Zara watched numbly as Avram conferred with Dov. She didn’t know the specifics of their discussion, but she was certain of its import. They were discussing whether to kill her, Carmen and Cesco, or to let them live. The realisation prompted her to wade across to where the two of them were sitting, naked save for their underwear, shivering with cold, hugging each other for warmth and comfort.
Carmen had thrown her clothes down on a ledge. Zara fetched them now, draped her shirt over her shoulders. There was no shirt for Cesco, but she handed him Carmen’s jeans for him to wipe himself dry with, which was something. She looked back across at Avram and Dov, still deep in conversation. Then they turned as one to look at her, identical expressions on their faces.
Just like that, she knew.
They didn’t come straight over, but rather went first to the sinkhole where they talked on the radio to Noah at the dam. Whatever he told them seemed to satisfy them. They turned again with those same dead gazes then waded across. Zara’s strength left her at the sight. Her limbs went weak. She backed away, losing balance and stumbling onto her backside. Her helmet slipped as she fell, its beam running across the gemstone ceiling like a searchlight above a city, making it twinkle like a night sky. She had a momentary yet transcendent glimpse of the smallness of her life set against the vastness of time and space; the smallness of this whole world and all that was in it too. But she saw something else as well. Something more urgent and infinitely more practical. ‘Look!’ she cried, pointing upwards. ‘Look!’
Avram stopped to stare. ‘At what?’
‘Those stones,’ she said. ‘All those precious stones!’
‘What about them?’
‘Think about it,’ she said, speaking English for Carmen and Cesco’s benefit, for they were all in this together now, and needed each other’s help to survive. ‘Alaric’s tomb was robbed, yes? That’s what we all believe, yes? But what kind of tomb robber would leave all these stones behind, when they’re just begging to be taken?’
Avram frowned. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that it’s not Alaric’s tomb we’ve found. It can’t be.’
‘There must have been sixty bodies down there,’ said Dov irritably. ‘Who’d kill that many over a fake tomb?’
‘I’m not saying it’s fake,’ replied Zara. ‘But think about what building it here would have involved. Your first job would be damming the Bussento at Caselle, creating an artificial lake and making the river run dry. Everyone along this whole coast would have known what was going on. They’d hardly have needed slaves to tell them. And Athaulf was anxious to get moving. Maybe he left a detachment here to guard the place for a while. But they’d eventually have left too, leaving it wide open. Not easy to get back in, I grant you. Not without a slave army. But possible. Then they’d have come up here and found it, just as you did, from the gemstone ceiling and the marble tomb. So why then kill all those slaves? Athaulf wasn’t a monster.’
‘Go on,’ said Avram. ‘Tell us.’
‘In order to keep a different secret. A secret known only to a very select few. A secret designed to keep Alaric safe from robbers even if robbers did eventually make their way in. The secret of a third chamber.’
Avram squinted at her. ‘You’re saying the one downstairs is a decoy? That that lid was left off that sarcophagus to fool anyone who made it in?’
‘Except not only a decoy,’ said Zara. ‘A genuine antechamber that honours Alaric as a great king, but with his real tomb somewhere else. That’s why Athaulf put the slaves to death – so that they couldn’t reveal the true secret of this place: that they’d dug another burial chamber for Alaric somewhere beyond the two we’ve already found.’
‘Then where the fuck is it?’ demanded Dov.
‘Let us look,’ she pleaded. ‘We’ll find it for you.’
‘We?’
She gestured across at Carmen and Cesco. ‘They know archaeology,’ she said. ‘They know the Goths. They can help me read the walls.’
Avram’s eyes bored into her. ‘You’d better be right about this,’ he said.
Or what? she thought. You’ll kill us anyway. But all she said was: ‘Watch.’
Tomas had little idea what to expect at the parking area. But he had to assume at least four antagonists: Nero, Rossi and the two from the scarlet Renault. He further had to assume that they had the gun that man had wrested from him back in Cosenza. And that was the very minimum. The two rental vans suggested there could well be more. If they’d truly found Alaric’s tomb and were looting it, they’d likely be in Sicilì a while. Yet he could easily imagine them using the cottage as their base – to store their booty, say, or to grab some shut-eye. He therefore decided to leave his two men watching it and instead collected Orsino and Taddeo from their posts monitoring the roads out of town. Then they drove to the parking area.
The white vans were still there. They got out to inspect them. Their doors were locked and their bonnets cold. They each bore Napoli plates and stickers from the same Sorrento car-hire agency. One of them had rear windows. Tomas shone in his torch. Bench seating down either side and mounds of discarded packaging. He revised upwards their likely numbers. They got back in the Range Rover then drove up the road until he found a signal for his mobile. He gestured for Guido to pull in while he made the call.
