Monsters in the Sand Page 6

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Mohammed Emin.’

  ‘Well, Mohammed Emin, be sure to be back before the second sheep is devoured.’

  The man laughed and ran to the path down the southern end of the mound.

  ‘Men of Selamiya.’ The sheik scuffed a patch of soil with his sandal. ‘I will stand guard on this mark and watch for trouble. The rest of you, return to your digging.’

  A movement on the bank of the river caught Austen’s eye. A solitary horseman rode towards Nimrud and looked up at Austen and his men, clearly visible against the sky. Then he galloped away towards Mosul. If this man was one of the pasha’s spies, Austen feared his first day at Nimrud could be his last. The pasha would not dare to harm him, but he was treacherous and would find a way to stop him digging.

  ‘Alabaster.’ The sheik kicked at the surface again, deepening the mark he’d made. ‘Is it possible? I have found another palace.’

  Chapter 22

  Speed was everything. ‘Sheik, take the men back at the northwest palace and keep clearing out that chamber. Hormuzd, you stay here with me.’

  The strip of alabaster that the sheik had exposed became a narrow groove, straight as an arrow, across the top of the mound.

  Hormuzd scratched at it with his bare hands. ‘Here!’ he cried. He tugged at a stubborn piece of stone and it became dust and ash in his hands. ‘Oh no – it’s been burnt.’ He shaded his eyes with one hand. ‘But maybe part of the palace escaped the fire.’

  Two palaces in one day? ‘You go that way, Hormuzd, and look for the corner, or any connecting wall.’

  The top of one wall and then another emerged. Hours passed in a blur, as the two of them unearthed and measured the outlines of room after room. Austen prayed that some of the rooms were still intact. Surely the entire palace hadn’t been reduced to ash?

  ‘Walls, carvings, at the palace.’ The sheik hobbled towards them, his face glistening with perspiration, his hands waving madly.

  Carvings would show so much about the people who lived here. Austen set out on the half-mile run back to the northwest palace. When he reached the trench, his heart was hammering so violently that his body rocked with the thumping pulse.

  Never in his wildest dreams had he seen such magnificently carved bas-reliefs. Assyrian soldiers stormed up ladders against a city wall. The defenders hurled down stones and fired arrows at point-blank range. Bodies fell headfirst, the city gates burned and rocks flew overhead from catapults. On a tower-top, a woman cried for mercy – her arms upraised, tearing at the long ringlets of hair that spread down over her shoulders. In the distance, Assyrians led lines of prisoners away to slavery.

  Other carvings showed scenes in temples, throne rooms and palace gardens. There was so much to record – too much. It would take him days of drawing just to copy this one room. If only Daguerre’s new invention were capable of making clear images, he could copy a wall in minutes. Imagine having a machine that could trap Nineveh in chemicals! But the Daguerrotypes he’d seen were too hazy to capture the details of these carvings and cuneiforms.

  ‘Riders coming from the north!’ Hormuzd cried.

  Chapter 23

  Austen slipped and slid down the loose soil on the side of the mound. He ran to his tent, unlocked the gun chest and stuffed two pistols into his belt. By the time three men rode into camp, he was standing casually at his tent as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  The horses scattered a few scrawny sheep and sent the dogs into a frenzy. The leading rider, dressed in a fine gold-embroidered cloak, was evidently a courtier from Mosul. He was flanked by two surly irregulars with guns aimed right at Austen.

  ‘Salam alaikum.’ Austen bowed to his visitors. ‘Welcome to my home.’ He gestured to his open tent, but the horsemen did not dismount.

  ‘Allah be praised, I am a servant of the pasha, who is a servant of the supreme sultan.’ The courtier wrinkled his nose and sighed as he surveyed the ramshackle camp. ‘I am sent to convey the pasha’s sincere concern for the safety of his friend, the English hunter. His Excellency wishes no harm to come to you.’

  No harm? Austen looked again at the guns.

  ‘Mr Layard, it has come to His Excellency’s attention that Nimrud is holy ground. Graves of true believers lie in its hallowed soil.’

  ‘I have seen no gravestones.’

