by Jerry Cole
“What?” asked Greg, captivated.
“I don’t believe it’s sacred,” said Alex. “Not in the way that we think it’s sacred. I don’t believe that the reason it’s not been built on is that there’s a belief that evil lurks underneath the soil or that the ground is haunted.”
“Then why can’t anybody build on it?”
“Nobody knows,” said Alex, “which is exactly the point.”
“I’m confused,” said Greg, shaking his head.
“What if there’s something under there, something precious, something so exquisitely phenomenal that we are destined never to find it?” His eyes widened, and though the light was now so dim and the crickets were chirping in one huge cacophony in the wild grass below them, Alex seemed alight with excitement.
“I believe that over the years, nearly two and a half thousand, to be a little more exact, the story of the sacred land and all its superstitions have come to be just that: superstitions. Because people are terrified of what they do not understand. If you tell people the ground is sacred and cannot be built on, then those God-fearing people will obey. If the church itself forbids any disturbance to the site, then the people will listen. Once you have the church telling you to do something, you do it. Or in this case, when the church tells you not to do something, then you shut up and you never mention it again.”
Alex paused and reached into his pocket for a cigarette. He offered one to Greg, who refused with a shake of his head. Alex lit the cigarette with a cheap plastic lighter and inhaled deeply, before blowing the smoke out through his nose like a dragon.
“I believe that deep under that soil is something wonderful, yes, but not scary. There are no demons. Bodies, perhaps, but no ghosts.”
“Bodies? You mean, it is a burial ground?” A shiver went up Greg’s spine. From his digging exploits, he was no stranger to finding strange things underneath the earth. However, given that most of his efforts had been concentrated in the U.S., the only bones Betty had ground through were fossilized animal remains. Even they weren’t considered to be prehistoric, and therefore of very little interest to any scientist whose job it was to determine their origin before any machine could continue drilling.
“Kind of,” said Alex. “Can you remember why the city has been given the name of Thessaloniki?”
“I feel like a kid in one of your classes who’s been given a pop quiz,” said Greg. “But sure, I remember. Alexander the Great’s sister, right?”
“Very good,” said Alex. “His half-sister, but still his sister. Their father, Philip, had many wives and concubines, and though she was a legitimate child and grew up in very privileged conditions, history suggests that she had very little to do with her brother. By the time she was born, he was already being given his lessons with Aristotle. When Alexander died, Thessaloniki was twenty-one years of age and living with her family in Macedonia.”
“So he never saw her again after he went all over the world, conquering armies and stretching his empire?” By now Greg was indeed as captivated as one of Alex’s young pupils, and was oblivious to the mosquitos that were beginning to smell out the fresh, unweathered scent of a foreign body.
“That’s correct,” said Alex. “Alexander died when he was only thirty-three years of age, in Babylon. We know it now as being in Iraq. He was miles from home and it took many weeks before word came to Alexander’s sister. For a long time even after word had reached Macedonia, nobody could believe it was true. It was not an easy time to be alive, and Thessaloniki was eventually married to the very man who stormed into the city and killed her mother.”
“It’s a real-life Greek tragedy,” mused Greg.
“Very much so,” said Alex. “And you may wonder why Thessaloniki was so devastated by the death of her brother. But her biological mother died in childbirth, and so she was raised instead by Olympias, who was the mother of Alexander. So, while they may not have seen much of each other, Thessaloniki would have been kept very well informed by all of the incredible things her brother was doing. The world has never seen a greater general. The whole family must have been so proud of him, and none prouder than Thessaloniki, who adored her big brother.”
“I see,” said Greg. “I don’t know how that connects her to this piece of land, though.”
“It was ten years after Alexander’s death before Thessaloniki was married,” said Alex. “Perhaps she was simply in a state of mourning that was too deep for her to think about marriage. Especially to the man who had killed the only woman she’d known as a mother. But it was a different time and she did marry him. And he named the city after her. She was very rich and she had everything she wanted. Except one thing.”
