some respect for my aching head. It must have been cheap liquor I drank last night. Then, suddenly, the pain ripped through the roof of his skull and he realized that the groans were issuing from his own dried-out mouth. He forced his eyes open against the pain and saw that he was lying on a mud floor in an evil-smelling room. He tried to raise his hand to touch his damaged head, but his arm would not respond. Instead a new shaft of agony tore through his shoulder. He tried to use the other hand for the job, but there was a clink, and he found that his wrists were fastened together with chains. He rolled over painfully and cautiously on to his good side.
Good is a relative term, he thought groggily. Every muscle and sinew of his body throbbed with agony. Somehow he pushed himself into a sitting position. He had to wait a moment for the blinding agony in his head, caused by the movement, to clear. Then he was able to assess his situation.
The chains on his wrists and ankles were slaving irons, the ubiquitous utensils of the trade across the country. His leg shackles were anchored to an iron stake driven into the middle of the dirt floor. The chain was short enough to prevent him reaching either the door or the single high window. The cell reeked of excrement and vomit, of which traces were scattered around him in a circle at the limit of the chain.
He heard a soft rustle nearby and looked down. A large grey rat was feeding on the few rounds of dhurra bread that had been left on the filthy floor at his side. He flicked the chain at it, and it fled, squeaking. Next to the bread was an earthenware pitcher, which made him realize how thirsty he was. He tried to swallow but there was no saliva in his mouth and his throat was parched. He reached for the pitcher, which was gratifyingly heavy. Before he drank he sniffed the contents suspiciously. He decided it was filled with river water and he could smell the woodsmoke from the fire over which it had boiled. He drank and then drank again.
I think I might yet survive, he decided wryly, and blinked back the pain in his head. He heard more movement and glanced up at the window. Someone was watching him through the bars, but the head disappeared immediately. He drank again, and felt a little better.
The door to the cell opened behind him and two men stepped in. They wore jib has and turbans, and their swords were unsheathed.
“Who are you?” Penrod demanded. “Who is your master?”
“You will ask no questions,” said one. “You will say nothing until ordered to do so.”
Another man followed them. He was older and greybearded, and he carried all the accoutrements of a traditional eastern doctor.
“Peace be upon you. May you please Allah,” Penrod greeted him. The doctor shook his head curtly, and made no reply. He set aside his bag, and came to stand over him. He palpated the large swelling on Penrod’s head, obviously feeling for any fracture. He seemed satisfied and moved on. Almost at once he noticed that Penrod was favouring his left side. He took hold of the elbow and tried to lift the arm. The pain was excruciating. Penrod managed to prevent himself crying out. He did not want to give the two interested guards that satisfaction, but his features contorted and sweat broke out across his forehead. The Arab doctor lowered the arm, and ran a hand over his biceps. When he pressed hard fingers into the site of the broken bone, Penrod gasped despite his resolution. The doctor nodded. He cut away the sleeve of Penrod’s galabiyya and strapped the shoulder with linen bandages. Then he folded and tied a sling to support the arm. The relief from pain was immediate.
“The blessing of Allah and his Prophet be upon you,” Penrod said, and the doctor smiled briefly.
From a small alabaster flask he poured a dark, treacly liquid into a horn cup, and gave it to Penrod. He drank it, and the taste was gall-bitter. Without having spoken a word the doctor repacked his bag and left. He returned the next day, and the four days that followed. On each visit the guards refilled the water pitcher and left a bowl of food: scraps of bread and sun-dried fish. During these visits neither the guards nor the doctor spoke; they did not acknowledge Penrod’s greetings and blessings.
The bitter potions that the doctor gave him sedated Penrod, and reduced the pain and swelling in his head and shoulder. After he had completed his examination on the fifth day the doctor looked pleased with himself. He readjusted the sling, but when Penrod asked for another dose of the medicine, he shook his head emphatically. When he left the cell, Penrod heard him speaking in a low voice to the guards. He could not catch the words.
