Watson, Ian - Novel 16 (35 page)

           
‘Suppose the pyre is cleverly
constructed with channels or pipes running through the core . .

 
          
‘My
God.’

 
          
‘You
can lend the palace money to burn gold - which ends up back in your hands as
neat little ingots. You’ll have doubled your profit, Daddy-in-law. Why should
the gold benefit some monument robbers in five hundred years’ time? Or even
sooner if we get a greedy king, worried by interest payments.’

 
          
‘Oh
my God, yes. Pipes, channels, ingots ready to be hooked out. I can see it all.
You’re a genius.’

 
          
Alex
was agog. Thessany would have a marvellous hold over Lord Gibil for ever after:
the knowledge that he had swindled the palace and robbed Hephaestion’s grave.

 
          
Gibil
halted suddenly. ‘Hey, is that slave snooping on us?’

 
          
‘No,’
said Thessany hastily. ‘He often looks like that. The beauty of living things
overwhelms him.’

 
          
‘Uh?
Okay. Thessany, soon as you’re ready we’ll go together. Just us two. I’ll take
the reins; my driver can trot home.’

 
          
‘I’m
ready right now, Dad-in-law. I’ll drive, if you like. I know how. Of course,’
she added, ‘sneaking the cooled ingots away will be a delicate operation, what
with soldiers on honour guard. You need someone who’s virtually invisible . .
.’

 
          
‘When
are you going to break the news to Gibil that
you're
the invisible one?’ Alex asked her that night; which might
be their last together for some while. ‘Especially as you’ll be at least seyen
months pregnant, come the day?’

 
          
‘Pregnant
women can still move, you know.’

 
          
‘I’ve
noticed. Gold bars are heavy, Thess. There’ll be a lot of to-ing and fro-ing.’

           
‘Actually, I don’t know that I’m
quite ready to be invisible myself. I didn’t say that I was going to be the
one.’

 
          
‘The
magic-word method doesn’t last long enough. The effect fades.’

 
          
‘True.
That lets you off the hook.’

 
          
‘Gupta?
Surely not?’

 
          
‘The
escapade might amuse him. It injures no one; and it does have a kind of
fabulous significance. There are only three matters that most humans really
care about: gold, sex and death. The robbery would be emblematic, almost
metaphysical.’

 
          
‘Apart
from scheming to rob a grave, how did you get on with Lord Moneybags today?’

 
          
‘Excellently
well. He’s calling for me tomorrow too. My heroic husband will have to accept a
note of apology on his return.’

 
          
So
it was that Muzi arrived home from the chase midway through the afternoon, more
caked with dust than with blood, to be met - in lieu of a wife - by Anshar,
with a waxed board.

 
          
Anshar
volunteered assorted gnomic information about the sad death of Hephaestion and
the forthcoming obsequies, earning a meed of gratitude from Muzi who, by
consulting with Irra, soon put two and two together and hastened to the
bathhouse, thence to his room, to become clean, well dressed and diligent-
looking. Irra called Alex to help him stable the horses, rub them down, and
feed them; then replenish the household water.

 
          
A
couple of hours later Lord Gibil dropped Thessany off at the house, to be met
by a spruced, conciliatory son who invited him in for wine.

 
          
‘No
time, boy. There’s a mound of things to see to. I could have used you with me
these last two days. Thank your stars your wife’s a wonder.’

 
          
‘It
isn’t Muzi’s fault that Lord H died unexpectedly,’ Thessany sweetly intervened.
‘Who could have fore- guessed it?’

 
          
‘Hmm,’
said Gibil.

 
          
‘Also,
I think Muzi’s right about your taking a glass of wine. Lord H seems to have
died from overexertion. Business is a race too. Pace thyself.’

 
          
‘You
won’t die of overwork, will you, Son?’

 
          
‘I’m
sure Muzi has been exerting himself like a lion these last few days. And who
knows how influential his cronies will become?’

 
          
‘Yeah,
there’s that.’

 
          
Muzi
flashed Thessany a look of gratitude, but then became puzzled; and finally
burst out laughing. ‘Like a lion! Like a lion. I like it.’

 
          
‘What’s
the joke?’

 
          
‘Nothing,
Dad. Nothing at all. Come on in for half an hour and relax.’

 
          
Gibil
did so.

 
          
Alex
thought he had understood the joke - a bit of supposedly private erotic banter
between wife and husband - till Anshar murmured in his ear, ‘It’s
Mrs
Lion who does the hunting. Lazy Mr
Lion only lies around.’ Then Alex wondered which joke Muzi had been laughing
at, and which Thessany.

 
          
Ten
days later Alex was shoving a barrow of water- buckets back from the local
canal when he met Gupta heading away from the house.

 
          
It
was Gupta’s tutorial afternoon, and on this occasion Lord Gibil had arrived to
observe, so Thessany must have confided the nature of the skill which the
Indian was actually teaching her. In the intervening days Alex had had no
opportunity to talk to Thessany alone. Gibil had won the contract to build the
pyre outside the walls at the north-east corner of the city; thus Thessany was
often absent on business. In company with her father-in-law she was visiting
architects, builders, brick-makers, timberers, carvers, goldsmiths,
felt-makers, choirmasters, fuel-oil vendors; as well as inspecting the chosen
site and liaising with the palace. Muzi was usually a third member of the team
since he was, on an emergency basis, trying to be as useful as his wife.

