Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air

by Melissa Scott

  Willi shook his head ruefully. “The Strabo map is supposition, and the photograph is simply not that clear, Jerry. The Pylon of Isis…”

  “…is right there,” Jerry said, pointing to it in the photograph.

  “But exactly where depends on how big it is,” Willi said. “It could be here, or four blocks back if it’s larger. Or two blocks closer if it’s smaller. This lot…”

  “Is one of a number of possibilities, I know.” Jerry dropped his voice. “But it was the only lot in the immediate area that the Met could easily rent. It’s one thing to tear down a shed. But most property owners in the area weren’t about to let us buy their buildings, and for that matter the Met wasn’t willing to spend the kind of money that it would take to buy an apartment building and remove it.”

  “That would be very suspicious, yes,” Willi agreed. “Not worth it for the Pylon of Isis.” He took a deep breath. “And so we dig here and hope to get lucky, yes?”

  “At worst we’ll find other things which will allow us to get an idea of how these two maps relate to one another.” Jerry gestured to the modern map and the sketched one. “As you say, the Strabo map is based on supposition, on trying to turn his descriptions of the city in 20 BC into a map. Any improvements we can make are useful.”

  “As you say,” Willi said. He gave Jerry a quicksilver smile. “Archaeology is a tedious process sometimes, but each step is worthwhile. And if we do not find the Pylon of Isis, perhaps we will get lucky in other ways.”

  Jerry felt the blood rush to his face. No one else could have heard Willi’s words except perhaps the nearest diggers, and surely none of them understood American slang. “Maybe so,” he said, turning his attention to putting away the maps and photographs. “We may be successful.”

  It was late afternoon, the sun already obscured behind the five story apartment building, when a digger let out a cry. Jerry’s head had risen a split second earlier at the scrape of steel on stone, a shovel against something other than dirt.

  “I have found something!” the digger shouted, and Jerry hoisted himself to his feet with effort. Willi was ahead of him, all the other diggers crowding in, milling about in the only excitement in the last three days.

  “Let Dr. Ballard through,” Willi said. “Come now. Clear a path.”

  It was the trench nearest the building, six feet deep, and leaning over the edge cautiously Jerry could see nothing except dirt in the bottom.

  “Here, now,” he said in Arabic. “Everyone give the man room. Let him clear.” If everybody jumped into the trench nobody would be able to do anything. He leaned on his cane at the edge, eager as anyone to see. Would it be a building block? Or better yet the solid sandstone that might be the Pylon of Isis itself?

  The digger began clearing with shovel before young Mohammad Hussein jumped down beside him with a trowel and brush, heedless of his good black suit. Behind him the others crowded up. “What is it? What is it?”

  “Stone,” Mohammad called up, entirely unnecessarily as they already knew that. Beneath his deft hands a surface was emerging, square paving stones each about the size of Jerry’s hand set in mortar.

  “It’s the Roman street,” Jerry said.

  Willi looked at him sharply.

  “The shape of the cobbles,” Jerry said. He gestured with his cane. “Square cobbles without rounded corners. Those are Roman, not Ptolemaic.”

  Mohammad glanced up from the bottom of the trench. “Shall we clear to the edges?”

  “Yes,” Jerry said. “Let’s see if we can find the curb. That will orient us on the axis of the street. It will tell us if this is a north/south street or an east/west one.”

  “And if the curb isn’t within the boundaries of the trench?” Willi asked. “This is the end trench closest to the building.”

  “Then we clear the trench just north of it down to the same depth,” Jerry said. “If that’s Roman pavement too, we’ve got a north/south street. If it’s not, then this is an east/west street paralleling the Canopic Way but a few blocks north of it.” He lifted his head, the setting sun touching his face beneath the brim of his hat. “Which is what I think it is.”

  He couldn’t say why. It simply felt right, right in his bones. This was an east/west street north of the Canopic Way and south of the Brucheum, the first city walls that enclosed only the Royal Quarter in Roman times. But where did that put the Pylon of Isis? Orienting to the old grid of city streets was all very well, but that didn’t find the landmark they sought. Was the Pylon of Isis north or south of this street? Was this the street that ran in front of it or behind it?

