by Wilbur Smith
I am ready for her, as ready as 1 can ever be. But will that be enough?
The gates to the gardens were wide open, but as he stood in front of them a hush fell over the crater. The soft wind died away. A pair of bulbul shrikes that had been calling a duet to each other fell silent. The high branches of the trees froze and remained as motionless as a painting against the blue canopy of the sky. For a moment longer he listened to the silence, then he stepped through the gates.
The earth moved under his feet. It trembled, the branches of the trees quivering in sympathy. The tremble became a harsh juddering. He heard rock groan under his feet. A section of the crater wall split away and fell with a roar into the forest below. The earth tipped under him like the_ deck of a ship caught in a gale. He almost lost his balance and reached1 out to grab one of the gate's bars to prevent himself being cast down.
The wind rose again, but it came from the direction of the imp's grotto.
It swept over the tops of the trees and swirled round him in a vortex of dead leaves. It was as cold as the hand of a corpse.
Eos is trying to intimidate me. She is the mistress of the volcanoes.
She commands the earthquakes and the lava rivers that flow up from hell. She is showing me how puny I am in the face of her might, he thought. Then he shouted aloud, 'Hear me, Eos! I accept your challenge.'
The trembling of the earth ceased, and once again the mysterious hush fell over the crater. Now the pathway lay clear and inviting before him. When at last he passed through the gap between the tall boulders he heard ahead the chortling of the waters that flowed out of the grotto.
He pushed his way through the screen of greenery and stepped into the clearing beside the pool. All was as he remembered it. He took his
customary seat on the grass with his back to the fallen tree-trunk, and waited.
The first warning he received of her approach was an icy breeze that tickled the back of his neck, and he felt the hair rise on his forearms. He watched the opening of the grotto and saw a fine silver mist billow from it. Then a dark figure appeared through the mist, coming down the lichen covered ledges towards him with stately grace. It was the veiled woman he had last seen in Hannah's rooms, dressed in the same voluminous, translucent robe of black silk.
Eos stepped out of the silver mist, and he saw that her feet were bare.
Her toes peeped out from under the hem of her robe, the the only part of her that was visible. They were wet and shining from the spring water that spilled over them, small and perfectly shaped, as though carved by a great artist from creamy ivory. Her toenails were pearly bright. Those feet were the only part of her body he had ever laid eyes on, and they were exquisitely erotic. He could not tear his gaze from them. He felt his manhood swell, and stilled it with an effort.
If she can affect me thus with a glimpse of her toes, what chance have I of resisting her if she reveals the rest of herself?
At last he was able to lift his eyes. He tried to see beyond her veil but it was impenetrable. Then he felt the touch of her regard as though a butterfly had landed upon his skin. She spoke, and he caught his breath.
He had never heard a sound to match the music of her voice. It was as silvery as the chiming of crystal bells. It shivered the foundations of his soul.
'I have waited through the aeons for you to come to me,' said Eos, and although he knew that she embodied the great Lie, he could not help but believe her.
Fenn and Meren had kept Sidudu hidden for many long months after Taita had been taken away by Captain Onka to the Cloud Gardens. At first she had been so enfeebled by her ordeal that she was confused and distraught. Meren and Fenn were gentle and soon she became pathetically reliant upon them. One or other had to stay with her at all times. Slowly she rallied and her confidence began to return. At last she was able to describe her experiences and to tell them of the Temple of Love.
'It is dedicated to the one true goddess,' she explained. 'All the temple virgins are chosen from the incomers, never the noble families. Each arriving family must offer up one of their daughters, and it brings great honour and privilege on those whose daughters are chosen. All the people in our village held a festival of praise to the goddess and dressed me in the finest robes, placed a crown of flowers on my head and took me to the temple. My father and mother went with me, laughing and weeping with joy. They gave me to the mother superior and left me there. I never saw them again.'
'Who chose you for the service of the goddess?' Fenn asked her.
'They told us it was the oligarchs,' she replied.
