She bit down on her forkful of cake, watched Najeeb press his thumb against one of the few crumbs remaining on his plate and lift it to his mouth. The other patrons of the tea-shop — Indian and English both — kept glancing over at their table. She swapped around plates, gave him the slice she’d barely touched. It wasn’t generosity; when he was eating he wasn’t talking, and she needed to think.
How would a prized artefact of the Carian dynasts end up in Peshawar? And then came the answer, so obvious, so inevitable. Alexander. Of course. He would have taken the Circlet from Caria when he conquered it and carried it all the way to India — where he sent his Admiral Nearchus to sail down the Indus, following in the oarstrokes of Scylax.
— Najeeb Gul, you are a wonder!
The boy looked up, mouth full of cake; in the tea-room, whispers.
Returning home, she knew exactly the book she needed. Buddhist Records of the Western World — an account of several Chinese travellers’ visits to India, and to Shahji-ki-Dheri. She’d read it soon after she’d arrived in Peshawar but without knowing what she was looking for despite Tahsin Bey’s insertion of the words ‘Sacred Casket’ into his letter, which she should have recognised as an echo of Kallistos. Although really, he could have been a little more forthcoming.Regardless, now that she was sitting at Najeeb’s school desk in the garden with the book open in front of her, it seemed impossible she’d missed it: In ad 518 the Chinese pilgrim Sung-Yun travelled in the company of a Buddhist novice to India on the instructions of the Empress of China, in order to bring back Buddhist holy books from a country now ravaged by ‘a rude horde of Turks’. Tahsin Bey would have laughed at that, read it out loud to whoever was near by to listen — even if it was only Alice. Or perhaps he would be too absorbed, instead, in his conviction that Sung-Yun and his companion were the Holy Men whose ‘mission was not that of theft’. She read all that Sung-Yun had written of Shahji-ki-Dheri, and moved on to the writings of Hiuen-Tsang, more than a century later. The rude horde of Turks and their descendants had worked their destruction — where Sung-Yun found temples and stupas, Hiuen-Tsang found ruins. But the Kanishka Stupa survived and –
To the south-west of the Great Stupa a hundred paces or so, there is a figure of Buddha in white stone about eighteen feet high. It is a standing figure, and looks to the north. It has many spiritual powers, and diffuses a brilliant light.
The Sacred Casket. The Likeness of the Holy One. The Holy Men. The Illuminating Statue. It was all there, every bit of it.
The last excavation at Shahji-ki-Dheri had taken place in 1911. Every year since then the Archaeological Survey of India, Frontier Circle reported a continuing leasing dispute with the owner of the land. The most recent report was promising — ‘the compulsory acquisition of the land may be considered’. Viv looked up the Land Acquisitions Act — there was no reason it couldn’t be applied to Shahji-ki-Dheri. Perhaps all that was needed was a little nudge from the right quarters.
— There’s something here that’s caught my attention, Mr Remmick, I wonder if you could advise me how to move forward with it.
She made a fluttering motion to indicate some flight of fancy, leaning forward slightly towards Remmick who turned an even deeper shade of red. They were the only two sitting on the verandah of the Peshawar Club, gin-and-tonics in hand, watching the sky turn a fiery orange.
— There’s an archaeological site here I’m interested in. Shahji-ki-Dheri.
— The Kanishka Stupa?
— I wouldn’t want to get in the way of the main stupa excavations, of course, but there’s an illuminated white statue at the edge of the stupa complex which I’m interested to see if there’s anything left of.
— Illuminated?
— Probably a story that arose from the sight of moonlight on white marble — but it’s the marble I’m interested in. Why a white marble statue in this place of grey schist? Or is it limestone? I have a theory about trade routes during the Kushan Empire.
As anticipated, his expression fixed into a pretence of interest, allowing her to skip ahead.
— Is the leasing dispute likely to be resolved soon?
— Very soon, I’d imagine. The DC is looking into taking the land away from the owner. It should all be settled by the dig season.
— Hurrah for you, Mr Remmick! That’s a better answer than I’d expected. When is the dig season?
— It can start as early as November. But, Miss Spencer, I should strike a note of caution. I know there’ve been women archaeologists in Greece, in Turkey. Even Egypt. But this is Peshawar. Pathan men don’t much like the idea of women. .
— Don’t much like the idea of women doing what?
— Don’t much like the idea of women.
She thought of the soldier on the train; the ease of the silence between them right at the end. But who knew what he’d really been thinking?
— Are the English in India in the habit of having our behaviour dictated by the Natives?
— Ha! Well expressed.
He raised his glass to her.
— To the dig season!
Silence rolled thick down the mountain, smothering even the calls of the nocturnal birds. Viv collided with a garden chair, the bump of flesh on wood loud in the darkness. Piece by piece she removed every scrap of clothing until she was naked in the moonlit night, the faintest of breezes warm on her skin. Picking up one end of the garden hose she carried it back along the length of itself to the tap and, crouching down on the grass, placed the mouth of it between her shoulder blades, beneath the dip of her neck. A spine of water overlaid her own. Warm at first, but as it drew itself up from the deeper parts of the underground tank it cooled and she stood up, painting every inch of her skin with water, bending her head into it so her hair grew heavy and slicked.
She stood up, looked towards the distant mountains. Tahsin Bey stood behind her, his fingers tracing circles on her skin. The outermost circle was the girdle, the broken bowl, the circlet of mountain ranges, hills and spurs; overlapping it, the tribal areas where men killed each other before breakfast over a chicken, a bad dream, a smile; further in, the British troops protecting Peshawar from the tribesmen; then, the fields and orchards and gardens where the very summer which made the British flee to hill stations brought fruit and fiery-coloured flowers bursting into life; closer now, closer, the proud Englishness of spires and barracks; and right in the centre, the innermost circle, the eye of the storm: Vivian Rose Spencer standing in the garden of her bungalow, a shiver of pleasure running all the way through her.
July — September 1915
The familiarity of Peshawar choked off any hope that life might veer in directions Qayyum couldn’t anticipate. No breeze, only heat which shrank his clothes onto his body. He thought of the snake he’d once seen shedding its skin. ‘Shedding’ wasn’t the right word. It simply seemed to glide forward along a pebbled pathway, leaving behind a layer of scales. As though the skin it had lived in was nothing more than a sock. Qayyum had picked up the discarded skin — one piece, split along the snout. He brought the split together and held in his hands a weightless, transparent snake; even the shape of its eyes intact. When he held it up against the sunlight rainbows danced crazily along the length of it, as though something were swirling into life, and he dropped it in terror.