The Seventh Scroll (17 page)

"It is something to do with an atavistic urge that few men, no matter how Cultured and civilized they deem themselves, can deny completely." He fired a second time.

"Some of them work it out in the board room, others on the golf course or the tennis court, and some of us on a salmon river, in the ocean deeps or in the hunting field."

He fired a third shot, merely to confirm the previous two, and then went on,

"As for God's creatures, he gave them to us. You are the believer. Quote me Acts 10, verses 12 and 13."

"Sorry." She shook her head. "You tell me.

... all manner Of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowL of the air,"'

Nicholas obliged her. "'And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat., "You should have been a lawyer," she moaned in mock despair.

"Or a priest," he suggested, and went forward to retrieve the target. He found that his last three shots had punched a tiny symmetrical rosette three inches above the bull, all three bullet holes just touching each other. He patted the butt stock of the little rifle, "That's my lovely darling, Lucrezia Borgia." He had named the rifle for her beauty and for her murderous potential.

He slid the rifle back into its leather slip case and they walked back together. As they came in sight of the camp, Nicholas pulled up short.

"Visitors," he said, and raised his binoculars. "Aha! We have flushed something out of the undergrowth. That is a Pegasus truck parked there and, unless I am much mistaken, one of our visitors is the charming laddie from Abilene.

Let's go down and find out what is going on."

As they drew closer to camp, they realized that there were a dozen or more heavily armed, uniformed soldiers clustered around the red and green Pegasus truck, and that Jake Helm and an Ethiopian army officer were seated under the awning of the dining tent in serious and intent conversation with Boris, A

s soon as Nicholas entered the tent, Boris introduced him to the bespectacled Ethiopian officer. "This is Colonel Tuma Nogo, the military commander of the southern Goiam region."

"How do you do?" Nicholas greeted him, but the colonel ignored the pleasantry.

"I want to see your passport, and your firearms licence, he ordered arrogantly, while Jake Helm chewed complacently on the evil-smelling butt of an extinguished cigar.

"Yes, of course," Nicholas agreed, and went to his own tent to fetch his briefcase. He opened it on the dining table, and smiled at the officer. "I am sure you will also want to see my letter of introduction from the British Foreign Secretary in London, and this one from the British Ambassador in Addis Ababa. Here is another from the Ethiopian Ambassador to the Court of St. James, and this is from your own Minister of Defence, General Abraha."

The colonel stared in consternation at this fruit salad of ornate official letterheads and scarlet beribboned seals.

Behind the gold-rimmed glasses his eyes were bemused and confused.

"Sir!" He jumped to his feet and saluted. "You are a friend of General Abraha? I did not know. Nobody informed me. I beg your pardon for this intrusion."

He saluted again, and his embarrassment made him awkward and

ungainly. "I came to warn you only that the Pegasus Company is conducting drilling and blasting operations. There may be some danger. Please be alert. Also there are many bandits and outlaws, shufta, operating in this area." Colonel Nogo was flustered and barely coherent. He stopped and drew a deep breath to steady himself. "You see, I have been ordered to provide an escort for the employees of the Pegasus Company. If you yourself experience any trouble while you are here, or if you need assistance for any reason you have only to call on me, sir."

"That is extremely civil of you, colonel."

"I will detain you no longer, sir." He saluted a third time and backed off towards the Pegasus truck, taking the Texan foreman along with him. Jake Helm'had not uttered a word since their arrival, and now he left without a farewell.

Colonel Nogo gave Nicholas his fourth and final salute through the cab window as the truck pulled away.

Deuce!" Nicholas told Royan, as he acknowledged the salute with a nonchalant wave. "I think that point was definitely ours. Now at least we know that, for whatever reason, Mr Pegasus definitely does not want us in his hair. I think we can expect his next service fairly promptly., They walked back to where Boris sat in the dining tent and Nicholas told him,

"All we need now are your mules."

