The Desert Castle (23 page)

‘
Oh, Marion, you know I didn
’
t mean that! You
’
re not old at all! But Gaston can
’
t carry both of us, can he
?
’

‘
I should hope not
!
’
Marion agreed.

The Syq was the strangest phenomenon she had ever seen. It was rough underfoot like walking along a dry river-bed which, Marion supposed, was what it really was. The sides towered upwards, perhaps as much as ten times the height of a m
an, so that only a slit of the sk
y could be seen if one craned one
’
s neck to look at it
.
No wonder Petra had beat a secret city for so many centuries. If this was the only entrance, the only surprise was that it had been found again at al
l.

Most of the caves before the entrance of the Syq proper had never been
li
ved in but only used as tombs. Compared to the best examples, they were rough and ready, without the decorated facades that were so much a feature of the
main
buildings. Only the “Djin” blocks, huge, carved lumps of rock, told of the
st
ories that were to come, and the purpose of these blocks has long ago been forgotten.

When it rained, Gaston told the girls, the Syq could fill with water in a matter of moments. In a flash-flood in the middle
si
xties, a party of about twenty French people had been drowned there, although they had been told it was dangerous to enter the Syq at that time.
Afterwards, a
dam
had been built to protect the passage, and it was discovered that centuries before the Nabateans had done likewise and had carved a channel right through the mountainside to carry away the water. The same channel
i
s used today.

With the sun shining it was difficult to believe
i
n such disasters. It was exciting enough to press on over the loose stone, trying not to feel completely dwarfed by the massive wall of rock
on
either
si
de.

Then came the most wonderful moment of all when they
came within
sight of the Khasneh, or Treasury. It
d
id look pink, a rich salmon pink that was all the more effective after the dim gloom of the Syq itself. The
classical
fa
c
ade was breathtakingly dramatic, cut into the rough stone and smoothed to look like the outside of a Roman building. Happily, its position has protected it from the winds that have worn away the
embellishments
of so much else in Petra, and the bit of the frontage which has come off worst is an urn on top of the monument which was long thought to contain fabulous riches. Many an Arab marksman has tried
to shoot
it away to release the gold that was reputed to be inside. T
h
e practice is now forbidden by law, but eyes filled with longing are still turned upwards. Such stories are hard to kill, and would anyone really want to?

They came out into the sunshine and stood for a moment in the open space in front of the monument. T
h
ere were no other buildings in sight and it was difficult to judge exactly how big the Khasneh really was. Marion thought
she
had read somewhere that it was a
fraction smaller than
the west front of Westminster Abbey, which would make it about ninety-two feet wide and a hundred and thirty feet to its highest point
.
Some men sat on the steps, hoping to sell souvenirs from their trays to the tourists who came past, but they paid little attention to the three vi
si
tors who had come on foot as they walked into the enormous, gloomy
interior.

‘
Gosh,
’
said Lucasta,
‘
how did they do it
?’

‘
In some ways it would be easier than building it up from the ground,
’
Gaston told her.
‘
They wouldn
’
t have had to face the problem of putting on a roof.
’

‘
But where did they begin
?
’
Lucasta insisted.

Marion rubbed her fingers against one of the walls and found that the soft red stone came off easily, staining her skin the same red as it was itself.
‘
They must have started at the top,
’
she suggested.
‘
I
doubt it would hold scaffolding without
falling
away.
’

‘
I doubt it too,
’
Gaston agreed.

They came outside again and one of the men made a half-hearted attempt to show off his wares. Amongst the Bedouin jewellery and foreign coins, amongst them some
modern
British coins that had probably been dropped
by a careless tourist, there was a
small
clay bottle with a rounded bottom that Marion
thought
might have been a Roman “ tear bottle,” in which the Romans are said to have caught their tears before they could fall to the ground. She was sorry that Gaston had refused the man so brusquely, for she would have liked to look at it When the Ro
mans
had taken over Petra they had already been in decline, but
sh
e had always thought “ tear bottles ” to be a romantic conception, and to have one casually offered to her was an opportunity which might never come
again.

The main part of the city was further into the
valley, cut off from s
ight of the Syq by the wall of rock
i
nto which the Treasury had been cut. But once round the
corner
it was easy to see the layout of the main part of the city. There were the most famous monuments of the Nabatean Arabs, the Roman theatre, the Streets of Facades, the Roman colonnade street leading to the so-called Kasr el Bint and the museum, and down over to the right to
th
e Christian area of the city, where the Byzantine faith had replaced the pagan gods of old until the caravans of traders had faded away and the citizens of Petra had moved after them, leaving the deserted city behind them to the occasional family of Bedouin who wandered into the Syq and took up residence in the monumental caves for a while. The memory of Petra faded from the rest of the world
’
s memory and it was left in secret isolation until John L. Burckhardt, a young Swiss working for the British Association for Promoting Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa,
o
f all unlikely institutions, was taken through the Syq by a somewhat irritable and suspicious guide on the excuse that he wished to sacrifice a goat on the very grave of Aaron, the brother of Moses, whom he knew to have been buried within the vicinity.

