The Seventh Scroll (13 page)

"How is your mother?"

"Her leg is doing well, but she's still distraught about is Magic - about her dog."

You will have to get her a puppy. One of my keepers breeds first-class springers. I can arrange it." He paused and then asked delicately, "Will you be able to leave your mother? I mean, if we are going out to Africa?"

"I spoke to her about that. There is a woman from her church group who will stay with her until she is well enough to fend for herself again." Royan turned fully around in her seat to examine his face. "You have been up to something since I last saw you," she accused him. "I can see it in your face."

He made the Arabic sign against the evil eye, "Allah save me from witches!'

"Come on!" He could make her laugh so readily, she was not sure if that was a good thing or not. "Tell me what you have up your sleeve."

"Wait until we get back to the museum." He would not be moved, and she had to bridle her impatience.

As soon as they entered the building he led her through the Egyptian room to the hall of African mammals, and then stopped her in front of a diorama of mounted antelope. These were some of the smaller and mediumsized varieties - impala, Thompson's and Grant's gazelle, gerenuk and the like.

"Madoqua harperii." He pointed to a tiny creature in one corner of the display. "Harper's dik-dik, also known as the striped dik-dik." It was a nondescript little animal, not much bigger than a large hare. The brown pelt was striped in chocolate over the shoulders and back, and the nose was elongated into a prehensile proboscis.

"A bit tatty," she gave her opinion carefully, unwilling to bend, yet knowing he was inordinately Proud of this Specimen. "Is there something special about it?, "Special?" he asked with wonder in his voice. The Woman asks if it is special." He rolled his eyes heavenward and she had to laugh again at his histrionics. "It is the only known specimen in existence. creatures on earth. So rare that It is One of the rarest now. So rare it is probably extinct by that many zoologists believe that apocryphal, that it never really existed. They think it is that my sainted great-grandfather, after whom it is named, actually invented it. One learned reference hinted that he may have taken the skin of the striped mongoose and stretched it over the form of a common dik-dik. Can you imagine a more heinous accusation?)

"I am truly appalled by such injustice,'she laughed.

"Darned right, You should be. Because we are going to Africa to hunt for another specimen of Madoqua harpent, to vindicate the honour of the family., "I don't understand."

"Come with me and all will be explained."He led her back to his study, and from the jumble on the tabletop Picked out a notebook bound in red Morocco leather. The cover was faded and stained with water marks and tropical sun light, while the corners and the spine were frayed and battered.

"Old Sir Jonathan's game book,) he explained, and opened it. Pressed between the pages were faded wild flowers and leaves that must have been there for almost a century. The text was illuminated by line drawings in faded Yellow ink of men and animals and wild landscapes.

Nicholas read the date at the top of one page.

2nd of February 1902.

A In camp on the Abbay river.

11 day following the spoor of two large bull ele Phants-Unable to come up with the . Heat ve, intense-MY Men Played out Abandoned the chase small antelope grazing on the river-bank which I and returned to camp. On the return march lied a brought down with one shot from the little Rigby

"and-On close examination it proved to be a member of the genus Madoqa. However, it was of a species that I had never seen before, larger than the common dik-dik and Possessing a striped body. I believe that this specimen may be new to science.

He looked up from the diary. "Old great-grandpa Jonathan has given us the perfect excuse for going down into the Abbay gorge." He closed the book, and went on, "As you pointed out, to cater for our own expedition would require months of planning and organization, not to mention the expense. It would mean having to obtain approval and permission from the Ethiopian government. In Africa that can take months, if not Years."

"I don't imagine that the Ethiopian government would be too cooperative if they suspected our real intentions," she agreed.

"On the other hand, there are a number of legitimate hunting safari companies operating throughout the country. They have all the necessary permits, governmental contacts, vehicles, camping equipment and logistic back, up necessary to travel and stay in even the remotest areas. The authorities are quite accustomed to foreign hunters arriving and leaving with these companies, whereas a couple of ferengi nosing around on their own would have the local military and everybody else down on them like a herd of angry buffalo., ( So we are going to travel as a pair of dik-dik hunters?"

