The Seventh Scroll (66 page)

"Soldiers of Mek Nimmur, the. shufta commander that I told you about. He is still with Harper."

"How many boxes are thereP In his impatience von Schiller went up to where the woman sat and prodded her with the toe of his boot. "How many statues are there?"

The woman waited with terror and shrank away from him. Von Schiller recoiled from her at the same time, with an expression of disgust.

"Gott im HimmeW He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and patted his mouth and nose with it. "She stinks like an animal. Ask her how many boxes."

"Not many," Nogo translated, "perhaps five, not more than ten. She is not sure."

"What size? How big are they?"

When Nogo put the question to her, the w6man indicated the length of her arm. Von Schiller's disappointment registered clearly in his face.

"So few pieces, and so insignificant." He turned away from the woman and went to stare out of the south-facing window of the hut, down over the escarpment rim into the wilderness of the gorge. "If what this creature says is true, then Harper has not yet discovered the treasure of Mamose. There should be more, much more."

Nogo was talking rapidly to the woman again, and now he turned back to von Schiller. "She says that one of Harper's party has left the camp in the gorge, and gone to Debra Maryam."

Von Schiller spun away from the window and stared at him. "One of his party? Who? Which one!'

"She is an Ethiopian woman. The concubine of Mek Nimmur. A woman she calls Woizero Tessay. I know of her. She was married to the Russian hunter, before she became Mek Nimmur's whore."

Von Schiller rushed across the room and seized the woman by the front of her robe. He hauled her to her feet with such violence that the infant was jerked from her grip and fell howling to the floor.

"Ask her where the woman is now," he instructed Nogo. The mother pulled free from his grip and grovelled on the floor, trying to pick up and console her screaming infant, Nogo grabbed her and slapped her face resoundingly to get her attention. She clasped her baby to her breast and gabbled out a reply.

"She does not know," Nogo admitted. "She thinks she is still at Debra Maryam."

"Get that filthy bitch out of here!" Von Schiller jerked his head at the woman and her child. Nogo dragged them from the hut.

"What else do you know of this woman of Mek Nimmur's?" he asked in milder tones when Nogo returned.

"She is from one of the noble families in Addis Ababa, a blood relative of Ras Tafari Makonnen, the old Emperor Haile Selassie."

"If she is Mek Nimmur's woman, and has come directly from Harper's camp, then she will be able to " answer the questions that this other creature could not."

"That is true, Herr von Schiller. But she may not wish to tell us."

"I want her," von Schiller said. "Bring her here. Helm will speak to -her. I am sure he will be able to make her AN, see reason."

is an important person. er family has muc influence." Nogo thought about it for a moment. "But on the other hand, she has been consorting with a notorious bandit. That is all the reason I need for bringing her in. I will send a detachment of my men, under one of my most trusted officers, to arrest her immediately." He hesitated. "If the woman is questioned severely, it would be as well that she were not allowed to return to her friends in Addis. They could make trouble for all of us.

Even for you, Herr von Schiller."

"What do you propose?" von, Schiller wanted to know.

"When she has answered your questions, there will have to be a little accident,'Nogo suggested.

"Do what is necessary," von Schiller ordered. I will leave the details to you, but make sure that if it is necessary to dispose of the woman it is done property. I have had enough bungling." As he spoke these words he looked across at Nahoot Guddabi, who lowered his gaze and flushed angrily.

They had spent almost two full days at the shrine of Osiris in the long gallery. No ancient worshipper had ever studied the texts upon those walls more avidly than Nicholas and Royan, or examined the flamboyant murals of the great god with more minute attention They took it in turn to recite aloud the extracts from the stele of Tanus that Royan had picked out and recorded in her notebooks, repeating them until they knew each station by heart. While one read aloud, the other quo concentrated his or her full attention upon the walls, trying to discover some connecting link.

"'My love is a flask of cold water in the desert. My love is a banner unfurling in the breeze. My love is the first shout of the newborn infant,"'

Nic as rea Royan looked up at him from where she squatted attentively before the shrine, and smiled. "At times Taita was really rather cute, wasn't he?" she said. "Such a romantic."

