Kara Tepe

By Chris Wolsey

In this book Philip Trevasco, an Edinburgh archaeologist, and Rosalind Bernaud, an Australian artist, meet on the excavation of Kara Tepe, in North West Iran. They discover a coin minted by Alexander the Great, and a cryptic bronze tablet that leads them to the schemes of Harpalos, the boyhood friend and corrupt treasurer to Alexander. What is h

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Wolsey
• Release date: Aug 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9780995409415

Chris Wolsey

Chris has written much of this book from personal experience. Born in Stafford, England, he studied Archaeology and Fine Art at Edinburgh University. During the 1970s Chris worked on excavations in Italy, Cyprus, Turkey and Iran. His last excavation was at old Kandahar in Afghanistan, just before the Russian invasion. It is this excavation life that he has reworked into historical fiction. Chris discovered Australia after Kandahar, and moved there in 1978. Since then he has taught Ancient History, English and Philosophy in Brisbane. Along the way he completed post graduate diplomas in Russian (Strathclyde university in Glasgow), Teaching (London university) and a degree in Journalism (QUT in Brisbane). He has always thought of life as an adventure. So his gaining a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and a stint of hang gliding, would come as no surprise. Life is so rich that one needs several lifetimes to catch a part of it. How does one limit oneself to one interest, one existence, when there is so much out there for the next challenge? `Kara Tepe', and `Ayios Petros', drew on experiences in Iran and Cyprus. `Nardoo', the third in the series, reflects his fascination with the Australian bush. After raising two sons, their greatest adventure, he and his wife now live in the hills north of Brisbane.

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KARA TEPE

by

CHRIS WOLSEY

Copyright © 2014 Chris Wolsey, all rights reserved.

Maps by Joha Coludar

ABOUT THE BOOK

In this book Philip Trevasco, an Edinburgh archaeologist, and Rosalind Bernaud, an Australian artist, meet on the excavation of Kara Tepe, in North West Iran. They discover a coin minted by Alexander the Great, and a cryptic bronze tablet that leads them to the schemes of Harpalos, the boyhood friend and corrupt treasurer to Alexander. What is his link with Rahina, the Armenian queen, and her Amazon warriors, who struggle to survive in Alexander’s empire? The modern and ancient stories collide as Philip and Rosalind risk so much to find answers, and each other, in the dangerous world of the Shah.

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

Chris has written much of this book from personal experience. Born in Stafford, England, he studied Archaeology and Fine Art at Edinburgh University. During the 1970s Chris worked on excavations in Italy, Cyprus, Turkey and Iran. His last excavation was at old Kandahar in Afghanistan, just before the Russian invasion. It is this excavation life that he has reworked into historical fiction.

Chris discovered Australia after Kandahar, and moved there in 1978. Since then he has taught Ancient History, English and Philosophy in Brisbane. Along the way he completed post graduate diplomas in Russian (Strathclyde university in Glasgow), Teaching (London university) and a degree in Journalism (QUT in Brisbane).

He has always thought of life as an adventure. So his gaining a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and a stint of hang gliding, would come as no surprise. Life is so rich that one needs several lifetimes to catch a part of it. How does one limit oneself to one interest, one existence, when there is so much out there for the next challenge?

The life and culture of the Middle East was fascinating and raw, a daily struggle for existence for those people that he worked with and has a huge respect for. The layers of culture there reflect the levels of existence on a site such as Kara Tepe.

‘Kara Tepe’ is the first novel in a series involving the archaeological careers of Philip and Rosalind. The second, ‘Ayios Petros’, is set in Cyprus, and the Crusades. The third, ‘Nardoo’, happens in Outback Queensland. The fourth, ‘Kandahar’, takes place in Afghanistan. The fifth, ‘Roseland’, which occurs in Cornwall against a backdrop of King Arthur , is still to be written.

After raising two sons, their greatest adventure, he and his wife now live in the hills north of Brisbane.

