The Quest

The Nile had changed from the sullen trickle they had known on the journey towards the land of Jarri. Every bend, every shoal and reef came as a surprise, so Taita could take no chances with a night run. In the evenings they moored to the bank and built a secure stockade of thorn bushes on the shore. After a long day confined between the narrow decks, the horses were turned loose to graze until nightfall. Meren led out a hunting party to bring in what game they could find. As soon as it was dark, men and animals were brought into the safety of the stockade: lions roared and leopards sawed around the thorn-bush walls, attracted by the scent of the horses and the fresh game meat.

With so many humans and animals to provide shelter for, the stockade was crowded. However, because of the respect and affection in which they were held, there was always a small but private enclosure for Taita and Fe

'Tell me about Pharaoh Nefer Seti.'

'You already know everything that there is to know,' he protested.

'Tell me again,' she insisted. 'I long for the day I meet him face to face. Do you think he will know that I was once his grandmother?'

'I will be astonished if he does. You are much less than half his age, so young and beautiful that he might even fall in love with you,' he teased her.

'That would never do,' she replied primly. 'First, it would be incest, but far more important, I belong to you.'

'Do you, Fe

She opened her eyes wide with surprise. 'For a magus and a savant, sometimes you can be obtuse, Taita. Of course I belong to you. I promised you that in the other life. You told me so yourself.'

'What do you know of incest?' He changed the subject. 'Who told you about it?'

'Imbali,' she replied. 'She tells me the things that you don't.'

'And what did she have to say on the subject?'

'Incest is when people who are related by blood gijima each other,' she replied evenly.

He caught his breath to hear the coarse word on her i

'You know what it means, Taita,' she said, with a long-suffering air.

'You and I gijima each other all the time.'

He caught his breath again, but this time held it. 'How do we do that?'

'You know very well. We hold hands and kiss each other. That is how people gijima.' He exhaled in a sigh of relief, at which she realized he was holding something back. 'Well, it is, isn't it?'

'I suppose so, or at least part of it.'

Now her suspicions were thoroughly aroused and she was unusually quiet for the rest of the evening. He knew that she would not easily be fobbed off.

The next night they camped above a waterfall they remembered from their journey upstream. Then the river had been almost dry, but now its position was marked by the tall column of spray that rose high above the forest. While the shore party cut the thorn bushes to build the stockade and make camp, Taita and Fe

Taita thought of this section of the river when it had been a mere trickle in the depths of the narrow rocky gorge. Now the waters were white and foaming, leaping from rock to black rock as they flowed between the high banks. Ahead the unseen falls thundered and spray drizzled on their upturned faces.

When they came out at last on the headland above the main falls, the Nile had been compressed from a width of two hundred paces to a mere

twenty. Below, the torrent plunged through brilliant arches of rainbows hundreds of cubits down into the foaming gorge.

'This is the last waterfall before we come to the cataracts of Egypt',' he said. 'The last barrier in our path.' He lost himself in the splendour of the spectacle.

Fe

Taita was at a loss for an adequate response. 'We must go back now,'

he said. 'The sun is setting and we should not be on the path after dark when there are lions abroad. We shall discuss this later.'

They saddled the horses and started back along the riverbank.

Usually the flow of their conversation was endless, each idea leading on to the next. But for once neither had anything to say and they followed the game trail in silence. Every time he glanced at her surreptitiously she was still smiling.

When they rode into the stockade the women were busy at the cooking fires and the men were gathered in small groups, talking and drinking beer, resting aching muscles after their long day at the oars.

Meren hurried to meet them as they dismounted. 'I was about to send out a search party to find you.'

'We were scouting the trail,' Taita told him, as they dismounted and handed the horses to the grooms. 'Tomorrow we will have to dismantle the boats to carry them round the falls. The track down is steep, so there is much hard work ahead.'

'I have called all the captains and headmen into council to discuss that very matter. We were waiting for your return to camp.'

'I will bring your di

Taita took his place at the head of the gathering. He had instituted these meetings not only to plan specific actions but also to give each an

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opportunity to raise any subject of interest or importance to the group. It was also a court of justice and discipline before which miscreants could be called to answer for their sins.

Before the conference began, Fe

Intrigued by this, Taita hurried the meeting along. As soon as they had agreed on how they would transport the boats, he left Meren and That to deal with a few matters of lesser consequence. As he passed the women at the fires they called goodnight, then giggled among themselves as if at some delicious secret. Meren had placed their hut at the far end of the enclosure behind a screen of freshly cut thatching grass. When Taita stooped through the open doorway he found that Fe