‘Come with me.’ Carrying the notebooks, she led him through the hatch in the white plaster doorway and stood beside him at the shrine of Osiris. ‘The opening coup. The beginning.’
She turned and faced down the gallery. ‘This is the first shrine. How many shrines are there altogether?’
‘Three for the trinity, then Seth, Thoth, Anubis, Hathor and Ra,’ he listed. ‘Eight altogether.’
‘Glory be!’ She laughed. ‘The lad can count! How many cups in the files of the bao board?’
‘Eight across, and eight down—’ he broke off and stared at her. ‘You think—?’
She did not answer, but opened the notebook. ‘All of these numbers and extraneous symbols – they spell no coherent words. They do not relate to each other in any way, except that no number in the list is greater than eight.’
‘I thought I had caught up with you, but I just lost you again.’
‘If somebody were to read the notations of a game of chess four thousand years from now, what would he make of it?’ she asked. ‘Wouldn’t it just be lists of numbers and extraneous symbols to him? You really are being extremely dense, aren’t you? This is like pulling teeth.’
‘Oh, Lordy, Lordy!’ His face cleared. ‘You clever lady! Taita is playing the game of bao with us.’
‘And this is the first pylon, where it starts.’ She gestured to the shrine. ‘This is where the great god Osiris makes the opening coup. This is where we must start at the beginning of the sacred bao board. This is where we counter his opening move.’
They both looked around the shrine for a while, studying the curved walls and the high domed roof, and then Nicholas broke the silence. ‘At the risk of being called extremely dense and having my teeth pulled, may I ask a question? How the hell do we play a game when we don’t even know the rules?’
Colonel Nogo exuded confidence and self-importance as he swaggered into the conference room to answer von Schiller’s summons. Nahoot Guddabi bustled along behind him, determined not to be excluded from any of the proceedings. He too tried to look confident and important, but in truth he felt his position was very insecure and that he needed to justify himself to his master.
Von Schiller was dictating correspondence to Utte Kemper, but as soon as they entered the room he stood up quickly and stepped on to the carpeted block.
‘You promised that you would have a report for me yesterday,’ he snapped at Nogo, ignoring Nahoot. ‘Have you not heard anything from this informer of yours in the gorge?’
‘I apologize for keeping you waiting like this, Herr von Schiller.’ Nogo was immediately deflated by this sharp attack, and he became restless and uneasy. The German frightened him. ‘The women were a day late returning from Harper’s camp. They are very unreliable, these country people. Time means very little to them.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Von Schiller was impatient. ‘I know the failings of your black brethren, and I might add you are not completely innocent of these yourself, Nogo. But tell me what news you have for me.’
‘Harper finished work on the dam seven days ago, and immediately he moved his camp downstream, to a new place on the hills above the ravine. He then built some sort of bamboo ladder down into the ravine. My informer tells me that they are clearing a hole at the bottom of the empty pool—’
‘A hole? What kind of hole?’ Von Schiller turned pale as he listened, and began sweating in a light sheen across his forehead.
‘Are you all right, Herr von Schiller?’ Nogo was alarmed. The German looked very ill, as if he were about to collapse.
‘I am perfectly well,’ von Schiller shouted at him. ‘What hole was this? Describe it to me.’
‘The woman bringing the message is a stupid peasant.’ Nogo was uncomfortable, squirming under von Schiller’s grilling. ‘She says only that when the river water fell, there was a hole in the bottom that was filled with rock and rubbish and that they have cleared this out.’
‘A tunnel!’ Nahoot could contain himself no longer. ‘It must be the entrance tunnel to the tomb.’
‘Be quiet!’ Von Schiller turned on him furiously. ‘You have no facts to back up that supposition. Let Nogo finish.’ He turned back to the colonel. ‘Go on. Give me the rest of it.’
‘The woman says that there is a cave at the end of the hole. Like a rock shrine, with pictures on the walls—’
‘Pictures? What pictures?’
‘The woman said they were pictures of the saints.’ Nogo made a deprecating gesture. ‘She is a very uneducated woman. Stupid—’
‘Christian saints?’ von Schiller demanded.
Nahoot interjected, ‘That is not possible, Herr von Schiller. I tell you that Harper has discovered the tomb of Mamose. You must act swiftly now.’
‘I will not warn you again, you miserable little man,’ von Schiller snarled at him. ‘Keep quiet.’
He turned back to Nogo. ‘Was there anything else in the cavern? Tell me everything the woman said.’
‘Pictures and statues of the saints.’ Nogo spread his hands. ‘I am sorry, Herr von Schiller, that’s what she said. I know this is all nonsense, but that is what the woman told me.’
‘I will judge what is and what is not nonsense,’ von Schiller told him. ‘What did she say happened to these statues of the saints?’
‘Harper has packed them in boxes.’
‘Has he removed them from the shrine?’
‘I do not know, Herr von Schiller. The woman did not say.’
Von Schiller stepped down from his block. He began to pace up and down the length of the hut, muttering to himself distractedly.
‘Herr von Schiller—’ Nahoot began, but the German waved him to silence. At last he stopped in front of Nogo and stared up at him.
‘Did they find a mummy, a body, in the shrine?’ he demanded.
‘I do not know, Herr von Schiller. The woman did not say.’
‘Where is she?’ Von Schiller was so agitated that he clutched the front of Nogo’s uniform jacket and stood on tiptoe to thrust his face up close to his. ‘Where is this woman? Have you let her go?’ Tiny droplets of spittle flew into Nogo’s face and he blinked and tried to duck, but von Schiller had him in a death grip.
‘No, sir. She is still here. I did not want to bring her to you—’
‘You fool. All you are telling me is secondhand. Bring her in here immediately. I want to question her face to face.’ He shoved Nogo away from him. ‘Go and fetch her.’
Nogo returned minutes later dragging the woman into the room by one arm. She was young, and despite the blue tattoos across her cheeks and chin she was pretty. She wore the long black robes and head-covering of a married woman, and carried an infant on her hip.
As soon as Nogo released her arm she sank to the floor and whimpered with terror. The child she carried whined in sympathy. Its nostrils were plugged with white crusts of dried snot. The woman opened the top of her robe with a shaking hand, fished out one of her milk-swollen breasts and thrust the nipple into the child’s mouth. Infant and mother stared at von Schiller with terrified eyes.
‘Ask her if there was a coffin or body of the saint in the shrine,’ von Schiller ordered, eyeing the woman with distaste.
Nogo questioned her for a minute and then shook his head. ‘She does not know anything about a body. She is very stupid. She does not understand very well.’
‘Ask her about the statues of the saints. What has Harper done with them? Where are they now? Has he removed them from the shrine?’
After another long exchange with the woman, Nogo shook his head. ‘No. She says that the statues are still in the shrine. The white man has packed them into boxes and the soldiers are guarding them.’
‘Soldiers? What soldiers?’
‘Soldiers of Mek Nimmur, the shufta commander that I told you about. He is still with Harper.’
‘How many boxes are there?’ In his impatience von Schiller went up to where the woman sat and prodded her with the toe of his boot. ‘How many statu
es are there?’
The woman wailed with terror and shrank away from him. Von Schiller recoiled from her at the same time, with an expression of disgust.
‘Gott im Himmel!’ 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 woman 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 see reason.’
‘She is an important person. Her family has much 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 properly. 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 quotation by heart. While one read aloud, the other 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,”’ Nicholas read.
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 lie 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 brown.
‘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 placed 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 pointed. Its wings were spread wide, with each feather 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 ceiling 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 in 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 lascivious hands on you.’ He stepped behind her and placed 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 moved. There is a hairline crack in the wall above the 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.