The Seventh Scroll tes-2

by Wilbur Smith

  "To say nothing of the Virgin Mary,'Nicholas smiled.

  "You are a horrid old cynic," she sighed. "And what is more, you

  probably snore."

  "You are about to find out the hard way," he told her, but she was

  asleep before him. Her breathing was gentle and even, and he could just

  hear it above the sound of the water. It was a long time since he had

  had a lovely woman lying at his side. When he was sure she was deeply

  under, he reached across and touched her cheek gently.

  "Pleasant dreams, little one," he whispered tenderly.

  "You have had a busy day." That was the way he had often bid his younger

  daughter sleep.

  The muleteers were stirring long before the dawn, and the whole party

  was on the path, way again as soon as the light was strong enough to

  reveal their footing. When the early sun struck the upper walls of the

  cliff face, they were still high enough above the valley floor to have

  an aerial view of the terrain.

  Nicholas drew Royan aside and they let the rest of the caravan go on

  down ahead of them.

  He found a place to sit and unrolled the satellite photograph between

  them. Picking out the major peaks and features of the scene, they

  orientated themselves and began to make some order out of the

  cataclysmic landscape that rioted below them.

  "We can't see the Abbay river from here," Nicholas pointed out. "It's

  still deep in the sub-gorge. We will probably only get our first glimpse

  of it from almost directly above."

  "If we have identified our present position accurately, then the river

  will make two ox'bow bends around that bluff over there."

  "Yes, and the confluence of the Dandera river with the Abbay is over

  there, below those cliffs." He used his thumb knuckle as a rough scale

  measure. "About fifteen miles from here."

  "It looks as though the Dandera has changed its course many times over

  the centuries.-I can see at least two gullies that look like ancient

  river beds." She pointed down: "Mere, and there. They are all choked

  with jungle now." She looked crestfallen, "Oh, Nicholas, it is such a

  huge and confused area. How are we ever going to find the single

  entrance to a tomb hidden in all that?"

  "Tomb? What tomb is this?" Boris demanded with interest. He had come

  back up the trail to find them. They had not heard his approach, and now

  he stood over them.

  "What tomb are you talking about?, "Why, the tomb of St. Frumentius, of

  course," Nicholas told him smoothly, showing no concern at having been

  overheard.

  "Isn't the monastery dedicated to the saint?" Royan asked as smoothly,

  as she rolled up the photograph.

  "Da." He nodded, looking disappointed, as though he expected something

  of more interest. "Yes, St. Frumentius.

  But they will not let you visit the tomb. They will not let you into the

  inner part of the monastery. Only the priests are allowed in there."

  He removed his cap and scratched the short, stiff bristles that covered

  his scalp. They rasped like wire under his fingernails. "This week is

  the ceremony of Timkat, the Blessing of the Tabot. There will be a great

  deal of excitement down there. You will find it very interesting, but

  you will not be able to enter the Holy of Holies, nor will you be able

  to see the actual tomb. I have never met any white man who has seen it."

  He squinted up at the sun. "We must get on. It looks close, but it will

  take us two more days to reach the Abbay.

  It is bad ground down there. A long march, even for a famous dik-dik

  hunter." He laughed delightedly at his own joke, and turned away down

  the path.

  As they approached the bottom of the cliff, the gradient of the trail

  smoothed out and the steps became shallower and further apart. The going

  became easier and their progress swifter, but the air had changed in

  quality and taste. It was no longer cool, bracing mountain air but the

  languid, enervating air of the equator, with the smell and taste of the

  encroaching jungle.

  "Hod' said Royan, shrugging out of the woollen shawl.

  "Ten degrees hotter, at least," Nicholas agreed. He pulled his old army

  jersey over his head, leaving.his hair in curly disarray. "And we can

  expect it to get hotter before we reach the Abbay. We still have to

  descend another three thousand feet."

  Now the path followed the Dandera river for a while.

  Sometimes they were several hundred feet above it, and shortly

  afterwards they splashed waist-deep through a ford, hanging on to the

  panniers of the mules to keep themselves from being swept away on the

  flood.

  Then the gorge of the Dandera river was too deep and steep to follow any

  longer, as sheer cliffs dropped into dark pools. So they left the river

  and followed the track that squirmed like a dying snake amongst eroded

  hills and tall red stone bluffs.

  A mile or two further downstream they rejoined the river in a different

  mood as it rippled through dense forest.

  The dangling lianas swept the surface and tree moss brushed their heads

  as they passed, straggling and unkempt as the beard of the old priest at

  Debra Maryam. Vervet monkeys chattered at them from the treetops and

  ducked their heads in wide-eyed outrage at the human intrusion into

  these secret places. Once a large animal crashed away through the

  undergrowth, and Nicholas glanced across at Boris.

  The Russian shook his head, laughing. "No, English, not dik-dik. Only

  kudu."

