King of Kings

by Wilbur Smith

  She pushed herself away from the wall. “I’m going to think for a while, Saffy.”

  “You go, I’ll see to dinner,” Saffron said and watched her go. “Penrod Ballantyne,” she said between gritted teeth. “If you get yourself killed now, I will never forgive you.”

  “Did you say Ballantyne?”

  Saffron jumped. Bill Peters had appeared out of nowhere, an annoying habit of his.

  “Yes, an old acquaintance of ours. Penrod Ballantyne.”

  Bill blinked rapidly. “I thought he was dead.”

  “Yes, we all thought that. But no, he’s on some diplomatic liaison exchange with the Italians.” Saffron suddenly felt tired. She didn’t want to be near Bill with his soft hands and strange blank stare. She strode away without saying goodbye.

  •••

  The last ingot was ready just as the rains began to ease. With luck they would reach Addis just in time to meet the agreement with Menelik and secure the right to the land in perpetuity. They would also receive the money due to them for the silver sent to the capital over the last eighteen months and be able to restock the mine. Hostilities between Menelik and the Italians would throttle the usual trade routes and there was no telling when they would open again.

  Bill asked to make the journey with them, and Saffron wanted Amber to come too so she could help with the decisions about what they would need if they found themselves under a virtual siege. They left at the first possible moment, a grim determination to get to Addis as quickly as possible spurring them on. Their usual route lay on lower ground alongside the range of heights that divided the bulk of Ethiopia from the coast and the Red Sea, but Ryder decided that they would use the tracks which wound their way between the hills. The route was more difficult and longer, but the Italian army had now occupied several strategic points between Adrigat and Mekelle, and Ryder felt it would be safer to avoid entanglement with the military whenever possible.

  They led half a dozen mules loaded with silver ingots, as well as several more laden with camping equipment. Penelope and Leon walked with them, or rode when they were tired, chattering to the guards or their family depending on who was willing to pay them attention at that time.

  Ryder kept up a punishing pace. Until the silver was in Menelik’s treasury he was vulnerable, and he knew that they were still in danger from late rains, but he could not delay any longer. They made excellent progress on the first three days, but late on the afternoon of the fourth day Geriel tapped Ryder on the shoulder and pointed west. The sky had grown purple and bruised with rain clouds. Ryder swore under his breath as he looked at them. Their route had taken them into a steep-sided ravine with a broad, flat base to it. Ryder gave his orders and Geriel set off ahead of the convoy at a steady run.

  “What is happening, Ryder?” Amber asked.

  When he replied, he spoke loudly enough for the whole party to hear him. “A heavy rainstorm is coming in from the west, and it could flash flood the valley. We need to get up to higher ground and set camp, and we need to do it quickly. Geriel’s gone on ahead to see if he can find a place where we can get off the valley floor before the main track turns off.”

  None of them wasted time with questions or exclamations. Ryder took Leon on his shoulders, Bill carried Penelope and they set off along the track. The air still felt cool and dry, but they had all seen the clouds behind them.

  Half a mile further along the track they heard Geriel calling them. He had found a path that led from an S-bend in the river’s course to a broadening plateau about halfway up the valley walls. The ground was sloping and uneven, but it was large enough to put up the tents and tether the animals. Ryder nodded, and they began the climb, driving and leading the patient mules with them. Even those loaded with the silver ingots managed the incline with the remarkable stoicism of their kind.

  Amber scrambled up beside one of the animals loaded with camping equipment. The air was becoming quickly colder and the breeze began to pull at her clothing. The animal balked, then sprang up the rocky ladder of the path. She dragged herself after it. They were lucky. With the rain coming from the west, the twist in the course of the river meant the ravine walls would provide some cover. As soon as they reached level ground, she began to help unloading and setting up the tents, while Ryder drove stakes into the ground to tether the animals.

  The heavy canvas began to whip in the air, and already Amber had to shout to make herself heard above the rush of the wind. A crackle of light was followed by a low rumble of thunder that broke over the valley behind them. Amber glanced down at the shallow river below. It was already deepening and spreading over the path they had been walking on such a short time before.