The steps that led up to the acropolis, the High Place above the valley, were clearly marked, and Marion watched Lucasta with some amusement to see what
sh
e would do. But that young lady didn
’
t turn a hair.

‘
We
’
ll be seeing you, Marion,
’
sh
e
s
aid.
‘
Don
’
t get lost or anything, will you
?
’

Marion
’
s eyes sparkled, but
she
said nothing, merely lifted an eyebrow as the other two began the long climb to the top. She was not entirely sorry to have some time to herself, to drink in the atmosphere of this
pl
ace which she had always dreamed of visiting. It would be fun to tell Gregory all about it! But would he want to know? The hurt
sh
e had felt when he had refused pointblank to bring her her
e
himself revisited her with a pain that was physical in its intensity. She wondered what he was doing in Beirut, but as that led immediately to Denise and the memory of the gratified possessiveness with which she had pulled Gregory
’
s arm about her
,
making s
u
re that Marion had seen the gesture, and that was another forbidden subject on this day of days. Marion couldn
’
t help it if Gregory had taken up residence inside her, but
sh
e had no intention of allowing him to ruin Petra for her. She would t
r
y not to think about him at all and, if the dull ache
inside her refused to go away, at least the imaginary ghost of Denise should not be allowed to gloat over her misery. Surely
sh
e had more pride than that?

Looking up, Marion saw that the other
two were already out of sight Th
e only sound was of a chicken squawking somewhere in the distance. Away in the distance, a thin plume of blue smoke rose up Into the sky, betraying the presence of a Bedouin settlement Slowly but surely they were being moved out of their tents into solidly built houses, fulfilling their dreams of a more urban existence, with coffee-bars for the men and damp-proof dwellings for the women to gos
si
p away their time to their hearts
’
content. Their romantic-sounding existence, following their flocks as they grazed the edges of the
desert, would come to an end. Their expectations of living more nearly as their neighbours did, already raised by what they had heard on their transistor radios, would finally be realised. When they were gone, Petra would be a ghost
ci
ty indeed, with only the visit
o
f tourists to bring it alive for a few moments every day.

Marion chose to go up to the Urn Tomb which was not too far away. Some workmen
were restoring the crypt below the monument and
sh
e could see them at intervals as
sh
e clambered up the steep steps. It was further than
sh
e had thought and the ground was rough and a few steps downright difficult to navigate, but at last
sh
e rea
ch
ed the top and came out on to a platform before the colonnade that guarded the
entrance.
Inside, she knew
i
mmediately that the Tomb had been used for Christian worship by the extra semi-domes
that
had been carved above where the altar would have been, but nothing could detract from the
magnificence
the original building. The swirling pattern of the ceiling, similar to the ringing of an an
ci
ent tree, had been blackened by smoke from the Bedouin fires, was even more splendid than that of A
l
Khan over which the Government Rest House is constructed.
Marion
sat
down on a ledge that jutted out o
f
the wall and allowed her eyes to roam over it, lovingly taking in every detail.

She barely heard the arrival of an American party down below and it wasn
’
t until they trooped into the dim interior of the U
rn
Tomb itself that she began to listen to what they were saying. Their guide told them that the Tomb was sometimes known as the Royal Courts of Justice, and that it had been thought that the vaulted substructure had been the old dungeons, but they now knew this was not so. for the work now being done had disproved the theory.

The Americans sat in groups, drinking the Coca-Cola that had been brought up for them. The guide himself, carefully dusting his well-polished shoes, sat down on the ledge beside Marion.

‘
American too
?
’
he asked her.

‘
British,
’
sh
e said.

His face lit up and he pointed out through the columns to the flat-topped hill in the distance.
‘
The British were up there,
’
he told her.
‘
Miss Diana Kirkbride was digging there. She borrowed a helicopter from the King to get her equipment up there. Here, she is known as the friend of the Bedouin. She is married now, I think.
’

Marion confirmed that
sh
e was now
Mrs.
Hans Helbaek.

‘
She is a brave woman,
’
the guide told her earnestly.
‘
When tourists first came here, they sent the Desert Patrol to guard them, but the local men killed them all
.
Only everybody liked Miss Ki
r
kbride.
’
He pronounced it “Kirkebride
.
”
‘
Are you married?
’
he went on with the intimate interest of the Middle Eastern
man.