CONTENTS

ABOUT THE BOOK

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

CHAPTER 1: Eagle’s Domain

CHAPTER 2: Royal Intrigue

CHAPTER 3: Baying Wolves

CHAPTER 4: The Real World

CHAPTER 5: Sensual Space

CHAPTER 6: Desperate Times

CHAPTER 7: A New Beginning

CHAPTER 8: Two Steps Forward

CHAPTER 9: Uncertain Steps

CHAPTER 10: Hope

CHAPTER 11: Risk

CHAPTER 12: Win and Lose

CHAPTER 13: No Loose Ends

SOURCES

CHAPTER 1: Eagle’s domain

‘As the soaring falcon poises on the wing high above some sheer rock, and presently swoops down to chase some bird over the plain, even so did Neptune lord of the earthquake wing his flight into the air.’ (Homer, Iliad 13)

Philip Trevasco watched the eagle work the late afternoon thermals; easy, lifting turns which milked the useable energy. Then he meticulously pieced the A-frame and bar of the hang glider together. On the flat monolithic crag, 1200 feet above the scorched plains of Western Azerbaijan, he lifted it to his shoulders, clipped in the harness and felt the air for the first time. Legs apart he braced himself against a gusty cross wind.

Shoulder muscles flexed as he steadied against the nagging eddies and cleared his mind. He waited for that moment of stable wind. Stomach muscles tightened, gut bubbled, breath slowed down and eyes locked on to the horizon line.

‘You go where your eyes take you. Mind over matter,’ said Ivan, his mentor, three years before. ‘So for God’s sake, don’t look down!’

Of course he had… and promptly spiralled into a tree as instructions screamed at him.

Now Philip was alone in this Arabian Nights wilderness. A slip of the foot was a 600 feet fall to the next crag.

He waited for that pocket of clean rushing air, which was his window to the sky. Ears caught the nuances of wind, the tinkling sounds of farming in the valley below. Time slowed. It had to be right.

It was a gentle gust, a zephyr of old, the right one. The sails filled like a breaking wave. He took that first sluggish step of the six strides to the edge. Then he heard himself grunt as he pushed the thirty kilos of kite through the viscous air. With screaming postponement of time the momentum grew. A third stride was like a still from an Olympic hundred yards. A fourth: that point of no return.

Adrenalin gripped his eyes to the horizon, over the fear, and the edge. No more rock. He pulled the bar in as he entered the eagle’s domain; hard enough to cut through the turbulent down draft; not so hard that the kite would flip on its back and slide down the granite face. The sails roared with the strain and his body swung like a pendulum. God, it was good.

Bastam was a natural fortress and a perfect launch site. The German archaeologists happily stored the device in their site shed at the citadel base. On these rare afternoons he could leave Kara Tepe behind.

At first the team had been curious as he had carried the cumbersome weight up the winding track to the slab of rock that the ancient Urartian engineers had incorporated into the circuit wall. That inaugural flight across those desolate crossroads of civilisation had answered their questions.

Now the eagle and he shared this detached space. Turkey and the Soviet Union lay respectively west and north; their borders mountainous and forbidding, yet tantalisingly close. He and his watchful companion saw the cattle grazing a rare patch of green to the south, along the salty marsh-flats of Lake Urmia. Lifeless water shone gold and crimson in the late afternoon sun. Around it were shimmering lagoons and white pinnacles of salt. South-east was the grimy concrete sprawl of Tabriz: mayhem of carts and taxis and buses squeezing through weathered arches into the bazaar, the pungency from baskets of coloured spice, the stench of animals and stale human feet. As he leant left into the bar he could just hear the din of coppersmiths and the incessant traffic snarl of the city. A turn of the kite revealed the road that carved southeast through barren white and khaki, on to Tehran. North of the capital strode the Elburz Mountains, and on to the luxuriant south coast of the Caspian Sea.

They circled south through the cloudless, eggshell-blue. Cool air and undulating warmth flickered in bands against his eyes, shaded by the sail against the brilliant light. Kara Tepe, its millennia of levels, dusty heat, flyblown toilets, dysenteric food and manipulative workers, was a small brown speck north west of the salt lake. The frustrations of a three-month excavation season, dogged work on complex material, with paltry resources and few people were in perspective up here. He was a tiny mote in the divine scheme of things.

