The Lost Army of Cambyses (39 page)

over them, wielding a mace. In the last scene there

was only a single figure, still against the same

yellow background, with behind him, taller, a

young man holding an ankh-sign in his hand, and

wearing a headdress shaped like a lotus flower.

'It's telling a story,' said Daniel. 'These figures in

the upper register, they're soldiers. See: spears,

bows, shields. They seem to be marching across a

desert. And then in the next register, that figure

with the mace and the animal head, that's Seth, the

god of war and chaos. And deserts too. He's

striking them down. So it looks like they were

defeated in battle, although there's no indication

of who the enemy was. And then in the bottom

register that figure with the lotiform headdress,

that's Nefertum, god of regeneration and rebirth.'

'Meaning?'

Daniel shrugged. 'Maybe that the spirit of the

army lives on despite its defeat. Or that some of

the soldiers survived the battle. It's hard to be sure

with Egyptian symbolism. They thought very

differently from the way we do now.'

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He stared at the images for a while longer, then

turned away and shone the torch at the walls to

either side of the corridor opening, which were

covered in columns of neat black hieroglyphs. At

the bottom of the left-hand wall, about midway

along, was a small gap in the text.

'That's where our piece comes from,' he said.

'See, the snakes fit into the line along the bottom

of the wall.'

He squatted down, Tara at his side. The dark-

ness seemed to push in around them as though

they were immersed in a black liquid. She could

hear her heart beating.

'Well, go on then,' she urged. 'Put it back. It's

what we came here for.'

He glanced over at her, then swung the knap-

sack from his back, took out the box and,

removing the piece of plaster, fitted it carefully

back into position. Once it was in place it was

almost impossible to tell it had ever been taken

out.

'So what does it say?' she asked.

He looked over at her again, then stood, took a

few paces back and wove the torch over the

hieroglyphs.

'The text starts here,' he said, 'to the left of the

door, and reads top to bottom and right to left.'

He stared at the wall a while longer, and then

began to read, the torch beam rising and falling as

it followed the columns of text, his translation

swift and assured. In the narrow confines

of the tomb his voice took on a distant, echoing

quality, as though it was coming from far back in

time. Tara felt the hairs on her neck stand up.

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'I, ib-wer-imenty and am laid here in year

twelve of the king of upper and lower Egypt Se-

tut-ra Tar-i-ush . . .
that's the Egyptian royal

titulary of the Persian emperor Darius . . .
day

four, first month of Akhet. Beloved of Darius, true

servant of his affection, king's protector beloved of

his lord, follower of the king, overseer of the army,

the justified, the faithful, the true. In Greece I was

at his side. In Lydia I was with him. In Persia I did

not fail him. In Ashkalon I was there.'

He paused. They had reached the bottom of the

third column.

'What does all that mean?' she asked.

'Well, it dates the tomb to the First

Persian Period. The Persians conquered Egypt

under Cambyses in about 525 BC. Darius

succeeded Cambyses in 522 BC. This guy died in

year twelve of Darius's reign, so about 510 BC.'

She could almost hear his mind whirring.

'This guy must have been one of Darius's

generals. That's what titles like
shemsu nesu,

follower of the king, and
mer-mesha,
overseer of

the army, usually mean. You've no idea how im-

portant this is. The tomb of one of the king's

generals. And from the sixth century, too. Almost

no burials from that period have ever been found

in Thebes. It's fabulous.'

'Go on,' she said. 'What does the rest say?'

He swung the torch up to the top of the fourth

column.

'The Nubians I destroyed at my master's bid-

ding, grinding them to dust, winning great fame.

The Greeks I made to bow low. The Libyans I

smote to the farthest horizon, and made to taste

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death. My sword was mighty. My strength was

great. I had no fear. The gods were with me.'

He flashed the torch downwards momentarily.

'OK. Our piece starts at the beginning of this

next column.'

He raised the beam again, and continued.

'In year three under the person of the king of

upper and lower Egypt Mes-u-ti-ra Kem-bit-jet . . .

again, an Egyptian royal titulary, Cambyses this

time . . .
before I found great fame,
in the third

month of peret, I, ib-wer-imenty
went into the

western desert, to sekhet-imit, to destroy the king's

enemies.'

He stopped again, a sudden, puzzled look on his

face.

'What?' she asked.

'Sekhet-imit, that's . . .'

He paused for a moment, thinking, and then,

without finishing his sentence, began translating

again, his voice slower now, more deliberate, as

though he was checking and rechecking every

word.

'At the place
of the pyramid, 90 iteru
to the

south and east of sekhet-imit, in the midst of

the valley of sand, as we took our noonday meal,

a great storm happened.
The world was black. The

sun no more. 50,000 went down into the sand. I

alone was spared by the mercy of the gods. Sixty

iteru I walked alone through the desert, south and

east to the land of the cows. Great was the heat.

Great thirst I suffered. Great hunger I suffered.

Many times I died. But I came to the land of the

cows. The Gods were with me. I was very great in

their favour
. . .'

332

His voice trailed off. She looked over at him.

His lips were moving, but no sound was coming

out. Even in the enveloping blackness she could

see that his face had gone a deathly, luminous

white. His hand was trembling, causing the torch

beam to judder over the wall.

