King of Kings

by Wilbur Smith

  Praise for the novels of

  “Read on, adventure fans.”

  The New York Times

  “A rich, compelling look back in time [to] when history and myth intermingled.”

  San Francisco Chronicle

  “Only a handful of 20th century writers tantalize our senses as well as Smith. A rare author who wields a razor-sharp sword of craftsmanship.”

  Tulsa World

  “He paces his tale as swiftly as he can with swordplay aplenty and killing strokes that come like lightning out of a sunny blue sky.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  “Best Historical Novelist—I say Wilbur Smith, with his swashbuckling novels of Africa. The bodices rip and the blood flows. You can get lost in Wilbur Smith and misplace all of August.”

  Stephen King

  “Action is the name of Wilbur Smith’s game and he is the master.”

  The Washington Post

  “Smith manages to serve up adventure, history and melodrama in one thrilling package that will be eagerly devoured by series fans.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “This well-crafted novel is full of adventure, tension, and intrigue.”

  Library Journal

  “Life-threatening dangers loom around every turn, leaving the reader breathless . . . An incredibly exciting and satisfying read.”

  Chattanooga Free Press

  “When it comes to writing the adventure novel, Wilbur Smith is the master; a 21st century H. Rider Haggard.”

  Vanity Fair

  Also by Wilbur Smith

  Non-Fiction

  On Leopard Rock: A Life of Adventures

  The Courtney Series

  When the Lion Feeds

  The Sound of Thunder

  A Sparrow Falls

  The Burning Shore

  Power of the Sword

  Rage

  A Time to Die

  Golden Fox

  Birds of Prey

  Monsoon

  Blue Horizon

  The Triumph of the Sun

  Assegai

  Golden Lion

  War Cry

  The Tiger’s Prey

  Courtney’s War

  The Ballantyne Series

  A Falcon Flies

  Men of Men

  The Angels Weep

  The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

  The Triumph of the Sun

  The Egyptian Series

  River God

  The Seventh Scroll

  Warlock

  The Quest

  Desert God

  Pharaoh

  Hector Cross

  Those in Peril

  Vicious Circle

  Predator

  Standalones

  The Dark of the Sun

  Shout at the Devil

  Gold Mine

  The Diamond Hunters

  The Sunbird

  Eagle in the Sky

  The Eye of the Tiger

  Cry Wolf

  Hungry as the Sea

  Wild Justice

  Elephant Song

  About the Author

  Wilbur Smith is a global phenomenon: a distinguished author with a large and established readership built up over fifty-five years of writing, with sales of over 130 million novels worldwide.

  Born in Central Africa in 1933, Wilbur became a full-time writer in 1964 following the success of When the Lion Feeds, and has since published over forty global bestsellers, including the Courtney Series, the Ballantyne Series, the Egyptian Series, the Hector Cross Series and many successful standalone novels, all meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide. His books have now been translated into twenty-six languages.

  The establishment of the Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation in 2015 cemented Wilbur’s passion for empowering writers, promoting literacy and advancing adventure writing as a genre. The foundation’s flagship program is the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.

  For all the latest information on Wilbur, visit: www.wilbursmithbooks.com or facebook.com/WilburSmith.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Orion Mintaka (UK) Ltd. 2019

  Author image © Hendre Louw

  Cover design by Nick Stearn

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  First published in the United States of America in 2019 by Zaffre

  Zaffre is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK

  Typeset by Scribe Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-4998-6208-9

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4998-6201-0

  Canadian paperback ISBN: 978-1-4998-6202-7

  For information, contact

  251 Park Avenue South, Floor 12, New York, New York 10010

  www.bonnierzaffre.com

  www.bonnierbooks.co.uk

  Contents

  About the Author

  Part I: January 1887

  Part II: January 1888

  Part III: November 1889

  I dedicate this book to the gal I love, my Nisojon. You keep my mind and heart ablaze, with you beside me I fear nothing

  Part I

  January 1887

  Amber Benbrook was dazzled for a moment as she stepped out from the shadowy cool of the Gheziera Club into the Cairo sun. She lost her footing on the shallow steps that led down to the graveled driveway, and instinctively clutched the arm of her fiancé, Major Penrod Ballantyne. He steadied her and looked down fondly into her lovely eyes. She smiled back up at him.

  “I don’t think I’m quite used to these new boots yet, Penny. The shop-girl said they are quite the latest thing and they were terribly expensive, but it seems they aren’t really made to be walking about in.” She sighed and poked one foot out from under the long folds of her striped skirt, turning her ankle a little to examine her neat suede boots with their delicate low heel and elaborate fastenings of hooks, eyes and ribbons. “In the harem I used to go about barefoot most days.”

  Penrod clenched his jaw. Captain Burnett and Lieutenant Butcher of Her Majesty’s Coldstream Guards were standing behind them in the shade of the portico. They would have certainly heard Amber’s little speech, and her remark about the harem would be spread around the club before dinner.

  Penrod admired Amber, loved her, even, but he would have to explain to her again that the fiancée of a senior officer should not speak of certain things in public, and her time living in the harem of Osman Atalan, numbered among the greatest enemies of the British Empire, was most certainly one of them.

