King of Kings

by Wilbur Smith

  Ryder translated, his gut growing cold. “He’s saying that they do not want to kill their countrymen and women. If our people turn over the whites to them, they will not be hurt. If they resist then they will kill us all.”

  “God damn him. What are our chances?”

  “I trust our people,” Ryder said, his eyes dark with anger.

  It was easy to say, but they had a dozen rifles to protect fifty women and almost as many children. If Bill had twenty rifles under his command, this could turn into a slaughter.

  A movement caught Ryder’s eye. Women were slipping out of the church, scrambling up into the shadows.

  “What is your answer, men of Tigray?” the voice in the mist asked.

  It was Tadesse who answered from the other side of the square. “One minute, we are deciding!”

  “I’ll kill him!” Saffron hissed.

  “Bring them out to the front,” the voice answered.

  Tadesse crept up to them in the shadows, Amber with him.

  “Mr. Ryder, Balito, Agnes and Marta have gone up the far path with their eldest boys. Old John and Simon are crossing the river by the mine. Can you keep Bill talking awhile?”

  “I shall. Send Kassa and Adera north.”

  “Yes, Mr. Ryder.”

  The voice came from the mist again. “Now, grandfathers and children of Tigray!”

  “We will come!” Ryder shouted. “I do not want the blood of the women and children on our hands. But who are you, Peters? Who are you really? We know the real Peters died a year before we met.”

  The voice answered, lazy and clear. “He worked for me, for a while, then I realized I wanted his papers more than his labors.”

  “Tell me your name!” Ryder roared into the damp morning air. “How did you deceive us for so long?”

  Ryder could almost see him, a shape of shadow and mist.

  “Go,” Peters said in bad Amharic. “Take their weapons and tie their hands.”

  Above them they heard a sudden scream and the ululation of the women. They had surprised one of the gunmen on the high path with their knives.

  They heard Bill shout, “Miss Amber is not to be harmed! Kill the rest!”

  Amber flung herself forward onto the ground as the first shots peppered the earth at their feet. Patch was struck in the shoulder and went down with a gasp. Two of the women of the camp ran to him, seizing him and dragging him back under cover. Ryder and Saffron went right, ducking behind the log benches. More shots, more screams. Rifles cracked up and downstream.

  The mist was finally lifting, replaced by shifting clouds of smoke. Saffron shot at the place she had seen an old-fashioned musket flash and a figure fell forward into the water.

  Ryder raised his rifle and fired. Another of the bandits on the far bank fell, tumbling down the incline into the river.

  “Oh God,” Saffron said.

  Ryder stared at where she was pointing. A campfire had just been lit by Rusty’s burial ground. Standing next to it was an archer. As they watched he held one of his arrows into the flames, and they saw it flare. Ryder had seen fire arrows before: tows just behind the head were soaked in oil and set aflame right before the archer fired. The flaming arrows could not be fired as accurately or as far, but the archer was not aiming for Ryder or his people, but for their homes. The first arrow hit the ground a few feet from Ryder’s hut. Ryder turned his aim on the man, breathing steadily and quietly. The archer lit another arrow and drew his bow again. The arrow wavered in the air and fell just short. One of the children squealed and threw sand over it.

  “Ryder, hurry!” Saffron whispered.

  Ryder squeezed the trigger and the archer crumpled to his knees, but his third arrow was already in the air. It flew with an almost lazy grace, and buried itself in the thatch of their roof.

  “The children!” Saffron turned to dash across the square, but a sputter of shots drove her back.

  Ryder could see Bolta, one of Patch’s protégées, crouched on the other side of the square.

  “Bolta!” He pointed. “Cover Mrs. Saffron!”

  They both aimed their fire at the north bank and Saffron ran to the hut, crying out for Leon. The thatch was tinder-dry. Ryder could feel the heat at his back already. He kept his fire up. A terrible groaning noise came from behind him: part of the roof was collapsing. He spun around and, as he turned, saw Amber. She was standing quite still in the center of the smoke and confusion. For a moment he was amazed, then he saw a glint at her throat. Bill was behind her, his knife at her neck, dragging her backward across the river.