‘The fuck?’ groaned Massimo, when finally he answered.
‘I’ve found them,’ Tomas told him.
Strange noises at the other end. Massimo sitting up in bed then slapping himself awake. ‘The sweetest fucking dream,’ he said.
‘Not half as sweet as this,’ Tomas assured him. ‘You know that parking area with the two white rental vans? Meet us there as soon as you can.’
‘All of us?’
‘All of you. And tooled. We’re going to war.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Half an hour.’
They sat in the darkness waiting. Twenty minutes passed. The road from Sicilì finally began to glow with headlights. They heard an engine. Tomas was about to get out to wave them down when suddenly a scarlet fucking Renault turned a corner and came into view. ‘Down,’ he said. They all ducked. Tomas risked a glance as it drove by. Only one person in it – a man he hadn’t seen before, trying to hide his weak chin behind a wispy goatee. He drove by to the parking area, then stopped.
Tomas and the others got out quietly. They made their way after it on foot. The man was standing by the Renault, setting a miniature satellite dish up on its roof. He was so intent on his task that he had no idea they were there until Guido clamped a hand over his mouth. At once he began thrashing like a speared fish. But Guido pressed his knife into his throat and he fell still.
Tomas went to stand in front of him. His eyes were wet with panic and self-pity. This was going to be easy. ‘Calm yourself, oh my good friend,’ he said. ‘We mean you no harm, I swear this on the grave of my poor dear mother. We live here, that is all. We worry for our children. All these strange vehicles. All this suspicious activity! We want to know what’s going on. You can understand that, I’m sure. So answer a few questions for me and you’ll be free. Do you understand?’ He waited for the man to nod, then continued. ‘And you won’t call out if we let you speak?’ A shake of his head this time, enough to send the tears spilling down his cheeks. ‘Very good, my friend,’ said Tomas. ‘You see how painless this is going to be.’ He gestured for Guido to loosen his grip over his mouth a little. ‘Now, let’s start with your name.’
‘Noah,’ sobbed the man. ‘Noah Zuckman.’
‘And where are you from, Noah Zuckman?’
‘Israel.’
Tomas arched his eyebrows. Would tonight never stop delivering surprises? ‘Israel?’
‘I shouldn’t even be here,’ snivelled Zuckman, almost choking over the words. ‘I don’t do overseas jobs.’
‘Is it just you from Israel, or your friends too?’
‘All of us.’
‘And you’re here for Alaric, yes?’
‘Yes. But they haven’t found him. At least, they’ve found his tomb. But there’s nothing inside. It’s already been robbed.’
‘Oh,’ said Tomas. A disappointment, but it didn’t affect his main purpose. ‘Are they on their way back out, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many?’
His eyes slid to the side to make the count. ‘Eight.’
‘Armed?’
‘No.’ But there was a quaver in his voice.
‘Thank you,’ said Tomas. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’
‘Then I can go?’
‘I gave you my word, didn’t I? Though I need your word in return, not to contact your companions or go to our good friends in blue uniforms.’
‘I swear it! I swear it on my life.’
‘Good.’ More headlights now, and engine noise. Massimo and the others had arrived. Zuckman stared in bewilderment as they pulled up in a row and his men got out, tucking handguns into their waistbands. He gave a low moan and his legs gave way beneath him. Tomas glanced at Guido. ‘Not the knife,’ he said. ‘Too messy.’
Guido thought a moment. ‘His neck?’ he suggested.
‘Yes,’ said Tomas, looking away. ‘His neck.’
It was Zara’s tone more than her words that convinced Carmen they were in a fight for their lives. She glanced at Cesco, still pale and shivery from his near drowning, and he nodded to let her know he too understood. She took and pressed his hand. Dov gestured them to their feet and over to the tomb. The water was as cold as ever, yet Carmen was so exhausted that it had almost lost its power over her. Zara helped her and Cesco up onto the top step then they headed down in single file, followed by Dov and his men.
They reached a landing. Zara made the turn and carried on, but Carmen and Cesco stopped dead at the sight of what lay below – until Dov prodded them down to the chamber floor. A path of sorts had already been cleared through the gruesome windfall, allowing them no time to study it. They passed through an arched doorway into a burial chamber with fabulously sculpted walls and a sarcophagus of pink marble on a plinth.
The plinth was the obvious place to begin their search for any hidden chamber. The sarcophagus itself proved too heavy to lift, but they managed to twist it this way and that until they’d satisfied themselves that nothing lay beneath. Zara led Carmen and Cesco on a tour of the walls. They stopped by unspoken agreement before the largest and grandest of the tableaux – Alaric standing outside the gates of Rome, scene of his greatest triumph. His only triumph, in truth, for while he’d clearly been a charismatic and beloved leader, his battlefield record had been mixed at best. Even Rome hadn’t been the victory he’d sought. He’d wanted a homeland, not plunder. Respect and fair treatment. Yet the emperor had sacrificed the Eternal City and all its treasure rather than give him that.