'Tell us about the Temple of Love,' Meren said. She was silent for a while as she thought about it. Then she went on, speaking softly and hesitantly: 'It was very beautiful. There were many other girls when first I arrived. The priestesses were kind to us. We were given lovely clothes and delicious food. They explained that when we had proved ourselves to be worthy we would go up into the mountain of the goddess and be exalted by her.'
'You were happy?' Fenn asked.
'At first I was. Of course I missed my mother and father, but each morning they gave us a delicious sherbet to drink that filled us with joy and high spirits. We laughed, sang and danced.'
'Then what happened?' Meren asked.
She turned away her face and spoke so softly that he could hardly hear her. 'The men came to visit us. We thought they were to be our friends.
We danced with them.' Sidudu began to weep silently. 'I am ashamed to tell you more.'
They were silent, and Fenn took her hand. 'We are your true friends, Sidudu,' she said. 'You can speak to us. You can tell us everything.'
The girl let out a heart-wrenching sob and threw her arms round Fenn's neck. 'The priestesses ordered us to have congress with the men who visited us.'
'Which men were they?' Meren asked grimly.
'The first was Lord Aquer. He was horrible. After him there were others, many others, then Onka.'
'You need tell us no more.' Fenn stroked her hair.
'Yes! I must! The memory is a fire inside me. I cannot keep it from you.'
Sidudu took a deep, shuddering breath. 'Once a month a woman doctor named Hannah came to examine us. On each occasion she chose one or more of the girls. They were taken away to the mountain to be exalted by
the goddess. They never returned to the temple.' She stopped speaking again, and Fenn passed her a square of linen on which to blow her nose.
When she had finished, Sidudu folded the cloth carefully and went on: 'One of the other girls became my dearest friend. Her name was Litane.
She was very gentle and lovely, but she missed her mother and hated what we had to do with the men. One night she ran away from the temple. She told me she was going and I tried to stop her, but she was determined. The next morning the priestesses laid her dead body on the altar. As a caution, they made each of us walk past it. They told us that the trogs had caught her in the forest. Lying on the altar, Litane was no longer lovely.'
They let her cry for a while, and then Meren said, 'Tell us about Onka.'
'Onka is a nobleman. Lord Aquer is his uncle. He is also Aquer's chief spy-master. For all these reasons, he has special privileges. He was taken with me. Because of his position he was allowed to see me more than once. Then they allowed him to take me away from the temple to live with him as his house slave. I was a reward for the services he had performed for the state. When he was drunk he beat me. It gave him pleasure to hurt me. It made his eyes sparkle and he smiled when he was doing it. One day while Onka was away on military duty a woman came secretly to see me. She told me that she worked in a great library in the Cloud Gardens. She told me what happened to the girls from the temple who were taken up into the mountain. They were not exalted by the goddess. Their babies were cut from their wombs before they were born and given as food to the goddess. That is why the goddess is known secretly as the Devourer of Infants.'
'What happened to the girls who bore the infants?'
'
They disappeared,' Sidudu said simply. She sobbed again. 'I loved some of those girls who have gone. There are others in the temple whom I also love. They, too, will go up the mountain when there is a baby inside them.'
'Calm yourself, Sidudu,' Fenn whispered. 'This is all too dreadful to be told.'
'No, Fenn, let the poor girl speak,' Meren intervened. 'What she says fires me with rage. The Jarrians are monsters. My anger arms me against them.'
'So you will help me to save my friends, Meren?' Sidudu looked at him with more than trust in her large dark eyes.
'I will do whatever you ask of me,' he answered at once. 'But tell me more of Onka. He will be the first to know my vengeance.'
'I thought he would protect me. I thought that if I stayed with him I would never be sent to the mountain. But one day, not long ago, Dr Hannah came to examine me. I was not expecting her, but I knew what her visit meant. When she had finished she said nothing, but I saw her look at Onka and nod. It was enough. I knew then that when the baby inside me grew larger I would be taken up the mountain. A few days later I had another visitor. She came to see me in secret while Onka was with Colonel That at Tamafupa. She was the wife of Bilto.