"I have already made the booking with a safari operator in Addis Ababa, the capital. MY Plan is to look upon the whole of our project in three distinct and separate stages.

The first stage will be this reconnaissance. If we find the lead we are hoping for, then we will go back again with our own men and equipment. That will be stage two. Stage three, of course, will be getting the booty out of Ethiopia, and that I assure you from past experience will not be the easiest part of the operation."

"How will you do that-' she began, but he held up his hands.

"Don't ask, because at this stage I don't have even the vaguest idea how we will do it. One stage at a time."

"When do we leave?"

"Before I tell you when, let me ask you one more question. Your interpretation of the Taita riddle - did you explain that in the notes that were stolen from you at the oasis?"

"Yes, everything was either in those notes or on the microfilm. I am sorry." So the uglies will have it all neatly laid out for them, just the way you laid it out for me."

"I am afraid they will, yes."

"Then to reply to your question as to when, the answer is tout de suite, and the tooter the sweeter! We must get into the Abbay gorge before the competition beats us to it.

They have had your conclusions and suppositions for almost a month. For all we know they are on their way already!

"When?" she repeated eagerly.

"I have booked two seats on the British Airways flight to Nairobi this Saturday - that is, in two days' time. We will connect there with an Air Kenya flight to Addis that will get us in on Monday at around midday. We will drive down to London this evening and stay over at my digs there. Are your yellow fever and hepatitis shots up to date?"

"Yes, but I have no equipment and hardly any clothing with me., I left Cairo in rather a hurry."

We will. see to that in London. Trouble with Ethiopia is it's cold enough to emasculate a brass monkey in the highlands, and like a sauna bath down in the gorge."

He crossed to the board and began to check off the items on his list. "We will both start malarial prophylactics immediately. We are going into an area of chloroquineresistant . falciparum mosquitoes, so I will put you on Mefloquine "He worked swiftly through the list.

"Of course all your travel documents are in order, or you wouldn't be here. We will both need visas for Ethiopia, but I have a contact who can arrange that in twenty-four hours."

As soon as he completed the list he sent her up to her room to pack the few personal items she had brought with her from Cairo.

By the time they were ready to leave Quenton Hall it was dark outside, but still he stopped for an hour at the York Minster Hospital to allow her to say goodbye to her mother. He waited in the Red Lion pub across the road, and he smelt of Theakston's Old Peculier when she climbed back into the Range Rover beside him. It was a Pleasant, yeasty aroma, and she felt so much at ease in his company that she lay back in the seat and fell asleep. His London house was in Knightsbridge, but despite the fashionable address it was much less grand than Quenton Hall, and she felt IF more at home there, even if it was only for two days.

During that time she saw little of Nicholas, for he was busy with all the last-minute arrangements, which included a number of visits to government offices in Whitehall. He returned with wads of letters -of introduction to high officials and British Embassies and High Commissions throughout East Africa.

"Ask any Englishman," she smiled to herself "There is no such thing as upper-class privilege any longer, nor is there an old-boy network that runs the country."

While he was away, she went off with the shopping list he had given her. Even walking the streets of the safest Capital city in the world she found herself looking back over her shoulder, and ducking in and out of ladies'

rooms and tube stations to make certain that she was not being followed.

"You are acting like a terrified child without its daddy," she scolded herself. However, she felt a quite disproportionate sense of relief each evening when she heard his key in the street door of the empty house where she waited, and she had to control herself so as not to rush down the stairs to welcome him.

On Saturday morning, when a taxi cab deposited them at the departures level of Heathrow MNIJ Terminal Four, Nicholas surveyed their combined luggage with approval. She had only a single soft canvas bag, no larger than his, and her sling bag over her shoulder. His hunting rifle was cased in travel-worn leather, with his initials embossed on the lid. A hundred rounds of ammunition was packed in a separate brass'bound magazine and he carried a leather briefcase that looked like a Victorian antique.