  The sun winked, dipping behind the roof of a neighboring building. Scents of food cooking rose in the evening air, women preparing the meals that would break the fast after nightfall. It was almost time to stop work for the day.

  Mohammad stood up. “We won’t get this clear before sunset,” he said. “Shall I pay the finder and tell the men to cease?”

  “Yes,” Jerry said. “And tomorrow we’ll get the next trench to the same depth.”

  Willi jumped down into the trench with a roll of oiled cloth to spread over the exposed stones on the bottom though the chances of rain looked nil. This was not like the dig in Hawaii where they’d dealt with torrential rains.

  “Tomorrow we’ll see where we are.”

  Palermo, Italy

  December 27, 1935

  It had been months since Lewis had been in Henry Kershaw’s new Dart, and then the fighter had been unnamed, a raw duralumin fuselage shaped around the nose-mounted cannon and the latest generation of Henry’s Wizard engines, the cockpit full of rough edges and awkward angles. This latest prototype was better finished, and better painted, red nose and tail and wingtips against bright white, designed to be visible against the brilliant Mediterranean skies, but it felt the same in his hands, raw power trembling on the edge of balance. He’d only had a couple of hours to talk to Henry the night before about the changes – more power from the new inverted-v Warlock, re-ballasting to move the center of gravity forward, retractable landing gear and a few small changes to the ailerons – but he’d read through the latest test results, and was confident he understood what he was feeling.

  Static crackled in his headphones, and Boccadifalco Tower spoke in his ear. “Dart, this is Boccadifalco. You are cleared for maneuvers. Please inform when you are ready for acrobatics.”

  “Tower, this is Dart.” Lewis did his best to speak slowly and distinctly: English was not the tower’s first language, though so far they were all managing to make themselves understood. “Roger that. I am cleared for maneuvers.”

  He tipped the Dart into a shallow bank, west toward the mountains rather than toward the city and the harbor. The flying boats were making their pre-show runs in that direction, and he had no desire to get in anyone’s way. That was where he was supposed to be — Gilchrist Aviation had been hired to show off Floyd Odlum’s Catalina flying boat in its civilian configuration — but when Henry’s pilot had come down with a bad case of food poisoning, Henry had come asking for help, and Alma had figured the Cat outclassed everything else in its category by enough that they could afford to help Odlum’s sometime rival. Lewis still felt guiltily grateful: he’d be the first to admit that the Catalina was a clever piece of engineering, but it was big and slow and handled like a pig in mud. The Dart was fast and skittish and had a tendency to nose up if you weren’t paying attention, but once those wrinkles were ironed out, it was going to be one hell of a fighter.

  “Tower, this is Dart,” he said again. He didn’t really have to let them know everything he was going to do, but he figured it was probably safer that way. “I’m coming around for a south-to-north pass along the main runway.”

  “Roger, Dart. South-to-north along the main runway,” the tower repeated, and Lewis dipped the wings again, reversing onto the new course. He pushed the yoke forward as well, shedding altitude, the ground taking shape with gratifying speed beneath him.

  He ke
pt the angle steady at about twenty degrees, the controls flexing under his hands as he hit the disturbed air over the city. The airfield loomed ahead, the long main runway stretching straight and empty as he leveled out at five hundred feet. There were houses below him, white walls and red tile roofs and the rich greens of trees and grass, but for an instant his mind supplied the mud of the Western front, a few blasted stumps stretching shattered limbs to the sky while the barrels of the big guns thrust up out of their camouflage. There were other planes on the taxiway, waiting their turn to practice or for maintenance; there was the tower itself, a few hundred feet to his left, rounded end jutting out like a lighthouse or the bow of a ship, and the hangers beyond. His thumb moved on the yoke, pressing a firing button that wasn’t there, and in his mind’s eye he could see the tracers sleeting ahead of him down the field, destroying the planes and giving the tower something to think about… This was what Patton had been talking about in Hawaii, planes in the lead and the infantry following behind to mop up in the confusion.

