History Keepers: Circus Maximus

by Dibben, Damian

  ‘Why?’ was all Jake could say as he collapsed on the ground. He twisted onto his side, but the poison was now affecting his vision. He was vaguely aware of Caspar chuckling to himself, ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid,’ as he devoured another of his cakes. Then everything went black. Jake heard boots marching towards him and felt rough hands hauling him up.

  And then he lost consciousness completely.

  19 THE END OF DOMINIONS

  ‘CRUELTY, CATACLYSM . . . AND carnage are my three favourite words,’ a rich, throaty female voice announced.

  ‘They are not just your favourite words, Mother,’ another voice – a male one – responded. ‘They are your favourite things.’

  The first speaker acknowledged this with a laugh. ‘You’re quite right, my darling, as always.’

  ‘I prefer the word decapitation,’ a third, much younger voice added. ‘It has a beautifully final ring to it.’

  Jake heard this conversation as if in a dream; the voices seemed both distant and close by. He still couldn’t see, but he could feel a number of things. His whole body throbbed with pain; his head in particular felt as if a vice were clamped around it. He could tell from the echo of the voices that he was now in a large room; he smelled something rich and pungent. He was sitting in a chair, his hands manacled behind his back – he could feel cold hard metal digging into his wrists. He tried to move them, but this brought another wave of agonizing pain.

  ‘Look – he’s awake,’ the third voice remarked. Jake now recognized it as Caspar’s. ‘Do we need to do anything?’

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s not going anywhere,’ the second speaker replied.

  Jake identified him too – his slight accent was unmistakable. Leopardo, he said to himself . . . Caspar.

  Jake searched for answers in the fog of his mind. His memories were all disjointed, but at length he recalled what had happened in the dark doorway on the Palatine. The young Swede had turned against him. I made you think that you were the traitor in Sweden, he had said, giggling, and all the time it was me. Jake now understood that Caspar had been working for Agata Zeldt all along; the fat, clumsy boy, from one of the most important and ancient families of the History Keepers’ Secret Service – the last person anyone would have suspected . . . he had betrayed them all.

  Caspar had also mentioned Jake’s brother. Why? What did he know? Had he seen him?

  Gradually Jake’s sight started to return: a dim shifting light slowly coalesced into hazy shapes. These in turn shimmered into focus. He was sitting at a long table – a vast slab of white marble. At the far end sat Agata Zeldt, with a falcon on her shoulder, Leopardo and Caspar on either side. With their pink cheeks and fair hair, the boys looked like diabolical cherubs adorning their dread queen.

  On Jake’s right, large windows opened out onto a tropical garden filled with oversized plants. To his left stood a long console table, also in white marble; upon it lay a series of strange-looking objects.

  Set out before Jake’s captors was a steaming platter of food that accounted for the pungent smell – a pile of dark, plump shapes. As Leopardo reached over and took one, Jake realized that it had a head and a long tail that stuck out stiffly. It was a mouse – or, worse still, a rat. Leopardo opened his mouth to take a bite, and Jake saw that one of his front teeth was missing, knocked out by Nathan the night before. Having bitten off the head, the boy began to chew on the little bones. On Caspar’s plate there were already four dismembered carcasses and he was devouring a fifth. Meanwhile Agata was delicately slicing a peach; her pet falcon sat perfectly still, claws gently flexing, eyes fixed on the plate of fried rodents. Agata was dressed simply in a black tunic that emphasized the pallor of her face and the red of her hair. She studied Jake for a long time before she spoke.

  ‘The History Keepers are certainly letting things slide,’ she whispered with a sneer, ‘if you’re the sort of agent they are producing these days. I’ve seen fiercer-looking sand-flies.’

  This elicited a snigger from Leopardo and a high-pitched giggle from his partner in crime. Jake turned to Caspar in fury, but when he opened his mouth to curse him, he found that it was still numb. Incoherent sounds emerged, along with a spray of spittle, and Caspar once again fell about laughing.

  A battle between Jake and his facial muscles finally resulted in words: ‘Your f-father,’ he stammered. ‘He’s a t-traitor too?’ He was determined, first of all, to establish how deep the conspiracy went.

  Immediately Caspar’s smile soured. ‘My father is stupid!’ he hissed. ‘A stupid old man who treats me like a child. Why do you think I am here?’

