The Tombs Read online

  Mozhu said, “We took the High King to a place in the bend of a river far away where travelers seldom pass. We built a crypt as deep as two men are tall, with a sloping entrance, and carried the coffins to the bottom. Then we covered the crypt and the sloping passage. We herded our thousand horses across the area many times until it was impossible to pick out the precise spot where the crypt was buried. Then we diverted the river so it will flow deep over the High King’s tomb forever.”

  Ellak embraced Mozhu. Then he stood on an oxcart and made a speech to thank the thousand men who had stood with his father in battle and protected his body in death. Before he jumped down, he called out, “Kill them now.”

  The thousand men were engulfed by the great host of warriors around them. To Priscus, the thousand seemed to disappear like swimmers pulled under the water in a flood—a head here going down, a few heads there. They sank beneath the weight of the entire army. He saw none of the burial party resist or try to remount their horses to escape. He could not tell whether it was because their execution was a surprise or because they had certain foreknowledge that anyone who knew where Attila was buried must die.

  Afterward, the burial party’s bodies were covered with earth where they had fallen. Their leaders spoke of their loyalty, honor, and bravery. To Priscus it seemed the Huns considered the massacre simply a natural and inevitable part of the death of a great leader. It was all a single misfortune.

  Priscus left the vast encampment at dawn the next morning with his train of a hundred fifty donkeys loaded with supplies and a few precious articles hidden among them—his written account of his mission to the barbarians, his personal books, a few souvenirs from barbarian friends. He also took with him the teenage bride-widow Ildico, whom he had promised to return to her parents in the Germanic territories when passage could be arranged.

  When they were a day’s journey from the barbarian encampment, he walked beside Ildico’s donkey and talked with her. “See, child? I told you it was all perfectly safe. Once the barbarians were persuaded there was no poison, you and I could hardly be poisoners.”

  “I heard they made you drink the wine. Why are you alive?”

  “The poison has to be given over time before it will cause bleeding and keep the blood from clotting. I’ve been giving it to Attila for weeks. Enough had to build up in his body so your final dose would make him bleed to death. But think more pleasant thoughts. You’ll be very rich soon.”

  “Keep any gold that’s coming to me,” she said. “I did it for my people that he killed. Just get me home.”

  “The Emperor will want to send you home with a reward. What you and I did has probably saved the Empire from destruction.”

  “I don’t care about the Empire.”

  He walked on ahead, thinking. He had done everything perfectly—gathered the sweet clover himself, patiently aged it to let it turn moldy, and then used it to make a poison that couldn’t be detected and caused a death which looked like a disease. As he walked he composed parts of his account of his time with the Huns. He would describe it all—his mission four years ago with Maximinus, when the assassination plan was blamed on the interpreter Vigilas, the actions of the barbarians, the personality of their supreme leader.

  He would, of course, leave out the particulars of the High King’s death. Every trick not explained remains fresh for reuse. The Western Empire in Rome would be overwhelmed by its enemies before much longer. Its legions couldn’t keep fighting off wave after wave of barbarians, each group more numerous and savage than the last. It was a simple game of numbers. The subtler methods of the Eastern Empire obliterated numbers—the Emperor had sent just one man to end the threat from the Huns, hadn’t he? The Eastern Empire would live for another thousand years.

  Ildico certainly was a beautiful young woman, he thought. The slim, graceful figure, the milky skin, and the golden hair were very appealing. In a way, having her for himself would make his quiet triumph over the great Attila complete. But no, he thought. That was exactly the sort of thing an emissary from Rome would do.

  OFF GRAND ISLE, LOUISIANA

  2012 C.E.

  REMI FARGO HOVERED IN THE WARM WATER OF THE Gulf of Mexico, barely moving her fins as she worked. She finished filling her net bag with jagged pieces of a clay pot that had been nearly buried in the sand. She estimated that the original pot, as it had been over a thousand years ago, was about ten inches wide and four inches deep, and she thought she probably had gathered all of its fragments. She didn’t want to risk scratching the smooth finish of the pot by putting anything else in the net bag. She looked up at the shape of the boat’s hull, a dark phantom sitting sixty feet above her on the silvery underside of the water’s surface. She exhaled, and the bubbles issued from her mouthpiece, then ascended, shiny globules shimmering up toward the light.