  ‘The pasha advises Mr Layard that to turn one spade of soil on Nimrud would desecrate the burial ground. How could His Excellency, so far away in Mosul, protect his English friend from the righteous anger of true believers?’

  True believers in the sacred Koran? More likely they were the brutes beside him.

  The messenger tugged on his reins, turned his horse and led his guards away.

  It was time for rapid action. Austen was not going to give up on Nineveh.

  Chapter 24

  ‘Dancing girls!’ The pasha’s voice roared with laughter in the throne room. Austen paced back and forth next door in the waiting room. While the Pasha feasted, Austen raged. Midnight came and went and about two in the morning, a servant came into the room. ‘His Excellency will see you now.’

  This was no time for stupid outbursts of temper – or for weak grovelling.

  The pasha was sprawled on his throne, his face haggard and single eye bleary. Without even looking at Austen, he unfolded a scrap of dirty cloth and fingered the flakes of gold in it. ‘What a pity, Mr Layard, that you dare not trespass on the sacred burial ground of Nimrud.’

  What was he up to?

  Behind the throne, the French vice-consul smirked.

  Austen thought fast. The pasha’s flakes of gold were a message of some sort – if only he could decode it. One thing was obvious: the pasha was driven by greed. He’d do anything to get his hands on gold. Why, then, would he stop the digging at Nimrud? Perhaps the French were putting pressure on him and he was caught between greed for treasure and greed for French bribes.

  ‘Perhaps, Your Excellency,’ Austen bowed low, ‘there is much gold to be found at Nimrud.’

  ‘You are my closest friend, Mr Layard.’ The pasha placed a hand between his pendulous breasts. ‘Truly, the friend of my heart. But at Nimrud, you are beset by Arabs and devil-worshippers. What beasts they are! If any harm were to befall my most loved friend, how my heart would break. I should never recover from the grief and the supreme sultan, my master, would think me responsible for anything that happened to you.’ He sat back and touched the gold again.

  Austen was sick of being played with. Attack was sometimes the best defence. ‘But did not Your Excellency disturb some graves at Siwas?’

  The vice-consul’s smirk disappeared.

  The pasha roared with laughter until his eye squeezed out a tear that trickled down his cheek. ‘My true friend,’ he said, when he could speak again, ‘who reads my heart! Of course I dug up an entire graveyard of true believers and used the stones for my wall. But, you see, I am the pasha, and you are only Layard.’

  ‘Your Excellency, you are a man of insight. I suggest one of your trusted officials accompany me back to Nimrud, where he can observe me and ensure that no desecration occurs.’

  The vice-consul was caught by surprise and frowned. Austen smiled cheerily at him.

  ‘You understand my wishes, Mr Layard.’ The pasha clapped his hands. ‘You are dismissed. Wait in the courtyard and I will send an inspector to join you.’

  Austen would make sure the inspector rode in front of him. Just in case he was an assassin.

  Chapter 25

  Why was nobody visible on the top of Nimrud? Austen spurred his horse to gallop around the end of the mound and into camp. The inspector tried to keep up, but Austen didn’t care about him. Something or someone had stopped the digging at the palaces.

  A man in a red cloak stood at Austen’s tent. Horses were tethered to spears thrust into the ground and irregulars lounged about in the shade.

  Austen quickly checked the camp, but could see no signs of d
amage or wounded people.

  The sheik and Hormuzd came out of his tent, where they’d probably been guarding his property. They hurried to him and the sheik pointed at the side of Nimrud. ‘See those stones? This morning, Captain Daoud’s irregulars brought a graveyard here.’

  Gravestones leaned at crazy angles in the mound.

  Austen dismounted and walked towards the captain, a man with cold eyes. The hand on his gun was sinewy and weathered.

  The camp went quiet as all eyes turned towards the captain and Austen.

  ‘Welcome to my camp, Daoud Agha.’ Austen didn’t use a Muslim or Christian greeting, because the man was no believer. ‘Please come in and share a meal.’

  He held the tent flap aside and said to the sheik, ‘I need to entertain my guest in private. Would you please care for my other visitor, the pasha’s inspector of Nimrud?’

  Daoud ducked his head and entered the tent. Austen followed, went to a small wooden chest and opened it. ‘A drink?’

