The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 59

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Before they covered the granite stele with the damask cloth, Royan

caressed the stone panels of script as if to take leave of them for

ever. Then she nodded at Nicholas.

He spread the cloth over the pillar and they adjusted the folds to hang

as they had found them. From the threshold of the brass-bound door they

surveyed the maqdas for the last time, then he opened the door a rack

"Let's go!" She squeezed through and he followed her out into the

qiddist of the church. It took him only a few minutes to slide the

tongue of the lock back into place.

"How will we get out through the main doors?" she asked.

"I don't think that will be necessary. The priests obviously have

another entrance from their quarters directly into the qiddist. You very

seldom see them using the main gates." He stood in the centre of the

floor, and looked around carefully. "It must be on this side if it leads

directly into the monks' living quarters-' he broke off with a grunt of

satisfaction. "Aha! You can see where all their feet have actually worn

a pathway over the centuries." He pointed out a smooth area of dished

and worn stone near the side wall. "And look at the marks of grubby

fingers on the tapestry over there." He crossed quickly to the hanging

and drew a fold aside. "I thought as much." There was a narrow doorway

concealed behind the hanging.

"Follow me."

They found themselves in a dark passageway through the living rock.

Nicholas flashed his torch down its length, ? A

but he masked the bulb with his hand to show only as ,much light as they

needed. "This way."

The passage turned at right-angles and ahead they could make out a dull

illumination. Nicholas switched off the torch and led her on.

Now there was the smell of stale food and humanity, and they passed the

doorless entrance to a monk's rock cell. Nicholas flashed his torch into

it. It was deserted and bare. A wooden cross hung on the wall with a

truckle bed below it. There were no other furnishings. They went on past

a dozen others which were almost identical.

At the next turning of the passage Nicholas paused.

He felt a tiny draught on his cheek, and the taste of fresh air on his

tongue. "This way he whispered.

They hurried on, until suddenly Royan grabbed his shoulder from behind

and forced him to stop.

"What-' he began, but she squeezed his shoulder to silence him. He heard

it then, the sound of a human voice, echoing eerily through the

labyrinth of passageways.

Then came a weird haunting cry, that of a soul in agony, wailing and

sobbing. They crept forward, trying to make their escape before they

were discovered, but the sounds grew stronger as they went on.

"Dead ahead," Nicholas warned her in a whisper. "We are going to have to

sneak past."

Now they saw soft yellow lamplight spilling from the doorway of one of

the cells into the passage. There came another heart-rending female cry

that echoed down the passage and froze them in their tracks.

"That's a woman's voice. What is happening?" Royan breathed,  ut he

shook his head for silence and led her on.

They had to pass the open door of the lit cell. Nicholas edged towards

it with his back flattened to the opposite wall. She followed him,

keeping close and clinging to his arm for comfort.

As they looked into the cell the woman cried out again, but this time

her voice blended with that of a man.

It was a duet without words, but racked with all the feral agony of a

passion too fierce to be borne in silence.

In their full view a couple lay naked upon the truckle bed. The woman

lay spread-eagled, holding the man's hips between her uplifted knees.

Her arms wound hard around his back, upon which each separate muscle

stood out proudly and gleamed with sweat. He thrust down into her

savagely, his buttocks bunching and pounding with the force of a great

black battering ram.

She rolled her head from side to side as another incoherent cry was torn

from her straining throat. It seemed too much for the man above her to

bear, and he reared back like a flaring cobra, his pelvis still locked

to hers, but his back arched like a war bow. Spasm after spasm gripped

him. The sinews in the back of his legs were stretched to snapping

point, and the muscles in his back fluttered and jumped like separate

living creatures.

The woman opened her eyes and looked directly at them as they stood

transfixed in the doorway, but she was blinded with the strength of her

passion. Her eyes were sightless, as she cried aloud to the man above

her.

Nicholas drew Royan away, and they slipped down the passageway and out

on to the deserted terrace. They stopped at the foot of the staircase,

and breathed the sweet cool night air that was perfumed by the waters of

the Nile.

"Tessay has gone to him,'Royan whispered softly.

"For tonight at least,'Nicholas agreed.

"No," Royan denied. "You saw her face, Nicky. She belongs to Mek Nimmur

now."

The dawn was flushing the serrated crests of the escarpment to the

colours; of port wine and roses when they reached camp and separated at

the door to Royan's hut.

"I am bushed," she told Nicholas. The excitement has been too much for

me. You won't see me again before noon."

"Good thinking! Sleep as long as you wish. I want you scintillating and

perceptive when we start going over the material which we gathered last

night."

It was long before noon, however, when Nicholas was woken from a deep

sleep by the harsh and intrusive bellows of Boris as he stormed into the

hut.

"English, wake up! I must talk to you. Wake up, man, wake up."

Nicholas rolled over and thrust one arm out from under the mosquito net

as he groped for his wrist-watch.

"Damn you, Brusilov! What the hell do you want?"

"My wife! Have you seen my wife?"

"Now what has your wife got to do with me?"

"She has gone! I have not seen her since last night."

"The way you treat her, that comes as no stunning surprise. Now go away

and leave me to sleep."

"The whore has run off with that black bastard, Mek Nimmur. I know all

about them. Don't try and protect her, English. I know everything that

goes on around here. You are trying to cover for her - admit it!'

"Get out of here, Boris. Don't try an involve me in your sordid private

life." saw you and that shufta bastard talking in the skinning hut the

other night. Don't try to deny it, English.

You are in this thing with them."

Nicholas flung back the mosquito net and jumped out of his bed. "Kindly

moderate your language when you talk to me, you great oaf'

Boris backed off towards the door. "I know that she has run away with

him. I searched for them all last night at the river. They have gone,

and most of his men with them."

"Good for Tessay.- She is showing some taste in men for a change."

"You think I will let the whore get away with this? You are wrong, very

wrong. I am going to follow them and kill them both. I know which way

they are headed. You think I am a fool. I know all about Mek Nimmur. I

was head of intelligence-' He broke off as he realized what he had said.

"I will shoot him in the belly and let that whore Tessay watch him die."

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