The Last Gospel

by David Gibbins

  ‘For us to discover.’

  ‘I think that’s what Claudius wanted. Not for Pliny to take up the trail, not another Roman, but someone far in the future, someone who could follow the clues and find his treasure at a time when it could be safely revealed.’

  ‘What he didn’t foresee was that the threat would remain,’ Costas murmured. ‘So where do we go now?’

  Jack said nothing, but looked at Costas apologetically.

  ‘I knew it,’ Costas said with resignation. ‘I just knew it. Another hole in the ground.’

  ‘We need to find a long-lost goddess.’

  14

  Twenty-four hours later, Jack led Costas past the great bulk of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, into the maze of streets and alleys that made up the heart of the old city. They had spent the previous night on board Seaquest II in the Mediterranean, and had flown into London City airport early that morning. Jack’s first task had been a meeting with Ben Kershaw, the IMU security chief. After their experience in Rome, what had begun as a secretive archaeological quest had taken on a deadly new dimension. As long as they were still searching, as long as it was clear to those who were following them that Rome had provided only another clue, not the object of their search, Jack felt they were reasonably safe. The fate of the man who had aimed a pistol at his head under the Palatine Hill was unknown, though the chances of surviving a body surf through the Cloaca Maxima without breathing gear were slim. It seemed almost inconceivable that they should have been followed to London, but Jack was taking no chances. They would keep the lowest possible profile, and Ben and two others would be lurking in the background, watching, waiting, ready to pounce should there be any repeat of their encounter in the ancient cavern under Rome.

  ‘Welcome to sunny London.’ Costas grimaced, then stood back too late as a line of black cabs rumbled past, sluicing water up over his ankles. He and Jack both wore blue Goretex jackets with the hoods up, and Costas was fumbling inexpertly with an umbrella. What had begun as a heavily overcast day had now settled into constant drizzle, interspersed with occasional heavy downpours. Costas sniffed noisily, then sneezed. ‘So this was where Claudius brought his precious secret. Seems an awful long way from Judaea.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Jack said, raising his voice above the traffic. ‘The early Christians in Roman Britain thought they had a direct link to the Holy Land, undistorted by Rome. It caused them no end of trouble when the Roman Church tried to assert itself here.’

  ‘So we’re on the site of Roman London now.’

  ‘Just entered it. The City of London today, the financial district, is the old medieval city, and that was built on the ruins of the Roman city of Londinium. You can still see the line of the Roman walls in the street layout.’

  ‘This place must have seemed a backwater to the Romans,’ Costas said, splashing across the street behind Jack. ‘Who’d have wanted to come here?’

  ‘Look around you now, at the faces,’ Jack said, as they navigated through a crowd of people hurrying on the pavement. ‘London was just as cosmopolitan in the Roman period. It was founded for commerce, a magnet for traders from all corners of the empire.’ He veered left over the road and dodged through traffic which had almost crawled to a standstill, then led Costas up the alleyway opposite. ‘It’s true that the Celtic background gave Britain a particular stamp, something that made it seem very distant to some Romans, pretty frightening. But this place was no backwater for Roman entrepreneurs, for freedmen and retired soldiers on the make. It offered chances of a fortune and social status they never would have found in Rome.’

  ‘You mean guys like Narcissus, Claudius’ freedman?’ Costas said.

  ‘Precisely. He may never have lived here, but those British lead ingots with his name stamp we found on St Paul’s shipwreck show he was a pretty shrewd investor in the new province.’

  ‘So it was Claudius who invaded this place.’ Costas blinked up at the drizzle that was beginning to envelop them, and then pulled the hood of his jacket forward. ‘Left Italy for this.’

  Jack wiped the sheen of water from his face, and then bounded across another street. They were in Lawrence Lane, heading towards the medieval Guildhall. ‘Claudius was on a mission,’ he said. ‘It was a matter of family pride, living up to his ancestors, taking up where they had left off. Almost a hundred years before, his great-great-uncle Julius Caesar had landed in Britain with his legions at the tail end of the conquest of Gaul. It was more a show of strength than an invasion, a bit of ancient gunboat diplomacy, to keep the Britons on their side of the Channel.’

