by Wilbur Smith
stretch, and the packet would be stuffed into it by his considerate
neighbour. The morsel was, of course, as large as a human gape could
possibly accommodate, and in order to engulf it the victim had to risk
death by asphyxiation.
The rules of the game seemed to be that he was not allowed to use his
hands to get it into his own mouth, neither should he dribble down the
front of his robe, nor splutter gravy over those seated near to him. His
contortions, together with his gulping and choking and gasping for air,
were the source of uncontrollable hilarity. When at last he succeeded in
getting it down, a brass bowl of katikala was held to his lips as a
reward. He was expected to send the contents in the same direction as
the parcel of injera.
Jali Hora, by now warmed with tej and kadkala, lurched to his feet. In
his right hand he held aloft a streaming parcel of injera. As he began
an unsteady progress across the chamber, with his shiny crown awry, they
did not at first realize his intentions. The entire company'watched him
with interest.
Then suddenly Royan stiffened and whispered with horror, "No! Please,
no. Save me, Nicky. Don't let this happen to me."
"This is the price you pay for being the leading lady," he told her.
Jali Hora was making his rather erratic way towards where she sat. The
gravy from the morsel he carried for her was trickling down his forearm
and dripping from his elbow.
The band standing along the side wall struck up a lively air. As the
abbot came to a halt in front of Royan, rocking on his suspension like
an ancien " carriage, they fiddled and fifed and the drummers broke out
in a frenzy.
The abbot presented his gift, and with one last despairing glance at
Nicholas Royan faced the inevitable. She closed her eyes and opened her
mouth.
To roars of encouragement and the urgings of LIFE and drum, she
struggled and chewed. Her face turned rosy and her eyes watered. At one
point Nicholas thought she would admit defeat and spit it out on to the
reed-covered have to floor. But slowly and courageously, a bit at a
time, she forced it down and then fell back exhausted.
Her audience, clapping and hooting loved every moment of it. The abbot
sank stiffly to his knees in front of her and embraced her, almost
losing his crown in the ess. Then without relinquishing his embrace proc
he made himself a place beside her.
"It looks as though you have made another conquest," Nicholas told her
dryly. "I think he will be on your lap at moment, if you don't duck and
run." any Royan reacted swiftly. She reached across and grabbed a bottle
of kadkala, and a bowl which she filled to the brim.
"Drink it up, Pops!" she told him, and held the bowl to his lips. Jab
Hora accepted the challenge, but he had to release her to drink from her
hand.
Suddenly Royan started so violently that she spilled what was left in
the bowl down the old man's robe. The blood drained from her face and
she began to tremble as though in a high fever as she stared at Jab
Hora's crown, which had slipped forward over his eyes.
What is it?" Nicholas demanded quietly but urgently, and he reached
across to steady her with a hand on her arm. Nobody else in the chamber
had noticed her distress, but he was fully attuned to her moods by now.
Still staring ashen-faced at the crown, she dropped the bowl and reached
down and grasped his wrist. He was startled by her strength. Her grip
was painful,,and he saw that she had driven her nails into his flesh so
hard that she had broken the skin.
"Look at his crown! The jewel! The blue jewel!" she gasped.
He saw it then, amongst the gaudy shards of glass and pebbles of
semi-precious garnets and rock crystal. The size of a silver dollar, it
was a seal of blue ceramic, perfectly round, and baked to a hard,
impervious finish. In the centre of the disc was an etching of an
Egyptian war chariot, and above it the distinctive and unmistakable
outline of the hawk with the broken wing. Around the circumference was a
legend engraved in hieroglyphics. It took him only a few moments to read
it to himself:
I COMMAND TEN THOUSAND CHARIOTS.
I AM TAITA, MASTER OF THE ROYAL HORSE.
Royan desperately wanted to escape from the oppressive atmosphere of the
cavern. The parcel of wat that the abbot had forced upon her had mixed
heavily with the few mouthfuls of tej she had swallowed, and this
feeling in Turn was aggravated by the smell of the dirty food bowls
thick with congealing grease and the fumes of raw katikala.
if Already some of the monks were puking drunk, and the smell of vomit
added to the cloying miasma of incense smoke within the chamber.
However, she was still the centre of the abbot's attention. He sat
beside her stroking her bare arm and reciting garbled extracts from the
Amharic scriptures; Tessay had long ago given up translating for her.
Royan looked hopefully at Nicholas but he was withdrawn and silent,
seeming oblivious of his surroundings. She knew that he was thinking
about the ceramic seal in the abbot's crown, for his eyes kept
returning thoughtfully to it.
She wanted to be alone with him to discuss this extraordinary discovery.
Her excitement outweighed the distress of her overloaded stomach. She
felt her cheeks flushed with it. Every time she looked up at the old
man's crown her heart fluttered, and she had to make an effort to stop
herself reaching up, seizing the shiny blue seal and ripping it from its
setting to examine it more closely.
