around. The engine beat crescendoed as she came tearing back in a long
rolling shroud of dust and lifted off over their heads. Jannie waggled
his wings in farewell and, without navigation lights showing, the great
aircraft blended like a black bat into the darkening sky and disappeared
almost immediately.
"Come here." Nicholas led Royan to a seat under the acacia. "I don't
want that knee to play up again." He pushed her culottes halfway up. her
thigh and strapped the knee wit han elastic bandage, trying not to make
his pleasure in this task too apparent. He was pleased to see that the
bruising had almost faded and there was no longer any swelling.
He palpated it gently. Her skin was velvety and the flesh beneath it
firm and warm to the touch. He looked up, and from the expression on her
face realized that she was enjoying this intimacy as much'as he was. As
he caught her eye she flushed slightly, and quickly smoothed down her
culottes.
She jumped up and said, "Tessay and I have a lot of catching up to do,'
and hurried across to join her.
I am leaving a full combat platoon to guard your stores here," Mek
explained to Nicholas as Tessay led Royan away. "We will travel in a
very small party as far as the border. I don't expect any trouble. There
is very little enemy activity this sector at the moment. Lots of
fighting in the south, but we are quiet here. That is why I chose this
rendezvous."
"How far to the Ethiopian border?"Nicholas wanted to know.
"Five hours' march," Mek told him. "We will slip through one of our
pipelines after the moon has set. The rest of my men are waiting in the
entrance to the Abbay gorge. We should rendezvous with them before dawn
tomorrow."
"And from there to the monastery?"
"Another two days' march," Mek replied. "We will be there just in time
to receive the drop from your fat friend in the fat plane."
He turned away and gave his last orders to the platoon commander who
would remain at Roseires to guard the stores. Then he assembled the
party of six men who would form their escort across the border. Mek
divided up the loads between them. The most important single item was
the radio, a modern military lightweight model which Nicholas carried
himself.
"Those bags of yours are too difficult to carry. You will have to repack
them," Mek told Nicholas and Royan. So they emptied their bags and
stuffed the contents into the two canvas haversacks that Mek had ready
for them. Two of his men slung the haversacks over their shoulders and
disappeared into the darkness.
"He is not taking thatV Mek stared aghast at the bulky legs of the
theodolite that Sapper had retrieved from one of the pallets. Sapper
spoke no Arabic, so Nicholas had to translate.
"Sapper says that it is a delicate instrument. He cannot allow it to be
dropped from the aircraft. He says that if it is damaged he will not be
able to do the work he was hired for."
"Who is going to carry it?" Mek demanded. "My men will mutiny if I try
to make them do it."
"Tell the cantankerous bugger that I will carry it myself." Sapper drew
himself up with dignity. "I wouldn't let one of his great clumsy oafs
lay a finger on it." He picked up the bundle, placed it over his
shoulder and stalked away with "a stiff back.
Mek let the advance guard have a five-minute start, and then he nodded.
"We can go now."
Thirty minutes after Big Dolly had taken off, they left the airfield and
set out across the dark and silent plain, headed into the east. Mek set
a hard pace. He and Nicholas seemed to have the eyes of a pair of cats,
Royan thought, as she followed close behind them. They could see in the
darkness, and only a whispered warning from one of them prevented her
falling into a hole or tripping over a pile of rocks in the darkness.
When she did stumble, Nicholas seemed always to be there, reaching back
to steady her with a strong, firm grip.
They marched in complete and disciplined silence. It was only every
hour, when they rested for five minutes, that Nicholas and Mek sat close
together, and from the few quiet words she picked up Royan realized that
Nicholas was explaining to him the full reasons for their return to the
Abbay gorge. She heard Nicholas repeat the names "Mamose' and "Taita'
be up again and moving forward in the night.
After a while she lost all sense of the distance they had travelled.
Only the hourly rest periods orientated her to the passage of time.
Fatigue crept over her slowly, until it required an effort to lift her
foot for each pace. Despite her boast, her knee was beginning to ache.
Now and then she felt Nicholas touch her arm, guiding her over the rough
places. At other times they would stop abruptly at some whispered
warning from up front. Then they would stand quietly waiting in the
darkness, nerves tensed, until at another whisper they would move on
again at the same pressing pace. Once she smelt the cool muddy effluvium
of the river on the dry warm night air, and she knew that they must be
very close to the Nile. Without a word being spoken she sensed the
nervous tension in the men ahead of her, and was aware of the alertness
in the way they carried themselves and their weapons.
"Crossing the border now," Nicholas breathed close to her face, and the
tension was infectious. She forgot her tiredness, and heard her pulse
beating in her own ears.