  ‘You – you are a child,’ Jake managed. ‘A spoiled, good-for-nothing child.’ Each word was agony – his throat felt like sandpaper – but he continued doggedly, ‘Where is Lucius?’

  It was Leopardo’s turn to be amused. ‘That brainless hunk? You’ll find out soon enough.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Caspar gulped down another mouthful and wiped his greasy mouth on his sleeve. ‘In no time at all, you’ll be dying together.’

  Despite everything, Jake couldn’t help feeling a pulse of relief on hearing that Lucius was still alive; it meant that the claim he had made to Topaz was at least partly true. ‘I would rather die with him than eat with you,’ he spat.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Caspar retorted, sniggering. ‘You won’t be eating . . . you’ll be eaten.’

  Jake ignored him and turned his attention to Agata. ‘And you are worse than your brother. Ten times worse.’

  Leopardo turned to his mother to gauge her reaction, but she was smiling. ‘Rare praise indeed,’ she purred as she put a dripping slice of peach into her mouth. ‘Of course, I always knew that Xander was just an amateur.’

  ‘Worse than him,’ Jake continued, ‘because what you are doing is so completely pointless.’

  Now Agata’s smile faltered. In the same instant, her falcon quickly turned to Jake, its beak opening.

  ‘Pointless!’ Jake repeated firmly. Had he not been pushed to the limit in the last twenty-four hours, had he not been told that he was about to die, perhaps he would not have spoken in this way. But he wanted to get under Agata’s skin – and knew he could do that by piquing her sense of rivalry with her brother. ‘At least Xander had a vision. You have nothing.’

  Now Agata’s face turned to thunder. ‘I have a vision’ – she thumped the table – ‘you ill-mannered upstart!’ Her falcon shrieked and flapped its wings as she got to her feet, bringing her fist down on the marble again. ‘I have more vision than anyone. Soon I will own the world.’

  Leopardo stood up, trying to calm her, but Agata pushed him aside. Her bird took wing and circled the room, crying out as she swept down the table towards Jake. He looked up as she approached, trying to look defiant, but his blood ran cold and his hands were shaking. He could see the lattice of blue veins under the pale skin, the dangerous black eyes, the thin, bloodless lips.

  ‘By this time tomorrow’ – she leaned close, and from her mouth came the odour of decay – ‘I will be the most powerful ruler the world has ever seen. A woman – not a man; not a vain, arrogant male . . . a woman will rule the world.’

  Only now did Jake understand the hatred that consumed her; it was directed not just at her brother, but at all men. ‘Bring him,’ she hissed as she turned to the nearby table.

  Leopardo came over and, grinning his gap-toothed smile, unlocked Jake’s manacles, yanked him to his feet and dragged him towards Agata. Jake’s legs were still numb from the poison and he could barely stand.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’ Agata asked, pointing to the first object on the table. Close up, Jake recognized it immediately: it was a replica of the Circus Maximus, larger than the miniature one he had seen in the campaign room, a beautifully rendered architect’s maquette. He did not reply.

  ‘It is the greatest stadium that the world has ever known.’ Agata clasped her long fingers around the model. ‘An exquisite construction, don’t you think?’ She poi
nted to the pulvinar, the royal box that Charlie had pointed out the night before. ‘This is where I shall sit with the emperor to watch the entertainment.’

  ‘Entertainment!’ Caspar giggled at Agata’s choice of word.

  ‘I will watch the senators and generals taking their places,’ she said, tapping her fingers along the spina, the stone island in the centre of the arena. ‘I will watch them all, Rome’s most eminent citizens – those six hundred men who rule the world. I will watch them as they gather for the big race. They, like everyone at the Circus Maximus, will expect excitement, drama . . . maybe some death . . .’ Agata’s voice sank to a whisper. ‘They won’t be disappointed.’

  ‘No, they won’t be disappointed at all,’ Caspar agreed, panting with anticipation. Jake was sickened.

  ‘And this is the device that will guarantee all this – all that excitement and drama and death.’ Agata whistled through her teeth as she pointed to the next object on the table. Jake recognized this one too: a curious container made of thick glass, hexagonal in shape and filled with black powder. Jake had seen a number of identical receptacles in the laboratory in Vulcano, but this one was studded with a network of minute pipes and cogs.

