The Quest

'How long will you remain young, Taita?'

'This I cannot tell with any certainty. Eos remained young for over a thousand years. I know it from her boasts, and from the certain knowledge I took from her.'

'And now that you have bathed in the Font, you will do the same,'

she said. 'You will live for a thousand years.'

That night she woke him, whimpering and crying with nightmares.

Then she called his name: 'Taita, wait for me! Come back! Don't leave me.' Taita stroked her cheeks and kissed her eyelids to wake her gently.

When she realized it had been a dream she clung to him. 'Is it you, Taita? Is it truly you? You have not left me?'

'I will never leave you,' he reassured her.

'You will.' Her voice was still blurred with tears.

'Never,' he repeated. 'It took me so long to find you again. Tell me about your silly dream, Fenn. Were you being chased by trogs or Chima?'

She did not reply at once, still struggling to regain control of herself.

At last she whispered, 'It was not a silly dream.'

'Tell me about it.'

'In the dream I had grown old. My hair was thin and white - I could see it hanging in front of my eyes. My skin was wrinkled and my hands were bony claws. My back was bowed and my feet were swollen and painful. I hobbled behind you, but you were walking so fast that I could not keep up. I was falling back and you were going to some place where I could not follow.' She was becoming agitated again. 'I called your name, but you did not hear me.' She began to sob.

'It was only a dream.' He held her tightly in the circle of his arms, but she shook her head vehemently.

'It was a vision of the future. You strode ahead without looking back. You were tall and straight, your legs strong. Your hair was thick and lustrous.' She reached up, took a handful and twisted it between her fingers. 'Just as it is now.'

'My sweet, you must not distress yourself. You, too, are young and beautiful.'

'Perhaps now. But you will stay so, and I will grow old and die. I will lose you again. I don't want to turn into some cold star. I want to stay with you.'

With all the wisdom of the ages at his command, he could find no words with which to comfort her. At last he made love to her again. She gave herself into his embrace with a kind of desperate fervour, as though she were trying to become one with him, to unite their physical bodies as well as their spirits so that they could never be torn apart, not even by death. At last, just before dawn, exhausted by love and despair, she slept.

From time to time they sailed past long-deserted Luo villages. The huts sagged miserably on their pole foundations, on the point of toppling into the rising waters. 'When the waters rise they are driven to seek drier land at the peripheries of the Great Sud,' Fenn explained. 'They will only return to their fishing when the waters fall again.'

'It is as well,' Taita said. 'If we were to meet them we would surely be

472 I

forced to fight them, and we have been delayed long enough on this voyage. Our people are eager to see their homes.'

'As I am,' Fenn agreed, 'although for me it will be the first time in this life.'

That night Fenn was haunted again by her nightmares. He woke her, rescuing her from the dark terrors of her mind, stroking and kissing her until she lay quietly in his arms. But still she trembled as though in fever and her heart drummed against his chest like the hoofbeats of a running horse.

'Was it the same dream?' he asked softly.

'Yes, but worse,' she whispered back. 'This time my eyesight was misty with age and you were so far ahead that I could only just make out your dark shape disappearing into the haze.' They were both quiet, until Fenn spoke again. 'I don't want to lose you, but I know I must not squander the loving years that the gods have granted us in futile longing and regret. I must be strong and happy. I must savour every minute of our time together. I must share my happiness with you. We must never talk about this terrible parting again, not until it happens.' She was quiet for a minute longer. Then she said, so low that he could barely make out the words: 'Not until it happens, as it surely must.'

'No, my beloved Fenn,' he answered. 'It is not inevitable. We will not be parted again, ever.' She became still in his arms, barely breathing as she listened. 'I know what we must do to avert it.'

'Tell me!' she demanded. He explained. She listened quietly, but as soon as he had finished she asked a hundred questions. When he had answered them, she said, 'It might take a lifetime.' She was daunted by the scope of the vision he had laid out before her.

'Or it might take just a few short years,' he said.

'Oh, Taita, I can hardly contain myself. When can we begin?'

'There remains much to do before we can repair the terrible damage that Eos inflicted on our very Egypt. As soon as we have done that, we can begin.'

'I shall count the days until that time.'

47}

Day after day, the wind held fair and the rowers pulled with a will, singing over the oars, their high spirits abounding, their arms and backs indefatigable as Nakonto's nephews guided them unerringly through the channels. Each day at noon Taita climbed to the top of the mast to scan the country ahead. Long before he expected it, he picked out, far ahead, the shapes of the first trees above the interminable papyrus. Under the keels of the galleys the Nile grew deeper, and the reed beds on either side opened out. At last they burst out of the Great Sud, and ahead lay the prodigious plains through which the Nile ran like a long green python until it disappeared into the dusty haze of distance.

They moored the galleys under the steep-cut bank. While That and his men were setting up the first camp on dry land for many a long day, they unloaded the horses. A league away across the dusty plain a herd of eight giraffes was browsing in a clump of flat-topped acacia trees.

'We have had no fresh meat since we left the Shilluk,' Taita told That. 'Everyone will be pleased to eat something other than catfish. I purpose to take out a hunting party. Once they have finished building the zareeba, let the people rest and disport themselves,'

Taita, Meren and the two girls strung their bows, mounted and set off in pursuit of the long-necked dappled beasts. The horses were as glad as their riders to be ashore: they stretched out their necks and whisked their tails as they tore across the open ground. The giraffes saw them coming from far off, forsook the protection of the acacia trees and broke into a ponderous rocking gallop across the plain. Their long tails with tufted black tips curled back over their haunches, and their legs on each side swung forward together so that they appeared to be moving away only slowly. However, the hunters had to push the horses to their top speed to overhaul them. As they came up behind them they rode into the dustcloud thrown up by the giraffes' hoofs and were forced to slit their eyes to prevent them being blinded. Taita picked out a half grown bull calf lagging near the rear of the herd whose flesh would be sufficient to feed the entire party and, just as important, tender and succulent.

'That's the one we want!' he shouted, as he pointed it out to the others. As they closed with the animal Taita drew and shot his first arrow into the back of its leg, aiming to sever the great tendon and cripple it. The giraffe staggered and almost fell, but regained its balance

and ploughed on, but at a hampered pace, heavily favouring the wounded limb. Taita signalled to the others. They split into two pairs and pressed in on each side of the animal. From a range of only a few yards they shot arrow after arrow into its heaving chest. They were trying to drive through into its heart and lungs, but the skin was as tough as a war shield and the vital organs lay deep inside. Bleeding heavily, the beast ran on, swishing its tail and uttering a soft grunt of pain as each arrowhead thumped into it.

The riders edged their mounts closer and closer to shorten the range and make their arrows tell more effectively. Sidudu was slightly behind Meren and he had not noticed how recklessly she was riding in on the quarry until he glanced over his shoulder.