‘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.’
14
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.’
‘This place must have seemed a backwater to the Romans,’ Costas said, splashing across the street behind Jack. ‘Who’d have wanted to come here?’
‘Look around you now, at the faces,’ Jack said, as they navigated through a crowd of people hurrying on the pavement. ‘London was just as cosmopolitan in the Roman period. It was founded for commerce, a magnet for traders from all corners of the empire.’ He veered left over the road and dodged through traffic which had almost crawled to a standstill, then led Costas up the alleyway opposite. ‘It’s true that the Celtic background gave Britain a particular stamp, something that made it seem very distant to some Romans, pretty frightening. But this place was no backwater for Roman entrepreneurs, for freedmen and retired soldiers on the make. It offered chances of a fortune and social status they never would have found in Rome.’
‘You mean guys like Narcissus, Claudius’ freedman?’ Costas said.
‘Precisely. He may never have lived here, but those British lead ingots with his name stamp we found on St Paul’s shipwreck show he was a pretty shrewd investor in the new province.’
‘So it was Claudius who invaded this place.’ Costas blinked up at the drizzle that was beginning to envelop them, and then pulled the hood of his jacket forward. ‘Left Italy for this.’
Jack wiped the sheen of water from his face, and then bounded across another street. They were in Lawrence Lane, heading towards the medieval Guildhall. ‘Claudius was on a mission,’ he said. ‘It was a matter of family pride, living up to his ancestors, taking up where they had left off. Almost a hundred years before, his great-great-uncle Julius Caesar had landed in Britain with his legions at the tail end of the conquest of Gaul. It was more a show of strength than an invasion, a bit of ancient gunboat diplomacy, to keep the Britons on their side of the Channel.’
Costas peered out gloomily from under his hood. ‘You mean Julius Caesar took one look at this place, thought better of it and left.’
Jack grinned. ‘He had other things on his mind. But he paved the way for traders. Even before Claudius invaded, there was a settlement of Romans at the tribal capital Camulodunum, about fifty miles north-east of here near modern Colchester. They imported cargoes of wine in pottery amphoras, exactly the same type we discovered in the shipwreck of St Paul and saw in Herculaneum. They discovered that the British loved alcohol.’
‘Glad to see that hasn’t changed.’ Costas’ muffled voice came from several paces behind, and Jack turned to see his friend’s hooded figure standing in front of a pub. Costas pulled down his hood and pointed suggestively. Jack shook his head and beckoned him. ‘We’re almost there. Time for that later.’
‘That’s what you always say,’ Costas grumbled, then splashed up behind Jack. They walked on for a few paces in silence, then Costas caught Jack’s arm and pulled him to a halt. ‘One thing been’s nagging at me since Rome, Jack.’
‘Fire away.’
‘It’s Elizabeth, your encounter with her at Herculaneum. You said she warned you, told you to be on your guard.’
‘It was only a few snatched words.’
‘I’m wondering about our assailant in the cave under Rome. Whoever he was, whoever they are, how could they have known we were there?’
‘I assume we were being followed. I only really put it together afterwards, but it wouldn’t have been difficult to trace us from Herculaneum to Seaquest II, then to Rome. A few tapped phone calls, even some hijacked satellite surveillance. We kept our movements low-key but it still wouldn’t have been difficult for the right people to know we were trucking IMU diving equipment into the centre of Rome, and going into the Cloaca Maxima.’
‘You’re suggesting some pretty sophisticated surveillance.’
‘That could be what we’re dealing with. No holds barred.’
‘They seemed to know specifically what we were after. That guy in the cave. The last thing he said. “Give it to me.” ’
‘Are you suggesting Elizabeth could have been part of this?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything.’
Jack looked troubled. ‘She did say something else. I thought it was personal, about us, but maybe I was wrong.’