The Seventh Scroll: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

by Wilbur Smith

  The couple had stripped off their clothes and left them in a pile on the beach of grey basalt gravel in the shade of the tall boulder. They were splashing together in the slack water of the river at the edge of the main current. Both of them were stark mother-naked. Mek Nimmur was broad-shouldered, with a heavily muscled back and hard, tight buttocks. Beside him Tessay was slim as a river reed, her waist tiny and her hips narrow. Her skin was the colour of wild honey. They were completely absorbed in each other, without eyes or ears for anything else in this world.

  ‘He must have left men guarding his back trail.’ Boris gave Mek the benefit of some sense. ‘He never expected me to be ahead of him on the trail. He thinks they are completely secure. Look at the fool,’ he gloated, as Mek chased the girl and she let herself be caught. They fell into the shallow water locked in each other’s embrace, mouths seeking each other as they surfaced again, laughing as the water streamed down their darkly beautiful faces, the epitome of handsome masculinity and lovely womanhood, the image of an African Adam and Eve captured for a moment in their own little carefree paradise.

  Boris tore his eyes from them, and looked to where their clothing had been abandoned on the gravel bar. Mek’s AK rifle lay carelessly on top of his camouflage jacket, within a few paces of where Boris stood. He crossed the open gravel bar with a few quick strides, picked up the AK, unclipped the curved magazine and dropped it into his pocket, ejected the round from the chamber and let it fly away into the gravel, replaced the unloaded rifle on the jacket, and rapidly returned to the lee of the boulder. Both Mek and Tessay remained utterly oblivious to what had happened.

  Boris stood there quietly in the shadow of the rock, watching them at play in the river. They were almost childlike in their love and their complete preoccupation with each other.

  Tessay at last broke from Mek’s embrace and left the water. She came up the gravel bar, running long-legged and coltish, her wet silken breasts swinging and jostling each other at each stride as she looked back at him over her shoulder in open invitation. Mek followed her out, the water glistening in the dense curls of his barrel chest, his genitals weighty and puissant.

  He caught her before she could reach her clothing and she struggled playfully for a while in his arms, until his mouth clamped down over hers. Then she gave herself up to him completely. While he kissed her his hands ran down her back and over her wet glistening buttocks. Pressing herself against him she moved her feet apart and spread her thighs, inviting him to explore the secrets of her body. She groaned with desire as his hand cupped her sex gently.

  Boris felt his anger mingle with the perverse voyeuristic thrill of watching his own wife being taken by another man. A devil’s brew of emotions bubbled up inside him. He felt his loins engorging and stiffening almost painfully with excitement, but at the same time his rage shook him like the branch of a tree in a gale of wind.

  The lovers sank down on to their knees. Still locked together, Tessay fell backwards and pulled him over on top of herself.

  Boris called out loudly, ‘By God, Mek Nimmur, you will never know how ridiculous you look with your bare backside in the air like that.’

  Mek reacted as swiftly as a leopard surprised on his kill. With a blur of movement he flipped over and reached for the AK-47. Although Boris was ready for him, covering him with the 30/06, aiming at the back of his neck when he shouted to him, Mek was so quick that he had swept up the AK from where it lay and had it pointed at Boris’s belly before he could move. Mek pressed the trigger in the same instant as the muzzle came to bear.

  The firing pin fell on the empty chamber with a futile click, and the two men stared at each other across the gravel beach, both with their weapons levelled. Tessay was curled naked where Mek had left her, her dark eyes liquid with pain and horror as she watched her husband and realized that Mek was about to die.

  Boris chuckled softly, throatily. ‘Where do you want it, Mek? How about I shoot the head off that filthy black tool of yours, while it is still standing up in the air like that?’

  Mek Nimmur’s eyes darted away from his adversary’s face, back towards the mountain, and Boris realized that his guess had been correct. Mek had some of his men up there, but they were keeping out of view of the beach while their commander indulged himself.

