Gold of the Ancients

by Graham Warren

  The silence around the table had been deafening until Kate spoke quite softly. “Honestly, I know that I can be abrasive, but, Alex,” she placed her hand on his wrist, “thank you. I am quite convinced that I would not be alive now if it were not for you. Thank you.”

  Silence returned to the room. Alex put his hand on hers. He was unable to say anything. Hearing ‘thank you’ twice from Kate in such rapid succession had left him – as well as Emmy and Cairo – quite speechless.

  Sitting back in their bedroom, Alex was still trying to come to terms with what he thought he now knew. He understood that he had not been in any physical cinema, he had been looking into his own mind. His out of body experience had very much turned into an inner body experience. The books which had surrounded him were containers of his own memories. Those books which had appeared on the desk contained the sections of his memory he needed to unlock and combine, in order to make sense of all that was going on. He wished he had not been disturbed, but he had, so there was no point in crying about it.

  Cairo was far more worried about how many sandwiches he should ask his relative to prepare before they contemplated any attempt to enter into Cleopatra’s Palace. Should he get her to pack sandwiches just for him, or for all of them? He decided that sandwiches for all of them would be best, because if they did not feel hungry he could always help out!

  Unbeknown to Alex, Kate and Emmy had left, just a few minutes earlier. They had gone straight from breakfast to buy a full set of new clothes for him, amongst other things. Cairo’s elderly relation had been brilliant. She had even supplied Kate and Emmy with a map of safe areas, where they could walk without fear of coming across ancients. Apparently the land here had changed so much since ancient times that there were whole areas where it was now completely safe for them to walk. After their initial hesitation they had agreed that this did, in fact, appear to be plausible, though they had only arrived at this agreement after Cairo’s relative had pointed out that Cleopatra’s Palace was now well beneath the waters of the bay, and that must have been built on ancient ground.

  “She lives down there, kid!” Cairo had said in his best attempt at a Humphry Bogart impersonation, whilst pointing to the sea. He had watched far too many American movies.

  Kate had replied to Cairo as she and Emmy had gone to leave, and just as he was going up the stairs to join Alex, “I have always thought Bogart to be an appalling actor, though you have the uncanny knack of delivering lines in such a way that it makes him look good … very good indeed!”

  Chapter 35

  -

  Cairo’s Confusion

  Alex had obviously been quiet for far too long.

  “When we go fight Cleopatra?” Alex had just about registered that Cairo had spoken. He was too deep in his own thoughts to answer. “WHEN WE GO FIGHT,” Cairo now shouted.

  “S … sorry, Cairo, I was in a world of my own just then. Please give me a minute, because I do have something to tell you all.” Only now did he realise that Kate and Emmy were not in the room. “Can you wait until the girls are up from breakfast? I can then tell you all what I now know. You will be amazed. I was … actually I still am! Do you think they will be long?”

  “They not coming from breakfast. They gone shopping. They get you clothes.” Cairo explained about how helpful his relative had been, even down to supplying Kate and Emmy with a map.

  “Why have they gone shopping?”

  “I tell you, to get you clothes!”

  “No, Cairo, that is not what I meant.” The simple fact that they had risked leaving a place of safety, in broad daylight, to do nothing more than shopping, worried Alex. The fact that Cairo’s ‘relative’ had been so happy for them to do so, actually set off alarm bells in his head. There was a moment of silence during which Cairo looked somewhat confused. “How long ago did they leave?”

  “Ten, fifteen minutes, less perhaps. Why?”

  Alex had carried his phone with him all the time they had been out in the desert, as they had passed Amarna and dropped in, literally, to Tanis, everywhere where there had been no signal. Now he was somewhere where he could finally get a signal, a strong signal, he had no phone. “Do you have your mobile on you?”

  “It somewhere in desert. Lost it when they took me from camel.”

