“But I’m sure my thesis is correct,” Jake said into a fist. “With Constantine gone Eusebius would’ve had a free hand to embellish accounts of the emperor’s reign with his own hidden messages. And his references to lightning and prophecy are too frequent to be coincidence. We were looking in the wrong place.”
“I’m not persuaded.”
“There are passages I haven’t even shown you yet,” said Jake, flicking through Life of Constantine. “Tell me this one isn’t about the Book of Thunder.”
Others were caught organizing conspiracies against him, God disclosing the plots by supernatural signs. Divine visions were displayed to him and provided him with foreknowledge of future events.
“Wow,” said Florence.
“And there’s a ditty in Book Four.” said Jake. “What does this sound like to you?”
By keeping the divine faith, I am made a partaker of the light of truth. Guided by the light of truth, I advance in the knowledge of the divine faith.
“Ok, ok,” she said. “You’ve made your point. But even if Eusebius did hide something in Istanbul, what chance do we have of finding it? Roman Constantinople is six feet under.” Jake glimpsed sudden fear in her eyes. “I can’t return empty-handed, it’s not an option.”
“Don’t you ever think about anyone else? What about me? If we don’t find anything in the next twenty-four hours I’m finished as a journalist. I’ll be back on the local press before you can shout ‘planning application’. I’ve already been ordered back to London to face the Gorgon.”
“They might not sack you,” she ventured. “You weren’t to know …” her voice trailed off. “Jake? Jake? What’s wrong?”
But the reporter was far away. “Gorgon,” he repeated. “Gorgon.”
“I don’t understand. What is it, Jake?”
The journalist snatched up Life of Constantine and flicked through the pages. “Something just occurred to me. Here it is – in Book Two. One of Constantine’s rivals is warning his soldiers not to attack the emperor’s sign.”
Knowing what divine and secret energy lay within the trophy by which Constantine’s army had learned to conquer, he urged his officers not to even let their eyes rest upon it. Its power was terrible, it was hostile, and they ought to avoid battle with it. They advanced to the attack with lifeless statues as their defence.
“The ‘divine and secret power’ is the Book of Thunder,” said Jake. “But doesn’t that bit about ‘not allowing their eyes to rest on the terrible power’ remind you of the Gorgon? Medusa turned everyone who looked at her to stone. Or ‘lifeless statues’ as Eusebius puts it.”
“Is there a Gorgon in Roman Istanbul?”
“There most definitely is.” Jake reached for the Rough Guide; a snake-haired head glared at them from its pages.
Florence looked up the location where the sculpture was to be found. “It’s hard to believe something so prosaic as an underground water cistern could be fascinating,” she read. “But combine Roman engineering with contemporary lighting and you get one of the city’s most impressive remains.”
“What do you think? Possibility?”
“It’s subtle,” Florence admitted. “But if your theory’s correct Eusebius would have needed to be discreet. His life would have depended on it.”
She read for a few moments longer and put down the book. “Wait – no, this can’t be it. The reservoir was built two centuries after Eusebius lived.”
But Jake took the Rough Guide back, an enigmatic smile playing on his lips.
“The ceiling of the cistern is supported by three hundred and thirty-six columns,” he read. “But the two Medusa heads supporting columns in the south-west corner are clearly relics from a far older building.”
25
The cobbles were daubed a streetlight yellow when they arrived at the cistern. Florence collared the janitor as he locked up for the night; as money changed hands Jake glimpsed a wedge of hundred-dollar bills in her purse. Still in thrall to the bank of mum and dad, then.
The lights were already off, so the janitor loaned them a torch. Then the pair descended into what felt like the stronghold of some dwarvish king. Lines of columns stretched before them, silent as pine trees. Arched ceilings were visible fifty feet above, and a whiskered catfish broke the surface of the subterranean reservoir before darting off into the murk.
“It was only rediscovered by Europeans in the sixteenth century,” whispered Jake. “Some French guy saw locals selling freshwater fish and asked where they caught them. He was taken here.”
It felt right to whisper; the only other sound was the distant drip of water echoing through the vaults. A gangway led to the south-west corner of the cistern and the shadows lurched forward as they walked across it, a forest of stone come to life.
The twin Gorgons stared into the underworld. One head was on its side and the other upside-down, reinforcing the strangeness of their presence here. Yet the nearest of the pair was not a classic representation of Medusa. There were no snakes for her hair and the face was too masculine. It looked more like …
“Alexander the Great.” Florence voiced Jake’s thoughts: the head before them could have been the great Macedonian, his tresses trailing in the wind of battle.
“But why?” she asked.
Jake fumbled in his backpack for Life of Constantine.
“There’s a passage about Alexander in here,” he said. “Book One, verse seven.”
Torchlight illuminated the page.
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 the ends of the whole earth with beams of light of the true religion.
“A man like a thunderbolt,” Jake repeated. “Beams of light of the true religion. If there’s anything to be found then it has to be here. Eusebius mentions Medusa and Alexander the Great individually – and he alludes to the Book of Thunder both times. Then here they are, side by side.”
