Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air (2 page)

Jerry shook his head. “Its location is a matter of contention among scholars, but nobody places it along the harbor. Most likely it was back from the Royal Quarter, still within the line of the Roman walls, but inland from the palaces.” And that was what the medallion showed, the apparently ordinary Ptolemaic medallion Jerry had found three years earlier whose reverse captured a photorealistic image of Alexandria from the harbor and showed the domed roof of the Soma amid other buildings whose locations were known.

Willi nodded, turning his head to look southward as if mentally matching the scene before him to the scene on the medallion.

Jerry had already done that a thousand times. There in the harbor was the fort that marked the location of the lighthouse. There, just behind where Pompey’s Pillar was a modern tourist attraction, had been the majesty and grace of the Serapeum, one of the great temples of the ancient world destroyed by a Christian mob in the fourth century. Jerry felt the loss of the Serapeum like an ache in his bones, like a phantom pain in his lost leg, though of course it was that the archaeologist in him regretted its treasures. And there, somewhere in that tangle of buildings where they were preparing to dig, was the location of the Pylon of Isis. With those three points it would be possible to triangulate and find the location of the Soma.

“There,” he said, pointing to the posh neighborhood full of British colonial houses and European consulates nestled amid walled gardens replete with orange trees. “In that area.” The Soma most likely lay beneath the modern neighborhood south of the Silsilah Peninisula. “There were gardens behind the palaces,” he said. “The tombs of the Ptolemies were in those gardens with their votive temples, beyond the first city wall. Just outside it were the oldest tombs, like the Alabaster Tomb which was found in 1907. It’s a glorious example of syncretism dating to the reign of the first Ptolemy, with many elements of Macedonian funerary architecture done in Egyptian materials. Most likely it belonged to a prominent official of Ptolemy Soter who had come to Egypt with him.”

“And what does that tell us?” Willi asked.

Jerry dropped his voice. “From the Roman sources who visited, it seems clear that in their era the Soma was near the other royal tombs. It may originally have been in a more central location, and indeed there was a Street of the Soma in another part of town west of here, but the body of Alexander was moved in the second century to a grander building that was part of the palace complex.” Jerry looked toward the distant trees. “It was the most beautiful building of the ancient world, lovelier even than the Serapeum. You approached it through lush gardens from the palace side, and from the other it was near the wall and the street. You came through a gate with your offerings and up a walk lined with sphinxes…”

Willi’s eyebrows rose. “Is that documented?”

“Deduced,” Jerry said, flushing. “With some archeological imagination.” He shrugged. “And of course we know…”

The medallion. It was completely consistent with the medallion. Finding the Pylon of Isis would allow them to triangulate three known sites and find the fourth – the Soma itself.

“Finding the Pylon of Isis is the key,” Willi said.

T
he diggers were all Copts rather than Muslims. Unfortunately for the Met, this year Ramadan fell in November and December, at the beginning of prime digging season. Since it was impractical to hire Muslims to work all day in the sun during Ramadan, Peavey, the Met’s full time liaison in Alexandria, had suggested Jerry hire Copts instead. Since they were Christian, the only days they would expect off would be Christmas Eve and Christmas day, when Jerry closed the dig anyway. However, this was the 26th, and it was back to work.

Thus the only Muslim Egyptian on the dig at present was a graduate student, Mohammad Hussein, who had done his undergraduate work at Oxford. He was a native of Alexandria, the son of a prominent doctor, and went home each evening to his parents’ very comfortable house. He airily proclaimed that his work was not so hard, and doing without food and water all day was a small thing and one he was accustomed to. At twenty-two he seemed very young to Jerry, a neatly trimmed mustache hovering on his upper lip as though uncertain that it belonged there.

The dig itself was not very prepossessing, especially for Egypt. Grand digs employing hundreds of workers were the rule rather than the exception, and the Met currently had a dozen digs in progress at various places around the country, most of them at far more famous sites than a Ptolemaic pylon. Indeed, many archaeologists turned up their noses at Ptolemaic sites as hardly worthy of interest, late-come parvenus who were much less interesting than the 18th Dynasty sites everyone wanted to find. Everyone wanted the next King Tut, an unrobbed royal tomb full of priceless ancient grave goods that would make a man’s reputation. The Pylon of Isis was hardly that. Though no doubt Peavey had been informed by his superiors that Ballard’s dig was more promising than it first appeared, he had said nothing. This was a very minor site, nothing compared to the Met’s dig at Deir el-Bahari.

