The History Keepers Circus Maximus (13 page)

Jake looked back towards the slaves’ enclosure. The young girl was being unchained and handed over to the man with the white beard in exchange for a number of gold coins.

‘Unpleasant, I know,’ said Charlie quietly, ushering
him forward, ‘but these times are different. You’ll need to get used to that. Besides’ – he indicated the buyer – ‘he looks kind. Her life might even take a turn for the better.’

Jake reluctantly tore his gaze away and followed Nathan back to the ship. Rose jumped down onto the pier when she saw them coming. ‘Thank God you’re safe!’ she said, kissing them in the continental way with a peck on either cheek. Mr Drake, on Charlie’s shoulder, edged away distastefully. ‘So where’s old misery?’ she asked, looking expectantly around for Jupitus.

‘Mr Cole is at the villa,’ Nathan muttered through gritted teeth, ‘mining every last drop of sympathy from his dreadful state.’

‘And what exactly is his dreadful state?’ Rose asked nervously.

‘You’ll see when you get there. I’m afraid he has selected you to look after him while the three of us continue on to Vulcano.’

Jake felt an immediate thrill at the notion of
the three of us
: whatever the mission was going to be, he was now part of it. ‘So what happened to the
Hippocampus
?’ he asked.

Charlie briefly recounted the terrible events of
the storm and how they were nearly drowned. When he had finished, Rose shook her head and took a deep breath. ‘Dear me, did no one check the storm records?’

Nathan couldn’t resist smirking. ‘Good question.’

Charlie was, as always, diplomatic. ‘Mr Cole, I gather, was rather preoccupied before he left, so the oversight was understandable.’

‘I love it!’ Rose trilled. ‘
Not
that you had such a terrible time,’ she added quickly, ‘but that the infallible Jupitus Cole actually messed up.’

‘Anyway,’ Charlie continued, ‘it took three days and
all
my ingenuity to fix the Meslith machine, which is why you didn’t hear from us for so long. And, most amazing of all, the
Hippocampus
will sail again.’

Nathan pointed along the docks towards a warehouse. ‘They’re rebuilding her down there as we speak. That’s your other job, Miss Djones: to keep an eye on progress. They should be finished by the end of the week.’

‘It sounds like I’m on holiday,’ Rose announced happily. ‘So where is this famous villa?’

‘Follow that path all the way to the top . . .’ Nathan pointed to a flight of steps. ‘It’s the double
doors surrounded by bougainvillea. And good luck.’ He turned to Jake. ‘So, you ready to set sail again?’

‘Absolutely!’ Jake found himself replying with a salute, much to Charlie’s consternation.

‘Please don’t encourage him,’ he said, casting his bag onto the deck of the
Conqueror
. ‘He already thinks he’s God.’

Before the agents went their separate ways, Rose produced the hoisting device that Dr Chatterju had given her – the belt with the lion-shaped buckle – and handed it to Nathan.

‘My invention!’ he exclaimed when he realized what it was. ‘Chatterju is a genius!’ he added, immediately substituting it for his current belt and attaching his scabbard.

The three young agents all said their goodbyes to Rose, boarded the
Conqueror
, and cast off. Nathan confidently weaved his way through to open water. As Charlie unfurled the new map of the Tyrrhenian Sea, Jake watched his aunt head up the steps until she had disappeared from sight.

Rose followed the path all the way up, along narrow, sun-baked passageways that cut between the jigsaw of houses, until the air freshened and the bustle of
the town was left behind. From within the houses she could now hear the sounds of lunch being prepared.

‘Ah, the bougainvillea.’ She smiled as a shock of flaming pink came into view. The flowers tumbled around an old doorway. Rose turned the bronze handle, opened the door (it was ancient, even for
AD
27, and creaked tantalizingly) and went inside. She sighed with delight as she found herself in the spacious, untamed gardens of a handsome villa. On all sides, a series of crumbling terraces, each lined with pots of sweet-smelling flowers, teetered down the side of the hill. The sound of trickling water came from a number of little fountains and ponds. There was also the most spectacular view of the harbour, the bay beyond and the perfect blue sea.

Rose looked around for any sign of life. ‘Jupitus? Are you there?’ she asked quietly, more to herself than anyone else. Then she spied a figure seated in the shade of a loggia. As she approached, she saw that the person’s right leg was entirely encased in plaster and rested on a stool. The remaining flesh on show was a ghostly shade of alabaster – unmistakably belonging to Jupitus Cole. Assuming that he was fast asleep, Rose approached on tiptoe.