This time they did not stop for the usual rest break, but continued for
another hour until slowly she felt the mood of the men changing. Someone
laughed softly, and there was a tightness in their pace as they swung on
towards the luminescence in the eastern sky. Abruptly the moon thrust
its crescent horns above the dark silhouette of faroff mountain ranges.
"All clear. We are through," Nicholas told her in his normal voice.
"Welcome back to Ethiopia. How are you feeling?"
"I' okay."
"I am tired too." He grinned at her in the moonlight.
"Pretty soon we will camp and rest. Not much further."
He was lying, of course- the march went on and on until she wanted to
weep. And then suddenly she heard the sound of the river again, the soft
rushing flow of the Nile in the dawn. Up ahead she heard Mek talking to
the men who were waiting for them, and then Nicholas guided her off the
path and made her sit while he knelt in front of her and unlaced her
boots.
"You did well. I am proud of you," he told her, as he stripped off her
socks and examined her feet for blisters.
Then he unbandaged the knee. It was slightly swollen, and he massaged it
with a skilled and tender touch.
She sighed softly, "Don't stop. That feels good."
"I'll give you a Brufen for the inflammation." He dug the pills out of
his pack and then spread his padded jacket AI for her to lie on. "Sorry,
the sleeping bags are with our other gear. Have to rough it until Jannie
makes his air drop."
He passed her the water bottle, and while she swallowed the pill he
pulled the tab on a pack of emergency rations. "Not exactly gourmet fare
He sniffed the contents.
"In the army we call them rat packs." She fell asleep with her mouth
still halffilled with tasteless meat loaf and plastic cheese.
When Nicholas woke her with a mug of hot sweet tea, she saw it was
already late afternoon. He sat beside her and sipped at his own mug,
noisily blowing away the steam between each mouthful.
"You will be pleased to know that Mek is now fully in the picture. He
has agreed to help us."
"What have you told him?"
"Just enough to keep him interested."Nicholas grinned.
"The theory of progressive disclosure. Never tell everything all at
once, feed it to them a little at a time. He knows what we are looking
for, and that we are going to dam a river."
hat about men to work on the dam?"
monks at St. Frumentius will do whatever he tells them. He is a great
hero."
"What have you promised him in return?"
"We haven't got round to that yet. I told him that we have no idea what
we are going to find, and he laughed and said he would trust me."
"Silly boy, isn't he?"
"Not exactly how I would describe Mek Nimmur," he murmured. "I think
when the time is ripe he will let us know what the price of his
cooperation is." He looked up at that moment. "We were just talking
about you, Mek."
Mek strode up to them, and then squatted on his haunches beside
Nicholas.
"What were you saying about me
"Royan says you are a hard bastard, pushing er on a forced march all
night."
"Nicholas is spoiling you. I have been watching him fussing over you,'
he chuckled. "What I say is, treat them rough. Women love it." Then he
grew serious. "I am sorry, Royan. The border is always a bad place. You
will find me less of a monster now we are on home ground."
"We are very grateful for all you are doing." He inclined his head
gravely, "Nicholas is an old friend, and I hope that you are a new
friend."
"I have been terribly distressed. Tessay told me last night that there
had been trouble at the monastery."
Mek scowled and tugged at his short beard, pulling a tuft of hair from
his own chin with the force of his anger.
"Nogo and his killers. This is just a sample of what we are fighting
against. We have been rescued from the tyranny of Mengistu, only to be
plunged into fresh horror."
"What happened, MA?"
Speaking tersely but vividly, he described the massacre and the plunder
of the monastery's treasures. "There was no doubt it was Nogo. Every one
of the monks that escaped knows him well."
His anger was too fierce for him to contain, and he stood up abruptly.
"The monastery means much to all the people of the Gojam. I was
christened there, by Jali Hora himself. The murder of the abbot and the
desecration of the church is a terrible outrage." He jammed his cap
down, on his head. "And now we must get on. The road ahead is steep and
difficult.
Now that they were clear of the border, it was safe to move in daylight.
The second day's march carried them into the depths of the orge. There
were no foothills: it was like entering through the keep of a vast
castle. The walls of the great central massif rose up almost four
thousand feet on either hand, and the river snaked along in the depths,
its entire length churned by rapids and breaking white water. At noon
Mek broke the march to rest in a grove of trees beside the river.
There was a beach below them, sheltered by massive boulders which must
have rolled down from the cliffs that hung like a rampart above them.
The five of them sat a little apart from each other.
Sapper was still smarting from his altercation over the theodolite with
Mek, and keeping himself aloof. He placed the heavy instrument in a
conspicuous position and sat ostentatiously close to it. Mek and Tessay
seemed strangely quiet and withdrawn, until suddenly Tessay reached out
and grasped Mek's hand..