  Remi caught her husband Sam’s eye and pointed to the net bag, then gave him a thumbs-up. He held up what looked to her like a deer antler as though he were saluting her and nodded. Remi gave a couple of lazy kicks, and her slim, shapely body moved upward into a school of shiny bay anchovies that swirled around her like an ice storm. They left her, and she rose to the boat.

  She broke the surface and instantly saw the other boat in the distance. She ducked under again, swam to the other side of the dive boat, and waited for Sam. She saw his bubbles coming up from beneath her, then his head and mask.

  She took out her mouthpiece and breathed the air for a second. “They’re here again.”

  Sam ducked under the surface and came up at the stern, keeping himself close to the outdrive so he remained part of the boat’s silhouette. “It’s them, all right—the same dive boat, a black hull and gray above.” He looked again. “The same five—no, six people.”

  “It’s the third day in a row,” she said.

  “They probably think we’ve found the city of Atlantis.”

  “You make a joke out of it, but it could be true. Not about Atlantis, but they don’t know what we’re doing here. It’s the Louisiana coast. We could be diving on an old Spanish treasure ship that got blown here in a hurricane. Or a Civil War ship sunk in the blockade.”

  “Or a 2003 Chevrolet that somebody drove off a bridge upriver. We’re in sixty feet of water. They were probably just out here drinking beer and rubbing suntan lotion on each other.”

  Remi drifted against Sam and held on to his shoulder so she could see the other boat. “Thank you for your lack of curiosity, Mr. Jokester. They’re following us and watching what we do. Did you see that? A sun flash from a lens.”

  “Must be paparazzi taking my picture.”

  “Keep it up. But just remember, having strangers think we found something valuable could be just as dangerous as actually finding something valuable. Thieves attack you before they count your money.”

  “Okay,” he said. “They’ve kept their distance for three days. If they come any closer, we’ll have a talk with them. Meanwhile, we’ve got to get that sunken village mapped. The past few weeks have been interesting, but I don’t feel like devoting the rest of my life to salvage archaeology.”

  Sam and Remi Fargo always claimed their reputation as treasure hunters had come from catching the attention of a few imaginative reporters on a slow news day. They shared a strong interest in history and the urge to go out and see it for themselves. This spring they had volunteered to do some diving for the state of Louisiana. An archaeologist named Ray Holbert had been on the shore, looking at the coast for damage from the oil leaks after an oil-drilling platform had burned, when he had found some potsherds washed up from the Gulf onto the beach. They were clearly of native origin and quite old. He had asked for a grant from the oil company to salvage what had seemed to be a sunken village. When Sam and Remi had heard about the project, they had offered to pay their own expenses and help.

  Remi said, “Come down with me. I thi
nk I’ve found another hearth. Bring the camera.”

  Sam pulled himself up over the gunwale to reach the underwater camera, and they submerged again. Remi seemed to lose herself in the work. She led him to the stone hearth and let him examine it while she took the camera and photographed the site from every angle to record the positions of the potsherds around it. He watched the graceful movements of her body—in her wet suit looking a bit like her own shadow—and noticed a thin wisp of auburn hair had escaped from the hood of her suit at her forehead. He caught her bright green eyes looking at him through the glass of her mask, so he forced himself to relinquish the sight of her and look at the ring of charred stones she had uncovered beneath the sand. Then they filled their net bags carefully to bring more pottery up to be catalogued and mapped the site where they found them.

  Suddenly Sam and Remi both heard the buzzing sound of a propeller. It grew louder, and as they looked up they saw the underside of a black hull speeding toward the anchored dive boat, throwing waves to each side. They could see the outdrive and propeller and the long spiral trail of churned bubbles behind it.