‘I can hear you, Rosalind,’ Jupitus murmured, without turning his head. ‘A herd of bison galumphing towards me couldn’t be less subtle.’

Momentarily Rose bristled with anger, but when she realized what a sorry state he was in, she softened. ‘You’ll have to be nice to me,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye, ‘otherwise I won’t make you lunch.’

He shrugged without removing his gaze from the ocean. ‘Already had lunch.’

‘Well, you’ll have to be nice to me anyway,’ she replied in a firmer, steadier tone.

Now he did look up at her, with eyes that were proud and sad at the same time, and with the tiniest glimmer of a smile. ‘It suits you, your hair like that, Rosalind,’ he said quietly. ‘Quite romantic.’

And he turned his gaze back to the sea.

9 T
HE
S
HADOW’S
H
AND

‘SO, AD 27
– how much do you know about it?’ Charlie asked.

Jake shrugged. ‘Well, the usual amount, I suppose . . .’

‘I see – basically not a lot?’

They were standing at the prow in the shadow of the sail. Nathan was still at the helm, his head tilted towards the sun and a makeshift collar of shiny metal around his neck to maximize his tan.

‘How much do you know about ancient Rome in general?’ Charlie continued.

‘I know about Julius Caesar,’ Jake began excitedly. ‘He was murdered.’

‘Yes, in the Theatre of Pompey, by his fellow senators – though that was over seventy years ago now. Do you know
why
he was murdered?’

Jake replied with a gesture somewhere between a nod and a shake. He quite liked it when Charlie acted like an eccentric schoolteacher, but was also a little scared.

‘Because he wanted to rule Rome all by himself. In short, he wanted to be
king
,’ Charlie explained.

‘I see,’ Jake murmured wisely.

‘But Rome hated the idea of a king, a single ruler. For hundreds of years it had been what they called a
republic
, with a new government elected every year. So they killed Julius Caesar.’ Charlie demonstrated with a little mime of being stabbed a number of times. It was disconcerting enough for Mr Drake to go flying off in a huff and resettle on the yardarm. ‘The trouble was, Julius Caesar had convinced so many people that a king – or rather an
emperor
, as they called it – would be good idea that it was too late to go back to the old ways. Anyway, to cut a long story short, there were seventeen years of exceedingly bloody civil war, some very gory decapitations and so on and so forth – until eventually Caesar’s son, Augustus, became the first true emperor of Rome.’

‘Quite a man, Augustus,’ Nathan chipped in as he rearranged his sun reflector.

‘Very accomplished indeed,’ Charlie concurred. ‘He expanded the Roman Empire dramatically, to Egypt and North Africa and east to Macedonia, connecting it all with hundreds of roads, as well as completely rebuilding Rome itself, transforming it – in his own words –
from a city of bricks to a city of marble
.’

‘So is he still the emperor?’ Jake asked.

‘Died thirteen years ago,’ Charlie replied. ‘His stepson, Tiberius, is now in charge.’

‘Bit of a tricky one, Tiberius,’ Nathan put in.

‘Nathan’s right. He was once a good general, but he never really wanted the job of emperor, which explains why he now lives as a recluse on the island of Capri, governing at a remove through his right-hand man Lucius Sejanus, another gruff army type.’

‘At a remove?’ queried Jake.

‘By post,’ Charlie clarified. ‘He rules the entire Roman Empire by letter.’

‘But make no mistake’ – Nathan left the helm and approached the others, holding out his arms dramatically and speaking in his most theatrical tones – ‘Rome is in its heyday, rich beyond belief, huge armies everywhere; the greatest, most powerful civilization the world has ever known.’

‘I’m sorry . . .’ Charlie shook his head. ‘I can’t take you seriously in that ridiculous collar.’

‘What?’ Nathan shrugged. ‘You’d prefer an untanned neck? Like some barbarian? Romans are very judgemental, very body conscious. You get things even slightly wrong and you’re a laughing stock. Besides, I have standards, Charlie Chieverley.’ He stuck out his chin and retreated back to the helm.

‘You? A laughing stock?’ Charlie shook his head at Jake. ‘Surely not possible?’

Jake smiled to himself: he’d missed the friendly banter between the two of them. As he stared out to sea, he found himself standing straighter, his shoulders back, proud to be on a mission with his friends again. Then his mind turned to their assignment: to find Topaz St Honoré. Out of the blue she had sent that Meslith to Point Zero with her time and place coordinates – the island of Vulcano in May,
AD
27 – along with the coded phrase:
Follow the shadow’s hand
.

