by Wilbur Smith
‘Help me up!’ he ordered Tamre. The boy put his shoulder under Nicholas’s armpit, where the rope had burnt him, and hoisted him to his feet. The two of them struggled up to the bank and on to the path, and then hobbled slowly across the swinging bridge.
He had hardly reached the other bank when there was a joyous shout from close at hand.
‘Nicky! Oh, dear God! You are safe.’ Royan ran down the path and threw her arms around him. ‘I have been frantic. I thought that—’ she broke off, and held him at arm’s length to look at him. ‘Are you all right? I was expecting to find your broken body—’
‘You know me,’ he grinned at her and tried not to limp. ‘Ten feet tall and bullet-proof. You don’t get rid of me that easily. I only did it just to get a hug from you.’
She released him hurriedly. ‘Don’t read anything into that. I am kind to all beaten puppies, and other dumb animals.’ But her smile belied the words. ‘Nevertheless, it’s good to have you back in one piece, Nicky.’
‘Where is Boris?’ he asked.
‘He and the trackers are searching the banks lower down the river. I think he is looking forward to finding your corpse.’
‘What has he done with my dik-dik?’
‘There is certainly nothing too much the matter with you if you can worry about that. The skinners have taken it down to the camp.’
‘Damn it to hell! I must supervise the skinning and preparation of the trophy myself. They will ruin it!’ He put his arm around Tamre’s shoulder. ‘Come on, my lad! Let’s see if I can break into a trot.’
Nicholas knew that in this heat the carcass of the little antelope would decompose swiftly, and the hair would slough from the hide if it were not treated immediately. It was imperative to skin it out immediately. Already it had been left too long, and the preparation of a hide for a full body mount was a skilled and painstaking procedure.
It was already dark as they limped into the camp. Nicholas shouted for the skinners in Arabic.
‘Ya, Kif! Ya, Salin!’ and when they came running from their living huts he asked anxiously, ‘Have you begun?’
‘Not yet, effendi. We were having our dinner first.’
‘For once gluttony is a virtue. Do not touch the creature until I come. While you are waiting for me, fetch one of the gas lights!’ He limped to his own hut as fast as his aches would allow. There he stripped and anointed all his visible scrapes and abrasions with mercurochrome, flung on fresh dry clothes, rummaged in his bag until he found the canvas roll which contained his knives, and hurried down to the skinning hut.
By the brilliant white glare of the butane gas lantern he had only just completed the initial skin incisions down the inside of the dik-dik’s legs and belly when Boris pushed open the door of the hut.
‘Did you have a good swim, English?’
‘Bracing, thank you.’ Nicholas smiled. ‘I don’t expect you want to eat your words about my striped dik-dik, do you?’ he asked mildly. ‘No such bloody animal, I think you said.’
‘It is like a rat. A true hunter would not bother himself with such rubbish,’ Boris replied haughtily. ‘Now that you have your rat, perhaps we can go back to Addis, English?’
‘I paid you for three weeks. It is my safari. We go when I say so,’ Nicholas told him. Boris grunted and backed out of the hut.
Nicholas worked swiftly. His knives were of a special design to facilitate the fine work, and he stropped them at regular intervals on a ceramic sharpening rod until he could shave the hairs from his forearm with just the lightest touch.
The legs had to be skinned out with the tiny hooves still attached. Before he had completed this part of the work, another figure stooped into the hut. He was dressed in a priest’s shamma and headcloth, and until he spoke Nicholas did not recognize Mek Nimmur.
‘I hear that you have been looking for trouble again, Nicholas. I came to make sure that you were still alive. There was a rumour at the monastery that you had drowned yourself, though I knew it was not possible. You will not die so easily.’
‘I hope you are right, Mek,’ Nicholas laughed at him.
Mek squatted opposite him. ‘Give me one of your knives and I will finish the hooves. It will go quicker if I help you.’
Without comment Nicholas passed him one of the knives. He knew that Mek could skin out the hooves, for years before he had taught him the art. With two of them working on the pelt, it would go that much faster. The sooner the skin was off, the less chance there would be of deterioration.
