Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air (12 page)

Alma frowned, the coffee forgotten.  “No.”

“He hardly talked at all,” Mitch said.

“He came back and asked a bunch of questions about fuel consumption and payload and stuff,” Tiny said. “I told him what I could, but a lot of it, well, I said he’d need to talk to you.”  He looked from one to the other. “That was ok, wasn’t it?”

“Fine,” Alma said, and tried to ignore the niggling worry at the pit of her stomach.

“What’s he up to?” Mitch asked.

“He’s a pilot, and he’s a count,” Alma said, “which ought to mean he’s got some money. The Air Minister was needling him about buying one for — some business of his own? But I don’t know why Göring would care.”

“Mr. Göring’s his uncle by marriage,” Tiny said. “That’s what he said.”

“Maybe he doesn’t approve of the current Mrs. Göring,” Mitch said.

“Maybe so.” Alma drained the last of her coffee. “So let’s assume it’s a family thing. Not our business.”

“For now,” Mitch said, and Alma slanted a glance at him.

“For now.”

December 29, 1935

Jerry woke before dawn and dressed without a light. It seemed entirely natural that he had two good legs and that he put on a robe of fine white linen like the robe he wore in ritual. He did not shave — his well-trimmed beard required nothing this morning. He went down the stairs while the sky grayed the stars still bright above Alexandria.

The part of him that was Dr. Jerry Ballard realized that he was dreaming, but it seemed an unimportant fact. The damaged body that lay sleeping in his apartment bed might be the dream and this — this was real. This man was his own age, vigorous, quick-minded and quick-handed, and he walked through the grid of streets without hesitation.

Down the block on the ground floor of one of the insulae a cookshop was opening for the morning, the proprietor opening the shutters while his boy washed off the white stones of the terrace around the little tables with a bucket of water and a mop. Jerry raised a hand to him in greeting, a wave which was returned. At the first corner past he turned into a larger street, the dawn breeze picking up as it blew down the length of the wide street that led directly to the harbor. Lights showed in windows here and there. Far away, beyond the end of the street, was a brighter gleam, the vast mirrors of the lighthouse turning, casting their shifting beam over land and sea.

He put his back to the harbor and walked on. The gates of the Serapeum ahead were well guarded, eight men on the post, the gates closed. They had never used to need to do this. The temple used to be able to stand open night and day…

Day, and bright sun. Day, and the gates giving at last before the mob, the screams and the sound of splintering wood, a cobblestone that came out of nowhere hitting him full in the side of the head, ears ringing and sight going blind…

Jerry snapped awake, his whole body twisting, phantom pains spiraling down a leg that was no longer there. His breath was harsh in the cool night air. Jerry sat up, clutching sweated sheets and looking about the room. Everything was just as he had left it. The window was cracked, a little cool air coming in. Everything was quiet. The clock said that it was still short of six am.

Jerry took a deep breath. Dreams. They had been only dreams, imaginings pieced together out of the events of the day, imagining that he walked the city he excavated. It was archaeological imagination. He could even put names to the events. That had been the destruction of the Serapeum, perhaps the greatest temple of its age, destroyed and looted by a Christian mob in 391 AD. It had been so thoroughly ruined that only a few tumbled stones remained for the modern archaeologist. He knew this — knew it through years of study. It was just that sleep gave shape to his reading. Dreams reared temples from ruins.

And yet it felt real. His heart pounded still from a mortal blow, and he put his hand to his head. Of course there was no blood. Nothing had happened. He stilled his hands against the cool cotton sheets. Certainly he wasn’t going back to sleep. He might as well get up.

The coffee was perking on the tiny stove and Jerry was getting out a mug when Iskinder came out of the other room, scrubbing his stubbled chin with one hand. He checked when he saw Jerry. “You’re up early.”

“So are you,” Jerry said. “Coffee?”

“Please.” Iskinder got a second mug. “I’ve never entirely managed to get in the habit of tea. But then…” his eyes twinkled at the lead for an old joke.

“…coffee is your cultural heritage,” Jerry finished. He poured for them both. It had been a long-running excuse for requiring black coffee at all hours of the day when they’d been in college.

