It took five more days for Ryder and Bakhita to evolve an escape plan for the prisoners in Omdurman that had a reasonable chance of success.
On the following day Yakub left alone for the Sudan.
Osman Atalan was well pleased with the report that Penrod brought him back from the passes of the Abyssinian highlands. He listened with great attention to his suggestions concerning the conduct of the campaign against Emperor John, and they discussed all these in exhaustive detail during the course of the long return, journey to Omdurman.
Once they reached that city, Penrod found that the conditions of his imprisonment were much relaxed. He had achieved a position of conditional trust, which had been his objective from the first day of his capture. It was what he had set out to achieve by indulging Osman Atalan, and pretending to submit to his will. However, he was still accompanied at all times by selected aggagiers of Osman’s personal bodyguard. During the months after their return to Omdurman Osman spent much time with the Khalifat Abdullahi. Al-Noor told Penrod that he was trying to persuade Abdullahi to allow him to return to his tribal domain in the desert. However, Abduliahi was too foxy and devious to allow a man of such power and influence as Osman Atalan to escape his direct supervision and control. Osman was allowed out of Omdurman only for brief punitive raids and reprisals on those persons and tribes who had incurred Abdullahi’s displeasure, or for hunting and hawking excursions into the desert.
When he returned to the city, Osman found himself with much time on his hands. One day he sent for Penrod. “I have watched the way you wield a blade. It is contrary to usage and custom, and lacks even the semblance of grace.”
Penrod lowered his gaze to hide his anger at the insult, and with an effort refrained from reminding him of their first meeting at El Obeid in which the mighty Khalif Atalan had countered Penrod’s feint by raising his targe and blocking his own view of the thrust that followed, a riposte that passed close to his heart.
“However,” said Osman, ‘it holds some interest.”
Penrod looked up at him and saw the glimmer of mockery in his eyes. “Exalted Khalif, from such a master swordsman as you are, this is praise that warms my soul,” he mocked in return.
“It will amuse me to practise at arms against you, and to demonstrate the true and noble usage of the long blade,” said Osman. “We will begin tomorrow after the morning prayers.”
The next morning as they faced each other with naked blades, Osman set out the rules of engagement, “I shall try to kill you. You will try to kill me. If I succeed I will hold your memory in contempt. If you succeed, my aggagiers,” he indicated the fifteen men that formed a circle around him, ‘will immediately kill you, but you will be buried with much honour. I shall commission a special prayer to be recited in the mosque in your memory. Am I not a benevolent master?”
“The mighty Atalan is fair and just,” Penrod agreed, and they went to it. Twenty minutes later, when Osman was slow on the recovery, Penrod nicked his forearm in warning.
Osman’s gaze was murderous. “Enough for now. We shall fight again in two days’ time.”
After that they fought for an hour every second day, and Osman learnt to recover swiftly and riposte like a hussar. Gradually Penrod found himself more seriously taxed, and was forced to exert all his own skill to restrain his opponent. At the end of Ramadan Osman told him, “I have a gift for you.”
Her name was Lalla. She was a frightened and abused little thing, a child of war, pestilence and famine. She did not remember her father or mother, and in all her short life nobody had ever shown her kindness.
Penrod was kind to her. He paid one of al-Noor’s concubines to wash her as though she were a stray puppy, and to dress her tangled hair. He provided her with fresh clothing to replace her rags. He allowed her to cook his meals, launder his clothes, and sweep the floor of the small cell off the courtyard of the aggagiers, which was his lodging. He let her sleep outside his door. He treated her as though she was human, not an animal.
For the first time in her life Lalla had sufficient food. Hunger had been part of her life from as far back as she could remember. She did not grow fat, but her bones were gradually covered with a little flesh. Sometimes he heard crooning softly over the fire as she cooked his meal. Whenever he returned to the courtyard of the aggagiers she smiled. Once when Osman had succeeded in touching his right shoulder with the long blade, Lalla dressed the wound under his instruction. It was a flesh wound and healed swiftly. Penrod told her she was an angel of mercy, and he bought her a cheap silver bracelet in the souk as a reward. She crept away with it to a corner of the yard and wept with happiness. It was the first gift she had ever received.
