The Seventh Scroll tes-2

by Wilbur Smith

  stretch, and the packet would be stuffed into it by his considerate

  neighbour. The morsel was, of course, as large as a human gape could

  possibly accommodate, and in order to engulf it the victim had to risk

  death by asphyxiation.

  The rules of the game seemed to be that he was not allowed to use his

  hands to get it into his own mouth, neither should he dribble down the

  front of his robe, nor splutter gravy over those seated near to him. His

  contortions, together with his gulping and choking and gasping for air,

  were the source of uncontrollable hilarity. When at last he succeeded in

  getting it down, a brass bowl of katikala was held to his lips as a

  reward. He was expected to send the contents in the same direction as

  the parcel of injera.

  Jali Hora, by now warmed with tej and kadkala, lurched to his feet. In

  his right hand he held aloft a streaming parcel of injera. As he began

  an unsteady progress across the chamber, with his shiny crown awry, they

  did not at first realize his intentions. The entire company'watched him

  with interest.

  Then suddenly Royan stiffened and whispered with horror, "No! Please,

  no. Save me, Nicky. Don't let this happen to me."

  "This is the price you pay for being the leading lady," he told her.

  Jali Hora was making his rather erratic way towards where she sat. The

  gravy from the morsel he carried for her was trickling down his forearm

  and dripping from his elbow.

  The band standing along the side wall struck up a lively air. As the

  abbot came to a halt in front of Royan, rocking on his suspension like

  an ancien " carriage, they fiddled and fifed and the drummers broke out

  in a frenzy.

  The abbot presented his gift, and with one last despairing glance at

  Nicholas Royan faced the inevitable. She closed her eyes and opened her

  mouth.

  To roars of encouragement and the urgings of LIFE and drum, she

  struggled and chewed. Her face turned rosy and her eyes watered. At one

  point Nicholas thought she would admit defeat and spit it out on to the

  reed-covered have to floor. But slowly and courageously, a bit at a

  time, she forced it down and then fell back exhausted.

  Her audience, clapping and hooting loved every moment of it. The abbot

  sank stiffly to his knees in front of her and embraced her, almost

  losing his crown in the ess. Then without relinquishing his embrace proc

  he made himself a place beside her.

  "It looks as though you have made another conquest," Nicholas told her

  dryly. "I think he will be on your lap at moment, if you don't duck and

  run." any Royan reacted swiftly. She reached across and grabbed a bottle

  of kadkala, and a bowl which she filled to the brim.

  "Drink it up, Pops!" she told him, and held the bowl to his lips. Jab

  Hora accepted the challenge, but he had to release her to drink from her

  hand.

  Suddenly Royan started so violently that she spilled what was left in

  the bowl down the old man's robe. The blood drained from her face and

  she began to tremble as though in a high fever as she stared at Jab

  Hora's crown, which had slipped forward over his eyes.

  What is it?" Nicholas demanded quietly but urgently, and he reached

  across to steady her with a hand on her arm. Nobody else in the chamber

  had noticed her distress, but he was fully attuned to her moods by now.

  Still staring ashen-faced at the crown, she dropped the bowl and reached

  down and grasped his wrist. He was startled by her strength. Her grip

  was painful,,and he saw that she had driven her nails into his flesh so

  hard that she had broken the skin.

  "Look at his crown! The jewel! The blue jewel!" she gasped.

  He saw it then, amongst the gaudy shards of glass and pebbles of

  semi-precious garnets and rock crystal. The size of a silver dollar, it

  was a seal of blue ceramic, perfectly round, and baked to a hard,

  impervious finish. In the centre of the disc was an etching of an

  Egyptian war chariot, and above it the distinctive and unmistakable

  outline of the hawk with the broken wing. Around the circumference was a

  legend engraved in hieroglyphics. It took him only a few moments to read

  it to himself:

  I COMMAND TEN THOUSAND CHARIOTS.

  I AM TAITA, MASTER OF THE ROYAL HORSE.

  Royan desperately wanted to escape from the oppressive atmosphere of the

  cavern. The parcel of wat that the abbot had forced upon her had mixed

  heavily with the few mouthfuls of tej she had swallowed, and this

  feeling in Turn was aggravated by the smell of the dirty food bowls

  thick with congealing grease and the fumes of raw katikala.

  if Already some of the monks were puking drunk, and the smell of vomit

  added to the cloying miasma of incense smoke within the chamber.

  However, she was still the centre of the abbot's attention. He sat

  beside her stroking her bare arm and reciting garbled extracts from the

  Amharic scriptures; Tessay had long ago given up translating for her.

  Royan looked hopefully at Nicholas but he was withdrawn and silent,

  seeming oblivious of his surroundings. She knew that he was thinking

  about the ceramic seal in the abbot's crown, for his eyes kept

  returning thoughtfully to it.

  She wanted to be alone with him to discuss this extraordinary discovery.

  Her excitement outweighed the distress of her overloaded stomach. She

  felt her cheeks flushed with it. Every time she looked up at the old

  man's crown her heart fluttered, and she had to make an effort to stop

  herself reaching up, seizing the shiny blue seal and ripping it from its

  setting to examine it more closely.

