When there were only five of us remaining, Moriarity said, “This is my fault. I should have posted guards over this.”
“Jim,” LaSalle said in a kind voice. “Don’t blame yourself. These things happen at sites. You know they do.”
“It never occurred to me that anyone would deliberately harm this burial.”
“What makes you think this was deliberate?” LaSalle glanced at me, then her blonde brows slanted down over her blue eyes. “I see no evidence of that. Do you?”
“No. I just . . . I wonder. Bates was inordinately interested in this burial yesterday—”
“Oh, yeah, burials have started to freak him out. He’s been intensively studying ancient Egyptian demons,” Jones said, “and drinking a lot, and ranting. I swear to God it’s like he’s somebody else. Somebody I don’t know.”
LaSalle narrowed her eyes at Jones. “You’re not suggesting that Mike Bates vandalized this burial because he was afraid of demons, are you?”
My brain was playing tricks on me. The reddish-brown light flashed right in front of my eyes. As soon as I reached for it, it disappeared, only to reappear a few feet away and start working its way closer to my face again in a slow, bobbing manner. The ancient ghost of a man trying to tell me something?
Jones lifted his face to look up at her. There was something frightened behind his eyes. “No, no. Of course not. Just saying is all.”
LaSalle walked around the excavation pit to stand with her back to the sun. “All right. I know this is a bad time, but while we wait for Bates, can we talk about the entwined skeletons? I see why you had problems identifying the sex of the remains.”
Moriarity walked over to stand beside her, looking down into the pit. “Go on.”
Roberto and I edged closer to listen.
LaSalle knelt on the rim of the excavation and pointed to the larger skeleton. “The heavily built skull, along with the large brow ridge, would instantly make you think this was a male. However—” she shifted positions to point at the hips, “—the pelvis is definitely female. This is a woman. The other skeleton is also female. Therefore, you have two women lying here with their arms around each other, covered by a stela that tells me they may have been associated with Cleopatra.”
“So. They were Cleopatra’s slaves? Servants?” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Possibly. Do you see the thick bones of their right arms? They were heavily muscled, which means these women did a lot of hard physical labor. However, they were well-fed because I see no signs of malnutrition. If they were slaves, they were elite slaves.”
Moriarity’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses.
The strange scent of myrrh blew across the site. Where could that be coming from? Was it real?
LaSalle said, “Iras and Charmion?”
Moriarity gave her a small smile. “That’s called ‘wild conjecture.’”
“Maybe, but the only two women unquestionably associated with Cleopatra—”
“Without more information, there is no way to guess the identity of these two women.”
“Not definitively, but the stela is suggestive.”
Moriarity’s brows drew together. “Agreed. Suggestive. And it would be interesting, wouldn’t it? We know from historical documents that Cleopatra’s two personal servants committed suicide at the same time she did.”
“With poison,” I said. I’d started feeling a little nauseous. Flashing lights, strange scents, and now I was sick to my stomach. How long did I have before I’d have to go lie down in our tent? Maybe thirty minutes, if I was really lucky.
LaSalle nodded. “Yes, Plutarch tells us that by the time Octavian arrived, Cleopatra was dead and Iras and Charmion were nearly dead.”
As understanding dawned, I gasped a deep breath into my lungs. Charmion must have been tasked with placing the bagsu in Cleopatra’s grave. Suddenly, it all made sense. Before Cleopatra ended her life, she must have asked Charmion to place the dagger in her grave so she could open the channel of light and find her way to the Island of the Two Flames, but Octavian had the palace surrounded. He would never have allowed her servants to carry out any Egyptian burial rituals. When Charmion knew she could not complete the task Cleopatra had given her, she chose to die with her queen. The dagger had probably been found on Charmion’s body by one of the house slaves assigned to clean up the room, so it was buried with her.
But why would Charmion and Iras have been buried in Pelusium? Seemed a strange choice, unless maybe they’d been born here? There were virtually no historical records about Cleopatra’s slaves.
I had to find Samael to ask him for more details about what had happened that terrible August day in 30 BC.
Myrrh again . . . The fragrance strong and exotic.
I searched the site, trying to see who might be burning the sacred incense, but saw no one, and no clouds of smoke.
Moriarity swallowed hard, glanced around as though he smelled it, too, then his gaze returned to the entwined skeletons. “If Iras and Charmion are here, LaSalle, Cleopatra may be here as well.”
“Yes, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that these entwined women—”
“If I’d been the budding young emperor, I would have scooped up all three bodies and gotten them out of sight before anyone knew what had happened,” Moriarity said.
“You would have hauled the three bodies away together?”
“At least those three bodies. He was in a hurry,” Moriarity said. “Nine days had already passed since Antonius’ death. As soon as the common people heard that Cleopatra was dead, they’d start spinning their own stories of what had happened. Octavian would have wanted to stop that before it began.”
