The Seventh Scroll (52 page)

Fortunately this was Egypt, and Atalan was an Arab to whom time did not have the same significance as it did to the Western part of Royan's makeup. He, was his usual urbane and charming self. Today, in the-privacy of his own office, he was comfortably dressed in a white dishdasha and a headcloth. He shook hands with her warmly. If this had been London he might have kissed her cheek, but not here in the East where a man never kissed any woman but his wife and then only in the privacy of their home.

He led her through to his private sitting room, where his male secretary served them small cups of tar-thick coffee and lingered to preserve the propriety of this meeting. After an exchange of compliments and the obligatory interval of polite small-talk, Royan could come obliquely to the main reason for her visit.

"I have spent much of the last few days at the museum, working in the reading room. I managed to see many of my old colleagues there, and I was surprised to hear that Nahoot had withdrawn his application for the post of director."

Atalan sighed, "My nephew is a headstrong boy at times. The job was his, but at the very last moment he came to tell me that he had been offered another in Germany. I tried to dissuade him. I told him that he would not enjoy the northern climate after being brought up in the Nile valley. I told him that there are many things in life such as country and family that no amount of money can recompense. But-' Atalan spread his hands in an eloquent gesture.

"So who have you chosen to fill the post of director?" she asked with an innocence that did not deceive him.

"We have not yet made any permanent appointment.

Nobody automatically comes to mind, now that Nahoot has withdrawn. Perhaps we will be forced to advertise internationally. I for one would be very sad to see it go to a foreigner, no matter how well qualified." our excellency, may I speak to you in private?" Royan asked, and glanced significantly at the male secretary hovering at the doorway. Atalan hesitated only a moment.

"Of course." He gestured to the secretary to leave the room, and when he had withdrawn and closed the door behind him Atalan leaned towards her and dropped his voice slightly. "What is it that you wish to discuss, my dear lady?"

It was an hour later that Royan left him. He walked with her as far as the lift outside his suite of offices.

As he shook hands his voice was low and mellifluous "We will meet again soon, inshallah."

hen the Egyptair flight landed at Heath, row and Royan left the airport arrivals hall for a place in the queue at the taxi rank outside, it seemed that the temperature difference from Cairo was at least fifteen degrees. Her train arrived at York in the damp misty cold of late afternoon. From the railway station she phoned the number that Nicholas had given her.

"You silly girl," he scolded her. "Why didn't you let me know you were on your way? I would have met you at the airport."

She was surprised at how pleased she was to see him, and at how much she had missed him, as she watched him step out of the Range Rover and come striding towards her on those long legs. He was bare-headed and obviously had not subjected himself to a haircut since she had last seen him. His dark hair was rumpled and wind-tossed and the silver wings fluffed over his ears.

"How's the knee?" he greeted her. "Do you still need to be carried?"

"Almost better now. Nearly time to throw away the stick." She felt a sudden urge to throw her arms around his neck, but at the last moment she prevented herself from making a display and merely offered him a cold, rosy brown cheek to kiss. He smelt good - of leather and some spicy aftershave, and of clean virile manhood.

In the driver's seat he delayed starting the engine for a moment, and studied her face in the street light that streamed in through the side window.

"You look mighty pleased with yourself, madam. Cat been at the cream?"

"Just pleased to see old friends," she smiled, "but I must admit Cairo is always a tonic."

"No supper laid on. Thought we would stop at a pub.

Do you fancy steak and kidney pud?"

"I want to see my mother. I feel so guilty. I don't even know how her leg is mending."

"Popped in to see her day before yesterday. She's doing fine. Loving the new puppy. Named it Taita, would you believe?"

"You are really a very kind person - I mean, taking the trouble to visit her."

"I like her. One of the good old ones. They don't build them like that any more. I suggest we have a bite to eat, and then I will pick up a bottle of Laphroaig and we will go and see her."

It was after midnight when they left Georgina's cottage. She had dispensed rough frontier justice to the malt whisky that Nicholas had brought and now she waved them off, standing in the kitchen doorway, clutching her new puppy to her ample bosom and teetering slightly on her plaster-cast leg.

