That morning the sand beyond the trees lay flat and bare on every hand. It had been much like a lesser version of the sandstorm during their journey to this terrible country. The end result was the same, though. And there was no sign of the chariot his uncle had stolen.
He leant against a date palm on the edge of the oasis, gazing out across the sand. In the distance, the Garamantes were making a cursory search. Had the chariot gone? Or had it just been buried?
A thought struck him.
‘Maybe the chariot landed on top of him,’ he said to himself. ‘Maybe he was buried under it, and that’s why they didn’t find him anywhere nearby.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe he’s still buried.’
Should he tell the Garamantes? They could dig him out, but if they did that they would keep him prisoner and hand him over to the king. And then he would be executed as a spy.
‘He got away, lad,’ came a familiar voice. ‘And good luck to him.’
Startled, Amasis looked back to where he had left Demetrius by another tree. The Greek was blinking up at him, shading his eyes against the morning sun.
‘What was that you said?’ he asked. He frowned. ‘Do you know what happened last night? I thought you were asleep.’ And witless even when he was awake, he avoided adding…
‘I heard what people were saying when I woke up,’ the Greek told him. ‘My, I missed quite an exciting time! But I’m glad that your master has got away. They were going to betray him, I understand.’
Amasis crossed over to him. ‘I didn’t think you’d noticed.’
They began walking back to the shelters where breakfast was cooking over a fire. ‘I have been unwell,’ the Greek acknowledged. ‘I have been out of sorts. And yes, I have been paying little heed to recent events. But I saw what was happening. If they catch him, your master will be killed. I hope he stays free.’
‘Thank you,’ said Amasis. ‘I’m worried that he might have been trapped under the chariot. And then there was that storm.’
‘If he has been lying under the chariot all that time,’ said Demetrius, ‘then he will have gone to a better place beyond the River of Death.’
Amasis felt a sudden sense of incommunicable loss, compounded with a feeling of utter isolation, hundreds of miles from home in the middle of an uncouth foreign land. He gazed piteously at the Greek, who gripped his arm.
‘Mustn’t give in to despair now,’ said Demetrius firmly. ‘Look at Menander over there’—the slave had been responsible for the cooking— ‘he doesn’t despair, do you, Menander? And the gods know you have more to despair about.’
‘Man conquers the world by conquering himself,’ the slave remarked, handing them both bowls of the interminable locusts in milk.
The Garamantes returned soon after, their search having proved fruitless. Amasis wasn’t sure if he was glad or not. If they had been successful, his Uncle Gaius would have been a prisoner, with a high chance of being executed. But since they hadn’t found him, it reinforced Amasis’ idea that he was buried under the chariot and the sand. He remembered Menander’s wise words. They sounded like a proverb from one of those philosophers at the Museum rather than the words of a slave. Yes, he must conquer himself—and then, like Alexander, he might conquer the world. He should stop worrying. What would be would be.
By the middle of the day they saw a great walled city, where palm trees grew beside blue pools among flat roofed houses, temples and fortified palaces. At regular places along the wall stood tall towers, and the sun flashed on the spears and burnished armour of guards in these towers or patrolling the parapets. Great gates also stood in the walls, and through them passed a busy traffic of chariots and people on foot or riding camels and asses. The city stood amidst another oasis, where reeds grew around a great blue lake.
‘Here we are,’ Demetrius remarked. ‘Our destination.’ He had a scrap of papyrus in his hand and was making detailed notes with a reed pen, dipping it from time to time into an inkpot held by Amasis. The boy felt glad. It was the first time the old man had shown as much interest in his surroundings since Osorkon’s men had come to the village.
They entered the city as the dusty streets were beginning to quieten down for the noontime rest, but Osorkon did not call for a halt, instead leading the chariots towards the fortified palace on the far side. Here guards stood in the shade of the great gateway, and their captain challenged the approaching chariots as they drew up before him.