  She pulled the guy ropes taut and tried to hammer in the tent pegs. The ground was dry and crumbling, unable to offer a hold.

  “The trees!” Ryder shouted and she understood. The acacia and juniper scattered over the plateau had been working their roots into the rocks for years. She led the guy ropes to them, tying them off as quickly as she could. Maki came to help her and they felt the first fat drops of rain beginning to fall.

  Saffron hurried the children into the tent, while Amber fetched the sack of what she thought of as her emergency rations from one of the nervous beasts—thick breads baked before they left camp and dried fruit. It was not much, but it would be something. They could not light cooking fires now. A sudden gust of wind tore at her skirts—a force so abrupt and violent it almost knocked her off her feet.

  Geriel was working with Ryder to unload the ingots from the other mules.

  “Get under cover, al-Zahra,” Ryder called to her.

  Before she had time to obey, another flash of light brightened the sky, and at the same moment Amber was deafened by a clap of thunder. The rain began to fall in a sudden torrent, sending plumes of dust up from the soil. Ryder and Geriel were soaked at once, but continued to work as if the ripping wind and lash of the rain were nothing to them.

  “Now!” Ryder called again, and Amber scuttled inside to join Saffron and the children.

  Leon and Penelope were curled up on a pile of blankets, wrapped around each other. As Amber came in and pushed her wet hair off her face, she smiled bravely at Leon.

  “I’m not scared,” he said loudly. “Only Penelope does not like the thunder.”

  “She is lucky she has you to look after her then,” Amber said.

  The sides of the tent quivered and shook, but the ropes held. Amber unpacked half of her rations, then prepared to dash out again to take the rest to the tent where the men slept, but Saffron called her back.

  “Amber! Take these—spare blankets for the men.”

  Amber gathered them in her arms, then ran the few feet to the other tent. Already the ground was slippery. The low trees whistled and shook. She ducked in and handed the blankets and food to Maki, who took them with thanks. Ryder, Geriel and Bill followed her in.

  “How are the children?” Ryder asked.

  “Leon is being brave for his sister,” she answered and Ryder nodded, proud, but not wishing to show it.

  “Go back to them, and thank you for the food.”

  “The mules?”

  “Not happy,” Bill said. “But secure and in the lee of the slope, so they have some shelter.”

  Bill had taken off his soaking shirt and was drying himself off with one of the blankets. Amber had never noticed before how well defined the muscles of his chest and arms were. He noticed her looking at him and smiled. It was a look that made her shiver, and she was glad of the storm and the rain to wash it from her again before she rejoined Saffron and her niece and nephew.

  •••

  The violence of the storm seemed only to grow and thicken. The flashes of lightning came so quickly they seemed to form a constant flickering illumination and the thunder broke in one deafening clap after another. The tent sagged under the weight of the rain, pressing in on the two sisters, Leon and little Penelope. Again and again they thought the worst must be over,
only to hear the cannonade of thunder start once more, closer and more fierce.

  Amber dozed fitfully and the whole night took on the feeling of a dream. She thought she saw dervish warriors in the flashes of light, and that the starving hordes of Khartoum were breaking into the tent. She was staring into Penrod’s angry eyes the moment she broke their engagement. She was on the lifeboat, watching flaming bodies fall from the side of the steamship, Saffron’s blood sticky on her fingers. Rusty’s body was in the tent with them, bleeding quicksilver.

  Suddenly she was awake. Bill was shaking her shoulder and hissing at her.

  “Amber, the animals are loose. Help me.”

  If she had been properly awake or at least not fogged with the ghosts of her past, she would have been suspicious, woken Saffron, asked some questions, but she only responded with a dazed understanding and stumbled out of the tent. The rain was still coming down hard. Bill had a lantern that fought against the thick, wet darkness, but it cast only a murky light around him. The lightning flickered.