"You are a bad influence on my mother," Royan told him.

"Who's a bad influence on whom?" he protested. "Some of those jokes of hers turned the Stilton a richer shade of blue."

"You should have let me stay with her."

"She has Taita to keep her company now. Besides, I need you close at hand. Plenty of work to do. I can't wait to show you what I have been up to since you went swanning off to Egypt."

The Quenton Park housekeeper had repared her a bedroom in the flat in the lanes behind York Minster.

As Nicholas carried her bags up the stairs ripsaw snoring came from behind the door of the bedroom on the second landing, and she looked at Nicholas enquiringly.

"Sapper Webb," he told her. "Latest addition to the team. Our own engineer. You will meet him tomorrow, and I think you will like him. He is a fisherman."

"What's that got to do with me liking him?"

"All the best people are fishermen."

"Present company excluded," she laughed. "Are you staying at Quenton Park?"

"Giving the house a wide berth, for the time being." He shook his head.

"Don't want it bruited about that I amback in England. There are some fellows from Lloyd's that I would rather not speak to at the moment. I will be in the small bedroom on the top floor. Call if you need me." When she was alone she looked around the tiny chintzy room with its own doll's house bathroom, and the double bed that took up most of the floor area. She remembered his remark about calling if she needed him, and she looked up at the ceiling just as she heard him drop one of his shoes on the floor.

"Don't tempt me," she whispered. The smell of him lingered in her nostrils, and she remembered the feel of his lean hard body, moist with sweat, pressed against hers as he had carried her up out of the Abbay gorge. Hunger and eed were two words she had not thought of for many years. They were starting to loom too large in her existence.

"Enough of that, my girl," she chided herself, and went to run a bath. Nicholas pounded on her door the next morning on his way downstairs.

"Come along, Royan. Life is real. Life is urgent."

It was still pitch dark outside, and she groaned softly and asked, "What time is it?" But he was gone, and faintly she could hear him whistling "The Big Rock Candy Mountain'somewhere downstairs.

She checked her watch and groaned again. "Whistling at six-thirty, after what he and Mummy did to the Laphroaig last night. I don't believe it. The man is truly a monster."

Twenty minutes later she found him in a dark blue fisherman's sweater and jeans and a butcher's apron, working in the kitchen.

"Slice toast for three, there's a love." He gestured towards the brown loaf that lay beside the electric toaster.

"Omelettes coming up'in five minutes."

She looked at the other man in the room. He was middle-aged, with wide shoulders and sleeves rolled up high around muscular biceps, and he was as bald as a cannonball.

"Hello," she said, "I am Royan Al Sirnma."

"Sorry." Nicholas waved the egg-whisk. "This is Danny Daniel Webb, known as Sapper to his friends."

Danny stood up with a cup of coffee in his big competent-looking fist.

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Al Simma. May I pour you a cup of coffee?" The top of his head was'freckled, and she noticed how blue his eyes were.

"Dr Al Simma,'Nicholas corrected him.

"But please call me Royan," she cut in quickly, "and yes, I' love a cup." There was no mention of Ethiopia or Taita's game during breakfast, and Royan ate her omelette and listened respectfully to a passionate dissertation on how to catch sail fish on a fly rod from Sapper, while Nicholas heckled him mercilessly, calling into question almost every statement he made. Very obviously they had a good relationship, and she supposed she would become accustomed to all the angling jargon. As soon as breakfast was over, Nicholas stood up with the coffee pot in one hand. "Bring your mugs, and follow me., He led Royan to the front sitting room. "I have a surprise for you. My people up at the museum worked round the clock to get it ready for you."

He threw open the door of the sitting room, with an imitation of a trumpet flourish, "Tarantara!'

On the centre table stood a fully mounted model of the striped dik-dik, crowned with the pricked horns and clad in the skin that Nicholas had smuggled back from Africa. It was so realistic that for a moment she expected it to leap off the table and dash away as she walked towards it.

