by Wilbur Smith
into the study. The back of Duraid's head bounced loosely on the stone
step at the threshold and his blood painted a long wet skid mark across
the tiles that glistened in the torchlight.
"Get the lamp!" Bacheet ordered, and Yusuf went back to the terrace and
fetched the oil lamp from where Duraid had dropped it. The flame was
extinguished. Bacheet held the lamp to his ear and shook it.
"Full," he said with satisfaction, and unscrewed the filler cap. "All
right," he told the other two, take the bag out to the car."
As they hurried out Bacheet sprinkled paraffin from the lamp over
Duraid's shirt and trousers, and then he went to the shelves and
splashed the remainder of the fuel over the books and manuscripts that
crowded them.
He dropped the empty lamp and reached under the skirts of his dishdasha
for a box of matches. He struck one of them and held it to the wet run
of paraffin oil down the bookcase. It caught immediately, and flames
spread upwards and curled and blackened the edges of the manuscripts. He
turned away and went back to where Duraid lay. He struck another match
and dropped it on to his blood- and paraffindrenched shirt.
A mantle of blue flames danced over Duraid's chest.
The flames changed colour as they burned into the cotton material and
the flesh beneath it. They turned orange, and sooty smoke spiralled up
from their flickering crests.
Bacheet ran to the door, across the terrace and down the steps. As he
clambered into the rear seat of the Fiat, the driver gunned the engine
and pulled away down the driveway.
Durid drifted. He groaned. The first thing he was aware of as he
regained consciousness was the smell of his own flesh burning, and then
the agony struck him with full force. A violent tremor shook his whole
body and he opened his eyes and looked down at himself.
His clothing was blackening and smouldering, and the pain was as nothing
he had ever experienced in his entire life. He realized in a vague way
that the room was on fire all around him. Smoke and waves of heat washed
over him so that he could barely make out the shape of the doorway
through them.
The pain was so terrible that he wanted it to end. He wanted to die then
and not to have to endure it further.
Then he remembered Royan. He tried to say her name through his scorched
and blackened lips, but no sound came. Only the thought of her gave him
the strength to move. He rolled over once, and the heat attacked his
back that up until that moment had been shielded. He groaned aloud and
rolled again, just a little nearer to the doorway.
Each movement was a mighty effort and evoked fresh paroxysms of agony,
but when he rolled on to his back again he realized that a gale of fresh
air was being sucked through the open doorway to feed the flames. A
lungful Of the sweet desert air revived him and gave him just sufficient
strength to lunge down the step on to the cool stones of the terrace.
His clothes and his body were still on fire. He beat feebly at his chest
to try to extinguish the flames, but his hands were black burning claws.
Then he remembered the fishpond. The thought of plunging his tortured
body into that cold water spurred him he pain roused Duraid. It had to
be that intense to bring him back from that far place on the very edge
of life to which he had to one last effort, and he wriggled and wormed
his way across the flags like a snake with a crushed spine.
The pungent smoke from his still cremating flesh choked him and he
coughed weakly, but kept doggedly on.
He left slabs of his own grilled skin on the stone coping as he rolled
across it and flopped into the pond. There was a hiss of steam, and a
pale cloud of it obscured his vision so that for a moment he thought he
was blinded. The agony of cold water on his raw burned flesh was so
intense that he slid back over the edge of consciousness.
When he came back to reality through the dark clouds he raised his
dripping head and saw a figure staggering up the steps at the far end of
the terrace, coming from the garden.
For a moment he thought it was a phantom of his agony, but when the
light of the burning villa fell full upon her, he recognized Royan. Her
wet hair hung in tangled disarray over her face, and her clothing was
torn and running with lake water and stained with mud and green algae.
Her right arm was wrapped in muddy rags and her blood oozed through,
diluted pink by the dirty water.
She did not see him. She stopped in the centre of the terrace and stared
in horror into the burning room. Was Duraid in there? She started
forward, but the heat was like a solid wall and it stopped her dead. At
that moment the roof collapsed, sending a roaring column of sparks and
flames high into the night sky. She backed away from it, shielding her
face with a raised arm.
Duraid tried to call to her, but no sound issued from his smoke-scorched
throat. Royan turned away and started down the steps. He realized that
she must be going to call for help. Duraid made a supreme effort and a
crow-like croak came out between his black and blistered lips.
Royan spun round and stared at him, and then she screamed. His head was
not human. His hair was gone, frizzled away, and his skin hung in
tatters from his cheeks and chin. Patches of raw meat showed through the
black crusted mask. She backed away from him as though he were some
hideous monster.