There were barely twenty men employed as diggers and sievemen, which made it practical to hire only Copts. Rather than being out in barren desert or wild cliffs, it was in the courtyard of an apartment building in downtown Alexandria. The Met had rented the space from the owners, putting up a board fence to keep the neighborhood children from falling into the trenches or parenthetically walking off with anything valuable. When Jerry had arrived that had been all there was to see — a fence around an oil stained dirt parking lot where someone usually parked a truck. A ramshackle shed served as a garage and previously a stable, littered with old oil cans and cigarette packs. A makeshift soccer goal was the lot’s only other improvement, and Jerry promised himself as they dismantled goal and shed that he would get a nice new aluminum one to replace it when they were finished. A crowd of boys watched curiously over the top of the fence, one with a forlorn soccer ball in his arms.

Now the dig was a series of trenches laid out in a neat grid, the deepest ones about seven feet deep. So far all they’d found was a lot of junk. Oil cans had given way to broken bottles and a lost sixpence which had given way in turn to a rusted cast iron pot and tin plates, a horn button that might have dated to the late eighteenth century. Below that they were finding a whole lot of nothing. The Arab city of al-Iskindariyah had been a good deal smaller than both the ancient and modern cities and mostly centered on the Western Harbor. This area had been depopulated then and used as a stone quarry for other buildings.

Jerry sat on a stool under a makeshift awning. A long table was set up with boxes for their finds. So far the horn button held solitary court. The boys had given up watching days ago as no gold or treasures had emerged.

Even Willi looked bored. He had camera and sketchbooks at the ready, but so far nothing remotely worthy of his attention had appeared. “Are you sure this is the correct location?” he asked quietly.

For the fiftieth time Jerry got out the photograph of the Ptolemaic medallion he’d photographed for the Met, the one William Pelley’s goons had tried to steal before it was bought by Iskinder and supposedly taken to Ethiopia. He laid it out on the table next to the modern map of Alexandria and a sketch map of the ancient city based on the account of Strabo. “As sure as I ever was,” he said.

Willi shook his head ruefully. “The Strabo map is supposition, and the photograph is simply not that clear, Jerry. The Pylon of Isis…”

“…is right there,” Jerry said, pointing to it in the photograph.

“But exactly where depends on how big it is,” Willi said. “It could be here, or four blocks back if it’s larger. Or two blocks closer if it’s smaller. This lot…”

“Is one of a number of possibilities, I know.” Jerry dropped his voice. “But it was the only lot in the immediate area that the Met could easily rent. It’s one thing to tear down a shed. But most property owners in the area weren’t about to let us buy their buildings, and for that matter the Met wasn’t willing to spend the kind of money that it would take to buy an apartment building and remove it.”

“That would be very suspicious, yes,” Willi agreed. “Not worth it for the Pylon of Isis.” He took a deep breath. “And so we dig here and hope to get lucky, yes?”

“At worst we’ll find other things which will allow us to get an idea of how these two maps relate to one another.” Jerry gestured to the modern map and the sketched one. “As you say, the Strabo map is based on supposition, on trying to turn his descriptions of the city in 20 BC into a map. Any improvements we can make are useful.”

“As you say,” Willi said. He gave Jerry a quicksilver smile. “Archaeology is a tedious process sometimes, but each step is worthwhile. And if we do not find the Pylon of Isis, perhaps we will get lucky in other ways.”

Jerry felt the blood rush to his face. No one else could have heard Willi’s words except perhaps the nearest diggers, and surely none of them understood American slang. “Maybe so,” he said, turning his attention to putting away the maps and photographs. “We may be successful.”

It was late afternoon, the sun already obscured behind the five story apartment building, when a digger let out a cry. Jerry’s head had risen a split second earlier at the scrape of steel on stone, a shovel against something other than dirt.

