The two Macedonian guards stood with their pikes crossed barring the entrance.
‘We’ve come to make an offering,’ Felix explained, lifting the geese in their cage.
‘It’s a busy night for the priest,’ one of the guards commented as they stepped aside. ‘You come to put a curse on the Jews too?’
‘Something like that,’ Felix replied with a grin as they passed through the archway.
Swathed in the thin light of the crescent moon the courtyard felt even larger than it had by day; the fire on the altar at its centre, silhouetting a cluster of people gathered round making their offerings, seemed far off.
While still in the shadow of the wall, Felix nipped away to the right; Vespasian and Magnus followed. Keeping close to the wall they made their way north towards the Temple of Alexander, skirting around the mausoleums of various Ptolemys. Without mishap they arrived in the shadow of the mausoleum closest to the temple, just thirty paces away; between the two buildings was open, moonlit ground. The two night-time guards could be just seen at the top of the steps in the gloom under the portico.
‘Look around for some stones,’ Felix whispered, setting down the goose cage, ‘half a dozen should be fine.’
‘What for?’ Vespasian asked, feeling the ground and immediately finding a couple of small pebbles.
‘To encourage the geese forward.’ Felix took a goose out of the cage and handed it to Magnus before retrieving the other one, holding it firm under his arm. ‘On the count of three, Magnus, hurl your goose as far as you can towards the temple and then when they land, Vespasian, throw your stones at them to move them forward.’
‘Won’t they fly off?’ Vespasian asked, finding the last few stones that he needed.
‘They’ve had their wings clipped; they can’t fly more than a few paces. All right; one, two, three.’
Felix and Magnus hurled their geese towards the temple; the birds flapped their wings and flew as best they could, hissing in outrage, until they landed heavily just short of the steps. With a couple of well-aimed shots Vespasian got them waddling forward, honking loudly. From within the building the geese could be heard taking up their fellows’ cries. The guards looked at each other and exchanged a few words before one handed the other his pike and started slowly to descend the steps. The geese eyed him suspiciously; as he got to within three paces of them they extended their necks, flapped their useless wings at him and hissed threateningly. He pounced and, much to his mate’s amusement, began chasing one of the honking birds in a series of twists and curves until eventually capturing it as it tried but failed to mount the steps. Gathering the goose in both arms he jogged, laughing, back up to his mate, who pulled a key from a cord around his neck and turned to the door.
‘Now!’ Felix whispered.
As the two guards busied themselves with opening the door and shoving the goose inside, much to the honking consternation of its fellows already within, Felix led Vespasian and Magnus at a sprint across the open ground to the temple, getting around the side wall out of view of the guards as they closed the door.
‘How did you know that they would try and catch the geese?’ Vespasian asked as they made their way along to where the temple abutted the Soma’s surrounding wall.
‘I stole them from the geese enclosure this evening,’ Felix replied, stopping by a wooden ladder attached to the wall. ‘The guards would have known that they were two geese short so when they saw them they assumed, rightly as it happens, that they were the missing two. Up we go.’
At the top of the ladder they stepped over a low parapet onto the flat roof and crept towards the hole in the centre.
‘This should be fine,’ Felix said with relief, testing the solid iron hinges with which the hatch was attached to the roof. ‘I didn’t fancy having to hold the rope all by myself.’ He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a coil of hemp rope with a lead weight tied to one end and began to knot the other around the hinge. ‘Now we wait.’
‘What for?’ Vespasian asked, looking down through the hole. As he did a pale light faintly illuminated the chamber and he could make out the shapes of geese waddling around the floor; a cacophony of honking erupted as the second goose was thrown into their midst. The light went out; the door had closed.
‘That.’ Felix began to let down the rope.
Far below, the dim glow of the sconces in the burial chamber showed the position of the viewing passage; after a couple of nervous attempts Felix managed to get the lead weight into its entrance and continued feeding out the rope, swinging it slightly so that the weight clattered lightly against the stone sides of the passage.
‘That’s to alert Ziri that it’s on its way down,’ Felix explained. ‘We don’t want it cracking the crystal, do we?’
A few moments later he felt a couple of tugs on the rope. ‘Good, he knows we’re here.’
Vespasian peered down into the gloom and eventually was able to make out a shadowy figure at the top of the steps leading to the burial chamber, seemingly waving its arms around; there was a slight increase in the honking and the patter of many feet.
‘Down you go, gentlemen,’ Felix said, giving Magnus his leather bag. ‘The breastplate is in here; be as quick as you can. The geese won’t want to eat all night.’
‘I’ll go first, sir,’ Magnus offered, ‘I’m the heaviest.’ He took hold of the rope and lowered himself through the hole.
Vespasian watched him descend; as he reached the balustrade around the viewing passage he swung slightly and managed to land on the temple floor. There was a slight increase in goose activity as he landed in their midst but the bread and grain seemed to be doing a good job at distracting them from their guard duty.
Felix helped Vespasian into position on the rope. ‘They’re unsettled at the moment so the guards won’t worry about a bit of honking; just make sure that you don’t tread on one.’
‘Thanks for the advice, Felix,’ Vespasian replied as he let himself down into the gloom.
Following Magnus’ example, Vespasian swung gently over the balustrade and landed lightly next to it, eliciting a smattering of honks from the geese close by before they settled back down to their surprise midnight feast. Stepping carefully around the dim grey forms pecking at the ground, he came to the steps, swiftly descended and joined Magnus and Ziri down in the burial chamber.
With no light source other than the flaming sconces, Alexander’s body seemed even more ethereal in its crystal cocoon than it had when they viewed it with daylight seeping down the shaft.
‘Ziri, get the rope and untie the lead weight,’ Vespasian ordered as he and Magnus got either side of the coffin. ‘We lift it just enough to get the rope under, all right?’
Magnus nodded and, easing their fingers under the lip of the lid at the level of Alexander’s chest, they braced themselves.
‘Ready, Ziri?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the little Marmarides replied standing at the head end.
‘Go.’
With a huge effort they prised the lid from the base lifting it at an angle; a waft of the preserving spices and incense filled the chamber. Ziri quickly fed the rope through and they lowered the heavy crystal back down with relief.
‘Minerva’s slack tits, that’s heavy!’ Magnus exclaimed, rubbing his fingers together. ‘Here, Ziri, give me that rope.’ He took the loose end and tied it in a secure knot back on itself around the lid. ‘All right, Ziri, you and I help support this while Sir does his bit.’ He gave the rope a tug and the slack was taken out of it as above them on the roof Felix began to pull.