  In the fortnight since their engagement, Penrod had discovered that being linked to such a famous young lady had its disadvantages as well as its pleasures. Amber was in many ways a gemstone of the first water. She was beautiful, stunningly so. Her old nurse in the Sudan had called her al-Zahra, the Flower, and the name suited her. At sixteen, her figure was youthfully slim yet womanly, and although she had lived most of her life in Africa, her skin was the color of cream and she had the blonde hair and blue eyes of an angel on a Christmas postcard. She also had an innocent charm, was clever without being opinionated and friendly without being forward. Thus far, she was an ideal choice for a man such as Penrod. He was an ambitious officer already decorated for his bravery, but he had a tendency to clash with his superiors from time to time and had a temper he could not always control. Such a charming and lovely wife should have been a perfect political asset, smoothing his ascent through the ranks to high command.

  However it was not just Amber’s beauty that made her famous: her history also made her an object of fasci
nation. She was one of the few survivors of the siege of Khartoum, that terrible stain on British imperial pride. For ten months General Gordon, hero of British campaigns in China, had defended the city from the rebel warriors of Sudan and their spiritual leader, hailed as the Prophet reborn by his followers but called the “Mad Mahdi” by the horrified reporters of the British newspapers. As Members of Parliament in Westminster and the leader writers of the London press demanded Gordon be saved, the ministers of state hesitated and the city was left to starve. Penrod had been the only intelligence officer able to slip across enemy lines and bring the messages and orders of their government to Gordon, and the British consul in the city, David Benbrook. Then Penrod had met the beautiful Benbrook girls, the eldest, Rebecca, acting as hostess over her father’s table of scraps, and the twin sisters, Amber and Saffron, who spent most of their days grinding riverweed to feed the people. Penrod had fought on the walls of the city to fend off the repeated assaults of the Mahdi’s warriors, and then led the government’s troops through the treacherous desert to lift the siege, but relief came too late. Before the British forces could reach Khartoum, the dervishes launched one final attack across the river. Through a daze of hunger and fever, Amber Benbrook saw Gordon killed and her own father beheaded in the street as he tried to lead his family to safety.

  Amber’s twin, Saffron, had escaped with a trader who had also been caught up in the siege, a man called Ryder Courtney, whom she had since married, but Amber and her elder sister Rebecca were taken as spoils of war and held first by the Mahdi himself, then by his most powerful warlord, Osman Atalan. Penrod refused to desert the sisters but was betrayed as he infiltrated Osman’s camp, then held as Osman’s slave and tortured for many months.

  Rebecca chose to make herself Osman’s favorite concubine, convincing him Amber was still too young for his bed and instead making herself mistress of his appetites. For a time it seemed they had been forgotten, but Saffron, Ryder Courtney and Penrod’s friends among the Arabs staged a daring rescue by river just as Amber’s maturing beauty was provoking Osman’s attentions. Rebecca, however, refused to leave. She was already pregnant with Osman’s child. Certain it would be a son, she chose to raise him under his Islamic father’s protection rather than to expose him to the scorn of her own people as a half-breed.

  Amber spent the weeks after her rescue writing down everything she could remember about what had happened, and discovered in herself a talent for storytelling. The resulting book, Slaves of the Mahdi, become an international sensation. Everyone had read it, from the prime minister of Britain to the lowest paid, most ink-stained and incompetent clerk in government service in Cairo. Amber had been in England for the publication, but she could not leave Africa for long. She returned to Cairo and to Penrod in time for her sixteenth birthday, celebrated in Shepheard’s Hotel with her twin. Amber and Penrod’s engagement seemed a fitting end to the fairy tale.

  At first Cairo society had welcomed Amber, but Penrod was increasingly aware that his fiancée did not act as a young English woman should, and her failure to do so was drawing comment. She did not tremble or faint at any mention of Khartoum, she described shooting a crocodile or a kudu with relish, and rather than refusing to speak of the terrible fate of her elder sister, Amber said openly that she was very sorry not to know her nephew, and she hoped that her elder sister Rebecca was happy with their friends in the harem. She had added that the baby would probably be much prettier than most, as Rebecca was beautiful and Osman Atalan very handsome. Every white mother in Cairo was deeply insulted by her remarks. The whispered commentary on her behavior distressed and embarrassed Penrod. Unless Amber learned to follow the unwritten codes of the club and the army, she might not be such an asset to him in his career as he had expected. Then he considered her unfortunate association with Ryder Courtney. Penrod was the younger son of a baronet, and had a large private income from the family trust as well as his army pay. He had been educated at Harrow and discovered his talent for languages traveling through Europe before joining the army. He was an officer and a gentleman, born to command and loyal to Queen and Empire. Courtney was a trader, a self-made man who had fought for every penny he owned, and who was openly contemptuous of all forms of soldiering. It was true he had fought the dervish with great personal bravery, and played a key role in their escape from Osman Atalan, but Penrod would rather that his fiancée’s sister had married a gamekeeper.