What is it? he thought.? No, I know what it is. But what does it mean? Why is it at Kara Tepe, and in my trench? He and his companion circled the problem.

An hour of this elevated meditation dissipated the idiocies of the past weeks. The eagle had swooped early to establish mastery, as Philip banked away in deference to prior ownership. The sky was an awfully big place. There was room.

His reverie was broken by that approaching spiral of dust. Rosalind Bernaud, Brisbane-born artist and dig photographer, slowed near the circle of churned talcum at the end of the road. Her photographic tour of the valley over, her arrival reminded him of two hours of corrugation and ‘bull-dust’ ahead of them. After giving up her siesta it was not the time to stretch the friendship. He pulled the kite in and gently turned towards the landing site.

She spun the Land Rover to face Kara Tepe and slowed with the handbrake. It saved pumping bite into the brakes. Good! Pommy punctuality, she thought. In the shade of the door she wiped her sunglasses with the inside of her shirt while the distant dot descended. Her eyes winced in the afternoon sun. With the glasses back on she picked out the white and gold triangle gently spiralling, so high and far as if in slow motion. Above it was the dark shape of the ever-watchful bird.

Communing with royalty, Philip? A brief image of bird and human discussing life over a game of cloud-lit chess passed through her tired mind. If she had known she would have marvelled at the irony; for he was, in a way. The triangle, larger and clearer by the second, was precisely mirrored by the shadowing bird. Was it still playing the game, or escorting from its territory?

Philip’s shape, suspended in harness beneath the sail of the kite, was a crisp silhouette; steadily controlling actions, shifting the cocooned weight left and right. Beyond her clear vision he steadily pushed out the bar to descend.

This rapidly dropping skysail seemed out of place in this valley, and yet was no stranger than so many other intruders over the last ten thousand years.

***

My troubles began with the death, no the murder, of a great man. Some uneasy presence disturbed me in that light before morning. As I slid from the cloying warmth of Palmyra’s enfolding arms a bird screamed, the cry as of a human child. I looked back from the night-cool stone of the window. Her breaths, quiet as in the next life, were changeless. This portent was for my ears only. Across the dusty Median plain Apollo’s chariot warmed the star-laden sky, driving away the things of night. A light fell, a second warning, so clear in its eery path across the heavens.

As I watched the road a bowshot beyond the northern gate the simmering shapes of three riders approached the outermost of the seven walls of Ecbatana, the old summer palace of Darius. Their mounts, dromedaries known for their speed and endurance, stepped heavily, carrying their dusty charges as though at the end of a long journey. Their existence was soon swallowed in the velvet shadows of the walls. I knew that their progress would be rapid through the defensive rings, white to black, red, blue and orange: to those ramparts which protected the palace and treasury.

As I replaced the goblet of watered Cappadocian wine on the proffered tray, I motioned with a glance and the slave bowed and left. This was not a time for eyes to watch mine. While the first beams of divine light glowed on the inner ramparts of silver and gold, I pulled the finely woven fabric tight against the chill. Or was it a shiver? The slave girl’s muffled frown within sleep broke my questions. Her fingers gripped the sheet and covered the full breast, mulberry-tipped, drawn into the scented warmth. It was time for me to join the others.

As I stepped out into the corridor the Macedonian guard slid closed the bolt of the heavy wooden door. A careful necklace of gilded lamps illumined the footprints of exquisite carpets that covered the massive flagstones of the interminable halls. Distant shouts and raucous laughter led the way. But silence greeted my arrival at the stateroom. With astonishing speed Polydamas, a Companion and therefore a guardian of the king himself, had passed on his charge, words spoken to enlighten those unable to comprehend script and to leave limited proof of their passing.

The stocky torso of Cleander, his tunic revealing livid weals of battle on his veined forearms, leaned heavily on the corner of the polished wooden table. His face was ashen, distant, as one who’d forgotten his role as second in command to the old man himself. Opposite his back sat Sitalces and Agathon, conversing earnestly in whispers, not admitting fear, wine-flushed but clearly sober. Heracon, hard above even veterans in their prime, tore bread in half and ate steadily, as if in preparation. Only Menidas, recently returned with his cavalry from the subjugation of a bandit hill tribe, acknowledged my arrival.

