The Seventh Scroll (28 page)

"No such luck. It was too high, and the light is very poor down there. I am not even certain that it wasn't'a natural flaw in the rock."

Her disappointment was palpable, but after a pause she asked,

"Was there anything else?"

"Yes," he grinned. "Lots and lots of water moving very very fast."

"What are we going to do about this putative has-relief of yours?" she asked.

"I don't like the idea in the least, but I will have to go back in there and have another look."

"When?"

"tomorrow. Our one chance to get into the maqdas of the cathedral. After that we will make a plan to explore the gorge."

"We are running out of time, Nicky, just when things are getting really interesting."

"You can say that again!'. he murmured. She felt his breath on her lips, for their faces were as close together as those of conspirators or of lovers, and she realized the double meaning of her own words. She jumped to her feet and slapped the dust and loose straw from her jodhpurs.

"You only'have one fish to feed the multitude. Either you have a very high opinion of yourself, or you had better get fishing."

wo debteras who had been detailed by the bishop to escort them tried to force a way for them through the crowds. However, they had not reached the foot of the staircase before the escort itself was swallowed up and lost. Nicholas and Royan became separated from the other couple.

"Keep close," Nicholas told Royan, and maintained a firm grip on her upper arm as he used his shoulder to open a path for them. He drew her along with him. Naturally, he had deliberately contrived to lose Boris and Tessay in the crush, and it had worked out nicely the way he had planned it.

At last they reached a position where Nicholas could set his back firmly against one of the stone columns of the terrace, to prevent the crowd jostling him. He also had a good view of the entrance to the cavern cathedral. Royan was not tall enough to see over the heads of the men in front of her, so Nicholas lifted her up on to the balustrade of the staircase and anchored her firmly against the column.

She clung to his shoulder for support, for the drop into the Nile opened behind her, The worshippers kept up a low monotonous chant, while a dozen separate bands of musicians tapped their drums and rattled their sistrums. Each band surrounded its own patron, a chieftain in splendid robes, sheltering under a huge gaudy umbrella.

There was an air of excitement and expectation almost as fierce as the heat and the stink. It built up steadily and, as the reased in pitch and volume, the crowd singing inc began to sway and undulate like a single organism, some grotesque amoeba, pulsing with life.

Suddenly from within the precincts of the cathedral there came the chiming of brass bells, and immediately a hundred horns and trumpets answered. From the head of the stairway there was a fusillade of gunfire as the bodyguards of the chieftains fired their weapons in the air. Some of them were armed with automatic rifles, and the clatter of AK-47

fire blended with the thunder of ancient black powder muzzle-loaders. Clouds of blue gunsmoke blew over the congregation, and bullets ricocheted from the cliff and sang away over the gorge. Women shrieked and utulated, an eerie, blood-chilling sound. The men's faces were alight with the fires of religious fervour.

They fell to their knees and lifted their hands high in adoration, chanting and crying out to God for blessing.

The women held their infants aloft, and tears of religious frenzy streaked their dark cheeks.

From the gateway of the underground church emerged a procession of priests and monks. First came the debteras in long white robes, and then the acolytes who were to be baptized at the riverside. Royan recognized Tamre, his long gangling frame standing a head above the boys around him.

She waved over the crowd and he saw her and grinned shyly before he followed the debteras on to the pathway to the river.

By this time night was falling. The depths of the cauldron were obscured by shadows, and hanging over it the sky was a purple canopy pricked by the first bright stars.

At the head of the pathway burned a brass brazier. As each of the priests passed it he thrust his unlit torch into the flames and, as soon as it flared, he held it aloft.

Like a stream of molten lava the torchlit procession began to uncoil down the cliff face, the priests chanting dolefully and the drums booming and echoing from the cliffs across the river.

Following the baptism candidates through the stone gateway came the ordained priests in their tawdry robes, bearing the processional crosses of silver and glittering brass, and the banners of embroidered silk, with their depictions of the saints in the agony of martyrdom and the ecstasy of adoration. They clanged their bells and blew their fifes, and sweated and chanted until their eyes rolled white in dark faces.