  He took a breath, deliberately putting that aside, and pulled the Dart up into a slightly steeper climb. That was not what he was here for, though he suspected at least half the other pilots saw exactly the same things. This was a civilian airshow sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Aviation, attended by representatives of countries who were solidly at peace if not actually allies, and he thumbed the radio button instead.

  “Tower, this is Dart. Coming around for a north-south pass.”

  “Dart, Tower. Roger that.”

  Lewis checked his altitude and pulled the Dart up into a steep turn. Just short of the stall, he kicked the rudder bar and tugged the yoke over, tipping the Dart into an Immelmann turn. It was sloppier than he would have risked in combat, but from the feeling of the plane under him, he could do it properly next time. He leveled out at four hundred feet this time, and made another pass down the runway.

  “Tower, this is Dart. Commencing acrobatics.”

  The tower acknowledged, and he brought the Dart up and around in a split-S, lining up for a barrel-roll as he passed along the runway. On the next pass, he tried a loop, scowling as he felt the Dart come a little too close to stalling. The second pass corrected that, and then the Tower’s voice sounded in his earphones.

  “Dart, this is Tower. Your practice time is over. You are cleared to land.”

  I’m not finished. Lewis swallowed the words — it was what every pilot said or thought at this stage of a show — and instead tipped the Dart into a neat wingover. “Tower, this is Dart. Roger, I am coming in to land.”

  Henry and his lead mechanic were waiting as he taxied up to the hanger and killed the engine. One of the Italian mechanics set the chocks as Lewis hurried through the shut-down list, then slid back the canopy and levered himself out of the cockpit.

  “Well?” That was Henry, hands on hips and his fedora pushed to the back of his head. He’d shaved his neat beard since the last time Lewis had seen him, revealing a surprisingly pugnacious chin.

  “How did it look?” Lewis asked in turn.

  “Good.” Henry nodded. “Very nice. You think you can fly Charlie’s performance, or do you want to do something else?”

  Lewis released the chin strap of his helmet, rubbing the spot where the throat mike had pinched. “I’ll go with what he had, I think. She feels good, Henry.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  Engines coughed to life outside the next hangar, and Lewis turned to see the flight of German light bombers lining up to taxi onto the runway. They were biplanes, old-fashioned compared to the Dart and the two Italian fighters, but tough and sturdy-looking, and from the way they handled as they took off, they’d still put up a decent fight. The Dart could take them, Lewis thought. Maybe not all of them at once, but one on one, or even two on one, he could take the Henschels.

  “You ought to go back to the hotel,” Henry said. “Get a little extra sleep.”

  Lewis swallowed his instinctive refusal — why would any pilot leave the field? — and offered an excuse instead. “It’s too far.” The hotel where the airshow participants were staying was almost at the harbor. “I’d just get there and have to turn around. Besides, I’d like to get a look at the competition.”

  “At least stretch out in the office,” Henry said. “They’ve given us one, with a cot and everything — there’s even a girl to make coffee.”

  “That I don’t need,” Lewis said. He didn’t much like the Italian coffee, strong and black and bitter as sin, had to cut it almost half and half with milk the way he’d learned to do in France. “I promise I’ll take it easy.”

  “All right,” Henry said, still sounding doubtful. “I’ll be back as soon as I know what your position is going to be.”

  “Thanks.” Lewis watched him go, turned to see the mechanic boosting himself up into the cockpit. He knew the man well enough to trust him, and gave him a nod and a smile.

  Carson nodded back, tugging his cap down further over his receding hairline. “Anything special I should know about, Mr. Segura?”

  Lewis shook his head. “She was running really nice. Don’t change anything that isn’t broken.”

  Carson grinned at the familiar request. “Will do — or won’t, in this case. The office is right over there if you want it.”

