by Wilbur Smith
Saffron looked at him closely. She had heard her husband’s offer of work to the boy and his refusal, yet here he was now, tending to her.
“Have you changed your mind, Tadesse? Will you come with us?”
He shot a glance at her, but seemed embarrassed to meet her eye. Saffron wondered if his friend in the market had also told him he had little chance of working for anyone else.
“Yes, I shall work for you and Mr. Ryder. Though perhaps you are going back to Cairo?”
The wound was beginning to ache again. He carefully laid pads of cloth over his handiwork, then began to bind them loosely around her arm.
Saffron frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“I heard the men of Mr. Ryder talking. They say you have no reason to go to Tigray now.” He finished, helping her put Ryder’s coat over her shoulder again.
Saffron narrowed her eyes. “We’ll see about that.”
•••
Having made his way back to the house on Talud, Ryder walked slowly across the yard to the hut where his mining crew had been billeted. Now his wife was recovering and his son safe, it was time to calculate his resources and decide what he should do next. He thought with wry nostalgia of his compound in Khartoum, the place where, before the dervishes of the Mahdi had brought chaos and destruction, he had laid up a store of treasures. Ivory and gold, trade goods gathered from the richest and most unexplored territories of East Africa, a leather-bound library on the flora and fauna of this continent he loved, a menagerie of exotic beasts calling to him from the compound and his own river steamer, Intrepid Ibis, waiting at the dock, ready to carry it all to Cairo. That was before General Gordon commandeered her, of course, and before the victories of the Mahdists had made it impossible for him to carry on his business on the broad reach of the Nile.
Now almost all of what he had salvaged and saved for was at the bottom of the Red Sea. On the other hand Amber had told him that she and Saffron had rescued their supply of fat Maria Theresa dollars, and that Saffron still had his Star of Judea pinned to the inside of her coat. It had no great value in itself, but it was a sign of the regard in which he was held at the Abyssinian court and as such was worth more than diamonds. In his own wallet of papers, protected by their oiled leather case, he still had the letters of introduction from Emperor John, requesting Mr. Ryder be given every assistance and even noting the daily pay due to any subject of the emperor’s whom he might employ. The folder also now contained permissions to mine and the deeds to the land in the mountains above Adrigat procured by Ato Bru. These pieces of parchment, heavy with seals and each written in four languages, had cost him dear, but what were they worth without the equipment he needed? Might he have to return to trading until he could afford to replace what was lost and rusting on the seabed? Could he risk continuing further in the enterprise if, as Mr. Guptor had suggested, someone was trying to sabotage him? He had no fear for himself, but the idea of any harm coming to his wife and son laid a heavy weight on his heart. The sisters were rich from the sales of Amber’s book. For a moment he considered sending them away to England, ordering them to live on their own in respectable comfort until he got back on his feet again. He shook his head. Saffron would never go to England without him. She didn’t even remember the place, staying with him in Abyssinia when Amber went to visit the land of her birth. Home was wherever they were together.
He looked up at the hills beyond the port. Beyond them lay Abyssinia, the roof of Africa. He could almost taste the air and he realized his hands had clenched into fists. He refused to go crawling back to Cairo defeated. He would find a way.
He stooped to enter the hut. Rusty, Dan and Patch were lounging on rugs laid across the beaten earth floor. One of the servants had brought them coffee and flatbread, and the local version of beer. It tasted thin and acidic, but it was safer than unboiled water. Ryder sat down between them and a beaker of the stuff was poured and handed to him. Today the beer tasted like nectar, far better than the dusty tea he’d enjoyed with Guptor, and he sensed a new energy flowing through his tired muscles.
“Mr. Courtney, a boat heading for Suez is due to stop off here in three days’ time,” Dan said. “I guess I’ll be on it.”
“Me too,” Patch said, scratching his stubble with his fingernails. “It was a bold venture, Courtney, but the gods are against you. If we could have got that kit up into those hills, and the strike was as good as you hoped, we might have had a throw of the dice. But now it’s gone and your money with it, well, we haven’t even got dice to throw with.”