  ‘Don’t worry about them. You will both be dead long before your chimps can get down here to save you.’ Boris chuckled again. ‘I am enjoying this. You and I had an appointment once before, but you broke it. Never mind – this is going to be even more fun.’ He knew that it was not wise to delay with a man like this. Mek had made one mistake, and it was highly unlikely that he would make another. He should blow his head off now, and that would give him a few minutes more to deal with Tessay. But the temptation to gloat over him was too strong.

  ‘I have good news for you, Mek. You will live a few seconds longer. I am going to kill the whore first, and I am going to let you watch. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am going to.’ He sidled away from the shelter of the boulder, edging towards where Tessay lay curled on the gravel beach. She was turned half away from him, trying to cover her breasts and her pubic area with hands too small and delicate for the job. Even as he approached the woman, Boris was watching Mek with his full attention. Mek was the danger, and he never took his eyes off him. It was a mistake. He had underestimated the woman.

  While pretending to turn away from him modestly, Tessay had reached down between her thighs and found a round, water-worn stone that fitted neatly into her small fist. Suddenly she uncoiled her lithe body and used all the strength of it to hurl the stone at his head. Boris caught the movement from the corner of his eye and flung up his arm to shield his head.

  The stone, flying with surprising force at close range, never struck its target. Instead it caught the point of Boris’s upraised elbow. His sleeves were rolled up high around his biceps, and there was no padding to cushion the impact of the stone; his arm was bent and flexed, the thin covering of skin drawn tightly over the bone of the joint. The head of the ulna cracked like glass, and Boris howled at the excruciating agony. His hand opened involuntarily, and his forefinger jerked away from the trigger without the strength to fire the shot he was aiming at Mek’s belly.

  Mek rolled to his feet, and before Boris could change the rifle to his other hand he disappeared behind the angle of the giant boulder.

  With his left hand Boris swung the butt of the rifle at Tessay’s head, knocking her backwards into the sand. Then he thrust the muzzle into her throat, pinning her there while he shouted angrily. ‘I am going to kill her, you black bastard! If you want your whore, you’d better come fetch her!’ The pain of the shattered elbow rendered his voice hoarse and brutish.

  From somewhere behind the boulder Mek Nimmur’s voice rang out strongly and clearly, calling a single word in Amharic that echoed along the cliffs. Then he spoke in English, ‘My men will be here in a moment. Leave the woman and I will spare you. Harm her and I will make you plead for death.’

  Boris stooped over Tessay and dragged her to her feet with his good arm locked around her throat. He held the rifle in the same hand, pointing it over her shoulder. The hand of his injured arm had recovered sufficiently from the first shock to be able to hold the pistol grip and to manipulate the trigger.

  ‘She will be dead long before your men get here,’ he shouted back as he started to drag her away from the boulder. ‘Come and get her yourself, Mek. She is here if you want her.’

  He tightened his lock around her throat, choking her until she struggled and gasped, tearing at his arm with her nails and leaving long red welts across the tanned skin.

  ‘Listen to her! I am crushing this pretty neck. Listen to her choking.’ He tightened his grip, forcing the sounds of distress out of her.

  Boris was watching the corner of the boulder where Mek had disappeared. At the same time he was backing away from it, giving himself space in which to work. His mind was racing, for he knew that he could not escape. His ri
ght arm was barely usable, and there were too many of Mek’s shufta companions. He had the woman, but he wanted the man as well. That was the best trade that he could hope for – both of them, he had to have both of them.

  He heard a shout, a strange voice from higher up the slope. Mek’s men were on their way. He was desperate now. Mek was not going to be drawn; he had not heard him speak or move for almost two minutes. He had lost him – by this time he could be anywhere.

  ‘Too late,’ Boris realized. ‘I am not going to get him. Only the woman. But I must do it now.’ He forced her to her knees and stooped over her, shifting the lock of his arm around her throat.