  Where is Ryder? Amber thought. Where are Maki and Geriel?

  Bill was already striding away toward the patch of cover where they had tethered the animals. She followed him, her mind still groggy. Another flash of lightning and the wind began to pick up, throwing the rain against her face with such force it felt as if she was being pelted with gravel. The mules were all where they should be—miserable and huddled together, but tethered. Two, though, she saw had been loaded with some of the small boxes that contained the silver ingots from the mine.

  “What is happening, Bill?” she yelled above the thunder of rain, the wind whipping the words away from her. “The animals are not loose.”

  “Not yet,” he shouted over his shoulder and she watched, horrified, as he began to untie the ropes that tethered and hobbled the unloaded animals.

  She ran toward him, trying to catch the ropes. He dealt her a single backhanded blow that sent her sprawling in the rust-colored mud.

  “It’s time for me to go, Amber,” he said, “and I’m taking you with me. Come along now.”

  “Go where? I’m not going anywhere with you! Are you insane?”

  The mules were confused by their sudden freedom, but they showed no sign of wishing to escape, staying in their huddle.

  “Ryder!” Amber screamed. “Ryder!”

  Bill looked at her with a sort of pitying contempt and slapped one of the mules hard. It shrank from him, but did not run.

  Amber struggled to her feet and screamed for Ryder again, hoping by some miracle that the others might hear her over the rage of the storm.

  “Stupid animals,” Bill said, almost to himself. He took his revolver from his waistband and fired a shot just above the mules’ heads. It was enough. They brayed and bucked and ran in a haphazard panic toward the camp or further up the slope as their instincts led them. Amber had to leap backward to avoid their frantic escape. She felt Bill grip her upper arm in a vicious hold and he dragged her toward the two animals that were still tied and laden with silver. He unhitched them without letting go of her, moving with an easy confidence as if the rain and wind did not exist for him.

  Amber started to fight and scream, but the strength of his hold was like iron. And then she felt the cold pressure of the muzzle of his gun in the small of her back.

  “Keep moving,” he said.

  Saffron started out of her uneasy sleep into a world of sudden chaos. She could hear animals braying and Ryder shouting.

  Leon was awake and staring at her with wide, frightened eyes. Amber was gone.

  “Leon, will you be a brave lad for me?”

  The little boy nodded.

  “Good. I need you to stay here and keep Penelope with you. Just bundle up together and don’t move. It’s very important.”

  “I want to help you and Daddy.”

  He was such a strong little boy; she felt a sudden pride and reached out to touch his smooth cheek.

  “This is helping me and Daddy. This is helping us a lot. Look after your sister.”

  He seemed convinced. “I shall, Mummy.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Then she leaned forward and kissed them both, firmly and quickly on the tops of their heads, before diving out into the rain.

  The lightning flashed and Saffron saw Ryder, his shirt soaked and clinging to the broad muscles of his chest and shoulders. He already had a grip on two of the mules and was shouting out orders to Geriel and Maki.

  Geriel was climbing up toward a narrow ledge where one of the panicked creatures had stranded itself. Ryder made a grab for its trailing tether, but the animal kicked out with both its back legs and caught Geriel on his right shoulder, throwing him backward. He fell and slithered to the edge of the narrow plateau. Ryder sprang forward, then threw himself full length on the mud, reaching out for Geriel as he did. Geriel saw him and made a lunge for Ryder’s outstretched hand, scrabbling for some purchase in the mud. Saffron screamed. Geriel was going to go over the edge; it was impossible he could be stopped, he was moving so quickly. Then Ryder caught Geriel’s wrist. It slowed and twisted his fall. He scrambled up into a crouch as Ryder released him, panting and holding his shoulder. Ryder did not even pause. At once he was on his feet, gathering the tethers of the mules and leading them back toward their cover. Maki went to Geriel, but Geriel shook his head, got to his feet and went after the mule on the ledge again.

