“Well, at least we can put our finances in order,” says I. “Like old Ali Baba, we’ve lain doggo while the Forty Thieves cached their loot; now all we have to do is find it and fill our pockets.” She hadn’t heard the old tale, so I told it to her while we fossicked about—she was much taken with Morgiana’s boiling the robbers in oil, I remember. The cache was easy to find under a layer of rubble by the wall of the nave, and at the cost of skinned fingers and broken nails we clawed up the loose earth to reveal a stout iron-shod chest. It wasn’t locked, and when I heaved up the lid we were looking at a sizeable fortune in Maria Theresas, jewellery, wrought precious metal, gold pieces of a currency unknown to me, and carved ivory. We filled my pockets and her wallets with the gourshis, a hundred dollars apiece or thereabouts, and reluctantly abandoned the rest except for a fine ebony-hafted Damascus scim itar which I took, and various jewelled bangles, necklaces, and a gold fillet and veil which Uliba fell on with cries of delight—she was a very feminine Amazon, really, preening herself in a polished silver hand mirror and gloating as she threw it and other choice pieces into the cellar so that the Soudanis would have to brave the scorpions to retrieve them, and lamenting that we couldn’t capture the female and her young and enclose them in the chest before we reburied it, thus ensuring a jolly surprise for the returning robbers. Quite splendid in her malice, she was; I’d not have been surprised if her braids had stood on end and hissed at me.
Being famished, and not knowing how soon the Soudanis might come back, we made speedy tracks out of Gondar. From a vantage point on the south wall of the ruined palace we could survey the country as far as Lake Tana some forty miles away, a distant gleam of silver in the morning sun, its forested shore stretching away into the haze. The sooner we were under cover in those woods, the better, so we travelled at the Highlander’s pace, a mile at the trot and a mile at the stride followed by a moment’s rest standing, and then away again. Uliba ran like a Diana and I like a labouring bullock, but not too bad for forty-five, and within the hour we were in sight of a village of the plain called Azez, which I supposed we should avoid, but Uliba said the time for concealment was past now that we were afoot, and besides we’d get no news of Masteeat if we continued to skulk in rocks and bushes.
“We must seek it out, in a safe place where there are safe people to question. No, not in the village.” We had stopped in a grove some way short of the little cluster of thatched huts, and she was shading her eyes to scan the low hills beyond. “There should be a monastery over yonder, of monks of St Antonius the Hermit… if the wars have passed them by. Monks know everything…”
“And if they recognise you? They could pass word to this fellow Gobayzy who’s after you, or even to Theodore—”
“We’ve seen no trace of Gobayzy, no one will recognise me this far south, and Theodore has no more bitter enemy than the Church since he plundered and murdered at Metraha last summer. Anyway, we have no choice, so come, and keep your ears open for the monastery bell.”
We set off across the plain, and as we went, skirting well wide of the village, she told me of Theodore’s crowning infamy at Metraha, an island in Lake Tana which had been a holy place of sanctuary from time immemorial, and consequently a haven much used by mer chants to deposit their treasures—St Paul’s crossed with the Bank of England, if you like. Theodore had gained access to it by treachery, looted its vast store of gold, silver, grains, and precious stuff—and then herded the inhabitants, priests, merchants, women, and children into the principal buildings and burned them to death.
“So we run no risk of betrayal to Theodore. Rather,” says Uliba complacently, “will the holy fathers show all kindness and respect to a noble lady of Tigre bound for the court of the Queen of the Gallas, who had the misfortune to be robbed of her caravan by Soudani bandits who murdered her servants and would assuredly have slain her (or worse) had she not escaped by night with her faithful Hindee attendant. Hence her destitute condition—”
“Lucky for her she was able to deck her destitution with a few choice trinkets—oh, and a purse of dollars—which she was fortunate to be able to carry away with her, and from which she will make a generous gift to the monastery’s alms chest. If that does not move their pity,” says she, “I know nothing of Christian priests. Besides, these will be provincial simpletons, properly awe-stricken in the presence of rank.”
I didn’t doubt that, but one snag occurred to me. “They’re Coptic Christians, ain’t they… suppose they spot you for a Galla? After all, you’re on your way to Masteeat—can you pass as a Christian?”
She gave me her superior smile, and drew from the bosom of her tunic one of the necklaces she’d pinched from the Soudanis’ hoard: a fine cord of pale blue silk skilfully intertwined with gold and silver threads. “This is called matab; is it not beautiful? All Christians of Habesh wear them from their baptism; it is the first thing these Christos look for in each other. And this one, as you see, is of the most precious kind, such as only the high-born and wealthy would wear… ah, but listen! The bell!”
It was tolling faintly, but stopped as we entered the little valley in which stood a plain adobe building of no great size, walled, with an arched gateway, and surrounded by plots too small to be called fields in which white-robed Abs were digging and hoeing without enthusiasm. They stopped to stare as the high-born lady of Tigre, a striking figure in her scanty tunic, boots, and veiled fillet, sashayed towards the gate with her faithful Hindee attendant throwing a chest as he followed dutifully in her wake.
Chanting greeted us as we passed through the archway into a courtyard where a crowd of robed and turbaned jossers were waking the echoes with what I learned later was a Coptic psalm, and plainly we were intruding on a service—or, as it proved, a rehearsal for one, Palm Sunday no less, which fell a week hence. The turbaned lads were priests, bearing strange long wands with heads like crutches, while the commonalty and sundry infants carried palm fronds. To the fore was a dignified old file called the Abba (which I suppose is abbot); he wore a very stylish yellow leather coat and carried a curious article like a catapult with abacus beads between its arms, which he waved from time to time. In attendance were a priest bearing a fancy sort of decorated cross, a tiny chico with a bell as big as himself, and two deacons holding up an enormous Bible. (* For a description and illustration of the Palm Sunday ceremony, see Simpson, Diary.)
Even as we appeared the singing stopped and the Abba began to read from the Bible, but left off in some confusion when one of the deacons drew his attention to Uliba-Wark, who was listening attentively, hand on hip, nodding approval. Everyone goggled at waving a graceful hand to them to continue, and then turning aside to seat herself on a bench by the gateway. The Abba, who’d been taken flat aback (it dawned on me that there wasn’t another female in the courtyard), steadied up and began reading again in a shaky falsetto, but shooting little disturbed glances in Uliba’s direction as she crossed her legs and sat back, finger on cheek, gently smiling as though she were watching a show performed for her benefit. The reading finished (cut short, I suspect), the Abba and his gang retired through an inner doorway, shooting more little glances, and presently a bald chap with a staff of office approached Uliba and invited her within. She rose with dignity, made a little gesture to me which I interpreted as an order to scatter a few dollars to the hoi-polloi, and swarmed away. I distributed, smirking, bowed tact fully to the cross-bearer who was leading the peasantry in another psalm, and hastened after my mistress like a good little minion.