History Keepers: Circus Maximus

by Dibben, Damian

  It was one of the few pieces of Latin that Jake knew – ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ – spoken, he was certain, by Julius Caesar after invading some new country.

  With the tip of his dagger, Nathan drew back the curtain to reveal the man in the room beyond. He looked both magnificent and ridiculous. On the one hand he was tall, aristocratic-looking, dressed in a dark purple toga, with a laurel wreath on his head. On the other, he kept pulling peculiar faces at himself in a mirror, doing odd exercises with his mouth, while striking poses and waving around a half-eaten leg of baked flamingo.

  Jake and Nathan were trying hard not to laugh, but Charlie’s expression was serious. The moment he set eyes on Austerio, he understood what was going on: the facial likeness, the purple toga, the oratory. ‘Tiberius,’ he murmured. ‘He’s going to impersonate the Emperor Tiberius.’

  ‘What?’ whispered Nathan, his smile suddenly evaporating.

  ‘The emperor is a recluse, remember?’ Charlie explained. ‘He lives on Capri. He has barely been seen in public for years, but this man is the spitting image of him.’

  As Jake craned to get a better look, he knocked Nathan’s dagger from his hand and it dropped with a clang on the floor.

  Austerio – for it was surely he – swung round, gasping in horror as the three boys swept in. Perhaps if they had been unarmed he might have reacted differently; but as they came towards him, he waved his arms, moaning and rolling his eyes like some character from a Greek tragedy. Realizing that gestures alone were not going to save him, he flung his flamingo drumstick at them, then his plate of food, along with a couple of candlesticks. Nathan finally managed to clap a hand over his ranting mouth.

  ‘Ssh! Listen, we’re not here to hurt you,’ he told him. ‘We’re friends. Amici sumus. You are Austerio – tu es Austerio, amicus Ficium – Fico the Fantastic.’

  Austerio had been struggling and trying to yell through Nathan’s fingers, but on hearing his name, and then that of his friend (or enemy), he gradually calmed down. Eventually Nathan removed his hand.

  Austerio collected himself, rearranging his few strands of hair before replying tersely, ‘Fico is not fantastic, it is I who is fantastic.’ And to demonstrate the point, he struck a dramatic pose, showing his face first front-on and then in profile.

  ‘You speak English?’ Charlie asked, bemused.

  ‘Of course.’ The actor shrugged. ‘I have a thousand talents. Fico has none.’

  Nathan picked up a bound book from the table. ‘Latin–English dictionary,’ he read from the spine, then opened it and looked inside. ‘Published 1590 – somewhat advanced for Roman times?’ he commented to the others before turning back to Austerio. ‘Did Agata Zeldt tell you to learn English? How long have you known her?’

  Austerio carefully examined them all before finally answering with a petulant shrug, ‘Who are you and what business have you here?’

  Nathan and Charlie looked at each other blankly, but Jake jumped straight in: ‘We’re writing an epic poem. About you – about all your achievements.’

  ‘An epic poem?’ Austerio asked, immediately interested.

  ‘We’re your greatest fans,’ Jake assured him with a bow. ‘Your most loyal supporters. In Herculaneum, we have watched every one of your performances – haven’t we?’

  Charlie and Nathan nodded eagerly.

  The actor was hooked. ‘But you’re just children,’ he said patronizingly, but couldn’t resist adding, ‘Really? Every performance?’

  ‘All the classics,’ Charlie chipped in. ‘Plautus, Terence . . .’

  ‘You saw my Phormio?’ he asked, striking another heroic pose. ‘My towering Greek commander?’

  ‘It was so moving,’ Nathan stated with absolute sincerity, ‘I nearly threw myself on my sword.’

  ‘By Jupiter! If that’s how you find my comedies, my tragedies must be unbearable.’

  ‘You have no idea.’ Nathan shook his head and put his hand on his heart – once again choosing the wrong side.

  Suddenly Austerio frowned and glanced towards the stairs, then leaned forward to whisper, ‘Periculosus est hic – but it is dangerous here. If you are found, they will think you are spies. How came you in?’

  ‘We followed you all the way to Rome,’ said Jake, ‘then waited outside the villa for an opportunity to see you.’

  Moved by such devotion, Austerio sighed, his eyes welling with tears.