Topaz had haunted Jake’s thoughts every day since she disappeared into the foaming waters of the North Sea. Her image sometimes appeared to him smiling or laughing – like on the day they first met in London, or at the village dance by the Rhine in
Germany. At other times she lurked in shadows, lost, full of sadness, a prisoner of her own dreadful history. Although she had been brought up – since the age of five – by Nathan’s family on the Mont St Michel, she was actually related by blood to one of the History Keepers’ greatest enemies, the diabolical Zeldt family. Daughter of Agata, she was also the niece of Xander, the prince who had plotted in vain to destroy the Renaissance.

By early afternoon an island had come into view ahead. ‘That’ll be it,’ Charlie commented. ‘Vulcano, the most southern of the Aeolian Islands.’ He raised his telescope to examine it, then passed it over. Jake surveyed Vulcano with keen interest: it was maybe eight miles across, with sheer cliffs, and so thickly wooded it appeared like a giant emerald rising up out of the sea.

‘Quite an odd destination – it’s barely populated, with just one little port,’ Charlie said, pointing towards a cluster of houses at the base of a steep slope, ‘servicing various mining outfits. Even the volcano is dormant. Of course, like everywhere in the Roman world, there are all sorts of local stories: some say the island is the chimney from Vulcan’s
workshop, others that it’s the entrance to the underworld.’

At the word ‘underworld’, Jake noticed Nathan giving Charlie a nervous glance.

As the
Conqueror
glided into the bay, Jake noticed a smell – a pungent, sour stench – which grew stronger as they approached. He looked round at Nathan, whose face was screwed up with distaste.

‘Dear me, Charlie,’ the American drawled. ‘Have you been at the lentils again? I thought we discussed that.’

‘It’s sulphur, you idiot,’ Charlie retorted. ‘It’s obviously one of the minerals they excavate here. Look . . .’ He pointed to crates full of yellowish stone. ‘Along with charcoal by the look of it,’ he added with a nod towards a mound of black rocks.

The sulphur was a little too much for Nathan, who took out a silk handkerchief and held it to his nose.

As they docked at the makeshift wooden quay, various sullen-looking locals, their faces dirty from the mines, watched them through narrow, suspicious eyes.

‘Friendly looking bunch,’ Nathan commented under his breath.

Charlie, who was never one to take hostility personally, disembarked and cheerily approached a particularly grim-faced group; they looked like they might tear him in two and eat him for tea, but he simply bade them good morning, showed them his map and questioned them at length – needless to say, he was the only one of the agents who could speak and understand Latin with real fluency. The miners replied with a lot of grunting and ominous shaking of heads. Once he had found out what he wanted to know, Charlie returned to the others.

‘Right, I think I have deciphered everything. Apparently Topaz’s coordinates refer to a small temple, an hour’s walk up the mountain. It’s been deserted for decades, but was originally dedicated to Proserpina, the Roman goddess of the underworld.’ Once again Nathan shot Charlie that look of trepidation. ‘Sometimes known as the “Queen of Shades”, which is very interesting, given Topaz’s message:
Follow the shadow’s hands
. According to the legend,’ Charlie explained, ‘Proserpina was abducted by Pluto against her will, and her goodness turned to evil, causing her mother, Ceres, to heap all sorts of revenge on mankind.’

‘Yes, fascinating,’ Nathan interrupted impatiently.
‘Why were they all shaking their heads?’

‘Oh, just some silly local story about the temple being haunted by the ghosts of her victims.’

‘No!’ Nathan suddenly exclaimed in a high-pitched voice that took Jake by surprise. ‘Absolutely not! You know full well that I don’t do ghosts in
any
form.’ He shivered with horror. ‘You two go alone. I’ll wait here and keep my eye on the ship. Besides, the whole business is suspect – why would Topaz lead us to some derelict temple in the middle of nowhere? It makes no sense.’

‘Which is precisely why we need to investigate,’ insisted Charlie, fastening his cape. ‘
All
of us! Non-negotiable.’

A short while later, having left Mr Drake happily eating his lunch, Charlie led the way up the steep path towards the old temple. Jake noticed that Nathan was looking nervously from side to side. It was cool in the forest, out of the sun, and a scent of pine filled their nostrils. It was quiet apart from the occasional caw of a bird, but sometimes a twig would snap and Nathan would stop dead, staring into the dark canopy of trees, certain that some phantom was about to strike.