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 the 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 Yucatan. 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.’
‘Guys in white robes,’ Costas murmured.
‘That’s the Victorian image of the druid, a kind of Gandalf figure, Merlin, gathering mistletoe and travelling unharmed between warring kingdoms. The idea of priestly mediators is probably accurate, but the rest is pure fantasy.’
‘Tacitus paints a pretty appalling picture,’ Jeremy said.