Osorkon himself spoke with the man, and soon the captain was ushering them through, holding up a hand to his face as the dust was stirred up by their chariot wheels.
Within the grim walls of the fortified palace, all was tranquil. Gardens were visible beyond a wide courtyard where they parked their chariots, fountains tinkled and birds sang among the trees. Even the dust seemed to have vanished from the air, replaced by a mist of water from the fountains. Slaves came to meet them, stalwart Ethiopians like Menander, who led Osorkon and the foreign travellers into a large building.
Inside it was cool and dark. Cressets flickered on the walls of high roofed passages that led to a large audience chamber. On the far side was a throne behind which stood an emblem of a winged sun disk. It was empty. The wide floor before it was ranked with Garamantian guards who carried leaf bladed spears and had assegais at their hips, wrapped themselves in the hides of lions and cheetahs and wore bright feathers in their headdresses. Otherwise they were naked but for a few ornaments. Each one must have been at least six foot tall. Amasis felt like a pigmy in their presence as he led the shuffling Demetrius alongside Osorkon, Claudius Mercator, Dido, Vabalathus, and the Nasamoneans.
With a flourish of trumpets, an arched doorway swung open and in waddled a big, bearded man who wore a pshent upon his brows and a lion skin over one shoulder. In one hand he carried a sceptre. Guards and slaves walked at his elbow as he made his way to the foot of the throne.
Here his followers drew away to stand with the other attendants, and only the big man ascended the throne, wheezing and panting and pausing a couple of times to mop at his brow with a square of linen. Finally, he flung himself into the seat and gazed gruffly down at Osorkon and his companions as they knelt before him. He beckoned to a chamberlain who came to crouch beside him. Pointing at Claudius Mercator, who was trying to look inconspicuous at the back, he whispered in the chamberlain’s ear. The chamberlain rose and spoke in a resounding voice to Osorkon.
Osorkon’s brown face paled. He turned to look at his companions, then back to the king. He began speaking. But King Gulussa shook his head, gestured with his sceptre. He whispered into the chamberlain’s ear. The chamberlain spoke again, and ushered forwards the guards, who surrounded the kneeling travellers, spears levelled.
Dido spoke urgently to Osorkon. The chieftain’s face was a picture of woe. He gabbled something in reply, then a guard struck him with the butt of his spear and he went down. Dido’s face was white.
‘The king says we are all accused of being Roman spies,’ she whispered. ‘And that we will be imprisoned, tried, and executed if found guilty.’
‘Can’t we at last try to palaver?’ Claudius Mercator said. ‘We’re not spies! Oh, why did Flaminius have to run away like that! It was so thoughtless!’ Dido could only shake her head and indicate Osorkon’s prone figure.
The guards surrounded them. Dido drew her sword and shouted something to Hamilcar. The Nasamonean produced his own blade, as did his two companions. The guards lunged with their spears. There was a fight, which the king watched from his throne with wide, excited eyes.
But it was an unequal struggle. Soon three Nasamoneans lay full stretch on the throne room floor. Seeing herself surrounded and alone, Dido dropped her own sword in token of surrender.
The guards dragged them, the stunned Osorkon included, from the audience chamber.
—18—
Phazania, 18th December 124 AD
Flaminius awoke in darkness.
It was hot and stifling darkness, and yet his garments were soak
ed through. Water hung in the air, but he could smell the spicy scent of sand. Grit rained down onto his face, and he snorted it away, but still it cascaded from an unseen roof above.
He could hear water rushing all around him, but from above came the muffled sound of spades. Moving a little, he discovered that he was lying in a stream, although he could still see nothing. His clothes were heavy with water and the stifling air was filled with grit.
The sound of digging grew louder. He peered up into the darkness, gradually beginning to make out a curving roof of sand, or sandy rock. He lay in a stream of water. He could see it now. He was half in and half out of the channel. Above him a shaft entered the ceiling, but something seemed to be blocking it. Even as he realised this, a beam of light shot down, striking the rushing water with its diffuse glow. He lay right in its path.
