The Last Gospel (27 page)

‘Maybe you’ve missed a letter. Emperor?’

‘
Caesar Augustus
.’ Jack found the letters, then punched them. Still nothing. He slumped again, then suddenly drew his breath in sharply. ‘No. Not
Caesar Augustus
. Claudius was no longer emperor. He would have been at pains to tell Pliny that. Not an emperor. He’d become something else. Something that would have amused them both.’

‘Claudius the god,’ Costas murmured.

‘
Divus
.’ Jack reached back around and found the letter D. He pressed it as hard as he could. Something gave way, and the letter depressed at least an inch. Suddenly the lid sprang up, and Jack quickly withdrew his hand to prevent it being trapped. ‘Bingo,’ he said excitedly. He put his hand back where the lid had been. He could feel the coil of a heavy bronze spring, now holding the lid a foot or more above the opening it had covered. He reached inside and felt a cylindrical shape, loose in the hole. His heart began to pound. He pulled it out, easing it between the metal coils of the spring. The cylinder was heavy for its size, made of stone, about ten inches long and six inches wide. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said, pulling the cylinder out of the chamber and into the fissure, then holding it under his headlamp. ‘It’s Egyptian, a hand-turned Egyptian stone vessel. We’ve hit paydirt, Costas. It’s identical in manufacture to those larger jars in Claudius’ library, the reused canopic jars, the ones holding the papyrus scrolls. The lid’s still sealed in resin. Looks like Pliny didn’t tamper with it. We might be in luck.’ He passed the cylinder down to Costas, who reached up from the tunnel below. Jack eased himself back down the fissure, and the two of them squatted over the cylinder in the darkness, their beams illuminating the mottled marble surface as Costas turned the object over in his hands.

‘What do we do now?’ he said.

‘We open it.’

‘So this could be it.’

Jack nodded silently, and looked at Costas. They had been here before, the knife-edge moment just before a new revelation, but each time the excitement seemed more intense.

‘Not exactly controlled laboratory conditions,’ Costas said.

‘My call.’ Jack took the cylinder, grasped the lid with one hand and the body of the jar with the other, and twisted. It gave way easily, the ancient resin around the sealing cracking off and falling on the tunnel floor. He prised the lid off and set it down, then peered inside. ‘No papyrus,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘But something else, wedged in.’ He reached inside with his other hand, and withdrew a flat stone object about six inches long and four inches wide, the size of a small cosmetic mirror. It was made up of two leaves joined together, with a hinge on one side and a metal latch on the other. Jack turned it over in his hands and then put his thumb against the latch. ‘It’s a writing tablet,’ he said excitedly. ‘A diptych, two leaves that open up like a book. The inside surface should be covered with wax.’

‘Any chance that could have survived?’ Costas said.

‘This could be another Agamemnon moment,’ Jack said. ‘It could still be there, but exposure to oxygen could degrade it immediately. I’m going for it. We can’t risk waiting.’

‘I’m with you.’ Costas pulled out a waterproof notebook and pencil, and knelt beside Jack, poised to write.

Jack pressed the latch and felt the stone leaves move. ‘Here goes,’ he whispered. He opened up the tablet. The interior surfaces were hard, glassy. They could see it was wax, smooth and perfectly preserved, but getting darker by the second. It had writing on it. ‘Quick,’ Jack said. He passed the tablet to Costas, and grabbed the notebook, feverishly writing down everything he saw. ‘Done,’ he said after less than a minute. The wax was still there, but the scratchings on the surface had virtually disappeared, gone like a phantasm.

Costas closed the tablet and immediately folded it in a sheet of bubblewrap and a waterproof bag, then slipped it into his chest pocket. He peered at Jack, who was staring at the notebook. ‘Well?’

‘It’s Latin.’ Jack paused, marshalling his thoughts. ‘Whoever wrote this, it wasn’t a Nazarene from Galilee. That could only have been Aramaic, Greek perhaps.’

