‘Amorphophallus titanium.’ Charlie nodded in agreement. ‘Corpse flowers, as they are charmingly known. As well as smelling like putrefying flesh, they actually contain a stomach that can eat a small rodent. More and more, I’m endeared to our hostess.’
A man appeared through another door; he headed for a work bench and started pounding something with a pestle and mortar. He was tall and thin, with an angular face and a long plaited beard. Barely glancing at the boys, he indicated that they should deposit their baskets in the corner. They set them carefully down next to a stack of crates filled with crumbling pieces of rock. Jake caught sight of some unusual glass containers, hexagonal in shape – like the building – and filled to the brim with a blackish powder.
However, the bearded man now dismissed them with a brusque clap of his hands and they were forced to turn round and leave the building. On the other side of a stone courtyard was the main villa. A group of uniformed slaves were filing in through a side door.
‘That’s where we’re heading next,’ said Nathan. ‘The key is to look like we know what we’re doing.’ With that, he took a deep breath and set off across the courtyard, the others following close behind. They checked that no one was watching and slipped through the side door into a dark passageway that ran the length of the house. At the other end, the slaves were just turning the corner, their feet softly echoing on the stone floor, and were soon out of sight.
The boys passed a doorway that led to a central atrium and peered in. It was as wide, high and bright as the service areas were cramped and dark, with a grand staircase and floors paved in white marble.
Nathan signalled for them to continue along the passage. ‘This way for the private suites, I would say,’ he whispered, and they headed up the staircase. As they did so, they failed to notice two heavy-set figures watching from the end of the corridor.
Coming to a door, Nathan signalled for silence and carefully unsheathed his sword. He opened it and peered inside, then motioned for the others to follow.
They found themselves in a lady’s dressing room. Jake wondered if he might finally set eyes on Topaz, until Charlie announced, ‘Agata’s quarters – look.’ He pointed to a dressing table, its base resembling another monstrous bird of prey. The bird motif was everywhere: on the handle of a vanity mirror, in a ceiling fresco, pictured on the lids of coloured glass jars of perfumes and make-up.
A short passageway led to the bedroom. Again Nathan, weapon at the ready, gingerly advanced and, finding it empty, signalled for Jake and Charlie to follow.
The room was dominated by a throne-like bed illuminated by rays of late-afternoon sun streaming through two huge windows – glassless frames with a single horizontal bar – that looked out across the ocean. The room was empty, but there were signs of recent occupancy: the bed had been stripped, but the bedclothes still lay in a heap on the floor; a chest had been emptied and its drawers left open.
Nathan clicked his fingers at Jake. ‘Stand over there – make sure no one’s coming,’ he ordered. Jake went over to the main door. It was slightly ajar and he had a view of the landing and the top of the staircase.
Meanwhile Nathan headed over to the window and looked down at the vertiginous drop. ‘Ouch,’ he whistled. ‘Quite a plummet.’
Charlie examined some large scrolls that had been unrolled on a desk and held down with weights. On top was an ancient map of Europe, Asia and Africa; the continents were oddly shaped but distinguishable. A great swathe, from the Atlantic, across the Mediterranean and North Africa, and all the way to the Persian Gulf, was coloured red.
‘The extent of the Roman Empire?’ Nathan asked.
‘In theory,’ sighed Charlie. ‘Though our friend Agata seems to be staking a claim.’ He referred to her symbol of a vulture emblazoned with an A that was printed on every country pictured.
From where Jake was standing, he could see only a mass of red spread across the page. As he craned his head round to get a better view, he noticed something lying on the floor – a single sheet of parchment that had got caught under his foot. He picked it up and examined it. It looked like the title page of a manuscript: there was a single heading, scrawled in ink – Counters – and below this, a motif of seven golden eggs. Jake wondered if it was important.
‘Guys,’ he whispered over to the others, ‘what do you think about this?’ There was no reply. ‘Guys . . .?’ he called again.
Neither Nathan nor Charlie was listening. They had seen something shocking.
‘Is that who I think it is?’ Nathan asked. He was referring to a painting set into an alcove: it depicted a young man – arrogant, haughty, with a mane of perfectly straight blond hair.
