The Seventh Scroll

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.

"Ha

found by a band of Tuareg at one of his old camps on the Bagradas river

in North Africa.

Ha

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