‘So this is not Claudius’ precious document?’

‘It could have been written by Claudius, or it could have been Narcissus,’ Jack murmured, shifting his body in the cramped space. ‘Impossible to tell from scratchings on a wax tablet whether it was the same handwriting as that sheet by Narcissus in Claudius’ study. Especially when it disappears before your very eyes.’ He gazed at Costas. ‘No, this is not the document we’re after. But it’s not the end of the trail either.’ He ripped off the page of the notebook and transcribed his scribbled words neatly on to a fresh sheet, then held it in his beam so they could both see:

‘Poetry?’ Costas said. ‘Virgil? He wrote about the Sibyl, didn’t he?’

‘You wily old devil,’ Jack murmured.

‘Who?’

‘I think Claudius was keeping his word, but he was also playing a game, and I think the Sibyl was playing games with him too.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, the first verse is easy enough. It’s the first stanza of the Dies Irae, the Day of Wrath, the hymn that used to be central to the Roman Catholic requiem mass. It’s an incredible find, because the earliest version of these lines before this dates from the thirteenth century. Most people think it was a medieval creation, especially with those rhyming words which you never see in ancient Latin verse, in Virgil for example.’ Jack scribbled down an English text beside the Latin. ‘Here’s how it’s usually translated, keeping the metre and the rhyme:

‘ “Day of wrath and terror looming!

Heaven and earth to ash consuming,

David’s word and Sibyl’s truth foredooming!” ’

Costas whistled. ‘Sounds like a premonition of the eruption of Vesuvius.’

Jack nodded. ‘I think what we’ve got here is a Sibylline prophecy, given to Claudius at Cumae. She must have spoken these first lines to others, who remembered them, and preserved them secretly until they resurfaced in the medieval Catholic liturgy.’

‘Who’s David?’ Costas asked.

‘That’s the fascinating thing about discovering that this verse is so old, from the early Christian period. David in the Dies Irae is usually thought of as a reference to Jesus, who was believed to be a descendant of King David of the Jews. If that’s true, then this may confirm that the Sibyl knew of Jesus, that the association of the Sibyl with early Christianity is based on fact.’

‘And the second verse?’

‘That’s our clue. It has all the hallmarks of a Sibylline utterance, a riddle written on the leaves in front of the cave at Cumae. Here’s how I translate it:

‘ “Between two hills,

Where Andraste lies,

To be burned by fire, to be bound in chains,

To be beaten, to die by the sword.” ’

‘Meaning?’ Costas said.

‘The second part’s easy. Extraordinary, but easy. It’s the
sacramentum gladiatorum
, the gladiators’ oath.
Uri, vinciri, verberari, ferroque necari
. I swear to be burned by fire, to be bound in chains, to be beaten, to die by the sword.’

‘Okay,’ Costas said quietly. ‘You can’t spring anything new on me. Gladiators. I’m cool with that. And the first part?’

‘Andraste was a British goddess, from before the Romans. We know about her from the Roman historian Dio Cassius, who says that Andraste was invoked by Boudica before a battle. You know about Boudica?’

‘Boudica? Sure. The redhead queen.’

‘She led the revolt against the Roman occupation in AD 60. The biggest bloodbath in British history.’ Jack looked at the word again, then suddenly had a moment of utter clarity, as if he were just waking up. ‘Of course,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘That’s what the Sibyl means.’ He quickly scanned the final lines again. ‘The gladiators’ oath.
Ad gladium
, by the sword. We’re being directed to a gladiators’ arena, an amphitheatre.’

‘The Colosseum? Here in Rome?’

‘There were many others.’ Jack looked at the verse again.
A place built between two hills, a place where a British goddess lies
. He suddenly peered at Costas, grinning broadly.

‘I know that look.’ Costas said.

‘And I know exactly where we’re going,’ Jack said triumphantly. ‘Come on. You might not want to hear this until we reach sunlight.’

