Free The Tiger Warrior by David Gibbins Page B

called, five hundred years before Cosmas Indicopleustes sailed here.” He straightened up and looked at Hiebermeyer. “Well? This is all fantastic. But I know you too well. What did you really want me to see?”
    “Spill it, Hiemy,” Costas said.
    Hiebermeyer’s eyes bored into Costas. He turned to Jack. “We’ve got a little under a third of the Periplus here, about a thousand words. It’s very similar to the tenth century copy, with only minor differences in wording and grammar. With one exception.”
    “Go on,” Jack said.
    Hiebermeyer pointed at a large sherd beside Rebecca, and they all crowded around. The sherd was about the size of a dinner plate, and was covered with fifteen lines of fine writing, the ink barely discernible in places against the whitish surface patina on the pottery. The text had been written within the sherd, and was not broken off at the edges. “It’s an intact section, like a paragraph,” Hiebermeyer said. “It’s where he describes sailing beyond the Arabian Gulf and looks toward India, just before reaching the port of Barygaza at the mouth of the Indus.”
    “You mean the section where he puts on his archaeologist hat,” Jack murmured.
    Hiebermeyer nodded. “Generally he only digressed where it was of practical value, for example showing where a certain local tribe was to be avoided, or describing an inland region to give an idea of where the trade goods came from. There are two fascinating exceptions, both concerning Alexander the Great. In one place he describes how Alexander penetrated as far as the Ganges but not to the south of India. He says how in the market in Barygaza, near the mouth of the Indus, you can find coins, old drachmas, engraved with inscriptions of rulers who came after Alexander.”
    “Apollodotus and Menander, the first Seleucid kings,” Jack said.
    Hiebermeyer nodded. “Western traders going to India would have been well-versed in the story of Alexander, and doubtless there were locals who saw a quick buck in passing off Seleucid coins as relics. Alexander lived in the fourth century BC, three hundred years before the Periplus was written, but the story was still so big that people coming out here might have felt the dust of conquest had barely settled. Our merchant knew all about sharp dealing and was warning his readers that the relics were bogus. He wasn’t the kind of man who was duped by these stories. That makes me think we should take his second reference seriously, what you see on this sherd.”
    “I’ve spotted the word Alexandros,” Costas said, peering down at the sherd. “My ancient Greek’s a little rusty.”
    “Here’s the translation.” Hiebermeyer picked up a piece of paper covered with his indecipherable handwriting. “Immediately following Barakē is the gulf of Barygaza and the shore of the land of Ariakē, the beginning of the kingdom of Manbanos and of all India. The inland part, which borders Skythia, is called Abēria; the coastal part is Syrastrēnē. The region is very fecund, producing grain, rice, sesame oil, ghee, cotton, and the Indian cloths made from it, those of ordinary quality. There are numerous herds of cattle, and the men are very large and have dark skin. To this day there are still preserved around this area traces of Alexander’s expedition: archaic altars, the foundations of encampments and huge wells”
    Jack nodded. “Archaic altars. That sounds like the familiar text.”
    “But not the next sentence.” Hiebermeyer paused, and pushed up his glasses. And from Margiana, the citadel of Parthia to the north of here, the Roman legionaries captured at Carrhae escaped east, taking the Parthian treasure with them toward Chrysê, the land of gold.”
    Jack reeled as if he had been physically struck. “That’s incredible,” he said, almost whispering. “That’s not in the Periplus.”
    “Isn’t that what you were telling me about in the helicopter, Jack?” Costas said. “Crassus, his lost