‘Alexander dealt with a revolt of Satibarzanes, governor of Aria. The vermin had murdered Anaxippus and his Macedonians and planned to attack Alexander from the rear, before joining Bessus and his forces in Bactria. Afterwards the king re-joined Craterus on the march into Zangiana and settled in the chief palace there.’

There was no surprise or emotion in Menidas’ voice. In his judgement as a general this was Alexander at his most speedy and brutal. No doubt when caught Satibarzanes would pay with his head, or if his gods did not favour him, in the Persian way; so that his corpse, less eyes, nose, ears and other parts would feed the vultures on the road east. Alexander had favoured the ways of the Great King of late.

‘After eight days Alexander learned of a plot against his person. The Macedonian called Dymnos, who led it, was betrayed by his boy Nicomachos. He told his brother Cebalinos who reported to Philotas. Philotas did nothing. In his words spoken at his trial it was not important.’

It was not hard to grasp the import of his words. This was not to be the demise of a nonentity. This was Alexander at his best and worst.

‘Dymnos died while being arrested. His brother confessed at open trial and was stoned by the Assembly of men. Philotas showed his usual pride and insolence, on questioning and at his trial, even after torture. He was speared as befitting his noble rank.’

So carefully worded, leaving room for private interpretation. Where was proof of guilt or had Alexander used Macedonian law with the contempt of Darius?

‘You know our task.’

Yes, I knew our task, and not a pleasant one, as I left the room to mull the consequences of this momentous action, for even then I knew the repercussions would follow its perpetrators for years to come. Alexander would not leave any loose ends. Witnesses were dross to his plans.

Menidas and Cleander watched me shuffle out of the room, dragging my right leg as skilfully as a lifetime’s experience would allow, somehow older than my twenty eight years. Apparently sedentary, not choosing to be part of carousing at the end of the day, they’d still known that I’d be there. They knew that what I lacked in body I outshone in mind, in cunning and knowledge born of watching. They knew that there was nothing in their private lives that was not known to me, through my own witness and piecing together information gained from my spies. I, Harpalos, would be a part of the deed, whether visible or not, a witness for Alexander, for whom I could do no wrong.

Outside, waiting a moment near the door, I knew that, to stop a blood feud against Alexander, Philotas’ father had to die. To prevent the rebellion of Macedonians, of Greek mercenaries loyal to him alone, allies, half the army, it had to be done swiftly, and by us alone. No one would trust the others in so great a matter. All of us would be there, part of the deed and its rewards. Whether I struck a blow or not, there would be a price to pay.

As dawn broke clear over the green hills, a gentle breeze brought scents of citrus and jasmine, sounds of streams and rich skies. It was the agreed time. In the grounds of his country estate just outside the city we walked among spreading trees with the great man beside us. Polydamos, his friend of long trust, one who’d fought beside him in battle, was greeted with smiles and questions.

‘How goes the king?’ asked the old warrior, as rich in respect as in years.

‘Well. Look to the letter.’ Polydamos handed over the parchment with Alexander’s seal, no doubt thinking of his hostage brothers in Zangiana.

‘The king never rests. Arachosia next. He should enjoy his glory while he can.’

He then opened with equal pleasure the second letter, apparently from his son. At this agreed sign Cleander drew his sword, pierced the old man’s side, and then cut his throat. As he lay near death each man struck a blow to aid his journey to that other existence. But the bloody corpse bore witness to the men who guarded the entrance of this walled garden. They roused the camp, so that an angry crowd bayed for the blood of Polydamos and the other assassins. Whereupon Cleander called in the leaders of the mob and read Alexander’s third letter. It denounced their general as a traitor, one who’d plotted with his son Philotas against the king’s life. Only their respect for the king was greater. The rebellion ended but not their hate. After his head was severed by Cleander and sent to the king, the men stood silent at the burial, soundless tears common amongst those veteran faces.