A hole had appeared in the blocked end of the shaft. The sound of digging grew louder, and the hole opened up bit by bit as if gnawed at by dozens of mouths, the light grew brighter, the beam widened. Flaminius peered up in puzzlement.
He could hear voices now, too, though he couldn’t understand what they were saying. What had happened? Where was he? He searched his mind for memories. The last thing he remembered was the sudden lurch of the chariot as it hit some kind of obstacle and went over. He had been flung from the car, but a black mouth had opened up in the desert and swallowed him. That couldn’t be right.
The digging grew louder, the voices floated down, the beam of light grew bigger. At last Flaminius saw a head and shoulders silhouetted against the light, peering down. It vanished, and excited shouting floated down. They had seen him! Instinctively Flaminius rolled over, out of the shaft of light, into the wet darkness.
Now he thought he knew what had happened. The chariot, careering madly across the desert, had hit the shaft of an irrigation channel, of the kind Vabalathus had described. He had somehow been thrown down it. Then it had been filled in, or partially blocked. He remembered the wind as he and Amasis made their escape. Perhaps the sand had blocked up the shaft.
Amasis. What had happened to him?
The patch of light on the running waters of the channel vanished, and Flaminius heard scuffling noises from above. He peered up the shaft to see with a shock a shape swinging down it on the end of a rope. Whoever had been digging out the shaft was coming down to investigate. It was probably only a Garamantian farmer, unblocking his irrigation channel after the storm, curious to see someone down in the tunnel…but Flaminius thought it high time he found some way out.
He turned and waded away.
Following the narrow channel downstream he passed another shaft down which filtered desert sunlight. Either this one had not been blocked by the storm, or the farmers had already cleared it. He halted, with the foaming water flowing round his wet legs as he gazed up at the bright circle of light. He made a futile attempt to jump up into the shaft, intending to chimney his way up to the top. But his flailing hands slipped from the edge of the shaft and he fell with a loud splash.
Shouts echoed from the tunnel behind him, and he heard the distant thud of footsteps, magnified by the enclosing walls. The farmers, or whoever they were, were coming after him. He waded onwards as fast as he could.
He passed several other shafts, but did not stop to try and climb them. Now he could see dim light from somewhere ahead of him. The tunnel began to narrow, the roof to lower. The water rushed forwards as if as eager to escape the subterranean environment as Flaminius.
He had to scramble along on his hands and knees as the sound of pursuit came down the tunnel behind him. He was sure that his pursuers were more curious than anything—what was a man doing in their irrigation system?—but if they discovered that it was a foreigner who could not speak their language, they would report it to the local headman or chief. And then, with or without the treachery of his erstwhile companions, he would suffer the fate of a spy.
Again he wondered what had become of Amasis. Had the boy survived the crash? Had the Garamantian warriors caught up with him? Why had they not thought to search for him down in the tunnel?
It had been night, he supposed, dark and windswept. And warriors would know nothing of agriculture. Perhaps they had not noticed the shaft entrance. After all, he hadn’t! Or perhaps the chariot had demolished it. Certainly the sand had covered it up. Blocked it completely…
There it was! The exit! Right ahead of him, the water was rushing out of a hole through which shone desert sunlight. It was so narrow he felt like a cork in an amphora neck, but he forced himself on, squeezing through the slender, wet space. For a moment he thought he was completely stuck, that the farmers would find him blocking the channel just as his chariot had blocked the shaft. Then with a Herculean effort, he forced himself through to come splashing out into the bright sunlight.
He lay motionless in the oddly ridged channel, gasping for breath, waters rushing around him as the sun blazed down. Then he heard more noises from inside the channel, and forced himself to his feet.
He was standing in a series of channels that rushed from a hole in the sandy bank beside him into a fertile area of trees and fields. The water channel clearly fed the fields and groves. In the distance, a stout woman was placidly hacking at the earth of a field with a long mattock. But she had not noticed him.
