they stretched out in their sleeping bags in companionable silence and
watched the firelight playing on the roof of the cave.
'Just think!' Royan whispered. 'Tomorrow we will be retracing the
footsteps of old Taita himself.'
'To say nothing of the Virgin Mary,'Nicholas smiled.
'You are a horrid old cynic,' she sighed. 'And what is more, you
probably snore.'
'You are about to find out the hard way,' he told her, but she was
asleep before him. Her breathing was gentle and even, and he could just
hear it above the sound of the water. It was a long time since he had
had a lovely woman lying at his side. When he was sure she was deeply
under, he reached across and touched her cheek gently.
'Pleasant dreams, little one,' he whispered tenderly.
'You have had a busy day.' That was the way he had often bid his younger
daughter sleep.
The muleteers were stirring long before the dawn, and the whole party
was on the path, way again as soon as the light was strong enough to
reveal their footing. When the early sun struck the upper walls of the
cliff face, they were still high enough above the valley floor to have
an aerial view of the terrain.
Nicholas drew Royan aside and they let the rest of the caravan go on
down ahead of them.
He found a place to sit and unrolled the satellite photograph between
them. Picking out the major peaks and features of the scene, they
orientated themselves and began to make some order out of the
cataclysmic landscape that rioted below them.
'We can't see the Abbay river from here,' Nicholas pointed out. 'It's
still deep in the sub-gorge. We will probably only get our first glimpse
of it from almost directly above.'
'If we have identified our present position accurately, then the river
will make two ox'bow bends around that bluff over there.'
'Yes, and the confluence of the Dandera river with the Abbay is over
there, below those cliffs.' He used his thumb knuckle as a rough scale
measure. 'About fifteen miles from here.'
'It looks as though the Dandera has changed its course many times over
the centuries.-I can see at least two gullies that look like ancient
river beds.' She pointed down: 'Mere, and there. They are all choked
with jungle now.' She looked crestfallen, 'Oh, Nicholas, it is such a
huge and confused area. How are we ever going to find the single
entrance to a tomb hidden in all that?'
'Tomb? What tomb is this?' Boris demanded with interest. He had come
back up the trail to find them. They had not heard his approach, and now
he stood over them.
'What tomb are you talking about?, 'Why, the tomb of St. Frumentius, of
course,' Nicholas told him smoothly, showing no concern at having been
overheard.
'Isn't the monastery dedicated to the saint?' Royan asked as smoothly,
as she rolled up the photograph.
'Da.' He nodded, looking disappointed, as though he expected something
