Excerpts:
Blood of the Incas
Published in April, 2008 by ABC Books ISBN 9780733320972 www.abcshop.com.au
Hiram Bingham discovers Machu Picchu.
Chapter 1.
February 1909
‘Steady.’ Hiram pulled the reins tighter.
His mule’s hoofs scrabbled on the path. It twitched its ears and jerked its head violently.
‘Whoa! What’s going on?’ Hiram felt the mule’s fear. He wrapped the reins tightly around his hand.
To Hiram’s horror, the mule’s hind legs skittered sideways in panic, kicking rocks off the narrow path. As the rocks fell Hiram thought, That could be me. The rocks hit the face of the cliff, bounced out into emptiness and tumbled smaller and smaller until they vanished. More than a mile below, clouds of mist swirled over the raging river. The roar of the river rolled along the canyon.
‘Come on, steady,’ Hiram snarled through clenched teeth. He dragged at the reins and leant all his weight away from the edge. There was no room for error on the path cut along this cliff, which towered above and plunged down an abyss.
Ahead, Hiram’s guide, Castillo, leapt from his mule. Red poncho flying in the wind, Castillo yelled at Hiram. ‘Off, off, get off.’
‘What?’ Hiram’s heart pounded.
Thunder rumbled, but Hiram hadn’t seen lightning flash.
Zzzup … Crack. A stone whizzed down, hit the path and exploded.
Castillo crouched between the cliff and his mule, using its body as a shield. He waved frantically at Hiram to get off and shelter himself.
Hiram flung himself from the mule and against the wall of rock.
Waves rolled beneath the earth. The mountain shuddered. For a horrible moment, Hiram felt as if the mountain was about to tip over.
Still gripping the reins, he knelt as low as his tall gangly frame could bend. His cheek was pressed against the saddle blanket. Feeling stupid, he realised one hand was holding his hat hard on his head. As if my hat will stop a boulder, he thought. But it was his lucky hat with the wide brim.
A dreadful grating noise came from inside the mountain. Its vibrations shivered through Hiram’s boots and into his body. Zup, crash. White smoke puffed near the mule’s hoof. Sharp fragments stung the mule and hit Hiram’s jacket. The mule snorted and its leg muscles quivered.
Spurts of dust like machine gun bullets raced along the path towards Hiram. He winced in anticipation of the impact but they stopped a metre from the mule. A great boulder thumped into the track and bounced into the chasm. Hiram held his breath. Another boulder hit near Castillo, smashing away half the path.
One or two smaller stones struck. Then Hiram felt the stillness. Uncertainly, he stood up and patted the mule’s trembling neck and shoulder.
Castillo’s face appeared above his mule’s back. His floppy hat was askew. The whites of his eyes showed. His almond-shaped, Peruvian eyes slowly closed to their normal size. Wind ruffled his thin beard. ‘Muy Accidentado.’ He smiled feebly, showing stained teeth from chewing coca leaves. ‘We call my land Muy Accidentado. He has many accidents.’
‘There’s one.’ Hiram pointed past Castillo. The path had disappeared. In its place was an avalanche of loose soil and rocks. Castillo made a face as if he’d bitten a lemon. He pointed behind Hiram.
The cliff had sheared off. There was no path, only a wall of rock, smooth as glass. They were trapped.
Austen Layard discovers Nineveh
~ Publication planned for March 09
Chaper 1
Zagros Mountains, Persia.
Austen sensed a movement behind him.
His musket was on the ground, beside his left boot.
Don’t turn around, he told himself.
On the other side of the river, a stone clinked. The back of Austen’s neck prickled.
Facing the cliff, his back to the river, he was a perfect target. He imagined muskets aimed between his shoulder blades.
Austen slowly closed the leather covers of his sketchbook. He slipped the sketchbook and pencil into the bag hanging by his sword. Ironical, if I died copying this sculpture of the Tree of Life.
Careful not to make his riding cloak move, he primed both pistols tucked in the red belt around his waist.
About ten paces away, on the sandy edge of the stream, his horse whinnied nervously.
Now. In one smooth action, Austen knelt, lifted his musket and swung it around.
Across the water, between two boulders, a puff of white smoke twisted up like a curl of hair. The shot cracked and a musket ball buzzed past his cheek, so close he felt the vibration. A spray of rock chips thudded into the back of his turban.
Austen fired at the shadow beneath the smoke, then ran for his horse.
No more shots came. Only one sniper. How long for the man to pour gunpowder, slide in a lead ball, lift the glowing matchlock to ignite the gunpowder, and take aim?
Austen leapt into the saddle. A matchlock flared between boulders. Austen fired both pistols at the flame. A scream, the flame jerked and the musket fired into the sky.
No other sound came from the shadows.
But a thunder of galloping horses rolled into the valley. Riders, waving muskets and spears, charged around a bend of the river. Plunging hoofs scattered sand.
Austen turned his horse. More cavalry. Bakhtiari - the most feared fighters. And he was clothed as a Persian warrior in turban, cloak, riding trousers, belt with pistols, sword, and daggers.
Horsemen fanned out to surround him. Firing into the air, men screamed war cries, and closed the circle around Austen. Savage faces laughed. ‘A Brown-Beard.’
