The Seventh Scroll: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

by Wilbur Smith

  The headman’s house was the finest in the village, not one of the circular tukuls, but a square brick building with an iron roof. His wife and daughters had prepared a banquet in Tessay’s honour, and all the village notables, including the priests from the church, had been invited. It was therefore after midnight before Tessay was able to escape to the principal bedroom, which the headman and his wife had vacated for her.

  Just before Tessay fell asleep she heard the heavy raindrops rattling on the corrugated iron roof over her head. It was a comforting sound, but she thought briefly of the dam further downstream in the gorge, and hoped that this shower was merely the harbinger and not the true onset of the big rains.

  When she started awake much later the rain had passed. Beyond her uncurtained window the night was moonless and silent, except for the howling of a pariah-dog down in the village. She wondered what had woken her, and was filled suddenly with a premonition of impending disaster, a legacy from the Mengistu days, when any sound in the night might warn of the arrival of the security police. So strong was this feeling that she could not get to sleep again. Creeping quietly out of her bed, she began dressing in the dark. She had decided to call her monks and start back along the trail in the darkness. Only when she was at Mek Nimmur’s side once again would she feel secure.

  She had just pulled on her jodhpurs and was searching beneath the bed for her sandals when she heard the sound of a truck engine in the distance. She went to the window and listened. The air had been cooled by the rain and she felt the chill on her naked arms and chest.

  The truck sounded as though it was approaching the village from the south, up the track that followed the river bank. It was coming fast, and her sense of unease sharpened. The villagers had spoken to the monks, and it was now common knowledge that she was Mek Nimmur’s woman. Mek was a wanted man. Suddenly she felt very vulnerable and alone.

  Quickly she pulled the woollen shamma over her head and thrust her feet into her sandals. As she crept from the room she heard the headman snoring in the front room where he and his wife had moved to make room for her. She turned down the short passage to the kitchen. The fire in the hearth had burned down, but she could make out the shapes of the sleeping monks on the mud floor. They lay with their shammas pulled over their heads, completely covered, like a row of bodies on mortuary tables. She knelt beside the nearest of them and shook him, but obviously he had enjoyed the tej at dinner because he was difficult to rouse.

  The sound of the approaching truck was much louder and closer by now, and she felt her uneasiness take on a tinge of panic. Realizing that in an emergency the monks would probably be of little real help to her, she stood up and groped her way quickly towards the back door.

  The truck was right outside the front of the house now. The headlights flashed across the front windows and were briefly reflected down the passageway. Abruptly the engine roar sank to a burble as the driver decelerated, and she heard the squeal of brakes and the crunch of tyres in the gravel outside. Then there was shouting and the trampling of many feet as men jumped down from the back of the stationary truck.

  Tessay froze halfway across the small kitchen, her head cocked to listen. Suddenly there was a loud banging on the flimsy front door, and chillingly familiar shouts of, ‘Open up here! Central Intelligence! Open the door! Nobody leave the house!’

  Tessay ran for the back door, but in the darkness she tripped over a low table covered with dirty dishes from the previous evening’s meal. She fell heavily and the bowls and tej flasks crashed to the floor and shattered. Instantly the men at the front door put their shoulders to it, tearing it off its hinges. They burst into the house, shouting and breaking furniture, torches flashing as they searched the front rooms. There was a confused babble of alarm as the headman and his family struggled awake, and then the sound of heavy blows with club and rifle butt, followed by shrieks of pain and terror.

  Tessay reached the back door and struggled to open it. The sound of strange men rampaging through the house made her fingers clumsy. She struggled with the lock. All the while she could hear other men outside running through the yard to surround the house completely. At last she got the door open. It was dark and the area was unfamiliar so she did not know in which direction to run, but she heard the river close by in the night.

  ‘If I can only reach the bank,’ she thought, and started across the yard.

  As she did so the beam of an electric torch blinded her, and a coarse voice bellowed, ‘There she is!’

  Any doubt that she was the prey was instantly dispelled, and she fled like a startled hare in the beam of the light. They bayed behind her like a pack of hounds. She reached the bank of the river and spun off to the right, downstream. A pistol cracked out behind her and she ducked as a shot fluted past her head.

