'Sorry.' He was contrite. 'Remind me what you heard Duraid say.'
'In the dream he told me, 'Remember the protocol of the four bulls -
Start at the beginning.''
'I am no expert on the game of bao. What did he mean?'
'The rules and subtleties of the game have been lost in the mists of
antiquity. But as you know, we have found examples of the bao board
amongst the grave goods in the tombs of the eleventh to the seventeenth
dynasties, and we can only guess that it was an early form of chess.'
She began to sketch for him on one of the blank pages at the back of her
notebook.
'The wooden board was laid out like a chessboard, eight rows of cups
wide and eight rows deep. Like this.' She drew it in with quick, deft
strokes of her ballpoint pen.
'The pieces were coloured stones that moved in a prescribed fashion. I
won't go into all the details, but the protocol of the four bulls was an
opening gambit in the game favoured by grand masters of Taita's calibre.
It consisted of making sacrifices to mass the highest-ranking stones in
the first cup from where they could dominate the important centraffiles
of the board.'
'I am not sure where we are going, but lead on. I am listening.'Nicholas
tried not to look too mystified.
'The first cup of the board.' She indicated it on her sketch, as though
instructing a backward child. 'The beginning, Duraid said, 'Start at the
beginning' Taita said, 'The great god Osiris makes the opening coup.''
'I still don't follow you. 'Nicholas shook his head.
'Come with me.' Carrying the notebooks, she led him through the hatch in
the white plaster doorway and stood beside him at the shrine of Osiris.
'The opening coup. The beginning.'
She turned and faced down the gallery. 'This is the first shrine. How
many shrines are there altogetherr
'Three for the trinity, then Seth, Thoth, Anubis, Hathor and Ra,' he
listed. 'Eight altogether.'
'Glory be!' She laughed. 'The lad can count! How many cups in the files
of the bao board?'
'Eight across, and eight down-' he broke off and stated at her, 'You
think-?'
She did not answer, but opened the notebook. 'All of these numbers and
extraneous symbols - they spell no coherent words. They do not relate to
each other in any way, except that no number in the list is greater than
eight., 'I thought I had caught up with you, but I just lost you again.'
'If somebody were to read the notations of a game of T, chess four
thousand years from now, what would he make of it?' she asked. 'Wouldn't
it just be lists of numbers and extraneous symbols to him? You really
are being extremely dense, aren't you? This is like pulling teeth.'
'Oh, Lordy, Lordy!' His face cleared. 'You clever lady!
Taita is playing the game of bao with us.'
'And this is the first pylon, where it starts.' She gestured to the
shrine. 'This is where the great god Osiris makes the opening coup. This
is where we must start at the beginning of the sacred bao board. This is
