by Wilbur Smith
dun'coloured thunderheads reared to the heavens, menacing and ominous,
fonning their own mighty ranges that dwarfed the mountains beneath them.
At any time the downpour might ed, begin up there in the highlands. Once
that happen Sapper wondered how long it would take the flood waters to
reach them here in the Abbay gorge.
He dismounted stiffly from the tractor, and went down the bank to
inspect his stone markers. The water level had fallen almost a foot in
the past hour. He forced himself not to let his optimism bubble over -
after all, it had taken only fifteen minutes for the river to -rise the
same amount.
would come.
The final outcome was inevitable. The rains rst. He looked The river
would spate. The dam would bu at the dam wall, and shook his head with
fill downstream resignation.
He had done as much as possible to delay that moment. He had raised the
level of the dam wall almost four feet, and packed in another buttress
behind the wall to strengthen it. There was nothing further for him to
do, and he could only wait.
Climbing up the bank, he leaned wearily against the yellow steel of his
machine and looked across at his team of Buffaloes, strewn along the
bank like casualties on a battlefield. They had worked for two days to
hold back the waters, and now they were exhausted. He knew that he could
not call on them for another effort; the next time the river attacked,
it would overwhelm them.
He saw some of the men stir and sit up, and their faces turned upstream.
He heard their voices faint on the wind.
Something was exciting their interest. He climbed up on to the tractor
and shaded his eyes, The unmistakable figure of Mek Nimmur was coming
down the trail from the direction of the escarpment, stocky and powerful
in his camo fatigues, his gait determined. He was accompanied by two of
his company commanders.
Mek hailed Sapper from a distance. "How is your dam holding?" he called
in Arabic, which Sapper did not understand. "Soon it will rain on the
mountains, You won't be able to hold out here much longer." But his
gestures towards sky and river were immediately intelligible to Sapper.
Sapper jumped down from the machine to gr,6et him, and they shook hands
cordially. They had recognized in each other the qualities of strength
and professionalism that they both admired.
Mek seized his company commander, who spoke English, by the arm, and the
man fell into his by now familiar role of interpreter.
"It is not only the weather that troubles me," Mek confided in a low
voice, and the interpreter relayed the information to Sapper. "I have
reports that the governMent troops are moving into position to attack
us. My intelligence is that they have a full battalion moving down this
way from Debra Maryam, and another force low the monastery at St.
Frumentius, moving up the be Abbay river."
"Pincer movement, heyT said Sapper.
Mek listened to the translation and nodded gravely. "I am heavily
outnumbered and I don't know how long I will they attack. My men are be
able to hold them when gueff illas. It is not our role to fight
set-piece battles. It is the war of the flea for us. Hit and run. I came
to warn You at short notice."
to be ready to Pull out Sapper grunted. , "Don't worry too much about
am a sprinter. Hundred yards dash is my speciality. It's Nicholas and
ROYan you should be thinking of, them in that ruddy rabbit warren of
theirs."
but I wanted to arrange
"I am on my way to them now a fall'back position. if we get cut off from
each other in the the monastery.
fighting, Nicholas has cached the boats at That is where we will
assemble."
okay Mek---2 Sapper stopped speaking and all three I the trail, where
there was a fresh of them looked bank. "What's disturbance amongst the
men along the going on?"
Mek one of my patrols coming in narrowed his eyes.
"Mere must be some new development." He stopped not understand speaking
as he realized that Sapper could him, and then his expression changed as
he recognized the small, slim figure that was being carried on a rough
litter by thing-_ men of his patrol.
towards, her and sat up weakly Tessay saw him running her to the ground
and Mek on the litter. The men lowered the litter and placed both went
down on his knees beside They held each other in silence for a his arms
airoun(:
her face in his Mek gently cupped long moment. Then features.
hands and examined her swollen and arre Some of the burns had become
infected, and her eyes were slits beneath the bloated lids.
"Who did this to you?"he asked softly.
She mumbled incoherently through her black-scabbed lips. They made me
No! Don't try to talk." He changed his mind as her lower lip cracked
open and a droplet of fresh blood welled up and glistened like a ruby on
her skin.
"I have to tell you," she insisted in a broken whisper.
"They made me tell them everything. The numbers of your men. What you
and Nicholas are doing here. Everything. I am sorry, Mek. I betrayed
you."
"Who was it? Who did this to you?"
"Nogo and the American, Helm,' she said, and although he embraced her as
gently as a father with his infant in his arms, his eyes were terrible.
/4P- -I he lowed chamber of the tunnel was cleared of gas at last.
