Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air Read Free

photograph.
    “But exactly where depends on how big it is,” Willi said. “It could be here, or four blocks back if it’s larger. Or two blocks closer if it’s smaller. This lot…”
    “Is one of a number of possibilities, I know.” Jerry dropped his voice. “But it was the only lot in the immediate area that the Met could easily rent. It’s one thing to tear down a shed. But most property owners in the area weren’t about to let us buy their buildings, and for that matter the Met wasn’t willing to spend the kind of money that it would take to buy an apartment building and remove it.”
    “That would be very suspicious, yes,” Willi agreed. “Not worth it for the Pylon of Isis.” He took a deep breath. “And so we dig here and hope to get lucky, yes?”
    “At worst we’ll find other things which will allow us to get an idea of how these two maps relate to one another.” Jerry gestured to the modern map and the sketched one. “As you say, the Strabo map is based on supposition, on trying to turn his descriptions of the city in 20 BC into a map. Any improvements we can make are useful.”
    “As you say,” Willi said. He gave Jerry a quicksilver smile. “Archaeology is a tedious process sometimes, but each step is worthwhile. And if we do not find the Pylon of Isis, perhaps we will get lucky in other ways.”
    Jerry felt the blood rush to his face. No one else could have heard Willi’s words except perhaps the nearest diggers, and surely none of them understood American slang. “Maybe so,” he said, turning his attention to putting away the maps and photographs. “We may be successful.”
    It was late afternoon, the sun already obscured behind the five story apartment building, when a digger let out a cry. Jerry’s head had risen a split second earlier at the scrape of steel on stone, a shovel against something other than dirt.
    “I have found something!” the digger shouted, and Jerry hoisted himself to his feet with effort. Willi was ahead of him, all the other diggers crowding in, milling about in the only excitement in the last three days.
    “Let Dr. Ballard through,” Willi said. “Come now. Clear a path.”
    It was the trench nearest the building, six feet deep, and leaning over the edge cautiously Jerry could see nothing except dirt in the bottom.
    “Here, now,” he said in Arabic. “Everyone give the man room. Let him clear.” If everybody jumped into the trench nobody would be able to do anything. He leaned on his cane at the edge, eager as anyone to see. Would it be a building block? Or better yet the solid sandstone that might be the Pylon of Isis itself?
    The digger began clearing with shovel before young Mohammad Hussein jumped down beside him with a trowel and brush, heedless of his good black suit. Behind him the others crowded up. “What is it? What is it?”
    “Stone,” Mohammad called up, entirely unnecessarily as they already knew that. Beneath his deft hands a surface was emerging, square paving stones each about the size of Jerry’s hand set in mortar.
    “It’s the Roman street,” Jerry said.
    Willi looked at him sharply.
    “The shape of the cobbles,” Jerry said. He gestured with his cane. “Square cobbles without rounded corners. Those are Roman, not Ptolemaic.”
    Mohammad glanced up from the bottom of the trench. “Shall we clear to the edges?”
    “Yes,” Jerry said. “Let’s see if we can find the curb. That will orient us on the axis of the street. It will tell us if this is a north/south street or an east/west one.”
    “And if the curb isn’t within the boundaries of the trench?” Willi asked. “This is the end trench closest to the building.”
    “Then we clear the trench just north of it down to the same depth,” Jerry said. “If that’s Roman pavement too, we’ve got a north/south street. If it’s not, then this is an east/west street paralleling the Canopic Way but a few blocks north of it.” He lifted his head, the setting sun