"Travelling light is one of the great virtues. Lord save us from women with mountains of luggage,5 he told her, refusing the services of a porter and throwing it all on to a trolley, which he pushed himself.

She had to step out to keep up with him as he strode through the crowded departures hall. Miraculously the throng opened before him. He tilted the brim of his panama hat over one eye and grinned at the girl at the check'in counter, so that she came over all girlish and flustered.

It was the same once they were aboard the aircraft.

The two stewardesses giggled at everything he said, plied him with champagne and fussed over him outrageously, to the obvious irritation of the other passengers, including Royan herself. But she ignored him and them and settled back to enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of the reclining first-class seat and her own miniature video screen. She tried to concentrate on the screen images of Richard Gere, but found her attention wandering to other images of wild canyons and ancient stelae. Only when Nicholas nudged her did she look around at him a little haughtily. He had set up a tiny travelling chessboard on the arm of the seat between them, and now he lifted an eyebrow at her and inclined his head in invitation.

When they landed at Jomo Kenyatta airport in Kenya they were still locked in combat. They were level at two games each, but she was a bishop and two pawns up in the final deciding game. She felt quite pleased with herself.

At the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi he had booked a pair of garden bungalows, one for each of them. Within ten minutes of her flopping down on the bed, he called her from next door on the house phone.

"We are going to dinner with the British High Commissioner tonight. He is an old chum. Dress informal. Can you be ready at eight?" One did not have to rough it too onerously when travelling around the world in this man's company, she thought.

It was a relatively short haul from Nairobi up to Addis Ababa, and the landscape below them unfolded in fascinating sequences that kept her glued to the cabin window of the Air Kenya flight. The hoary summit of Mount Kenya was for once free of cloud, and the snow-clad double peaks glistened in the high sunlight.

The bleak brown deserts of the Northern Frontier District were relieved only by the green hills that surrounded the oasis of Marsabit and, far out on the port side, the dashing waters of Lake Turkana, formerly Lake Rudolf.

The desert finally gave way to the highlands of the great central plateau of the ancient land of Ethiopia.

"In Africa only the Egyptians go back further than this civilization,' Nicholas remarked as they watched it together. "They were a cultured race when we peoples of northern climes were still dressing in untanned skins and living in caves. They were Christians when Europeans were still pagans, worshipping the old gods, Pan and Diana."

"They were a civilized people when Taita passed this way nearly four thousand years ago," she agreed. "In his Scrolls he writes of them as almost his cultural equals which was rare for him. He disparaged all the other nations of the old world as his inferiors in every way." From the air Addis was like so many other African cities, a mixture of the old and the new, of traditional and exotic architectural styles, thatched roofs alongside galvanized iron and baked tiles. The rounded walls of the old tukuls built with mud and wattle contrasted with the rectangular shapes and geometrical planes of the brick built multi-storeyed buildings, the blocks of flats and the villas of the affluent, the government buildings and the grandiose, flag-bedecked headquarters of the Organization of African Unity.

The distinguishing features of the surrounding countryside were the plantations of tall eucalyptus trees, the ubiquitous blue gums that provided firewood. It was the only fuel available to so many in this poor and wartorn land, which over the centuries had been ravaged by marauding armies and, more recently, by alien political doctrines.

After Nairobi the high-altitude air was cool and sweet when Royan and Nicholas left the aircraft and walked across the tarmac to the terminal building. As they entered, before they had even approached the row of waiting immigration officers someone called his name.

"Sir Nicholas!" They both turned to the tall young woman who glided towards them with all the grace of a features lit by a welcoming dancer, her dark and delicate smile. She wore full'length tradition al skirts which enhanced her movements.

"Welcome to my country of Ethiopia. I am Woizero Tessay." She looked at Royan with interest, "And you must be Woizero Royan." She held out her hand to her and liked each other Nicholas saw that the two women immediately.