  ‘Don’t shoot, you baboons!’ a voice roared in commanding tones. ‘We want her for questioning.’

  In the torchbeam her white shamma flashed like the wings of a moth flitting around the candle flame.

  ‘Stop her!’ shouted the officer behind her. ‘Don’t let her get away.’

  But she was fleet as a gazelle, and her lightly sandalled feet flew across the rough terrain while the heavily equipped soldiers blundered along behind her. Her spirits soared as she realized that she was pulling away from them.

  The sound of the pursuit dwindled behind her and she had reached the limit of the effective range of the torchbeam when she ran into a fence of rusty barbed wire. Three wire strands whipped across her lower body, at the level of her knees, her hips and her diaphragm. The top strand drove the breath from her lungs, and the barbs tore through the wool of her clothing and into her flesh. They snagged her like a fish in the mesh of a net, and she hung there struggling helplessly. Rough hands seized her and dragged her off the wire, and she sobbed with despair and with the pain of the sharp wire spurs tearing her skin. One of the soldiers grabbed her wrist and twisted it up between her shoulder-blades, laughing with sadistic relish when she cried out at the pain.

  The officer came up panting over the rough ground. He was overweight, and even in the cold night air he was sweating heavily. It greased his fat cheeks and glistened in the light of the torch.

  ‘Do not hurt her, you oaf,’ he gasped. ‘She is not a criminal. She is a high-bred lady. Bring her to the truck, but treat her with respect.’

  With a man on each arm they marched her to the truck, holding her so that her feet barely touched the rough ground, and then shoved her up into the cab on to the seat beside the uniformed driver. The plump officer climbed in heavily after her, and she found herself wedged in firmly between the two men. The soldiers scrambled up into the rear of the truck, and the driver revved the engine and let out the clutch.

  Tessay was sobbing softly, and the officer glanced sideways at her. She saw in the reflection of the headlights that his expression was gentle and sympathetic, completely at odds with his actions.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked softly, stifling her sobs. ‘What have I done wrong?’

  ‘I have been ordered to take you to Colonel Nogo, the district commander, for questioning in connection with shufta activities in the Gojam,’ he told her, as they jolted and bounced down the rough track.

  They were both silent for a while, and then the officer said quietly in English, ‘The driver speaks only Amharic. I wanted to tell you that I knew your father, Alto Zemen. He was a good man. I am sorry for what is happening here tonight, but I am only a lieutenant. I have to follow my orders.’

  ‘I understand that it is not your choice, or your blame.’

  ‘My name is Hammed. If I can, I will help you. For Alto Zemen’s sake.’

  ‘Thank you, Lieutenant Hammed. I need friends now.’

  While they waited for the dust of the cave-in to settle, and for any loose hanging rock to fall or stabilize, Nicholas dressed the minor injuries that Royan had sustained. The cut over her temple was not deep, barely more than a scratch. Nicholas saw that
it did not require a stitch. He disinfected it and covered it with a Band Aid. However, her shoulder, which the falling rock had struck, was badly bruised. He massaged it with arnica cream.

  His own bruises he treated less ceremoniously. Within an hour of the cave-in he was ready to go back up the tunnel. He ordered Royan and Sapper to remain on the causeway over the sink-hole while he returned to the landing at the top of the stairs alone. He carried a bamboo pole and a hand lamp connected to the Honda generator.

  Nicholas proceeded with the utmost caution, probing the roof of the tunnel for weakness as he went. When he reached the landing he saw at once that the rock fall had smashed down what remained of the white plaster door that had originally sealed the entrance to the tomb. The ammunition crates, eight of which contained the statues from the shrines, had been knocked about and scattered, and some of them were partially buried under the fallen rubble. He retrieved them and opened each of the packed crates in turn to check the contents. With immense relief he discovered that the stout metal containers had withstood the rough treatment and there was no damage to the precious statues they held. One at a time he carried them back down the tunnel as far as the causeway and handed them into Sapper’s care.