  She knew how unwise it was to draw attention to the scrap of ceramic,

  but when she glanced across the circle she saw that Boris was far past

  noticing anything other than the bowl of kadkala in his hand. In the end

  it was who gave her the excuse for which she had been Boris seeking. He

  tried to get to his feet, but his legs collapsed under him. He sagged

  forward quite gracefully, and his face dropped into the bowl of

  grease-sodden injera bread.

  He lay there snoring noisily, and Tessay appealed to Nicholas.

  "Alto Nicholas, what am I to do?"

  Nicholas considered the unlovely spectacle of the rate hunter. There

  were scraps of bread and beef stew prost sticking like confetti in his

  cropped ginger hair.

  "I rather suspect Prince Charming has had enough for one night the

  murmured.

  stood up, stooped over Boris and gripped one wrist.

  He With a sudden jerk he lifted him into a sitting position, nd then

  heaved him upright and over his shoulder in a a fireman's lift.

  "Good night, all!" he told the assembled monks, very few of whom were in

  any condition to respond. Then he carried Boris away, draped over his

  shoulders with head and feet dangling. The two women had to hurry to

  keep up with Nicholas as he strode down the terrace and then up the

  stone stairway without a pause.

  "I did not realize Alto Nicholas was so strong," Tessay panted, for the

  stairs were steep and the pace was hard.

  didn't either," R
oyan admitted. She experienced a ridiculous proprietary

  pride in his feat, and smiled at herself in the darkness as they

  approached the camp.

  "Don't be silly," she admonished herself. "He isn't yours to boast

  about." Nicholas threw his burden down on Boris's own bed in thatched

  hut and stood back panting heavily, the sweat trickling down his cheeks.

  "That's a pretty good recipe for a heart attack," he gasped.

  Boris groaned, rolled over and vomited copiously over his pillows and

  bedlinen.

  "On that pleasant note I will bid you all goodnight and sweet dreams,'

  Nicholas told Tessay, stepping out of the hut into the warm African

  night.

  He breathed in the smell of the forest and the river with relief, and

  then turned to Royan as she gripped his arm.

  "Did you see-' she burst out excitedly, but he laid his fingers on her

  lips to silence her, and with a cautionary frown in the direction of

  Boris's hut led her away to her own hut.

  "Did you see it?" she demanded, unable to contain herself longer. "Could

  you read it?"

  "'I command ten thousand chariots,"' he recited.

  "'I am Taita, master of the royal horse,"' she completed it for him. "He

  was here. Oh, Nicky! He was here. Taita was here. That's the proof we

  wanted. Now we know that we are not wasting our time."

  She flopped down on her camp bed and hugged herself ecstatically. "Do

  you think the abbot will let us examine the sealT

  He shook his head, "My guess is no. The crown is one of the monastery

  treasures. Even for you, his favourite lady, I don't think he would do

  it. Anyway, it would not be wise to show any great interest in it. Jali

  Hora obviously does not have any idea of its significance. Apart from

  that, we don't want to alert Boris."

  suppose you are right." She moved over on the bed to make room for him.

  "Sit down."

  He sat down beside her, and she asked, "Where do you suppose the seal

  came from? Who found it? Where, and when?"

  "Steady on, dear girl. That's four questions in one, and I don't have an

  answer to any of them."

  "Guess!" she invited him. "Speculate! Throw some ideas around!'

  "Very well," he agreed. "The seal was manufactured in Hong Kong. There

  is a little factory there that turns them out by the thousands. Jali

  Hora bought it from a souvenir store in Luxor when he was on holiday in

  Egypt last month."

  She punched his arm, hard. "Be serious," she ordered.

  can do better," he invited her, rubbing

  "Let's hear if yo his arm.

  "Okay, here I go. Taita dropped the seal here in the gorge while he was

  working on the construction of Pharaoh's tomb. Three thousand years

  later an old monk, one of the very first to live here at the monastery,

  picked it up. Of course, he could not read the hieroglyphics. He -took

  it to the abbot, who declared it to be a relic of St. Frumentius, and

  had it set in the crown."

  "And they all lived happily ever after," Nicholas agreed.

  "Not a bad shot."

  ny holes?" she demanded, and he shook Can you find a head. "Then you

  agree that this proves that Taita really his was here, and that it

  proves our theories are correct?" -Proves" is too strong a word. Let's

  just say that it points in that direction," he demurred.

  She wriggled around on the bed to face him squarely.

  "Oh, Nicky, I am so excited. I swear I will not be able to sleep a wink

  tonight. I just can't wait for tomorrow, to get out there and start

  searching again."

  Her eyes were bright, and her cheeks flushed a warm rosy brown. Her lips

  were parted, and he could see the pink tip of her tongue between them.

  This time he could not stop himself. He leaned very slowly towards her,

  treating her gently, giving her every opportunity to pull away if she

  wished to avoid him. She did not move, but her shining expression turned

  slowly to one of apprehension. She stared into his eyes, as if seeking

  something, some reassurance.