"Concentrate, for heaven's sake. This isn't a poetry appreciation class. We are doing serious business here."

"Barbarian!" she muttered under her breath, but turned back to the wall of inscriptions.

"Try this one again," Nicholas ordered, and read out, "'We he in the vale of a thousand joinings, of infant to mother, of man to woman, of friend to friend, of teacher to pupil, of sex to sex."'

"That's the third time you have picked out that particular quotation this morning. What is there about it that appeals to you so strongly?" She did not look up at him, but the back of her neck turned a ruddier shade of red. Sorry! Thought you might find that one as romantic as the other," he mumbled. "Let's try this one then. "I have suffered and loved. I have withstood the wind and the storm.

The arrow pierced my flesh but did not harm me. I have eschewed the false path that lies straight before me. I have taken the hidden stairway to the seat of the gods."'

Royan rocked back on her heels and glanced down the long gallery.

"Something there perhaps. "The false path that lies straight before me. The hidden stairway"?"

"We are straining a bit now. Snapping at gnats like a hungry trout." She stood up and pushed the tendrils of sweaty hair off her forehead. "Oh, Nicky. It's so discouraging. We don't even know where to begin."

"Courage, lassie." He feigned the cheerfulness he did not feel. "We begin at the beginning like your friend Taita said we must. Let me try you with this one again." He laced his hand over his heart like a Victorian actor and emoted, "'The vulture rises on mighty pinions to greet the sun"-'

She laughed softly at his clowning, and then her eyes wandered from his face and passed over his shoulder.

Suddenly she started.

"The vulture!" she blurted, and pointed at the wall behind him.

He spun around and stared in the direction she was indicating. There was the vulture, a magnificent image of the bird, the fierce eyes glaring and the yellow beak hooked and spread wide, with each feather ointed. Its wings were outlined in jewel-like colours. It stood as tall as Nicholas, but its wing-spread covered half the wall. They stared at it together, and then Royan lifted her eyes to the ceiliAg high above where they stood. She touched his arm and motioned him to do the same.

"The sun!" she whispered. The golden sun disc of Ra was painted in the highest portion of the roof. Its warmth seemed to illuminate the shadows. Its rays spread out Mi every direction, but one of these beams followed the curve of the wall and descended to envelop the vulture image in its spreading luminosity.

"'The vulture rises to greet the sun"," she repeated. "Does Taita mean it literally?"

He moved closer to the mural and examined it minutely, running his hands over the wings and down its belly to the cruel curved talons. Beneath the paint the plastered wall was smooth. There was no Projection or any irregularity.

The head, Nicky. Look at the head of the bird!" She jumped up and tried to reach it, but her fingers fell short and she turned to him with a desperate edge to her voice.

"You do it - you are much taller than I am," Only then did he see the slight shadow down one side of the bird's head where the floodlamp caught it, and as he touched it he realized that the head was in relief, standing slightly above the level of the surrounding wall. He ran his fingers over the raised head and found that the beak was part of the relief.

"Can you feel any joint in the plaster?" Royan demanded. He shook his head. "No. It's smooth. It all seems to be part of the main wall."

"'The vulture rises to greet the sun",, she insisted. "Can't you detect any movement? Try pushing the head upwards towards the sun painting."

He placed the heel of his hand under the bulge of the head and pushed upwards. "Nothing!" he grunted.

"It's been there for almost four thousand years." She was hopping from one foot to the other with frustration.

"Dammit, Nicky, if there is a moving part, it will be stiff. Harder! Push harder!'

He shifted his feet to get well under it and placed both hands under the projection of the head. Slowly he brought all his strength to bear. The cords in his neck stood out and blood flooded his face, turning it a deep, angry red.

"Harder!" she implored him, but at last he dropped his arms to his sides and stood back.

"No." His voice was hoarse and strained with the effort.

"It's solid. Won't budge."

"Lift me up. Let me look."

"With the greatest of pleasure. Any excuse to lay hannds on you." He stepped behind her and placed lascivious han both arms around her waist, then lifted her until she was able to touch the bird's head.