  He lifted out a jar, while his guest sat on the carpet. ‘This is the best Persian wine, from Shiraz.’ He raised two goblets of burnished copper. ‘You will share?’

  ‘Why waste good wine on an Englishman?’

  Austen was sure he saw the faintest glimmer of humour in Daoud’s eyes. He poured wine into the goblets. ‘I am surprised you are not busy along the River Zab,’ he said.

  ‘The raiders we met yesterday were unexpected good luck.’ Daoud’s voice was as dry as the leathery skin on his hands. ‘I was on my way to collect the gravestones, as the pasha had ordered, when we happened to see them.’

  ‘And the graves?’

  Clearly Austen had touched a nerve. Did Daoud resent being the pasha’s errand boy?

  ‘Curse those gravestones!’ Daoud arched his back as though in pain. ‘They nearly killed our horses and broke our backs.’ He held out his goblet and Austen filled it again.

  Two women entered, carrying trays with bowls of water, chunks of fresh bread and two steaming bowls of stew with lamb bones. They placed the trays on the carpet between the men, bowed, and walked out backwards.

  Austen and Daoud washed their hands in the water. Then Austen handed the captain a bowl of stew and they ate without speaking – but not without loud slurping.

  ‘If I am not mistaken,’ Austen said, sipping his wine, ‘the gravestones are not those of true believers.’

  Daoud glanced over the rim of his bowl.

  ‘Captain, if I were to take my compass to the gravestones, I think we would find that they do not face southwest towards Mecca. Therefore, they cannot be graves of true believers.’

  Daoud snapped a bone and sucked out the marrow.

  ‘Furthermore, Captain, I could use my compass to prove this fact to the pasha’s inspector.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Well, first of all, I must respectfully replace the stones of unbelievers out of sight on the other side of Nimrud.’

  Daoud put down his bowl, tore some bread apart and waited for Austen to go on.

  ‘We are men of the world.’ Austen stood up and opened another chest. ‘Our business here is private.’ He lifted a red silk robe from the chest, folded it and placed it on the carpet. Then he reached into the bottom of the chest and held up a small bag, which chinked. ‘This is my family’s farewell gift.’ He sat down again and rested the moneybag in his lap. ‘My father died when I was seventeen.’

  ‘My father was killed in battle when I was nine years old.’ The mask shifted for a moment. ‘I walked to my uncle’s home, near Mount Ararat, eight hundred miles away.’ Daoud was lost a while in memories and his eyes, usually cold and calculating, were confused. Then the glint returned, he remembered this meal and pushed his bread hard into the bowl of stew.

  Austen spoke as if nothing had happened. ‘When my father died, it was my uncle who cared for me. Uncle Austen was a banker, who lost everything when his partner cheated him. Just before I was about to leave home and travel here, to Iraq, he gave me this small bag of money. In exchange, all he asked was that I took his name, Austen.’

  He loosened the drawstring. ‘All my life people called me by my birth name, Henry. I’ve always thought of myself as Henry. But now I must be Austen.’

  He poured a few coins into the palm of his hand. One pound was worth a thousand piastres – enough to hire workers for another month, or pay a soldier’s wage for many months. He chose three coins and dropped them into Daoud’s hand.

  The captain considered them, then picked one and handed it back. ‘You must respect that I cannot give you permission to dig in the palaces of Nimrud. So what will you do? Go back to Constantinople?’

  Chapter 26

  Outside the tent, a Bedouin cameleer washed his hands in the jet of warm urine from a she-camel. He showed her his hands, she sniffed them and then allowed him to start milking. While he squirted the milk into a bowl, he crooned a lullaby and she turned her head to watch him with gentle eyes.

  Austen filled Daoud’s goblet for the third time. ‘I respect your straight talking, but I will not return to Constantinople until my work here is satisfactory. My plan is to send my men back into the palaces of Nimrud.’

  ‘I have heard of your courage at Castle Tul. Are you ever able to surrender?’ He savoured the fragrance of the wine.

  ‘As everybody knows, the pasha has a certain interest in gold. My only concern is to faithfully protect his interest in the treasures of Nimrud. To do that, I need to send my men up the mound with their spades and crowbars as weapons to guard the palaces from raiders.’

