‘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: Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla Inter monte duorum
Qua respiciatam Andraste
Uri vinciri verberari
Ferroque necari
‘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?’