Quickly she explored it with her fingertips, and then she let out a small cry of triumph.

"Nicky! You have started something. The paint is cracked all around the outline of the head. I can feel it.

Lift me higher!

He grunted with the effort but raised her another foot off the floor.

"Yes, definitely!" she exclaimed. "Something has a hairline crack in the wall above the moved. There is head, as well. You have a look!

He fetched one of the empty ammunition crates from the landing outside the entrance and placed it below the vulture image. When he stepped up on to it he was on a level with the vulture's eye.

His expression changed. Quickly he groped in his pocket and brought out his clasp knife, He opened the blade and probed carefully around the outline of the head.

Tiny specks of dried paint and plaster filtered down as he worked. It does look as though the head is a separate detached piece, "he admitted.

"Look on top of it, higher up the wall. There along the edge of the sunbeam. Can't you see a vertical crack in the plaster?"

"You are right, you know," he admitted. "But if I try to open that crack I am going to damage the mural. Do you want me to do that?"

She hesitated only a moment. "This tomb is going to be reflooded when the river rises, so we are going to lose it again anyway. It's worth the risk. Do it, Nicky!'

life-blade into the fine He pressed the point of the kn crack and twisted it gently. A slab of painted plaster the size of his s'read hand fell out of the wall and splattered into the dust on the agate tiles of the floor. He peered into the cavity that it had left in the wall.

"It looks like some kind of slot or groove in the wall," he said. "I am going to clear its full length." Carefully he worked at the cavity he had opened, and more loose plaster rained down.

Royan sneezed in the dust, but would not retreat, Particles of debris lodged in her hair like confetti.

"Yes," he said at last. "There is a vertical groove running up here."

"Chip the plaster away from the crack around the vulture's head," she ordered, and he wiped the blade against his trouser leg and attacked the wall again.

"It's free," he said at last. "It looks as though the head will travel up the groove. Anyway, I am going to try it, Stand back and give me room to work."

He placed the heels of both hands under the head of the vulture, and heaved upwards against it. Royan bunched her hands into fists and screwed up her face in sympathy with his effort.

There was a soft grating sound, and the head began to move jerkily up the exposed groove in the wall. It reached the top of the slot and Nicholas jumped down from the crate. They both stared expectantly at the disembodied head, now disfigured by the chipped and damaged plaster. After a long, breathless wait, Royan whispered dejecr edly, "Nothing It hasn't changed anything."

"The rest of the quotation from the stele," he reminded her. "There was more to it than just the vulture and the sun."

"You are right." She looked around the rest of the wall eagerly. "'The jackal hops and rests Upon his tail.

She pointed with a trembling finger at the small, almost insignificant figure of Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the graveyards, on the wall opposite the vulture that they had mutilated. Standing at the foot of the huge, towering painting of Osiris, he was only a little larger in size than the ringed and bejewelled big toe of the husband of Isis and father of Horus. Royan ran to the wall, and the moment she touched Anubis she felt that his image too was raised. She flung all her strength against the tiny figure, trying to twist it first one way and then the other.

"'The jackal turns upon his tail"," she panted as she wrestled with him. "He must turn!'

"Here, let me do that." Gently Nicholas pulled her away, and knelt before the black-headed god image. Once again he used the blade of his clasp knife to chip away the plaster and the thick layer of paint from around the outline.

"It seems to be carved in some sort of hard wood and then it's been plastered over," he told her, as he tested the construction of the figure with the point of the blade.

When at last he had chipped it clear he tried to twist it in a clockwise direction, and grunted with the effort.

"No! He gave up at last.

"They had no clock dials in ancient Egypt," she reminded him agitatedly.

"The other way. Turn it the other way-$

When he tried to turn it counter-clockwise, there was another rasping, gritty sound from behind the wall panel.

The tiny figure revolved slowly in his hands, until the black head pointed down towards the yellow tiles.

They both stood well back from the wall, looking expectantly at it, but after another long wait even Nicholas was disheartened.