  “Ryder!” he heard his wife scream.

  Amber saw him. He thought he saw her lips move, but what was spoken, he could not say. He turned and ran toward his flaming home. Saffron was in the doorway, choking; in the center of the room he saw his son and daughter holding hands. Penelope was crying and Leon’s face was white. Between them and the door was a heap of flaming thatch.

  “Leon! Pick up your sister and run to me!”

  “But, Daddy!” The little boy was frozen.

  Ryder leaped forward, feeling his hair singe, and swept up both children in his arms. There was another crash and wave of heat behind him. He could not avoid the fire. He launched himself forward and out into the square. He felt hands all around him. Someone took the children from him, someone else threw a blanket over him to smother the flames, then he heard Tadesse shouting, and he was tumbled forward and down the slope into the river. The cold sent a deep shock across his arms and back, and then began to soothe them.

  The firing had stopped. The inhabitants of the camp were returning to the square. Some of the women were wailing; it meant someone had been killed. His arms and back were starting to ache, but he could see Saffron with the children and heard them cry, both of them. Marta was giving Patch water. Tadesse was beside him in the river.

  “Miss Amber?” Ryder asked. “Where is Miss Amber?”

  Tadesse’s voice when he replied shook with rage. “He took her.”

  •••

  As Tadesse smoothed a mixture of oil and herbs over Ryder’s forearms and shoulders where the fire had blistered his skin, they formed a plan. Ryder would track Peters as best he could, while Tadesse and Saffron would ride to Menelik’s camp near Adowa and beg for help. Patch and Marta would look after the children and the injured.

  Ryder flinched as Tadesse’s fingers probed the burns, and as he looked up he caught Patch scratching the scarring on his jaw. “What is it, Patch?”

  “I went looking for Marta’s cousin, Ryder. He was on patrol last night. We reckoned it might have been him who raised the alarm.”

  Ryder felt a fresh chill in his blood. “Did you find him?”

  Patch hunched his shoulders. “Hoped he might have got scared and run away, but no, we found him. They cut his throat while he was ringing the bell up by the furnaces.”

  “I’m sorry, Patch.”

  “I know it. Thing is, Mr. Ryder, I was wondering: why’d they come in that way? So I went to look and . . . There ain’t no end to that Bill Peters’s spite. They pulled down the Lion Dam and flooded the charcoal store before they even came to us.”

  Ryder stared at the earth at his feet. So that was that. Even if Menelik beat back the Italians and his workers all returned, there was no way they’d make up the shortfall in the silver now. The mine was lost. So be it. He’d made and lost fortunes in Africa before, but he was damned if he was losing Amber too. He stood up and took the shirt Saffron handed to him, shrugging it on.

  “Look after our people, Patch,” he said.

  They assembled their traveling kit quickly and set out on their different paths three hours after the last rifle shot had been fired.

  For the first hour the track the bandits had left was clear. Ryder made good progress, then he realized he had been following a false lead. He doubled back and rediscovered the right path, but lost it again five miles from camp. These bandits were clever. He forced himself to rest and think. They must
have a base. He only had to find it. He drew himself a map in the dust and marked on it every raid he had heard of. They would want somewhere near the good, fast trails, but not too near their favorite hunting grounds. He drew a circle in the dust. Somewhere near Suria. It had to be.

  He got to his feet and shouldered his pack.

  The Italian army, swollen with new recruits, had been camped at Suria for two weeks now. Penrod could easily spot the new arrivals, pale and wide-eyed among the sun-burned men who had been in Tigray for months, as he walked in long strides toward General Baratieri’s tent. When Penrod took his seat in the circle among the generals in command of the Italian forces, next to Baratieri, but with his chair pulled slightly back, Albertone regarded him with open hostility.

  “Why is the Englishman here? Major Ballantyne is a good soldier, but this is our business. By what right does he sit among us?”

  Penrod said nothing, but met Albertone’s gaze calmly.

