The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 113

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"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

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