The Alexander Cipher Page 0,29
warily, but they reached the bottom without alarm and gathered in the rotunda. The corner of a black-and-white pebble mosaic showed beneath the rubble. Gaille pointed it out in a murmur to Elena. “Ptolemaic,” declared Elena loudly, going down on her haunches to brush away the dust. “Two-fifty BC, give or take.”
Augustin pointed to the sculpted walls. “Those are Roman,” he said.
“Are you suggesting I can’t tell a Macedonian mosaic when I see one?”
“I’m suggesting that the carvings are Roman.”
Ibrahim held up his palms. “How about this?” he suggested. “Perhaps this site started out as a private tomb for some wealthy Macedonian, which would explain the mosaic. Then, when the Romans came three hundred years later, they decided to turn it into a necropolis.”
“That would explain the staircase,” admitted Elena grudgingly. “Macedonians didn’t usually build in spirals. Only straight lines or squares.”
“And they’d have needed to widen the shaft when they expanded it into a necropolis,” agreed Augustin. “For light and ventilation, and to lower corpses, and to take out quarried stone. They used to sell it to builders, you know.”
“Yes,” said Elena scathingly. “I did know, thank you.”
Gaille was barely listening. She was staring dizzily up at the circle of sky high above her head. Christ, but she was out of her depth. An emergency excavation offered no second chances, so within the next two weeks, the mosaic and all these exquisite carvings and everything else in this place would need to be photographed. After that, the place would probably be sealed forever. Artifacts like these deserved a professional photographer, someone with an eye for the work, experience, sophisticated equipment, lighting. She plucked anxiously at Elena’s sleeve, but Elena brushed her off, following Mohammed down the steps into the forecourt of the Macedonian tomb. They paused to admire the shining white marble blocks of the facade and entablature, then pressed on through the half-open bronze door into the tomb’s antechamber.
“Look!” said Mansoor, pointing his flashlight at the side walls. They went closer to inspect them. There was paint on the plaster, though terribly faded. It had been common practice in antiquity for important scenes from the dead person’s life to be painted in or around the tomb. “You can photograph these?” asked Mansoor.
“I’m not sure how well they’ll come out,” said Gaille wretchedly.
“You must wash them first,” said Augustin. “Lots and lots of water. The pigment may look dead now, but give them some water and they will spring back to life like beautiful flowers. Trust me.”
“Not too much water,” warned Mansoor. “And don’t set up your lights too close. The heat will crack the plaster.”
Gaille looked around desperately at Elena, who studiously refused to meet her eye. Instead, she shone her flashlight at the inscription above the portal into the main chamber. “Akylos of the thirty-three,” said Augustin, translating from the Ancient Greek. Elena fumbled and dropped her flashlight at that moment, cursing violently, so Ibrahim turned his light on the inscription instead, allowing Augustin to complete his translation. “Akylos of the thirty-three. To be the best and to be honored above the rest.”
“It’s Homer,” murmured Gaille. Everyone turned to look at her in surprise. She felt her cheeks burn. “It’s from the Iliad,” she said.
“That’s right,” nodded Augustin. “About a man called Glaucus, I believe.”
“Actually, it comes up twice,” said Gaille timidly. “Once about Glaucus and once about Achilles.”
“Achilles, Aklyos,” nodded Ibrahim. “He evidently thought a great deal of himself.” He was still staring up at the inscription when he followed Mohammed into the main chamber, so that he tripped over the low step and went sprawling onto his hands and knees. Everybody laughed as he picked himself up and brushed himself down with the self-deprecating smile and shrug of the accident prone.
Augustin went to the shield pinned to the wall. “The shield of a hypastist,” he said. “A shield bearer,” he explained when Ibrahim frowned. “Alexander’s special forces. The greatest unit of fighting men in the most successful army in the history of the world. Maybe he wasn’t being so boastful after all.”
MORNING SUNLIGHT fell on Knox’s cheek as he lay on Augustin’s couch and tried to catch up on sleep. He groaned and turned his back, but it was no good. The day was already too sticky. He rose reluctantly, took a shower, ransacked Augustin’s room for clothes, then ground some beans and set the coffeemaker brewing. He slathered a croissant with butter and confiture de framboises, then wolfed it down as he wandered the