“Yes, he would have. To stop a rebellion. If the Egyptian people thought he’d murdered her . . . Well, I see what you’re saying.” She folded her arms across her chest. “If he got rid of the evidence fast, he could broadcast his version of the truth, but I really don’t think—”
“I’m going to personally expand this unit today. We excavated here yesterday because Samael was certain this was the same place where, several years ago, he and Hassan Mallawi had found a burial.” Moriarity bowed his head and exhaled hard while he massaged his forehead. “But I never expected to uncover two women—”
“Jim, if Octavian was trying to hide the evidence, he would not have buried her with her servants. He would have buried Cleopatra far away from anyone or anything. And he’d have made certain no one could ever identify her.”
“Or just weighted her down and dumped her body in the ocean. That would have taken care of it.”
As though in a dream, I found myself in the body of Gaius Julius gazing down at Cleopatra where she lay dead upon her golden couch, her flowing purple robes draped artistically around her, as befitted the daughter of kings. “Her son, Caesarian, was murdered two days after she died. Would his body have been hauled away at the same time?”
If Caesarian, Iras, and Charmion were all here, it made it far more likely that she was here, as well.
Moriarity rubbed his bearded jaw. “I’d say that’s a good guess. If we knew where Caesarian was buried, we could at least hypothesize—”
“We do know. At least, I think we know,” I blurted out the words without thinking.
“Yeah,” Roberto pointed to the west. “He’s right over there.”
Both professors turned to give us incredulous looks.
LaSalle said, “No one has ever definitely identified his grave, guys, so anything you’ve read is speculative at best. He probably—”
“Samael showed us the grave. He had partially excavated the skeleton.”
LaSalle appeared stunned. “When? How did he know it was—”
Roberto said, “The burial is out in the forbidden part of the site. After he showed it to us, he told us to cover it back up.”
“Is that what you were doing with him yesterday morning?” Jones asked. “Looking at a burial?”
“Yes.”
Moriarity’s heavy shoulder muscles contracted and bulged through his white shirt. “Why didn’t you tell me about that?”
“Samael asked us to cover it back up. So, at the time, I thought he didn’t want anyone to know about it.”
Moriarity straightened to his full height and scanned the dig. Students had finally made it back to their excavations and were hard at work, but low disgruntled voices carried on the wind. “Where is Samael?” he asked. “Has anyone seen him this morning?”
When everyone shook his or her head, Moriarity’s gaze returned to glare angrily at me. He’d clamped his jaw hard.
LaSalle asked, “Can you find the burial again?”
“Sure.”
“Take me there, please.”
LaSalle motioned for us to lead. When Moriarity stood up to follow, she said, “I thought you were going to wait for Bates, and then excavate the rest of the burial so we’d know the extent of the damage? Would you rather have me do it? I’ll be happy to.”
Moriarity aimed a hand at the burial. “I am the only one who gets to excavate this.”
He stepped down into the pit and lightly brushed the dirt from the smaller skeleton’s chest. “Are you ready, Jones? Where’s your trowel?”
“Right here, Dr. Moriarity.” Jones pulled his trowel from his back pocket and climbed into the excavation.
The reddish-brown light flashed in my face again, and I felt something touch my cheek. “Let’s g-go,” I stammered. “It’s due west.”
LaSalle wiped her sweating face with her hand, and turned westward. “Curious that you would say that.”
“Why?”
“The Egyptian Book of the Dead speaks of many ‘secret portals of the West’ that lead to otherworldly spheres. One of those spheres, the Lake of Fire, is guarded by a demon known as the ‘Devourer,’ responsible for swallowing shadows, and pulling out hearts.”
“Ammut,” I said.
She nodded. “Yes.”
In unison, Roberto and I turned around to look at the partially excavated statue of the demon near our tent.
Dust blew around the two students who crouched on the rim looking down at her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
As we walked across the sand, getting farther and farther from the entwined skeletons, my nausea diminished a little, but I was still shaky and sweating profusely. The damp warmth of the morning wasn’t nearly hot enough to explain my excessive perspiration. This had to be a concussion. My blond hair was plastered to my aching head as though I’d just stepped out of a shower.
In the slanting sunlight, the ruins cast blocky shadows that stretched westward, toward the land of the dead: The Beautiful West, it was called. It also happened to be the direction of the temple and the grave of Caesarian. Looking across the vista, I noted that many of the excavations where students had been working yesterday stood abandoned, their tools left neatly arranged on the ground waiting for them to return. However, the screens and shovels seemed to be missing. Had they hauled them elsewhere?
None of us said a word until we passed the temple, whereupon I came to a stop.
There had to be twenty men and women lined out in different rooms of the temple, digging, but eight students were excavating the tunnel. My tunnel. Two students dug with shovels, while four others screened the dirt that came out, and two more scooped the dirt into buckets and hauled it up and out of the temple. The back dirt pile on the south side was growing fast. What really surprised me was that I could see the men working in the tunnel about fifteen feet back. Only fifteen feet. Dirt filled the rest of the tunnel, and probably had for centuries.
A delusion. That’s all it was.
LaSalle halted beside me. “You didn’t think I was just going to ignore what you told me last night, did you?”
Tears burned my eyes. “Then, you believe me?”
