I thought at first we’d have no luck at all in finding a site. Conditions here were very crowded. Obviously, being near the water supply, the area between the Dardanian Gate on the inner wall and the Eastern Gate on the outer wall was a very desirable place to live. There were probably good schools and plenty of parking for those off-road vehicles, too.
We turned and trudged back the way we’d come, keeping the walls to our right. This time we had more luck. In the north-west shadow of the walls, we found a tiny patch of land. Nowhere big enough for the three-sided square layout, but we could do three pods in a row. They could face the walls, too, making them easy to defend and north facing. The downside was that not only was it far too busy to risk a shuttle pod even at night, there wasn’t the room, anyway. Site A would have to lug everything up from Site B. Well, it wouldn’t do them any harm and there’s a price to be paid for living in desirable residential areas. Maybe we could find them a donkey.
Leon and Guthrie went through the pacing and muttering routine again and I stood, casually rotating (and that’s not nearly as easy as it sounds) getting the details filmed for study back at St Mary’s.
Guthrie called a halt at last. ‘The shadows are getting long. We’ve been here hours. Time to go. They probably close the gate at sunset and we don’t want to be stuck here.’
We set off. I heaved my basket into a more comfortable position and followed my menfolk back through the town at a respectful distance.
I could hear them laughing.
We landed at night. In stages. First, just one pod. When there was no reaction, the second one arrived a day later. Quietly, under cover of darkness. Again, no angry mob descended upon us. We crossed our fingers when the third one arrived but there were no problems at all. Site B was established.
We followed the same procedure for Site A. Van Owen reported a certain amount of curiosity from children, dogs, and old women, but no hostility of any kind. People came and went all the time.
I ticked off the personnel.
Site A consisted of Van Owen, Kalinda, and Prentiss in Number Four; Roberts, Dieter, and Clerk in Number Six; with Randall, Weller, and Brooks in Number Seven providing the security.
Site B consisted of Schiller, Morgan, and me in Number Eight; Farrell, Guthrie, and Peterson in Number Three; with Markham, Ritter, and Evans operating out of Number Five. A good mix of historians and security staff, with a techie on each site should we manage to break anything.
We gave everyone a few days to become acclimatised, although everyone had mission experience. We set up the camp. Major Guthrie indicated the site for the latrine, although his enthusiasm didn’t lead to him actually doing any of the digging.
At Site B, the pods formed the traditional three-sided square, with rickety and patched canvas awnings stretched over the central area to give us some shade and privacy, and to make us look more temporary and even scruffier than we actually were. We appointed fire-monitors, wood-choppers, water-getters, cooks, and unskilled labour. Actually, the unskilled labour was me. I’d once nearly amputated my own feet with an axe and no one in their right minds would eat anything I cooked.
Life is lived outside in this part of the world, so we laid down coarse mats, lugged the non-tech stuff out of the pods, and scattered it casually around. Two days later, under a thin film of gritty dust, it looked as if we’d been there for years.
Chapter Seven
Of course, just about the first thing that happened was that Markham and Roberts were nearly arrested for chicken stealing, temple desecration, and, if I’d had my way, just being Markham and Roberts. I’ve often suspected that Markham’s ambition is to have an arrest record in every century but I was somewhat surprised that Mr Roberts, unusually quiet in an unusually noisy organisation, was included in this particular felony.
Major Guthrie and I were out, ostensibly for a pleasant evening stroll, but in reality to suss out the areas to be surveyed over the next few days. The sun was sinking behind us as we picked our way around the maze of streets in the lower city. Most people cooked outside and tantalising smells wafted past us. I sighed. Whatever we were having was unlikely to be anything like as good.
We heard it before we saw it.
The unmistakeable hubbub of outraged citizenry. Up and down the ages, whether they’re complaining about the Huns, the poll-tax, the weather, the king’s latest mistress, the bad harvest, the difficulty of getting good pre-school care under Herod the Great, the French, the price of petrol, the losing chariot team, the noise is always the same. Some poor sod would be getting it, somewhere …
Discretion being the better part of valour, we instinctively wheeled into a deserted side street, well away from whatever was happening around the corner. Unfortunately, the uproar followed us.
Guthrie drew me into a convenient doorway and we prepared to wait out whatever it was.