The Alexander Cipher. Will Adams

did know, thank you.’

      Gaille was barely listening. She was staring dizzily up at the circle of sky high above her head. Christ, but she was out of her depth. An emergency excavation offered no second chances. Within the next two weeks, the mosaic and all these exquisite carvings and everything else in this place would need to be photographed. After that the place would probably be sealed for ever. Artefacts like these deserved a real professional, someone with an eye for the work, experience, sophisticated equipment, lighting. She plucked anxiously at Elena’s sleeve, but Elena obviously realised what she wanted to discuss and brushed her off, following Mohammed down the steps into the forecourt of the Macedonian tomb, the dull matt yellow of the limestone shown up by the shining white marble blocks of the façade, and the four engaged marble ionic columns and the marble entablature running across their top. The party paused for a few moments to admire, then pressed on through the half-open bronze door into the tomb’s antechamber.

      ‘Look!’ said Mansoor, shining his torch at the side walls. They all went closer to inspect them. There was paint on the plaster, though terribly faded. It had been common practice in antiquity for important scenes from the dead person’s life to be painted in or around their tombs. ‘You can photograph these?’ asked Mansoor.

      ‘I’m not sure how well they’ll come out,’ said Gaille wretchedly.

      ‘You must wash them first,’ said Augustin. ‘Lots and lots of water. The pigment may look dead now. But give them some water and they will spring back to life like beautiful flowers. Trust me.’

      ‘Not too much water,’ warned Mansoor. ‘And don’t set up your lights too close. The heat will crack the plaster.’

      Gaille looked round desperately at Elena, who was studiously refusing to meet her eye. Instead she shone her torch at the inscription above the portal into the main chamber. ‘“Akylos of the thirty three,”’ said Augustin, translating from the Ancient Greek. The light vanished from the inscription at that moment, as Elena fumbled and dropped her torch, cursing so violently that Gaille glanced at her in surprise.

      Ibrahim turned his own torch on the inscription instead, allowing Augustin to start his translation from the beginning. ‘“Akylos of the thirty three,”’ he read out. ‘“To be the best and to be honoured above the rest.”’

      ‘It’s Homer,’ murmured Gaille. Everyone turned to look at her in surprise. She felt her cheeks burn. ‘It’s from The Iliad,’ she said.

      ‘That’s right,’ nodded Augustin. ‘About a man called Glaucus, I believe.’

      ‘Actually, it comes up twice,’ said Gaille timidly. ‘Once about Glaucus and once about Achilles.’

      ‘Achilles, Akylos,’ nodded Ibrahim. ‘He evidently thought a great deal of himself.’ He was still staring up at the inscription when he followed Mohammed into the main chamber, so that he tripped over the low step and went sprawling onto his hands and knees. Everybody laughed as he picked himself up and brushed himself down with the self-deprecating face of the accident-prone.

      Augustin went to the shield pinned to the wall. ‘The shield of a hypastist,’ he said. ‘A shield-bearer,’ he explained, when Ibrahim frowned. ‘Alexander’s special forces. The greatest unit of fighting men in the most successful army in the history of the world. Maybe he wasn’t being so boastful after all.’

      II

      Morning sunlight fell upon Knox’s cheek as he lay on Augustin’s couch and tried to catch up on sleep. He groaned and showed it his back, but it was no good. The day was already too sticky. He rose reluctantly, took a shower, ransacked Augustin’s room for clothes, then ground up some coffee beans for the percolator, and set it brewing. He slathered a croissant with butter and confiture de framboises, then wolfed it down as he wandered the flat looking for ways to divert himself. Egyptian TV was gruesome at the best of times, but Augustin’s flickering black-and-white portable made it completely unwatchable. And there was nothing to read except tattered newspapers and some comic books. This was not a flat for killing time in. It was a flat for sleeping in, and preferably not alone.