Jack took a deep breath. They always treated submersible dives like SCUBA dives, using the same instructions and hand signals, a deliberate reminder that it was people, not machines, that were diving, and that the safety of a submersible dive was dependent on human judgement more than machines and computers. But Costas also knew Jack’s discomfort with submersibles and understood that treating the dive this way gave him a sense of control. Jack exhaled, then closed his eyes for a moment. It felt right. He looked intently at Costas, then put up his left hand and dropped the thumb down. ‘Roger that. Good to go.’
The davits quickly lowered and released them into the water. They were immediately under the waves, plummeting at a rate pre-set by the computer that controlled the buoyancy chambers in the pontoons. Had they lingered for even a moment and been a few metres off, they would have missed the wreck, with nothing to do other than abort the dive and try again. Thirty-five metres down, they entered the current stream with a jerk that pressed Jack back in his seat, but once in the stream he had little sense of it, like being on a high-speed escalator walkway. Dropping out of it, though, was a fairly serious G-force jolt that threw him forward. Below that the readout showed a modest 1.5 knot current, reduced enough for the Aquapods to maintain position at the site using their water-jet propulsion systems. Nevertheless, they had agreed with Macalister that this was not a day to linger, and they would leave in no more than twenty minutes. Officially the dive was a second recce to confirm what they had seen on the first dive and allow an excavation plan to be formulated for the next day.
Five minutes after exiting Seaquest II they had reached the site, perfectly on target. Jack breathed a silent thanks to Lanowski. He scanned the sea bed, remembering the waymarkers of their dive yesterday, distorted slightly through the Plexiglas dome. He activated the magnifier, which brought the image through the thick flat slab of glass at the front of the dome close to his face, as if he were looking through a mask. He immediately felt more comfortable, a diver again. They had come up off the starboard stern side of the wreckage. He saw the stem post of the ancient wreck, still there, the shape of the lion of Mycenae. He had not dreamed it. It was real. In the decaying superstructure of the minelayer he saw the gap where the Turkish navy divers had attached lifting bags and removed the mine. He jetted forward a few metres and angled the Aquapod to peer below the starboard side of the minelayer’s hull, where he had first seen the ancient timbers, some eight metres from the stem post. He was concerned to see how much more exposed the timbers were after only a matter of hours, with the increase in the current and the effect of his own rapid clearance by hand the day before. He could see several square metres of planking and frames on both sides, giving an exact image of the dimensions of the ancient hull as it converged towards the stem post. His pulse quickened. He had been right. It was a war galley, there was no doubt about it.
And there was more. As he sank closer, he saw other objects, close to where he had raised the pottery cup the day before. They were sticking out of the sand in bundles, having been buried in a grey anaerobic layer that was now exposed and being eroded away. Each bundle comprised several dozen wooden rods, with a concreted mass at the end. Jack knew exactly what they were. It was astonishing. He tapped the intercom. ‘Now I know exactly what Agamemnon’s treasure was.’
Costas’ Aquapod was directly in front of him, on the other side of the ancient hull, and had its camera arm extended, angled down at the objects. ‘A bundle of wooden rods coming out of a ferrous concretion. Talk to me, Jack.’
‘A bundle of arrows,’ Jack said excitedly. ‘And that corroded mass? Look closely. It’s not one mass. It’s lots of corroded lumps, joined together. That’s iron, Costas. Iron arrowheads. That’s what Agamemnon’s treasure was. That’s what gave him the edge. It’s exactly what James suspected. The Greeks had discovered iron technology. Look, beside it, there’s another bundle. And another. That’s how Agamemnon won the Trojan War, not by contests of heroes, but with iron, iron for all soldiers, for all weapons, for total war.’
‘Typical archaeologist, riveted on lumps of corroded iron, totally uninterested in the gold.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Between those arrows and the minelayer’s hull.’
Jack looked over and gasped. It was astonishing. The object was circular, perhaps a metre across, buried under the sediment. Around the edges he saw a glint of gold. Beaten gold. He activated the miniature water jet on the Aquapod’s arm and gently sprayed the shape, clearing the sediment from about half of it. It was all gold, shining, uncorroded. He could see a thin layer of darkened wood beneath. ‘It’s a shield,’ he exclaimed, his voice tight with excitement.