Behind them, home by two priests in the most sumptuous robes and tall, jewel-encrusted head-dresses, came the tabot. The Ark of the Tabernacle was covered with a crimson cloth that hung to the ground, for it was too holy to be desecrated by the gaze of the profane.

The worshippers threw themselves down upon the ground in fresh paroxysms of adoration. Even the chiefs prostrated themselves upon the soiled pavement of the terrace, and some of them wept with the fervour of their belief.

Last in the procession came Jali Hora, wearing not the crown with the blue stone, but another even more splendid creation, the Epiphany crown, a mass of gleaming metal and flashing faux jewels which seemed too heavy for his ancient scrawny neck to support. Two debteras held his elbows and guided his uncertain footsteps on to the stairway that led down to the Nile.

As the procession descended, so those worshippers nearest to the head of the stairs rose to their feet, lit their torches at the brazier and followed the abbot down. There was a general movement along the terrace to join the flow, and as it began to empty, Nicholas lifted Royan down from her perch on the balustrade.

"We must get into the church while "there are still enough people around to cover us," he whispered. Leading her by the hand, with his other hand hanging on to the strap of his camera bag, he joined the movement down the terrace. He allowed them to be carried forward, but all the time he was edging across the stream of humanity towards the entrance to the church. He saw Boris and Tessay in the crush ahead of him, but they had not seen him, and he crouched lower so as to screen himself from them. As he and Royan reached the gateway to the outer the eased them out of the throng of chamber of the church, humanity and drew her gently through the low entrance into the dim, deserted interior. With a quick glance he made certain that they were alone, and that the guards were no longer at their stations beside the inner gates.

Then he moved quickly along the side wall, to where one of the soot'grimed tapestries hung from the ceiling to the stone floor. He lifted the folds of heavy woven wool and drew Royan behind them, letting them fall back into place, concealing them both.

They were only just in time, for hardly had they flattened their backs against the wall and let the tapestry settle when they heard footsteps approaching from the qiddist. Nicholas peeked around the corner of the tapestry and saw four white-robed priests cross the outer chamber and swing the main doors closed as they left the church.

There was a weighty thud from outside as they dropped the locking beam into place, and then a profound silence pervaded the cavern.

"I didn't reckon on that," Nicholas whispered. "They have locked us in for the night."

"At least it means that we won't be disturbed," Royan replied briskly. "We can get to work right away."

Stealthily they emerged from their hiding-place, and moved across the outer chamber to the doorway of the qiddist. Here Nicholas paused and cautioned her with a hand on her arm. "From here on we are in forbidden territory. Better let me go ahead and scout the lie of the land." She shook her head firmly. "You are not leaving me here. I am coming with you all the way." He knew better than to argue.

"Come on, then." He led her up the steps and into the middle chamber. It was smaller and lower than the room they had left.

The wall hangings were richer and in a better state of repair. The floor was bare, except for a pyramid-shaped framework of hand-hewn native timber upon which stood rows of brass lamps, each with the wick floating in a puddle of melted oil. The meagre light they provided was all that there was, and it left the ceiling and the recesses of the chamber in shadow. As they crossed the floor towards the gates that closed off the maqdas, Nicholas took two electric torches from his camera bag and handed one to her. "New batteries," he told her, "but don't waste them. We may be here all night."

They stopped in front of the doors to the Holy Of Holies. Quickly Nicholas examined them. There were A, engravings of St.. Frumentius on each panel, his head enclosed in a nimbus of celestial radiance and his right hand lifted in the act of benediction.

"Primitive lock," he murmured, "must be hundreds of years old. You could throw your hat through the gap between the hasp and the tongue." He slipped his hand into the bag and brought out a Leatherman tool.

"Clever little job, this is. With it you do anything from digging the stones out of a horse's hoof, to opening the lock on a chastity belt." He knelt in front of the massive iron lock and unfolded one of the multiple blades of the tool. She watched anxiously as he worked, and then gave a little start as with satisfying clunk the tongue of the lock slid back.

a Mis-spent youth?" she asked. "Burglary amongst your many talents?"