The gates had been set back a little way into the bedrock, Carmen noticed, then covered by a wood veneer that had curled up in places. She crouched down to peel off a fat strip of it. The stone beneath was paler than elsewhere, smoother to the touch. There was a gap, too, thin as a razor blade, between the gates and its posts. One of the Israelis saw her running her fingernail down it and excitedly shoved her aside. He and his comrades then tried to push the gates back into the wall, to lift them or slide them sideways. But in vain. Carmen glanced at Cesco then at the doorway behind them. They edged towards it. But their gunman guard Yani stepped across their path.
‘We only want to look,’ said Carmen. ‘In case you guys missed something.’
‘Such as?’
‘How can we know until we’ve looked?’
Yani turned to Dov. Dov nodded. They went together out into the first chamber. Carmen borrowed a torch to light up the tree, then followed its roots as they slithered across the floor to the clusters of tortured figures hewn from the limestone. In Germanic lore, Yggdrasil had connected nine separate realms, one of which had indeed been called Hel. But the hell of their conception had been a dreary, ghostlike place, all wraiths and quiet misery. The hell of everlasting torment depicted here had been a very Christian concept. And Christianity had had only three realms to speak of. Hell, earth and heaven. Their hell had been a pit. It had existed beneath – just like the hell depicted here. Above that had come the earthly plain, the one in which they were standing right now, and which the sarcophagus chamber was in too. Then, above that, only heaven – which surely was where the Goths would have wanted Alaric.
She stared up at the ceiling. There surely wasn’t enough space between it and the river above to accommodate a burial chamber. But Yggdrasil’s branches spread out in all directions before being subsumed into the limestone. Unfortunately, she could see not a glimmer of heaven in the gaps between. Only one branch, indeed, made it as far as a wall at all, reaching it directly above the doorway into the sarcophagus chamber, perhaps implying that it was heaven after all, despite those worldly tableaux. Except that now she noticed that its ceiling was ribbed, as if to brace it. Yet it was hewn from the bedrock and therefore had no need of bracing. So perhaps that wasn’t a rib at all. Perhaps it was, instead, the continuation of the branch, passing across the ceiling of the second chamber before finally ending in the night sky above the gates of Rome.
In the chamber upstairs, gemstones had been pressed at random into existing clefts and fissures. Down here, by contrast, they’d been set to recreate real constellations. There was Orion, for example. There Ursa Major. There Andromeda and Taurus. She was no astronomer herself, but the ancients most certainly had been. They’d known their stars so well that she’d have bet good money that these constellations were in proper relation to each other, perhaps even how the sky had looked on the night they’d taken Rome. And then there was the moon itself, by which the tip of the branch finally stopped, almost as if touching it in benediction.
She found herself staring at it, transfixed both by its size and colour too, finished not with the silver leaf one might have expected, but rather with bronze or even copper, to give it a faintly pitted look as well as a distinctly reddish hue, the one it sometimes took on when near the horizon. It happened because light from a low hanging moon had to pass through so much more of the earth’s atmosphere to reach its surface that most photons of shorter wavelengths were deflected away by heavy molecules in the air, leaving the oranges and reds to arrive alone.
The ancients hadn’t known the physics behind this, of course, but they’d certainly have known the effect. Even the Visigoths. Perhaps even particularly the Visigoths. There was a tantalising clue from a fourth-century evangelical bishop called Ulfilas, who’d been so determined to bring Christianity to the Goths that he’d devised a script for them just so that he could then translate the Bible into it. Ulfilas had been almost completely faithful to the original text. So faithful, indeed, that his rare divergences had intrigued historians ever since. Why had he left out entirely the Book of Kings, for example? Was it because it was so bellicose, and he’d considered the Goths quite violent enough already, thank you? More pertinently, he’d also completely fabricated an admonition against moon worship that appeared nowhere in the original – suggesting strongly that it was a practice of the Goths that he’d wanted desperately to stop.
Cultures and traditions didn’t change overnight. The old ways always lingered – as evidenced by this tomb itself, with its mix of pagan and Christian iconography. Long after nominally converting to Christianity, Gothic generals like Alaric had consulted soothsayers who’d used lunar cycles to divine auspicious days for feasts, marriages and burials. He’d never have risked launching an assault on a city like Rome without assurances that the moon would smile upon the endeavour – the exact same moon that Carmen was gazing at right now. The way it bulged, the way it gleamed, and the colour of it too – for all the world like a great brass button hanging low over the city’s walls, just begging to be pushed.