Circle of Stones (14 page)

For a moment she just stared at him. Then she turned and ran, out through the empty rooms, up the steps to the open-air bath, its magical waters fogging the frosty night.

Around it the colonnade was dark, the figures of Roman emperors gazing down at her. She heard Josh come out behind her.

“Look . . . don't get upset . . .”

“I'm not upset.” She was shaking. She ran down the cracked pavement, through the door the public didn't use, down a corridor and into the marble splendor of the entrance hall.

A woman named Martha was at reception, closing up.

Sulis said, breathless, “Did a man come in tonight . . . late? Last in, even?”

Caught halfway through counting coins, the woman looked up, preoccupied. “Sorry, no . . . well, what did he look like?”

Sulis frowned. She knew Josh was behind her, waiting for the answer. She heard the flashlight click off in his hand.

“Tall. Dark.” It sounded so useless. “Thin. Sort of . . . pockmarked face.”

Martha poured the coins into the bag. She tapped the calculator off. “No, no one like that. The last people in were an elderly couple and their grandsons and that was about an hour ago. They'd have left by now. No tall, dark, handsome strangers all night, Sulis. I'd have noticed!”

Sulis turned. Pushing past Josh she marched straight to the door marked
S
E
C
U
R
I
T
Y
and once inside she stared at the baffling bank of screens. Each was lit with a shadowy corner of the museum.

He came in behind her. “I'll show you,” he said.

It took about half an hour. He ran everything at double, triple speed. She saw visitors blur like ghosts in the frames of time, there, not there, caught in strange, jagged motion. She saw the rooms empty, the shadows gather, the clock numbers jerk. She saw herself, gazing into cases, sitting on a chair, at one corner, at another doorway, talking, alone. She saw all this, but she didn't see the man.

Finally the last camera.

“This is what I was watching you on at the outfall.” Josh kept his gaze deliberately away from hers. “It's an awkward angle. But you can see for yourself . . .”

A shadowy shape stood before the archway of roaring water. It leaned out and tossed a small object through the grille. Her hand was clear, a pale glimmer that slowed as Josh slowed the playback. She saw her sleeve, one side of her face.

She saw herself turn, and speak. She had said, “Who are you?”

But the camera showed only darkness, unresolvable mystery.

“Hold it there!”

He pressed pause. Together they stared at the grainy image, Sulis crouching so close to the screen her breath fogged it.

“There.” Her fingers touched the glass. “There. Isn't that something? The sleeve of his coat? Right at the edge?”

She looked up. Josh was sitting on the table with the remote loose in his hands. He said quietly, “Let's face it, Sulis. He wasn't there. No one was there.” He gazed at her hard. “I don't know if it's me you're fooling, or just yourself. But I'll tell you what I think now. I think there hasn't been anyone there all along.”

The Circle

Can anything be a more glorious Image
of the Sun than a circular wall, upon the
summit of a hill, gilded with Gold?

Zac

S
upper that night was a sadly quiet affair.

Forrest sat at the head of the table & ate rapidly. He never seemed to much notice what he ate; Mrs. Hall could have served raw capon & carrots with the dirt still on them & he would have swallowed them & wondered why he was sick afterward. Sylvia picked at her food, watching me through the candlesticks. I tried not to look at her.

“Wine, Zac?” Forrest held out the bottle.

I lifted my glass & let him splash some in. Then I said, “Those people, sir. At the site  .  .  .”

He shrugged. “Timid fools without vision. What can you do? We'll get no money from them.”

Silence again. He knew, & we knew, that their reluctance was widespread.

Suddenly he crashed down his knife & spoon & leaped up, pacing the room fiercely. “Sometimes I think I am all alone in the world, do you know that? That I am the only man of this wretched city who can see what its future might be! Look at it! Overrun with beggars & dogs! A hovel in the hills huddling down, when it might be wide & stately & full of light.” He flung the curtains open, revealing the gas-lit glimmers of the street outside, the smoky fog that wreathed the gracious square. “What a place it was once. Full of power, full of magic! And it could be again. Wide clean streets, fresh air, high generous rooms, running water. What we could not do against poverty! Against disease!”

“You truly believe there was a great temple here?” Sylvia asked quietly.

“Yes, I do!” He turned, his face alight. “Since men first found the waters, this would have been a holy place. I believe there were two temples, Sylvia, one to the sun, & one to the moon. Ancient structures. They must lie under the lower part of the town, very near the baths.” He glanced back through the window. “When I was working on the Mineral Hospital we found many things in the ground that proved there had been buildings there. Broken brick, carved stone. We found strange, twisted pewter fragments. Even tiles.” He came back to the table & sat, leaning toward her. “I wanted to design a circular building on that site, but the landowner objected. I seem to have spent all my life trying to create this thing. But at least now it will be built, even if I am ruined for it.”