He turned his attention to the head. This was the most delicate part of the process. The skin had to be peeled off like a glove, and the eyelids and lips and nostrils must be worked from the inside. The ears were perhaps the most difficult to lift away from the gristle in one piece. They worked in companionable silence for a while, which Mek broke at last.
‘How well do you know your Russian, Boris Brusilov?’ he asked.
‘I met him for the first time when I stepped off the plane. He was recommended by a friend.’
‘Not a very good friend.’ Mek looked up at him and his expression was grim. ‘I came to warn you about him, Nicholas.’
‘I am listening,’ said Nicholas quietly.
‘In ’85 I was captured by Mengistu’s thugs. They kept me in the Karl Marx prison camp near Addis. Brusilov was one of the interrogators there. He was KGB in those days. His favourite trick was to stick the pressure hose from a compressor up the anus of the man or woman he was questioning and turn on the tap. They blew up like a balloon, until the gut burst.’ He stopped speaking while he moved around to work on the other hoof of the antelope. ‘I escaped before he got around to questioning me. He retired when Mengistu fled, and went hunting. I don’t know how he persuaded Woizero Tessay to marry him, but knowing what I do of the man, I expect she did not have much choice in the matter.’
‘Of course, I had my suspicions about him,’ Nicholas admitted.
They were quiet after that until Mek whispered, ‘I came to tell you that I may have to kill him.’
Neither of them spoke again until Mek had finished working on all four hooves. Then he stood up. ‘These days, life is uncertain, Nicholas. If I have to leave here in a hurry, and I do not have a chance to say goodbye to you, then there is somebody in Addis who will pass a message to me if you ever need me. His name is Colonel Maryam Kidane in the Ministry of Defence. He is a friend. My code name is the Swallow. He will know who you are talking about.’
They embraced briefly. ‘Go with God!’ said Mek, and left the hut quietly. The night swallowed his robed figure and Nicholas stood for a long time at the door, until at last he turned back to finish the work.
It was late by the time he had rubbed every inch of the skin with a mixture of rock salt and Kabra dip to cure it and protect it from the ravages of the bacon beetle and other insects and bacteria. At last he laid it out on the floor of the hut with the wet side uppermost and packed more rock salt on the raw areas.
The walls of the hut were reinforced with mesh netting to keep out hyenas. One of these foul creatures could gobble down the pelt in a few seconds. He made certain the door was wired shut before he carried the lantern up to the dining hut. The others had all eaten and gone to bed hours earlier, but Tessay had left his dinner in the charge of the Ethiopian chef. He had not realized how hungry he was until he smelt it.
The next morning Nicholas was so stiff that he hobbled down to the skinning hut like an old man. First he checked the pelt and poured fresh salt over it, then he ordered Kif and Salin to bury the skull of the dik-dik in an ant heap to allow the insects to remove the surplus flesh and scour the brain pan. He preferred this method to boiling the skull.
Satisfied that the trophy was in good condition, he went on down to the dining hut, where Boris greeted him jovially.
‘And so, English. We leave for Addis now, da? Nothing more to do here.’
‘We will stay to photograph the ceremony of Timkat at the monastery,’ Nicholas told him.
‘And after that I may want to hunt a Menelik’s bushbuck. Who knows? I’ve told you before. We go when I say so.’
Boris looked disgruntled. ‘You are crazy, English. Why do you want to stay in this heat to watch these people and their mumbo-jumbo?’
‘Today I will go fishing, and tomorrow we will watch Timkat.’
‘You do not have a fishing rod,’ Boris protested, but Nicholas opened the small canvas roll no larger than a woman’s handbag and showed him the four-piece Hardy Smuggler rod nestling in it.
He looked across the table at Royan, ‘Are you coming along to ghillie for me?’ he asked.
They went upstream to the suspension bridge where Nicholas set up the rod and tied a fly on to his leader.
‘Royal Coachman.’ He held it up for her appraisal. ‘Fish love them anywhere in the world, from Patagonia to Alaska. We shall soon find out if they are as popular here in Ethiopia, as well.’