Alex tossed his cigarette butt below him and Greg could see it glowing in the grass for a few seconds, before fading into the darkness.
“I take it you’re going to tell me what that one thing was?”
“First, I’m going to tell you that the road we can see, where this all began, was not only the main road in and out of Thessaloniki. It was also the closest road to the sea, at that time. With years of construction we have pushed the boundary of the city further and further out. While it is not ideal to build in the water, over many years the Greeks have done so. In the time of Thessaloniki, the namesake of the city, she would have lived in a prime location. That location would be one that was in the center of town, near the main road, and would have had beautiful sea views.”
“I see where you’re going with this,” said Greg. “You think this is the place where she lived? Alexander the Great’s sister lived in a house underneath this patch of land?”
“That is exactly what I think,” said Alex. “But you can’t call it a house, Grigoris. It was a palace. She is the sister of the most famous man in history up until that date. Even one thousand years later, more people had heard of Alexander the Great than of Jesus Christ. Her husband was a general who built this city. It was named after her! Everything points to her being the most famous woman of the area. She wouldn’t have had just a house. She had a palace fit for a queen. A palace full of gold, with statues dedicated to the gods. A palace with mosaics by the finest of builders laid on the floor. And I believe she had one extra, priceless artifact that only the most trustworthy of acquaintances would have known about.”
“What was it?” asked Greg, a thrilling shiver coursing through his body.
“I told you Alexander died in Babylon,” said Alex, not answering the question directly but instead revealing it to Greg along with an extra little part of the story. “And the circumstances of his death were at the very least highly suspicious. Even at a time when life expectancy was nowhere near what it is today, thirty-three is still a very young age to die. He was not finished. He wanted to carry on, expanding his empire until he met himself coming around the other side. I have no doubt that eventually he would have found a way to conquer the world. But like all confident conquerors he lived a life that was very often without care. He drank a great deal, often with dubious characters, and I believe it was the alcohol that caused his death. Whether it was a liver disease, or whether drunkenness dulled his senses and he was lured to his death by a conspirator and poisoned. We’ll never know.”
“Can’t they test his body?” asked Greg. “I’m pretty sure that if modern scientists got a hold of his bones then they can do all manner of tests. They found that guy buried in ice and they thought he’d died maybe fifty years earlier, but it turned out that he’d been dead ten thousand years. And even then, they were able to take a look in his stomach and tell you the last thing he ate for dinner.”
Alex laughed loudly but Greg protested.
“It’s true!” he said. “I read about it. The last thing he ate was deer meat and grains! Surely if they can work that out what someone had for dinner ten thousand years ago they have an idea of what killed Alexander.”
“But they’d need a body for that,” said Alex. “And they don’t have one.”
“They lost the body o
f the most important man who’d ever lived?” Greg asked, incredulous. “That doesn’t sound right to me.”
Alex shrugged. “It’s true,” he said. “The body was placed inside a solid gold sarcophagus and the army was charged with bringing it to Macedonia, so he could be laid in the family vault. But on the way there, the body was stolen and taken to Memphis.”
“Okay,” said Greg. “I know my history isn’t too hot, but even I can guess that we’re talking about a different kind of Memphis to the one I’ve heard of. Am I right?”
“Yes,” grinned Alex. “A very different kind of Memphis. But like Memphis, Tennessee, this Memphis was also a place fit for a king. Or at least, that’s what Ptolemy thought when he took it there. Only this Memphis was in Egypt. Ptolemy might have been selfish, but he wasn’t stupid. He had the sarcophagus melted down into gold coins.”
“But what did he do with the body?”
“Some texts say it went to Alexandria, which is also in Egypt,” Alex replied. “I don’t doubt that there was a body taken to Alexandria and placed inside a glass coffin so people could come and view the body. But what I do doubt is that the body is Alexander’s.”
“Why?” asked Greg. “Why would you doubt it?”