They settled companionably at the little table. Iskinder looked at him a little too keenly. “Is your leg bothering you?”

“No.” Jerry shook his head. “Dreams.”

“Bad ones?”

“Good, and then bad.” Jerry stirred a scant teaspoon of sugar into his cup. “I dreamed about Alexandria. Natural, I suppose.” He didn’t look up. “I dreamed about being a priest of the Serapeum.”

“I imagine you were,” Iskinder said evenly. “I’ve seen you garbed that way.”

Jerry met his eyes. “It seems silly when I say it out loud. Like some of the less rational people in our world who claim to talk to Jesus or the Ascended Masters or time travelers from the future or all-knowing spirits of Indians.”

“And yet,” Iskinder quoted, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

“The Bard has a word for every occasion,” Jerry said. He took a long drink of the hot coffee. “You saw it?”

“I think so.” Iskinder shrugged. “In New York three years ago. But you’ve always loved Alexandria, haven’t you?”

“Oh yes. The first time I was here, the 12-13 season…” Jerry closed his eyes and then opened them again. “I suppose I fell in love with the city. Or with what it was. Or what it represents to me.”

“And what is that?”

“The White City.”

Iskinder quirked an eyebrow. “Jonathan Edwards’ City on the Hill? We certainly heard quite a lot about that at Harvard.”

“No,” Jerry said. “The City on the Hill is a Puritan dream, the city of the righteous where everyone follows the same creed and everyone is Saved by a Calvinist god. The White City is almost its antithesis, the crossroads of the world. The city of a million voices, with prayers rising in a hundred languages with song or with incense or with chanting. The city of a thousand creeds, of freedom and democracy and the constant jostling of ideas. A society based on liberty and humanity.”

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” Iskinder said. “The Statue of Liberty.”

“Sometimes I see the shade of the White City in New York,” Jerry said. “What we could be. What I want us to be. I want us to be that torch to the world. I want New York to be that beacon. But we’re not. Not quite. Not when every street corner has tramps begging for a dime, men who should be working to support their families but there’s no work. Not when there’s segregation and gangs out looking for a tramp to roll and people driving by in limousines. But I see the shadow of it. The promise of what we might be.”

Iskinder nodded slowly. “And this was the first White City.”

“Yes. This was the first time someone deliberately built that. And it failed, and it never was everything it might have been, but it was the greatest city for an age. It came the closest in a thousand years.” Jerry felt tears start in his eyes entirely unexpectedly. “And for that I revere it.”

Iskinder took a deep breath, then pulled the wrapped bundle of the pectoral out of his pocket. “And that’s why this comes to you. As a symbol of everything you treasure.”

“As that,” Jerry said. “And for you.”

Iskinder smiled. “Ah Jerry. A true friend is priceless.” He clasped his hand across the table. “Now I had best get dressed and busy. I need to meet this man we had dealings with, Michel Claudet. The Emperor’s proxy arranged for him to receive the shipment of arms and keep them in his warehouse until someone arrived for them. Then he’s supposed to have a plane to transport them and me back to Ethiopia.”

“Surely you’re not going out on the street now,” Jerry said. “Today is Eid.”

“And that’s why I must go today,” Iskinder said. “The streets will be very busy with everyone running to family parties and gathering for one thing and another. If there is a time that I can be inconspicuous in a crowd, it will be today. And M. Claudet is French. He does not keep Eid.”

“Just be careful,” Jerry said.

J
erry spread the big map of Alexandria out on the desk while Bill Peavey closed the door, instructing his secretary not to interrupt for anything short of a catastrophe. Willi lit a cigarette while Jerry unfolded the Strabo map and, of course, brought out an 8 by 10 blow up of the photo of the medallion.

“Ok,” Peavey said, coming around the desk, barely leashed excitement in his voice. “What have we got here?”

“The Pylon of Isis,” Willi said. “Just as we had hoped.” He sat down in one of the visitor chairs, leaving Jerry and Peavey to bend over the map.

“The Pylon of Isis is here,” Jerry said, pointing to the city map. “We’ve found the street that ran immediately north of it, and its north face. You can see how that works on the grid of city streets here.” He gestured to the other map, the one drawn from the descriptions of Strabo, the Roman traveler.

