‘There is no evidence of any major trade routes in this area. Subjects may be lost. Or…’ It does this. I think it likes to build up the suspense. One of these days, I’m going to rip it out by its peripherals and show it who’s the boss around here.
‘Excavations in this area have revealed a considerable number of human bones and some artefacts, which date back to approximately two and a half thousand years ago. Some theorise they are the remains of an Egyptian army, believed to have been lost in a possible sandstorm, as it made its way to the Oracle of Amun at Siwa, resulting in the deaths of fifty thousand men.’
It stopped, presumably to give me some time to digest this.
‘Oh my God,’ I said, feeling the slow burn of excitement. ‘The lost army of Cambyses.’ I stood on tip-toe – as if that would make any difference – and squinted. Ronan, his gun, his offer of peace, the current location of his pod – everything was completely forgotten, because I’m an historian and my priorities may sometimes be a little different from everyone else’s. Not my fault.
He turned to me, bristling with a suspicion equal to my own. ‘Who are they? Did you alert someone?’
I squinted into the harsh sunlight. ‘Yes, of course I did. Knowing how you can be, I alerted the Pharaoh himself and he’s sent his entire army just to take you down. Impressive levels of paranoia, Ronan. Well done.’
He looked down at me. ‘Surely I can’t be the only person in the world who wants to murder you.’
‘God, no. Sorry to puncture your massive ego, but you’re only one of many. Half the human race is ahead of you.’
As I spoke, I tried to push my way past him and he pushed me back again, demanding to know where the hell I thought I was going.
I regarded him with exasperation. ‘Back to my pod for recorders, cameras, and the solution to a two and a half thousand-year-old mystery.’
‘Are you insane?’
‘Is that a serious question?’
He still had hold of my arm. ‘And while you’re gallivanting around wasting time, do you expect me to just wait?’
I took an enormous chance. ‘No, Mr Ronan, I expect you to assist.’
He dropped my arm and we stared at each other. I became conscious that the wind was getting up. I could feel loose hair whipping around my face.
He shook his head. ‘I think you’re forgetting the key word here.’
‘What key word?’
‘Sandstorm?’
‘Possible sandstorm.’
‘If it can bury fifty thousand elite Egyptian troops, what the hell is it going to do to us?’
‘We’ll be fine,’ I said, with massively misplaced confidence.
‘Fine?’
‘Oh come on, Clive. When did you last do anything just for fun?’
He seemed a little surprised by my use of the f word and while he was still gathering his wits, I set off across the sand.
He caught up. ‘Just a minute…’
‘Look, this might be just an ordinary caravan. In which case, we wait for them to pass and continue our discussion. Or it might – it just might – be Cambyses’s boys, and I can’t let this opportunity go. And don’t worry about the sandstorm. It might come today, but it might equally be tomorrow or next week.’ I patted his arm reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry, Clive. I’ll look after you.’
He stood thoughtfully. ‘It does occur to me to murder you now, bury your body, return to St Mary’s and collect a small reward from your no doubt grateful colleagues.’
I looked at him. ‘You were an historian once. Be one again. Just for one day.’
Ronan waited outside my pod, squatting in the shade. He wouldn’t come in and I didn’t want to push things at this stage. Once inside, I brought up everything I could find on the Pharaoh Cambyses and his army. It’s actually quite a famous story.
In 525BC, Egypt was part of the Persian Empire, after being conquered by Cyrus the Great. On his death, his son, Cambyses, having failed to persuade the powerful priests of Amun to acknowledge his right to the throne of Egypt, assembled a massive army, some fifty thousand strong, and sent them off to the Oracle at Siwa to show them the error of their ways.
None of those fifty thousand men would ever be seen again.
There had been a theory that instead of following the traditional eastern route, they’d travelled west, before striking out for Siwa, and the entire army had been enveloped in a massive sandstorm and completely buried. Recent archaeological discoveries had given some credence to that theory, although they remain controversial and nothing has been proved.
‘According to Herodotus,’ I said – and don’t get me started on that two-faced, conniving little git – ‘the sandstorm comes from the south.’ I stood in the doorway, gazing around. ‘Which way is south?’
‘How do you ever survive?’ Ronan pointed in the direction of the approaching whatever it was.
‘Right, so they’re overwhelmed from behind which means…’
‘Which means they’ll be running like mad in this direction. Towards us.’
‘Not necessarily. I mean – there’s nothing to say the sandstorm will occur today. We can hide on top of that rock over there and get some fantastic footage as they go past. Marching to their date with destiny.’
‘Their what with what?’
I stared again. Another flash. And another. And a blurring of the horizon which would be the dust kicked up by men, horses, chariots, all on their way to sort out the Oracle of Amun and its obstinate occupants.
‘What about this pod?’ he demanded. ‘Are you just going to leave it here?’
‘Well, it’s a tiny pod in the middle of a vast desert. And they can’t get in and it’s too heavy to be towed, so apart from chucking a few spears at it, there’s not a lot they can do. What about yours?’ I said cunningly, hoping he would give me the location.
‘It’s fine. They’ll never find it.’
Aha! Camouflage device. I knew it. Bugger. That could cause me some problems.
‘Then let’s go.’
The rock was mostly one giant, solid piece, but towards the southern end, it had fragmented into five or six smaller pieces. One leaned slightly, making a shallow cave, some twenty feet up, which gave us some welcome shade and a small degree of cover. We scrambled up, checked carefully for scorpions and snakes, and made ourselves comfortable. Ronan picked up a recorder and examined it.
‘Point and press,’ I said. ‘It’s quite simple.’
He looked at me. ‘It would have to be.’
‘You’re very grumpy.’
‘It’s the company I’m keeping.’
Careful to remain in the shelter of the rock and not expose himself – because armies can sometimes be quite unkind to anyone they think might be spying on them – he stood up and stared thoughtfully. ‘Please remind me never to listen to any future predictions you might make concerning armies, sandstorms, or indeed, anything at all.’
I stood beside him. ‘What?’
He pointed at the horizon. Or rather, where the horizon had been. A dark yellow murky cloud obscured everything and was growing larger. Desert dust. I crossed my fingers that it was being kicked up by a marching army rather than the beginnings of a sandstorm.
‘Oh.’
‘Oh? Is that all you can say?’
‘What else did you want?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. How about “I’m so sorry, Clive. I’m a complete idiot who shouldn’t be allowed out on her own and, worse than that, I’ve risked your life for a few snapshots of a bunch of people who died two and a half thousand years ago when I could have been doing something much more important regarding world peace.’
‘Hey, grumpy, they weren’t my coordinates. Didn’t you check them at all?’
Silence. Well, that answered that question.