  They watched the dive boat’s hull rock and saw the anchor chain tighten to hold it, tugging against the anchor they’d sunk into the sand and then going slack when the other boat slowed down and idled within a yard of theirs. In a minute or two, the black hull sped up again and moved away at high speed, bouncing as it crested each wave.

  Sam pointed upward, and the two floated to the surface. Remi climbed the ladder, and Sam followed. As they took off their gear, Remi said, “Well? That was a little closer, wasn’t it? I’m glad we didn’t surface just as they came roaring in.”

  She could see Sam’s jaw was working. “I think they zoomed in to look at what we’ve been bringing up from the bottom.”

  “I hope they got a good look,” she said. “I don’t want to get chewed up by a propeller over a few potsherds and a middenful of thousand-year-old clamshells.”

  “Let’s see who they are,” he said. He started the engine and stepped to the bow. Remi took the wheel and inched them forward in the direction of the anchor so its two flukes would be pulled forward and freed from the sand. Sam pulled the anchor up and stowed it under the foredeck. Remi brought the boat around so Sam could scoop up the small ring buoy that held the diver-alert flag, red with a white diagonal stripe, and pull in its light anchor, then stow both in the stern.

  She pushed the throttle forward and accelerated in the direction of the Grand Isle Harbor.

  Sam moved forward to stand beside Remi and rest his elbows on the roof of the cabin while he held the binoculars and scanned the horizon. As they sped along the coast, Remi’s long auburn hair whipped behind her in the wind. Sam said, “I don’t see their boat. They must have put into the harbor. We may as well head in too.”

  Remi steered toward the harbor at top speed, but then, as they reached the harbor entrance, she slowed down rapidly. As they came around the breakwater, a Coast Guard boat moved across their bow at a distance.

  “Good timing,” Sam said. “You might have had to bat your eyelashes at him to get out of a speeding ticket.”

  “I don’t get speeding tickets because I don’t break the law,” she said, and batted her eyelashes at him. “You can take the wheel.”

  She stepped aside and he took it, slowing down even more, to the speed of a walk. Remi bent over and ran her fingers through her long hair to straighten it, stood up and glanced at Sam. “You’re still looking for them, aren’t you?”

  “I’m mostly just curious. I’m wondering how long we’re going to have amateur treasure hounds, looters, and grave robbers following us everywhere.”

  “I guess you gave one too many interviews. It was probably the one with that TV girl from Boston with the long black hair.” She smiled at him. “I could understand why you hung on her every word. She had such a cultured accent that the questions really sounded smart.”

  Sam returned Remi’s smile but did not rise to the bait.

  They both kept watching the slips they passed for the black-and-gray boat, but didn’t spot it. When they reached the slip for the rented dive boat, they pulled in, tied up to the big cleats, and hung the bumpers over the side. While they were hosing off their wet suits and putting the tanks on the dock to be taken to Dave Carmody’s dive shop to be refilled, they were still watching for the black-and-gray boat.

  “Hey, Fargos!” Ray Holbert was waving as he walked out onto the dock, making it roll a little on its pontoons. He was tall and red-faced, and all his movements had a special vigor. His steps were long and his gestures were big.

  “Hi, Ray,” said Remi.

  “Find anything?”

  Sam lifted the cover on a cabinet near the stern to reveal several full net bags. “A few more potsherds we found near a stone hearth, some napped flint tools, a deer antler with some pieces chipped off, probably for projectile points. We’ve got the place nearly all mapped.”

  Remi handed up the camera. “It’s all in here. You can download it to your computer and line it up on the chart from where the midden is.”

  “Great,” said Ray. “We’re catching up a little. I think we’re going to get the three sunken villages along this part of the coast all identified, mapped, and given a once-over before the grant money runs out.”

  “We’ll help out a bit when that happens,” said Sam. “We can extend the work a bit.”