  Saffron could feel her clothes beginning to stick to her skin and struggled to marshal her thoughts. Lanterns. That’s what they needed. She went first into the men’s tent, only to find their hurricane lantern had been overturned and smashed. She ducked back into her own tent. Leon stared up at her. Penelope was curled tightly against his chest.

  “Darling boy,” Saffron said as calmly as she could, “I need the lamp to help Daddy.”

  He understood at once. “We don’t mind the dark, Mummy,” he said.

  She took it and staggered through the rain toward the tethering spot. Ryder took the lantern from her without a word.

  “Where is Bill? And where’s Amber?” Saffron said.

  Ryder looked around him. “Amber is not with the children?”

  “Leon is looking after his sister, they are perfectly all right,” she said with more confidence than she felt.

  Before Ryder could answer, Geriel loomed out of the darkness. He had cuts and grazes on the side of his face and he was panting hard.

  “Mr. Ryder, two mules still missing and I think . . . I think some of the silver has gone.”

  “Bill?” Saffron said in wonder. “Ryder, it can’t be.”

  “Did you see another path down from here, Geriel?” Ryder demanded. “One that does not lead through the camp?”

  “A goat track, that way.” He pointed past the tethering point.

  “Secure the other animals; I’ll fetch my gun,” Ryder said.

  Even as he turned, Saffron was plunging past him.

  “Saffron!”

  “He has Amber,” she screamed over the fresh howls of the wind. “Hurry!”

  •••

  The path was steep and slick with the rain. In the flashes of lightning that still came in regular bursts, turning the sky purple and gray, Amber could see how it led toward the valley floor. A new sound struck her: the rush of water. The placid stream they had walked by earlier in the day had already become a river, deep brown and speckled with foam.

  “You’ve worked with us for years, and now you have turned thief?” Amber shouted. “Why?”

  “I was always only waiting to take what I wanted, my dear,” he said.

  Amber went as slowly as she could. She was surefooted after years in the highlands, but now she moved as cautiously as an old woman.

  “So take the silver and let me go.”

  The narrow mouth of the revolver jabbed her in the back. “Oh no, Amber. I couldn’t leave without you. I have the most wonderful plans for us once we join my friends.”

  “Who are your friends?”


  He chuckled. “I think you know. Once your lion left, it got a lot easier to meet them from time to time. Offer a little friendly advice.”

  “The bandits! You were talking to them.”

  “Obviously.”

  She turned around and stared at him. The rain had soaked them both to the skin; it beaded across his high cheekbones, and his eyes seemed darker and fiercer than they had been. No longer dead and blank, but suffused with a gray light. She felt a deep and instinctive revulsion—and fear. He came closer to her, so she could feel his heat against her body. The hard, cold gun was still pressed tight against her belly.

  “You do not love me,” she said. “Why would you run this risk to take me?”

  “You shall see. Fate put you in my hands, my dear. How could I refuse such a perfect gift?” He jammed the gun harder into her belly. “Now stop playing for time, Miss Benbrook, or I shall get angry.”

  She turned away from him and took another step down the track. He was a good shot. She wondered how far she would have to get away from him to have a chance of him missing her. She looked right and left, searching for cover in the darkness.

  “Amber!”

  It was Saffron’s voice, faint above the sound of the wind and lashing rain. He did not even look around but pushed her forward. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him wrap the tether ropes of the mules more firmly around his lower arm.

  “Amber!”

  The shout was louder, closer. She heard something else, a deeper note in the roar of the water pounding along the river bed, but she had no time to wonder what it might be. If Saffron was coming after her, so was Ryder, and they were both marksmen of the first order. She dared a glance over her shoulder and longed for a flash of lightning.

  Bill threw his lamp away in a wide arc. A shot cracked behind them and it shattered in mid-air. The roaring noise further up the valley had increased in volume and the temperature of the air suddenly seemed to drop. Sheet lightning flickered over the other side of the gorge and in its brief illumination Amber saw and understood. The torrent of the river was being pushed higher. Forced forward, she blinked into the darkness and saw a wall of dark, churning water racing toward them. Bill saw it too.