Splashes interrupted him as Florence entered the water up to her knees. Her torchlight danced off the coins cast in by tourists, and a goldfish zigzagged away in fright.
“Eusebius said the divine and secret power lies within the saving trophy,” she said. “Perhaps there’s some kind of compartment.”
Jake admired her at that moment – Florence might be tricky, but she wasn’t afraid of getting stuck in. Yet the Gorgon refused to yield. He crashed into the water alongside her, gasping at the cold.
“I don’t think there’s anything inside Alexander either,” he said, probing the head with his fingers. “Unless …”
He paused mid-sentence. There was an algae-filled groove below the waterline.
Jake kneaded it with the tip of his finger, clearing the indentation of slime until it joined another notch, then another.
“There’s some kind of mark down here.”
“There’s one here too,” said Florence, feeling below the surface of the Gorgon.
She swept the water from the base of the head; Jake glimpsed symbols on the rock before the waters closed.
“Shut your eyes, I’ve got an idea.” Florence grinned at him. “Just trust me.”
Jake couldn’t resist peeping; he copped a glimpse of bare back and screwed his eyelids shut again.
“Ok, you can look now,” said Florence.
She had her coat on again. But in her hand she held the shirt she’d been wearing – and in the other was a crayon they had made rubbings with in the Agya Sophia. Florence dunked the shirt under the surface, clamping it over the first character and thrashing the crayon backwards and forwards. Then she retrieved the dripping garment and dangled it in the torchlight.
“My God,” whispered Jake.
Even with his scant knowledge of the period there could be no doubt. The single character imprinted onto the shirt was not of the Roman alphabet. Nor was it Gr
eek, nor Arabic, nor any of the other languages one might expect in that part of the world.
They were looking at ancient Etruscan.
26
Little filaments of light seemed to dart in the centre of Florence’s pupils and her face was contorted in triumph; the sinews stood out in her neck. Jake had never seen her like this before.
“Do you realize what we’ve done?” she hissed. “Do you realize what this is? A new inscription. A genuinely new inscription.”
She began pumping at the wall with her crayon, panting with the exertion. Soon the shirt was covered in the horny script and the rubbing began to inch down both sleeves.
“We’ve still got to check Alexander,” she said. “Can you check the janitor will keep this place open?”
Jake picked his way back through the cistern, sodden but exhilarated, only the light of his phone to guide him. When he got back he would have a noggin of Scotch to warm himself up properly. And then he would write one heck of a feature. Heston could put that in his pipe and smoke it.
A shape flitted across the walkway, stopping Jake dead. But the glow of his phone was lost in the blackness, and when he willed his eyes to make sense of the gloom his vision swam with imaginary blotches.
“Merhab?” he said. “Hello?”
Silence.
“Is someone there?” he shouted.
The salutation bounced off all four sides of the cistern. It was answered by nothingness, save for the drips all around him and the far-off splashes of Florence at work. Jake laughed. The dark was playing tricks on him.
*
On the other side of the column Jess Medcalf clung to the masonry, her cheek pressed to stone. After an eternity the journalist moved on. When his footsteps had receded to silence she breathed again, oxygen rushing into her bloodstream. Finally she peeped from around the column. In the distance Medcalf could make out the cobalt flicker of the journalist’s phone, a fairy dancing through the hall of the mountain king. She stole in the other direction. It was pitch black as she closed on the archaeologist – Florence’s back was to the agent and her breath misted the air. The archaeologist stood to unveil a dripping shirt, strange writing imprinted upon it.
Then something unexpected happened.
Florence glanced in the direction of the exit and, satisfied she was alone, produced a rock hammer. She raked the sharp end back and forth along the masonry, grunting as she worked. Occasionally the tool broke the surface – Medcalf could hear steel bite into water-corrupted rock – then she darted to the second statue and repeated the vandalism. Soon the work of destruction was done. Florence tucked away her hammer, Jake returned and they were gone.
Medcalf flicked on her own torch and ran to the statue. Limestone dust floated on the water. The rock beneath the surface felt crude, and a chip of stone came away beneath her fingers. Whatever had been written there was no more.
*
Jenny was sleeping when the phone call came. Medcalf was cogent and concise as she relayed what had happened, and she was impressed at the Ulsterwoman’s daring. If she hadn’t risked entering the reservoir they might never have known of the inscription at all. When the call ended Jenny bit her lip; her phone hovered in the air. But there was nothing else for it.
“Our woman in Istanbul!” cried Waits. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Glasses tinkled in the background and Jenny heard the burble of genteel conversation.
“There’s been a development,” she said. “Thought you’d want to know right away.”
“Very well, just give me a minute. I’m at Gormley’s new show in the Tate. Private viewing.” The noise faded into silence. “Right. What’s going on?”
Waits was rapt as Jenny told him of the inscription. And as she described Florence’s vandalism the silence magnified in intensity.
“Goodness gracious,” he said at last. “Where’s Jess now?”
“She’s trying to catch up with them. They’re both soaked – heading back to their hotel, I’d have thought.”