She knew how unwise it was to draw attention to the scrap of ceramic,
but when she glanced across the circle she saw that Boris was far past
noticing anything other than the bowl of kadkala in his hand. In the end
it was who gave her the excuse for which she had been Boris seeking. He
tried to get to his feet, but his legs collapsed under him. He sagged
forward quite gracefully, and his face dropped into the bowl of
grease-sodden injera bread.
He lay there snoring noisily, and Tessay appealed to Nicholas.
"Alto Nicholas, what am I to do?"
Nicholas considered the unlovely spectacle of the rate hunter. There
were scraps of bread and beef stew prost sticking like confetti in his
cropped ginger hair.
"I rather suspect Prince Charming has had enough for one night the
murmured.
stood up, stooped over Boris and gripped one wrist.
He With a sudden jerk he lifted him into a sitting position, nd then
heaved him upright and over his shoulder in a a fireman's lift.
"Good night, all!" he told the assembled monks, very few of whom were in
any condition to respond. Then he carried Boris away, draped over his
shoulders with head and feet dangling. The two women had to hurry to
keep up with Nicholas as he strode down the terrace and then up the
stone stairway without a pause.
"I did not realize Alto Nicholas was so strong," Tessay panted, for the
stairs were steep and the pace was hard.
didn't either," R
oyan admitted. She experienced a ridiculous proprietary
pride in his feat, and smiled at herself in the darkness as they
approached the camp.
"Don't be silly," she admonished herself. "He isn't yours to boast
about." Nicholas threw his burden down on Boris's own bed in thatched
hut and stood back panting heavily, the sweat trickling down his cheeks.
"That's a pretty good recipe for a heart attack," he gasped.
Boris groaned, rolled over and vomited copiously over his pillows and
bedlinen.
"On that pleasant note I will bid you all goodnight and sweet dreams,'
Nicholas told Tessay, stepping out of the hut into the warm African
night.
He breathed in the smell of the forest and the river with relief, and
then turned to Royan as she gripped his arm.
"Did you see-' she burst out excitedly, but he laid his fingers on her
lips to silence her, and with a cautionary frown in the direction of
Boris's hut led her away to her own hut.
"Did you see it?" she demanded, unable to contain herself longer. "Could
you read it?"
"'I command ten thousand chariots,"' he recited.
"'I am Taita, master of the royal horse,"' she completed it for him. "He
was here. Oh, Nicky! He was here. Taita was here. That's the proof we
wanted. Now we know that we are not wasting our time."
She flopped down on her camp bed and hugged herself ecstatically. "Do
you think the abbot will let us examine the sealT
He shook his head, "My guess is no. The crown is one of the monastery
treasures. Even for you, his favourite lady, I don't think he would do
it. Anyway, it would not be wise to show any great interest in it. Jali
Hora obviously does not have any idea of its significance. Apart from
that, we don't want to alert Boris."
suppose you are right." She moved over on the bed to make room for him.
"Sit down."
He sat down beside her, and she asked, "Where do you suppose the seal
came from? Who found it? Where, and when?"
"Steady on, dear girl. That's four questions in one, and I don't have an
answer to any of them."
"Guess!" she invited him. "Speculate! Throw some ideas around!'
"Very well," he agreed. "The seal was manufactured in Hong Kong. There
is a little factory there that turns them out by the thousands. Jali
Hora bought it from a souvenir store in Luxor when he was on holiday in
Egypt last month."
She punched his arm, hard. "Be serious," she ordered.
can do better," he invited her, rubbing
"Let's hear if yo his arm.
"Okay, here I go. Taita dropped the seal here in the gorge while he was
working on the construction of Pharaoh's tomb. Three thousand years
later an old monk, one of the very first to live here at the monastery,
picked it up. Of course, he could not read the hieroglyphics. He -took
it to the abbot, who declared it to be a relic of St. Frumentius, and
had it set in the crown."
"And they all lived happily ever after," Nicholas agreed.
"Not a bad shot."
ny holes?" she demanded, and he shook Can you find a head. "Then you
agree that this proves that Taita really his was here, and that it
proves our theories are correct?" -Proves" is too strong a word. Let's
just say that it points in that direction," he demurred.
She wriggled around on the bed to face him squarely.
"Oh, Nicky, I am so excited. I swear I will not be able to sleep a wink
tonight. I just can't wait for tomorrow, to get out there and start
searching again."
Her eyes were bright, and her cheeks flushed a warm rosy brown. Her lips
were parted, and he could see the pink tip of her tongue between them.
This time he could not stop himself. He leaned very slowly towards her,
treating her gently, giving her every opportunity to pull away if she
wished to avoid him. She did not move, but her shining expression turned
slowly to one of apprehension. She stared into his eyes, as if seeking
something, some reassurance.