Ryder did not reply, just looked around at Rusty and raised his eyebrow. The engineer’s leg was bouncing up and down.
“I’m not so sure,” he said at last. The two older men groaned. Ryder guessed they’d been talking this through without him.
“Now listen, fellas—” Rusty tried to continue.
Patch waved his hand dismissively. “Enough, Rusty! It took six months and all Courtney’s money to get that kit together when we were in Cairo. You’re never going to get replacements here in a year, even if Courtney can afford it. And even if you did, I’m not rotting in this oven waiting while you do.”
“I know, I know,” Rusty said, leaning forward. “But these people have been digging treasure out of hills higher than these since Solomon was king. If they could do it, why can’t we?” He scratched his head. “Sure, it’ll be hard going and low yields at first, scavenging what we can until we can get the gear together to process the ore properly. But Mr. Courtney here has paid me for a year, and I don’t want to pay him back.” Rusty folded his arms. “So I reckon that means I’m staying and making myself useful until that year is done.”
Ryder looked at Patch. He shrugged. “It’s a crazy idea, but if you’re going . . . I already spent your money paying off my debts in the Transvaal, so I guess I belong to you.”
Dan drank his beer in silence for a full minute. “It’s my opinion you’ll be sending good money after bad, Courtney. Now that’s said, if you want to take your family up into the wilds, I’ll come with you and show you where to dig.”
Ryder drew breath to speak, but before he had the chance Saffron had ducked under the door.
“We are not going home!” she said and stamped her foot. The men snatched their beakers of beer from the floor before they spilled. “Ryder, don’t you dare tell me you are thinking of it for even a minute.”
“Saffy . . .”
Her scarf was still matted with blood. It made her look like a warrior wild with the spirit of battle. “No, Ryder, listen. They’ve been mining here for hundreds of years. We can buy shovels, can’t we?”
“My dear, you’ll open up your wound,” he said quietly.
“Oh, Tadesse arrived and sewed me up. He’s changed his mind and he’s coming with us, by the way, and stop laughing at me . . . If these boys are too cowardly to go up to the mountains . . .”
The three men groaned and protested, and before Saffron had stopped telling them to shush and let her finish, Amber had appeared in the doorway with bolts of blue and green cloth over her shoulder. “What’s happening? I could hear you shouting from the market,” she said.
“Amber, these idiots think we should go crawling back to Cairo, just because they lost their silly equipment!”
“Why would we do that?” Amber said, her blue eyes sparkling in the gloom of the hut. “Half the Italian army is in Massowah! They’ll have gunpowder to blast the rock, and all the camping and building equipment we need to set ourselves up. Did Tadesse sew up your wound, Saffy?”
“Yes, neatly, too. Oh, what lovely fabric!” she replied with a grin, then spun back toward the men. “See! That’s exactly what I said! Well, almost. Ryder, you won’t make us go home, will you? As soon as my arm is healed, I can dig and—”
Ryder stood up and in one swift movement caught his wife around the waist and kissed her hard. She struggled away. “Ryder, I’m still talking—” He kissed her again, harder, and she yielded. Then he
released her and kissed her forehead more gently.
“No, child-wife of mine, we are not going home. We are going to Axum and then on into the hills, and I swear we’re not coming down until we have enough silver to build you a house of it.”
“Oh, Ryder, I am glad!” Saffron said. She put her good arm around his neck and stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.
“Thank goodness for that,” Amber said brightly. “I shall go and see about dinner.”
When Major Penrod Ballantyne arrived on the second floor of the British Consulate in Cairo to see Colonel Sam Adams, the adjutant asked him to wait for a few minutes in the anteroom.
Penrod frowned. “I recognize you,” he said. “You were with Evelyn Baring in 1884.”
“I was, sir,” the young man said, his surprise showing on his smooth pink face. “But we met so briefly, and it was three years ago. You have a remarkable memory.”