  This was the answer Alex had expected. “Please, Cairo, could you go downstairs, find a phone, and call your father? I have a question for him. He will be at The Winter Palace at this time of day, won’t he?”

  “He always at Winter Palace. What I to ask?”

  “Find out about your relatives here, would you?”

  Cairo gave Alex a curious look. “Why?”

  “Humour me, please, it’s important, just ask him. No … don’t ask him, tell him where you are, and see what he says.”

  “Okay.” And with that Alex listened to the sound of Cairo’s flip-flops as he ran down two flights of stairs at great speed. Cairo had made it to the ground floor before the bedroom door had slammed behind him. Alex looked for something to wear. He came up with nothing better than the dressing gown he was already wearing.

  The sound of Cairo’s footsteps becoming ever more frantic, as Alex heard him forcefully, though without success, try to open any ground floor door, added to his concern. He was unsure if he should check out the rooms above them, the roof even, or wait for Cairo to return. Suddenly there were voices. Cairo was speaking to somebody. Alex could not make out what was being said, and though it sounded frantic, it did not appear to be aggressive.

  The talking stopped, only to be replaced by the sound of footsteps coming back up the stairs at speed. It was definitely Cairo, but also one, possibly two, others. Was Cairo being chased? Alex thought that Cairo would, more than likely, be making much more noise if he was, though Alex was not prepared to leave their safety to guesswork. Not being able to see anything he could use as an effective weapon, and being all too aware that the bedroom door would be bursting open any second, he opened the empty wardrobe and stepped inside. Alex had no physical weapon, but he knew all too well that surprise itself could be a formidable weapon.

  He had only just managed to pull the wardrobe doors closed – they were obviously not intended to be closed from the inside – when the bedroom door opened with so much force that one of the wardrobe doors opened all by itself.

  Cairo stopped in his tracks at the sight of Alex. He looked at him quizzically, before turning and running out of the room. As he did, he called out, “Follow me!”

  Alex did not need to be asked twice. There was no time for him to say hello to either Ropet or Sanuba – Cairo’s ancient relatives and both soldiers – as he followed Cairo to the roof.

  In typical Egyptian style the stairs took them straight out onto a flat roof where chickens and two, now very startled, goats lived. They found themselves to be surrounded by everything the house owner had once considered may be needed again at some time in the future. All now sun-damaged, broken, and covered in a thick layer of dust, which had stuck to the items in lumps due to the not infrequent rain showers this far north in Egypt.

  It was Sanuba who spoke whilst Ropet ran back down the stairs to keep guard. Sanuba’s English was nearly perfect, though he often chose not to speak English because ancients speaking English where ancients were not expected to be, drew the unwanted attention of other ancients. “Shut up and listen to me.”

  Alex thought this an unnecessary demand as he had no intention of speaking, and Cairo looked far too stunned to be able to speak.

  “The addresses you had to memorise,” Sanuba looked directly at Cairo, “were all places where your ancient family could extract you from if you got into trouble. They were never, and I do repeat, never … and you would have known this if you had paid attention to your father … never, never, never places you would be safe to stay at. They were extraction points, nothing more. Most are modern buildings either built over long gone temples or lookout towers, such as here.”

  This was obvio
usly why Ropet and Sanuba could stand with them. The whole building had been built on the site of an ancient watchtower. “Idiot!” Alex thought, “I am an idiot! I should have seen it before now!”

  Long before Alexander chose to build his city here because of the natural harbour, there had been a small though important Ancient Egyptian trading town, whose history went well back into antiquity, to a time long before that of Ramses. The army of those times would have needed a lookout tower which gave them a view of the whole bay. This had to have been at exactly the point where they now stood. Of course there was no problem with Sanuba speaking English here, because this tower would have been in use in his time, before his time, and well after his time.

  Sanuba took in Alex’s face, “I can see that you clearly understand the predicament you now find yourself in.”

  “Yes, what are–?”

  Sanuba held a hand up to stop Alex from speaking. “We do not have much time, but you are both safe … for the moment.”