That night she crept shyly on to Penrod’s angareb, and he did not have the heart to send her away. When she whimpered with her nightmares, he stroked her head. She woke and cuddled closer to him. When he made love to her it was without lust or passion, but with pity. The following evening while she was cooking his dinner he spoke to her quietly: “If I asked you to do something dangerous and difficult for me, would you do it, Lalla?”
“My lord, I would do whatever you ask.”
“If I asked you to put your hand in the fire and bring out a burning brand for me, would you do it?” Without hesitation she reached towards the flames and he had to seize her wrist to prevent her thrusting her hand into them. “No, not that! I want you to carry a message for me. Do you know the woman Nazeera, whom they call Ammi? She works in the harem as a servant of the white concubines.”
“I know her, my lord.”
“Tell her that Filfil is safe with al-Sakhawi in Abyssinia.” Filfil, or Pepper, was Saffron’s Arabic name.
Lalla waited her chance to accost Nazeera discreetly at the well, which was a gathering place for all the women, and delivered the message faithfully. Nazeera hurried back to give the news to Rebecca and Amber.
Within days Nazeera had met Lalla again at the well. She had a message for her to take to Penrod. “Yakub is here in Omdurman,” Lalla reported faithfully.
Penrod was amazed. “It cannot be the Yakub I know. That rascal disappeared a long time ago.”
“He wants me to meet him,” Lalla said. “What will you have me do?”
“Where will you meet?”
“I will be with Nazeera in the souk, at the camel market.”
“Will it be safe for you?” Penrod asked.
Lalla shrugged. “That is of no account. If you ask it, I will do it.”
When she returned he asked, “How was this Yakub?”
“He has two eyes, but they do not follow each other. One looks east and the other north.”
“That is the Yakub I know.” How could he ever have doubted him, Penrod asked himself.
“He said to tell you that the peerless Yakub is still your servant. He has languished a year and three months in an Egyptian prison, unjustly accused of trading in slaves. Only when he was released was he able to go to the lady of Aswan. Now she has sent him back to you with tidings that are much to your benefit.”
Penrod knew instantly who was the lady of Aswan, and his heart leapt. He had not thought of Bakhita recently, but she was still there, as constant as she had ever been. With her and Yakub he was no longer alone. “You have done well, Lalla. No one could have done better,” he said, and her face glowed.
He had now established a line of communication to the outside world, but Lalla was a simple child, incapable of remembering more than a few sentences at a time, and the meetings with Nazeera and Yakub could be risked only at intervals of several days: Abdullahi and Osman had spies everywhere.
Planning the escape was a long-drawn-out and complicated business. Twice Yakub had to leave Omdurman and make the hazardous journey to Abyssinia to consult Ryder Courtney and Bakhita. But, very slowly, the plan took shape.
The attempt would be made on the first Friday of Ramadan, five months hence. Yakub would have camels waiting on the far bank of the Nile, hidden among the ruins of Khartoum. By some ruse or subterfuge, Penrod would find his own way out of the courtyard of the aggagiers. Nazeera would spirit Rebecca and Amber out of the harem to a waiting felucca that she would arrange. Penrod would meet them there, and the felucca would ferry them across the Nile. Then, on Yakub’s camels, they would dash up the south bank of the Blue Nile to where Jock McCrump would have the old this hidden in the Lagoon of the Little Fish. He would take them up to Roseires, where horses would be waiting for the final dash to the Abyssinian border.
“Will you take me with you, my lord?” Lalla asked wistfully.
What on earth would I do with her? Penrod wondered. She was not pretty, but had an endearing monkey face, and she looked at him with worshipful adoration. “I will take you with me wherever I go,” he promised, and thought, Perhaps I can marry her to Yakub. She would make him a perfect little wife.
Only four weeks later, when everything was at last in place, Lalla brought Penrod another message, which