"Royan," he croaked, and his voice was just recognizable. He lifted one
hand towards her in appeal, and she ran to the pond and seized the
outstretched hand.
"In the name of the Virgin, what have they done to you?" she sobbed, but
when she tried to pull him from the pond the skin of his hand came away
in hers in a single piece, like some horrible surgical rubber glove,
leaving the bleeding claw naked and raw.
Royan fell on her knees beside the coping and leaned over the pond to
take him in her arms. She knew that she did not have the strength to
lift him out without doing him further dreadful injury. All she could do
was hold him and try to comfort him. She realized that he was dying no
man could survive such fearsome injury.
"They will come soon to help us," she whispered to him in Arabic.
"Someone must see the flames. Be brave, my husband, help will come very
soon."
He was twitching and convulsing in her arms, tortured by his mortal
injuries and racked by the effort to speak.
"The scroll?" His voice was barely intelligible. Royan looked up at the
holocaust that enveloped their home, and she shook her head.
"It's gone," she said. "Burned or stolen."
"Don't give it up," he mumbled. "All our work-'
"It's gone," she repeated. "No one will believe us without-'
"No!" His voice was faint but fierce. "For me, my last---2 "Don't say
that," she pleaded. "You will be all right."
"Promise," he demanded. "Promise me!"
"We have no sponsor. I am alone. I cannot do it alone."
"Harper!" he said. Royan leaned closer so tha
t her ear touched his
fire-ravaged lips. "Harper," he repeated. "Strong hard - clever man-'
and she understood then. Harper, Of course, was the fourth and last name
on the list of sponsors that he had drawn up. Although he was the last
on the list, somehow she had always known that Duraid's order of
preference was inverted. Nicholas Quenton Harper was his first choice.
He had spoken so often of this man with respect and warmth, and
sometimes even with awe.
"But what do I tell him? He does not know me. How will I convince him?
The seventh scroll is gone."
"Trust him," he whispered. "Good man. Trust him-' There was a terrible
appeal in his "Promise me!'
Then she remembered the notebook in their flat at Giza in the Cairo
suburbs, and the Taita material on the hard drive on her PC. Not
everything was gone. "Yes," she agreed, "I promise you, my husband, I
promise you."
Though those mutilated features could show no human expression there was
a faint echo of satisfaction in his voice as he whispered, "My flower!"
Then his head dropped forward, and he died in her arms.
The peasants from the village found Royan still kneeling beside the
pond, holding him, whispering to him. By that time the flames were
abating, and the faint light of dawn was stronger than their fading
glow.
The staff from the museum and the Antiquities were at the funeral the
church of the oasis. Even Atalan Abou Sin, the Minister of Culture and
Tourism and Duraid's superior, had come out from Cairo in his official
black air-conditioned Mercedes.
He stood behind Royan and, though he was a Moslem, joined in the
responses. Nahoot Guddabi stood beside his uncle. Nahoot's mother was
the minister's youngest sister, which, as Duraid had sarcastically
pointed out, fully made up for the nephew's lack of qualifications and
experience in archaeology anj for his ineptitude as an administrator.
The day was sweltering. Outside, the temperature stood at over thirty
degrees, and even in the dim cloisters of the Coptic church it was
oppressive. In the thick clouds of incense smoke and the drone of the
black-clad priest intoning the ancient order of service Royan felt
herself suffocating. The stitches in her right arm pulled and burned,
and every time she looked at the long black coffin that stood in front
of the ornate and gilded altar, the dreadful vision of Duraid's bald and
scorched head rose before her eyes and she swayed'in her seat and had to
catch herself before she fell.
At last it was over and she could escape into the open air and the
desert sunlight. Even then her duties were not at an end. As principal
mourner, her place was directly behind the coffin as they walked in
procession to the cemetery amongst the palm groves, where Duraid's
relatives awaited him in the family mausoleum.
Before he returned to Cairo, Atalan Abou Sin came to shake her hand and
offer her a few words of condolence.
"What a terrible business, Royan. I have personally spoken to the
Minister of the Interior. They will catch the animals responsible for
this outrage, believe me. Please take as long as you need before you
return to the museum," he told her.
"I will be in my office again on Monday," she replied, and he drew a
pocket diary from inside the jacket of his dark double-breasted suit. He
consulted it and made a note, before he looked up at her again.
"Then come to see me at the Ministry in the afternoon.
Four 'clock," he told her. He went to the waiting Mercedes, while Nahoot
Guddabi came forward to shake hands. Though his skin was sallow and
there were coffeecoloured stains beneath his dark eyes, he was tall and
elegant with thick wavy hair and very white teeth. His suit was
impeccably tailored and he smelt faintly of an expensive cologne. His
expression was grave and sad.