She asked me to work with the incomers who were planning an escape from Jarri. I agreed, of course, and when they asked me to do so I gave a potion to Onka that made him sick. After that Onka suspected me. He treated me even more cruelly, and I knew that soon he would send me back to the temple. Then I heard that the magus was in Mutangi. I thought he would be able to take away Onka's baby, and I decided to risk everything to find him. I ran away, but the trogs came after me. That is when you rescued me.'
'It is a terrible story,' Fenn said. 'You have suffered much.'
'Yes, but not as much as the girls who are still in the temple,' Sidudu reminded them.
'We will rescue them,' Meren blurted out impulsively. 'When we escape from Jarri those girls will go with us, I swear it!'
'Oh, Meren, you are so brave and noble.'
Thereafter Sidudu made a swift recovery. She and Fenn grew closer each day. All the others liked her, Hilto, Nakonto and Imbali, but Meren more so than all the rest. With the help of Bilto and the other villagers of Mutangi, they were able to escape from the house during the day and spend time in the forest. Meren and Hilto continued to train Fenn in archery, and soon they invited Sidudu to join in. Meren made her a bow, which he matched carefully to her strength and the span of her arms. Although small and slim, Sidudu was surprisingly strong, and showed a natural aptitude with the bow. Meren set up a target for them in a clearing in the woods, and the girls shot against each other in friendly rivalry.
'Pretend that the mark is Onka's head,' Fenn told her, and after that Sidudu seldom missed. Her arms strengthened and developed so swiftly that soon Meren had to build her another bow with a heavier draw
weight. After much devoted practice she was able to send out an arrow to the mark at two hundred paces.
Meren, Hilto and Nakonto were all inveterate gamblers and laid wagers on the girls when they shot against each other. They urged on their favourite, and haggled over the allowances given to Sidudu. Because Fenn had been using the bow for so much longer than Sidudu, they made her shoot from longer range. At first this was agreed at fifty paces, but gradually it became shorter as Sidudu's skill increased.
One morning they were holding another tournament in the clearing, Meren and Sidudu teamed against Hilto and Fenn. The competition was keen and the banter raucous when out from among the trees rode a stranger on an unfamiliar horse. He was dressed like a field worker, but he rode like a warrior. At a quiet word from Meren they nocked fresh arrows and stood ready to defend themselves. When the stranger saw their intention he reined in his mount and pulled aside the headcloth that covered his face.
'By Seth's dung-smeared buttocks!' Meren exclaimed. 'It's That.' He hurried forward to greet him. 'Colonel, something is amiss. What is it?
Tell me at once.'
'I am pleased to have found you,' That told him. 'I have come to warn you that we are in great danger. The oligarchs have issued a summons for all of us to appear before them. Onka and his men are hunting for us everywhere. At this very moment they are searching every house in Mutangi.'
'What does this mean?' Meren asked.
'Only one thing,' That told him morosely. 'We have come under suspicion. I believe Onka has denounced me as a traitor. Which, of course, by Jarrian standards, I am. He found the bodies of the trogs you killed when you rescued Sidudu, which infuriated him because now he is certain that you are hiding her.'
'What proof has he?'
'He needs none. He is closely related to Lord Aquer. His word is enough to condemn us all,' That replied. 'The judgement of the oligarchs is certain. We will be interrogated under torture. If we survive that, we will be sent to the quarries or the mines … or worse.'
'So now we are all fugitives.' Meren did not seem worried by the prospect. 'At least the pretence is over.'
'Yes,' That agreed. 'We are outlaws. You cannot return to Mutangi.'
'Of course not,' Meren said. 'There is nothing there that we need. We
have the horses and our weapons. We must take to the forests. While we wait for Taita to return from the Cloud Gardens we will make the final preparations for our flight from this accursed place back to our very Egypt.'
