not yet made any permanent appointment. Nobody automatically comes to mind, now that Nahoot has withdrawn. Perhaps we will be forced to advertise internationally. I for one would be very sad to see it go to a foreigner, no matter how well qualified.”
“Your excellency, may I speak to you in private?” Royan asked, and glanced significantly at the male secretary hovering at the doorway. Atalan hesitated only a moment.
“O
f course.” He gestured to the secretary to leave the room, and when he had withdrawn and closed the door behind him Atalan leaned towards her and dropped his voice slightly. “What is it that you wish to discuss, my dear lady?”
It was an hour later that Royan left him. He walked with her as far as the lift outside his suite of offices.
As he shook hands his voice was low and mellifluous. “We will meet again soon, inshallah.”
* * *
When the Egyptair flight landed at Heathrow and Royan left the airport arrivals hall for a place in the queue at the taxi rank outside, it seemed that the temperature difference from Cairo was at least fifteen degrees. Her train arrived at York in the damp misty cold of late afternoon. From the railway station she phoned the number that Nicholas had given her.
“You silly girl,” he scolded her. “Why didn’t you let me know you were on your way? I would have met you at the airport.”
She was surprised at how pleased she was to see him, and at how much she had missed him, as she watched him step out of the Range Rover and come striding towards her on those long legs. He was bare-headed and obviously had not subjected himself to a haircut since she had last seen him. His dark hair was rumpled and wind-tossed and the silver wings fluffed over his ears.
“How’s the knee?” he greeted her. “Do you still need to be carried?”
“Almost better now. Nearly time to throw away the stick.” She felt a sudden urge to throw her arms around his neck, but at the last moment she prevented herself from making a display and merely offered him a cold, rosy brown cheek to kiss. He smelt good—of leather and some spicy aftershave, and of clean virile manhood.
In the driver’s seat he delayed starting the engine for a moment, and studied her face in the street light that streamed in through the side window.
“You look mighty pleased with yourself, madam. Cat been at the cream?”
“Just pleased to see old friends,” she smiled, “but I must admit Cairo is always a tonic.”
“No supper laid on. Thought we would stop at a pub. Do you fancy steak and kidney pud?”
“I want to see my mother. I feel so guilty. I don’t even know how her leg is mending.”
“Popped in to see her day before yesterday. She’s doing fine. Loving the new puppy. Named it Taita, would you believe?”
“You are really a very kind person—I mean, taking the trouble to visit her.”
“I like her. One of the good old ones. They don’t build them like that any more. I suggest we have a bite to eat, and then I will pick up a bottle of Laphroaig and we will go and see her.”
It was after midnight when they left Georgina’s cottage. She had dispensed rough frontier justice to the malt whisky that Nicholas had brought and now she waved them off, standing in the kitchen doorway, clutching her new puppy to her ample bosom and teetering slightly on her plaster-cast leg.
“You are a bad influence on my mother,” Royan told him.
“Who’s a bad influence on whom?” he protested. “Some of those jokes of hers turned the Stilton a richer shade of blue.”
“You should have let me stay with her.”
“She has Taita to keep her company now. Besides, I need you close at hand. Plenty of work to do. I can’t wait to show you what I have been up to since you went swanning off to Egypt.”
The Quenton Park housekeeper had prepared her a bedroom in the flat in the lanes behind York Minster.
As Nicholas carried her bags up the stairs rip-saw snoring came from behind the door of the bedroom on the second landing, and she looked at Nicholas enquiringly.
“Sapper Webb,” he told her. “Latest addition to the team. Our own engineer. You will meet him tomorrow, and I think you will like him. He is a fisherman.”
“What’s that got to do with me liking him?”
“All the best people are fishermen.”
“Present company excluded,” she laughed. “Are you staying at Quenton Park?”
“Giving the house a wide berth, for the time being.” He shook his head. “Don’t want it bruited about that I am back in England. There are some fellows from Lloyd’s that I would rather not speak to at the moment. I will be in the small bedroom on the top floor. Call if you need me.”
When she was alone she looked around the tiny chintzy room with its own doll’s house bathroom, and the double bed that took up most of the floor area. She remembered his remark about calling if she needed him, and she looked up at the ceiling just as she heard him drop one of his shoes on the floor.
“Don’t tempt me,” she whispered. The smell of him lingered in her nostrils, and she remembered the feel of his lean hard body, moist with sweat, pressed against hers as he had carried her up out of the Abbay gorge. Hunger and need were two words she had not thought of for many years. They were starting to loom too large in her existence.