  Both Alex and Cairo wondered how they were safe when Sanuba, an ancient, was standing right with them, meaning that ancients who wanted to kill them could do the same, though neither uttered a word.

  “We had hoped to arrive here sooner. We were delayed because Alexandria has now been ringed by Cleopatra’s army. It was almost impossible to get through and protocol would not let Alexander help us.”

  “Why?” Cairo asked nervously.

  “I know why and I will tell you later,” Alex said. He was desperate to hear from Sanuba how they were getting out of here.

  “So, Alex, do you also now understand why Ramses cannot get involved?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Good, then that saves much time.” Sanuba pointed to the sea beyond Qait Fort as he said with confidence, “Cleopatra is stealing the gold of ancient Egypt and taking it down there for herself.”

  “No, she is not!”

  Upon hearing Alex say this with so much certainty in his voice, Sanuba looked almost as shocked as they had earlier. “She is!”

  “No … she isn’t!

  “Are you sure, Alex?”

  “Positive!”

  “But Ramses told us–”

  “On this occasion Ramses is wrong!” Alex had really stressed the ‘wrong’.

  There were only two things Cairo was positive of. Firstly: that Alex had gone mad, and secondly: that they would not be leaving here with any sandwiches.

  Ropet appeared back on the roof at a run. Much to the surprise of both Alex and Cairo, Ropet and Sanuba threw down their weapons. Even more to their surprise Ropet grabbed Cairo and Sanuba grabbed Alex, lifting them both bodily from the ground. Before either Alex or Cairo had time to complain, to even process what was happening, they were thrown over all the rubbish and landed with a bang, crash and clatter on the adjoining roof.

  Alex pulled his dressing gown around him tightly and retied the belt as he and Cairo took cover. Looking out from where they could see without been seen, there was no sign of either Ropet or Sanuba, though there were now plenty of ancient soldiers on that roof.

  “Where they go?” Cairo whispered.

  “I don’t know, but, by the way they are scouring that roof, Cleopatra’s soldiers have not found them.” Alex and Cairo watched on – hidden by the rubbish on the roof they were now on, a roof which was not built over an ancient watchtower – as soldiers walked through modern day rubbish to look in cupboards and hiding places long gone, though which had been there in the watchtower of their time.

  After just a few minutes of searching the soldier in charge issued an order. Two by two the soldiers took hold of ancient ropes, which were invisible to Alex and Cairo, and abseiled down the rear of the building.

  “At least we now know how Ropet and Sanuba managed to get away.”

  “We know more than that,” Cairo said. “That order to go capture Kate and Emmy, though not said nice like that.” His ability to speak and understand the ancient soldier language had yet again proved to be extremely helpful.

  “So, one thing we know for sure is that the girls have not been captured yet. Come on, Cairo! We must get to them before the soldiers do.” Alex was already running down the stairs, into what appeared to be an empty house, as he said this. Every room door was locked. After running down a further flight of stairs he found that all the doors on this floor were also locked. Only the bathroom door was ajar. Alex looked in. There was a washing line over the rusting enamel bath with an annoyingly dripping tap. Not just one tap, the two bath taps, the two sink taps, and even the hose, which was used for things that Alex did not even want to consider, was freely leaking into the dark-brown stained hole-in-the-ground ceramic toilet that once, many, many years ago, had been white.

  He would not be able to take the smell for long. However, the Bermuda shorts and Hawaii style short sleeved summer shirt, which had been washed and left to dry over the bath, were something he could take. Had Cairo not been in front of him he would have crashed down the final set of stairs as he attempted, successfully thanks to Cairo, to put the shorts on at a run.

  It turned out to be a backpacker’s hotel. Alex donated his dressing gown to the large woman, most likely the owner, who was sitting in the entrance hall, almost asleep, as they ran out onto the street. Turning immediately right they kept running. Even though he had covered her with his dressing gown she had still managed to rise, and was now shouting after them as they ran. They had to get off of this street. Right turn, left turn, straight ahead, across a narrow backstreet road, through a market, and up onto a small hill before they felt safe enough to stop.