'My God,' he whispered, voice hoarse, as

though the darkness had somehow flooded his

throat.

'What?'

He didn't answer.

'What, Daniel?'

'It's the army of Cambyses.'

His eyes were wide, full of shock and triumph.

'What's the army of Cambyses?'

Again he didn't answer immediately, just stood

staring up at the wall, oblivious to her questions,

as though in a sort of trance. It was almost a

minute before he eventually shook his head, as

though to wake himself up. Taking her hand, he

led her across the chamber, back to the panel they

had been looking at earlier. He shone the torch up

at it.

'In 525 BC Cambyses of Persia conquered Egypt

and absorbed it into the Persian empire.' He could

barely keep the torch beam still. 'Some time there-

after, probably around 523 BC, he sent out two

armies from Thebes. He led the first one himself,

marching due south against the Ethiopians. The

second army was sent north-west across the desert

to destroy the oracle of Amun at the oasis of Siwa,

which the Egyptians knew as sekhet-imit, the

Place of the Palm Trees.'

He shone the torch up at the first of the three

333

images within the panel, a group of figures march-

ing across a desert.

'According to the Greek historian Herodotus,

who was writing about seventy-five years later,

the army reached an oasis called the Island of the

Blessed, which is probably modern al-Kharga.

Somewhere between there and Siwa, however, out

in the Great Sand Sea, it was overwhelmed by a

sandstorm and the entire army was destroyed.

Fifty thousand men wiped out, just like that.'

He dropped the torch to the second register, the

marching figures crushed beneath the mace of

Seth.

'No-one has ever known if the story was true.

This text proves it was. Not only that, but that one

person at least, this ib-wer-imenty, survived the

disaster. God knows how, but he did.' He lowered

the beam to the final register. 'Ib-wer-imenty with

Nefertum, god of regeneration and rebirth. That's

what this last scene means: the army was

destroyed, but our man survived.'

'But why is this so important?' she asked.

Without taking his eyes from the wall, he pulled

a cheroot from his pocket and lit it, the flare of the

match momentarily driving back the shadows and

illuminating the entire chamber.

'The mere fact that it confirms Herodotus is

significant enough. But there's more here, Tara.

Much more.'

He took her hand and led her back to the text.

'Look. Ib-wer-imenty doesn't just tell us he sur-

vived the sandstorm. He gives the precise location

where it overwhelmed the army. See: "At the place

of the pyramid, ninety
iteru
to the south and east

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of sekhet-imit". I don't know what "the place of

the pyramid" is; presumably some sort of

pyramid-shaped limestone outcrop. But we do

know that an
iteru
is an ancient unit of measure-

ment, equivalent to about two kilometres. And

there's more further on: "Sixty
iteru
I walked

alone through the desert, south and east to the

land of the cows." The land of the cows is a trans-

lation of
ta-iht,
which was the ancient name for

al-Farafra, another oasis between Kharga and

Siwa. Don't you see, Tara? What we've got here is

effectively a map of where the army of Cambyses

was lost. Sixty
iteru
north-west of al-Farafra,

ninety
iteru
south-east of Siwa, at the place of the

pyramid. It's about as exact as you could ever get

in an ancient text. It's fabulous.'

It was hot in the tomb and his face was glisten-

ing with sweat. He pulled excitedly on his cheroot.

'Do you have any idea what this means? People

have been looking for the army of Cambyses for

thousands of years. It's become a sort of holy grail

for archaeologists. But the western desert's a big

place. All Herodotus says is that the army was lost

somewhere in the middle of it. That doesn't tell

you anything. It could be anywhere.

'With these indicators, however, you can pin-

point the spot almost precisely. The measurements

from Siwa and al-Farafra narrow it down to

perhaps a few dozen square miles. If you

surveyed that area from the air it shouldn't be too

difficult to locate a pyramid-shaped rock.

Anything like that would stick out from the dunes

like a sore thumb. You could find it in a couple of

days. Less.'

335

'But only if you had the measurements,' she

said, starting to understand.

'Exactly. That's why our piece of text is so

crucial. It's got the distance from Siwa, and part of

the hieroglyph indicating the distance from al-

Farafra. Without it you've got no more chance of

finding the army than any of the hundreds of other

explorers who've gone looking for it. No wonder

Sayf al-Tha'r wanted it so badly.'

He fell silent, staring up at the wall, eyes burn-

ing in the glow of the torch. Thoughts were

spinning through Tara's mind.

'How valuable would this army be?' she asked

after a long silence.

'An entire ancient army? Fifty thousand men,

full equipment, perfectly preserved under the

desert sands? Fuck, it would be the greatest find in

the history of archaeology. Nothing would come

close to it. Tutankhamun's tomb would look like a

cheap bric-a-brac shop by comparison. I mean

a couple of years ago a breastplate from this

period sold for over a hundred thousand dollars.

Provided he sold it off bit by bit and didn't flood

the market . . . Jesus, a find like this would make

Sayf al-Tha'r one of the richest men in the Middle

East. I dread to think what he could do with

resources like that at his disposal.'

They stood in silence. The beam of the torch

was starting to weaken, its light gradually soften-

ing from a crisp white to a flaccid yellow.

'And what about the British embassy?' asked

Tara. 'Squires and Jemal?'

'They must have found out about the tomb. If