by Wilbur Smith
•••
Ryder halted on the edge of a garden plot, planted chest-high with fruit bushes. The back of his neck had been prickling for the last twenty minutes, a sense of being watched, but he could see no signs of anyone following them.
“Well?” Penrod asked.
Ryder pointed up to a range of narrow, fantastical, flat-topped peaks about a mile in front of them across rising ground, scattered with broadleaf trees and the skeletons of sycamores waiting for the rains.
“This is as far as the scout’s directions will take us. He was told the shifta with the white leader have their permanent camp on top of one of those three amba in the middle of the range—those are the Three Sisters—but nothing he told me indicates which one.”
Penrod examined each in turn through his field glasses. “I can’t tell if any of them is inhabited. I don’t see smoke either.”
Ryder shielded his eyes. “I would wager money that you’ll find a church or monastery on one or other of them. If it weren’t for that damned army, we could ask any of the peasants for two miles around and they’d tell us.”
“If it weren’t for the army scouts, you’d be here without any clue at all and no water,” Penrod said. “You’re a hunter. Surely we can pick up the trail? Heavily loaded pack animals, large groups of men . . .” Penrod was growing impatient, but Ryder shook his head.
“The shifta are hunters too. If they wish to cover their tracks, they’ll use every trick in the book to do so: false trails, brushing out tracks behind them. They have fooled me already.”
“Then we climb each one in turn. We’ll have to wait until dark, or we might as well announce our coming with a bugle.” Penrod examined the flat tops of the peaks again. The landscape was filled with a choice of natural fortresses. “We’ll have to go in quietly. A frontal approach would be useless,” he added.
“Agreed,” Ryder replied. “I swear to God, though, I shall see that man die today, even if I have to give up my own life to do it.”
“We do have a secret weapon, of course.”
“What is that?” Ryder asked.
“Amber.”
•••
Amber could sense her appearance pleased him. She felt his slow, assessing gaze, but kept her own eyes lowered.
“What a pleasure it is, my dear, to see you properly dressed,” he said.
She did not reply but only touched her neck, as if brushing away some stray strand of gold hair.
“Will you be seated and take a glass of wine? I’ve told the servants we shall wait upon ourselves.”
He pulled out the dining chair for her, and once she had arranged the heavy folds of her skirt, he took his own place opposite. An open crystal decanter stood on the table. He poured the wine into her goblet and the heavy fruited scent of an excellent Burgundy was released like a subtle breeze into the air. She smiled briefly and thanked him, but when he spoke again his voice had hardened a little.
“You are unusually quiet, Miss Benbrook.”
He began to put food on her plate from the serving dishes. Goat, a mash of beans, but all served as if it were côte de boeuf and gratin dauphinois.
“I was thinking that you seem very different now; not the man you presented yourself as in camp.”
He looked faintly amused. “Ah, I had a role to play then. Bill Peters the engineer. Lower-class boy who had dragged himself up in society with his brain, then became possessed with a passion for travel. I think I played it rather well.”
“You fooled us for years.”
He cut a slice of his meat and lifted it, examining it in the low light. Amber almost expected him to summon the waiter and send his compliments to the chef.
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
Amber managed a mouthful of the bean mash. She had been famished only minutes before, but eating in front of this man made the food taste like ashes. She forced herself to swallow.
“We met a man in Addis. He said you are not Bill Peters at all.” Then she looked up. “Who are you?”
He looked taken aback for a moment at the force of her gaze.
“You are more beautiful even than my daughter was. Extraordinary.”
She looked back down at her plate. The scrape of cutlery on porcelain seemed to stretch her nerves to breaking point.
“You will not tell me your name then?”
“You may call me James.” Suddenly he reached forward and grabbed her wrist so tightly that she dropped her knife. He pulled her abruptly toward him.
