“They’ve killed Dr Gul,” Jake shouted, throwing the broadsheet at Florence. “They’ve bloody gone and done him in.”
The archaeologist put the inscription to one side – books on linguistics were already spread about the room. But as she read the article her head bowed.
“They were after Roger too,” she whispered.
“Who are ‘they’, Florence? Is it MI6?”
“I think so, Jake. I’m frightened.”
The word hung in the air.
“Maybe you should just … let it go. History is important, but it’s not worth dying for.”
Florence’s head shot up like that of a cobra. “Never,” she spat. “Why should I? Why should I be cowed by them?”
Jake gaped. “Your eye, Florence. What’s wrong with it?”
The archaeologist fumbled for a mirror. “Oh my goodness,” she said.
A tangle of vessels had burst across her eyeball, leaving a bloody streak across the white – it looked vaguely bestial. Florence studied her reflection for a long time. Then she replaced the mirror without comment and returned to the inscription.
“What do you think these are all about, then?” she asked. “The Roman numerals at the end of the engraving.”
“Who gives a damn? I’ve just told you Dr Gul has been murdered. Don’t you care about that?”
“What is there to say?” she shot back. “Someone’s killed him, that’s the end of it. I’ve got a job to do.”
Despite himself Jake peered at the shirt. Runic letters were scrawled across the material like the product of a disturbed mind – but the inscription concluded in four Roman numerals: IV, VII, IV, XLI.
“Four, seven,” said Florence. “Followed by four, forty-one. What does it mean?”
Jake considered the problem. “Well, it’s simple isn’t it? Book Four, verse seven. And then Book Four, verse forty-one. Eusebius is telling us to read on.”
Florence’s mouth fell open. “You are amazing,” she said, scrambling for the paperback and looking up the first passage. “It’s entitled, ‘Ambassadors from barbarous nations receive presents from the Emperor’.”
I have often stood near the imperial palace and observed an array of barbarians in attendance, bringing for Constantine their most precious gifts. There I have seen the distant Ethiopians, that widely divided race, from the most remote part of the world. They presented to the emperor those gifts which their own nation held in most esteem – crowns of gold, diadems set with precious stones, barbaric vestments embroidered with gold and flowers.
“What did Constantine give the Ethiopians in return?” Jake wondered. “The title says the barbarians received presents from the emperor too.”
Florence frowned, reading the page several times over. “It doesn’t actually mention his gift in the body of the text – only in the title.”
“I can’t see Eusebius omitting that detail by accident,” said Jake. “It’s almost as if he’s trying to draw particular attention to the gift the Ethiopians received from Rome by not saying what it was. And we know what Eusebius thought Rome’s most precious possession was. The gift he held in ‘most esteem’.”
“It would have made sense to hide the Book of Thunder in Africa,” admitted Florence. “There were ties of faith and diplomacy between Rome and Ethiopia, established trade routes. And it was the edge of the known world, far from the reach of Christian zealots. I don’t know though. Making such a leap based on three little sentences? Really?”
“But there’s another line about Ethiopia in Life of Constantine,” said Jake. “Don’t you remember? The bit about Alexander the Great – we read it in the cistern.”
Florence sought the passage in a flurry of page-turning.
From among the Macedonians Alexander overthrew countless tribes of diverse nations. He waded through blood, a man like a thunderbolt. But Emperor Constantine began his reign at the time of life where the Macedonian ended it. He even pushed his conquests to the Ethiopians, illuminating with beams of light of the true religion the ends of the whole earth.
“A man like a thunderbolt,” she said.
“Beams of light,” Jake replied. “The true religion.”
Florence closed the book. “It’s in Ethiopia. The Disciplina Etrusca is in Ethiopia.”
There could be no doubt. Jake could almost sense the long-dead scholar chuckling at the solving of his puzzle – they were touching fingertips across the millennia.
“But Ethiopia’s the size of France,” said Florence. “And we don’t have a clue where to look.”
“Yes we do. The second passage indicated by the numerals.” Jake sought it out. “Book Four, verse forty-one. Eusebius is describing the preparations before a sacred festival.”
Others interpreted passages of scripture, and unfolded their hidden meaning, while those who were unequal to these efforts presented mystical service for the Church of God. I myself explained details of the imperial edifice and endeavoured to gather from the prophetic visions fitting illustrations of the symbols it displayed.
“Jesus,” said Jake. “Not much to go on, is it?”
“We’ve got you, though.” Florence looked him up and down. “You’re our secret weapon, with your massive sexy brain. You see what other people miss. It’s like you’ve got a third eye.”
At that exact moment Jake ceased to find her attractive. She had been using him, leading him on whenever she needed to make use of his intellect. But he needed her knowledge of the period just as sorely.
“Florence,” he said. “Can I ask you a question?”
There was something in Jake’s voice that made her look up. “What is it?”
“When the Etruscans were at the height of their powers, did they assume their civilization was going to go on forever? Like, I don’t know, like maybe some Americans do now? Or did they have an appreciation that the Etruscan world would end one day?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Oh, it was just a dream I had last night.”
“Intriguing dream,” she said, examining him. “Yes, as a matter of fact they did think their civilization would end. They believed it was limited to a timescale fixed by the Gods. Etruscan civilization was allotted a ten saeculum lifespan – that’s equivalent to ten long lifetimes. And as it happens this proved remarkably accurate. An Etruscan haruspex called Volcatius saw a comet after Julius Caesar’s assassination and announced the final saeculum.”
“Caesar?” said Jake. “But he lived two centuries after the Etruscan kingdoms were overthrown.”
“In Caesar’s day there would still have been Etruscan nobles,” said Florence. “Families who spoke Etruscan. Etruscan neighbourhoods. But fast forward a hundred years and no one speaks Etruscan anymore. Etruscan civilization ended bang on schedule.”
“It’s strange,” said Jake. “I must’ve read about all this saeculum stuff when I was researching my article. But I’d completely forgotten about it until that dream. Amazing how something can linger in your subconscious like that.”
Florence seemed not to have heard him. “There’s something quite profound about such an understanding among an ancient people,” she said. “Because it’s true, isn’t it? No nation lives forever, however mighty. Rome fell, Napoleon is history, the sun set on the British Empire.”
“Thou know’st tis common.” Jake was quoting Shakespeare and he stuck out his chin. “All that lives must die.”
“Passing through nature to eternity,” Florence finished, more seriously.
“And it’s happening as we speak,” he said. “Think of the movement of money from West to East. India and China are racing ahead, industrializing, trying to put a man on the moon. Soon Brazil and Mexico will be powerhouses too. And look at Europe, the sick man of the world. Drowning in debt, hugely uncompetitive, out of energy, out of ideas. We’re being eclipsed.”
“In our lifetime everything will change.” Florence glanced at the inscription. “Asia awakens. We’re living through the end of Western domination.”
The dream returned to Jake then. Not the content – but its feel.
And the war of civilizations would go on.