by Wilbur Smith
up to much at the moment. Last year he suffered a terrible "personal
tragedy. Lost his wife and two little girls in a motor accident on the
MU He shook his head. "Awful business. Nicholas was driving. I think he
blames himself' He walked her out to the Land Rover.
"So we will see you on the twenty-third," he told Royan as they parted.
"I expect that you will have an audience of at least a hundred, and I
have even had a reporter from the Yorkshire Post on to me. They have
heard about your lectures and they want to do an interview with you.
jolly good publicity for the department. You'll do it, of course. Could
you come a couple of hours early to speak to them?"
"Actually I will probably see you before the twenty-third," she told
him. "Mummy and her dog are picking up at Quenton Park on Thursday, and
she has got me a job as a beater for the day."
"I'll keep an eye open for you," he promised, and waved to her as she
pulled away in a cloud of exhaust smoke.
The wind was searing cold out of the north.
The clouds tumbled over each other, heavy 6- and blue and grey, so close
to earth that they brushed the crests of the hills as they hurried ahead
of the gale.
Royan wore three layers of clothing under the old green Barbour jacket
that Georgina had lent her, but still she shivered as they came up over
the brow of the hills in the line of beaters. Her blood had thinned in
the heat of the Nile valley. Two pairs of fisherman's socks were not
enough to save her toes from turning numb.
For this drive, the last of the day, the head keeper had moved Georgina
from her usual position behind the line of guns, where she and Magic
were expected to pick up the crippled birds that came through to them,
into the line of beaters.
Keeping the best for last, they were beating the High Larches. The
keeper needed every man and woman he could get into the line to bring in
the pheasant from the huge piece of ground on top of the hills and to
push them off the brow, out over the valley where the guns waited at
their pegs far below.
It seemed to Royan a supreme piece of illogical behaviour to rear and
nurture the pheasants from chicks I and then, when they were mature, go
to such lengths to make them as difficult to shoot as the keeper could
devise.
However, Georgina had explained to her that the higher and harder to hit
the birds passed over the guns, the more pleased the Sportsmen were, and
the more they were willing to pay for the privilege of firing at them.
"You cannot believe what they will pay for a day's shooting,, Georgina
had told her. "Today will bring in almost 14,000 to the estate. They
will shoot twenty days this season. Work that out and you will see that
the shoot is a major part of the estate's income. Quite apart from the
fun of working the dogs and beating, it gives a lot of us local people a
very useful bit of extra money."
At this stage of the day, Royan was not too certain just how much fun
there was to he had from the job of beating. The walking was difficult
in the thick brambles, and Royan had slipped more than once. There was
mud on her knees and elbows. The ditch ahead of her was half filled with
water and there was a thin skin of ice across the surface. She
approached it gingerly, using her walking-stick to balance herself. She
was tired, for there had already been five drives, all as onerous as
this one. She glanced across at her mother and marvelled at how she
seemed to be enjoying this torture. Georgina strode along happily,
controlling Magic with her whistle and hand signals.
She grinned at Royan now, "Last lap, over." love. early Royan was
humiliated that her distress had-been so obvious, and she used her stick
to help her vault the muddy ditch. However, she miscalculated the width
and fell short of the far bank. She landed knee-deep in the frozen water
and it poured in over the top of her Wellington boots.
Georgina laughed at her and offered her the end of her Own stick to pull
her out of the glutinous mud. Royan could not hold up the line by
stopping to empty her flooded boots, so she went on, squelching loudly
with each pace.
"Steady on the left! the order from the head keeper was relayed over the
walkie-talkie radio, and the line halted obediently.
The art and skill of the keeper was to flush the birds from the tangled
undergrowth, not in one massed covey, but in a steady trickle that would
pass over the waiting guns in singles and pairs, giving them the chance,
after they had fired two barrels, to take their second gun from the
loader and be ready for the next bird to appear in the sky high above
them. The size of the keeper's tip and his reputation depended on the
way he "showed' the birds to the waiting guns.
During this respite Royan was able to regain her breath, and to look
around her. Through a break in the branches that gave the drive its
name, she could see down into the valley.
There was an open meadow at the foot of the hills, the expanse of smooth
green grass broken up by patches of dirty grey snow from the previous
week's fall. Down this meadow the keeper had set a line of numbered
pegs. At the beginning of the day's sport the guns had drawn lots to
decide the peg number from which each of them would shoot.
Now each man stood "at his allotted peg, with his loader holding his
second gun ready behind him, ready to pass it over when the first gun
was empty. They were all looking up expectantly to the high ground from
which the pheasant would appear.