  When their lips were an inch apart, Nicholas stopped, and it was she who

  made the last movement. She brought their mouths together.

  At first it was soft, just a light mingling of their breath, and then it

  became harsher, more urgent. For a long, heartstopping moment they

  devoured each other, and her mouth tasted soft and sweet as ripe fruit.

  Then suddenly she whimpered, and with a huge effort of will tore herself

  out of his arms. They stared at each other, both of them shaken and

  confused.

  "No," she whispered. "Please, Nicky, not yet. I am not ready yet."

  He picked up her hand and turned it between his palms. Then lightly he

  kissed the tips of her fingers, savouring the smell and the taste of her

  skin.

  "I'll see you in the morning." He dropped her hand and stood up. "Early.

  Be ready!the said, and stooped out through the doorway of the hut.

  was dressing the next morning he heard her moving a round in her hut,

  and when he whistled softly at her door she stepped out to meet him,

  dressed and eager to start.

  "Boris is not awake yet,'Tessay told them as she served their breakfast.

  "Now that is a great surprise to me," Nicholas said, without looking up

  from his plate. He and Royan were still slightly awkward in each other's

  presence, remembering the circumstances in which they had parted the

  previous evening. However, as Nicholas slung the rifle and the pack 0

  ver his shoulder and they set off up the valley, their mood changed to

  one of anticipation.

  They had been going for an hour when Nicholas glanced over his shoulder

  and then cautioned her with a frown. "We are being followed."

  Taking her wrist, he drew her behind a slab of sandstone. He flattened

  himself against the rock and stured at her to do the same. Then he

  poised himself, ge an suddenly leaped forward to seize the lanky figure

  in a dirty white shamnw who was sneaking up the valley behind them. With

  a howl the creature fell to his knees, and began gibbering with terror.

  Nicholas hauled him to his feet. "Tamre! What are you doing following

  us? Who sent you?" he demanded in Arabic.

  The boy rolled his eyes towards Royan. "No, please, effendi, do not hurt

  me. I meant no harm."

  "Leave the child, Nicky. You will precipitate another fit," Royan

  intervened. Tamre scurried behind her and clung to her hand for

  protection, peering out around her shoulder at Nicholas as though his

  life were in danger.

  "Peace, Tamre," Nicholas soothed him. "I will not hurt you, unless you

  lie to me. If you do, then I will thrash you until there is no skin on

  your back. Who sent you to follow us?"

  "I came alone. Nobody sent me," blubbered the boy. "I came to show you

  where I saw the holy animal with the fingermarks -of the Baptist on his

  skin."

  Nicholas stared at him for a moment, before he began to laugh softly.

  "I'll be damned if the boy doesn't really believe he saw

  great-grandfather's dik-dik." Then he scowled ferociously. "Remember

  what will happen to you, if you are lying."

  "It is true, effendi," Tamre sob
bed, and Royan came to his defence.

  Don't badger him. He is harmless. Leave the poor , A hild."

  "All right, Tamre. I will give you a chance. Take us to where you saw

  the holy animal."

  Tamre would not relinquish his grip on Royan's hand.

  He clung to it as he danced beside her, leading her along, and within a

  hundred yards his terror had faded and he was smiling and giggling at

  her shyly.

  For an hour he led them away from the Dandera rier and up over the high

  ground above the valley, into an area of thick scrub and up-thrust

  ridges of weathered limestone.

  The thorny branches of the bush were densely intertwined, and grew so

  close to the ground that there seemed to be no way through them.

  However, Tamre led them on to a narrow twisting path, just wide enough

  for them to avoid the red-tipped hook thorns on each side of them. Then

  abruptly he stopped and pulled Royan to a halt beside him.

  He pointed down, almost at his own toes.

  "The riverPhe announced importantly. Nicholas came up beside them and

  whistled softly with surprise. Tamre had led them around in a wide

  circle to the west, and then brought them back to the Dandera river at a

  point where it still ran in the bed of the deep ravine.

  Now they stood on the very edge of the chasm. He saw at once that,

  although the top of the rocky ravine was less than a hundred feet wide,

  the chasm opened out below the rim. From the surface of the water far

  below, the rock wall belled out in the shape of one of the pottery tej

  flasks.

  It narrowed again as it neared the top where they stood.

  saw the holy thing over there."Tamre pointed to the far side of the

  chasm where a small feeder spring meandered out of the thorny bush.

  Streamers of bright green moss, nourished by the spring, hung from the

  lip of the concave rock wall, and the water trickled down them and

  dripped from the tips into the river two hundred feet below.

  "If you saw it there, why did you bring us to this side of the

  river?"Nicholas demanded.

  Tamre looked as though he were on the point of tears.

  This side is easier. There is no path through the bush on the other

  side. The thorns would hurt Woizero Royan."

  "Don't be a bully," Royan told him, and put her arm around the boy's

  shoulder.

  Nicholas shrugged, "It looks like the two of you are ganging up on me.