Monsters in the Sand (7 page)

‘Assyrian cuneiform.’ Austen reached across the centuries to touch the words. What other treasures and marvels were beneath their feet? ‘Keep digging.’

‘Another corner,’ called a voice.

He clambered out of the trench and, with measured tread, paced out the tops of the walls exposed. The chamber was about twenty-five feet long, by fourteen wide. Tiny indentations showed where wall-slabs were joined by mortar. Each slab was about eight feet wide. There was one gap, about four feet wide, which was probably the top of a doorway. How deep was this room? Austen was torn between running back for his saddlebag, which held his measuring tapes and sketchbook, or staying in the trench to keep on digging. Exact measurement could wait.

‘Everybody come here,’ he called.

The men hurried over, their faces smeared with dirt.

‘All of us will work together in one place. Let’s get this trench down to the floor. We’ll need more baskets and ropes for lifting out soil.’

Down they dug, down until the gleaming wall decorated with cuneiform writing was above their heads. And still they dug, unearthing pieces of broken pottery. The sun was higher by now and the heat began. One by one the workers stripped off their headcloths, cloaks and tunics and worked in just loincloths and sandals.

On the surface, when the sheik emptied one basket, he paused. He stooped down, then lifted something yellowish-white from the soil. He puffed a breath against it and, as if he was holding a hot coal, juggled the object from hand to hand. Then he dropped it and called out, ‘Quickly, O Lion, you must see.’

Lying on its back, the face glaring in merciless severity and the cloak decorated with gold leaves, was a small ivory statue. In one hand it held a ball.

When Austen knelt and looked closely at the ball, he didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. ‘An orb,’ he managed to say. ‘A royal orb.’ He hardly dared to think this might be the brutal King Sennacherib, stabbed to death by his sons, perhaps in a room hidden beneath them.

It was the first ivory dug from an Assyrian site and Austen cradled it gently in his hands. Paul Botta had found nothing like this. They were surely above a palace. Where else would such a magnificent work of art be found?

But was this Nineveh? He studied the cuneiform writing on the wall. A top priority was to copy it and send it to Rawlinson.

‘Here’s more!’ Hormuzd held up an ivory sphinx, with a lion’s face and eagle’s wings. It was not much larger than his hand, but the carving was beautiful.

Austen sat on the edge of the trench. He was bewildered by the beauty of the sculptures and the torment of uncertainty. What if it was
not
Nineveh that he had found, but some other city?

At the bottom of the trench, Hormuzd’s spade clanged on something that rang hollow. He scraped the soil away and there was a magnificent marble floor, decorated with cuneiforms.

‘Sheik Awad, the men must empty this room. I need space to copy every cuneiform on both walls and floors. I need every artefact.’

The sheik scratched his beard. ’
Ya bey
– My Lord – it is a job for many men, many days.’

Gunfire boomed and cracked near the other end of the mound. The men looked at each other in alarm and then started running towards the sound.

Smoke puffed from muskets, men fell from horses and were dying or dead by the time the sound of the shots reached Austen.

The sheik struggled to catch his breath. ‘They are raiders from the Zab River.’

‘But who’s fighting them?’ It was hard to pick out details of the two groups fighting along the bank of the Tigris.

Hormuzd was tense. ‘See that one in the red cloak? That’s captain Daoud. I’ve seen him wearing that cloak in Mosul.’

Austen felt the men’s fear. Captain Daoud commanded the pasha’s cavalry called the irregulars. They were gangs of criminals who terrorised the land around Mosul – robbing, killing, kidnapping children
to sell as slaves. The pasha called them ‘Tax-Collectors.’

Swords glinted, horses crashed against each other, and then the tangle of men and horses unravelled. About twelve horsemen fled back along the riverbank, towards the junction of the Zab and Tigris rivers. Daoud and his men chased them.

‘What if Daoud and the irregulars come back here?’ the sheik whispered.

The men’s fear was close to panic. Austen sensed that they were about to run back to protect their families. He was going to lose his workers and there was nobody to take their place.

‘Listen to me.’ Austen pointed to the horsemen, who faded into the distance. ‘Captain Daoud will chase the raiders far away from Nimrud. He must allow his irregulars to attack and plunder the camps of the raiders all the way along the River Zab. The pasha doesn’t pay their wages, so the irregulars have to find booty where they can. Believe me, Daoud has no interest in Nimrud or Selamiya. We have no herds of camels or gold.’

‘The pasha, yes.’ The sheik turned over his hands and looked at his fingers.

The workers scowled. One, then two of them looked towards Selamiya.

A few more seconds and they’d be gone. ‘If you men wish to return to your families, then may Allah go with you in peace.’

The men began to turn away.

‘But –’ He shouted the word, and it carried such menace that the men stopped.

‘Tell me, will any of you be safe when Daoud’s men return to scour the land? He has a thousand swift horsemen under his command. You cannot drive him off with your few weapons and if you run, he will hunt you down.’

‘Ya bey,
what shall we do?’ The sheik spoke for them all.

‘Men of Selamiya, bring your tents, your flocks and families here to my camp. If, in days to come, Allah permits Captain Daoud to approach us, I will go out to meet him. I will show him the letter from the supreme sultan, promising protection to me and all my companions. You, and also your families, are my companions. Daoud would never dare to defy the supreme sultan, whose vengeance is without pity. He must obey the order to protect us all. Not a hair of your head will be harmed. But Daoud will lose his head if he insults one of the supreme sultan’s guests. Run away from Nimrud and you die. Stay with me and you dwell in the one oasis of peace.’

While they took that in, Austen pushed his advantage. ‘I will pay one man a full day’s wage to run back to Selamiya and tell your people to move
here. Tonight, you and your families shall be guests at my feast.’

One man stepped forward. He was lean and tough, with bright eyes and a thick black beard. ‘I will bring our people here.’

‘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.’

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.

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.

‘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.