  Costas peered out gloomily from under his hood. ‘You mean Julius Caesar took one look at this place, thought better of it and left.’

  Jack grinned. ‘He had other things on his mind. But he paved the way for traders. Even before Claudius invaded, there was a settlement of Romans at the tribal capital Camulodunum, about fifty miles north-east of here near modern Colchester. They imported cargoes of wine in pottery amphoras, exactly the same type we discovered in the shipwreck of St Paul and saw in Herculaneum. They discovered that the British loved alcohol.’

  ‘Glad to see that hasn’t changed.’ Costas’ muffled voice came from several paces behind, and Jack turned to see his friend’s hooded figure standing in front of a pub. Costas pulled down his hood and pointed suggestively. Jack shook his head and beckoned him. ‘We’re almost there. Time for that later.’

  ‘That’s what you always say,’ Costas grumbled, then splashed up behind Jack. They walked on for a few paces in silence, then Costas caught Jack’s arm and pulled him to a halt. ‘One thing been’s nagging at me since Rome, Jack.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘It’s Elizabeth, your encounter with her at Herculaneum. You said she warned you, told you to be on your guard.’

  ‘It was only a few snatched words.’

  ‘I’m wondering about our assailant in the cave under Rome. Whoever he was, whoever they are, how could they have known we were there?’

  ‘I assume we were being followed. I only really put it together afterwards, but it wouldn’t have been difficult to trace us from Herculaneum to Seaquest II, then to Rome. A few tapped phone calls, even some hijacked satellite surveillance. We kept our movements low-key but it still wouldn’t have been difficult for the right people to know we were trucking IMU diving equipment into the centre of Rome, and going into the Cloaca Maxima.’

  ‘You’re suggesting some pretty sophisticated surveillance.’

  ‘That could be what we’re dealing with. No holds barred.’

  ‘They seemed to know specifically what we were after. That guy in the cave. The last thing he said. “Give it to me.” ’

  ‘Are you suggesting Elizabeth could have been part of this?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything.’

  Jack looked troubled. ‘She did say something else. I thought it was personal, about us, but maybe I was wrong.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She said she knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘That was it. Just that she knew. It was the last thing she said to me.’

  ‘Do you think she knew what we’d found in Herculaneum? Do you think she’d been up the tunnel into the villa herself, before we arrived?’

  ‘Maurice was certain that nobody else had been through the crack in the wall before us, and he knows better than anyone the signs of modern interference, tomb-robbers. But Elizabeth could have gone up the tunnel in secret the night before we arrived, seen Narcissus and the carbonized scrolls, looked through the crack into the chamber. She could have known there were scrolls.’

  ‘Why not tell you?’

  ‘There was fear in her eyes. Real fear. And she’s one tough lady, brought up in the back streets of Naples. I’ve left repeated phone messages for her at the superintendency, but no reply. I think she told me everything she could in those few moments. I think she was taking a big risk.’

  ‘You think she’s on our si
de?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think, Costas. I haven’t known what to think about Elizabeth for a long time. But I do believe she’s not pulling the strings. There something very powerful behind all this, powerful enough to put the gag on her. And that frightens me too.’

  Costas grunted, peered up at the drizzle again, then nodded slowly. ‘Okay. I guess we don’t have any choice. We carry on. But I still feel like bait.’

  ‘Ben and the other guy are just behind us.’

  Costas nodded, and then walked on. ‘Okay. Back to Roman London. A lot of foreigners here, so a lot of foreign ideas too.’

  ‘Exactly.’ They came to the edge of Gresham Street, and Jack pointed to the building opposite. ‘That’s what we’ve come for.’ Costas gazed at the darkened masonry façade, clearly much older than the towering concrete and glass structures of Lawrence Lane they had just passed through. The façade was broken by five tall windows with a circular window at each end, and the east side in front of them had columns and a pediment embedded in it in a neoclassical style. ‘English baroque,’ Jack continued. ‘Not quite as grand as St Paul’s, but same period, same architect. One of the City churches rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren following the Great Fire of London in 1666.’