“Remember where you are, Amber. On top of a mountain, the only path so steep in places hardly a mule can climb it. One wrong step and you’ll plummet a hundred feet and your pretty face will be smashed to a pulp. You are surrounded by twenty of the best fighting men money can buy. Stop planning your escape, child. It is hopeless. Your fate is sealed, I’m afraid. And if you attempt to run before I am ready, I will give you to my men to use as their plaything.”
She stared straight at him. “James, you’re hurting me.”
He released her at once. “My dear, I’m so sorry.” He cut another slice of his meat and ate it with obvious relish. “Do remember what I have said, though.”
•••
The trail had been interfered with, a careful confusion of hoof and footprints in the dust where the path divided into two. Each hillside would take at least an hour to climb, and a wrong decision now could cost them not just time but, if they were unlucky, the element of surprise also.
Penrod favored the trail leading north-west. It was wider and shallower, at least at this point. If the shifta were regularly moving their spoils up the slope, they must choose that over the sudden, narrow climb of the route Ryder favored. They were arguing in low tones when Ryder suddenly stiffened and held up his hand. The prickling sensation of being watched shivered over Penrod’s scalp. He sensed a movement in the scrub to the south. Ryder slowly took his revolver from its holster and turned. On the edge of the copse behind them stood an elderly Abyssinian man. He was stooped and leaning on his heavy walking stick, his hair as white as the shamma slung around his shoulders. Once he saw they were looking at him, he clicked his tongue against his teeth. The scrub shivered and a dozen youths—some armed with ancient muzzle-loading rifles, others with lances—appeared out of cover.
Ryder said something to them in Amharic. Penrod had picked up enough of the language to guess he was telling them that they were English, not Italian, and although they were not enemies, they would not be taken without resistance.
The old man held up his hand and shook his head. Penrod could not make out the reply, but Ryder hissed a translation as the old man spoke.
“The old man’s name is Gabre; these are his grandsons, who were too young to join the army. They say a holy man at their compound wishes to speak to us.”
“We have no time to consult with a holy man.”
“Wait. The man has asked for us by name. He says he has seen Amber.”
Penrod had returned his revolver to its holster and was striding across toward the old man before Ryder had finished speaking.
The compound was not far away, hidden in a shallow bowl of land. The fields around it looked well tended and, hidden from the main tracks, they seemed to have escaped the requisitioning of the army.
Penrod and Ryder were ushered past a group of staring women and small children into the central tukul in the compound. A woman was kneeling by the earth bed in the back of the hut, offering the man who lay on it tulla from a horn beaker. Ryder’s eyes adjusted quickly to the gloom. As the woman moved away, the man on the bed drew himself up onto one elbow and spoke.
“Mr. Courtney.”
“Dan,” Ryder said, his voice sharp and angry. “So you are a holy man now, are you?”
Dan had aged a great deal since he had murdered Rusty and left the camp. His face was gaunt but deeply tanned, covered in a thick network of wrinkles. His chest was bare, hollow and pale. The muscles that he had earned digging for treasure on two c
ontinents had wasted away. His beard was heavy and as snow white as his hair. If he had not spoken, Ryder would not have recognized him. He had a bandage tied around his waist, stained with blood on the right side.
“You know each other?” Penrod asked, looking between the men.
“We do,” Dan said, his accent still discernible, but faint as a distant echo.
“You are American,” Penrod said.
Ryder could not look at him any longer; he could not even speak. He stared at the earthen floor, his rage at Rusty’s death consuming him as if it had only happened that morning.
“I killed a good man at Courtney’s camp,” Dan was saying. “Miss Benbrook released me rather than see me hang. Told me to do penance for my sins, and I have done so. I do so now.”
Penrod did not need to hear the history. “Miss Benbrook’s been taken. What can you tell us?”
Dan shifted and gasped at the pain in his side, but he spoke quickly between gritted teeth. “They took her up the second sister. I live up on the steep flanks of the first—it is higher, but the peak has only space for my hut. Men have been living on the second sister for some months now. They leave the local people in peace, but they are known as bandits. Their leader is white.”