  Then, not to be outdone in the acting stakes, Charlie added, ‘For our own sanity, you must tell us what it is you are doing here. Herculaneum is barren without you.’

  At first Austerio was reluctant to discuss the matter, but after a good deal of coaxing, his vanity got the better of him and he began to talk – first in snippets, then in ever-increasing torrents. He spoke of how he had first met his patroness – as he called Agata – six months ago; of how she had admired his talent and wined and dined him in all the fashionable eateries of the bay of Naples; of her desire for him to learn her peculiar language to make him an even bigger star. He recounted how she had picked him up in Herculaneum and transported him – by ship and then by carriage, in the lap of luxury – to Rome.

  ‘That’s all very exciting,’ Nathan butted in, ‘but what exactly are you doing here?’

  Austerio looked down his nose at them. ‘I am here to give the performance of my life; to play none other than the Emperor Tiberius – it is a matter of national security.’

  Charlie nudged Jake. ‘Didn’t I say so?’

  ‘That’s right. I, the humble Austerio,’ he declared, ‘just a small-town boy from the wrong side of the Apennines, using my oceanic talent to save my beloved country!’

  ‘National security?’ Charlie repeated. ‘Save your beloved country? What do you mean?’

  Austerio leaned in close and whispered, ‘Dear boys, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but an uprising is afoot. A bloody revolution across the Empire, ten times more deadly than that of Spartacus. The world is on the brink of calamity!’ He put his hand on his heart – choosing the correct side, unlike Nathan, Jake noticed. ‘But I shall be playing my part to bring safety back to the people.’

  Needless to say, when questioned about exactly how he would be doing this, he couldn’t give a straight answer – mumbling something about an empire needing its emperor – and when asked who would be leading this revolt, he also looked blank.

  They were about to ask him all sorts of other questions when they heard a bell tolling.

  ‘That’s it,’ Austerio gasped. ‘The fourth hour. They’ll be coming for me at any moment. You must go,’ he said, pushing them out of the room. ‘They will think you are spies, and have no mercy.’

  ‘Coming for you?’ asked Nathan.

  ‘I am to make a regal appearance at the party,’ Austerio said, ‘before the big day tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Jake, Nathan and Charlie repeated in unison. ‘What’s tomorrow?’

  ‘My first public show. I am to appear at the games at the Circus Maximus. Now go . . .’ He ushered them up the stairs. ‘Leopardo will be here any second and I must get ready.’

  Hearing this name, the young agents looked at each other. None of them fancied bumping into Leopardo. They quickly said their goodbyes, promised to look out for Austerio the next day, and charged back up the stairs.

  ‘And be careful, boys.’ He sighed, putting his hand on his heart again. ‘I will do everything in my power to prevent the revolution, but Rome is not a safe place to be.’

  Charlie whistled up to Lucius, who lowered the two ropes. Nathan quickly climbed up first, without any help. Charlie took the second rope. Jake was always surprised that Charlie, who spoke twenty languages and understood quantum physics, was so agile as well. He had none of Nathan’s style but he had shinned up the rope in no time at all.

  In contrast, Jake, even with Lucius’s help, struggled to pull himself up. He had nearly made it to the skylight when he heard the sound of a key in the lock below. In a flash, the door
flew open and Leopardo strode into the room.

  Jake had stopped breathing. He was hanging in midair from a spinning, creaking rope.

  16 ANDROMEDA AND THE SEA MONSTER

  NATHAN, CHARLIE AND Lucius, their faces hovering in the darkness above the skylight, watched in horror as Leopardo strode over to the trapdoor and called out to Austerio. They hoped he would go down the steps so that they could pull Jake to safety. But he simply waited, pouting at himself – just like Nathan – in the mercury wall mirror, until Austerio appeared.

  The actor immediately caught sight of Jake, suspended in the dome, and gasped out loud. Jake lost his grip and slipped down towards the table, the coarse rope burning his palms as he did so.

  The boys were sure that it would end in disaster, but Austerio acted quickly, pretending that he was simply shocked by the sight of his reflection in the mirror. He muttered something about everything being off centre and asked Leopardo to straighten his crown of laurels. As the latter complied with a curl of his lip, Jake was hauled up towards the skylight.