Peavey nodded. “So it looks like the suppositions were correct.”

“So far,” Jerry said. He could feel the sweat popping out beneath his undershirt, but Peavey had closed the windows. He was out on a ledge here, making the biggest pitch of his career. “Taking into account the medallion, and the location of these three points,” he said, gesturing to the map, “the fourth building should be more or less here.”

“The Soma.” Peavey chewed on the stem of his pipe, his eyes never leaving the map, the penciled lines that triangulated the position, first on the Strabo map, and then lightly drawn over the city streets.

“Yes,” Jerry said.

Peavey took a deep breath. “It’s still a big area. Several blocks. West of the Mosque Nabi Daniel and south of the Silsileh Peninsula… That’s a nice neighborhood. It’s going to be difficult to get anyone to let us dig. And we don’t know exactly where.”

“We know as much as we can without getting underground,” Jerry said. “We’ve got the location down to a few hundred yards. It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Peavey nodded. “True enough. And we don’t necessarily have to tear houses down to put in some test trenches. Gardens, basements…everybody’s got a basement that’s built on top of something. Dig down in somebody’s basement and you’re in Roman ruins or cisterns or something. We might be able to pay some of these folks to let us put a test trench in their basement. I’ll start making some discreet inquiries.” He looked up at Jerry and Willi. “Discreet. Which means you two don’t say a word to anybody.”

“We would not,” Willi said. “We know that there are other interests.”

“Every museum in the world would like to get wind of this,” Peavey said. “But the Met’s got dibs, and I intend to keep it that way.”

“We’ll continue on with the Pylon of Isis then,” Jerry said. “Do a textbook job. And then when you have the other dig lined up…”

“…if I have it lined up,” Peavey said. “I’ve got to get the people who own these houses to agree, and just waving money isn’t going to do it. This is a nice neighborhood. A lot of people aren’t going to want the bother. So just sit tight and let me see what I can do.” He looked at the map again, then up at Jerry. “Show me your top three locations and I’ll start with those.”

A bead of sweat made its way down the small of Jerry’s back. He bent over the map. This might be the defining moment. This might be the single most important decision of his career. Three or four blocks. Thirty or forty possible dig sites. A single building, albeit a large one, a single target… He had examined the map a thousand times, but it could only tell him so much. The medallion could only tell him so much, and if he were off by twenty or thirty feet they would find nothing. Even twenty or thirty feet would be too great an error — the street, the garden, the trees that had once stood behind the Soma… No one could know. There was nothing that could give anyone that information.

“There,” Jerry said, pointing at what on the modern city map looked like a large house with a walled garden. “Or there.” Next door, another house. “Or on the other side.” A narrow street, a park beyond, a tidy patch of greenspace in the modern city. There was nothing special about it, nothing exact. But standing at that corner, where the Salah Moustafa curved slightly southward he thought he could see the line of the old Bruscheum wall which had once enclosed the Royal Quarter. There was something that looked right, something familiar. “It’s as good a choice as any other.”

“Ok,” Peavey said. “We’ll give it a try. Remember, mum’s the word.” He looked at Willi meaningfully.

“I am on the Met’s payroll,” Willi said. “Not the Neues Museum’s.” He smiled. “All is fair in love, war and archaeology!”

“That’s the spirit,” Peavey said.

“Then we’ll cross our fingers and wait for you to let us know where we’re digging next,” Jerry said. He took a deep breath. It was out of his hands once again. If the people who owned those houses allowed it, in a few days he would know if everything he had worked for would pay off.

C
lub Top Hat was on a houseboat in Lake Mareotis, one of several lined up on the shore beyond the rows of warehouses and the seaplane terminal. Iskinder raised an eyebrow. No one had thought to mention that when he arranged the rendezvous, saying merely that the club was well-known and safe for all sorts of transactions. In the twilight, strands of electric lights outlined each of the boats, draped across the deckhouses and the rails, brighter than the stars, and as he’d hoped the streets were crowded. One more man in faded peasant clothing would not attract attention.