The Seventh Scroll, стр. 1

SEVENTH SCROLL

By: Wilber Smith

Synopsis:

A fading papyrus, nearly four thousand years old. Within it lie the

clues to a fabulous treasure from an almost forgotten time. ... a riddle

that becomes a savage battle across the unforgiving terain of North

Africa. When her husband is brutally murdered , Beautiful half-English,

half-Egyptian Royan Al Simmu is forced to seek refuge in England. With

eminent archaeologist Nicholas Quenton-Harper she can pick up the pieces

of her shattered life and find the courage to return to Ethiopia. For

Duraid. For the long dead slave Taita. And for the dreams of an ancient

Pharaoh ... Because others will stop at nothing to claim the prize as

their own.

This edition published 1996 by Pan Books

ISBN 0 330 34415 3

Printed and bound in Great Britain

Once more this book is for my wife Danielle.

Despite all the happy loving years we have spent together I feel that we

are only just beginning.

There is so much more to come.

The dusk crept in from the desert, and shaded the dunes with purple.

Like a thick velvet cloak it muted all sounds, so that the evening was

tranquil and hushed.

From where they stood on the crest of the dune they looked out over the

oasis and the complex of small villages that surrounded it. The

buildings were white with flat roofs and the date palms stood higher

than any of them except the Islamic mosque and the Coptic Christian

church.

These bastions of faith opposed each other across the lake.

The waters of the lake were sparkling. A flight of duck slanted down on

quick wings to land with a small splash of white close in against the

reed banks.

The man and the woman made a disparate couple. He was tall, though

slightly bowed, his silvering hair catching the last of the sunlight.

She was young, in her early thirties, slim, alert and vibrant. Her hair

was thick and curling, restrained now by a thong at the nape of her

neck.

"Time to go down now. Alia will be waiting." He smiled down at her

fondly. She was his second wife. When his first wife died he thought

that she had taken the sunlight with her. He had not expected this last

period of happiness in his life. Now he had her and his work. He was a

man happy and contented.

Suddenly she broke away from him, and pulled the thong from her hair.

She shook it out, dense and dark, and she laughed. It was a pretty

sound. Then she plunged down the steep slip-face of the dune, her long

skirts billowing around her flying legs. They were shapely and brown.

She kept her balance until halfway down, when gravity overwhelmed her

and she tumbled.

From the top he smiled down on her indulgently.

Sometimes she was still a child. At others she was a grave and dignified

woman. He was not certain which he preferred, but he loved her in both

moods. She rolled to a halt at the bottom of the dune and sat up, still

laughing, shaking the sand out of her hair. "Your turn!" she called up

at him. He followed her down sedately, moving with the slight stiffness

of advancing age, keeping his balance until he reached the bottom.

He lifted her to her feet. He did not kiss her, although the temptation

to do so was strong. It was not the Arab way to show public affection,

even to a beloved wife.

She "straightened her clothing and retied her hair before they set off

towards the village. They skirted the reed beds of the oasis, crossing

the rickety bridges over the irrigation canals. As they passed, the

peasants returning from the fields greeted him with deep respect.

"Salaam aleikum, Doktari! Peace be with you, doctor." They honoured all

men of learning, but him especially for his kindness to them and their

families over the years.

Many of them had worked for his father before him. It mattered little

that most of them were Moslem, while he was a Christian.

When they reached the villa, Alia, the old housekeeper, greeted them

with mumbles and scowls. "You are late. You are always late. Why do you

not keep regular hours, like decent folk? We have a position to

maintain."

"Old mother, you are always right," he teased her gently. "What would we

do without you to care for us?" He sent her away, still scowling to

cover her love and concern for him.

They ate the simple meat on the terrace together, dates and olives and

unleavened bread and goat's milk cheese. It was dark when they finished,

but the desert stars were bright as candles.

"Royan, -my flower." He reached across the table and touched her hand.

"It is time to begin work." He stood up from the table and led the way

to his study that opened out on to the terrace.

Royan Al Simma went directly to the tall steel safe against the far wall

and tumbled the combination. The safe was out of place in this room,

amongst the old books and scrolls, amongst the ancient statues and

artefacts and grave goods that were the collection of his lifetime.

When the heavy steel door swung open, Royan stood back for a moment. She

always felt this prickle of awe whenever she first looked upon this

relic of the ages, even after an interval of only a few short hours.

"The seventh scroll," she whispered, and steeled herself to touch it. It

was nearly four thousand years old, written by a genius out of time with

history, a man who had been dust for all these millennia, but whom she

had come to know and respect as she did her own husband. His words were

eternal, and they spoke to her clearly from beyond the grave, from the

fields of paradise, from the presence of the great trinity, Osiris and

Isis and Horus, in whom he had believed so devoutly. As devoutly as she

believed in another more recent Trinity.

She carried the scroll to the long table at which Duraid, her husband,

was already at work. He looked up as she laid it on the tabletop before

him, and for a moment she saw the same mystical mood in his eyes that

had affected her. He always wanted the scroll there on the table, even

when there was no real call for it. He had the photographs and the

microfilm to work with. It was as though he needed the unseen presence

of the ancient author close to him as he studied the texts.

Then he threw off the mood and was the dispassionate scientist once

more. "Your eyes are better than mine, my flower," he said. "What do you

make of this character?"

She leaned over his shoulder and studied the hieroglyph on the

photograph of the scroll that he pointed out to her. She puzzled over

the character for a moment before she took the magnifying glass from

Duraid's hand and peered through it again.

"It looks as though Taita has thrown in another cryptogram of his own

creation just to bedevil us." She spoke of the ancient author as though

he were a dear, but sometimes exasperating, friend who still lived and

breathed, and played tricks upon them.

"We'll just have to puzzle it out, then," Duraid declared with obvious

relish. He loved the ancient game. It was his life's work.

The two of them laboured on into the cool of the night. This was when

they did their best work. Sometimes they spoke Arabic and sometimes

English; for them the two languages were as one. Less often they used

French, which was their third common language. They had both received