  He was almost there when Leopardo clapped his hands and announced that they must leave immediately. At this moment, disaster struck: Jake’s mask, which he had tucked inside his toga, fell out. He tried in vain to grab it with one hand, then with a foot. As it spiralled down towards the floor, Austerio started speaking again, this time complaining loudly about the cut of his tunic.

  Losing patience, Leopardo barked that there was nothing wrong with it and headed towards the door. Suddenly he stopped dead, catching sight of the mask on the floor. He picked it up and examined it, looking at Austerio – and then up at the dome. There was nothing there: just a dark patch of sky framed by the skylight. He opened the door and ushered the actor through.

  From the rooftop, four silhouettes, all breathing great sighs of relief, watched Leopardo and Austerio cross the courtyard below and enter the villa.

  For a short while they stood there in the darkness, mulling everything over.

  Charlie was the first to speak. ‘He said that the Circus Maximus was to be his first public show.’

  ‘Yep.’ Nathan nodded seriously. ‘I heard that too.’ He turned to Jake. ‘And what did Topaz say? Everything will begin with a public murder?’

  Suddenly it dawned on Jake – a shocking and terrible idea. ‘He’s going to be murdered? Austerio?’

  ‘Not Austerio,’ Nathan corrected him. ‘Tiberius.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I know my Roman history is not as good as yours, Charlie, but ever since Spartacus, isn’t everyone in the empire paranoid about another rebellion?’

  ‘Spartacus,’ Lucius suddenly chipped in. ‘I’ve heard of him.’

  Nathan turned to Jake. ‘He was this rogue gladiator who got all the slaves to rise up against their masters. What better way to spark the end of dominions than by assassinating the emperor and then blaming it on a bunch of “rebels” who probably don’t even exist. It would be mayhem. A civil war could erupt within days.’

  Charlie was shaking his head. ‘It’s a good theory but it doesn’t make sense. Why would Agata bother to teach Austerio English if she was going to do away with him?’

  ‘Well, we don’t have much else to go on’ – Nathan shrugged – ‘except that something is going to happen at the Circus Maximus tomorrow. So I suggest we get back to the bureau and work out what we’re going to do about it.’

  He led his companions back across the roofs. They jumped down onto Agata’s private terrace and descended the dark staircase to the door that went into the arena. The party had become a good deal more raucous and the music much louder.

  ‘Here – you wear this,’ Nathan said to Jake, passing him his mask. He turned to the others and whispered, ‘Let’s get out of here as quickly as we can.’

  Charlie agreed, but Jake said nothing. He hated the thought of leaving Topaz again. Just as Nathan was about to open the door, silence suddenly fell on the other side. Then they heard Agata saying something in Latin, ending with the phrase: ‘Salutate imperatorem!’

  It was followed by a chorus of respectful cheers and shouts of ‘Salve, Caesar!’

  Jake, Charlie and Lucius put on their masks, while Nathan pulled up the hood of his cape. He edged open the door, and the four of them slipped through. The guests were all on their feet (at least, the men were; some of the women were still reclining) as Austerio, ‘the Emperor Tiberius’, passed regally among them, bestowing nods here and there and occasionally offering his fat, bejewelled hand to be kissed. Jake had half imagined that he might play the part like a pantomime character, so he was surprised by how subtle and convincing he was in the role. The ‘emperor’ was shown to a throne next to Agata’s, and everyone else sat down again. This was when Jake realized that Topaz’s place was empty. He searched all around for her, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Nathan said in his ear, guessing the reason for his delay. ‘Topaz knows where we are – she will contact us if she needs to.’

  They crept along in the shadow of the colonnade towards the exit. They had almost reached it when the musicians struck up again. The horn players and the drummers started marching, in time to the music, towards the edge of the arena. There was a ripple of excitement, and everyone started whispering in anticipation of what was to come.

  The music grew even louder. Then suddenly the stone floor at the centre of the arena began to open; first there was a strip of darkness, then a gaping cavity. Out of this rose a vast misshapen boulder that looked like it had been torn from a wild seashore. On top of this, in a pose straight from Roman mythology, lay a nymph, manacled to the rock, her face hidden by a mass of soaking hair. She was perfectly still, as if under a spell; and Jake realized, with a lurch of horror, that it was Topaz.