"I have sent three of my men to the village to find them. They should have been here yesterday." The mules arrived early the next morning, six big sturdy animals, each accompanied by a driver dressed in the ubiquitousjodhpurs and shawl. By midmorning they were loaded and ready to begin the descent into the gorge.

Boris paused at the head of the pathway, and looked out over that valley. For once even he -seemed to be subdued and awed by the immensity of the drop and the rugged splendour of the gorge.

"You will be Passing into another land in another age," he warned them in an uncharacteristically philosophical mood. "They say that this trail is two thousand years old, as old as Christ." He spread his hands in a deprecating gesture.

"The old black priest in the church at Debra Maryam will tell you that the Virgin Mary passed this way when she fled from Israel after the crucifixion." He shook his head. "But then these people will believe anything." And he "stepped out on to the pathway.

It clung to the cliff, descending at such an angle that each pace was down a rock step so deep that it stretched the-tendons and the sinews in their groins and knees, and jarred their spines. They were forced to use their hands to scramble the rougher and steeper sections, where it was almost as though they were descending a ladder.

It seemed impossible that the mules under their heavy packs could follow them down. The plucky beasts lunged down each of the rock steps, landing heavily on their forelegs, then gathered themselves for the next drop. The trail was so narrow that the bulky packs scraped against the rock wall on one hand, while on the other hand the drop sucked at them giddily.

When the path dog-legged and changed direction, the mules could not make the turn in one attempt. They were forced to back and fill, edging their way round the narrow trail, sweating with terror and their eyes rolling until the whites flashed. The drivers urged them on with wild cries and busy whips.

At places the pathway entered the body of the mountain, passing behind butts and needles of rock that time and erosion had prised away from the cliff face. These rocky gateways were so narrow that the mules had to be unloaded and the packs carried through by the drivers, and then the mules were reloaded on the far side.

Look!" Royan cried in astonishment and pointed out into the void. A black vulture rose up out of the depths on widespread pinions and floated past them almost within arm's length, turning its gruesome naked head of pink lappeted skin to stare at them with inscrutable black eyes before sailing away.

"He is using the thermals of heated air from the valley for lift,' Nicholas explained to her. He pointed out along the cliff to an overhanging buttress on the same level as themselves. "There is one of their nests." It was a shaggy mound of sticks piled on an inaccessible ledge. The excrement of the birds that had inhabited it over the ages had painted the cliff face below with streaks of brilliant white, and even at this distance they could catch whiffs of rotting offal and decaying flesh.

All that day they clung to the precipitous track as they eased their way down that terrible wall. It was late afternoon, and they were only halfway down, when the trail turned back upon itself once more and they heard the rumble of the falls ahead. The sound grew louder and became a thunderous roar as they moved around the corner of another buttress and came in full sight of the falls.

The wind created by the torrent tugged at them and forced them to clutch for handholds. The spray blew around them and wetted their upturned faces, but the i: Ethiopian guide led them straight on until it seemed that they must be washed away into the valley still hundreds of feet below. Then, miraculously, the waters parted and they stepped behind the great translucent curtain into a deep recess of moss-covered and gleaming wet rock, carved from the cliff by the force of water over the aeons. The only light in this gloomy place was filtered through the waterfall, green and mysterious like some undersea cavern.

"This is where we sleep tonight," Boris announced, obviously enjoying their astonishment. He pointed to bundles of firewood piled at the rear of the cave, and the smoke-blackened wall above the stone hearth. The muleteers carrying food and supplies down to the priests in the monastery have used this place for centuries."

As they moved deeper into the cavern, the sound of falling water became muted to a dull background rumble and the rock underfoot was dry. Once the servants had lit the fire, it became -a warm and comfortable, not to say romantic, lodging.

With an old soldier's eye for the most comfortable spot, Nicholas laid out his sleeping bag in a corner at the back of the cave, and quite naturally Royan unrolled hers beside his. They were both tired out by the unusual exertion of climbing down the cliff wall, and after supper they stretched out in their sleeping bags in companionable silence and watched the firelight playing on the roof of the cave.