“Not yet. But I’ve spent twenty years excavating with Samael—” she said his name in a reverent tone, “—and I learned that if he told me to dig somewhere, I dug.”
“But why would you believe me?”
“Because, for some unknown reason, he trusts you. I think he sees something in you that few people ever have.” She held up a finger as though making a point in a classroom, but then aimed it at my head. “I’m wondering if you don’t have a touch of the same clairvoyance that he has.”
“You believe in clairvoyance?”
The students in the temple had just noticed her presence on the rim above, and they started whispering to each other.
“I can’t explain how he does it, but Samael has a gift for finding burials. He says the dead call to him.” She fixed me with intense blue eyes. “And now I wonder if they speak to you, as well, Hal Stevens.”
You have no idea.
“Thank you. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but . . . thank you.”
Turning away from the temple, I tried to get my bearings, searching the flats for the place where Samael had taken us to see the grave. “Roberto? What do you think?”
“It’s this way,” he said, extending a hand.
As we walked, chunks of black and brownish slag, as well as green glass slag crusted with salt, dotted the sand.
LaSalle said, “It’s interesting that Samael told you he’d found Caesarian’s grave out here. This was a bustling manufacturing district. It is unlikely that Octavian would have buried him here. Somebody would have noticed. Somebody would have asked what the soldiers were doing. But if you were a common laborer, burying a family member, no one would have asked questions.”
“Then he may have been buried in secret by potters or brickmakers or glassmakers. Common people?”
“Exactly right.”
Roberto said, “Are you saying that some servant made off with the body of Cleopatra’s son and brought him here to bury him? That was ballsy.”
“Why would a servant risk his life to do that?”
Wind buffeted her ivory sleeves around her muscular arms. “Out of love, maybe. Or patriotism. Loyalty. Or simply because he hated Rome. Who can say?”
The more I learned about Gaius Julius, the more I could see myself risking death to defy him. In my mind, he had become far more than a pivotal historic figure; he was evil incarnate.
LaSalle’s pace slowed, and her eyes slitted. “Is that it?”
Roberto squinted at her. “Are you telling me that you can see it from here?”
“It’s that slight soil discoloration, I assume.”
Roberto nodded. “Yeah, come on.”
By the time we stood around the discoloration, LaSalle had her trowel gripped in her left hand. “Let’s see what we’ve got. This is going to take time, so you may as well sit down. Or you could go back to your tent and catch a nap, Hal.”
Shaking my head, I sat down to watch. “I’m not leaving.”
Roberto continued to stand, but he wasn’t watching LaSalle. His eyes moved constantly across the site, noting where people walked, what they were doing.
With the expertise of a surgeon, LaSalle removed the discolored soil, leaving the irregular borders of the undisturbed grave intact. She continued slowly and methodically working her way down, until her trowel clicked on bone. Pulling her brush from her belt, she gingerly feathered away the soil until she was staring into the empty eye sockets of Philopator Philometor Caesar. She grunted softly, and kept brushing at the loose dirt.
“Well . . . hello there,” she said to the dead man when she’d finished uncovering the skull. “Hal? Roberto? Come closer. I did not expect to find this so soon.”
Roberto came to crouch beside me, and we both focused on the man with the crushed skull.
LaSalle said, “Obviously, he was clubbed
to death, but do you see the ‘cracks’ in the skull here and here? These cracks are called sutures. They are not related to his crushed skull. These are natural growth lines that fuse, grow together, as you become an adult. Your sutures, for example, are still open. But mine are fused. So, how old do you think this person is?”
“Our age?” Roberto said. “Sixteen?”
“Correct. I’d guess the age of this person at somewhere between fifteen and eighteen. What’s the sex of the remains?”
I leaned forward. “From the heavy skull and large brow ridge, I’d guess it’s male.”
“Good. You’re learning. Here’s another interesting thing.” She used her brush to push more dirt away from the neck bones. “What do you see here?”
Roberto leaned over to point to the vertebrae. “These two neck bones are broken. What does that mean?”
“It means,” she said with a sigh, “that after he was dead, he was beheaded. Whoever carried him here brought both his body and his severed head. During burial, that same person took the time to carefully arrange his head in its anatomically correct position.” She turned to me. “Do you think Octavian or his soldiers would have treated their enemy with such consideration?”
That familiar hollow expanded my chest. “No.”
“I don’t either.”
“Then, you think this is Caesarian?”
She shook her head. “I find nothing so far to suggest that. In fact, it could just as easily be a glassblower’s son who committed a crime and was beheaded for it. Or even Marcus Antonius Antyllus. Antonius’ son by Fulvia. Antyllus was sixteen when he was beheaded just a few days before Caesarian was killed. And those possibilities are pure speculation. All we have here is a young male, between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, with cranial trauma, who was beheaded.”
“But if he is either Caesarian or Antyllus, it means they were not mummified, and they were buried with nothing.”
“Correct. But that’s a very big ‘if.’ There’s no evidence to support your hypothesis.”
“Not yet, but if true, it may mean Cleopatra and Antonius’ bodies might have been treated the same way.”
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