Penrod did not reply at once, just turned to look through the tall windows at the mass of human activity along the banks of the Nile. The water was studded with the sails of small boats. Women laughed over their washing at the shore, trading jests with the water-sellers and fishermen. Penrod was an exceptional intelligence officer, so of course he had a remarkable memory. For many years it had been a huge asset to him in his work. He could be trusted with the most confidential and complex information, the most subtle of diplomatic messages, and carry them in his mind across deserts and over mountain ranges. But his memory also had its disadvantages. For example, he could recall with perfect clarity every moment he had spent in the company of Amber Benbrook. He could recite every word she had ever spoken to him, see every smile and, with a precision that would not fade, recall the exact expression of disgust on her face when she told him that the morals of the harem were superior to those of the Gheziera Club. Only opium dulled those memories. They remained his constant companions, but when he smoked they became tinged with a sweet nostalgia, rather than causing him immeasurable pain.
In the Sudan, Penrod had been tortured by Osman Atalan and lashed to a device called a shebba, designed to punish disobedient slaves. The shebba, simple and terrible in its design, was cut from the fork of an acacia tree, and Osman’s men lashed his arms to it so the base of the fork pressed hard against his throat. Only by lifting its full weight with outstretched arms could Penrod ease the pressure on his windpipe, or by kneeling in a stupor of agony, with the trunk resting at an angle on the ground until one of Osman’s henchmen kicked it aside and sent Penrod sprawling and choking into the dust. It was crucifixion without the final relief of death. He had been unable to eat or drink, or clean himself of his bodily waste. Six days tied to it had nearly killed him, but if wearing it again for a month could cure Penrod of the pain he had experienced since his engagement to Amber had come to an end, he would embrace it as a friend.
“Much has happened since then,” Penrod said to the young man at last, still looking out of the window.
“Indeed, sir.” Something in the man’s tone made Penrod turn to look at him again. The adjutant blushed and hurried out of the room. The heavy door closed softly behind him, and Penrod could hear his footsteps snapping away along the marble hall.
A portrait of the young Queen Victoria, and a matching study of her handsome consort, hung in every room of importance in this building. Penrod remembered studying the one of the late Prince Albert in 1884 while waiting to be sent to the besieged city of Khartoum. Back then Penrod believed he looked rather like the handsome prince. While waiting for Baring, he had stood very straight so as not to mar his uniform of the 7th Hussars with ugly creases, his bearskin busby under his arm and his dolman slung over his shoulder. Everything about him had been perfect, from the precisely trimmed mustachios to the glossy sheen on his riding boots. He glanced up now at the portrait of Prince Albert, ageless in death. Penrod looked leaner than he had in 1884, harder, and his body was scarred with souvenirs from the months he spent with Osman Atalan. He no longer wore the magnificent uniform of the Hussars, either. While he had been a captive, Sir Charles Wilson, an intelligence officer left in command of the Khartoum relief column after Sir Herbert Stewart was mortally injured, had made Penrod a convenient scapegoat for his own incompetence. After the victory of Abu Klea, it was Penrod who had delayed their progress to Khartoum, Wilson claimed. On his return to Cairo with the rescued Amber Benbrook, Penrod discovered the betrayal. He was disgusted, but Colonel Sam Adams persuaded him into a compromise to avoid a scandalous court martial. The senior brass were desperate to avoid dragging the whole sorry business of General Gordon and Khartoum back into the newspapers. Sir Charles was hurried off into a comfortable civil service job and Penrod, his heroic reputation garnished by his appearances in Slaves of the Mahdi, was asked to put together a brigade of desert fighters for the Egyptian army, a prestigious role that his fellow officers saw as yet another sign he was fortune’s favored son. Penrod had agreed, but found the work no challenge at all.