"Which is Sir Nicholas?" Royan called to her mother, and Georgina
pointed to the far end of the line of guns.
"The tall one," she said, and at that moment the keeper's voice on the
radio ordered, "Gently on the left.
Start tapping again." Obediently the beaters tapped their sticks. There
was no shouting or hallooing in this delicate and strictly controlled
operation.
"Forward slowly. Halt to the flush of birds."
A step at a time the line moved ahead, and in the brambles and bracken
in front of her Royan could hear the stealthy scuffle of a number of
pheasants moving forward, reluctant to take to the air until they were
forced to do so.
There was another ditch in their path, this one choked with an almost
impenetrable, thicket of brambles. Some of the larger dogs, like the
Labradors, balked at entering such a thorny barrier. Georgina whistled
sharply and Magic's ears went up. He was soaked and his coat was a
matted mess of mud and buffs and thorns. His pink tongue lolled from the
corner of his grinning mouth and the sodden stump of his tail was
wagging merrily. At that moment he was the happiest dog in England. He
was doing the work that he had been bred for.
"Come on, Magic," Georgina ordered. "Get in there.
Get them out."
Magic dived into the thickest and thorniest patch, and disappeared
completely from view. There was a minute of snuffling and rooting around
in the depths of the ditch, and then a fi
erce cackle and flurry of
wings.
A pair of birds exploded out of the bushes. The hen led the way. She was
a drab, nondescript creature the size of a domestic fowl, but the cock
bird that followed her closely was magnificent. His head was capped with
iridescent green and his cheeks and wattles were scarlet. His tail,
barred in cinnamon and black, was almost as long again as his body and
the rest of his plumage was a riot of gorgeous colour.
As he climbed he sparkled against the lowering grey sky like a priceless
jewel thrown from an emperor's hand.
Royan gasped with the beauty of the sight.
"Just look at them go!'Georgina's voice was thick with excitement. "What
a pair of crackerjacks. The best pair today. My bet is that not one of
the guns will touch a feather on either of them."
Up, and then on up, the two birds climbed, the hen drawing the cock
after her, until suddenly the wind boiling over the hills like
overheated milk caught them both and flung them away, out over the
valley.
The line of beaters enjoyed the moment. They had worked hard for it.
Their voices were tiny and faint on the wind as they urged the birds on.
They loved to see a pheasant so high and fast that it could beat the
guns.
"Forward!" they exulted. "over! and this time the line came
involuntarily to a halt as they followed the flight of the pair that
were twisting away on the wind.
In the valley bottom the faces of the guns were turned upwards, pale
specks against the green background. Their trepidation was almost
palpable as they watched the pheasant reach their maximum speed, so that
they could no longer beat their wings, but locked them into a back-swept
profile as they began to drop down into the valley.
This was the most difficult shot that any gun would face. A high pair of
pheasant with a half gale quartering from behind, dropping into the shot
at their terminal rate of flight, set to pass over the line at the
extreme effective range of a twelve-bore shotgun. For the men below it
was a calculation of speed "and lead in all three dimensions of space.
The best of shots might hope to take one of them, but who would dare to
think of both?
"A pound on it!" Georgina called. "A pound that they both get through."
But none of the beaters who heard her accepted the wager.
The wind was pushing the birds gently sideways. They started off aimed
at the centre of the line, but they were drifting towards the far end.
As the angle changed, Royan could see the men at the pegs below her
brace themselves in turn as the birds appeared to be heading straight
for them, and then relax as the wind moved them on. Their relief was
evident as, one after the other, each of them was absolved from the
challenge of having to make such an impossible shot with all eyes
fastened upon him.
In the end only the tall figure at the extreme end of the line stood in
their flight path.
"Your bird, sir," one of the other guns called mockingly, and Royan
found that instinctively she was holding her breath with anticipation.
Nicholas Quenton-Harper seemed unaware of the approach of the pair of
pheasant. He stood completely relaxed, his tall frame slouching
slightly, his shotgun tucked under his right arm with the muzzles
pointing at the ground.
At the moment that the leading hen bird reached a point in the sky sixty
degrees ut ahead of him he moved for the first time. With casual grace
he swung the shotgun up in a sweeping arc. At the instant that the butt
touched I I his cheek and shoulder he fired, but the gun never stopped
moving and went on to describe the rest of the arc.
The distance delayed the sound of the shot reaching I Royan. She saw the
barrels kick with the recoil, and a pale spurt of blue smoke from the
muzzle. Then Nicholas lowered the gun as the hen suddenly threw back her
head and closed her wings. There was no burst of feathers from her body,
for she had been hit cleanly in the head and killed instantly. As she
began the long plummet to earth Royan heard the thud of the shot.