"Oh, Nicky. It's beautifully done!" She circled it appraisingly. "The artist has captured it exactly."

The model brought back to her vividly the heat and smell of the bush in the gorge, and she felt a twinge of nostalgia and sadness for the delicate, beautiful creature.

Its glass eyes were deceptively lifelike and bright, and the end of its proboscis looked wet and gleaming as though it was about to wiggle it and sniff the air.

"I think it's splendid. Glad you agree with me." He stroked the soft, smooth hide. She felt this was not the moment to spoil his boyish pleasure. "As soon as we have Ir sorted out Taita's puzzle, I intend writing a paper on it for the Natural History Museum, the same lads that called Greatgrandpapa a liar. Restore the family honour." He laughed and spread a dust-sheet over the model. Carefully he lifted it down from the table and placed it safely in a corner of the room where it was out of harm's way.

"That was the first surprise I had saved up for you. But now for the big one." He pointed to a sofa against one wall.

"Take a seat. I don't want you to be bowled over by this." She smiled at his nonsense, but went obediently to the furthest end of the sofa afid curled her legs under her as she settled there. Sapper Webb came to sit awkwardly at the other end, obviously uncomfortable at being so close to her.

"Let's talk about how we are going to get into the chasm on the Dandera river," Nicholas suggested. "Sapper and I have talked about nothing else the whole time that you have been away."

"That and catching fish, I'll warrant." She grinned at him, and he looked guilty.

"Well, both subjects involve water. That is my justification." His expression became serious. "You recall that we discussed the idea of exploring the depths of Taita's pool with scuba gear, and I explained the difficulties."

"I remember," she agreed. "You said the pressure into the underwater opening was too great, and that we would have to find another method of getting in there."

"Correct." Nicholas smiled mysteriously. "Well, Sapper here has already earned the exorbitant fee that I have promised him - promised, I emphasize, not yet paid. He has come up with the alternative method." Now she too became serious and unfolded her legs.

She placed both feet on the floor and leaned forward attentively, with her elbows on her knees and her chin cupped in her hands.

"It must have been all those brains of his that pushed out his hair. I mean, it's very neat thinking. Although it was staring us both in the face, neither you nor I thought of it."

Stop it, Nicky," she told him ominously, "you are doing it again."

"I am going to give you a clue." He ignored the warning and went on teasing her blithely. "Sometimes the old ways are the best. That's the

'if you are so clever, how come you aren't famous?" she began, and then broke off as the solution occurred to her.

"The old ways? You mean, the same way as Taita did it?

The same way he reached the bottom of the pool without the benefit of diving equipment?"

"By George! I think she's got itV Nicholas put on a convincing Rex Harrison imitation.

"A dam." Royan clapped her hands. "You propose to redam. the river at the same place where Taita built his dam four thousand years ago."

"She's got it Nicholas laughed. "No flies on our girl!

Show her your drawings, Sapper."

Sapper Webb made no attempt to disguise his selfsatisfaction as he went to the board that stood against the facing wall. Royan had noticed it, but had paid no attention to it, until now he pulled away the cover and proudly displayed the illustrations that were pegged to it.

She recognized immediately the enlargements of the photographs that Nicholas had taken at the putative site of Taita's.dam on the Dandera river, and others that he had taken in the ancient quarry that Tamre had shown them. These had been liberally adorned with calculations and lines in thick black marker pen.

"The major has provided me with estimates of the dimensions of the river bed at this point, and he has also calculated the height that we will have to raise the wall to induce a flow down the former course. I have, of course, allowed for errors in these calculations. Even if these errors are in the region of thirty percent, I believe that the project is still feasible with the very limited equipment we will have available to us."

"If the ancient Egyptians could do it, it will be a breeze for you, Sapper."

"Kind of you to say so, major, but "breeze" is not the word I would have chosen."

He turned to the drawings pegged beside the photographs on the board, and Royan saw that they were plans and elevations of the project based upon the photographs and Nicholas's estimates.

"There are a number of different methods of dam construction, but these days most of them presuppose the availability of reinforced concrete and heavy earth-moving Al.