by Wilbur Smith
to his side, and together they peered through the square openings in the
woodwork that was black with age. The interior was in darkness. Nicholas
prodded his torch through one of the openings and pressed the switch.
The tomb lit up in a rainbow of colour so bright in the beam of the
torch that their eyes took a few moments to adjust and then Royan gasped
aloud.
"Oh, sweet heaven!" She began to tremble as if in high fever, and her
face went creamy pale as all the blood drained from it.
The coffin was set into a stone shelf in the rear wall of the cell-like
tomb. On the exterior was painted the likeness of the man within.
Although it was badly faded and most of the paint had flaked away, the
pale face and reddish beard of the dead man were still discernible.
This was not the only reason for Royan's amazement.
She was staring at the walls above and on either side of the shelf on
which the coffin lay. They were a riot of colour, every inch of them
covered with the most intricate and elaborate paintings that had
miraculously weathered the passage of the millennia.
Nicholas played his torch beam over them in awestruck silence, and Royan
clung to his arm as if to save herself from falling. She dug her sharp
nails into his flesh, but he was heedless of the pain.
There were scenes of great battles, fighting galleys locked in terrible
combat upon the blue eternal waters of the river. There were scenes of
the hunt, the pursuit of the river horse and of great elephants with
long tusks of gleaming ivory. There were battle scenes of regiments
plumed and armoured, raging in their fury and blood lust.
Squadrons of chariots wheeled and charged each other across these narrow
walls, half obscured by the dust of their own mad career.
The foreground of each mural was dominated by the same tall heroic
figure. In one scene he drew the bow to full stretch, in another he
swung high the blade of bronze.
His enemies quailed before him, he trod them underfoot or gathered
together their severed heads like a bouquet of flowers.
Nicholas played the beam over all this splendid array of art, and
brought it to a stop upon the central panel that covered the entire main
wall above the shelf on which the rotting coffin lay. Here the same
godlike figure rode the footplate of his chariot. In one hand he held
the bow and in the other a bundle of javelins. His head was bare of any
helmet, and his hair flowed out behind him in the wind of his passage, a
thick golden braid like the tail of a lion. His features were noble and
proud, his gaze direct and indomitable.
Below him was a legen in classical Egyptian hieroglyphics. In a
sepulchral whisper Royan translated them aloud:
Great Lion of Egypt.
Best of One Hundred Thousand Holder of the Gold of Valour Pharaoh's Sole
Companion Warrior of all the Gods May you live for ever!
Her hand shook upon his arm, and her voice choked and died away, stifled
with emotion. She gave a little sob, and then shook herself as she
brought herself back under control.
"I know this artist," she said softly. "I have spent five years studying
his work. I would know it anywhere." She drew a breath. "I know with
utter certainty that nearly four thousand years ago Taita the slave
decorated these walls and designed this tomb."
She pointed to the name of the dead man carved into the stone above the
shelf on which his coffin lay.
"This is not the tomb of a Christian saint. Centuries ago some old
priest must have stumbled upon it and, in his ignorance, usurped it for
his own religion." She drew another shaky breath. "Look there! That is
the seal of Tanus, Lord Harreb, the commander of all the armies of
Egypt, lover of Queen Lostris and the natural father of Prince Memnon,
who became the Pharaoh Tamose."
They were both silent then, lost in the wonder of their discovery.
Nicholas broke the silence at last.
"It's all true, then. The secrets of the seventh scroll are all here for
us, if we can find the key to them."
"Yes," she said softly. "The key. Taita's stone testament." She turned
back towards the tabot stone and approached it slowly, almost fearfully.
"I can't bring myself to look, Nicky. I am terrified that it's not what
we hope it is. You do itV
He went directly to the column, and with a magician's flourish jerked
away the damask cloth that covered it. They stared at the pillar of pink
mottled granite that he had revealed. It was about six feet high and a
foot square at the base, tapering up to half that width at the flat
pedestal of the summit. The granite had been polished, and then
engraved.
Royan stepped forward and touched the cold stone, running her fingers
lingeringly over the hieroglyphic'script in the way a blind man reads
Braille.
"Taita's letter to us," she whispered, picking out the symbol of the
hawk with a broken wing from the mass of close-chiselled script, tracing
the outline with a long, slim forefinger that trembled softly. "Written
almost four thousand years ago, waiting all these ages for us to read
and understand it. See how he has signed it." Slowly she circled the
granite pillar, studying each of the four sides in turn, smiling and
nodding, frowning and shaking her head, then smiling again as if it were
a love letter.
"Read it to me," Nicholas invited. "It's too complicated for me - I
understand the characters, but I cannot follow the sense or the meaning.