‘The Leopard!’ Charlie gasped in astonishment.
11 EXIT PARADISE
JAKE’S BREATH STOPPED at the sound of the name. The Leopard – the vile, silky-voiced spy who had intercepted them at the Stockholm opera house; the man whose accomplice Jake had woefully mistaken for Philip; the enemy agent who had made off with their entire consignment of atomium.
From the doorway, Jake turned round to look at it. Even from the other end of the room, the sneer was unmistakable.
‘No, that really is too much,’ Nathan declared as he set eyes on a companion portrait in an adjacent alcove. ‘Why is Topaz next to that idiot?’
At the sound of her name, Jake abandoned his post, unaware of the two shadows moving up the stairs towards the landing, and was drawn irresistibly to the second picture. It was unmistakably her – the sphinx-like face, the indigo eyes, the tumbling tresses of golden hair. He could see that it had been painted recently; she still had the desperate look of a trapped animal that he had seen on the Lindwurm. This was bad enough, but there was an even greater shock: the two subjects were unmistakably similar. The Leopard (or rather Leopardo, as his name was given below the portrait) had the same mouth, the same cheekbones, the same eyes as Topaz.
Jake found himself asking a question to which he didn’t really want to know the answer: ‘Are they related, do you think?’
Charlie looked round at Nathan. ‘What do you think? Could she have a brother we didn’t know about?’
Nathan said nothing – just stared grimly at the portraits, his jaw clenched.
The discovery had set Charlie’s mind racing. ‘I hate to be the one to suggest it, but do you think she told him something about the Isaksens? Obviously she wouldn’t have known about the rendezvous in Sweden, but it’s an odd coincidence: she disappears and suddenly he’s in Sweden.’
‘Charlie, you’re not thinking straight,’ Nathan pointed out. ‘The Zeldts already knew about the Isaksens – they’ve known about them for centuries. Besides,’ he added, almost angrily, ‘there are no circumstances under which Topaz would talk, not even under duress.’
‘Omittite arma!’ shouted a voice from the doorway.
All three turned to see two muscular guards – gladiators from the training camp, both armed with swords. In an instant, the History Keepers had drawn their own weapons, though Jake got his caught up in his tunic.
‘Omittite arma!’ the first guard repeated.
‘You want us to drop our weapons?’ Nathan drawled as the men advanced. ‘You’re going to have to ask more politely than that.’
Suddenly two doors concealed behind the portraits crashed open and six more soldiers swept in. Jake froze, not knowing which way to turn, his sword still tangled up. Charlie swung round, but was caught off guard and was disarmed immediately. Nathan put up a brave fight, parrying the swords of his attackers – but the numbers were against him and within seconds four blades had converged on his head simultaneously. They hovered, glinting, in front of his eyes.
‘I suppose that’s as polite as it’s going to get.’ He shrugged, still refusing to surrender his weapon. With a sharp rap to his knuckles, one of the guards smashed it out of his hand. Jake finally freed his own weapon and, though the battle was surely lost, pointed it defiantly at each soldier in turn, edging towards
the door.
He stopped when his back came into contact with something sharp. He turned slowly to see a ninth soldier. Jake recognized him as the youth with the dimpled chin who had watched them so intently when they passed by earlier. On impulse he lunged, but the boy quickly caught Jake’s hand in his own huge paw, eyeballing him with a strange intensity as he removed the weapon from his grasp.
The History Keepers were herded together and led out of the room, the new arrival guarding their rear. Jake was horrified at himself: once again he had let his friends down. If he had stayed guarding the entrance, they might have had time to escape.
As they crossed the landing and started down the stairs, the ninth soldier shouted out to his comrades. They turned round, clearly perplexed; then, out of the blue, the dimpled youth shunted Jake and the others out of the way, pulled back his fist and punched the first guard with full force on the jaw. The man’s neck cracked; disbelief flashed in his eyes as he teetered and fell, toppling the entire platoon like a set of skittles. Like a giant snowball rolling out of control, they somersaulted down the steps in a confusion of flying limbs, ankles twisting, skulls cracking, flecks of blood spattering over the white marble.