“Because Alexander was loved by his people and I doubt that much would have stood in the way of his army getting him home,” said Alex. “And if you read the history of the Greeks, especially Alexander’s family, you’ll see that even though their hero son was dead, they weren’t going to give up without a fight.”
“Which means….” Greg gazed, open-mouthed, at the perfectly innocuous empty patch of land before them.
“I can’t be sure,” Alex was quick to say. “It’s a hunch, but it’s a hunch I believe in my bones to be true. A priceless body belonging to a hero does not just disappear. I believe Thessaloniki gave the army a mission to complete and they did it. I don’t believe many of them even knew what it was they were to do until it was obvious. And I don’t believe she told even her husband. He didn’t exactly have a great track record when it came to preserving her family.”
“You’re saying that after all these years, Alexander’s body is exactly where it’s supposed to be?”
“Yes,” said Alex. “Or at the very least, as close to the last remaining member of his immediate family. I think Thessaloniki brought her brother home to Greece. But not just to Greece. To her home, where she could keep him with her. I believe he is buried, right down there, underneath Byzantium and Roman ruins. Most importantly, I believe he’s underneath her palace.”
Chapter Fifteen
Greg was silent once more, only this time it was out of shock. He blew out a puff of air with a deep breath, his cheeks full and rounded.
“That’s just crazy,” he said. “I don’t even know what to say. I guess from the very little I know that finding Alexander’s tomb would be like that Egyptian king in the pyramid.”
“Tutankhamun?” said Alex. “To find Alexander’s tomb would be an achievement a thousand times larger than the tomb Howard Carter found. Tutankhamun was a boy. He was given a dynasty by his father and was a king simply by birth. Alexander was given money, of course, and a first-class education, but he was a man. A man who carved his way across the world and changed history for the Earth.”
“I get it,” said Greg. “And I hope you’re the one who finds it. Have you taken your thoughts somewhere higher? Asked for funding from the government to dig for the tomb and see what you could find?”
“The Greek government could not help me,” said Alex. “And I am too scared to tell my thoughts to them. Besides, even if I could somehow convince government officials to give me the money, they’re not going to let me put a brush anywhere near this ‘sacred space’.” And with the final two words, Alex punctuated the air with two fingers, mocking the idea.
“I’m pretty sure if they knew half of what you know, then they’d let you at least clear the weeds and all the crap and let you take some kind of samples.”
“It’s a nice thought,” said Alex, “and we can learn a lot from soil samples. But you forget that the most that soil samples will reveal would be something at the very top of the pile. Remember the three levels? I don’t doubt we’d find some interesting Byzantium pots or maybe even the remains of a Turkish bath or harem. And as soon as it is revealed, the government will declare it a site of national interest and it will have to be preserved. We will not even be able to think about the Roman remains that will surely be underneath. And what I’m looking for is two layers under that.”
“I see,” said Greg. He looked at his watch idly and saw that it was nearly eleven. He and Alex had been on the wall, talking for two and half hours. He had no idea of the last time the hours had flown by so quickly. He had been so captivated by the story that he had lost all track of everything else around him. However, he was now very aware that he had an early start and a meeting with his foreman in the morning.
“Alex, it’s really late,” he said. “I have to meet Eddie and the guys at seven sharp and I haven’t done any preparation for tomorrow. I need to call the office, too.”
“It’s okay,” said Alex. “I appreciate your time. We can go.”
The two men swung their legs back over the wall. When they stood up Greg realized he was unsteady on his feet and his legs tingled. He had spent so long sitting in one position that the limited circulation had left him with two dead legs. He staggered around on the sidewalk hopelessly, giggling like a drunk at the sensation, and rubbing his legs to try and get the feeling back into them. Alex did the same, and it took five minutes before they were both able to walk properly.
Back on the bike, Alex steered them toward the hotel. Greg was surprised to find that they were already very close to the hotel and that the journey back took less than five minutes. He presumed that on the way up to Vardaris, Alex had simply wanted to take him via the scenic route, giving him a chance to see more of the city.