  Baratieri spoke quickly. “He is here at my invitation and request. Ballantyne’s advice on how to repel the renewed dervish attacks on the Sudanese border has been invaluable. He has consistently offered us better information than our most trusted scouts and has ridden over the area repeatedly since we made camp here. We would have suffered far greater losses in these continual skirmishes without him.”

  Albertone snorted. “What good is that? I can give you his report myself. Dust, hills and bad roads. We’ve all been here long enough to see that. Our prime minister is right: these skirmishes have been nothing but military wastage rather than a campaign. It is time to act.”

  Penrod showed no reaction, but he was angry. He could not resent Albertone for disliking his presence at the council, but to show contempt for Baratieri, his commanding officer, in front of the other brigade generals was disgraceful. What was worse, Baratieri pretended to ignore the insubordination. He was looking ill. Penrod thought he had the air of a man about to crumble from within. The slaughter at Amba Alagi had aged him twenty years, and the way Menelik outwitted him by using the prisoners from the fort at Mekelle to move westward, exposing the flank of his vast army in perfect safety, had shaken and confused him. Then came that last bitter telegram from Prime Minister Crispi, which Albertone now quoted with such relish. Penrod believed Baratieri’s strategy had been perfectly sound. If anyone was to blame for the current situation it was Arimondi for his handling of the situation at Mekelle, and he took his place at the table as sleek and self-satisfied as a cat.

  Baratieri cleared his throat and tapped his papers together. “The choice is simple, gentlemen. We must advance, or face the prospect of retreating from Tigray and back to Eritrea without giving battle. I believe we should retreat.”

  General Vittorio Dabormida actually made a sound of disgust under his breath. Arimondi went pale and clamped his jaw. Albertone rolled his eyes.

  “My reasons are as follows. Our supply lines are overextended, and since the defection of Ras Sebath and Agos Tafari to join Menelik, attacks on our caravans have increased dramatically. We have only food enough to feed our men for four days at most, even if we cut the rations still further. My second reason is that the army Menelik has assembled is collapsing under its own weight. He has stripped the countryside and our scouts tell us more and more of his men are deserting and returning home. He will not be able to pursue us if we make an orderly retreat. We will return to the borders of Eritrea with our army intact. Now, I shall hear your thoughts.”

  It was Arimondi, the most senior of the generals, who replied first. He waved away Baratieri with an elegant flick of his wrist.

  “We have not come so far merely to go back. The very reasons you give for retreat are those I give to attack. We have to strike a decisive blow against these savages while our men are still fed. Let us sweep Menelik’s army away and with that we will revenge ourselves for the slaughter of Major Toselli and his men at Amba Alagi, and this campaign will finally deliver us a triumph worthy of our great nation.”

  The other generals nodded solemnly. Outside the tent Penrod could hear the sounds of the camp: occasional laughter and calls between the men, the creak of carts and the stamp of boots as parties moved to and fro, digging defensive ditches around the camp, which had no part in either of the options that Baratieri had put forward.

  Albertone spoke next in his superior drawl. “Attack, sir. Attack. They will scatter like rats when we fire on them.”

  All eyes turned to Dabormida. “I have come here to fight. Not march around the country for no reason.”

  Finally General Ellena looked around the set faces of his colleagues. “I and my men came to fight also, and I give weight to what my comrades have said. But I would be interested in hearing what Major Ballantyne thinks.”

  Baratieri glanced up at Penrod and nodded. Penrod leaned forward a little, looking at each general in turn while he spoke.

  “General Albertone, Menelik’s army will not melt away as the followers of Ras Mengesha did. They are better armed, better led, and they too have come a long way from their homes to seek battle with you. However, they do not wish to fight you in entrenched positions. They are waiting to draw you out into the open. Attack and you are playing into their hands.”

  Albertone wrinkled his upper lip. “I would bet on my men against Menelik’s even if they had twenty times our numbers. His men are peasants.”

  “The Ethiopians are farmers, but they practice the arts of war from an early age,” Penrod said urgently. “Do not think they are as raw and untrained as a volunteer army in Europe would be. They are strong and fast, and do not fear death.”