I want to tell them, she blurted out impulsively.
Mek looked away at the river for a moment before he nodded. "Why not?"
he shrugged at last.
"I want them to know," Tessay insisted. "They knew Boris. They will
understand."
"Do you.,want me to tell them?" Mek asked softly, and he was still
holding her hand.
"Yes," she nodded, "it is best that it comes from you." Mek was silent
for a while, gathering his words, and then he started in that low
rumbling voice, not looking at them, but watching Tessay's face. "The
very first moment I looked upon this woman, I knew that she was the one
that God had sent my way."
Tessay moved closer to him.
"Tessay and I said our vows together on the night of Timkat and asked
for God's forgiveness, and then I took man."
her away as my wo She laid her head upon his great muscular shoulder.
"The Russian followed us. He found us here, on this very spot. He tried
to kill us both."
Tessay looked down at the beach upon which she and Mek had so nearly
died, and she shuddered at the memory.
"We fought," he said simply, "and when he was dead, I sent his body
floating away down the river."
"We knew he was dead," Royan told them. "We heard from the people at the
embassy that the police found his body downstream, near the border. We
didn't know how it had happened."
They were all quiet for a while, and then Nicholas broke the silence, "I
wish I had been there to watch. It must have been one hell of a fight.
He shook his head in awe.
"The Russian was good. I am glad I don't have to fight him again," Mek
admitted, and stood up. "We can reach the monastery before dark, if we
start now."
ai Metemma, the newly elected abbot of St. Frumentius, met them on the
terrace of the monastery overlooking the river. He was only a little
younger than Jah Hora had been, tall and with a dignified silver head,
and today he was wearing the blue crown in honour of such a
distinguished guest as Mek
After the visitors had bathed and rested for an hour in the cells that
had been set aside for them, the monks came to lead them to the welcome
feast that had been prepared.
When the tej flasks had been refilled for the third time, and the mood
of the abbot and of his monks had mellowed, Mek began to whisper into
the old man's ear.
"You recall the history of St. Frumentius - how God cast him up on our
shore from the storm-tossed sea, so that he might bring the true faith
to us?"
The abbot's eyes filled with tears. "His holy body was entombed here, in
our nwqdas. The barbarians came and stole the relic away from us. We are
children without a father. The reason for the building of this church
and monastery has been taken away," he lamented. "No longer will the
pilgrims come from every corner of Ethiopia to i pray at his shrine. We
will be forgotten by the
Church. We are undone. Our monastery will
perish and our monks will be blown away like dead leaves on the wind."
"When St. Frumentius came to Ethiopia he was not alone. Another
Christian came with him from the High Church in Byzantium," Mek reminded
him in a soft, soothing rumble.
"St. Antonia." The abbot reached for his tei flask to allay the
intensity of his sorrow.
Mek agreed. "He died before St. Frumen "St. Antonia tius, but he was no
less holy than his brother."
"St. Antonia was also a great and holy man, deserving of our love and
veneration." The abbot took a long swallow from the flask.
"The ways of God are mysterious, are they not?" Mek shook his head at
the wonder of the workings of the universe.
"His ways are deep and not for us to question or understand., "And yet
he is compassionate, and he rewards the devout."
"He is all'compassionate." The abbot's tears overflowed and ran down his
cheeks.
"You and your monastery have suffered a grievous loss.
The sacred relic of St. Frumentius has been taken from you alas, never
to be recovered. But what if God were to send you another? What if he
were to send you the sacred body of St. Antonia?"
The abbot looked up through his tears, his expression suddenly
calculating. That would be a miracle indeed."
Mek Nimmur placed his arm around the old man's shoulders and whispered
quietly in his ear, and Mai Metemma stopped weeping and listened
intently.
have obtained your workers for you," Mek told Nicholas as they began the
march up the valley the next morning. "Mai Metemma has promised to give
us a hundred men within two days and another five hundred to follow them
within the next week. He is handing out indulgences to all those who
volunteer to work on the dam. They will be spared the fires of purgatory
if they take part in such a glorious project as the recovery of the holy
relic of St. Antonia."
Both the women stopped in their tracks and stared at him.
"What did you promise the poor old man?" Tessay demanded.
"A body to replace the one that Nogo plundered from the church. If we do
discover the tomb, then the monastery's share will be the mummy of
Mamose."
"That's a mean thing to do,"
A Royan exploded. "You will cheat him into helping us."
"It is not a cheat." Mek's dark eyes flashed at the accusation. "The
relic that they lost was not the veritable body of St. Frumentius, and