  On the hillside above them the kudu paused to look back. He was a large

  bull with full twists to his wide corkscrew horns, a magnificent beast

  with a maned dewlap and pricked ears shaped like trumpets. He stared at

  them with huge, startled eyes. Boris whistled softly and his attitude

  changed abruptly.

  "Those horns are over fifty inches. They would get a place right at the

  top of Rowland Ward." He was referring to the register of big game which

  was the Bible of the trophy hunter. "Don't you want to take him,

  English?" He ran to the nearest mule and pulled the Rigby rifle from its

  slip case, then ran back and offered it to Nicholas.

  "Let him go." Nicholas shook his head. "Only dik-dik for me."

  With a flirt of his white powder-puff tail, the bull was gone over the

  ridge. Boris shook his head disgustedly and spat into the river.

  "Why did he try to insist that you kill it?" Royan demanded as they went

  on.

  "A photograph of a record pair of horns like that would look good on his

  advertising brochure. Suck in them clients."

  All day they followed the winding trail, and in the late afternoon they

  camped in a clearing above the river where it was evident that other

  caravans had camped many times before them. It seemed obvious that this

  road was divided into time-honoured stages: every traveller took three

  full days from the top of the falls to reach the monastery, and they all

  camped at the same sites.

  "Sorry. No shower here," Boris told his clients. "If you want to wash,

  there is a safe pool around the first bend upstream."

  R
oyan looked appealingly at Nicholas, "I am so tired and sweaty. Please

  won't you stand guard for me, where you can hear me call if I need you?"

  So he lay on the mossy bank just below the bend, out of sight but close

  enough to hear her splash and squeal at the cold embrace of the water.

  Once when he turned his head he realized that the current must have

  drifted her downstream, for through the trees he caught a flash of a

  naked back, and the curve of a buttock, creamy and glistening wet with

  water. He looked away again guiltily, but he was startled by the

  intensity of his physical arousal brought on by that brief glimpse of

  lambent skin dappled with the late sunlight through the trees.

  When she came downstream along the bank, singing softly, towelling her

  wet hair, she called to him, "Your turn.

  Do you want me to stand guard for you?"

  "I am a big boy now." He shook his head, but as she passed him he

  noticed the saucy glint in her eye, and he ly if she had been fully

  aware of just how wondered sudden far downstream she had swum, and how

  much he had seen.

  He was titillated by the thought.

  He went upstream to the pool alone, and as he stripped he looked down at

  himself and felt guilty when he saw how she had moved him- Since

  Rosalind, no other woman had had this effect on him.

  "A nice cold plunge won't do you any harm, my lad." He threw his jeans

  over a bush, and dived into the pool.

  sat at the campfire after the evening meal, olas looked up suddenly and

  cocked his

  "Am I hearing things?" he wondered.

  "No," Tessay laughed. "That is singing you hear. The priests from the

  monastery are coming to welcome us."

  They saw the torches then, winding up the hillside in procession,

  flickering through the trees as they approached the camp. The muleteers

  and the servants crowded forward, singing and clapping rhythmically to

  greet the deputation from the monastery.

  The deep male voices soared and then dropped away, almost to a whisper,

  then rose again in descant, haunting and beautiful, the sound of Africa

  in the night. It drove icy thrills down Nicholas's spine, so that he

  shivered involuntarily.

  Then they saw the white robes of the priests, flitting like moths in the

  torchlight as they wound along the trail The camp servants fell on their

  knees as the first of the holy men entered the perimeter of the camp.

  They were young acolytes, bare-headed and barefooted. They were followed

  by the monks, wearing long robes and tall turbans.

  Their ranks wheeled aside and opened up, an honour guard for the phalanx

  of deacons and fully ordained priests in their gaudy embroidered robes

  and vestments.

  Each of them carried a heavy Coptic cross, set on a tall staff and

  intricately chased and worked innative silver.

  They in turn opened into two ranks, still chanting, and allowed the

  canopied palanquin to be carried forward by four hefty young acolytes

  and placed in the centre of the camp. The crimson and yellow silk

  curtains shimmered in the light of the camp lanterns and the torches of

  the procession.

  "We must go forward to welcome the abbot," Boris told Nicholas in a

  stage whisper. "His name is Jali Hora." As they stepped up to the

  litter, the curtains were drawn dramatically aside and a tall figure

  stepped down to earth.

  Both Tessay and Royan sank to their knees respectfully, and clasped

  their hands at the breast. However, Nicholas and Boris remained on their

  feet, and Nicholas inspected the abbot with interest.

  jali Hora was skeletally thin. Beneath the skirts of his robe his legs

  were like sticks of cured tobacco, tar'black and twisted, with

  desiccated sinew and stringy muscle. His robe was green and gold, worked

  with gold thread that glittered in the firelight. On his head he wore a

  tall hat with a flat top embroidered with a pattern of crosses and

  stars.

  The abbot's face -was dead sooty black, the skin wrinkled and riven with

  the deep etchings of age. There were few teeth behind his puckered lips,

  and even those were yellowed and askew. His beard was startling silver

  white, breaking like storm surf on the old bones of his jaw.