A thicket of spears prodded his chest and back. ‘A vermin in disguise. Spy, spy, spy.’ Sharp steel pushed harder and harder.
Heinrich Schliemann discovers Troy
~ Publication as the series develops...
Chapter 1
The Parsonage, the village of Ankershagen, Germany, 1829.
They were out there, in the mist. He had to look, in case they came for him. But if the ghosts saw his face at the bedroom window… Look, in case the dead girl held out the silver bowl.
Lights moved behind trees. Hands shaking, he dug the point of his knife into the window ledge and carved the first letter of his name. H for Heinrich, the name of his dead brother, now his name. S for Schliemann.
The letters of his name had power to keep them out.
He pushed his face against the window. Would the girl’s head break the surface of the pond and then her dripping corpse slide out?
Downstairs, his father and mother were shouting at each other, again. He tried to shut out their voices.
A light flared in the garden shed. The dead man’s shadow moved past the shed window, and the light died.
Stairs creaked outside his door.
Chapter 2
Heinrich leapt into bed, pulled the blanket up to his chin and shut his eyes.
His father, holding a candle, stood in the doorway. ‘Heinrich?’
No answer.
‘Are you awake?’ His speech wasn’t slurred.
Heinrich yawned and rubbed his eyes. ‘What?’
‘I heard you run to your bed.’ The candle flickered. His father’s eyes were tiny points of flame.
‘I can’t sleep.’
Downstairs, his mother sobbed.
His father shut the door. The candle threw his shadow on the ceiling and wall, where the dark shape swelled and moved like a giant spectre, devouring the light. ‘Were you looking for them again?’ He lifted up the candle and peered at the window. ‘What’s that on the window ledge?’
The knife blade glinted in candlelight.
His father strode to the window. Each footstep boomed on the wooden floor. ‘How many more places will you cut your name? First on the tree by the garden shed, then the back door. I warned you.’
‘Sorry.’
‘What did I tell you?’
‘You said you’d take my knife away from me.’
‘Exactly.’ His father picked up the knife. ‘You can have this back when you can be trusted.’
Heinrich flung the blanket off and sat bolt upright in bed. ‘But I need my knife.’ He glanced at the window. ‘They’re real.’
‘Nonsense, boy.’
‘But you told me about them. The dead parson in the shed. The girl in the pond. The baby in the golden cradle. The knight in our graveyard.’
‘Stories, just stories. I know you love stories. Grimm’s fairy tales, the fall of Troy. They’re just bloodthirsty stories to make your jaw hit your boots.’
Heinrich’s fingers twisted the frayed end of his sleeve.
His father frowned. ‘If I’d known it would do this to you...’
‘But our gravedigger told me he saw the knight’s leg come up from the grave and he pulled the leg and broke it off and used the bones to knock pears from the tree.’
‘Did he now? He told you that. Maybe he was pulling more than one leg.’
‘But you said everybody knows about the baby in the golden cradle. Why don’t we dig it up? Then we’d be rich. Why don’t we dig up the body of the knight to see if he’s only got one leg?’
‘Because we can’t go around digging up dead bodies.’
‘Why not?’
His father laughed. ‘Because it’s against the law, that’s why.’
‘Please, father. We could hide the bodies, like Odysseus hid soldiers in the Wooden Horse.’
‘In Heaven’s name, child, what are you saying? Would you turn your father, the 
village parson, into a grave robber?’
‘But…’
‘No more buts,’ his father growled. ‘Don’t you ever give up?’ The growling was pretend. Like Priam, their dog, when he gripped a ball between his teeth, snarled, and wouldn’t let go. ‘Tell me, Heinrich, how old are you?’
‘Seven.’
‘Nearly eight. Old enough to know the difference between reality and fantasy. There are no giants and fairies. No old woman in the forest who cooks children in her oven and eats them. No beautiful Goose Girl to love you. There was no real city called Troy or King Priam or the mighty warrior Hector. No Achilles.’
Each No struck him like a battering ram. No Troy, no Achilles… Shadows on the ceiling swirled in circles. Heinrich squeezed his eyes shut.
Troy haunted his dreams. Night after night he willed the dreams to return. The Wooden Horse, Odysseus and his men hidden inside, Trojans breaking down the Scaean Gates, the city in flames… He yearned for the dreams to visit him, and was cast down with sorrow if he woke, and they’d stayed away.
‘In any case,’ went on his father, ‘if there ever was a place called Troy, or Achilles killing Hector, they lived so long ago that the truth died with them. They’re just legends, told by a blind poet, Homer.’
Legends? Heinrich felt a great shock in his heart, like the jolt that woke him from the nightmare of falling, just before he hit the ground.
How could father do this? Walk in and destroy everything.
Heinrich had a horrible thought. Had Mother’s sadness done this to Father? She cried so much. Soppy, Father called it. Does Father think I’m soppy?
His father must never see him cry.
Anyway, he’d prove his father wrong. Why couldn’t a legend also be true? He’d dig up the dead. Find their treasures. Stand on the walls of Troy and wave King Priam’s sword in victory.
‘It’s time you grew up, Heinrich.’ His father turned his back and went to the door. ‘Time to stop your silly games.’