“You will not be ruined.” She handed him his wineglass.

For a moment he looked at her, then at me. “No,” he said. “I trust I will not be. Because the future needs me.”

He sipped the wine, & some of the warmth faded from him. The light went out of his eyes. If all the world disappointed him, I thought, what must he think of me?

I said, “Sir, may I ask you something?”

He said, “Ask away, Zac.”

“It's just  .  .  . the plan of the Circus. You said the central area is to be paved?”

“Yes, &   .  .  .”

“So there is to be nothing there . . . even under the ground?”

He looked at me & his eyes were steady & dark as flint. “Nothing, Zac. Nothing of importance.”

He lied. He gave me the lie to my face. In that instant I cared nothing for his designs, for his grand building. All I knew was that he truly did not trust me, he thought me a spoiled brat & a shallow wastrel, & the knowledge went in like an arrow.

But I managed a smile.

While he & Sylvia helped clear the table I went out & sat on a bench in the garden. The stars were rising over the downs, & Aquae Sulis was indeed no more than a foggy huddle in a fold of land, almost as if the ancient city still lingered there in the mist. I folded my arms against the cold & leaned back, my breath clotted with damp.

There was to be something secret at the circle's heart. Something to do with the Oroboros group he frequented. If he would not tell me about it I would ferret it out for myself. Because I would save him, & myself, & Sylvia, even if neither of them deserved me. I smiled coolly. Despite themselves, they would be in debt to me.

Her voice said, “All puffed up again, Master Peacock.”

She crept on me so quietly! I jumped up, annoyed. “Must you do that!”

She was not smiling. She perched on the bench next to me, her feet off the ground for the mud.

“Sorry, Zac. But sometimes you look so full of yourself, your secrets, your plans. All closed up inside, & proud.”

“I am not proud. I am nothing in this town, Sylvia. But I will not be stamped on by Compton.”

“So you have invented a plan?”

“I have already begun it.” This was, I have to confess, the part I had dreaded. But I took a deep breath & told her what I had done. “This afternoon I sent a letter to Compton. It was badly written & spelled—I took great trouble with it. It was from you.”

She leaped up, mud or not. “No!”

“Yes. I signed it
Sylvia
.”

“You had no right! I can't believe you had the gall  . . .”

I stood too. “You said you'd do anything for Forrest. I wish I knew if that was true.”

She glared. Her fury turned me cold. There was a small gazebo at the bottom of the garden; a pleasant place in the summer but damp now & tangled with dead creeper. I grasped her arm & led her there, because I was afraid Forrest would hear us from the house.

Once inside she turned on me. “Tell me what you wrote.”

I drew myself upright. I would not be hangdog before her, even though I felt guilty. “I . . . you, that is . . . have told Lord Compton that I have done as he asked. He must meet you at the baths tomorrow night at eight. You will be bringing him the plans of the Circus . . .”

She gasped but I went on unflinching. “In return he must hand over the note-of-promise I wrote him for the hundred guineas. I will be there, watching. In fact I will go with you. But I'll make sure he does not see me.”

“See your shame, you mean!” She pulled away from me & stood among the brambles. “How can you do this, Zac! To your master! Can you hate him that much!”

“I don't hate him.” I did not want to talk about Forrest. “I do this for myself. And let me set your mind at rest, Sylvia, since you obviously think the worst of me. The design I'm selling will not be Forrest's Circus. This will be a forgery, & it will be unbuildable.”

She stared.

Quietly, I explained about the copy I had made in my anger—the subtle alterations, the defects. She listened to all of it, her hand tugging dead leaves from the vine-covered pillar of the gazebo.

When I had finished she remained silent, gazing at me a long time. I shivered with the damp. My own sweat was cold on me.

“Why did you do it?” she whispered.

“That doesn't matter. It was a wild idea. Sometimes . . . sometimes I think all the world is against me. Perhaps I did it because I wanted to bring Forrest down, to introduce a flaw into his heaven. To be Lucifer to his God. I don't know. But, Sylvia, listen, you MUST get the note from Compton. Make sure it's the one I wrote—that it has my signature on. Otherwise I'll be ruined.”

“But when he finds out.” She was looking toward the house.

“He can't do anything without the IOU. I won't owe him a penny piece.”

“Not Compton, you fool!” Her face was pale. “Forrest.”

I shrugged. “If he has any sense he'll thank me. Because by then the Circus will be built & the houses sold & what will Compton have after all? Flawed designs for a project someone else has perfected. No, Forrest won't blame me for that.”

In the silent garden only the leaves dripped. A fine rain must be drizzling, because the lamp in the window of the house was fuzzy & mazy. I shivered. “You will do it, Sylvia? Please say you will. It's my only chance.”