  One eye was opaque blue and blinded with tropical ophthalmia, but the

  other eye glistened like that of a hunting leopard.

  He began to speak in a high, quavering voice. "A blessing," Boris warned

  Nicholas, and they both bowed their heads respectfully. The assembled

  priests came in with the chanted response each time the old man paused.

  When at last he had finished giving his blessing jali Hora made the sign

  of the cross in four directions, rotating slowly towards each point of

  the compass, while two altar boys swung their silver censers vigorously,

  deluging the night with pungent clouds of incense smoke.

  After the blessing the two women came forward to kneel before the abbot.

  He stooped over them and struck them lightly on each cheek with his

  silver cross, chanting a falsetto blessing over them.

  "They say the old man is over a hundred years old," Boris whispered to

  Nicholas.

  Two white-robed debteras brought forward a stool of African ebony, so

  beautifully carved that Nicholas eyed it acquisitively. He guessed that

  it was probably centuries old, and would have made a handsome addition

  to the museum collection. The two debteras took Jah Hora's elbows and

  gently seated him on the stool. Then the rest of the company sank to the

  earth in a congregation around him, their black faces lifted towards him

  attentively.

  Tessay sat at his feet, and when her husband spoke she translated

  quietly for him into Amharic. "It is a great pleasure and an honour for

  me to greet you again, Holy Father."

  The old man nodded, and Boris went on, "I have brought an English

  nobleman of royal blood to, visit the monastery of St. Frumentius."

  "I say, steady on, old boy!, Nicholas protested, but all the

  congregation studied him with expectant interest.

  "What do I do now?" he asked Boris out of the corner of his mouth.

  "What do You think he came all this way for?" Boris grinned maliciously.

  "He wants a gift. Money,'

  "Maria Theresa dollars?" he enquired, referring to the centuries-old

  traditional currency of Ethiopia, "Not necessarily. Times have changed.

  jali Hora will be happy to take Yankee green-backs."

  "How much?"

  "You are a nobleman of royal blood. You will be hunting in his valley.

  Five hundred dollars at least."

  Nicholas winced and went to fetch his bag from one of the mule panniers.

  When he came back he bowed to the abbot and placed the sheaf of currency

  in his outstretched, pink-palmed claw. The abbot smiled, exposing the

  yellow stumps of his teeth, and spoke briefly.

  Tessay translated for him, "He says, "Welcome to the monastery of St.

  Frumentius and the season of Timkat." He wishes you good hunting on the

  banks of the Abbay river."

  Immediately the solemn mood of the devout company changed. They broke

  out in smiles and laughter, and the abbot looked expect
antly at Boris.

  "The holy abbot says it has been a thirsty journey," Tessay translated.

  "The old devil loves his brandy," Boris explained, and shouted to the

  camp butler. With some ceremony a bottle of brandy was brought and

  placed on the camp table in front of the abbot, shoulder to shoulder

  with the bottle of vodka in front of Boris. They toasted each other, and

  the abbot tossed back a dram that made his good eye weep with tears, and

  his voice husky as he directed a question at Royan.

  "He asks you, Woizero Royan, where do you come from, daughter, that you

  follow the true path of Christ the Saviour of man?"

  "I am an Egyptian, of the old religion," Royan replied.

  The abbot and all his priests nodded and beamed with approval.

  "We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, the Egyptians and the

  Ethiopians," the abbot told her. "Even the word Coptic derives from the

  Greek for Egyptian. For over sixteen hundred years the Abuna, the

  bishop, of Ethiopia was always appointed by the Patriarch in Cairo. Only

  the Emperor Haile Selassie changed that in 1959, but we still follow the

  true road to Christ. You are welcome, my daughter."

  His debtera poured another dram of brandy and the old man swallowed it

  at a gulp. Even Boris looked impressed, "Where does the skinny old black

  tortoise put it?" he wondered aloud. Tessay did not translate, but she

  lowered her eyes and the hurt she felt for the insult to the holy man

  showed on her madonna features.

  Jah Hora turned to Nicholas. "He wants to know what animals you have

  come to hunt here in his valley," Tessay told him.

  Nicholas steeled himself and then replied carefully.

  There was a long moment of disbelief, then the abbot cackled happily and

  the assembled priests shouted with incredulous mirth.

  "A dik-dik! You have come to hunt a dikdik! But there is no meat on an

  animal that size."

  Nicholas let them get over the first shock, and then produced a

  photograph of the mounted specimen of Moquoda harPerU from the museum.

  He placed it on the table in front of Jah Hora.

  "This is no ordinary dik-dik. It is a holy dik-dik," he told them in

  portentous tones, nodding at Tessay for the translation. "Let me recount

  the legend." They were silenced by the prospect of a good story with

  religious overtones. Even the abbot arrested the glass on its way to his

  lips and replaced it on the table. His one eye swivelled from the