  ‘Goodbye, Tessay,’ he grated in her ear. He tightened his arm muscles and felt the vertebrae in her neck arched to breaking point. It needed only an ounce more pressure.

  ‘It’s all over for you,’ he whispered, and began the final pressure. He knew from long experience the sound that the vertebrae would make as they gave, and he tensed himself for it, poised for that crackle like the breaking of a green branch, and the slack weight of her corpse in his grip.

  Then something crashed into his back with a force that seemed to drive in his backbone and crush his ribs. Both the strength and the direction were entirely unexpected. It did not seem possible that Mek Nimmur could have moved so far and so swiftly. He must have left the shelter of the boulder and circled out through the scrub. Now he had come at Boris from behind.

  His attack was so savage that the arm that Boris had wound around Tessay’s neck opened. She drew in a wheezing, strangled breath and twisted out of his grip. Boris tried to turn and swing the rifle around, but Mek was on him again, seizing the rifle and trying to wrest it from Boris’s hands.

  The Russian’s finger was still on the trigger, and a shot went off while the muzzle was level with Mek’s face. The detonation stunned him for an instant, and he released the rifle and staggered backwards with his ears ringing.

  Boris backed away from him, struggling with the weapon, trying to open the bolt and crank another cartridge into the chamber, but his crippled right arm made his movements clumsy and awkward. Mek gathered himself and charged head down across the gravel beach. He drove into Boris with all his weight, and the rifle flew out of the Russian’s hands. Locked chest to chest the two of them spun around in a macabre waltz, trying to throw each other, wrestling for the advantage, until they tripped and went over backwards into the river.

  They came to the surface still grappling and rolling over each other, first one on top and then the other, a fearful parody of the lovemaking which Boris had watched a few minutes earlier. Punching and straining and tripping each other, they struggled in the shallows. But every time they fell back into the water the slope of the bank beneath their feet forced them further out, until, when they were waist-deep, the main current of the Nile suddenly picked them up and swept them away downstream. They were still locked together, their heads bobbing in the tumble of waters, their arms thrashing the water white around them, bellowing at each other in primeval rage.

  Tessay heard the men that Mek had called coming down through the scrub at the run. She snatched up her shamma and pulled it over her head as she ran to meet them. As the first of them burst on to the gravel bar with his AK cocked, she shouted to him in Amharic.

  ‘There! Mek is in the water. He is fighting the Russian. Help him!’ She ran with them along the bank. As they drew level with the two men in midstream one of the men stopped and levelled his AK, but Tessay rushed at him and struck up the barrel.

  ‘You fool!’ she shouted angrily. ‘You will hit Mek.’

  Jumping to the top of one of the riverside boulders, she shaded her eyes against the dazzling reflection of the low sun off the water. With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach she saw that Boris had managed to get behind Mek and had a half nelson hold around his throat. He was forcing Mek’s head under the surface. Mek was struggling like a hooked salmon in his grip as they were swept into a long chute of white water.

  Tessay jumped down from the rock and ran on down the bank to the next point, from which she could only watch helplessly.

  Boris was still holding Mek’s head under water as they were borne together into the head of the chute. Fangs of black rock flashed by them on each side as they gathered speed. Mek was a powerful man and Boris had to exert every last ounce of his own strength to hold him, and he knew he could not do so much longer. Suddenly Mek reared back, and for a moment his head came out. He sucked a quick breath of air before Boris could force him under again, but that breath seemed to have renewed his strength.

  Desperately Boris looked ahead to the tail of the chute as they sped towards it. There were more rocks there. Boris picked out one great black slab over which the waters poured in a standing wave three feet high. He steered for it, kicking and hauling Mek’s body around with the last of his strength.

  They flew down the slope of racing water with the rock slab waiting for them at the end like a lurking sea-monster. Boris continued to wrestle with Mek, until he had turned him into a position ahead of him. He planned to steer him into a head-on collision with the rock and use Mek’s body to cushion his own impact.