Back at the hotel, Alex pulled up and shut off the engine. Greg climbed off the old bike and lifted the helmet from his head, shaking his gray hair. He handed the helmet back to Alex.
“Thank you,” said the Greek man. “And thank you for listening to me this evening.”
“There’s something I don’t understand,” said Greg. “Why would you tell me all of that, when you don’t know me? How do you know that you can trust me with such a huge secret?”
“How do you know I was telling the truth?” replied Alex, softly. “For me, there is no doubt in my mind of what I believe, but you don’t have to believe it.”
“But I do believe it,” said Greg. “The way you tell it. The history you’ve taught me this evening. I’ve learned more in one night than I learned in five years of history lessons at school. I don’t know why I trust you. I just do.”
“There is your answer,” shrugged Alex. “Sometimes we just know we can trust someone and we don’t know why. Don’t question it too much.”
“You’re worried my machine is going to go right through that site, aren’t you?” said Greg. “I know where it is in relation to Betty. It’s east of the site. It’s right in the middle of the path we’re taking.”
Alex lifted up his hands and gave an ironic grin.
“I can’t tell you how to do your job,” he said. “I can’t stop you and you know I’ve tried. All I can do is be honest with my thoughts and my worries for the preservation of the site. I worry that it will be destroyed before we’ve even had a chance to see what’s there.”
“Betty’s a long way away, yet,” Greg suggested, but as the words left his mouth he knew it would do little to appease Alex.
“Something tells me that not much stands in your way,” said the dark-haired man. “I don’t know if I will be able to stop you.”
“You know it’s not personal, don’t you?” asked Greg, but in response all Alex could do was force a smile, put on his helmet, and give a feeble wave goodnight before he fired up the bike once more and roared
away.
Back in his hotel room Greg spent several minutes lying on his bed, gazing up at the ceiling. He needed to call the office back in California and catch up with Henry. He needed to call Molly and check in with her, as well as seeing what Sarah was up to with the most recent of the mother-daughter woes that plagued his life. It had been three hours since he’d opened his cell phone, and he really needed to check his emails, especially considering that a hell of a lot of the company’s cash was being plowed into a brand-new machine currently being constructed in Japan. But he could not bring himself to attend to any of those issues. It wasn’t that he was tired. Despite the jetlag that left his body drained and his eyes wanting to close, his mind was racing. Greece was already becoming a country unlike any he had previously visited. And that evening he had been dropped a bombshell of epic proportion that was not going to be easy to ignore.
For the next hour he lay on top of the bed, his hands folded over his stomach. He was hungry, but didn’t want to eat. He was thirsty, but couldn’t bring himself to get up and grab a bottle of water from the mini refrigerator. He wondered what it was that was keeping him awake. Was it jet lag? While he suffered from the occasional long-haul-induced headache, he usually managed to control any jet lag with Tylenol and copious amounts of water. There was a feeling buzzing in his head that was mildly familiar but had not been present for a long time. Greg searched inside his brain to find the cause of the feeling, like searching into the depths of memory when a person sees a face in the train station that causes them to wonder for the next few hours who it belongs to. Eventually, Greg hit on the reason for the strange sensation. It was anxiety. Greg Marsh, confident, bold CEO, was anxious and unsettled. He didn’t like the feeling one bit, especially as it made him begin to question himself, which he never did.
If there was one thing Greg did have, however, it was an uncanny knack of talking himself out of any situation that made him uncomfortable. Once he realized the source of his discomfort was anxiety, he sat upright on the bed, reached into his pocket and opened his cell phone. Work. It was the thing that got him through his divorce, the death of his parents within one year of each other and the occasional relationship breakup that peppered his life from time to time. Work was the antidote to everything. He shook his head, shaking out of his mind Alex’s dark, fiery eyes that had burned with excitement when he shared the history of his city. He shook out the dusty motorcycle ride and the incredible revelation. He shook out everything he didn’t want to deal with and all those thoughts flew inside a box in his mind that he was happy to leave unopened for another day.