By then the cock was high over Nicholas's head. This time as he mounted
the gun in that casual sweeping gesture he arched his back to point
upwards, his long frame bending from the waist like a drawn bow. Once
again at the apex of the swing the weapon kicked in his grasp.
"He has missed!" Royan thought with a mixture of satisfaction and
disappointment, as the cock sailed on seemingly unscathed. Part of her
wanted the beautiful bird to escape, while part of her wanted the man to
succeed.
Gradually the profile of the high cock altered as the wings folded back
and it rolled over in flight. Royan had no way of knowing that his heart
had been struck through, until seconds later he died in mid-air and the
locked wings lost their rigid set.
As the cock tumbled to earth, a spontaneous chorus of heers ran down
the line of beaters, faint but enthusiastic on the icy north wind. Even
the other guns added their voices with cries of, "Oh, good shot, sir!'
Royan did not join in the cheering, but for the moment her fatigue and
cold were forgotten. She could only vaguely appreciate the skill that
those two shots had called for, but she was impressed, even a little
awed. Her very first glimpse of the man had fulfilled all the
expectations that Duraid's stories about him had raised in her.
By the time the last drive ended it was almost dark.
An old army truck came mbling down the track through ru the forest along
which the tired beaters and their dogs waited. As it slowed they
scrambled up into the back.
Georgina gave Royan a boost from behind before she and Magic followed
her up. They settled thankfully on one of the long hard benches, and
Georgina lit a cigarette as she joined, in the chat and banter of the
under-keepers and beaters around her.
Royan sat silently at the end of the bench, enjoying the sense of
achievement at having come through such a strenuous day. She felt tired
and relaxed, and strangely contented. For one whole day she had not
thought either of the theft of the scroll or of Duraid's murder and the
unknown and unseen enemy who threatened her with aviolent death.
The truck ground down the hill and slowed as it reached the bottom,
pulling in to the verge to let a green Range Rover pass. As the two
vehicles drew level, Royan turned her head and looked down into the open
driver's window of the expensive estate car, and into the eyes of
Nicholas Quenton Harper at the wheel.
This was the first time she had been close enough to him to see his
features. She was surprised at how young he was. She had expected him to
be a man of Duraid's age.
She saw now that he was no older than forty, for there were only the
first strands of silver in the wings of his thick, rumpled hair. His
features were tanned and weatherbeaten, those of an outdoors man. His
eyes were green and penetrating under dark, beetling brows. His mouth
was wide and expressive, and he
was smiling now at some witticism that
the driver of the truck called to him in a thick Yorkshire accent, but
there was a sense of sadness and tragedy in the eyes. Royan remembered
what the Prof had told her of his recent bereavement, and she felt her
heart go out to him. She was not alone in her loss and her mourning.
He looked directly into her eyes and she saw his expression change. She
was an attractive woman, and she could tell when a man recognized that.
She had made an impression on him, but she did not enjoy the fact. Her
sorrow for Duraid was still too raw and painful. She looked away and the
Range Rover drove on.
Her lecture at the university went off extremely well. Royan was a good
speaker and she knew her subject intimately. She held them fascinated
with her account of the opening of the tomb_of Queen Lostris and of the
subsequent discovery of the scrolls. Many of her audience had read the
book, and during question time they pestered her to know how much of it
was the truth. She had to tread very carefully here, so as not to deal
too harshly with the author.
Afterwards Prof Dixon took Royan and Georgina to dinner. He was
delighted with her success, and ordered the most expensive bottle of
claret on the wine list to celebrate.
He was only mildly disconcerted when she refused a glass of it.
"Oh, dear me, I forgot that you were a Moslem," he apologized.
"A Copt," she corrected him, "and it's not on religious grounds. I just
don't like the taste."
"Don't worry," Georgina counselled him, "I don't have the same odd
compulsion to masochism as my daughter.
She must get it from her father's side. I'll give you a hand to finish
the good stuff."
Under the benign influence of the claret the Prof became expansive, and
entertained them with the accounts of the archaeological digs he had
been on over the decades.
It was only over the coffee that he turned to Royan.
"Goodness me, I almost forgot to tell you. I have arranged for you to
visit the museum at Quenton Park any afternoon this week. just ring Mrs.
Street the day before, and she will be waiting to let you in. She is
Nicholas's PA."
Ryan remembered the way to Quenton Park when Georgina had driven them
to the shoot, but now she was alone in the Land Rover. The massive main