"You don't really want to know." He stood up and put his shoulder to one leaf of the door. It gave with a groan of unlubricated hinges, and he pushed it open only just wide enough for them to squeeze through, then immediately shut it behind them.

They stood side by side on the threshold of the maqdas and gazed about them in silent awe.

The Holy of Holies was a small chamber, much smaller than either of them had expected. Nicholas could have crossed it in a dozen strides. The vaulted roof was so low that by standing on tiptoe he could have touched it with his outstretched fingertips.

or upwards the walls were lined with From the flo shelves upon which stood the gifts and offerings of the faithful, icons of the Trinity and the Virgin rendered in Byzantine style, framed in ornate silver. There were ranks of statuettes of saints and emperors, medallions and wreaths made of polished metal, pots and bowls and jewelled boxes, candelabra with many branches, on each of which the votive candles burned providing an uncertain wavering light. It was an extraordinary collection of junk and treasures, of objects of virtue and garish bric-A-brac, offered as articles of faith by the emperors and chieftains of Ethiopia over the centuries. In the centre of the floor stood the altar of cedarwood, the panels carved with visionary, scenes of revelation and creation, of the temptation and the fall from Eden, and of the Last judgement. The altar cloth was crocheted raw silk, and the cross and the chalice were in massive worked silver. The abbot's crown gleamed in the candlelight, with the blue ceramic seal of Taita in the centre of its brow.

Royan crossed the floor and knelt in front of the altar.

She bowed her head in prayer. Nicholas waited respectfully at the threshold until she rose to her feet again, and then he went to join her.

"The tabot stoneV He pointed beyond the altar, and they went forward side by side. At the back of the maqdas stood an object covered with a heavy damask cloth encrusted with embroidered thread of silver and gold. From the outline beneath the covering they could see that it was of elegant and pleasing proportions, as tall as a man, but slender with a pedestal topping.

They both circled it, studying the cloaked shape avidly, but reluctant to touch it or to uncover it, fearful that their expectations might prove unwarranted, and that their ..hopes would be dashed like the turbulent river waters plunging into the cauldron of the Nile. Nicholas broke the tension that gripped them by turning away from the tabot stone to the barred gate in the back wall of the sanctuary.

"The tomb of St. Frumentius!" he said, and went to the grille. She came to his side, and together they peered through the square openings in the woodwork that was black with age. The interior was in darkness. Nicholas prodded his torch through one of the openings and pressed the switch. The tomb lit up in a rainbow of colour so bright in the beam of the torch that their eyes took a few moments to adjust and then Royan gasped aloud.

"Oh, sweet heaven!" She began to tremble as if in high fever, and her face went creamy pale as all the blood drained from it.

The coffin was set into a stone shelf in the rear wall of the cell-like tomb. On the exterior was painted the likeness of the man within. Although it was badly faded and most of the paint had flaked away, the pale face and reddish beard of the dead man were still discernible.

This was not the only reason for Royan's amazement.

She was staring at the walls above and on either side of the shelf on which the coffin lay. They were a riot of colour, every inch of them covered with the most intricate and elaborate paintings that had miraculously weathered the passage of the millennia.

Nicholas played his torch beam over them in awestruck silence, and Royan clung to his arm as if to save herself from falling. She dug her sharp nails into his flesh, but he was heedless of the pain.

There were scenes of great battles, fighting galleys locked in terrible combat upon the blue eternal waters of the river. There were scenes of the hunt, the pursuit of the river horse and of great elephants with long tusks of gleaming ivory. There were battle scenes of regiments plumed and armoured, raging in their fury and blood lust.

Squadrons of chariots wheeled and charged each other across these narrow walls, half obscured by the dust of their own mad career. The foreground of each mural was dominated by the same tall heroic figure. In one scene he drew the bow to full stretch, in another he swung high the blade of bronze.