She watched from the top of the bank as he shot out line, rolling it upon itself in flight, sailing the weightless fly out to midstream, and then laying it gently on the surface of the water so that it floated lightly on the ripples. On his second cast there was a swirl under the fly. The rod tip arced over sharply, the reel whined and Nicholas let out a whoop.
‘Gotcha, my beauty!’
She watched him indulgently from the top of the bank. In his excitement and enthusiasm he was like a small boy. She smiled when she noticed how his injuries had miraculously healed themselves, and how he no longer limped as he ran back and forth along the water’s edge, playing the fish. Ten minutes later he slid it, gleaming like a bar of freshly minted gold as long as his arm, flopping and flapping up on to the beach.
‘Yellow fish,’ he told her triumphantly. ‘Scrumptious. Breakfast for tomorrow morning.’
He came up the bank and dropped down in the grass beside her. ‘The fishing was really just an excuse to get away from Boris. I brought you here to tell you about what I found up there yesterday.’ He pointed up through the archway of pink stone above the bridge. She came up on her elbow and watched him with her full attention.
‘Of course, I have no way of telling if it has anything to do with our search, but somebody has been working in there.’ He described the niches that he had found carved into the canyon wall. ‘They reach from the lip right down to the water’s edge. Those below the high-water mark have been severely eroded by the floods. I could not reach those higher up, but from what I could see they have been protected from wind and rain by the dished shape of the cliff; it has formed a veranda roof over them. They appear to be in pristine condition, very much in contrast to those lower down.’
‘What do we deduce from that?’ she asked.
‘That they are very old,’ he answered. ‘Certainly the basalt is pretty hard. It has taken a long, long time for water to wear it down the way it has.’
‘What do you think was the purpose of those holes?’
‘I am not sure,’ he admitted.
‘Could it be that they were the anchor points for some sort of scaffolding?’ she asked, and he looked impressed.
‘Good thinking. They could be,’ he agreed.
‘What other ideas occur to you?’
‘Ritual designs,’ he suggested. ‘A religious motif.’ He smiled as he saw her expression of doubt. ‘Not very convincing, I agree.’
‘All right, let’s consider the idea of scaffolding. Why would anybody want to erect scaffolding in a place like that?’ She lay back in the grass and picked a straw which she nibbled reflectively.
He shrugged. ‘To anchor a ladder or a gantry, to gain access to the bottom of the chasm?’
‘What other reason?’
‘I can’t think of any other.’
After a while she shook her head. ‘Nor can I.’ She spat out the piece of grass. ‘If that is the motive, then they were fairly committed to the project. From your description it must have been a substantial structure, designed to support the weight of a lot of men or heavy material.’
‘In North America the Red Indians built fishing platforms over waterfalls like that from which they netted the salmon.’
‘Have there ever been great runs of fish through these waters?’ she asked, and he shrugged again.
‘Nobody can answer that. Perhaps long ago – who knows.’
‘Was that all you saw down there?’
‘High up the wall, aligned with mathematical precision between the two lines of stone niches, there was something that looked like a bas-relief carving.’
She sat up with a jerk and stared at him avidly. ‘Could you see it clearly? Was it script, or was it a design? What was the style of the carving?’
‘No such luck. It was too high, and the light is very poor down there. I am not even certain that it wasn’t a natural flaw in the rock.’
Her disappointment was palpable, but after a pause she asked, ‘Was there anything else?’
‘Yes,’ he grinned. ‘Lots and lots of water moving very very fast.’
‘What are we going to do about this putative bas-relief of yours?’ she asked.
‘I don’t like the idea in the least, but I will have to go back in there and have another look.’
‘When?’
‘Timkat tomorrow. Our one chance to get into the maqdas of the cathedral. After that we will make a plan to explore the gorge.’
‘We are running out of time, Nicky, just when things are getting really interesting.’
‘You can say that again!’ he murmured. She felt his breath on her lips, for their faces were as close together as those of conspirators or of lovers, and she realized the double meaning of her own words. She jumped to her feet and slapped the dust and loose straw from her jodhpurs.