‘Topaz friends?’ the mutineer asked in a thick accent as he picked up the weapons dropped by one of his comrades. The boys were struck dumb, but Charlie managed to hold up a shaking hand. ‘Lucius Titus,’ the youth announced, flashing his perfect white teeth and firmly shaking each of them by the hand. ‘I have waiting for you.’ He returned their swords to them. ‘Follow me. We have little time.’ And he was off down the passageway.
‘Where is Topaz?’ Jake called after him.
‘Quickly!’ the soldier hissed as he disappeared round a corner.
‘Who did he say he was?’ Nathan asked. ‘He looks rather pleased with himself.’
Charlie shrugged. ‘Lucius Titus?’
In the hall below, Jake saw one of the fallen guards lift his bleeding head, fumble for a whistle and blow hard into it. He needn’t have bothered: the front door was already flying open and another group of soldiers marched in.
‘We should probably follow the man,’ Charlie decided, and they hurried off along the passageway.
Lucius was waiting for them. ‘Quickly now!’ he ordered, herding them through a door, slamming it behind them and bolting it top and bottom. They found themselves in another bedroom like Agata’s, but smaller. Lucius opened a chest, produced two long lengths of rope and started tying the end of one to the iron bar across the window.
‘Is Topaz here?’ Jake asked.
Nathan added airily, ‘We’d love to have a word with her.’
‘Gone, with the magistra.’
‘The magistra?’ Nathan repeated. ‘I take it he means the delightful Agata?’ he enquired of Charlie. ‘The Zeldts do love their vulgar titles.’
‘Gone where?’ Jake enquired, a slight desperation creeping into his voice.
Lucius tightened the knot, threw the rope out of the window and began fastening the end of the second.
‘Excuse me,’ Nathan enquired. ‘Might I ask what’s going on?’
‘Only way out . . .’ Lucius pointed down. The soldiers had reached the bedroom door and were thumping on it, trying to force it open. ‘Or maybe you like to stay and fight?’ Charlie examined the escape route: there was a sheer drop right down to the ocean. ‘Even if you fall, you be safe,’ Lucius reassured him. ‘Water very deep.’
But Jake’s attention had been caught by something else: a pale blue dress with gold embroidery around its hem and neckline lay over a chair. It belonged to a different era entirely. ‘I – I know that,’ he stammered. ‘Topaz was wearing it when I last saw her. Is this her room?’ he asked the soldier, now looking around with keen interest. He noticed a long thick chain: one end was fastened to the wall; the other had a brace with a lock fitted on it. ‘Was she tied up here?’ asked Jake, going pale. He gritted his teeth. ‘Where is she? We demand to know.’
‘She has gone!’ Lucius insisted firmly, throwing out the second rope. ‘To Herculaneum.’
‘Herculaneum?’ asked Jake.
‘It’s on the mainland,’ Charlie explained. ‘Just north of Pompeii. There’s a wonderful library there.’
‘What’s she doing in a library?’ Jake continued his cross-examination, but the bangs on the door were becoming more urgent: the casing of the top bolt had almost come loose and the bottom was on its way.
‘Questions later, perhaps . . .?’ Charlie leaped up onto the windowsill. ‘Jake, shall we?’ he asked, taking hold of the first rope.
Jake followed his lead, but then looked down and saw the drop. ‘You’re joking!’ he gasped: they were higher than any cliff he had ever dared to peer over.
‘Any time you like,’ Nathan remarked sarcastically, one eye on the rattling door.
Jake grabbed hold of the second rope, took a deep breath and started to climb down. As soon as he was below the window – the top floor hung out over the sea – it swung sideways and he nearly lost his grip. When Nathan took hold of the same rope above him, it swung back the other way. Jake clung on for his life, and continued to inch his way down.
The four of them abseiled down the sheer cliff face, Charlie and Lucius on one rope, Jake and Nathan on the other. Suddenly there was a great splintering of wood from above and the sound of a door crashing open. A moment later, ten war-like faces – each protected by a bronze, slit-eyed mask – appeared through the aperture above, and within seconds, the soldiers were aiming bows and arrows.
‘I see you at the bottom,’ Lucius announced. ‘Hurry!’
