The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 16
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two little girls with them and the family resemblance to the mother was
strong in both of them. The youngest child sat on Nicholas's lap while
the elder girl stood behind them, holding the reins of her Shetland
pony. Royan glanced sideways at him and saw the devastating sorrow in
his eyes.
So as not to embarrass him she looked around the rest of the room, which
was obviously his study and workshop.
It was spacious and comfortable, a man's room, but it illustrated the
contradictions of his character - the bookish scholar set against the
man of action. Amongst the muddle of books and museum specimens lay
fishing reels and a Hardy split cane salmon rod. On a row of wall hooks
hung a Barbour jacket, a canvas shotgun slip and a leather cartridge bag
embossed with the initials ..-.
She recognized some of the framed pictures on the walls. They were
original nineteenth-century watercolours by the Scottish traveller David
Roberts, and others by Vivant Denon who had accompanied Napoleon's
L'armie de I'Orient to Egypt. They were fascinating views of the
monuments drawn before the excavations and restorations of more modern
times.
Nicholas went to the fireplace and threw a log on the fading coals. He
kicked it until it flared up brightly and then beckoned her to stand in
front of the floor-to-ceiling curtains that covered half of one wall.
With a conjuror's flourish he pulled the tasselled cord that opened the
curtains and exclaimed with satisfaction, "
"What do you make of that, then?"
She studied the magnificent has-relief frieze that was mounted on the
wall. The detail was beautiful and the rendition magnificent, but she
did not let her admiration show. Instead she gave her opinion in offhand
tones.
"Sixth King of the Amorite dynasty, Hammurabi, about 1780 Bc," she said,
pretending to study the finely chiselled features of the ancient monarch
before she went on, "Yes, probably from his palace site south-west of
the ziggurat at Ashur. There should have been a pair of these friezes.
They are worth in the region of five million US dollars each. My guess
is that they were stolen from the saintly ruler of modern Mesopotamia,
Saddam Hussein, by two unprincipled rogues. I hear that the other one of
the pair is at present in the collection of a certain Mr Peter Walsh in
Texas."
He stared at her in astonishment, and then burst out laughing. "Damn it!
I swore'Duraid to secrecy but he must have told you about our naughty
little escapade." It was the first time she had heard him laugh. It
seemed to come naturally to his lips and she -liked the sound of it,
hearty and unaffected.
"You are right about the present owner of the second frieze," he told
her, still laughing. "But the price was six million, not five."
"Duraid also told me about your visit to the Tibesti Massif in Chad and
southern Libya," she remarked, and he shook his head in mock contrition.
'it seems I have no secrets from you." He went to a tall armoire against
the opposite wall. It was a magnificent piece of marquetry furniture,
probably seventeenth-century French. He opened the double doors and
said, "This is what Duraid and I brought back from Libya, without the
consent of Colonel Muammar al Gadaffi."He took down one of the exquisite
little bronzes and handed it to her. It was the figure of a mother
nursing her infant, and it had a green patina of age.
"Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca," he said, "about 203 BC. These were
found by a band of Tuareg at one of his old camps on the Bagradas river
in North Africa.
Hannibal must have cached them there before his defeat by the Roman
general Scipio. There were over two hundred bronzes in the hoard, and I
still have fifty of the best of them."
"You sold the rest of them?" she asked, as she admired the statuette.
There was disapproval in her tone as she went on, "How could you bear to
part with something so beautiful?"
He sighed unhappily, "Had to, I am afraid. Very sad, but the expedition
to retrieve them cost me a fortune. Had to cover expenses by selling
some of the booty."
He went to his desk and brought out a bottle of Laphroaig malt whisky
from the bottom drawer. He placed the bottle on the desk top and set two
glasses beside it.
"Can I tempt you?" he asked, but she shook her head.
"Don't blame you. Even the Scots themselves admit that this brew should
only be drunk in sub-zeiro weather on The Hill, in a forty-knot gale,
after stalking and shooting a ten-point stag. May I offer you something
a little more ladylike?"
Do you have a Coke?" she suggested.
Yes, but that is really bad for you, even worse than Laphroaig. It's all
that sugar. Absolute poison."
She took the glass he brought to her and returned his toast with it.
"To life!" she agreed, and then she went on, "You are right. Duraid did
tell me about these." She replaced the Punic bronze in the armoire, then
came to face him at the desk. "It was also Duraid who sent me to see
you. It was his dying instruction to me."
"Aha! So none of this is coincidence then. It seems I am the unwitting
pawn in some deep and nefarious plot." He pointed to the chair facing
his desk. "Sit!" he ordered "Tell!'
He perched above her on the corner of the desk, with the whisky glass in
his right hand and with one long, denim-clad leg swinging lazily as the
tail of a resting leopard. Though he was smiling quizzically, he watched
her face with a penetrating green gaze. She thought that it would be
difficult to lie to this man.
She took a deep breath, "Have you heard of an ancient Egyptian queen
called Lostris, of the second intermediate period, coexistent with the
first Hyksos invasions?"
He laughed a little derisively and stood up, "Oh! Now we are talking
about the book River God, are we?" He went to the bookcase and brought
down a copy. Although well thumbed, it was still in its dust-jacket, and
the cover illustration was a dreamy surrealistic view in pastel shades
of green and rose purple of the pyramids seen over water.
He dropped it on the desk in front of her.
"Have you read it?" she asked.
"Yes," he nodded. "I read most of Wilbur Smith's stuff.
He amuses me. He has shot here at Quenton Park a couple of times."
"You like lots of sex and violence in your reading, obviously?" She
pulled a face. "What did you think of this particular book?"
"I must admit that he had me fooled. Whilst I was reading it, I sort of
wished that it might be based on fact.
That was why I phoned Duraid." Nicholas picked up the book again and
flipped to the end of it. "The author's note was convincing, but what I
couldn't get out of my mind was the last sentence." He read it aloud.
"'Sanwwhere in the Abyssinian mountains near the source of the Blue
Nile, the mummy of Tenus still lies in the unviolated tomb of Pharaoh
Mamose.
Almost angrily Nicholas threw the book down on the desk. "My God! You
will never know how much I wanted it to be true. You will never know how
much I wanted a shot at Pharaoh Mamose's tomb. I had to speak to Duraid.
When he assured me it was all a load of bunkum, I felt cheated. I had
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