Now, as he waited for Sam Adams to summon him to his presence, Penrod did not try to stand straight. His gray serge frock coat and fawn breeches were beautifully tailored, and his servants made sure the leather of his field boots and Sam Browne belt were polished to a smooth sheen, but he no longer cared for these things as much as his tailor or servants did. For one moment he wondered if his habitual use of opium over the last few months was part of the reason for this indifference, but he dismissed the thought at once. He could stop taking opium any time he wished. He had already twice stopped using the drug for a week or two simply to demonstrate to Lady Agatha that he had a control she did not. He had suffered very little—some flu-like symptoms—but they passed quickly. When he put the pipe aside, however, the memories of Amber tortured him. Opium, like Agatha, was available, so why not make use of it? Cairo was full of quiet establishments of luxury and ease where one might enjoy its gentle pleasures if the sight of one’s own walls became dull. He could almost feel the silk under his fingers, hear the soft music played in the courtyard to lull and lift the rich dreamers in the richly appointed private rooms above.
The inner door swung open and Sam Adams leaned out.
“Ballantyne! Do come in. Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
Penrod followed him into his office. It was another tall-ceilinged, elegant room—a reflection of the high esteem all the officials and central command of the army had for Sam. Penrod had won the VC that was now pinned to his chest, saving Sam from the disaster of El Obeid in 1883. The wounds Sam had received then troubled him a little even now and he walked stiffly, but he still projected the calm physical force of a natural soldier, both in the saddle or returning to his place behind his polished oak desk. It was empty of any clutter; only one sheet of paper lay in front of Sam on the green leather inlay. Penrod could see, even upside down and at this distance, that it was his own, most recent, report.
Sam settled in his chair and picked up the sheet. “You seem to be making good progress, Ballantyne. Your superiors are impressed with the fighters you’ve found and the system of training you’ve arranged for them.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Sam continued to stare at the paper as he spoke. “I myself have even been up to see them going through their paces once or twice. As has the commander-in-chief. We were impressed, as I say.” He looked up finally. “But I was surprised you were not present to take them through their maneuvers yourself.”
“I am often prevented from being with them as much as I would like because of business in the city, sir,” Penrod said smoothly. “And I think it is important my officers have the opportunity to get acquainted with the men without me breathing down their necks.”
Sam’s face suddenly flushed red. “Business in town? Yes, we all know what that business is. I have no idea why you ended your engagement with the lovely Miss Benbrook, but the way you paraded Lady Agatha around on your arm only days later was distasteful. And what are you doing to that woman? She’s aged ten years since you took her
up again.”
“Are you speaking to me now as my friend, or as my superior officer?”
“As a friend, of course.”
“Then mind your own damn business.”
Sam slammed a clenched fist down on the table. Penrod did not flinch. “Then now I’m speaking as your superior. You are an officer in Her Majesty’s British Army, a representative of the empire and you do damage to our interests haunting the opium dens of Cairo with that woman on your arm. God damn it, Ballantyne, you don’t even bother to hide the fact you are treating her like a whore. They are laying bets in the club that you are already selling her to Arabs in those squalid hovels for your own amusement. God, man! She is the daughter of the Duke of Kendal!”
Penrod felt a delicious, icy calm descend on him. “And an ornament to any establishment she graces. And Sam, we never smoke in the squalid hovels. The places Lady Agatha prefers make the Gheziera Club look like a farmhouse.”
“Do not sneer at me, Major Ballantyne. I am the one friend you have left in Cairo, and even you need friends from time to time. It’s bloody typical of your arrogance that you don’t understand that. Heed my warning. Miss Benbrook has gone. The latest telegrams from our contacts in Massowah tell me that even after the disaster of the Iona, the Courtneys will not be returning to Cairo anytime soon. I have cut you all the slack I can since your engagement ended, but as I say, Miss Benbrook is gone now and it is time you forgot about her. Put down the pipe, throw yourself into your duties and leave Lady Agatha alone. You’ve made her suffer enough.”
Penrod did not speak or move.
“At least that nonsense will be taken care of soon. Her father has heard the rumors. He’s coming out to fetch her, and I would advise you to stay out of his way when he does.”
Penrod’s face showed no reaction. He felt neither sorrow nor relief at the idea of Lady Agatha leaving Cairo. She had done him a great wrong and he had avenged that wrong by taking her love and turning it on her like a poison. If she stayed in Egypt he would continue his game. If she left, he would find another lover. Most women were much the same to him now.