  Ellena rubbed his long nose. “I bow to the experience of Generals Albertone and Arimondi. Menelik’s men are only peasants after all.”

  Baratieri made no attempt to defend his own opinion. “Very well,” he said. “We shall advance toward Adowa and occupy the high ground. Menelik will be forced to attack or retreat. If he attacks, his men will have to meet us where the ground will funnel his numbers toward us. If he retreats he will be, in effect, admitting the expansion of the colony of Eritrea into Tigray. I will give you your final orders tomorrow. Then we will march at nightfall. The first Menelik will know of it is when dawn breaks and he finds our men looking down on him from the heights.”

  It signaled the end of the meeting. Baratieri remained where he was, bent over his papers. Penrod did not try to speak to him, but followed the generals outside. They moved away in a group, in animated discussion. Albertone looked almost gleeful. Penrod watched him from a distance, frowning. Baratieri’s plan was to force Menelik to retreat, not to launch in to a battle, but Penrod saw in Albertone’s face the expression of a man who expected to fight.

  He made his way back through the camp and found Nazzari at work on his diary and letters. He greeted Penrod with a quick smile, but continued writing. Penrod lay on his camp bed with his hands behind his head and stared up at the canvas ceiling.

  Amber had let Bill lead her away from the camp without resisting. She’d thought only of Saffron and the children and her friends in the camp. The most important thing was to get these men away from her family; then, and only then, she would think about herself and her escape.

  Bill regrouped his men half a mile away from the escarpment. He had not spoken to her as yet, only pushed her to walk quickly along the path as it climbed then fell again on a more gradual incline. After some half an hour of walking, Amber spotted the pack animals of the raiding party and their guards. She had been left untied, and as the men exchanged news of casualties and their own bravery in battle, she had to fight the impulse to flee at once. They were still too near the camp to risk it. She kept her eyes down. One of the bandits led out a riding mule for her. She mounted without comment or assistance, and made a quick count of the number of men and their weapons. A dozen of them had survived the raid uninjured and all had modern breech-loading rifles. They walked with the swagger of young men used to instilling fear by force and threat of violence.

&n
bsp; She would wait until dark and hope the men would get drunk and sleepy with feeding. Two women were traveling with them. Possibly wives of the fighters, but more likely slaves. She guessed by the position of the rising sun that they were heading west, but not along trails she had ever used.

  Bill rode at the head of the column and never looked back at her. The bandits walked alongside them and wasted few words on conversation. The dry heat began to affect her. All around the ground was parched, waiting for the rains with a desperate quiet. She felt her lips begin to stiffen and she swayed slightly in the saddle. Bill said something to one of the bandits jogging at his side. The man dropped back and offered her a canteen. She wanted nothing more than to knock it out of his hand, but if she was going to maintain her strength, she had to drink.

  They did not rest at midday, but kept up the same steady pace across the rising and falling terrain. Amber lost all sense of where she was. Her back and legs were growing stiff and sore, and her belly ached with hunger. The men beside her showed no sign of fatigue, and in her confused and wandering mind they looked at times like devils, dark spirits leading her to hell. As they climbed onto another rise, she shook off her imaginings and looked about her. At first she thought she must be dreaming. Off to the north, where she should have seen fields and the occasional compound or church, she saw what looked at first like an inland sea. A great mass of shifting activity. The glitter of metal in the late afternoon sun, white canvas tents and hordes of men. Then she realized: the Italian army. A vast camp of cooking tents, stores, animals, soldiers and camp followers. A city suddenly fallen in the vast expanse of the highlands of Tigray to confront the army of Menelik.

  The path curved away and the image disappeared, but it gave her hope. If she could get away from her captors, help was closer than she had hoped. The Italian or Ethiopian army—it did not matter, either one would offer her refuge.

  At last Bill called a halt. One of the servants invited her to dismount and led her into a patch of shade. A bandit stood guard beside her, but still Bill did not look at her or approach. So be it. If he chose to ignore her, for the moment at least that served her purpose. She had been given water during the ride and in all likelihood she would be fed too. Then darkness would fall and bring with it the chance of escape.