“Hence the irony.”
It was a mistake. Tears sprang back into Florence’s eyes at the comment and she stared out at the Embankment. Jake noticed the curve of her neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have gone there.”
Florence sniffed. “It’s just … the other students are laughing about it, like this is some kind of joke. ‘He didn’t see that one coming,’ and so on. Can you believe it?”
Jake sought a change of subject. “Tell me more about this …” He flipped through his notepad for the two words that were not encoded in shorthand. “Disciplina Etrusca.”
At once Florence was composed. “The story goes that some farmer was ploughing a field when he unearthed a live child,” she said. “He was a young boy, but wizened as an elderly man. This kid was called Tages, and he revealed the Disciplina Etrusca to the farmer. It was essentially a rulebook concerning the relationship between the Gods and human beings. A precise guide to divining the will of the divinities, and ergo the fates of men. Along with Judaism, Etruscan religion is the only revealed religion of the ancient Mediterranean. In other words, God dictated the holy text to man word for word.”
“And Roger was trying to, what, track down a copy of this Disciplina thing?”
“He was piecing it together bit by bit. No one will ever find a complete copy. Etruscan religion was considered heretical by the early Christians – all its sacred texts were destroyed. No Etruscan literature survives, no history. Virtually everything we know is from inscriptions on graves. Here …”
Florence slid an inscription across the dead man’s desk. It looked slightly like Greek – but runic and primitive, a barbarian script.
“Of all the inscriptions yet discovered, just eight are more than a hundred words long,” she said. “Three of those eight were found by Roger and me.”
The Hollywood smile revealed itself.
“What did you discover?” asked Jake. This was good material.
“The Disciplina Etrusca was split into three books,” she replied. “The first was the Libri Haruspicini, which dealt with examining livers. The second was about rituals – the proper ceremonies to carry out when founding cities and so on. But everything we discovered was from book three – the Libri Fulgurales.”
Book of Thunder.
*
“Together we found two new passages,” said Florence. “One in Rome, the other at a dig near Naples. We were supposed to be going to Istanbul next week to look for another segment.”
That perfect lower lip wobbled. Jake risked a glance at it: a cherry-red sack, barely a fingertip long. He had the mad impulse to put his hand over hers, but of course he did not. The moment drew out and became uncomfortable.
“I have to ask this,” the journalist said eventually. “I get the feeling Roger was – troubled, somehow. Am I right?”
Florence looked at Jake with vulnerable eyes. “You wouldn’t write anything bad about him?”
“Strictly for background.”
“You promise?”
“I flatter myself that I’m a proper journalist,” he said. “I am not in the habit of lying to people.”
Florence nodded and blinked. “Roger was depressed. He’d lost credibility. He’d got a bit too tangled up in all the old beliefs. It happens to academics sometimes, when they’ve spent a lifetime living their subject. Roger was never overt about it, but he would make pointed comments every now and then to the effect that some aspects of Etruscan religion were worth taking seriously. That was enough to shoot his reputation. Then about six months ago he began getting seriously withdrawn. Paranoid, even.”
“Why?”
Florence put her hands up. “I don’t know, ok?”
After a pause, Jake said, “Right, that’s probably enough material. I’m so sorry for disturbing you when everything’s still so fresh.”
“It’s fine.”
A statuette of a robed man wearing a cap shaped like an inverted funnel stood on the bookshelf.
“Who’s that guy?” asked Jake. “He looks hilarious.”
“He belongs in a museum really,” said Florence. “But you wouldn’t think he was funny if you were an Etruscan. In any way. He’s a fulguriator. A lightning priest.”
Jake studied the figurine. The orientalized eyes and eerie smile were a far cry from the realism of Roman sculpture and he saw then how the Etruscans were worlds apart from their contemporaries: China to the West.
“I’d be fascinated if you get anything more on that Churchill stuff,” said Florence. “It was nice meeting you, Jake.”
Unexpectedly she squeezed his hand; Wolsey felt an alarming flare of blood in his loins.
How can you be an archaeologist?
“Florence …” A giddy moment. “Can I have your number?”
The smile departed her face.
“Just in case I find anything else out about the Churchill stuff,” Jake backtracked, feeling his face turn beetroot. It was time to go.
“Of course you can,” said Florence, sweetness again.
On the other side of London someone was breaking into Jake’s flat.