  “Let’s wait and see,” Ray said.

  “Follow us to our cottage in your truck,” said Remi. “We can hand over the latest finds. The charts and photographs are ready, the artifacts and bones are labeled and shown on the grid. I’d feel better if you have everything.”

  “Okay,” said Holbert. “We’re really learning a lot about these people. We knew just about nothing before. These villages were right above the beach. The carbon dates show that they must have been submerged by the rising sea level around the year 700. They all seem to be about the same size as yours—about five or six families in small dwellings with stone hearths. They used catches from the sea for food but also hunted deer inland. This first set of sites has been great.”

  “You’re telling us it’s time for the next set, aren’t you?” said Remi.

  “After tomorrow, I want to move everybody a few miles west. There’s a couple dozen potential sites, and each dive team has just done one site. The day after tomorrow, I want every team to take an initial survey of a new spot along the coast off the Caminada Headland. That way, we’ll get a better idea of what we’ve got to get done before we start to lose our summer volunteers. We’ll probably eliminate most of the sites when we get a look underwater.”

  In ten minutes they were at the small cottage Sam and Remi had rented a block from the beach on the south side of Grand Isle. It was a one-story on stilts, with white-painted clapboard siding and a big front porch where they could sit at the end of the day and feel the breeze off the Gulf of Mexico. Sam and Remi liked to be anonymous when they traveled, and there was nothing about the cottage that would prompt anyone to think the couple renting it was a pair of multimillionaires. There was a low roof over the porch, a pair of big windows with an almost unobstructed view of the water, two bedrooms, and a small bathroom. They had converted one bedroom into a storage-and-work area for the objects they had brought up from the sunken Paleo-Indian village.

  Ray Holbert entered with them, and Sam took him on a tour of the artifacts while Remi took the first shower. Sam handed him the grid with the meticulously drawn objects found in various spots. There were also memory cards full of photographs that Remi had taken to ensure that there was a record of each object in relation to the others. The artifacts were stored in plastic boxes.

  Holbert looked at the grid of the village and the artifacts. “With this number of deer antlers and bones, it looks as if the rising water changed the landscape a lot. There w
ere probably forested ridges then. Now it’s mostly bayous and sea-level flats.”

  “It’s sort of a shame to move on,” Remi said. She had showered and changed into Grand Isle evening attire—a pair of shorts and a loose short-sleeved polo shirt with a pair of flip-flops. “Although I won’t miss our shadows.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Holbert.

  “It’s probably our own fault,” said Sam. “There’s another dive boat that’s been following us. They watch where we go, then stare at us with binoculars. Today they came within a yard of our boat, as though they wanted to see what we had brought up.”

  “That’s odd,” said Holbert. “This is the first I’ve heard of them.”

  “Well, as I said, maybe it’s just us. It’s the price of having our names in the papers,” Sam said. He looked at Remi. “Or maybe Remi’s picture. Well, I’ll help you load this stuff into your truck before I take my shower.”

  In twenty minutes Holbert’s white pickup truck was loaded, and soon they were in the restaurant for a meal of shucked oysters, grilled shrimp with remoulade sauce, freshly caught red snapper, and a bottle of chilled Chardonnay from Kistler Vinyards in California. After they’d eaten, Sam said, “What do you think? Would you like to share another bottle of wine?”

  “No, thanks,” said Ray.

  “None for me either,” said Remi. “If we’ve just got one more day at this village, I’d like to get an early start. After tomorrow, we could spend the next few days swimming around, finding nothing.”

  “That’s right, we could,” said Sam. They said good night to Ray, walked home to their cottage, locked the door, and turned off the lights. They let the overhead fan turn lazily above their bed and went to sleep listening to the waves washing in along the beach.

  Sam woke as the first ray of sun shone through the opening in the curtain, thinking he would tiptoe out of the bedroom to keep from waking Remi only to find her sitting on the front porch with a cup of coffee, dressed and waiting for him, looking out over the Gulf of Mexico.