Chapter 8: What Lies Beneath

Thomas MacKay’s words precipitated a commotion.
My tent was almost a thousand yards from trench seven, which was located a hundred feet west of the datum pole and along the track from the Arab customhouse. At least two members of the expedition did not intend to walk that distance under a broiling sun.
Wilkinson shouted for his donkey to be brought. Crudwright did not have a four legged friend but did have a camel drawn cart that conveyed him and Chastity to and from the digging site.

I took Mimi by the hand and we walked steadily towards the diggings. Crudwright’s camel cart overtook us, and I was surprised to see Wilkinson in the vehicle with Crudwright and Chastity. There was not a deal of room for three people and Chastity was moulded against Wilkinson like ivy gripping a gnarled oak tree.
Mimi noticed the close coupled pair and smiled. “Methinks there will be some pi-dog howling tonight, Jacques, and not just from me!”
“Wilkinson and Chastity, surely not?” I said.
Mimi looked at me with the expression she reserved for when I was being particularly dense. “They can hardly keep their hands from each other. Believe me, I know the feeling.” She then gave me a warm, wet tongued, kiss that brought a fierce reaction from John Thomas.

We arrived at trench seven to see Wilkinson and Crudwright on their hands and knees peering into the excavation.
I looked over their shoulders to see a jumble of shaped sand stones.
“Is that the foundations of your building, Professor?”
Crudwright turned and gave me a sour look. “Obviously not. This excavation is only three or four feet deep. The structure we seek will be at least ten feet deep.” He turned back to Wilkinson. “Second century AD, wouldn’t you say, John?”
John Wilkinson nodded. “Aye, and as fine an example of a summum dorsum as I have seen.”
“What on earth is a summum dorsum?“ I asked.
“It is the polygonal shaped blocks of stone that form the surface of Roman roads and this...” Crudwright said before I interrupted him.
“A Roman road? Who would the Romans be trading with in this desert?”
“The Romans built roads primarily to move their legions and siege equipment, not for trade.There was intermittent warfare between Rome and the Sassanid Empire for centuries, continued by the Byzantines after the Roman Empire fragmented into the Eastern and Western Empires.” Crudwright said, in lecturer mode. “By the time the Arabs came boiling out of Arabia the Byzantines and Sassanids were so worn down by the centuries of warfare between them they provided little opposition to the Arabs. It is an astonishing fact that the Mohammedans conquered Syria, The Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, and North Africa, and were about to invade Spain, less than a hundred years after the death of Mohammad.”

“Well, at least you have something to show for your efforts, Valentine,” Wilkinson said. “I suppose you will need to dig down in that trench another six feet or so in case the Romans built their road slap bang over the House of Fools. Now, there is an interesting thought.” He laughed, and then slapped Crudwright on the back before setting off to his tent.
I saw the disappointment in Chastity’s eye as he walked away.
“Are you not staying to see what discoveries further excavation of this trench may produce?” I called after him.
He stopped some yards away and turned to face me. “I am bound for England, where a Fellowship awaits me. But first I need to pay my respects to Mehmet Ali Pasha in Cairo. I have some rather special artefacts, and the money to pay for their export fee. Then I am off to Rosetta for a vessel home.”
“Rosetta! Would not Alexandria be a more likely port to find a vessel heading to Europe?”
“Normally I would agree with you, Sir Elijah, but there are rumours of trouble in Alexandria. The governor of the province...”
“Abdulla Bulbul Ameer?”
“Yes that’s the cove. He has been arrested for treason, and his supporters are running riot through the city.”
“Have you ever met Bulbul Ameer, John?”
“I have not had the pleasure, but by all accounts he is as unpleasant a character as one would ever wish to meet.”
“He has a female companion, known as Cleopatra. Have you heard anything of her?”
“I have heard tell that she is as devious as he is, but I do not know if she has been arrested.” He came closer to me and held out his hand. “I will be setting off at first light tomorrow, Sir Elijah. It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” We shook hands and then he turned on his heel and strode off towards his encampment.

I wandered back to where Crudwright was giving orders to a sweating crew of Egyptians, thinking how I could profit from Bulbul Ameer’s fall from grace and have Cleopatra, Eloise de La Zouche, arrested for the murder of Octavius Hardy.
Chastity Crudwright was staring after Wilkinson with a look of regret on her face. She saw me and smiled. “I suppose Mister Wilkinson is off to Cairo now, Sir Elijah?”
“He intends leaving at first light tomorrow, Missus Crudwright.”
I saw a quick beam of a smile flit across her face before she consulted the paper she held in her hand, and then made an annotation. She saw me looking and explained.
“Valentine insists that every event, even merely starting to dig a trench, is recorded. He uses the notes I make as a basis for the official account of the expedition when reporting to the British Museum. A Roman road discovered in the middle of a desert is one of the more noteworthy events I have recorded.”
I walked over to trench seven, where a team of Egyptians were digging down alongside the Roman road, emptying bucket of soil and sand over the lip of the trench.
“We will need timber shoring if they go any deeper,” Thomas McKay remarked.
“Get it, and have it on site by the morning,” Crudwright said. “By then we shall be able to see if the Romans have built their road over a buried structure.”