Costas narrowed his eyes and looked at him suspiciously. ‘Roger that.’ He heaved himself up, and they both crouched around and made their way down the steps to the cliff face, abseiling down one by one and kitting up again with their rebreathers at the bottom. They both kept an eye on the tunnel exit where their assailant had disappeared, but the flow of water had increased further and there was clearly no chance of a repeat entrance from that direction. They continued heavily down the remainder of the steps to the cavern floor and the water’s edge, where they checked their breathing equipment before closing down their helmets. Costas studiously avoided looking down the passageway to the macabre seated figure in the sacred cave, but Jack was transfixed by it for a moment, suddenly aware of the momentous discovery they had made. The pool of water leading back towards the Cloaca Maxima seemed less forbidding now, a way out of the underworld rather than a portal into the unknown. Costas put both hands up, ready to shut his visor, then peered at Jack. ‘We’re getting to know old Claudius pretty well now, aren’t we?’

‘He’s become a friend,’ Jack said. ‘We seem to be following his life’s works, his achievements. He seems to be standing over my shoulder. Back there I really felt he was with us, egging us on.’

‘So he didn’t trust Pliny after all.’

‘I think he trusted him as a friend, but he knew that curiosity might get the better of him. If Pliny had survived Vesuvius, I’ve little doubt he would have come back here one day and opened that container. So Claudius gave him a riddle. A Sibylline prophecy. What neither of them knew was that Vesuvius would cut the whole story short. That wax tablet’s been sitting there unread since the day Pliny deposited it almost two thousand years ago.’

‘For us to discover.’

‘I think that’s what Claudius wanted. Not for Pliny to take up the trail, not another Roman, but someone far in the future, someone who could follow the clues and find his treasure at a time when it could be safely revealed.’

‘What he didn’t foresee was that the threat would remain,’ Costas murmured. ‘So where do we go now?’

Jack said nothing, but looked at Costas apologetically.

‘I knew it,’ Costas said with resignation. ‘I just knew it. Another hole in the ground.’

‘We need to find a long-lost goddess.’

T
wenty-four hours later, Jack led Costas past the great bulk of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, into the maze of streets and alleys that made up the heart of the old city. They had spent the previous night on board
Seaquest II
in the Mediterranean, and had flown into London City airport early that morning. Jack’s first task had been a meeting with Ben Kershaw, the IMU security chief. After their experience in Rome, what had begun as a secretive archaeological quest had taken on a deadly new dimension. As long as they were still searching, as long as it was clear to those who were following them that Rome had provided only another clue, not the object of their search, Jack felt they were reasonably safe. The fate of the man who had aimed a pistol at his head under the Palatine Hill was unknown, though the chances of surviving a body surf through the Cloaca Maxima without breathing gear were slim. It seemed almost inconceivable that they should have been followed to London, but Jack was taking no chances. They would keep the lowest possible profile, and Ben and two others would be lurking in the background, watching, waiting, ready to pounce should there be any repeat of their encounter in the ancient cavern under Rome.

‘Welcome to sunny London.’ Costas grimaced, then stood back too late as a line of black cabs rumbled past, sluicing water up over his ankles. He and Jack both wore blue Goretex jackets with the hoods up, and Costas was fumbling inexpertly with an umbrella. What had begun as a heavily overcast day had now settled into constant drizzle, interspersed with occasional heavy downpours. Costas sniffed noisily, then sneezed. ‘So this was where Claudius brought his precious secret. Seems an awful long way from Judaea.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Jack said, raising his voice above the traffic. ‘The early Christians in Roman Britain thought they had a direct link to the Holy Land, undistorted by Rome. It caused them no end of trouble when the Roman Church tried to assert itself here.’

‘So we’re on the site of Roman London now.’

‘Just entered it. The City of London today, the financial district, is the old medieval city, and that was built on the ruins of the Roman city of Londinium. You can still see the line of the Roman walls in the street layout.’