David Gibbins - The Tiger warrior

“No appointment needed. You just show up.”

Jack laughed. Hiebermeyer stamped his foot impatiently, and Jack saw his expression. “Okay, Maurice, what have you got?” Hiebermeyer nodded at Aysha, who ushered them to the edge of the trench. “It’s a Roman villa,” she said. “Or I should say, what counts as a villa in this place. The owner’s used the best available materials and put some expense into it. The walls are made of blocks of fossil coral, the main building material here, but they’re veneered with slabs of gypsum that must have been hauled by camel caravan from the Nile. The little columns are Egyptian gray granite, quarried in the mountains to the west of here. The really fascinating thing is that he’s got a polished wooden floor, completely at odds with Roman tradition. The wood’s teak, from southern India. It’s reused ship’s timbers.”

“And I see some modern conveniences,” Jack said, pointing over to the corner where the workers were excavating.

“It’s a water cistern, dug into the rock, lined with impervious concrete. Alongside it there’s an economy version of a Roman bath. He’s built himself a frigidarium, lined with pottery tubes for insulation and an ingenious system for keeping the room damp.”

“He must have spent a lot of time in there,” Costas grumbled, wiping the sweat off his face. “I don’t know how anyone could stand this heat.”

“They didn’t, for half the year,” Aysha replied. “This place was pretty well abandoned for months on end, between ships leaving from here to catch the northeast monsoon and then arriving back with the southwest. I think this guy was a traveling merchant, on the move a lot. I think this was just his pad when he was in town. And I think he probably had another place, in India.”

“In India!” Costas exclaimed.

“Aysha, show them, will you?” Hiebermeyer said, clearly relishing the moment.

Aysha nodded, and led them under a tarpaulin shelter beside the trench. On a trestle table were trays full of finds, mainly fragments of pottery. “Some of this is Indian, Tamil style,” she said, passing Jack a sherd in a polythene bag. “That one has a Tamil graffito on it, possibly the word Ramaya. It could be the name of the merchant himself, but I think it’s the name for the Roman community in south India, the name the local people there gave it.”

“You think this guy was Indian?” Costas said.

“Or his wife,” Aysha said. “Take a look at this.” She pointed to a chunk of sandstone about thirty centimeters across, highly eroded but with a carving on the front. It showed a woman, with pronounced hips and breasts, in a swirling motion as if she were dancing, between pillars with spiral fluting surmounted by a decorative architrave. “When she was found, my British assistant called her the Venus of Berenike,” Aysha said. “Typical western perspective. For my money, she’s Indian. The swirl, the decoration, are clearly south Indian. I think she’s not a classical goddess at all, but a yaksi, an Indian female spirit. You might expect to find this in a cave temple in Tamil Nadu, the farthest point we know Roman merchants visited along the coast of India, on the Bay of Bengal.”

“And look at this.” Hiebermeyer pointed at an airtight box with a thermostat alongside. “That’s silk.”

“Silk?” Costas said. “You mean from China?”

“We think so,” Aysha said excitedly. “We think this shows that silk wasn’t just coming overland via Persia to the Roman Empire. It was also arriving by sea, from the ports of India. It shows that traders were leaving the Silk Route somewhere in central Asia, and going south through Afghanistan and down the Indus and the Ganges to reach the ports where they met up with merchants like this one. And yes, Costas, it brings China one step closer to the Roman world.”

“Maybe that’s where all the gold was going,” Costas said. “Not to buy pepper, but silk.”

“Another nice idea,” Jack murmured.

“Find a shipwreck of that trade, and that would be a cargo worth excavating,” Hiebermeyer said. “Even I concede that. An ancient East Indiaman.”

“I think we might be just one step ahead of you there, old boy,” Costas replied, kicking at a rock, glancing at Jack. But Hiebermeyer bounded away to the other side of the excavation, where he lifted up an aluminium case and carried it carefully back toward them, the sweat now pouring off him.

Costas picked up the rock, and Jack watched him. It was a gemstone, uncut, deep blue with speckles of gold. “Check this out.”

Aysha looked over, then gasped. “It’s lapis lazuli! Maurice, look! Costas has found a piece of lapis lazuli!”

Hiebermeyer put down the case and took the stone from Costas, raising his glasses and peering at it, turning it over and wiping it. “My God,” he muttered. “It’s the highest grade. From Afghanistan. That’s another piece of the jigsaw puzzle. They also traded for this. Lapis lazuli was worth a fortune too.”

“Months of painstaking excavation and you would never have found it,” Costas said, looking at Hiebermeyer deadpan.

Hiebermeyer’s eyes narrowed. “Where, might I ask, did you pick this up?”

Costas pointed down, grinning. “You just have to know where to look.”

Hiebermeyer snorted, then carefully placed the stone on a finds tray. “Something of Jack’s knack has clearly rubbed off on you. And now for the real treasure.”

“There’s more?” Jack said.

Hiebermeyer tapped the case. “I’ve been waiting for Seaquest II to arrive. We need full lab facilities, infrared viewers, multispectral imagery. We need a place to look at this properly, not out here, in this oven,” he said, wiping his face. “We’re finished here for the season. It’s become too hot. My Egyptian foreman will close up the site. Aysha and I have already said our good-byes to the team, and we’re ready and packed.”

“You mean you want to go right now?” Jack said.

“You’ve got spare cabins, haven’t you?”

“Of course. I’ll radio the captain. You can join us for a cruise on the Indian Ocean.”

Costas peered skeptically at Hiebermeyer. “How are your sea legs? We might hit the monsoon.”

“My sea legs are fine.” Hiebermeyer looked pointedly at Jack. “It’s his I’m worried about.”

“That hasn’t happened for years,” Jack said defensively. “Not since we were kids, Maurice. And that was a sailing dinghy. One that you built. Very badly.”

Aysha looked wide-eyed at Jack, the hint of a smile on her lips. “I am hearing this right? The famous Jack Howard gets seasick?”

“He calls it the Nelson touch,” Costas said. “Lord Nelson, England’s greatest admiral. Sick as a dog every time he put out to sea.”

“I do not get seasick,” Jack said. “I just empathize with my heroes.”

“Well, that’s good,” Hiebermeyer said. “Because with what I’ve got here in this case, you won’t be having much time to stare at the horizon. Are you really taking us to Arikamedu?”

“Where?” Costas peered at Jack suspiciously. “You’ve got that look.”

Jack cleared his throat. “Where the Romans who sailed from here landed in southeast India. It’s an amazing site. Roman pottery in India. The Archaeological Survey of India are planning a new excavation. I’m official advisor for their underwater unit, and I promised to look in when Seaquest II was next in the Indian Ocean. Maurice and Aysha have never been there, and it seems crazy not to give them the chance if they’re going to be aboard with us anyway. I’ve already called our contact at Arikamedu and prepped him. He can’t wait to see us.”

“I thought we were going to test my new submersible off Hawaii,” Costas grumbled. “And find a beach. And prop up a nice little palm-fronded bar.”