  When he returned to the landing outside the tomb, Royan insisted on accompanying him. Even his lurid descriptions of the danger of a further rock-fall could not dissuade her. Her dismay when she stood outside the shattered gallery was overwhelming.

  ‘It’s totally destroyed,’ she whispered. ‘All those marvellous works of art. I cannot believe that Taita wanted this to happen.’

  ‘No,’ Nicholas agreed ruefully. ‘His plan was to give us a big send-off along the road past the seven pylons to the happy hunting grounds. And he damned nigh succeeded.’

  ‘It’s going to take a lot of hard work to clear up this mess,’ she said.

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ He turned on her in genuine alarm. ‘We have saved the statues, and that’s all we can hope for. Now I think it’s time to cut our losses and get out of here.’

  ‘Get out of here? Are you crazy?’ She rounded on him furiously. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘At least the statues will pay our costs,’ he explained, ‘and there might even be something left over to divvy up between us, in accordance with our agreement.’

  ‘You aren’t dreaming of giving up now, when we are so close?’ Her voice rose sharply with agitation.

  ‘The gallery is destroyed—’ he began in more reasonable tones, but she stamped her foot with agitation and shouted him down.

  ‘The tomb is still there. Dammit, Nicky, Taita would not have gone to those lengths if it were not. We are getting too close now – that is why he fired that warning shot across our bows. Don’t you see? We have him really worried now. We can’t give up with the prize almost in sight.’

  ‘Royan, be reasonable.’

  ‘No! No! You be reasonable.’ She refused to listen. ‘You have to start clearing the gallery right away. I know the entrance is open now. All we have to do is clear this mess, and I am certain that we will find the true entrance to the tomb behind the rubble that Taita deliberately dropped on us.’

  ‘I think that bang on your head has loosened a couple of nuts and bolts.’ He threw up his hands in resignation. ‘But what’s the use arguing with a crazy woman? We will clear just enough of the scree to prove to you that there is nothing more to discover in there.’

  ‘The dust is going to be our big problem.’ Sapper eyed the blocked gallery entrance when they told him what they intended. ‘As soon as we touch that rubble there is going to be clouds of it – more than our little blower fan can handle.’

  ‘Right,’ Nicholas agreed briskly. ‘We will have to wet it all down. Two lines of men back down the tunnel to the sink-hole. One chain passing up water buckets, and the other chain passing back the rubble from the cave-in.’

  ‘It’s going to take a lot of work.’ Sapper sucked his bottom lip lugubriously.

  ‘You signed on to be tough,’ Nicholas reminded him. ‘No time to start whinging now.’

  The monks, still convinced that they were engaged on the Lord’s work, accepted this new task cheerfully. They sang as they passed the chunks of broken plaster and rock in one direction and the clay pots of water from the sink-hole in the other. Nicholas worked at the rock-fall with the gang of Buffaloes, led by Hansith. It was hard, messy and dangerous work, for each piece of rubble had to be doused with water before it could be levered out of the pack and passed down the chain. The staircase was soon running with muddy water and the steps were treacherous underfoot. The fallen rock was loose and unstable, and there was always the danger of a secondary collapse.

  So many men working in the confined spaces of the gallery and tunnel taxed the ability of the little blower fan to recirculate the air, and it was hot and oppressive. The men stripped to loincloths and their bodies glistened with sweat. The rubble passed back down the tunnel was dumped into the sink-hole. Even that large volume of material made no difference to the level of the black waters. It was simply swallowed up into the depths without trace.

  Nicholas found the crowded workings so humid and claustrophobic that at the change of the first shift he had to escape into the open air, if only for a few minutes. Even the dark and forbidding chasm of Taita’s pool was a relief after the close confines of the underground workings. Mek Nimmur was waiting for him when he climbed out over the wall of the coffer dam on to the ledge beside the pool.

  ‘Nicholas!’ Mek’s handsome dark face was grave. ‘Has Tessay returned from Debra Maryam yet? She should have been back yesterday.’

  ‘I have not seen her, Mek. I thought she was with you.’