 
          
‘Aha,
Alex! I have had a
plot
presented to
me, which I gather you may have overheard/ Gupta grinned. ‘Don’t worry! Lord
Gibil has been assured that you are slavishly loyal; rather like Tikki the
hound. What’s more, you like nothing better than to help transport heavy little
articles from place to place.’ His fingers drummed on the side of a
water-bucket. ‘Muzi, of course, is brawnier than you; but he must know
nothing.’

 
          
‘Not
know? But he and Thess and Gibil are driving all over together, fixing things
up.’

 
          
‘Muzi
remains in the dark concerning the crucial arrangement. He might get drunk in
some hunting tent one day, and blab. Gibil concurs; I presume Thessany put this
very delicately to him. Which is a neat little trick from your point of view,
if Muzi should ever suspect about you and Thessany.’

 
          
‘Hush!’

 
          
Gupta
inspected his reflection in the water, then stirred it with his finger. ‘If he
consults Daddy, Daddy will send him packing. “Don’t be daft, Son! The slave is
faithful. So is your wife.’”

 
          
‘Maybe
that’s the whole point of this escapade?’ ‘What, Gibil shall not smell a rat so
long as his nose smells gold? I think that’s a dodgy proposition. The man had
no interest in you before.’

           
‘Afterwards Thess could destroy
Gibil publicly, if he caused unpleasantness. With me as witness.’

 
          
‘Rubbish.
She would ruin herself at the same time.’ ‘Bluff, Gupta. Bluff.’

           
‘Speaking of bluffs, Alex my friend,
you haven’t explicitly said what the plot is. Do please remind me! Just for
reassurance.’

 
          
‘In
case I’m merely fishing for information?’

 
          
Gupta
dabbled in another bucket. ‘No fish in these waters, ha ha!’

 
          
‘The
idea is to rob Hephaestion’s funeral pyre.’ ‘Quite right. Top marks.’

           
‘And you’ll be the invisible man who
sneaks the ingots away after the brick core cools.’

 
          
‘Wearing
a special coat with strong pockets inside. A coat which bores and baffles the
eye ... I estimate a dozen trips to and fro. I shall need to be on tiptop form.
Quite a challenge, eh?’ Gupta giggled. ‘What if afterwards I waved a wand and
showed Lord Gibil that by running so much risk I had stolen naught but gilded
bricks? What a lovely lesson that would teach about bravery and folly. I’d
really be the philosophic thief of
Babylon
; if not of
Baghdad
! Why, such a shock might be the salient
slap upon the skull which suddenly enlightens Thessany.’

 
          
‘Why
are you making a jape of this? To worry me?’ ‘Maybe . . . it’s to preserve my
self-respect.’

           
‘You don’t really want to steal? But
you’re prepared to because - because you feel that Thessany is on the brink of
clarity?’

 
          
‘Of
sainthood,’ said Gupta. ‘As patron saint of sinners.’

 
          
‘That
lot are a corvee gang, aren’t they, Dad?’

           
Lord Gibil nodded. ‘Bright of you to
spot it, Son.’ They stood surveying the ascending structure. Many men in
loincloths swarmed upon it like some species of ant building a nest with bricks
scavenged from the great pile nearby. A double line of ants traced a crooked
path between the supply dump and the core of the pyre-to-be, carrying bricks
one way, returning empty-handed for more. As with ants which follow the
scent-marks of their fellows even if the consequent route has kinks in it, so
the sweaty labourers seemed locked into their initial, less than totally
efficient route. Those returning to the dump at a jog trot held their empty
hands out ahead of them, twitching like ants’ feelers.

 
          
The
brick core was already three-quarters formed, a thing of simple art by contrast
with the natural chaos of the hill of bricks nearby, though there was a generic
similarity between the two heaps. Donkey carts delivered bricks to the dump;
the ants strove to reduce this heap and rear a geometric copy, stepped and
rectangular, two hundred cubits long by a hundred wide, with - so far - four
distinct zigguratic tiers.

 
          
Lord
Gibil sat with Muzi in one chariot; Thessany with Gupta in a second, drawn up
alongside. Alex the slave had clung on to the second chariot precariously;
fortunately traffic jams had slowed the vehicles down.

 
          
The
sun beat down upon the work and upon the great city wall behind, which would be
backdrop first to an artistic masterpiece of friezes and statues, then to an
inferno, and finally to a serene, enormous marble tomb, honourably guarded for
ever.

 
          
‘I
guess a corvee gang’s cheaper, Dad. But why not use real bricklayers? No
expense spared, eh? The palace are footing the bill; a bill can be padded. Or
are we actually debiting the palace for proper bricklayers?’

 
          
‘What
a sharp son you are suddenly. Be careful you don’t cut yourself.’

           
‘We don’t want the core to collapse
through incompetence. Slump and slide.’

 
          
‘It
won’t slump. See how my architect keeps an eye on the placement of bricks.’
Gibil indicated a little figure clambering aloft, shadowed bobbingly by a
parasol his servant held.

 
          
Muzi
shaded his keen hunter’s eyes. ‘Are those little pipe things the bones of the
building? They’re rather birdy bones . . . hollow. I’d have thought having a
bunch of hollow ducts running throughout isn’t exactly - ’