“How soon can she be armed?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said how soon can she be she armed? You heard me the first time, so for pity’s sake don’t dick about.”
Jenny was even more taken aback – Waits was never coarse. “It’ll take a while,” she managed.
“And where’s Alexander Guilherme?”
“He’s off duty, could be anywhere.”
Waits exhaled sharply. “Right. Call him now and tell him to collect the guns I sent by dip-post.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“When he and Jess get an opportunity I want that shirt collected from Wolsey and Chung. By force of arms if needs be.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I urge you not to say ‘I beg your pardon’ one more time.”
Jenny recovered herself. “Those guns are for self-defence, the last resort. We aren’t trained for that sort of thing. Get someone else in.”
“That could take an hour,” barked Waits. Then in a murmur, almost to himself: “Nobody expected they’d actually find anything.”
“Who could you get in an hour? Are there others here? If so the least you could do is tell me – call it operational courtesy.”
There was a pause. Then Waits said: “Oh, all the major embassies have a few smooth operators I can call on in absolute emergencies. E Squadron personnel – that’s SAS or SBS types to you and me.” He spoke like an office worker confessing to a stash of aspirin.
“Then bloody well call them,” said Jenny. “Don’t make my team carry out work we’re not supposed to do.”
Waits weighed it up. “Maybe you’re right. Let me have a think about it. But don’t let Wolsey and Chung out of your sight in the meantime. If they try to enter a hotel, a taxi – whatever – you move and you get that rubbing by whatever means necessary.” He cleared his throat. “Consider that a direct order of Her Majesty’s government.”
27
Another storm was brewing as they made for the hotel; the clouds roiled overhead as if the heavens themselves had turned restless. The few Istanbullus on the streets scurried past with collars upturned.
“There’s something I don’t get,” said Florence as they paced beside the Byzantine city wall. “The cistern was built in 532 AD. That’s two centuries after Eusebius wrote Life of Constantine. How did he know Alexander and Medusa would be there?”
“You’re forgetting something,” said Jake. “John the Lydian – Britton knew he was involved in this somehow.”
“Of course.” Florence was clear-eyed. “The scholar who translated the Etruscan calendar into Byzantine Greek. He was alive in 532.”
“Perhaps John the Lydian was a closet pagan too,” said Jake. “Maybe he cracked Eusebius’s code, just like we did.”
By keeping the divine faith, I am made a partaker of the light of truth. Guided by the light of truth, I advance in the knowledge of the divine faith.
“But Britton was wrong about one thing,” he continued. “John the Lydian’s legacy wasn’t hidden in the Agya Sophia at all. It was underneath Constantinople.”
“John the Lydian was a bureaucrat as well as a scholar,” Florence said. “In his day he was a powerful man – he could have seen to it that the statues remained in place when the cistern was enlarged.”
“For all we knew he moved them into the reservoir from somewhere else entirely,” said Jake. “But whoever installed them, it was a masterstroke. The water-level kept the inscriptions secret for the best part of two millennia.”
“I only wish Roger had been there to see it.”
Jake sought a distraction. This was his moment of triumph – if he was ever going to sleep with her it would be that very evening. He didn’t want her getting weepy.
“What did the inscription actually say?” he asked.
At once Florence’s mentor was forgotten. “It’s the most complete Etruscan writing I’ve ever found,” she said. “Sensational, in fa
ct. And definitely from the Book of Thunder. It’s an incantation to dii consentes. The pitiless ones. They were Gods of fate, the advisers of Tin, the Etruscans’ supreme deity.”
Florence produced the shirt and began gleefully reading by the streetlight. On her tongue the extinct language sounded almost feral; it gave Jake the shivers. She was interrupted by the crack of thunder over the European mainland to the north-west, and lightning licked the underside of the clouds like a forked tongue. It was answered immediately by the stirring of the breeze, as though the wind was gearing itself up to meet the challenge of its brother element.
“Let’s get back to the hotel,” she said, quickening her pace. “It’s looking ugly up there.”
“It’s only two blocks away,” said Jake. “If the heavens open we can sprint.”
Florence’s reply was to seize him by the lapels of his coat and haul him into an alcove in the city wall. For a horrifying moment Jake thought she was pouncing on him.
Any second now we’ll be kissing.
But the kiss never came.
“What’s wrong?” said Jake. “What is it?”
The archaeologist silenced him with a finger to the lips. Her eyes darted in the direction of their hotel.
“Be quiet,” she mouthed.
Jake pressed himself into the shadows, all the old suspicions returning in force.
I’ll level with you, Mr Wolsey. I think I’m being followed.
Together they skulked in the darkness; time passed and despite himself Jake began shivering in the chill.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Florence. “I don’t know what came over me. I suddenly felt so … so paranoid.”
For a moment Jake thought she was going to cry.
“Let’s get you back,” he said, leading her out of the alcove. “You need a hot bath. And we’ve earned a stiff drink.”
“What must you think of me?” she said when they were within sight of the hotel. “I lost the plot back there.”
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