When their lips were an inch apart, Nicholas stopped, and it was she who
made the last movement. She brought their mouths together.
At first it was soft, just a light mingling of their breath, and then it
became harsher, more urgent. For a long, heartstopping moment they
devoured each other, and her mouth tasted soft and sweet as ripe fruit.
Then suddenly she whimpered, and with a huge effort of will tore herself
out of his arms. They stared at each other, both of them shaken and
confused.
"No," she whispered. "Please, Nicky, not yet. I am not ready yet."
He picked up her hand and turned it between his palms. Then lightly he
kissed the tips of her fingers, savouring the smell and the taste of her
skin.
"I'll see you in the morning." He dropped her hand and stood up. "Early.
Be ready!the said, and stooped out through the doorway of the hut.
was dressing the next morning he heard her moving a round in her hut,
and when he whistled softly at her door she stepped out to meet him,
dressed and eager to start.
"Boris is not awake yet,'Tessay told them as she served their breakfast.
"Now that is a great surprise to me," Nicholas said, without looking up
from his plate. He and Royan were still slightly awkward in each other's
presence, remembering the circumstances in which they had parted the
previous evening. However, as Nicholas slung the rifle and the pack 0
ver his shoulder and they set off up the valley, their mood changed to
one of anticipation.
They had been going for an hour when Nicholas glanced over his shoulder
and then cautioned her with a frown. "We are being followed."
Taking her wrist, he drew her behind a slab of sandstone. He flattened
himself against the rock and stured at her to do the same. Then he
poised himself, ge an suddenly leaped forward to seize the lanky figure
in a dirty white shamnw who was sneaking up the valley behind them. With
a howl the creature fell to his knees, and began gibbering with terror.
Nicholas hauled him to his feet. "Tamre! What are you doing following
us? Who sent you?" he demanded in Arabic.
The boy rolled his eyes towards Royan. "No, please, effendi, do not hurt
me. I meant no harm."
"Leave the child, Nicky. You will precipitate another fit," Royan
intervened. Tamre scurried behind her and clung to her hand for
protection, peering out around her shoulder at Nicholas as though his
life were in danger.
"Peace, Tamre," Nicholas soothed him. "I will not hurt you, unless you
lie to me. If you do, then I will thrash you until there is no skin on
your back. Who sent you to follow us?"
"I came alone. Nobody sent me," blubbered the boy. "I came to show you
where I saw the holy animal with the fingermarks -of the Baptist on his
skin."
Nicholas stared at him for a moment, before he began to laugh softly.
"I'll be damned if the boy doesn't really believe he saw
great-grandfather's dik-dik." Then he scowled ferociously. "Remember
what will happen to you, if you are lying."
"It is true, effendi," Tamre sob
bed, and Royan came to his defence.
Don't badger him. He is harmless. Leave the poor , A hild."
"All right, Tamre. I will give you a chance. Take us to where you saw
the holy animal."
Tamre would not relinquish his grip on Royan's hand.
He clung to it as he danced beside her, leading her along, and within a
hundred yards his terror had faded and he was smiling and giggling at
her shyly.
For an hour he led them away from the Dandera rier and up over the high
ground above the valley, into an area of thick scrub and up-thrust
ridges of weathered limestone.
The thorny branches of the bush were densely intertwined, and grew so
close to the ground that there seemed to be no way through them.
However, Tamre led them on to a narrow twisting path, just wide enough
for them to avoid the red-tipped hook thorns on each side of them. Then
abruptly he stopped and pulled Royan to a halt beside him.
He pointed down, almost at his own toes.
"The riverPhe announced importantly. Nicholas came up beside them and
whistled softly with surprise. Tamre had led them around in a wide
circle to the west, and then brought them back to the Dandera river at a
point where it still ran in the bed of the deep ravine.
Now they stood on the very edge of the chasm. He saw at once that,
although the top of the rocky ravine was less than a hundred feet wide,
the chasm opened out below the rim. From the surface of the water far
below, the rock wall belled out in the shape of one of the pottery tej
flasks.
It narrowed again as it neared the top where they stood.
saw the holy thing over there."Tamre pointed to the far side of the
chasm where a small feeder spring meandered out of the thorny bush.
Streamers of bright green moss, nourished by the spring, hung from the
lip of the concave rock wall, and the water trickled down them and
dripped from the tips into the river two hundred feet below.
"If you saw it there, why did you bring us to this side of the
river?"Nicholas demanded.
Tamre looked as though he were on the point of tears.
This side is easier. There is no path through the bush on the other
side. The thorns would hurt Woizero Royan."
"Don't be a bully," Royan told him, and put her arm around the boy's
shoulder.
Nicholas shrugged, "It looks like the two of you are ganging up on me.