She pulled her shawl tight. For a moment I thought she would refuse; then she turned & unpicked her skirt from the thorns. When she looked up her face had that pert, sharp look that for the last few weeks had been fading. Now it was back.

She turned away from my scrutiny.

“Of course I'll do it,” she said.

• • •

All that day at the site I was oddly nervous. I made mistakes, lost things, daydreamed in the tiny stuffy office. Outside, the cacophony of building went on around me; the facade of the first arc of the circle was in place almost to the second floors, but the doorways were stark empty rectangles & jackdaws flew in & out of where the windows would be.

I don't know if Forrest suspected me of prying, but there was no sign of the plans. He must have them locked up in the safe at home. Only the working sheets were here, the day's instructions to the masons. And underneath, his sketch book.

I sat & opened its battered leather cover.

The metopes
.

Here they were, all the mysterious symbols & pictures that would be carved in stone to ring the finished building. What secret did they hold? A telescope. Two hands sharing a ring. A tree with what might be a standing stone behind it. Did they tell a story? Did they mean anything? Was this my master's message to the future, or his joke against it?

I looked again at the metope of the two hands. He had drawn them ringed with what might be cloud, or flowers. Were they a pair? Or were the hands of two different people, meeting here opposite each other, each grasping half of the circle? His hand & mine? Mine & Sylvia's?

I turned the pages, puzzling them out. The oak tree, snakes around a spade, a mirror, a sickle. At one corner a horse's skull hung with flowers or maybe bells. The whole mystery of his mind was here. A secret, that if I might decipher it would . . .

“Mazter? We need ee.”

The workman glanced curiously at the book. I shut it with a snap. “What?”

“'Tiz at the chamber.”

“What chamber?” I swiveled in my chair & let my irritation show. “What are you talking about, man?”

These men never even notice annoyance. He said, “The covert room Mazter Vorrest wanted.” He looked at me with a sly nod. “You know the one.”

I had no idea. I said slowly, “Ah. Yes. That one.”

“She beyond the zellars. The one he has my gang on, working secret.”

I sat up. “Of course. What about it?”

“Something odd there, zirr. In the foundations. Only, the mazter has gone to the quarry, so . . .”

I jumped up. My heart was racing. “Show me.”

The foreman's name was Fisher. I had often seen Forrest talking to him. A trusted man, evidently. He led me through the site & into the half-finished cellars. I hurried after him, stumbling, trying to keep my boots from the muck, & trying to look as if I knew exactly where we were going. But my mind was racing ahead of me. Was this what Forrest was keeping from me?
The chamber?

I climbed over uncut stone. Wooden cranes swung blocks of ashlar over my head.

He led me into the one cellar that had been roofed. The floor was trampled dust, & the stone vaults fresh & gold. At the far end was a great heap of wood, scaffolding planks perhaps, piled high to the roof, out of the weather.

I stopped, but he glanced back through the dimness. “Beyond, zirr. These are to hide the work.”

I hoped I had not shown him my ignorance. I nodded loftily & pushed past him. Behind the wood in the brick wall was an archway, half built, the keystones lying on the floor like pieces of a child's puzzle ready to assemble.

Beyond the arch was a passageway. We walked down it, into the chamber.

“There's some water coming up.” Fisher gestured to where a spade lay on the ground. I walked across, the rubble & brick fragments crunching under my boots. A circular chamber—well, that was to be expected. The roof was domed, like a beehive. Golden stone walls curved down to the bare floor. In the apex of the dome was darkness, but I felt a draft. An airshaft, somewhere.

The man watched me as I walked across to the center. My heart thudded so loudly I was sure he would hear it. This was the very center of the Circus.

But what was it for?

“Do you zee?” He pointed.

“I see.”

Water was oozing from the floor. It had collected in a small puddle. I glanced up. “Are you sure it's not dripping in from the roof?”

He laughed, a short gruff sound. “It be hot, zurr.”

I reached out & dipped a finger in. Warmth. Small bubbles rose to caress my skin. I caught a faint steam in the air. “Another spring?”

“I don't zee how. So far above the valley.”

I had no idea if that mattered. Certainly the other hot springs were below. I straightened up, wondering if Forrest had known by some alchemy that this would be here. But surely he had only chosen the site for the Circus because it was high, & the landowner was willing?

“What shall we do, mazter? Only Mazter Vorrest said naught about this & we have to finish today.”

I nodded. “His instructions were?”

“Clear the room & lock it up.” His craggy face went crafty. “For tomorrow night.”

I glared at him. “What do you know of that? Master Forrest does not want his private business gossiped in the city.”

“Nor will it be. I only know They will be here tomorrow, & now there's this water.”