“We know that,” Ryder said. “It is Peters, the man we hired to replace you at Courtney Mine.”
“Did you see Amber?” Penrod asked. He itched with impatience to be gone.
“I did,” the wounded man answered. “I had been to visit Ato Gabre, to fetch supplies and pray with the wives of his sons who have gone to fight. As I was walking back, I saw the raiding party return and that they were carrying a woman with them. At first I did not know it was her, then I saw her hair.”
“Was she injured?”
“Unconscious. I called out and ran toward them. It was stupid, I carry no weapons, but I did not think of such things. I saw her come awake and begin to struggle. She called out, but his men were upon me. One of the bandits struck me once with his spear. The white man, Peters, ordered them to leave me.”
“Why not kill you?” Ryder asked, his voice still leaden.
“Perhaps they thought they had done so. Perhaps they feared the local people would turn against them if they killed me.”
“Is there someone here who can show us the path up the second sister?” Penrod asked.
Dan nodded. “The eldest boy here will show you the way. I shall pray for her protection, and your success.”
“I do not want your prayers,” Ryder said.
“Still you have them.” Dan drew in his breath painfully. “I thought their leader must be the devil come back to haunt me once more. His name . . .” His voice was growing faint.
“What do you mean, Dan?” Ryder asked.
“I saw him only from a distance, back in Cairo, and he has changed. But then I heard his name. The name that the people here call him. Ras Shama.”
“What of it?”
Dan’s voice was weak. “Ras Shama.”
No one spoke for a long time.
“It cannot be . . . That man is dead. He blew his own head off,” Ryder said.
“What is it?” Penrod demanded.
Ryder passed his hand over his eyes. “Ras Shama. It means Prince or Duke of the Candle.”
Penrod felt the tumblers of his mind turn. The body in Cairo with its face ruined by the shotgun blast; the ivory mask Penrod had left behind that was then missing from the safe. Penrod had been sure the duke was dead, but what if he had decided to escape, lie low and lick his wounds in one of the most remote corners of the globe? The duke had run mines and mining operations for years; he would be able to pass for an engineer.
“The Duke of Kendal,” Penrod said.
“Is this who he is?” Ryder spun around to stare at Penrod. “Did he know you loved Amber? Did Kendal attack the camp and seize Amber to revenge himself on you?”
Penrod did not answer him. “We go now,” he said, then approached the bed where Dan was lying and put out his hand. Dan took it. “And even if Courtney will not accept your apologies and regrets, I shall. I give you my thanks in return.”
Dan lifted his hand in blessing, and Ryder and Penrod left him to his nurse.
Dinner progressed in silence. The only sound was of James’s knife sawing through his meat. Outside Amber could hear the squeaks and whistles of the blue starlings foraging for their own supper. She sipped her wine. James looked across at her plate.
“Do try and eat a little more. It is your last meal after all.”
Amber pushed a little of the bean mash onto her fork and swallowed mechanically. He watched her and seemed to approve.
“I like your mask,” she said, nodding at the rosewood box on the table.
“I am glad,” he said. “It is of Caesar, you know. A reminder of a former life, and of the fact great men can fall, and then rise again.” He picked up the case and slipped it into his pocket.
“How did you survive the flood?” she asked.
“I have developed a talent for resurrection,” he said and made no further comment.
Amber watched him from under her eyelashes. In the camp he had occasionally reminded her of a snake, a combination of the way he moved his head at times and the blankness of his dark eyes. But a snake is a creeping, malicious creature, and now in his kingdom James was happy to display his strength and command. A cobra, she thought. Rearing up over her with its hood expanded, its flickering tongue tasting the air.
“It is so long since I ate in this manner,” she tried again. “Years and years. How did you manage to bring all these things here?”
“The caravans along the coast produce many treasures, such as the dress that you are wearing.”