'We must leave at once,' That concurred. 'We are much too close to Mutangi. There are many places in the remote hills where we can hide. If we keep moving, Onka will be hard put to catch up with us.' They mounted and rode eastwards. By late afternoon they had covered twenty leagues. As they climbed into the foothills of the range of mountains below the Kitangule Gap a herd of large grey antelope with long spiral horns and huge ears broke cover and ran across their front. Immediately they unslung their bows and gave chase. Fenn, on Whirlwind, was the first to catch up with them and her arrow brought down a fat, hornless female.
'Enough!' Meren cried. 'There is plenty of meat on it to last us for days.' They allowed the rest of the herd to escape and dismounted to butcher the carcass. As the sun set, Sidudu led them to a stream of clear sweet water. They bivouacked beside it and grilled antelope chops over embers for dinner.
As they gnawed the bones, That reported to Meren on the most recent disposition of the forces loyal to the rebel cause. 'My own regiment is the Red Standard, and all the officers and men will come over to us when I call them to arms. I can also rely on two divisions of the Yellow Standard, which is commanded by my colleague Colonel Sangat. He is one of us. Then there are three divisions of troops who are responsible for guarding the prisoners and captives working in the stopes of the mines. They have had first-hand experience of the brutality and inhumanity with which the captives are treated. They await my orders.
As soon as we begin the struggle they will release their charges, arm them and bring them by forced march to join us.' They went on to discuss the mustering point, and eventually decided that each unit must make independently for the Kitangule Gap, where they would all come together.
'What force will the Jarrians be able to deploy against us?' Meren asked.
'Although they will outnumber us ten to one, it will take the oligarchs many days to muster their troops and march against us. As long as we can achieve initial surprise and a head start on the pursuit our forces will be of sufficient strength to fight a rearguard action as far as the boatyards at the head of the Kitangule river. When we get there we will seize the
craft we need. Once we are on the river it will be an easy run downstream to the great Nalubaale lake.' He paused and looked shrewdly at Meren.
'We can be ready to leave within ten days.'
'We cannot leave without the Magus Taita,' Meren said quickly.
'Taita is one man,' That pointed out. 'Hundreds of our own people are in danger.'
'You will not succeed without him,' Meren said. 'Without his powers you and all your people will be doomed.'
That thought abo
ut it, frowning morosely and pulling at a strand of his bristling beard. Then he seemed to reach a decision. 'We cannot wait for him for ever. What if he is already dead? I cannot take the risk.'
'Colonel ThatI' Fenn burst out. 'Will you wait for Taita until the rise of the harvest moon?'
That stared at her, then nodded curtly.' But no longer. If the magus does not come down from the mountain before then, we can be sure he never will.'
'Thank you, Colonel. I admire your courage and good sense.' Fenn smiled sweetly at him. He mumbled with embarrassment and looked into the flames. She went on remorselessly, 'Do you know about the girls in the Temple of Love, Colonel?'
'Of course I know there are temple maidens, but what of it?'
Fenn turned to Sidudu. 'Tell him what you told us.'
That listened with mounting horror to Sidudu's account. By the time she had finished, his expression was bleak. 'I had no inkling that atrocities such as these were being perpetrated on our young women. Of course I knew that some of the girls were being taken to the Cloud Gardens.
Indeed, I escorted some, but they went willingly. I had no idea that they were being sacrificed to the goddess, or that cannibal rites were being conducted on the mountain.'
'Colonel, we have to take them with us. We cannot leave them to the Jarrians,' Meren broke in. 'I have already sworn an oath that I will do everything in my power to set them free and take them with us when we escape from Jarri.'
'Here and now I make that same oath,' That growled. 'I swear in the name of all the gods that I will not leave this land until we have freed those young women.'
'If we must wait until the harvest moon how many more will be sent up the mountain before then?' Fenn asked.
The men were silenced by her question.
'If we act too soon, we will lose the element of surprise. The Jarrians will immediately unleash all their forces upon us. What do you propose, Fenn?' It was That who had spoken.' ¦ 'Only the girls with child are sent up the mountain,' Fenn pointed out.