  At the very last moment before they struck Mek dragged his head out from the surface, and as he grabbed a precious lungful of air he saw the rock and realized the danger. With a single violent effort he ducked forward below the surface again and rolled over head-first. It was so powerful and unexpected that Boris was unable to resist. Instinctively he maintained his lock around Mek’s neck and was carried forward over his back until their positions were reversed. Now Mek had managed to interpose Boris between himself and the rock, so that when they slammed into it it was the Russian who bore the full brunt of the impact.

  Boris’s right shoulder crunched like a walnut in the jaws of a steel cracker. Although his head was still under water he screamed at the brutal agony of it, and his lungs filled with water. He relinquished his grip and was flung clear of Mek. When he came to the surface he was floundering like a drowned insect, his right arm shattered in two places, his good arm flailing weakly, and his sodden lungs wheezing and pumping.

  Mek exploded through the surface only a few yards behind him. Looking around quickly as he strained for air, he spotted Boris’s bobbing head almost immediately and with a few powerful overarm strokes came up behind him.

  Boris was so far gone that he was not aware of Mek’s intentions until he seized his shirt collar from behind and twisted it like a strangler’s garotte. With his other hand, below the surface, Mek secured a grip on the back of Boris’s wide leather belt and used it like the helm of a rudder to steer him towards the next reef of rocks that was boiling the water ahead of them.

  Through his waterlogged lungs Boris was trying to shout invective at him. ‘Bastard! Black swine! Filthy—’ But his voice was barely audible above the rush of the waters and the growl of the rocky spur that lay across their path. Mek rode him head-first into the rock and he felt the impact transferred through Boris’s skull to jolt the straining muscles of his forearms. Instantly Boris went slack in his grip, his head lolled and his limbs became as limp and soft as strands of kelp washing in the surf.

  As they tumbled into the next run of open water, Mek used his grip on the back of Boris’s collar to lift the Russian’s face above the surface. For a moment even he was struck with horror at the injury that he had inflicted. Boris’s forehead was staved in. The skin was unbroken, but there was a deep indentation in his skull into which Mek could have thrust his thumb. And Boris’s eyes bulged, pushed out of their sockets like those of a battered doll.

  Mek swung the inert carcass around in the water, and stared at the broken head from a distance of only a few inches. He reached up and touched the depressed area of the skull with his fingertips, and felt the shards of splintered bone grate and give beneath the skin.

  Once again he thrust the shattered head below the surface and held it there, while he crabbed sideways across the curre
nt towards the bank. There was no resistance from Boris, but Mek kept his head submerged for the rest of that long tortuous swim across the Nile.

  ‘How do you kill a monster?’ he thought grimly. ‘I should bury him at a crossroads with a stake through his heart.’ But instead he drowned him fifty times over, and at the next bend of the river they were washed into the bank.

  Mek’s men were waiting for him there. They supported him when his legs sagged under him, and they helped him up the bank. When they started to drag Boris’s corpse out of the river, Mek stopped them abruptly.

  ‘Leave him for the crocodiles. After what he has done to our country and our people, he deserves nothing better.’ But even in his anger and his hatred he did not want Tessay to have to look at that mutilated head. She had been unable to keep pace with the men, but she was coming along the bank towards him now.

  One of his men pushed Boris’s corpse back into the current, and as it floated away he unslung his AK rifle from his shoulder and let off a burst of automatic fire. The bullets chopped up the surface around Boris’s head, and socked heavily into his back. They tore holes in his wet shirt and kicked out lumps of raw flesh. The other men on the bank shouted with laughter and joined in the fusillade, emptying their magazines into the lifeless body. Mek did not attempt to prevent them. Some of their close relatives had died most horribly under the Russian’s care. The corpse rolled over in a pink cloud of its own blood, and for a moment Boris’s pale bulging eyes stared at the sky. Then he sank away beneath the surface.

  Mek stood up slowly and went to meet Tessay. He took her in his arms, and as he held her to his chest he whispered to her softly.