  ‘St Lawrence Jewry.’ Costas peered at a soggy tourist map he had pulled from his pocket.

  ‘The name says it all.’ Jack waited for a taxi to roar past. ‘This was the Jewish quarter of London until the Jews were expelled in the thirteenth century. St Lawrence Jewry is Church of England, Anglican, but just up the road there are Catholic churches, Nonconformist chapels, synagogues, mosques, you name it. That’s my point. It would have been similar in Roman London. Today most people worship one God, but in some ways it’s not that far from the polytheism that Romans such as Claudius would have known, with lots of different temples and forms of ritual.’

  ‘Wasn’t there a cult of the emperor too?’

  Jack nodded and stepped back against a wall for a moment, out of the spray from the road. ‘The Romans built a temple to Claudius at Colchester, and maybe one here in London too. Privately, I don’t think Claudius would have bought into it, if he really did survive to see himself being worshipped. It would have smacked too much of his deranged nephew Caligula, and of Claudius’ successor Nero. But here in the provinces, the imperial cult was a practical matter, a way of getting the natives to pay dues to Rome, as much as it was about idolizing the individual emperor himself.’

  ‘Didn’t the Romans try to stamp out rival religions?’

  ‘Not usually. That’s the beauty of polytheism, politically speaking. If you already have more than one god, then it’s easy enough to absorb a few more, less hassle than trying to eradicate them. And absorbing foreign gods stamps the authority of your own gods over them. That’s what happened in Roman Britain. The Celtic war god was absorbed into the cult of Mars, the Roman war god, who had earlier absorbed the Greek war god Ares. The Celtic goddess Andraste from our inscription was linked with Diana and Artemis. Even Christianity came to adapt pagan rites of worship, including temples and priests. Almost everything you see about that church over there would have been unfamiliar to the first Christians, even the idea of an organized religion with acts of worship. To some of them, it might have been anathema.’

  ‘Maybe even to their Messiah himself.’

  ‘Provocative thought, Costas.’

  ‘Remember, I was brought up Greek Orthodox. I can say these things. In Jerusalem, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Greeks think they’re the closest to Christ, custodians of the Tomb. But then so do all the other denominations there, Armenian, Roman Catholic, you name it, all crowded up against it, competing. It’s a bit ridiculous, really. Not seeing the wood for the trees.’

  Jack led Costas briskly over the road, past the church and into Guildhall Yard. A few metres behind them was the west wall of the church, and in front of them, set into the paving slabs of the courtyard, was a wide arc of dark stones, like part of a huge sundial extending under the surrounding buildings. Jack’s cell phone chirped and he spoke quickly into it, then began to walk towards the entrance to the Guildhall Art Gallery on the west side of the courtyard, following the alignment of the arc. ‘Jeremy’s there already,’ he said. ‘And remember this arc on the courtyard. It clarifies what we’re about to see.’

  Ten minutes later they stood at almost exactly the same spot as on the courtyard but eight metres below ground. They were in a wide subterranean space, backlit around the edges, with brick and masonry ruins in front of them. They had taken off their coats, and Costas was reading a descriptive plaque. ‘The Roman amphitheatre,’ he murmured. ‘Fantastic. I had no idea.’

  ‘Nor did anyone else, until a few years ago,’ Jack said. ‘Much of the city above Roman London was destroyed by German bombing during the Second World War, and clearance and redevelopment has allowed a lot of archaeological excavation to take place since then. But the chance for a big dig in Guildhall Yard didn’t come up till the late 1980s. This was their most astonishing find.’

  ‘That elliptical arc in the pavement, above us,’ Costas murmured. ‘Now I’ve got you.’

  ‘That arc marks the outline of the arena, the central pit of the amphitheatre,’ Jack said.

  ‘What date are we looking at?’

  ‘You remember the Boudican revolt? That took place in AD 60, about the same time as St Paul’s shipwreck. Roman London had been founded about fifteen years before that, soon after Claudius’ invasion in 43. Boudica destroyed the first Roman settlement, but it soon recovered and there were big building projects underway within a few years. The amphitheatre was wooden, but the wall you see here around the arena was made of brick and stone, probably begun some time in the seventies.’