Thus died Parmenion, chief of all the generals of the great Alexander, one who’d served his father, King Philip, as loyally as he’d served the son. He was murdered in his seventieth year.

The future must judge whether Philotas and Parmenion plotted against the king. With my treasury and his army we controlled the west, the key to Alexander’s survival amongst the wolves of Bactria. Years ago the wily old fox had backed Philip and his new wife Eurydike against the witch Olympias, mother of Alexander, and the friend of my youth. Yet he was the first to proclaim Alexander at the death of King Philip. Did Alexander outgrow the old man’s caution at Granicus, his sound advice not to torch Persepolis, his mighty stand at Gaugamela while the young boy enjoyed the chase as Darius fled the field? Or was it fear of the power of his clan: Nicanor’s cavalry, the promise of young Hector before Egypt, Philotas’ leadership of the Companions? But Fortune always smiled on Alexander. Parmenion outlived his sons, gave Alexander his all, and was discarded at the appropriate time. And I was a part of it. And I, like the rest, would pay for this obscenity.

***

As she watched the luminescent wedge drop soundlessly from the sky Rosalind reminded herself that she’d only known Philip for a few weeks. She couldn’t really say she understood him, as he was a loner.

Aloof, she wondered? Or just painfully shy as Alison had said.

Alison Hatchett had spent eight days with him and Roderick Tynes (what amazing names these Poms inflict on their offspring) driving the Land Rover out here from the U.K. How did they survive the trip in this heap, with its dopey brakes? At Tabriz Roderick caught a bus to Tehran to spend the summer on some medieval Persian textile project for his Masters. Alison’s mind simmered alone with Philip.

The three had shared a room on the way, to save money and to protect Alison from the locals. Her beauty, of a kind, was in her well-endowed chest. Overweight, despite all her talk of diets and exercise, her large-boned torso was Eastern European, manly in its strength. But her frizzed black hair complimented striking Spanish aquiline features and olive complexion. A loud coarse voice matched her grating north London accent.

And she gossips and snores. Her own bitchiness surprised Rosalind. Maybe she could justify it with lack of sleep.

‘Philip gets involved in work, ‘Alison had said. ‘He just doesn’t notice people or himself. He’s quite handsome really, particularly when he’s asleep.’’

Had she schemed how to bed him without poor old Roderick noticing?

But Rosalind agreed that he was good to look at, with piercing black eyes, curly jet hair to his collar, and a mouth that could learn to smile if given a reason. He looked older than twenty four. From what she understood he’d been digging in Britain and northern Europe since his early teens. Now he immersed himself in the Middle East and the Mediterranean during his Uni breaks. According to the girls’ dorm Philip was a strange mix of the studious academic, self-sufficient traveller, and able excavator. His spare, muscular frame also hid an energy that Rosalind found intriguing. But it seemed impossible to get through that British reserve, and his zeal for all things historical. And yet here she was his lift back to camp.

She watched the graceful turns of the descending hang-glider, a little jealous of his ability. Was it arrogant to bring something like that out here? How Alison and Roderick must have cursed unloading its awkward bulk from the roof at every stop. Besides the cost of it. If he was a man of money it was not obvious.

Philip looked for wind direction on the ground, revealed in the eddies of dust left circling after the Land Rover stopped. Ros always did that, pulled up the vehicle with a man’s confidence. Her white blouse, the red headscarf against the dust, and those threadbare jeans were clearly in his view now. She sat unconcerned on the gunmetal bumper, as if filing her nails. Fiercely masculine in her abilities she was still very feminine. Her Australian accent was always slow, as if she’d not quite grasped the point of the conversation. But her olive green eyes flashed when she cut through archaeological jargon with a simple phrase. She was so unlike those academic clods that hid their limitations behind ridiculous permutations of words. She was younger than he was, barely twenty one, but she’d verbally emasculated the Director, Mark Lindbergh, at yesterday’s evening meal, when he’d questioned Kathleen Kenyon’s methods at Jericho. What experiences produced this independent, incisive lady?

