The Pian di Civita rose above the surrounding countryside, a desolate bar of land covered in swaying grasses. Jake’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the hilltop for masonry, earthworks – anything that would indicate a tomb. But apart from the track there was no trace of man to be seen.
“What do you think?” asked Jenny as she scoured the landscape.
“I don’t know. We’re not going to find anything, are we?”
No sooner had Jake spoken than he saw it: a pimple rising from the uniform flatness of the summit. The sides were rounded as a Christmas pudding and masonry was scattered across the peak – it reminded Jake of a boutique hill fort. This was where a sickly child was laid to rest more than twenty-eight centuries ago; where Eusebius’s trail came to an end.
Jake felt it in his bones.
They trekked across a field of sheep to reach the mount. Trees were dotted about the hillock and birdsong carried across the countryside.
Suddenly Jenny’s hand was on his shoulder. “Over there – look!”
A wall had been built into the far side of the mound, but this was not the dry-stone boundary of an Italian shepherd. The wall was composed of half-ton boulders and in its centre was a small cave, wild grasses shivering before the entrance.
“The cavity,” he whispered.
Jake manoeuvred himself into the fissure, scenting chalk and mushrooms, damp earth. The ancient builders had used a natural cave for the tomb, walling it in and piling earth on top to create a barrow. A narrow channel cut into the rock had once allowed libations to be poured into the tomb from outside, but otherwise the cavern was unfinished and unpainted. To Jake’s relief there were no Roman numerals chiselled into the rock.
“Anything?” asked Jenny.
“It’s the place all right. But there’s nothing here.”
Whatever it may once have contained had disappeared.
“We haven’t been very clever, have we?” Jake said as he clambered out. “Did we really expect to find something a team of professional archaeologists missed?”
She shrugged.
“But d’you know what?”
“What?”
“Who cares?”
“I’m sorry?” Jenny replied.
Jake couldn’t resist grinning. He had followed Eusebius to the end of his map and found nothing; the Disciplina Etrusca was no more.
“I said, who cares? It’s a beautiful day. Look around you. What say for the next hour we forget all about MI6 and Charlie Waits and everything else. And have a picnic.”
She felt a rush of warmth for him then; at that moment in her life it was exactly what she needed to hear.
People are more important than work.
They lay in the grass and ate. The bread was tough, the cheese spongy, but any food is delicious if consumed in the wilderness. And the tomatoes were divine. Jake drew in the air with its scent of leaf and grass and felt the first whisper of contentment in years. For a moment he thought he heard the note of a car engine carrying on the wind, but he let it go; now was not the time. It occurred to him that the countryside looked much as it must have when the first traders arrived from Greece and Carthage in search of iron ore.
“Isn’t it amazing,” he said between mouthfuls, “to think this was once the edge of the known world? When the first Greeks arrived it must have blown their minds. The people they found were wearing hides, not far removed from hunter-gathering. It would’ve been like visiting untouched tribes in the Amazon.”
Jenny swung to look at him, face serious.
“What is it?” he said.
“Can you feel the spirits rising, Jake?”
He held her gaze, startled. Seconds passed; a crumb fell from his mouth.
The twitch at the corner of Jenny’s mouth betrayed her. And knowing she was undone she roared with laughter. That set Jake off too, the pair of them howling at the madness of it all until tears ran down their cheeks.
When he stopped laughing she was looking right at him.
Right. At. Him.
Jake’s chest fluttered, as if someone had released a handful of butterflies in his lungs. He opened his mouth, said half a word, blushed and turned away.