By the following morning the effects of the drug had worn off, and his mind was clear and sharp. The arm was tender only when he tried to lift it. He tested himself for any concussion he might have suffered from the head blow, closing first one eye and then the other while he focused on the bars of the window. There was no distortion or any double vision. Then he began to exercise the injured arm, starting first by simply clenching his fist and bending the elbow. Gradually he was able to raise the elbow to the horizontal.
The visits from the taciturn doctor ceased. He took this as a favourable sign. Only his guards made brief visits to leave water and a little food. This left him much time to consider his predicament. He examined the locks on his shackles. They were crude but functional. The mechanism had been developed and refined over the centuries. Without a key or a pick he wasted no more time upon them. Next he turned his mind to deducing where he was. Through the lop-sided window he could see only a tiny section of open sky. He was forced to draw his conclusions from sounds and smells. He knew he was still in Omdurman: not only could he smell the stink of the uncollected rubbish and the dung heaps but in the evenings he caught a softer sweeter whiff of the waters of the river, and could even hear the faint calls of the dhow captains as they tacked and altered sail. Five times a day he heard the wailing cries of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer from the half-built tower of the new mosque, “Hasten to your own good! Hasten to prayer! Allah is great! There is no God but Allah.”
From these clues he pinpointed his position with a certain precision. He was about three hundred yards from the mosque, and half that distance from the riverbank. He was due east of the execution ground and therefore approximately the same distance from the Mahdi’s palace and harem. He could judge the direction of the prevailing wind from the occasional small high cloud that sailed past the window. When it was blowing the stench of rotting corpses from the execution ground was strong. This gave him a rough sense of triangulation. With a sinking sensation in his gut, he decided that he must be in the compound of the Beja tribesmen beside the Beit el Mai, the stronghold of his old enemy Osman Atalan. Next he had to consider how this had happened.
His first thought was that Yakub had betrayed him. He wrestled with this theory for days, but could not persuade himself to accept it. I have trusted my life too many times to that squint-eyed rascal to doubt him now, he thought. If Yakub has sold me to the Dervish, there is no God.
He used the shackle of his chain to scratch a crude calendar in the mud floor. With it he was able to keep track of the days. He had counted fifty-two days before they came to fetch him.
The two guards unlocked the chains from the iron stake. They left his legs and arms shackled. There was sufficient slack in this chain to enable him to shuffle along, but not to run.
They led him out into a small courtyard and through another door into a larger enclosure, around whose walls were seated a hundred or more Beja warriors. Their spears and lances rested against the wall behind them, and their sheathed swords were laid across their laps. They studied Penrod with avid interest. He recognized some of their faces from previous encounters. Then his eyes jumped to the familiar figure seated alone on a raised platform against the far wall. Even among this assembly of fighting men, Osman Atalan was the focus of attention.
The guards urged him forward and, with the chains hampering him, he shambled across the courtyard. When he stood before Osman a guard snarled in his ear, “Down on your knees, infidel! Show respect to the emir of the Beja.”
Penrod drew himself to attention. “Osman Atalan knows better than to order me to my knees,” he said softly, and held the emir’s eyes coolly.
“Down!” repeated the guard, and drove the hilt of his spear into Penrod’s kidney with such force that his legs collapsed under him and he fell in a heap of limbs and chains. With a supreme effort he kept his head up and his eyes locked on Osman’s.
“Head down!” said the guard, and lifted the shaft of the spear to club him again.
“Enough!” said Osman, and the guard stepped back. “Welcome to my home, Abadan Riji.” He touched his lips and then his heart. “From our first encounter on the field of El Obeid I knew there was a bond between us that could not easily be sundered.”
“Only the death of one of us can do that,” Penrod agreed.
“Should I settle that immediately?” Osman mused aloud, and nodded at the man who sat immediately below his dais. “What think you, al-Noor?”
Al-Noor gave full consideration to the question before he replied. “Mighty lord, it would be prudent to scotch the cobra before he stings you again.”
“Will you do this favour for me?” Osman asked, and with one movement al-Noor rose to his feet and stood