‘The one we want?’
‘Look,’ Jack exclaimed. ‘You can see the bands, as you go from the outer rim to the boss. Five layers, just as Homer described it. You can even see the dark rings, where glass niello is still visible.’ He stared at it, his mind reeling. ‘No decoration. Just an awful lot of dents and bashes. It’s odd. It hasn’t been flattened by the shipwreck. It still has the concave shape. It could be battle damage, but this just isn’t a shield you’d take into battle. It’s a display shield, a prestige object. That much is consistent with Homer. Something a king or a hero mounts beside his tent. But a lot of gold, no ornament. Strange. I feel as if this is Troy yet again, Costas. Fabulous find, but more unanswered questions than we started with.’
‘Take a closer look.’ Costas had extended the video arm to within inches of the shield, and was watching his screen. ‘Jack, I’m sure of it. You can see decoration. Only just. Vine leaves. An animal, maybe. It’s all been beaten out of it, really crudely. Check out your screen. I’ll feed it through.’
Jack clicked on his monitor and immediately saw what Costas meant. ‘Incredible,’ he murmured. ‘Look at that. It’s like a ghostly imprint. But why do it? Why?’ He drummed his fingers, speaking slowly as he thought. ‘The Shield of Achilles. Awarded to the victor in the funeral games. Claimed by Agamemnon. Let’s say he takes it to the armourers on Tenedos, those ones churning out the arrowheads, and they crudely hammer out the decoration. Why would he do that?’
‘Pride?’ Costas said. ‘Agamemnon was always having standoffs with Achilles, right? Didn’t he take Achilles’ girl, and Achilles went off in a sulk? All that prestige display stuff you were talking about. Agamemnon acquires Achilles’ shield, but shows who’s supreme by stamping out the ornamentation people associated with strutting Achilles. Agamemnon’s now the boss, the tough guy, no frills.’
‘But still very odd that it was left this crude.’ Jack stared. There was no time to ponder now. ‘I’m going to take it. We don’t leave this exposed on the sea bed.’ Costas rose above to give him room to slide the two forks of the extractor arm beneath the shield. Jack worked the lever until it seemed to be in the right position, then clicked the intercom to confirm with Costas. ‘You’ve gone quiet. You okay? Let me know how this looks from your angle. Over.’
‘Jack.’ Costas’ voice sounded faltering. ‘About those bumps and dents.’
‘What is it?’
‘My camera is angled directly down on the shield. You need to take a look. I think you’ll agree it’s sometimes good to take a step back.’
Jack clicked on his screen again. The image was fuzzy as the feed came through. He suddenly felt the Aquapod beginning to angle up, and quickly focused on the buoyancy control. He had to remember he was not on autopilot. It was exactly why he disliked using submersibles to excavate. He trusted his own hands more than mechanical extensions. He came level again and engaged the motor to drive the arms slowly under the shield, until he was sure it would lift out and not slip off.
‘Well?’ Costas said.
‘Just let me concentrate on this.’ He lifted the shield inch by inch, injecting water into the rear buoyancy tanks to compensate for the weight, raising a cloud of silt as he did so, watching it quickly settle. It was exactly as Lanowski said, a coarse-grained sediment, overlying the grey anaerobic layer that had preserved the wooden backing of the shield. Slowly Jack reversed the Aquapod until the shield was clear of the sea bed, grey sediment now falling away from it in a cascade. He used another lever to slide a metal basket beneath it, lined with plastic cushioning material like bubble wrap. A cover with cushioning would be extended above it, designed to cocoon artefacts for raising to the surface. He slowly depressed the lifting arm through the basket until it was several centimetres beneath, leaving the shield resting on the wrap, then withdrew the arm into the Aquapod. He exhaled forcibly. ‘Would you look at that?’ he murmured.
‘I think it’s about time you did exactly that, Jack,’ Costas said.
‘My screen. Yes.’ Jack saw a grainy video image of the shield from five metres above. The feed was still not working properly. He looked again. Then he saw it. ‘My God,’ he exclaimed. ‘ My God.’
‘Remember I told you my uncle took me to see that in the Archaeological Museum of Athens as a kid?’ Costas