‘You only have one fish to feed the multitude. Either you have a very high opinion of yourself, or you had better get fishing.’
Two debteras who had been detailed by the bishop to escort them tried to force a way for them through the crowds. However, they had not reached the foot of the staircase before the escort itself was swallowed up and lost. Nicholas and Royan became separated from the other couple.
‘Keep close,’ Nicholas told Royan, and maintained a firm grip on her upper arm as he used his shoulder to open a path for them. He drew her along with him. Naturally, he had deliberately contrived to lose Boris and Tessay in the crush, and it had worked out nicely the way he had planned it.
At last they reached a position where Nicholas could set his back firmly against one of the stone columns of the terrace, to prevent the crowd jostling him. He also had a good view of the entrance to the cavern cathedral. Royan was not tall enough to see over the heads of the men in front of her, so Nicholas lifted her up on to the balustrade of the staircase and anchored her firmly against the column. She clung to his shoulder for support, for the drop into the Nile opened behind her.
The worshippers kept up a low monotonous chant, while a dozen separate bands of musicians tapped their drums and rattled their sistrums. Each band surrounded its own patron, a chieftain in splendid robes, sheltering under a huge gaudy umbrella.
There was an air of excitement and expectation almost as fierce as the heat and the stink. It built up steadily and, as the singing increased in pitch and volume, the crowd began to sway and undulate like a single organism, some grotesque amoeba, pulsing with life.
Suddenly from within the precincts of the cathedral there came the chiming of brass bells, and immediately a hundred horns and trumpets answered. From the head of the stairway there was a fusillade of gunfire as the bodyguards of the chieftains fired their weapons in the air.
Some of them were armed with automatic rifles, and the clatter of AK-47 fire blended with the thunder of ancient black powder muzzle-loaders. Clouds of blue gun-smoke blew over the congregation, and bullets ricocheted from the cliff and sang away over the gorge. Women shrieked and ululated, an eerie, blood-chilling sound. The men’s faces were alight with the fires of religious fervour. They fell to
their knees and lifted their hands high in adoration, chanting and crying out to God for blessing. The women held their infants aloft, and tears of religious frenzy streaked their dark cheeks.
From the gateway of the underground church emerged a procession of priests and monks. First came the debteras in long white robes, and then the acolytes who were to be baptized at the riverside. Royan recognized Tamre, his long gangling frame standing a head above the boys around him. She waved over the crowd and he saw her and grinned shyly before he followed the debteras on to the pathway to the river.
By this time night was falling. The depths of the cauldron were obscured by shadows, and hanging over it the sky was a purple canopy pricked by the first bright stars. At the head of the pathway burned a brass brazier. As each of the priests passed it he thrust his unlit torch into the flames and, as soon as it flared, he held it aloft.
Like a stream of molten lava the torchlit procession began to uncoil down the cliff face, the priests chanting dolefully and the drums booming and echoing from the cliffs across the river.
Following the baptism candidates through the stone gateway came the ordained priests in their tawdry robes, bearing the processional crosses of silver and glittering brass, and the banners of embroidered silk, with their depictions of the saints in the agony of martyrdom and the ecstasy of adoration. They clanged their bells and blew their fifes, and sweated and chanted until their eyes rolled white in dark faces.
Behind them, borne by two priests in the most sumptuous robes and tall, jewel-encrusted head-dresses, came the tabot. The Ark of the Tabernacle was covered with a crimson cloth that hung to the ground, for it was too holy to be desecrated by the gaze of the profane.
The worshippers threw themselves down upon the ground in fresh paroxysms of adoration. Even the chiefs prostrated themselves upon the soiled pavement of the terrace, and some of them wept with the fervour of their belief.
Last in the procession came Jali Hora, wearing not the crown with the blue stone, but another even more splendid creation, the Epiphany crown, a mass of gleaming metal and flashing faux jewels which seemed too heavy for his ancient scrawny neck to support. Two debteras held his elbows and guided his uncertain footsteps on to the stairway that led down to the Nile.
