The Quest - Smith Wilbur (читать лучшие читаемые книги TXT) 📗

'We are ready to close the eye, Dr Gibba,' she said softly. Gibba withdrew the dilators, then pinched the lids shut between thumb and forefinger. Hannah took up a thin silver needle threaded with a fine strand prepared from a sheep's intestine. With deft fingers she placed three stitches in the lids. While Gibba held Meren's head she bandaged it with the same intricate pattern of intertwined linen strips that was used by the embalmers at the Egyptian funereal temples. She left openings for Meren's nostrils and mouth. Then she sat back on her haunches with an air of satisfaction. 'Thank you, Dr Gibba. As usual your assistance has been invaluable.'

'Is that all?' Taita asked. 'Is the operation complete?'

'If there is no mortification or other complication, I will remove the stitches in twelve days' time,' Hannah replied. 'Our main concern until then will be to protect the eye from light and interference by the patient.

He will experience a great deal of discomfort during this period. There will be sensations of burning and itching so intense that they cannot be readily alleviated by sedatives. Although he might control himself while he is awake, in his sleep he will try to rub the eye. He must be watched day and night by trained attendants, and his hands will be bound. He must be moved to a windowless, dark cell to avoid light aggravating the pain and preventing the seeding from germinating. It will be a difficult time for your protege and he will need your help to come through it.'

'Why is it necessary to close both his eyes, even the one that is unharmed?'

'If he moves the healthy eye to focus on objects it perceives, the new one will respond in sympathy. We must keep it as quiescent as possible.'

Despite Hannah's warning, Meren experienced little discomfort for the first three days after the seeding of his eye. His greatest hardship was being deprived of sight, and the subsequent boredom.

Taita tried to entertain him with reminiscences of the many adventures they had shared over the years, the places they had visited and the men and women they had known. They discussed what effect the drought of the Nile was having on their homeland, the suffering inflicted on the people and how Nefer Seti and the queen were dealing with the calamity. They spoke about their home at Gallala and what they might find there when they returned from their odyssey. These were all subjects they had covered many times before, but the sound of Taita's voice soothed Meren.

He was woken on the fourth day by sharp pains lancing through the socket. They were as regular as the beat of his heart and so painful that he gasped with each stab and reached instinctively to his eye with both hands. Taita sent the attendant to find Hannah. She came at once and unwound the bandage, 'No mortification,' she said immediately, and began to replace the old bandage with a fresh one. 'This is the result we hoped for. The seeding has grafted and is beginning to take root.'

'You use the same terms as a gardener,' Taita said.

'That is what we are: gardeners of men,' she replied.

Meren did not sleep for the next three days. As the pain intensified he moaned and tossed on his mattress. He would not eat, and was able to drink only a few bowlfuls of water each day. When at last sleep overcame him he lay on his back, arms strapped to his sides with strips of leather, and snored through the mouth hole in his bandages. He slept for a night and a day.

When he awoke the itching began. 'It feels as though fire ants are crawling in my eye.' He groaned and tried to rub his face against the rough stone wall of the cell. The attendant had to call two of his colleagues to restrain him, for Meren was a powerful man. With lack of food and sleep, though, the flesh seemed to melt from his body. His ribs showed clearly through the skin of his chest, and his belly shrank until it seemed to rest against his backbone.

Over the years he and Taita had become so close that Taita suffered with him. The only time he could escape from the cell was when Meren fell into short and restless bouts of sleep. Then he could leave him in the care of an attendant and wander in the botanical gardens.

282 I

Taita found a peculiar quality of peace in these gardens that drew him back time after time. They were not laid out in any particular order: rather, they were a maze of avenues and pathways, some of which were heavily overgrown. Each twist or turning led to fresh vistas of delight. In the warm sweet airs, the mingled scents of the blooms were heady and intoxicating. The grounds were so extensive that he encountered only a few of the gardeners who tended this paradise. At his appearance they slipped away, more like wraiths than humans. On each visit he discovered delightful new arbours and shaded walks that he had overlooked before, but when he tried to find his way back to them on his next visit they had disappeared and been replaced with others no less lovely and enticing. It was a garden of exquisite surprises.

On the tenth day after the seeding Meren seemed easier. Hannah rebandaged the eye, and declared herself pleased. 'As soon as the pain ceases completely I will be able to remove the stitches from the eyelid and review the progress he has made.'

Meren passed another peaceful night and woke with a fine appetite for his breakfast, and a resuscitated sense of humour. It was Taita rather than the patient who felt depleted and drained. Even though his eyes were still covered, Meren seemed to sense Taita's condition, his need to rest and be alone. Taita was often surprised by the flashes of intuition his usually bluff and uncomplicated companion displayed, and was moved when Meren said, 'You have played nursemaid to me long enough, Magus. Leave me alone to piddle the mattress if I need to. Go and rest. I am sure you must look dreadful.'

Taita took up his staff, and hitched the skirts of his tunic under his girdle and set off for the upper section of the gardens furthest from the sanatorium. He found this the most attractive area. He was not sure why, except that it was the wildest, most untended part of the crater. Huge boulders had broken off the rock wall and tumbled down to stand like ruined monuments to ancient kings and heroes. Over them, plants climbed and twisted in flowering profusion. He picked his way along a track he had thought he knew well, but at the point that it turned sharply between two of the great boulders he noticed for the first time that another well-defined path continued straight on towards the soaring cliff of the crater wall. He was sure that it had not been there on his last visit, but he had become accustomed to the gardens' illusory features and followed it without hesitation. Within a short distance he heard running water somewhere to his right. He followed the sound and at last pushed his way through a screen of greenery to discover another hidden nook.

He stepped into the little clearing and looked around curiously. A tiny stream issued from the mouth of a grotto, ran down over a series of lichen-covered ledges and into a pool.I It was all so charming and restful that Taita eased himself on to a patch of soft grass and, with a sigh, leant back against the trunk of a fallen tree. For a while he gazed down into the dark waters. Deep in the pool he picked out the shadow of a large fish, half concealed by a rock shelf and the ferns that overhung the water. Its tail waved hypnotically, like a flag in a lazy wind. Watching it, he realized how tired he was, and closed his eyes. He did not know how long he had slept before he was awakened by soft music.

The musician sat on a stone ledge at the far side of the pool, a boy of three or four, an imp with a mop of curls that bounced on his cheeks when he moved his head in time to the tune he was blowing on a reed flute. His skin was tanned to gold, and his features were angelic, while his little limbs were perfectly rounded and plump. He was beautiful, but when Taita gazed at him with the Inner Eye he saw no aura surrounding him.