‘I’ve got that feeling again,’ Costas said.
‘What feeling?’
‘That feeling of walking into the past. I had it at Herculaneum, even had it diving down on to the shipwreck of St Paul. It’s weird, like deja vu.’
‘So you get it, too,’ Jack murmured.
‘Maybe it’s the force.’
‘I had it explained to me once,’ Jack said. ‘It’s that you’ve had exactly the identical emotional response before, in very similar circumstances. Your brain’s playing tricks on you. It’s a short circuit.’
‘No, Jack. I’ve seen it in you. It’s the force.’
‘Okay. It’s the force. You’re right. Maybe you can use some of it to get us through the next sump.’ Jack pointed ahead to another dip in the tunnel, to more cracked and fragmented masonry, another pool. He knew they must now be on the very edge of the Palatine Hill, under at least eighty metres of fractured tufa. Costas splashed in again and Jack followed him. This time the tunnel regained its former shape and continued underwater, but about ten metres ahead it constricted. As Jack swam closer he realized that the point of constriction was two ancient columns on either side. Beyond them the tunnel narrowed into a culvert like an aqueduct channel, taller than it was wide, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The dimensions would have allowed them to stand upright and walk through it, single file, were it not for the water. He reached out and touched the right-hand column. It was grey granite, with white and black flecks, a stone seen all over the ruins of Rome, in the columns of the Pantheon, in Trajan’s basilica next to the old forum. Jack had been with Hiebermeyer to the source, Mons Claudianus in Egypt, the great quarry first opened under the emperor Claudius, another of his distinctive stamps on the architecture of the city.
‘Maurice would love this,’ he murmured. ‘His doctoral project was Claudius’ quarries in Egypt, and that’s where this stone came from.’
‘Jack, take a look at this.’
Jack rolled over and looked up, and realized that Costas had broken surface about three metres above him, bobbing in a wavering sheen of water that reflected his headlamp in shifting patterns of white. Jack rose up slowly, pressing his buoyancy control to inject air, remembering to exhale as the ambient pressure decreased. His head emerged out of the water, and he gasped in astonishment. Costas’ beam was shining at a rock face that rose directly above the columns and the conduit entrance. It extended high above them, at least four metres high and five wide, carved out of the living rock. Above them Jack could see the triangular gable of a pediment, projecting half a metre out of the rock. He looked down into the water again, saw the columns. He realized that the entire structure was a monumental entranceway, carved and decorated as a work of art in its own right. He gazed at it, awestruck. It was like the great rock-cut facades at Petra in Jordan, yet deep under the Palatine, a curious mixture of ostentation and secrecy, the creation of someone who cared about his own achievements but not what other people thought of them.
‘Check this out,’ Costas said. ‘Take a look at the stone face under that gable.’
Jack raised his head again above the surface. An eddy effect from the current below had pushed them closer to the rock face, and he was now within touching distance. He reached out and put his hand on it. What looked like mould and slime was rock-hard, and he realized it was calcite accretion, the seepage from groundwater that Massimo had talked about. He saw tiny rivulets of wet running down the rock, evidently from rainwater far above. Then he saw the regular incisions in the rock. He pushed off, and aimed his headlamp up. Of course. It was an imperial monument, and there had to be a monumental inscription. The calcite lay over the inscription like icing, but instead of smudging it seemed to clarify it, crystallize it. There were four registers, the letters only about three inches high, scarcely big enough to be seen from the floor of the chamber. Whoever had made this dedication did it for propriety, for his own private satisfaction and to sanctify the place, not to impress the masses. TI.
CLAVDIVS. DRVSI.F. CAISAR. AVGVSTVS. GERMANICVS
‘This is authentic, no doubt about it,’ Jack murmured. ‘It has the characteristically archaic spelling of the word Caesar, harking back to the glory days of Julius Caesar, the Roman Republic. The wall’s like that too, carved as if it’s made of blocks in a rusticated style, the surfaces left rough with almost an exaggerated lack of finish. Absolutely characteristic of Claudius, of buildings where he had a personal involvement. And typical of Claudius to get the epigraphic details right, the archaic reference.’
‘You’re talking about our Claudius? The emperor? This was his doing?’
Jack translated the inscription: ‘ “Tiberius Claudius, son of Drusus, Caesar, Augustus, Germanicus, Chief Priest, with Tribunician power for the twelfth time, five times Consul, twenty-seven times Imperator, Father of his Country, saw to the construction at his own expense of the Sacred Vestal Water.” ’
‘That’s going to make Massimo very happy,’ Costas said. ‘It’s all we need to tell him. His tunnel rats can have a party down here when they see this. Their hero.’
‘The formula’s similar to Claudius’ inscription on the Aqua Claudia, at the Porta Maggiore where the aqueduct entered Rome,’ Jack said. ‘But the fascinating thing here, the unique thing, is those three words. Aquas Vestiam Sacra. The sacred waters of the Vestals. It means Massimo may well have been right about that too, that this tunnel connects with the House of the Vestals on the other side of the Palatine, with the channel that joins the branch off the Cloaca Maxima he explored under the old forum.’
‘The strange thing is, this isn’t a drain from the Cloaca,’ Costas murmured. ‘It’s exactly the opposite. The fact that the water’s crystal clear on this side suggests it must be on the other side too, flowing down back towards the forum. There must be a pretty big spring smack in the middle of all this, right under the Palatine.’
‘Perhaps a sacred spring,’ Jack murmured. ‘Maybe the Vestals were the guardians.’
Costas eyed his navigation computer again. ‘Judging by the direction of this tunnel and the likely angle of the tunnel Massimo explored under the forum, the point of confluence should be almost exactly under where we were sitting by the House of Augustus this morning. Maybe that cave, the Lupercale, was actually an entranceway down to the spring, a secret passage from the palace. Maybe all that myth stuff, Romulus and Remus, could actually have some fact behind it.’
‘The Romans never doubted it,’ Jack murmured.
‘Right,’ Costas said. ‘The myth could even underline the importance of the spring. The earliest settlement of Rome was on the Palatine Hill, right? Well, control of a spring could have been crucial to their success. Maybe we’re about to find the real reason why Rome became great. Water.’
‘You never cease to amaze me,’ Jack said. ‘And it makes sense that the Vestals were involved, an ancient priesthood dating from the foundation of Rome, probably from way before. By sanctifying this place, by keeping it secret and pure, they would also have been safeguarding Rome. No wonder they were feared and revered. Down here under the Palatine they may literally have been the powerhouse of ancient Rome.’
‘Time to find out.’ Costas pushed off from the rock and vented air from his buoyancy system, dropping under the rock face between the two columns. Jack lingered for a moment, staring at the inscription, his excitement pushing against a feeling of apprehension which had not yet fully grown, but was there. He dropped down and followed Costas, finning into the tunnel, completely submerged again with the tufa vault above him.