  Both were now bent over, hands on their knees, and gasping for air. They looked to each other and both gave a congratulatory nod. They had escaped.

  Alex asked disjointedly through gasps for air, “Did the soldier say where the girls were?”

  Cairo could not yet manage a spoken reply so he shook his head.

  “Did you see the map they were given?”

  Cairo shook his head again.

  “This will be like looking for a needle in a haystack.” Alex stood up straight and looked around from their vantage point. He was almost breathing normally. Cairo was fit, it was just that he had had to run much harder: taking three paces to Alex’s two. Alex clasped his hands behind his head, stretched and, really to himself, asked, “What now?”

  “New clothes,” Cairo thought, as bright, almost fluorescent yellow, Bermuda shorts along with a shirt emblazoned with a Hawaiian dancer on both the front and back, caused them to stand out far, far too much.

  Suddenly Cairo excitedly raised an arm and pointed straight ahead. Alex looked. At first he saw nothing except shoppers leaving a busy market. He could not believe Cairo had seen ancient soldiers in an area as busy as he was pointing to. It was then that he saw the backs of Kate and Emmy. Cairo had seen them come out of the market. Upon realising there were no more stalls this way, they had turned and headed back in.

  The boys were running again. This time they had a target, two targets, to aim for.

  “We thought we had really lost you both, and then Cairo saw you,” Alex said upon his return to their table after changing. He stood behind a seated Cairo with a hand placed upon each shoulder. “I couldn’t see you anywhere, and I was looking. If it had not been for Cairo here, we really would have lost you.” Alex gave Cairo’s shoulders a little squeeze before sitting back down.

  Cairo stood and took a mock bow, almost knocking the tray of tamar-hindi out of the arriving waiter’s hands. With no harm done he sat and they all drank.

  The four of them were under the predominately red multi-coloured canvas of a roof restaurant which, though overlooking the sea, was well away from the Eastern Harbour and any ancient development. It was, however, not so far away that they could not still see the utter destruction they had caused. There was not one fishing boat in the Eastern Harbour which had remained afloat. To the west of this, in the newer, much more commercial harbour, many much larger vessels had
suffered extensive damage. A least two had sunk, leaving only their bridges showing above the water. Qait Fort stood between the two harbours, on land which jutted out into the sea as if it were a finger pointing the way to Cleopatra’s palace.

  The excitement of the morning had made them all hungry, so they had taken the opportunity to order an early lunch. Kate quipped that it could be their last supper! Nervous laughter lasted all of a second. They had just agreed that, regardless of the outcome, they had no option except to attempt to free Rose and Quentin, and they had to act today. Bast would then be free to leave, to tell Ramses what was really going on. Several plans had been discussed, mostly by Emmy and Cairo, as they had already escaped from the cell where Rose and Quentin remained.

  “So, if you two escaped, what stopped Rose and Quentin from escaping?” Kate asked this because Emmy and Cairo had described everything down to the last detail. Both she and Alex had an almost perfect picture in their minds of what they were going into, yet there had been no explanation of why only the two of them had escaped.

  Emmy and Cairo looked at each other before Emmy spoke. “Sorry, we have been too focussed on the rescue. Rose did what she could, she really did; you should have seen her work at making the lower holes in the wall big enough for us to climb safely, before guiding us where the soft plaster was for the higher footholds. Despite being in terrible pain she worked really hard and refused to stop until we were safe. Quentin helped where he could, but Rose knew what she was looking for. We could all see that she was in great pain,” Cairo nodded, “far too much pain to be able to climb the wall, let alone being able to take a breath big enough to reach the surface. Quentin, gentleman that he is, refused to leave her. She was still begging for him to go as I pushed up into the water.”