"Just think!" Royan whispered. "Tomorrow we will be retracing the footsteps of old Taita himself."

"To say nothing of the Virgin Mary,'Nicholas smiled.

"You are a horrid old cynic," she sighed. "And what is more, you probably snore."

"You are about to find out the hard way," he told her, but she was asleep before him. Her breathing was gentle and even, and he could just hear it above the sound of the water. It was a long time since he had had a lovely woman lying at his side. When he was sure she was deeply under, he reached across and touched her cheek gently.

"Pleasant dreams, little one," he whispered tenderly.

"You have had a busy day." That was the way he had often bid his younger daughter sleep.

The muleteers were stirring long before the dawn, and the whole party was on the path, way again as soon as the light was strong enough to reveal their footing. When the early sun struck the upper walls of the cliff face, they were still high enough above the valley floor to have an aerial view of the terrain.

Nicholas drew Royan aside and they let the rest of the caravan go on down ahead of them.

He found a place to sit and unrolled the satellite photograph between them. Picking out the major peaks and features of the scene, they orientated themselves and began to make some order out of the cataclysmic landscape that rioted below them.

"We can't see the Abbay river from here," Nicholas pointed out. "It's still deep in the sub-gorge. We will probably only get our first glimpse of it from almost directly above."

"If we have identified our present position accurately, then the river will make two ox'bow bends around that bluff over there."

"Yes, and the confluence of the Dandera river with the Abbay is over there, below those cliffs." He used his thumb knuckle as a rough scale measure.

"About fifteen miles from here."

"It looks as though the Dandera has changed its course many times over the centuries.-I can see at least two gullies that look like ancient river beds." She pointed down: "Mere, and there. They are all choked with jungle now." She looked crestfallen, "Oh, Nicholas, it is such a huge and confused area. How are we ever going to find the single entrance to a tomb hidden in all that?"

"Tomb? What tomb is this?" Boris demanded with interest. He had come back up the trail to find them. They had not heard his approach, and now he stood over them.

"What tomb are you talking about?, "Why, the tomb of St. Frumentius, of course," Nicholas told him smoothly, showing no concern at having been overheard.

"Isn't the monastery dedicated to the saint?" Royan asked as smoothly, as she rolled up the photograph.

"Da." He nodded, looking disappointed, as though he expected something of more interest. "Yes, St. Frumentius.

But they will not let you visit the tomb. They will not let you into the inner part of the monastery. Only the priests are allowed in there." He removed his cap and scratched the short, stiff bristles that covered his scalp. They rasped like wire under his fingernails. "This week is the ceremony of Timkat, the Blessing of the Tabot. There will be a great deal of excitement down there. You will find it very interesting, but you will not be able to enter the Holy of Holies, nor will you be able to see the actual tomb. I have never met any white man who has seen it."

He squinted up at the sun. "We must get on. It looks close, but it will take us two more days to reach the Abbay.

It is bad ground down there. A long march, even for a famous dik-dik hunter." He laughed delightedly at his own joke, and turned away down the path.

As they approached the bottom of the cliff, the gradient of the trail smoothed out and the steps became shallower and further apart. The going became easier and their progress swifter, but the air had changed in quality and taste. It was no longer cool, bracing mountain air but the languid, enervating air of the equator, with the smell and taste of the encroaching jungle.

"Hod' said Royan, shrugging out of the woollen shawl.

"Ten degrees hotter, at least," Nicholas agreed. He pulled his old army jersey over his head, leaving.his hair in curly disarray. "And we can expect it to get hotter before we reach the Abbay. We still have to descend another three thousand feet."

Now the path followed the Dandera river for a while.

Sometimes they were several hundred feet above it, and shortly afterwards they splashed waist-deep through a ford, hanging on to the panniers of the mules to keep themselves from being swept away on the flood.

Then the gorge of the Dandera river was too deep and steep to follow any longer, as sheer cliffs dropped into dark pools. So they left the river and followed the track that squirmed like a dying snake amongst eroded hills and tall red stone bluffs.