He crouched down and peered into the narrow tunnel. It was pitch black in there, and he could see nothing, but there was a growing sound of moment. He hurried away from the channel, into the cover of the trees.
Avoiding a small settlement, he reached the edge of the grove where the desert stretched on all sides, empty but for tussocks of grass and occasional thorn trees. His clothes had steamed into stiffness as he had walked through the heat. His pursuers had not made it through the channel: perhaps they had given up, gone back to their maintenance duties.
He didn’t blame them. He wasn’t their concern. But what now? He had to get to Garama, but where was it? Where was he, for that matter? Lost in the desert, that was where. Furthermore, he had lost all chance of stealing the veil of Tanit. And he had lost Amasis.
He put a hand to his brow, which was slick with sweat. His body was aching. He leant against a tree for support. Was it a new bout of fever? That was all he needed. He had thought he was over the sickness that had plagued him on his arrival in Egypt, but it haunted him.
He tried to orient himself by the sun. From the temperature he thought it must be afternoon. He had been lying in that irrigation channel for hours. What had happened to the caravan in the meantime? They must have continued gone to Garama, giving him up for lost. He gave a savage grin. That would put a spoke in their wheel, their plans of handing him over to the king as a Roman spy. What would happen now? Then he remembered Amasis again.
There had been no sign of the boy down in the tunnel. He must have been flung in another direction. Either he was in the hands of the others, or he was lost in the desert. Flaminius didn’t like the idea of explaining his absence to Nitocris and Ozymandias, but his mission had to take precedence.
Hearing voices, he looked up to see a small group of men coming across the sands. He ducked behind the tree and watched from cover. Their garments and limbs were stained with dried mud, and they carried spades, substantiating his theory that they were his former pursuers. In silence he watched them enter the oasis along a narrow path, talking and arguing, and vanish into the trees.
If he remained here, he would be discovered. If he set out across the sands, he would be visible for miles around. It looked like the men had not given up their search but instead had decided to look for him topside.
He was hungry, and ironically enough thirsty too. Once the men had gone, he went deeper into the trees himself, to where he remembered the last water channel. Lying flat on the bank he drank thirstily from its stream with the gusto of a lion at a watering hole. Then he examined the surrounding trees for any fruit. Of course, at this time of year there were none.
He couldn’t set out into t
he desert without water or provisions, but he had nothing with which to make a water skin, and no food to hand. And the people of the nearby settlement were searching for him.
He returned to the edge of the oasis. If it was afternoon, the sun would be westering. It was slanting down over the line of cliffs on the horizon, running east to west. Garama must be further east.
He heard loud discussion coming from the direction of the little settlement. No doubt the natives were debating what should be done about this intruder. Perhaps word of his disappearance had been put about by Osorkon and his warriors. Well, it was past the hottest time of the day. He would make for the hills and follow them to Garama. And if he died in his attempt to fulfil his duty, well, the gods that he didn’t believe in him would be kind to him in the afterlife. Right?
Casting worried glances around him, he left the dusty oasis and walked out into the open.
The sun was setting over the distant hills and he had walked just about as far as seemed reasonable when he heard the drumming of hoofs and the rumble of chariots. Whirling around, he saw a cloud of dust on the horizon, coming from the vicinity of the oasis. The farmers had contacted the local chiefs, it seemed, and now a war party was after him!
He started running for the nearest rocks. Although he had not yet reached the highest hills, he was now among rock-strewn cliffs. No one could get a chariot up onto those crags, and if he could climb up there, it would cut down some of the advantage these Garamantes gained from their vehicles. Surely they couldn’t follow his trail across the windswept sands. While still in the open he must have been visible for miles around, but now he was in cover. They were quartering the area for him, but the dust flung up by their wheels and the hoofs of their horses had betrayed them.
Reaching the foot of a cliff, he searched for a way up. As he did, he detected movement from the shadows among the rocks. Halting, he peered into the gloom.
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