  Mek shook his head. ‘I wanted to make certain that she had not returned without my men seeing her, before I send a patrol up the trail to search for her.’

  ‘I am sorry, Mek. I did not anticipate any danger in sending her up the escarpment.’ Nicholas felt a stab of guilt.

  ‘If I had thought there was any danger, I would not have allowed her to go,’ Mek agreed. ‘I have sent men to search for her.’

  But Tessay’s absence was another worry for Nicholas. It lurked at the edge of his mind during the days that followed, as the clearing of the long funeral gallery proceeded too slowly for his satisfaction.

  Royan spent as much time at the face as Nicholas did, and both of them were as filthy with mud and dirt as the Buffaloes who were labouring there beside them. She mourned over each fragment of the shattered murals. Before they were carried away to be thrown into the sink-hole, she tried to retrieve those on which significant portions of the paintings were still intact. There was one jagged piece of plaster on which the lovely head of Isis was still in one piece, and another on which the entire figure of Thoth, the god of writing, was preserved. However, most of the paintings were destroyed beyond any hope of ever restoring them, and sadly they were consigned to the pit.

  There was no sense of time in the long gallery, and they could not tell night from day. It was always a surprise to leave the precincts of the tomb and find that the stars were shining in the narrow strip of sky that showed above Taita’s pool, or to find the bright African sun burning hotly down out of the cloudless blue. They ate and slept only when their bodies demanded it, not according to the passage of the hours.

  Re-entering the tomb after a few hours’ sleep in their shelters beside the pool, they were crossing the causeway over the sink-hole when a wild cry reverberated down the shaft ahead of them. Immediately there was a hullabaloo of query and answer, and excited shouts from the men working in the upper levels of the tunnel.

  ‘Hansith has found something,’ Royan cried. ‘Dammit, Nicky, I knew we should have stayed—’ She began to run, and he hurried after her.

  They came out on the landing in front of the gallery to find it crowded with chattering, gesticulating, half-naked workmen. Nicholas forced his way through them with Royan on his heels. They realized that H
ansith had cleared the gallery as far as where the shrine of Osiris had once stood. The roof above them was jagged and broken, and lying amongst the rubbish on the ruined agate tiles of the floor Nicholas made out the remains of the mechanism which Taita had placed in the roof, and which they had brought crashing down when they had activated the device. The main part of this was an enormous stone wheel, resembling a mill wheel and weighing many tons. Nicholas stopped to give it a cursory examination.

  ‘When you read River God, you realize that Taita had an obsession with the wheel,’ he told Royan. ‘Chariot wheels, water wheels, and now this must have been the balance wheel of his booby-trap. When we moved the levers, we toppled the wedges that held this monstrosity in place. Once it started rolling, it tumbled all the drop-stones that he had stacked above the ceiling of the gallery.’ He glanced up at the shattered roof.

  ‘Not now, Nicky!’ Royan was hopping with impatience. ‘Time for your lectures later. Taita’s death-trap is not what has excited Hansith. He has found something else. Come on!’

  They pushed their way through the pack of workmen until they reached Hansith’s tall figure.

  ‘What is it?’ Nicholas shouted over the heads of the others. ‘What have you found, Hansith?’

  ‘Here, effendi,’ Hansith shouted back. ‘Come quickly.’

  They pushed their way to the face, and stopped beside the monk at the end of the blocked gallery.

  ‘There!’ Hansith pointed proudly.

  Nicholas went down on one knee in the shattered remains of the shrine. Small pieces of the painted plaster still adhered to the fractured rock wall. Hansith pulled a slab out of the collapsed face, and pointed into the space it had left. Nicholas peered into it and felt his pulse begin to race. There was an opening in the side of the gallery. Even at first glance he realized that it was the mouth of another tunnel leading off at right-angles from the long gallery. It had been concealed behind the plaster-covered image of the great god.

  As he stared into it with awe, he felt Royan’s hand on his arm and her warm breath on his cheek. ‘This is it, Nicky. The entrance to the true tomb of Mamose. This gallery was a bluff. Taita’s red herring. This is the veritable tomb.’