“I have found something!” the digger shouted, and Jerry hoisted himself to his feet with effort. Willi was ahead of him, all the other diggers crowding in, milling about in the only excitement in the last three days.

“Let Dr. Ballard through,” Willi said. “Come now. Clear a path.”

It was the trench nearest the building, six feet deep, and leaning over the edge cautiously Jerry could see nothing except dirt in the bottom.

“Here, now,” he said in Arabic. “Everyone give the man room. Let him clear.” If everybody jumped into the trench nobody would be able to do anything. He leaned on his cane at the edge, eager as anyone to see. Would it be a building block? Or better yet the solid sandstone that might be the Pylon of Isis itself?

The digger began clearing with shovel before young Mohammad Hussein jumped down beside him with a trowel and brush, heedless of his good black suit. Behind him the others crowded up. “What is it? What is it?”

“Stone,” Mohammad called up, entirely unnecessarily as they already knew that. Beneath his deft hands a surface was emerging, square paving stones each about the size of Jerry’s hand set in mortar.

“It’s the Roman street,” Jerry said.

Willi looked at him sharply.

“The shape of the cobbles,” Jerry said. He gestured with his cane. “Square cobbles without rounded corners. Those are Roman, not Ptolemaic.”

Mohammad glanced up from the bottom of the trench. “Shall we clear to the edges?”

“Yes,” Jerry said. “Let’s see if we can find the curb. That will orient us on the axis of the street. It will tell us if this is a north/south street or an east/west one.”

“And if the curb isn’t within the boundaries of the trench?” Willi asked. “This is the end trench closest to the building.”

“Then we clear the trench just north of it down to the same depth,” Jerry said. “If that’s Roman pavement too, we’ve got a north/south street. If it’s not, then this is an east/west street paralleling the Canopic Way but a few blocks north of it.” He lifted his head, the setting sun touching his face beneath the brim of his hat. “Which is what I think it is.”

He couldn’t say why. It simply felt right, right in his bones. This was an east/west street north of the Canopic Way and south of the Brucheum, the first city walls that enclosed only the Royal Quarter in Roman times. But where did that put the Pylon of Isis? Orienting to the old grid of city streets was all very well, but that didn’t find the landmark they sought. Was the Pylon of Isis north or south of this street? Was this the street that ran in front of it or behind it?

The sun winked, dipping behind the roof of a neighboring building. Scents of food cooking rose in the evening air, women preparing the meals that would break the fast after nightfall. It was almost time to stop work for the day.

Mohammad stood up. “We won’t get this clear before sunset,” he said. “Shall I pay the finder and tell the men to cease?”

“Yes,” Jerry said. “And tomorrow we’ll get the next trench to the same depth.”

Willi jumped down into the trench with a roll of oiled cloth to spread over the exposed stones on the bottom though the chances of rain looked nil. This was not like the dig in Hawaii where they’d dealt with torrential rains.

“Tomorrow we’ll see where we are.”

December 27, 1935

I
t had been months since Lewis had been in Henry Kershaw’s new Dart, and then the fighter had been unnamed, a raw duralumin fuselage shaped around the nose-mounted cannon and the latest generation of Henry’s Wizard engines, the cockpit full of rough edges and awkward angles. This latest prototype was better finished, and better painted, red nose and tail and wingtips against bright white, designed to be visible against the brilliant Mediterranean skies, but it felt the same in his hands, raw power trembling on the edge of balance. He’d only had a couple of hours to talk to Henry the night before about the changes – more power from the new inverted-v Warlock, re-ballasting to move the center of gravity forward, retractable landing gear and a few small changes to the ailerons – but he’d read through the latest test results, and was confident he understood what he was feeling.

Static crackled in his headphones, and Boccadifalco Tower spoke in his ear. “Dart, this is Boccadifalco. You are cleared for maneuvers. Please inform when you are ready for acrobatics.”

“Tower, this is Dart.” Lewis did his best to speak slowly and distinctly: English was not the tower’s first language, though so far they were all managing to make themselves understood. “Roger that. I am cleared for maneuvers.”