  Everyone seemed determined that he should take a nap. Lewis sighed but nodded, and made his way across the hangar to the office that had been set aside for them. A carefully hand-lettered sign identified it as belonging at least temporarily to “Henry Kershaw, Republic Aviation (USA).” There were no lights on behind the pebbled glass, and when Lewis turned the knob, he found it unlocked.

  There was no sign of the promised girl, but there was a cot set up behind a screen, and after a moment’s hesitation, he decided it was probably smart to take advantage of the opportunity. He stripped off his heavy jacket and the scarf and sweater he wore under it, then stretched out on the thin mattress, putting his arm over his eyes.

  He felt a little guilty not being on the Catalina with his wife. After all, Alma and the rest of Gilchrist Aviation had been hired to show the flying boat, and as Gilchrist’s third pilot, he was usually the flight engineer. It was a good job and a good plane — no one in their right mind would complain about a free trip to Italy, either, which was why Mitch and Stasi had brought the kids along — but it was vital that the plane show well, so that they could get more jobs like it — He killed that thought. It had been obvious as soon as they got to Palermo that there wasn’t another plane in that class that could match the Catalina, especially with all the snazzy passenger hardware installed in the cabin. The only real competition was the Dornier Do 16, known as the Wal, and it didn’t really count. Not that it was a bad plane, but it was more than ten years old, and from the look of it handled like the whale it was named for. The Catalina was faster and bigger with more than three times the range. No, Tiny Foster could take over as flight engineer. Lewis had been training him for that, and the kid was ready. They didn’t need a radio operator for a show like this, could handle communications from the cockpit, though last night Mitch’s older son Jimmy had been angling for the job. He could probably do it, too, Lewis thought. He had his own crystal set at home, and he understood about frequencies and tuning. The only question was whether it would look bad, or if it would point up what a good plane the Cat really was.

  And that wasn’t his business right now. His job was to show Henry’s Dart. He sat up and searched the pockets of his jacket until he came up with the flight plan Charlie Curry had laid out, unfolded it to study the neatly penciled lines. Two low, high-speed passes, the second with barrel rolls, Immelmanns into each: that was easy. Loops, a split-s — yes, he’d tried pretty much everything on the list, was sure he and the Dart could handle it, and if he didn’t have the fluency Curry had, he was still the better pilot. He let the list fall to his chest and closed his eyes.

  The sound of a brass band woke him, loud even over the familiar rumble
of engines. He sat up just as the door opened, and Carson gave him a quick smile.

  “They’re starting the speeches. Doesn’t look like any of the flyers are bothering with them, though.”

  “That’s a relief.” Lewis swung himself off the cot, and began reclaiming his flying clothes. “Do you know when I’m going?”

  “Not for sure,” Carson answered. “The flying boats and seaplanes are first, but after that — I haven’t heard.”

  “Right. How’s the Dart?”

  “Topped up and ready to go. Everything looked good, I didn’t change a thing.”

  “Thanks.”

  It was warm enough that he didn’t need to fasten his flying jacket when he stepped out onto the tarmac: the Italian winter was just about as warm as California, and the Sicilian palm trees were enough like the ones in San Diego to make him wonder now and then just where he was. Certainly the airfield was as good, and already as familiar, as many he’d used in the States. He squinted up at the thin clouds now drifting in. The latest weather, chalked in English on the blackboard by the main office, put them at twelve thousand feet and likely to clear by evening, the tail end of a weak front moving off toward the Greek Isles. Nice and clear tomorrow for the main show, and today there would still be plenty of room for everyone to maneuver, even those flashy new German fighter-bombers that the Versailles Treaty said they weren’t supposed to have…

  He buried that thought as unsuitable for a polite American pilot at an international airshow, particularly when he wasn’t even representing his country. He was flying for private manufacturers who wanted to sell their planes to anyone who’d buy them, and it was his job to make the planes look good and not tick anybody off by mentioning politics. At least most of the other pilots seemed to be in the same boat: he’d exchanged stilted greetings with some of them, fumbling for a common language, and he thought he’d seen the same concern in their eyes.