Jake watched in amazement as he kicked away from the cliff and let go of the rope. He threw his arms into the air and dived, yelling as he plummeted earthwards. Halfway down – simply to show off, it appeared – he tucked into a somersault before finally entering the water, his body faultlessly straight, creating a perfect concentric ripple far, far below.
‘No way – I’m not doing that,’ Jake stammered, picking up speed down the rope, burning his hands as an arrow from above whistled past.
Nathan was also appalled, but for different reasons. ‘Just one somersault?’ he sneered. ‘No twist or pike? What an amateur.’ And now he also let go and threw himself out with a flourish, attempting two revolutions and a twist on the way down. In truth, despite his bravado, he was not as elegant as Lucius, and hit the water at an awkward angle. Charlie grimaced.
Now, whole swarms of arrows were flying through the air and, to make matters worse, the enemy were starting to hack through the ropes. Jake and Charlie knew that jumping was their only option.
‘I’ll count to three,’ Charlie shouted over to Jake, ducking his head as a missile sailed past, ‘and we’ll go together.’ Jake nodded grimly. He could feel goose-bumps tightening the skin around his neck. ‘Keep as straight as you can. One, two’ – Jake closed his eyes in prayer – ‘three.’
He opened his eyes again, pushed away from the cliff, and let go. An exquisite chill shot up his spine; colour and light flashed all around him. He heard an arrow pass by in slow motion, then gravity took over as he plunged down, accelerating towards certain death. The ocean shot towards him and he hit the surface. His first thought was that it wasn’t water at all: it felt like solid ground, sending an agonizing jolt up his back. But then he lost his hearing, and everything was cold, dark and blue. Within seconds he was swimming up towards the glinting surface. The moment he popped up into the sunshine again, another clutch of arrows whistled past into the water.
‘Here!’ Nathan was shouting. ‘Soldier boy wants us to go this way.’ He pointed towards the mouth of a cave leading under the cliff. ‘Apparently it goes through to the harbour.’
Lucius was holding onto a rock, grinning his dazzling smile. ‘Let’s go!’ he urged them.
Nathan, Jake and Charlie – who was not at home in the water, and had swallowed a good deal of it – swam after him into a cavern, dripping with stalactites, that twisted its
way into the mountain.
‘Topaz told me you come,’ Lucius explained, ‘and that I help you. I wait three days.’
‘The pleasure is all ours,’ said Nathan with an insincere smile.
‘How is it you speak English?’ Charlie asked, holding his head above the water with difficulty.
‘We all learn English,’ Lucius stated. ‘The magistra commands it. Also’ – he smiled – ‘I had extra lessons from Topaz.’
Jake looked across at him; he wasn’t sure if he’d heard correctly in the echoey tunnel, but there was a distinct warmth in the soldier’s voice.
‘And the magistra is your commander?’ Charlie wondered.
‘Not any more.’ Lucius laughed heartily.
‘And what’s your connection with Topaz?’ Nathan asked tersely.
Lucius didn’t answer the question, but instead asked him, ‘You swim all right?’
‘I swim just fine, thank you,’ the American replied firmly. ‘In fact I’ve won a load of prizes for my skill in the water.’ He demonstrated by switching to his best front crawl and taking off at speed.
‘Your friend is very proud!’ Lucius laughed again, the sound echoing around the chamber. As it died away, they became aware of other voices behind them. Charlie looked back and saw a sharp-prowed boat carrying five or six soldiers, their strange hooked-nose masks catching the light.
‘The Hydra never give up!’ Lucius replied. ‘We are trained to fight to the death.’
They all turned and swam quickly along the channel.
‘I take it the Hydra are your amiable friends from the villa upstairs?’ Charlie spluttered. ‘Good name,’ he commented to Jake. ‘From Greek mythology: the evil serpent with many heads.’
‘Not friends any more!’ Lucius shouted as more missiles, this time identified by Charlie as pila – javelins – and spincula – iron darts – started to fly through the air.
Finally the four swimmers made it through to the harbour. They hauled themselves up out of the water and picked their way quickly across the rocks and onto the rickety wooden pier where the Conqueror was waiting. Mr Drake, who was sitting anxiously on the yardarm, squawked – first with delight, when he saw them coming, then with terror when he realized what was going on.
History Keepers: Circus Maximus Page 12