  ‘In time for Claudius’ second visit, incognito as an old man.’

  ‘That’s my working hypothesis, that he came here some time shortly before AD 79, on a secret mission.’ Jack pulled out his translation of the extraordinary riddle they had discovered on the wax tablet in Rome. ‘Between two hills,’ he said in a low voice. ‘That’s what London looked like, with the Walbrook stream running down the middle. And then the gladiator’s oath. To be burned by fire, to be bound in chains, to be beaten, to die by the sword. This has to be the spot.’

  ‘Where Andraste lies,’ Costas murmured. ‘A temple? A shrine?’

  ‘Some kind of holy place, the home of a goddess.’

  ‘But where exactly?’

  ‘There’s one spot here that hasn’t been excavated, between the amphitheatre and the Church of St Lawrence Jewry,’ Jack said. ‘Just behind the wall over there.’ At that moment he heard footsteps coming up behind them and he swivelled round in alarm, then relaxed. ‘Here’s someone who might be able to tell us more.’

  15

  A tall, rangy young man with glasses and a shock of blond hair came loping up to Jack and Costas, smiling and waving his hand in greeting. With his dripping Barbour jacket and pale corduroys, Jeremy Haverstock looked the quintessential English country squire, but his accent was American. ‘Hi, guys. Just got off the train from Oxford. Lucky your call got me at the Institute yesterday, Jack. I was on my way out for a week in Hereford studying the lost cathedral library. Maria gave me complete responsibility for it, you know. It’s a big break for me, and I was a little worried about cancelling. I couldn’t get her on her cell phone.’

  ‘She’s back in Naples by now,’ Jack said. ‘She and Hiebermeyer are tying themselves up in red tape. Don’t worry, I’ll put in a word.’

  ‘I had time for a couple of hours in Balliol College library in Oxford yesterday evening,’ Jeremy said. ‘Turns out Balliol owned the Church of St Lawrence Jewry from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and they still have the archive. I looked up what you wanted. I think I found enough for you to go on, but I need to get back there after we visit the church. There’s one really intriguing lead I want to follow.’

  ‘Great to see you again, by th
e way, Jeremy,’ Costas said. ‘Hadn’t expected it so soon.’

  ‘The whole thing still seems like a dream, our expedition,’ Jeremy said. ‘The hunt for the lost Jewish treasure, Harald Hardrada and the Vikings, the underground caves in the Yucatán. I thought I might try to write it down, but nobody would believe it.’

  ‘Just make it fiction,’ Costas said. ‘And leave our names out of it. At the moment, we’re trying to remain anonymous. We’ve had a slightly unpleasant encounter in Rome. Underground.’

  ‘So Jack tells me,’ Jeremy said quietly. ‘You guys seem to make a habit of it. I thought I recognized someone in the art gallery above, from Seaquest II.’

  ‘Good,’ Jack murmured. ‘They’re here.’

  ‘We’ve got half an hour until we can get into the crypt.’

  ‘Crypt?’ Costas said.

  ‘Fear not,’ Jeremy said. ‘It’s empty. The first one is, anyway.’

  Costas gave him a dubious look, then sat down on a chair and leaned back, stretching out his legs. ‘Okay. So we’ve got a little time. Some questions. Put me in the picture. Tell me about this place before the Romans. In the lead-up to Claudius,’ he said.

  Jack looked at him keenly. ‘Prehistoric London was a weird place. Not a settlement, as far as we can tell, but a place where something was going on. Best guess is some kind of sacred site. Trouble is, we don’t know much about religion in the Iron Age, because they didn’t build temples or make representations of their gods that have survived. Almost all we have to go on are the Roman historians, most of them biased, all second-hand.’

  ‘Druids,’ Jeremy said, sitting down on the edge of the amphitheatre wall and leaning forward. ‘Druids, and human sacrifice.’

  Jack nodded. ‘When the Roman general Suetonius Paulinus heard of Boudica’s revolt, he was attacking the remote island of Mona, modern Anglesey off north Wales. It was the last bastion of the British who’d refused to come under Rome’s yoke, and the sacred stronghold of the druids.’