"He was a good man. I held Duraid in the highest esteem," he told Royan,
and she nodded without replying to this blatant untruth. There had been
little affection between Duraid and his deputy. He had never allowed
Nahoot to work on the Taita scrolls; in particular he had never given
him access to the seventh scroll, and this had been a point of bitter
antagonism between them.
"I hope you will be applying for the post of director, Royan," he told
her. "You are well qualified for the job."
"Thank you, Nahoot, you are very kind. I haven't had a chance to think
about the future yet, but won't you be applying?"
"Of course," he nodded. "But that doesn't mean that no one else should.
Perhaps you will take the job out from in front of my nose." His smile
was complacent. She was a woman in an Arab world, and he was the nephew
of the minister. Nahoot knew just how heavily the odds favoured him.
"Friendly rivals?"he asked.
Royan smiled sadly. "Friends, at least. I will need all of those I can
find in the future."
"You know you have many friends. Everyone in the department likes you,
Royan." That at least was true, she supposed. He went on smoothly, "May
I offer you a lift back to Cairo? I am certain my uncle will not
object."
"Thank you, Nahoot, but I have my own car here, and I must stay over at
the oasis tonight to see to some of Duraid's affairs."This was not true.
Royan planned to travel back to the flat in Giza that evening but, for
reasons that she was not very sure of herself, she did not want Nahoot
to know of her plans.
"Then we shall see you at the museum on Monday." Royan left the oasis as
soon as she was able to escape from the relations and family friends and
peasants, so many of whom had worked for Duraid's family most of their
lives.
She felt numbed and isolated, so that all their condolences and
exhortations were meaningless and Without comfort.
Even at this late hour the tarmac road back through the desert was busy,
with files of vehicles moving steadily in both directions, for tomorrow
was Friday and the sabbath. She slipped her injured right arm out of the
sling, and it did not hamper her driving too much. She was able to make
reasonably good time. Nevertheless, it was after five in the afternoon
when she made out the green line against the tawny desolation of the
desert that marked the start of the narrow strip of irrigated and
cultivated land along the Nile which was the great artery of Egypt.
As always the traffic became denser the nearer she came to the capital,
and it was almost fully dark by the time she reached the apartment block
in Giza that overlooked both the river and those great monuments of
stone which stood so tall and massive against the evening sky, and which
for her epitomized the heart and history of her land.
She left Duraid's old green Renault in the underground garage of the
building and rode up in the elevator to the top floor.
She let herself into the flat and then froze in the doorway. The sitting
room had been ransacked - even the rugs had been pulled up and the
paintings ripped from the walls. In a daze she picked her way thro
ugh
the litter of broken furniture and smashed ornaments. She glanced into
the bedroom as she went down the passage, and saw that it had not
escaped. Her clothes and those of Duraid were strewn over the floor, and
the doors of the cupboards stood ajar. One of these was smashed off its
hinges. The bed was overturned, and the sheets and bolsters had been
flung about.
She could smell the reek of broken cosmetic and perfume bottles from the
bathroom, but she could not yet bring herself to go in there. She knew
what she would find.
Instead she continued down the passage to the large room that they had
used as a study and workshop.
In the chaos the first thing that she noticed and mourried was the
antique chess set that Duraid had given her as a wedding present. The
board of jet and ivory squares was broken in half and the pieces had
been thrown about the room with vindictive and unnecessary violence. She
stooped and picked up the white queen. Her head had been snapped off.
Holding the queen in her good hand she moved like a sleepwalker to her
desk below the window. Her PC was wrecked. They had shattered the screen
and hacked the mainframe with what must have been an axe. She could tell
at a glance that there was no information left on the hard drive; it was
beyond repair.
She glanced down at the drawer in which she kept her floppy disks. That
and all the other drawers had been pulled out and thrown on the floor.
They were empty, of course; along with the disks, all her notebooks and
photographs were missing. Her last connections with the seventh scroll
were lost. After three years of work, gone was the proof that it had
ever existed.
She stumped down on the floor, feeling beaten and exhausted. Her arm
started to ache again, and she was alone and vulnerable as she had never
been in her life before. She had never thought that she would miss
Duraid so desperately. Her shoulders began to shake and she felt the
tears welling up from deep within her. She tried to hold them back, but
they scalded her eyelids and she let them flow. She sat amongst the
wreckage of her life and wept until there was nothing more left within
her, and then she curled up on the littered carpet and fell, into the
sleep of exhaustion and despair.
the Monday morning she had managed to restore some order into her life.