  ‘My friend, you should be called the Fox.’ Daoud nodded towards the large chest. ‘I’m certain that the inspector will be struck blind by the light that shines from just one of your silken robes. I know that man. He is a worthless parasite, who has good reason to fear me. I will make sure that he reports nothing but men on guard at the palaces.’

  They drank and sighed with pleasure.

  Austen’s greyhounds lolled outside in the shade of the tent, panting after their race home from the river. Their flanks were streaked yellow and red from chasing hares through fields of wildflowers.

  The sheik’s children trotted past. Little Hadla peeked in at Austen, then ran off at full speed. Her brother Masoud had a wicker cage tied to his back and the tiny beak of a partridge chick pecked between the slats. In his right hand, Masoud carried a toy bow and two buckled twigs for arrows.

  Pots clanged, sheep bleated, and women sang as they kneaded bread. Beyond the camp were the high ramparts of Nimrud, delivering their secrets as calmly as the camel gave her milk.

  Chapter 27

  Austen’s eyes drooped shut and the pencil slipped from his hand. A man with an eagle’s head seemed to rise from the page of his sketchbook. Priests flayed prisoners alive and stretched their skins across the palace wall. A severed human head, upside down, looked up an eagle flying off with a coil of entrails writhing like serpents in its talons.

  The sketchbook slid from Austen’s lap and he woke. He rubbed the back of his aching neck. ‘I spend too much time among the dead.’

  He held his watch close to the lamp. One o’clock. He had four hours until he started tomorrow’s work. He had no idea what day of the week it was, or how many weeks had passed at Nimrud – was it ten or twelve?

  Money, not time, was the measure. His uncle’s coins had dropped like the final grains of sand in an hourglass. Aunt Sara had collected a few pounds from friends and relatives. Her fiery articles in the Times, and her stormy meetings with members of parliament might bring some money, but too late. Sir Stratford Canning had secretly sent him the expenses for a few more weeks work at Nimrud, but in less than a week the money for workers would be gone. What then?

  He was furious with the British Museum, who’d refused to send money for workers, or even give him an artist to help copy the walls. In London, well-fed members of the museum sat smugly in their clubs, smoked cigars and drank brandy, while he slaved away like an unpaid bric
klayer. ‘Priceless treasures, from Nineveh,’ they’d boast to Queen Victoria. ‘And we got them for nothing.’

  If the treasures ever reached London.

  When he left Nimrud, as he had to, thieves, vandals and hurricanes would destroy the palaces. They would become rubbish dumps and quarries, like Paul Botta’s abandoned diggings at Khorsabad.

  He’d be defeated not by failure, but by too much success. If he’d only collected a few boxes of treasures he could easily float them away on a raft. But how could any raft or fleet of rafts carry away palaces and treasures enough to fill a museum? He couldn’t measure his discoveries in mere inches or feet. The palaces had yielded more than a mile of walls. Nimrud, just reborn into a new world, would soon be reduced to rubble and be lost forever.

  Chapter 28

  Voices cried out in the darkness. Austen picked up the lantern and hurried up the ladder to the surface. People were rushing about, shouting joyfully and sparks flew up from fires.

  Somebody was climbing up the steep path towards him. ‘Mr Layard.’ ‘Hormuzd?’

  ‘Great news!’ Hormuzd shouted. ‘The pasha is deposed.’

  ‘Is it another of his tricks?’ Austen raised the lamp to look closely at Hormuzd’s face. The large brown eyes like a spaniel’s gave no hint of deception.

  Not long ago, the pasha had sent messengers throughout Mosul to announce that he’d died. Citizens had poured into the streets to rejoice, not knowing he’d set his spies to note their names. Later that day he had unleashed his soldiers to murder them and confiscate their possessions.

  ‘No, he really is deposed by the army of the supreme sultan. It’s true. My brother sent the messenger from Mosul and he told me the pasha is in jail, with dogs licking his wounds.’

  ‘And good riddance. But who’s replacing him?’

  ‘The new ruler of Mosul will be your friend, Tahyar.’