Hansith's fire burned bright and steady in the middle of the floor, the
rising hot air wafting away the noxious vapours and dispersing them
through the upper levels of the maze, where they mingled with
the'cleaner oxygen-rich air and lost their toxicity. By this time Royan
had fully recovered from the physical effects of the gassing, but her
confidence was shaken, and she allowed Nicholas to lead the way up the
steps that rose from the far side of the chamber.
"It's the perfect gas trap," Nicholas pointed out to her as they climbed
cautiously. "No doubt at all that Taita knew exactly what he was doing
-when he built this section of the tunnel."
"Surely he must have expected any interloper of his period to have
either succumbed to his hellish devices, lost his way in the maze, or
given up and turned back by now," she reasoned.
"Are you trying to convince me that this was Taita's last line of
defence, and that he has no more tricks in store for us? Is that it?"
Nicholas asked as he took another step upwards.
"No. Actually I was trying to convince myself, and not having much
success. I just don't trust him one little bit any more. I have come to
expect the worst from him. I expect the roof to collapse on me at any
moment, or the floor to open and drop us into a fiery furnace or
something worse." They had descended forty steps down into the se they
were now climbing was a chamber, and the stairca mirror image of that.
It rose at the same angle and the tread of each step was the same depth
and width. As their heads rose above the fortieth step, Nicholas played
the beam of the lamp down the spacious, level arcade that en
ed before
them, and they were dazzled by a riot of OP
colour and pattern, bright and lovely as a field' of desert blooms after
rain. The paintings covered the walls and ceiling of the arcade,
stunning in their profusion, wondrous in their execution.
"Taita!l Royan cried in a voice that quivered and broke. "These are his
paintings. There is no other artist like him, I could never mistake it.
I would know his work anywhere."
stood on the top step and gazed around in They wonder. When compared to
these, the murals in the long gallery seemed pale and stilted, the
tawdry sham that they the work of a great master, a timeless really
were. This was genius, whose art could enchant and enrapture now just as
readily as it had four thousand years ago. involuntarily, They moved
forward slowly, almost down the arcade. It was lined on each side with
small ntal bazaar. The entrance chambers, like the stalls in an orie
ched up to the to each was guarded by tall columns that rea roof. Each
column was a carved statue of one member of the pantheon of gods.
Between them they held the high vaulted ceiling suspended.
As they drew level with the first two stalls, Nicholas stopped and
squeezed her arm.
"The treasure chambers of Pharaoh he whispered.
The stalls were packed from floor to ceiling with wonderful and
beautiful things.
"The furniture store." Royan's voice was as reverential as his as she
recognized the shapes of chairs and stools and beds and divans. She went
to the nearest chamber and touched a royal throne. The arms were twining
serpents of bronze and lapis lazuli. The legs were those of lions with
claws of gold. The seat and back were chased with scenes of the hunt,
and wings of gold surmounted the high back.
Stacked behind the throne was a great Profusion of other furniture. They
recognized a screened divan, its sides enclosed in an exquisite lacework
of ebony and ivory. But there were dozens of other items besides, most
of them broken down into their separate Parts so that it was not
possible to guess what they were. They gleamed with precious metals and
coloured stones in such confusion and variety that it was too much to
take in in a single glance.
Both the alcoves on either side of the arcade were stuffed with these
marvelous collections. Royan shook her head in wonder, and Nicholas led
her on. The walls that separated the alcoves were decorated with panels
illustrate in the Book of the Dead, and the journey of Pharaoh through
the pylons, the dangers and the trials, the demons and the monsters that
awaited him along the way.
"These are the paintings that were missing from the mock tomb in the
long gallery," Royan told him. "But just look upon the face of the king,
You can see he was a real person. Those are perfect royal portraits."
The mural beside them depicted the great god Osiris leading Pharaoh by
the hand, protecting him from the crowded close on either hand, waiting
thei monsters that showed the face of the king as he chance to devour
him. I with a kind and gentle, if must truly have been, a man rather
weak, face.
"Look at the figures," Nicholas agreed. "They are not forward with the
right stiff wooden dolls always stepping foot. These are real men and
women. They are anatomic and had cally correct. The artist understood
perspectiv studied the human body."
They came to the next pair of alcoves, and paused to peer into them.
