The Lost Army of Cambyses (40 page)

what Samali said was true they'd have wanted the

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missing bit of text as much as the fundamentalists.

The stakes are unbelievably high here. Higher

than I ever thought possible.'

They stood gazing up at the wall. Despite the

heat she found she was shivering. There was

another long silence.

'So what does the rest of it say?' she asked

eventually. 'You didn't finish.'

He shone the torch up again, to the place where

he had stopped reading.

'Where were we? Ah yes: "But I came to the

land of the cows. The Gods were with me. I was

very great in their favour." OK, here we go.' He

stared up, eyes narrowed with concentration. 'The

next word seems to be a name, although it's not an

Egyptian one.' He moved nearer, squinting at the

wall. 'It looks like an Egyptian rendering of a

Greek name. It's hard to know precisely what –

the Egyptians didn't use vowels, just consonants.'

He spelled the word out slowly.

'Demmichos.
Or
Dimmachos.
Something like

that.
Dimmachos was my name, son of
. . .' He

paused again.

'. . .
Menendes of Naxos. When my deeds were

known, however, I was named ib-wer-imenty.
Of

course!' He was laughing.

'What?'

'Ib-wer-imenty. It's a play on words. I should

have seen it before.
Ib-wer,
great heart;
imenty,
of the west. But
ib-wer
can also be read as Great

Thirst. Appropriate for a man who'd just walked a

hundred and twenty kilometres alone through the

desert. This man must originally have been a

Greek. A mercenary, probably. Egypt was full of

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them at the time. A Greek soldier, in service to a

Persian ruler with an Egyptian nickname.'

He flashed the torch at the images they'd looked

at earlier: the pale-skinned man before the table

piled with fruit; the man with braided hair and

beard, kneeling before his king; the red-skinned

figure offering to the goddess Isis.

'That's why we have three different styles of

representation here. To highlight three different

aspects of the same person. Greek, Persian,

Egyptian. It's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.'

He returned the beam to the wall, and ran

through the last five columns of text.

'When my deeds were known, how I had

returned from the dead, Cambyses placed me at

his right hand, and advanced me, and made me his

beloved friend, for I had come alive from the

desert, and he knew the Gods were with me.

'Land I was given, and titles, and riches. Under

the person of Darius, living enduringly, I prospered

and became great. I surpassed any peer of mine in

all kinds of dignity and wealth. A wife I took.

Three sons she bore. Great I became in the king's

counsel. Faithful always. Strong of heart. True

protector. Foremost in position in the house of his

lord.

'In Waset I had my estates . . .
Waset was the

ancient Egyptian name for Thebes, modern Luxor

. . . In Waset I was content. In Waset I lived long.

I never again came to Naxos, place of my birth.

'Oh living ones upon the earth who may pass by

this tomb and who love life and who hate death,

may you say: "Osiris transfigure ib-wer-

imenty
. . ." '

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His voice dropped off and he lowered the torch.

'The rest is just prayers from the books of the

afterlife.' He shook his head, pulling on the

cheroot, its tip glowing bright orange in the dark-

ness. 'What an incredible story, eh? A lowly Greek

mercenary who marched with the army of

Cambyses, came back from the dead and rose to

become the friend and confidant of kings. Like

something out of a Homeric myth. I could spend

the rest of my life—'

There was a clatter of stones from the gully out-

side. Daniel looked at Tara, eyes wide, and flicked

off the torch, grinding his cheroot out on the floor.

Blackness smothered them. There was a muffled

whispering from the top end of the passageway

and then a scrabbling sound as someone climbed

into the tomb. They shrank back into a corner,

pressing themselves against the wall, Tara clasping

Daniel's shoulder, wanting to scream but unable to

summon any sound from her throat.

There was more scrabbling and then a pale

beam of light lanced down the corridor and into

the chamber. The whispering grew louder and

there was the slow thud of approaching feet.

Twenty metres, ten, five, and then they were at the

chamber entrance. There was a pause and then a

black-robed figure leaped from the passageway

into the room.

With a cry Daniel charged at him, knocking him

to the ground.

'Get out, Tara!' he cried. 'For Christ's sake . . .'

Two more figures leaped into the chamber,

punching him to the floor.

'Daniel!'

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She rushed forward, screaming his name.

Someone grabbed her and threw her to the

ground. She struggled to her feet, lashing out with

her fists, but was knocked down again, harder this

time, so that the breath was driven out of her.

There was shouting and movement and then,

suddenly, the chamber was filled with searing

white light. Unaccustomed to the brightness, her

eyes clamped shut.

'So,' laughed a triumphant voice, 'the rats are

caught in a trap!'

She blinked. Four men were standing in front of

her, two holding machine-guns, one a rifle and one

a cudgel. Above, in the entrance to the corridor, a

halogen lamp in his hand, was Dravic. Several

other men were crowded into the shaft behind

him. Tara clambered unsteadily to her feet. Daniel

too was getting up, his nose streaming blood. He

came to her side.

'Are you OK?' she asked.

He nodded. Dravic cast his eyes around the

floor of the chamber, then handed the lamp to the

man beside him and jumped down.

'I see our friend the cobra is no longer here,' he

remarked. 'Obviously not as effective a guard as

we thought. A shame. I should have enjoyed

watching you die slowly from his venom.'