Explain it to me."
"It's pure Taita." She laughed, her awe and wonder at last giving way to
excitement. "He is being his usual obscure and capricious self." It was
as though she were talking of a beloved but infuriating old friend.
"It's all in verse and is probably some esoteric code of his own." She
picked out a line of hieroglyphics, and followed them with her finger as
she read aloud, "'The vulture rises on mighty pinions to greet the sun.
The jackal howls and turns upon his tail. The river flows towards the
earth. Beware, you violators of the sacred places, lest the wrath of all
the gods descend upon you!"'
"It's nonsense jargon. It does not make sense," he pretested.
"Oh, yes, it makes sense all right. Taita always makes sense, once you
follow the way his oblique mind is working." She turned to face him
squarely. "Don't look so glum, Nicky. You can't expect to read Taita
like an editorial in The Times. He has set us a riddle that may take
weeks and months of work to unravel."
"Well, one thing is certain. We can't stay here in the maqdas for weeks
and months while, we puzzle it out. Let's get to work."
"Photographs first." She became brisk and businesslike.
"Then we can lift impressions from the stone."
He set down the camera bag and knelt over it to open the flap. "I will
shoot two rolls of colour first, and then use the Polaroid. That will
give us something to work on until we can have the colour developed."
She stood out of his way as he circled the pillar on his knees, keeping
th
e angle correct so as not to distort the perspective. He took a series
of shots of each of the four sides, using different shutter speeds and
exposures.
"Don't use up all your film," she warned him. "We need some shots of the
walls of the tomb itself."
Obediently he went to the grille gates and studied the locking system.
"This is a bit more complicated than the outer gate. If I try to get in
here, I might do some damage.
I don't think it will be worth the risk of being discovered."
"All right," she agreed. "Work through the openings in the grille."
He filmed as best he was able, extending the camera through the openings
at the full stretch of his arms, and estimating his focus.
"That's the lot," he told her at last. "Now for the Polaroids."
"He changed cameras and repeated the entire process, but this time Royan
held a small tape measure against the pillar to give the scale.
As he exposed each plate he handed it to her to check the development.
Once or twice when the flash setting on the camera had either
overexposed or rendered the subject too dull, or for some other reason
she was not satisfied, she asked him to repeat the shot.
After almost two hours' work they had a complete set Of Polaroids, and
Nicholas packed his cameras away and brought out the roll of art paper.
Working together, they stretched it over one face of the pillar and
secured it in place with masking tape. Then he started at the top and
she at the bottom. Each with a black art crayon, they rubbed the precise
shape and form of the engravings on to the sheet of blank paper.
"I have learned how important this is when dealing with Taita. If you
are not able to work with the original, then you must have an exact
copy. Sometimes the most minute detail of the engraving may change the
entire sense and meaning of the script. He layers everything with hidden
depths. You have read in River God how he cons' ers himself to be the
riddler and punster par excellence id and the greatest exponent of the
game of bao that ever lived. Well, that much of the book is accurate.
Wherever he is now, he knows the game is on and he is revelling in every
move we make. I can just imagine him giggling and gether with glee."
rubbing his hands to
"Bit fanciful, dear girl." He settled back to work. "But I know what you
mean."
The task of transferring the outline of the designs on to the blank
sheets of art paper was painstaking and monotonous, and the hours passed
as they laboured on hands and knees or crouched over the granite pillar.
At last Nicholas stepped back and massaged his aching back.
"That does it, then. All finished."
a She stood up beside him. "What time is it?" she asked, and he checked
his wristwatch.
"Four in the morning. We had better tidy up in here.
Make certain we leave no sign of our visit."
"One last thing," Royan said, tearing a corner off one of the sheets of
art paper. With it she went to the altar where the abbot's crown lay.
Quickly she taped the scrap of paper over the blue ceramic seal in the
centre of the crown, and filled it with a rubbing of the design of the
hawk with a broken wing.
Just for luck," she explained to him, as she came back to help him fold
the long sheets of paper and pack them back in the bag. Then they
gathered up the shreds of discarded masking tape and the empty film
wrappers that he had strewn on the stone slabs.
Before they covered the granite stele with the damask cloth, Royan
caressed the stone panels of script as if to take leave of them for
ever. Then she nodded at Nicholas.
He spread the cloth over the pillar and they adjusted the folds to hang
as they had found them. From the threshold of the brass-bound door they
surveyed the maqdas for the last time, then he opened the door a rack
"Let's go!" She squeezed through and he followed her out into the
qiddist of the church. It took him only a few minutes to slide the
tongue of the lock back into place.