"Weapons," said Nicholas. just look at that chariot The panels of the
chariot were covered with a skin of old leaf, so that it dazzled the
eye. The harness and traces the horses that would draw it into seemed
only to await and the quivers strapped to the side panels behind battle,
elins. The each tall wheel bulged with arrows and jav was emblazoned on
the side panels.
cartouche of Mamose significant vehicle were war bows Piled beside this
of electrum and bronze whose stocks were bound with wir ays of daggers
with ivory handles and gold. There were arr and swords with blades of
glistening bronze. There were racks of spears and pikes. There were
shields of bronze, the targets decorated with scenes of war and the name
of the se. There were helmets and breastplates made divine Mamo from the
skin of the crocodile, and the uniforms and regalia of the famous
regiments of Egypt dressed the life-sized the wooden statues of the king
that stood in rows against walls of the alcoves.
a They walked on down the isle, between more paint, death of the icting
the life and the ings and murals dep ters and danking. They saw him
playing with his daugh nt son. They saw him fishing and hunting and
dling his infa isn'omarches, hawking, in council with his ministers and
dallying with his wives and concubines, and feasting with the priests of
the temple.
What a chronicle of life in ancient times," Royan breathed with awe.
"There has never been a discovery remotely like this before." Each of
the persons in the panels had obviously been drawn from life. They were
real breathing living men and women, every face and every expression
different, captured with the keen eye, the humour and he great humanity
of the artist.
"That must be Taita himself." Royan pointed out the self-portrait of the
eunuch in one of the central panels. "I wonder if he took poetic
licence, or was he truly so noble and beautiful?"
They paused to admire the face of Taita, their adversary, and looked
into his searching, intelligent eyes. Such was the skill of the artist
that he watched them as keenly as they studied him. A small, enigmatic
smile played on Taita's lips. The painting had been varnished, so that
it was perfectly preserved, as if it had been painted the day before.
Taita's lips seemed moist and his eyes gleamed softly with life.
"His complexion is fair and his eyes are blue!" Royan exclaimed.
"Although that red hair is almost certainly dyed with henna."
"It is weird to think that, although he lived so long ago, he almost
succeeded in killing us,'Nicholas said softly.
"In what land was he born? He never tells us that in the scrolls. Was it
Greeceor Italy? Was he from one of the Germanic tribes, or was he of
Viking stock? We will never know, for he himself probably did not know
his own origins."
"There he, is again in the next panel." Nicholas pointed down the arcade
to where the unmistakable face of the eunuch appeared in the throng that
knelt in homage before the throne on which sat Pharaoh and his queen.
"Like Hitchcock, he seems to like to appear in his own creations."
They went on past the treasure stalls in which were stored plates and
goblets and bowls of alabaster and bronze chased with silver and gold,
polished bronze mirrors and rolls of precious silk and linen and woollen
cloth that had long ago rotted to shaggy black amorphous heaps. On the
walls that divided these from the next set of stalls they saw reenacted
the battle with the Hyksos in which Pharaoh had been struck down, the
arrow shot by the Hyksos king lodge
d in his breast. Then in the next
panel Taita, the surgeon, bent Over him with the surgical instruments in
his ed barb from deep in his hands, removing the blood-smear flesh.
Now they came to alcoves in which were stacked hundreds of cedarwood
chests. The boxes were painted with the royal cartouche of Mamose, and
with scenes of the king at his toilet: lining his eyes with kohl,
painting his face with white antimony and scarlet rouge, being shaved by
his barbers and dressed by his valets.
"Some of those chests will contain the royal cosmetics," Royan murmured,
'and some of them will be Pharaoh's wardrobes of clothing. There will be
costumes in them for ack every occasion in his after-life. I long to be
able to unp and examine them."
all panels showed the mart iage of the The next set of king to the
young virgin, Taita's mistress. The face of Queen LostTis was tendered
with loving detail. The artist gloated on her beauty and exaggerated it,
his brush strokes caressing her naked breasts and lingering on all her
virtues until they epitomized feminine perfection.
"How much Taita loved her," Royan murmured, and there was envy in her
voice. "You can see it in every line he drew."
Nicholas smiled softly and put his arms around her shoulders.
There were hundreds more wooden chests stacked in the next alcoves.
Painted on the lids were miniatures of the king decked in all his
jewellery: his fingers and toes were thick with rings and his chest was
covered with pectoral medallions, while bangles of gold adorned his arms
and bracelets his wrists. In one portrait he wore the double crown of
the two kingdoms of Egypt united, the red crown and the white with the
heads of the vulture and the cobra on his brow. In another he wore the
blue war crown, and on a third the Nemes crown with gold and lapis wings
that covered his ears.
"If each of those chests contains the treasures depicted on its lid-'
Nicholas broke off, unable to continue the thought. The possibility of
such riches was daunting, and the imagination balked at the magnitude of
it.
"Do you remember what Taita wrote in the scrolls? "I cannot believe that
such a treasure was ever before accumulated in one place at one times'T
Royan asked him. "It seeffLs that it is all still here, every single gem
and grain of gold. The treasure of Mamose is intact."