He came towards them, his huge frame seeming

to fill half the chamber, blocking out the light of

the lamp. Tara shrank back against the wall, her

cheek burning from where she had been hit.

'How did you know we were here?' mumbled

Daniel, voice thick, mouth smeared with blood.

Dravic laughed. 'Did you seriously think the

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only thing we'd do to protect the tomb would be

to put a fucking snake down here? You stupid

idiots! We had a lookout hidden at the top of the

gully. When he saw you he called us and we came

straight back.'

'What are you going to do with us?' asked Tara,

her voice unsteady.

'Kill you, of course.' The giant's tone was

matter of fact. 'It's just a question of how and

when. And what I do to you first.'

He looked down at her, smiling, his lips glisten-

ing moistly, like long pink worms.

'And be assured, there are things I want to do to

you first.'

He reached out a hand and ran a finger across

her breast. She swiped it away, a spasm of disgust

pinching her face.

'You killed my father,' she hissed.

'Oh, I wanted to,' he laughed. 'I would have

enjoyed it. Unfortunately he dropped dead before

I had the chance. I was as upset as you were about

it.' He noticed the pain in her eyes and his laughter

redoubled.

'He went down right in front of me,' he said,

goading. 'One minute he was standing, the next he

was wriggling around on the floor like a stuck pig.

I've never seen anyone die so pathetically.'

He turned and said something in Arabic to the

men. They started laughing too. Despite her fear, a

wave of fury surged through Tara. She drew her

head back and spat as hard as she could in

Dravic's face. The laughter stopped abruptly. She

braced herself, ready for the inevitable blow.

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It didn't come, however. For a moment the giant

stood where he was, a wad of spittle inching down

his purple cheek and then, raising a hand, he

scooped it off.

'Have you ever been raped?' he asked quietly,

staring down at the liquid on his fingers.

'Violated? Your body used as a plaything by

others, quite against your will? Vagina, anus,

mouth? No? Then, believe me, you have some-

thing to look forward to.'

'Don't, Dravic,' growled Daniel.

'Oh don't worry, Lacage. You won't be left out.'

He flicked the spittle away and, reaching into

his pocket, drew out a small metal trowel, the

edges gleaming sharply in the light of the lamp.

'Not all violations need be of a sexual nature,

after all.'

His arm whipped out and the blade of the trowel

sliced across Daniel's arm. He winced in pain as a

line of blood swelled up beneath his shirt.

'Those pleasures, however, are for later.' The

giant returned the trowel to his pocket. 'We have

certain things to deal with first.'

He turned and looked at the wall of hiero-

glyphs, motioning to the man with the lamp to

come closer.

'So, at last we have the final piece of the jigsaw.

A shame it was ever removed in the first place. If

things had been left as they were we might have

saved ourselves a lot of time and trouble. And

pain.'

He glanced across at Tara, grinned lasciviously,

then went over to the wall and squatted in front of

it, examining the text.

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'Normally if a new tomb is discovered in these

hills, we are the first to hear about it. The locals

know it is in their interests to come straight to us.

Otherwise they risk incurring the wrath of Sayf al-

Tha'r. And of myself. And they know that's not a

good thing to do.

'In this case, however, it was found by someone

who decided to go it alone. He paid for his greed,

but not before he had removed certain objects.

Including, of course, this one vital piece.'

He plucked the plaster fragment from the wall

and turned it over in his hands.

'Ironic that he should have hacked out this

particular part of the text. He had no idea of its

importance, of course. He simply wanted a bit of

decoration to sell. Given time, he would have

stripped every wall in the place. Unfortunately for

him, he started with the one piece that pinpointed

the precise location of the army, thus condemning

not merely himself but several others to a most

distressing end.'

Even from three metres away Tara could smell

the thick, sour odour of his body. It made her

want to gag.

'None of that matters now, however,' he con-

tinued. 'We have the piece. And this time

tomorrow we will have the army too. And

then . . .' Again that mocking, lascivious look at

Tara. 'And then the fun really begins.'

He shouted something in Arabic and two men

with sledgehammers jumped into the chamber. He

nodded towards the section of text Daniel had

translated earlier and, coming forward, they raised

the sledgehammers and flung them against the

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wall, shattering the plaster, knocking great holes

in it, ripping it from the rock.

'Oh Jesus!' cried Daniel, leaping forward. 'No!

Please God, stop!'

A gun barrel was jabbed into his stomach, push-

ing him back.

'You can't destroy it!' He was choking. 'For

God's sake, you can't!'

'An unfortunate but necessary precaution,' said

Dravic. 'The rest of the decoration can stay, but

we cannot risk someone else finding the tomb and

reading about the army. Not yet.'

Broad slabs of hieroglyph-covered plaster were

crashing to the floor in an explosion of white dust.

While one of the men continued to hammer at the

wall the other began pounding the pieces on the

floor, breaking them into hundreds of tiny

fragments. Daniel lowered his head in despair.

When the entire section of wall had been

destroyed Dravic waved the men away. The

atmosphere in the chamber was heavy with dust.

Tara began coughing.

'So what now?' whispered Daniel, unable to

take his eyes off the heap of crushed plaster.

Dravic moved towards the chamber entrance,

the piece of text in his hand. He passed it to one

of the men, and was hoisted up into the mouth of

the corridor.

'Now,' he said, turning to look at them, 'some-

thing rather unpleasant is going to happen to you.'

He signalled with his hand and disappeared up