From the start of the season over a month ago he couldn’t fail to notice that slim but voluptuous figure, her long legs, and sun-streaked blond hair, which changed with the reddening sun. She was liquid sculpture, from the tight, full bosom, to the curvaceous rump, and on to those impossibly stretched lower limbs.

He was distracted. The kite tilted as it entered the rotor, created by a lone tree a few hundred meters from the vehicle. The great wave of air swiped him with a giant hand towards the barren dirt and scattered rocks. His mind snapped back as he slid his weight along the bar and swiftly corrected, and cursed.

Rosalind stood up, watching him intently.

She’ll ask what happened. He could hardly tell her the truth, although he wished he could, all of it. The ground wind was changeable but still from the northwest. At the end of the long downward run he entered a pattern of tight turns to lose remaining height.

Forget her and control the kite. The patches of wind and empty space were clearer. Timing. His feet dropped out of the harness and he levelled the wings on the horizon line.

Stay into the wind. He was coming in fast. Push out too early and he’d drop like a rock from fifty feet. Too late and he would bury the nose, and himself, in the fine dust and gravel.

The time was now. He pushed the bar out hard; the air dropped out of the sail, a last flicker of life through the fine man-made fibre, and the roaring speed was gone. He ran the last ten steps until his momentum stopped.

‘Not bad, Philip. Fast and stylish,’ she said as she walked up to him. She caught a flickering smile at the corners of his mouth, a boyish delight, before the eyelids closed like curtains in a darkened room.

Philip always wished he had an answer to a personal comment, but never did. He smiled woodenly, and looked away as he collapsed the kite quickly against the rising wind.

‘What happened in that final turn?’

The words came in that matter-of-fact, lazy pace. It struck him that he’d never seen her flustered. He had to give her an answer, the truth preferably, sort of.

‘I hit a rotor.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A wave of air turbulence caused by that tree. I didn’t feel the air, focus properly.’

‘You lost concentration?’ She saw that barest touch of unprotected thought.

He saw that Mona Lisa smile, before he silently packed up the kite.

She grabbed an end and they lightly tossed the roll on to the roof of the Land Rover. A short drive and a walk took them to the Bastam excavation shed where they stored it until next time.

Sunset approached as they set off for camp. Philip would have jumped into the driver’s seat as habit, but Rosalind was already there. He reached through the passenger side window and pulled up the door handle. He smelt that cloying grey dust which lodged in every crevice. With the disregard of someone who saw a vehicle as a tool to do a job she started the slow engine, let the hand brake in and manhandled the wheel into the tram tracks of the road.

Conversation was difficult over the engine noise and incessant gear changes as she slowed for ruts. She crossed two dry riverbeds of large rocks, with the road snaking between huge boulders; the result of savage spring torrents fed by snow melts from the Zagros Mountains. Each time she crunched into Low Range before swaying and rolling over the stony bed.

The sparsely vegetated hills developed deep greys and browns not seen in the bleaching mid-day sun, and then changed rapidly to orange, copper and burnt umber. Shadows of dying light urged the two of them on.

At Kara village they were delayed by the Biblical procession of village cattle leading themselves back from the salt flats. The matron chose her slow measured pace and telepathically orchestrated each animal to peel off, push open a gate, and enter its mud-walled garden. Time or the modern era had no importance.

It was dark as the headlights rose over the drain and through the gate of the mud-walled school compound, camp for the dig team. Philip was too much of a gentleman to race Rosalind for the bush shower.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ he said to her disappearing back.

‘She’s right!’

The meal that night was special. It was the Director’s birthday. Mark Lindbergh was what Philip imagined he would be in fifteen years’ time: PhD., University lecturer, Dig Director and still so dedicated to archaeology that he left his wife and two children at home in London while he slaved at Kara Tepe for the three hottest months of the Iranian year.

The cook walked in with a huge, juice-basted goose on a metal platter. The Fessanjan reminded Philip of a painting of John the Baptist’s head on the platter before Salome. At the huge table, two work trestles pushed end-to-end, were the other seven members of the team, with a space for Philip. Roaring gas lamps, inundated by a myriad of tiny insects, illuminated the courtyard and its international occupants.

Mark was at the head of the table, with