"How will we get out through the main doors?" she asked.
"I don't think that will be necessary. The priests obviously have
another entrance from their quarters directly into the qiddist. You very
seldom see them using the main gates." He stood in the centre of the
floor, and looked around carefully. "It must be on this side if it leads
directly into the monks' living quarters-' he broke off with a grunt of
satisfaction. "Aha! You can see where all their feet have actually worn
a pathway over the centuries." He pointed out a smooth area of dished
and worn stone near the side wall. "And look at the marks of grubby
fingers on the tapestry over there." He crossed quickly to the hanging
and drew a fold aside. "I thought as much." There was a narrow doorway
concealed behind the hanging.
"Follow me."
They found themselves in a dark passageway through the living rock.
Nicholas flashed his torch down its length, ? A
but he masked the bulb with his hand to show only as ,much light as they
needed. "This way."
The passage turned at right-angles and ahead they could make out a dull
illumination. Nicholas switched off the torch and led her on.
Now there was the smell of stale food and humanity, and they passed the
doorless entrance to a monk's rock cell. Nicholas flashed his torch into
it. It was deserted and bare. A wooden cross hung on the wall with a
truckle bed below it. There were no other furnishings. They went on past
a dozen others which were almost identical.
At the next turning of the passage Nicholas paused.
He felt a tiny draught on his cheek, and the taste of fresh air on his
tongue. "This way he whispered.
They hurried on, until suddenly Royan grabbed his shoulder from behind
and forced him to stop.
"What-' he began, but she squeezed his shoulder to silence him. He heard
it then, the sound of a human voice, echoing eerily through the
labyrinth of passageways.
Then came a weird haunting cry, that of a soul in agony, wailing and
sobbing. They crept forward, trying to make their escape before they
were discovered, but the sounds grew stronger as they went on.
"Dead ahead," Nicholas warned her in a whisper. "We are going to have to
sneak past."
Now they saw soft yellow lamplight spilling from the doorway of one of
the cells into the passage. There came another heart-rending female cry
that echoed down the passage and froze them in their tracks.
"That's a woman's voice. What is happening?" Royan breathed, ut he
shook his head for silence and led her on.
They had to pass the open door of the lit cell. Nicholas edged towards
it with his back flattened to the opposite wall. She followed him,
keeping close and clinging to his arm for comfort.
As they looked into the cell the woman cried out again, but this time
her voice blended with that of a man.
It was a duet without words, but racked with all the feral agony of a
passion too fierce to be borne in silence.
In their full view a couple lay n
aked upon the truckle bed. The woman
lay spread-eagled, holding the man's hips between her uplifted knees.
Her arms wound hard around his back, upon which each separate muscle
stood out proudly and gleamed with sweat. He thrust down into her
savagely, his buttocks bunching and pounding with the force of a great
black battering ram.
She rolled her head from side to side as another incoherent cry was torn
from her straining throat. It seemed too much for the man above her to
bear, and he reared back like a flaring cobra, his pelvis still locked
to hers, but his back arched like a war bow. Spasm after spasm gripped
him. The sinews in the back of his legs were stretched to snapping
point, and the muscles in his back fluttered and jumped like separate
living creatures.
The woman opened her eyes and looked directly at them as they stood
transfixed in the doorway, but she was blinded with the strength of her
passion. Her eyes were sightless, as she cried aloud to the man above
her.
Nicholas drew Royan away, and they slipped down the passageway and out
on to the deserted terrace. They stopped at the foot of the staircase,
and breathed the sweet cool night air that was perfumed by the waters of
the Nile.
"Tessay has gone to him,'Royan whispered softly.
"For tonight at least,'Nicholas agreed.
"No," Royan denied. "You saw her face, Nicky. She belongs to Mek Nimmur
now."
The dawn was flushing the serrated crests of the escarpment to the
colours; of port wine and roses when they reached camp and separated at
the door to Royan's hut.
"I am bushed," she told Nicholas. The excitement has been too much for
me. You won't see me again before noon."
"Good thinking! Sleep as long as you wish. I want you scintillating and
perceptive when we start going over the material which we gathered last
night."
It was long before noon, however, when Nicholas was woken from a deep
sleep by the harsh and intrusive bellows of Boris as he stormed into the
hut.
"English, wake up! I must talk to you. Wake up, man, wake up."
Nicholas rolled over and thrust one arm out from under the mosquito net
as he groped for his wrist-watch.
"Damn you, Brusilov! What the hell do you want?"
"My wife! Have you seen my wife?"
"Now what has your wife got to do with me?"
"She has gone! I have not seen her since last night."