“Enough of that, my girl,” she chided herself, and went to run a bath.
* * *
Nicholas pounded on her door the next morning on his way downstairs.
“Come along, Royan. Life is real. Life is urgent.”
It was still pitch dark outside, and she groaned softly and asked, “What time is it?” But he was gone, and faintly she could hear him whistling “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” somewhere downstairs.
She checked her watch and groaned again. “Whistling at six-thirty, after what he and Mummy did to the Laphroaig last night. I don’t believe it. The man is truly a monster.”
Twenty minutes later she found him in a dark blue fisherman’s sweater and jeans and a butcher’s apron, working in the kitchen.
“Slice toast for three, there’s a love.” He gestured towards the brown loaf that lay beside the electric toaster. “Omelettes coming up in five minutes.”
She looked at the other man in the room. He was middle-aged, with wide shoulders and sleeves rolled up high around muscular biceps, and he was as bald as a cannonball.
“Hello,” she said, “I am Royan Al Simma.”
“Sorry.” Nicholas waved the egg-whisk. “This is Danny—Daniel Webb, known as Sapper to his friends.”
Danny stood up with a cup of coffee in his big competent-looking fist. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Al Simma. May I pour you a cup of coffee?” The top of his head was freckled, and she noticed how blue his eyes were.
“Dr. Al Simma,” Nicholas corrected him.
“But please call me Royan,” she cut in quickly, “and yes, I’d love a cup.”
There was no mention of Ethiopia or Taita’s game during breakfast, and Royan ate her omelette and listened respectfully to a passionate dissertation on how to catch sail fish on a fly rod from Sapper, while Nicholas heckled him mercilessly, calling into question almost every statement he made. Very obviously they had a good relationship, and she supposed she would become accustomed to all the angling jargon.
As soon as breakfast was over, Nicholas stood up with the coffee pot in one hand. “Bring your mugs, and follow me.”
He led Royan to the front sitting room. “I have a surprise for you. My people up at the museum worked round the clock to get it ready for you.”
He threw open the door of the sitting room, with an imitation of a trumpet flourish, “Tarantara!”
On the centre table stood a fully mounted model of the striped dik-dik, crowned with the pricked horns and clad in the skin that Nicholas had smuggled back from Africa. It was so realistic that for a moment she expected it to leap off the table and dash away as she walked towards it.
“Oh, Nicky. It’s beautifully done!” She circled it appraisingly. “The artist has captured it exactly.”
The model brought back to her vividly the heat and smell of the bush in the gorge, and she felt a twinge of nostalgia and sadness for the delicate, beautiful creature. Its glass eyes were deceptively lifelike and bright, and the end of its proboscis looked wet and gleaming as though it was about to wiggle it and sniff the air.
“I think it’s splendid. Glad you agree
with me.” He stroked the soft, smooth hide. She felt this was not the moment to spoil his boyish pleasure. “As soon as we have sorted out Taita’s puzzle, I intend writing a paper on it for the Natural History Museum, the same lads that called Great-grandpapa a liar. Restore the family honour.” He laughed and spread a dust-sheet over the model. Carefully he lifted it down from the table and placed it safely in a corner of the room where it was out of harm’s way.
“That was the first surprise I had saved up for you. But now for the big one.” He pointed to a sofa against one wall. “Take a seat. I don’t want you to be bowled over by this.”
She smiled at his nonsense, but went obediently to the furthest end of the sofa and curled her legs under her as she settled there. Sapper Webb came to sit awkwardly at the other end, obviously uncomfortable at being so close to her.
“Let’s talk about how we are going to get into the chasm on the Dandera river,” Nicholas suggested. “Sapper and I have talked about nothing else the whole time that you have been away.”
“That and catching fish, I’ll warrant.” She grinned at him, and he looked guilty.
“Well, both subjects involve water. That is my justification.” His expression became serious. “You recall that we discussed the idea of exploring the depths of Taita’s pool with scuba gear, and I explained the difficulties.”
“I remember,” she agreed. “You said the pressure into the underwater opening was too great, and that we would have to find another method of getting in there.”
“Correct.” Nicholas smiled mysteriously. “Well, Sapper here has already earned the exorbitant fee that I have promised him—promised, I emphasize, not yet paid. He has come up with the alternative method.”