  As Amber examined her boot, Penrod glanced upward and noticed Lady Agatha Woodforde watching them from the balcony above, a slight smile on her lips. He felt a tug in his loins. She caught his eye and made a small moue of disdain. At once Penrod found himself recalling her naked body in a tangle of fine cotton sheets in his bedroom at Shepheard’s Hotel. However, he dismissed the image from his mind. For now, at least, he would be faithful to his rather difficult young bride-to-be.

  “Ballantyne! Watch your pockets!”

  It was a shout from one of the officers still smirking at Amber’s remark about the harem. Penrod twisted around and stared into the face of a dark-skinned boy of perhaps ten years old. The boy already had his slim hand in Penrod’s coat pocket. He danced away a few steps as Penrod made a grab for him and opened his fist to show Penrod’s 18-carat half-hunter pocket watch in his palm, then he turned and ran. The drivers and servants who were crowded in front of the club lunged after him, but he ducked and twisted and slipped through their fingers like an eel. Penrod glanced at Amber.

  “Don’t worry about me, Penny,” Amber said, slipping her arm from his. “But do get your watch back.”

  Penrod winked at her, then set off at a sprint in pursuit of the young pickpocket.

  Amber watched him go and felt her skin flush. He was so handsome; watching him made her mouth go dry and her heart flutter in a way that was both delicious and frightening. Though her sister’s subtle subterfuge meant Amber had left the harem untouched, she had heard enough while living there to know what she might expect on her wedding night. The idea of it, of doing such things with her beloved Penrod, made her both afraid and desperate to be married as soon as possible.

  “Miss Benbrook?” Captain Burnett approached her from the shade of the veranda. “Perhaps I can be of assistance. Do you require a carriage back to your hotel?”

  She blinked at him. “Why would I require your assistance for that? My Arabic is much better than yours.” Behind her, in the shadows of the entrance hall, Amber heard a rich female laugh. She turned to see a rather beautiful blonde woman walking toward them across the checkerboard floor of the lobby with the light, animal grace of a cat. Amber thought she recognized her, but knew they had never been introduced.

  “That’s you put in your place, Burnett!” the woman said, holding out her hand to Amber. “My dear, I am Lady Agatha Woodforde and I am so delighted to meet you. I am a very old friend of Major Ballantyne’s, you know. Do let me treat you to some tea while he is out chasing criminals.”

  Amber thought rather longingly of her suite of rooms at Shepheard’s Hotel. She wanted to change out of these horrible boots.

  “I want to hear everything about your romance, my dear,” Lady Agatha continued smoothly, “and I shall tell you all the dramatic details of Major Ballantyne’s former service.”

  Amber remembered when she had seen her before. On occasion, when Amber had walked by a group of ladies and gentlemen on the club grounds, she had felt their gaze on her, then heard a burst of laughter just after she had passed. It had made her uncomfortable, exposed. More than once she had turned back and seen Lady Agatha at the center of the group, watching her. Though now she seemed friendly enough.

  “Do join me! Though it is too bad of Penrod to dash off and leave you like that for the sake of a pocket watch.”

  “I gave him that watch,” Amber said simply. “It’s engraved.”

  Lady Agatha laughed again, showing her even white teeth. “That explains it! He had to go, of course, if it was a present from you.”

  She
smiled and touched Amber’s sleeve. It was too tempting. Amber could never tire of talking about Penrod, and even Saffron, who was an indulgent sister most of the time, had started rolling her eyes when Amber talked about him and their wedding plans. A suspicion flitted across Amber’s mind and she looked at Agatha narrowly. She was beautiful, but she was quite old, Amber decided. She must be at least twenty-five. Comforted, she gave Lady Agatha her hand and allowed herself to be led away.

  •••

  The boy had a good start on him, but Penrod felt that he was not really putting his full effort into his escape. Penrod was almost insulted. As they raced across the bridge and into the city, dodging between the water-sellers in their sky-blue galabiyyas with swollen waterskins over their shoulders, and the carriages of the Europeans going from club to office to home, the boy paused and looked back, and when he saw that Penrod was still pursuing him at speed, he grinned before running on again. As soon as they were off the bridge, Penrod expected the boy to turn into the maze of twisting narrow lanes that formed the Arab quarter, but instead he continued down the main open boulevard, past the handsome frontage of the Opera House and the Esbekeeyah Gardens. The boy danced through the crowds of Abyssinians and Turks, European tourists balanced awkwardly on patient donkeys, Albanians with their multicolored sashes, and the proud, aloof-looking Bedouins.

  “What are you playing at, my boy?” Penrod wondered aloud and increased his speed. The boy was cursed in a dozen languages as, with a graceful bound, he leaped a low ornamental box hedge like a champion hurdler and tore across the grass, then sprang back onto the roadway, ducked under the nose of an affronted camel, and headed into the narrow shadows of the buildings opposite. Penrod drew the hot, spiced air of the city deeper into his lungs and felt the prick of sweat under his collar. The pleasure of the chase fired his blood and he lengthened his stride.