Amber looked down at the froth of snowy lace around her throat and at her wrists. “The colors are a little bold for me,” she said.
He pushed away his plate, then crossed his legs and picked up his wine glass. “Not at all. My daughter Agatha had a taste for strong color and was regarded as a leader of the fashionable set.”
A deep cold chilled Amber’s heart. “Lady Agatha?” she asked.
He looked at her with a thin, flickering smile, as if she were a pet who had just managed an endearing new trick.
“Well done, Miss Benbrook. I am waiting for news from the battle. When it is over I shall have a message conveyed to Penrod Ballantyne, telling him you are here and in my hands. He will rush to your rescue, and find you dead with that ivory mask beside you, and myself gone.”
“Was this always your plan, James?”
He chuckled softly. “Oh no, my dear. I have had my eye on Courtney Mine for years. You know I had one of my men sabotage the steamer all those years ago, then blackmailed Dan to make sure the enterprise failed. I was simply going to buy it when Ryder had finished bankrupting himself. Then Penrod ruined me. Eventually I found my way here and my new plan was to use my bandit friends to take the mine when it suited me, ideally after that bull Courtney had returned to Cairo, but then—” he leaned forward, waving his steak knife like a wand—“I learned Penrod Ballantyne was still alive, and taking my revenge on him became very, very important to me. Murdering the woman he loved while he was so close, but not close enough, seems an ideal way to do so. And just to tie things up neatly, between my highway robbery and a little extra sabotage before we fetched you, Ryder will certainly lose the mine now. I shall take it over when banditry begins to pall.”
“You have been very clever, James,” Amber said hollowly. Everything lost: Penrod, the mine, her own life.
“Yes, I’m quite pleased,” he said, swallowing his wine with pleasure.
“I would like to go outside.” She spoke without thinking, only knowing that to stay in this room a moment longer, in this treasure house of blood and perfidy, would drive her insane.
“I have spoken to you about any attempt to escape, my dear.”
She set down her knife and fork very carefully, willing herself to move slowly.
“
You have said you are going to kill me anyway; why shouldn’t I run?”
His smile was sympathetic. “Dear Miss Benbrook, behave and I promise you a quick death. Run and you will suffer all the horrors of hell in your last hours.”
Amber flinched. She had to make him think she was afraid of him and too scared to run, but not overplay her hand. She blinked quickly and let a single tear run down her cheek.
“Let me feel the sun on my face one last time then, James. I will not run.”
He laughed and shook his head, the way men do at the whims of beautiful women. Then he stood and offered her his arm. Amber got up from her chair and placed her hand lightly on his forearm, and then as he turned toward the door, she reached behind his back to pick up his steak knife from the table and slipped the greasy blade into her sleeve.
•••
Two other huts had already been built among the trees on the flat summit of the amba. Several tents had been set up and two of the slave girls tended a cooking fire. The mules were in a small enclosure set a little back from the human habitation.
Amber could see smoke in the distance, a heavy band of it like a fallen cloud.
“The Italians have been utterly defeated at Adowa,” the Duke of Kendal drawled.
“This pleases you?” Amber said, picking up on his satisfied tone.
“Oh yes,” he said, and patted her hand where it lay on his sleeve. She managed not to flinch away. “Menelik will take his army home, and my friends and I will have greater freedom to act across Tigray. Your death will send Penrod back to the arms of opium, Ryder and Saffron will return to Cairo, shattered by your loss, and I shall take the mine in due course.”
Amber stared at the ground in front of her, unable to respond and thinking of Dan’s murdered family, of Rusty, of all the stories of blackmail and corruption she had read in the newspaper. She was sickened with revulsion.
“Do you know, after my troubles in Cairo, I read your little book and I have concluded that I have much in common with Osman Atalan,” Kendal continued cheerfully. “I can see us meeting as equals one day. It would be interesting. We have both, after all, stolen one of the beautiful Benbrook sisters from Major Penrod Ballantyne.”
