Two acolytes staggered in from the terrace, barely able to carry between
them a steaming brass pot filled with gallons of wat, a spicy stew of
fat mutton. Over each of the bowls of injera bread they tipped the great
pot and slopped gouts of the runny red-brown wat, the surface glistening
with hot grease.
The assembly fell on the food voraciously. They tore off wads of injera
and scooped up the mess of wat with it, and then stuffed the parcel into
their open mouths, which remained open as they chewed. They washed it
down with long swallows from the flasks, before wrapping themselves
another parcel of running wat. Soon every one of them was greasy to the
elbow and their chins were smeared thickly, as they chewed and drank and
shouted with laughter.
The serving acolytes dumped thick cakes of another type of injera beside
each guest. These were stiffer and less yeasty in taste, friable and
crumbling, unlike the latex rubber consistency of the thin grey sheets
of the first kind.
Nicholas and Royan tried to show their appreciation of the food without
coating themselves with layers of it as the oth _rs were doing. Despite
its appearance the wat was really rather tasty, and the dry yellow
injera helped to cut the grease.
The communal brass bowls were emptied in remarkably short order. Only
the churned up mess of bread and grease remained when the acolytes came
tottering in under the weight of another set of pots, this time filled
to overflowing with curried chicken wat. This was splashed into the
bowls on top of the remains of the mutton, and again the monks had at
it.
While they gobbled up the chicken, the tej flasks were replenished and
the monks became more raucous.
'I don't think I can take much more of this,' Royan told Nicholas
queasily.
'Close your eyes and think of England,' he advised her.
'You are the star of the evening. They aren't going to let you escape.'
As soon as the chicken was eaten, the servers were back with fresh pots,
this time brimming with fiery beef wat. They dumped this on the remnants
of both the mutton and the chicken.
The monk in the circle opposite Royan emptied his flask, and when an
acolyte tried to refill it, he waved the lad away with a shout of,
'Katikala!'
The -cry was taken up by the other monks. 'Katikala!
Katikalar The acolytes hurried out and returned with dozens of bottles
of the gin-clear liquor and brass bowls the size of tea cups.
'This is the stuff to be careful of,' Tessay told them.
Surreptitiously both Nicholas and Royan were able to dribble the
contents of their bowls into the mat of reeds on which they were
sitting, but the monks guzzled theirs down greedily.
'Boris is getting his share,' Nicholas remarked to Royan. The Russian
was red-faced and sweating, grinnin 9 like an idiot as he downed another
bowlful.
Enlivened by the katikala the monks started playing a game. One of them
would wrap a packet of beef wat with a sheet of injera, and then, as it