  He guessed that they were about to witness Agata Zeldt’s ludi sanguinei – the blood games that Topaz had mentioned earlier. ‘What are they going to do to her?’ he asked, the words sticking in his throat.

  ‘Come on . . .’ Nathan gently tugged him on. ‘Remember what she told you? We must not look at her.’

  But Jake was not listening and shook Nathan’s hand off. Lucius was rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on the spectacle. Charlie was also reluctant to leave, and in truth, Nathan felt the same: he knew that his duty lay with the History Keepers, but he was as concerned as the others for his adopted sister.

  The floor continued to rise; the boulder was now surrounded by a rocky pool, foaming and churning as if alive with fish. The whole section rose up until it was level with the audience, then stopped.

  The guests were now waiting, agog, shifting this way and that to get the best view. Jake saw Agata Zeldt removing her mask to reveal a face twisted into a sadistic smile, while Leopardo, standing behind her, dug his fingers into her shoulders.

  The music was deafening now – the horns blared and the drums beat like thunder. Jake felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Suddenly there was a gasp as a terrifying creature slowly rose out of the centre of the pool. It was a sea monster – or at least a fierce warrior dressed as one. He was tall, broad and muscular, and his gleaming helmet was fashioned in the shape of a grotesque shark’s head, mouth gaping to reveal his own savage face within. His enormous chest heaved under a breastplate of armoured scales. His forearms, each the size of a tree trunk, were encased in gauntlets studded with sharp razors, and daggers glinted from the backs of his metal boots. In his hands, each the size of Jake’s head, he grasped a broadsword and a trident.

  Jake’s heart was now pumping at double speed. His stomach had turned to liquid. ‘What is he going to do to her?’ he said through clenched teeth.

  ‘It’s just a show,’ Nathan tried to reassure him. ‘Dreadful as she is, Agata Zeldt wouldn’t put her own daughter in any real danger.’ Even as he spoke the words, he did not entirely believe them. The depravity of the Zeldt family had never ceased to amaze him.

  The music reached a thunderous crescendo. The ‘sea monster’ rose until his feet were
level with the surface of the water; then he stepped onto the edge of the pool and pumped his arms above his head. The music stopped dead and he let out a war cry of such ferocity that Jake had to cover his ears. Then he turned to the figure of the nymph and waited, chest heaving, for battle to commence.

  All eyes swivelled to the motionless Topaz. Slowly she awoke, moving first an arm, then a leg, then lifting her head. Gradually she rose to her feet. Jake now spotted the sword at her side, which she brandished aloft, with a battle cry to challenge the monster’s.

  The audience cheered and leaped up in delight. Even the slaves had stopped to steal a glance at the entertainment.

  ‘It’s Andromeda and the sea monster,’ Charlie said, as if in a dream.

  ‘Who?’ Jake asked, both appalled and mesmerized.

  ‘The legend goes that her mother, Cassiopeia, the queen of Ethiopia, bragged that she was more beautiful than Poseidon’s own daughters. In revenge, the sea god let loose a terrible monster, Cetus, to lay waste to the coastline. He would stop only if Andromeda was sacrificed. So she was chained to a rock and abandoned.’

  ‘And what happened to her then?’ Jake was clenching his fists so tightly, his knuckles were white.

  ‘Actually’ – Charlie’s tone brightened – ‘she was saved by the warrior Perseus, who was on his way back from finishing off the Gorgon, Medusa.’

  ‘Not that you should get any ideas,’ Nathan added quickly, keeping an eye on Jake. ‘Perseus was a killing machine, not an innocent schoolboy.’

  Suddenly the fighting started. Cetus’s massive body lunged forward, swiping at Topaz with the broadsword. Showing lightning reactions, she parried, then kicked out at him. There was a loud crunch as her foot connected with his jaw. The audience erupted as Cetus fell back. For a second his eyes swam in his head; but then fury took hold again. He surged through the water, and a nerve-shredding duel followed – parry, riposte, parry. Steel sliced against steel; sparks flew; water sprayed onto the crowd. Topaz was quick and nimble, her foe slow and brutish. He slashed at her feet, and she jumped nimbly down into the pool – but the chain stopped her from escaping, and yanked her back.