  ‘This is the spare, of course, the prototype,’ Agata told him, ‘which I shall keep for posterity. The rest were installed in the Circus Maximus last night. Look,’ she said, amused by the expression on Jake’s face, ‘he doesn’t even know what it is.’ She pinched his chin between her bony fingers. ‘It’s gunpowder, stupid. That ingenious combination of sulphur, charcoal and potassium – though of course we have spiced it up with some of our own special ingredients. Naturally, if you know your history, we should have to wait a thousand years to see it: the first batch is due to explode in 1044 AD. But it is such a delicious invention, it seems a shame to make people wait.’

  Caspar listened, agog, and stuffed another mouse into his mouth, crunching the bones.

  ‘And what better place to unveil it,’ Agata went on, ‘what finer location to introduce modern carnage to the ancient world, than the greatest and largest stadium of all time’ – her eyes sparkled with fire – ‘with a hundred and fifty thousand people watching?’

  Jake was beginning to put the pieces together. In Vulcano, they had also discovered sulphur mines and reserves of charcoal. Now he understood why. ‘You’re going to blow up the Circus Maximus?’ he found himself asking.

  ‘Don’t be dull-witted,’ Agata replied. ‘That would be pointless. There would be no one left to enjoy it!’ She shrieked with laughter, and Leopardo and Caspar joined in. ‘No, no, no. We shall be obliterating only a very select few.’ She returned to the model of the Circus Maximus and pointed to the spina. ‘Just the people here . . .’ Her eyes bored into Jake’s. ‘Here, at the climax of the race, as the seven turns . . .’

  As the seven turns . . . Jake noted the expression, but still didn’t understand it.

  ‘As the seven turns, a fireball, the like of which the world has never seen, will herald the bloodiest revolution of all time.’

  ‘The senators?’ Jake gasped to himself.

  ‘All massacred. The leaders of this stagnant empire burned to dust!’

  ‘And those who are not burned,’ Leopardo added, ‘will fall into the animal pits below and be torn to pieces.’

  ‘What. Spectacular. Entertainment!’ Agata cried out loud. Caspar clapped his hands in delight.

  Agata’s tone became playful again. ‘Everyone dies – except one. Our emperor will be saved – not the real one, of course; he will be slaughtered on Capri – I already control all lines of communication to him. And Sejanus too will meet an unpleasant end. No, my puppet emperor. Following this catastrophe, “Tiberius” will announce his permanent return to Rome, to his people. He alone will command the great Roman legions – the greatest army in the world – against the “rebel factions”, the “slave uprising” responsible for the bloodshed.’

  She reached out and clasped her son’s hands. ‘For their own safety, the people will be crushed, controlled, dominated.’ Her expression soured again. ‘Before they are eradicated.’

  Now Caspar hurried over and held out his chubby hands to join the other two.

  Agata continued, as if in a dream, ‘I will lay waste to the empire. Destroy all its literature, its libraries of knowledge. Purge its scientists and architects and planners. Demolish the bricks of civilization piece by piece, until there is nothing left but crushed bones and forgotten ideals. Then I shall own the world, control all its riches – its gold, iron, copper, silver, salt, and the remains of its stinking masses. A woman will rule.’

  Now Jake understood the extent of her master plan. Its sheer audacity was mind-blowing. Agata Zeldt did not mean to assassinate the emperor (or rather the fake emperor). She intended quite the opposite: to eradicate the entire government around him; the senators and generals who had been running the empire since Tiberius became a recluse. She then meant to use her puppet dictator, the actor Austerio – as well as her rich, greedy friends from the banquet last night – to take control. Furthermore, she would blame this act of supreme anarchy on a non-existent uprising of slaves and fan the flames of chaos even more. Gradually she would immobilize the world, steep it in fear. Then she would tear it to pieces. She would destroy, for all time, the legacy of Rome that Charlie had talked of the day they entered the city – the great systems of law and government; the education and communication; the common language, the written word, the art and architecture. These and a million other advances would all be destroyed and the world plunged into a dark age.

  ‘Now,’ Agata said, ruffling Jake’s hair, ‘the time has come for you to die. Bring him,’ she ordered, and swept out of the room. Leopardo pushed Jake along in her wake.

  She led the way up the corridor, her falcon on her shoulder. As usual, any passing slaves froze, trembling, and bowed their heads. Jake hobbled along behind her, repeatedly shoved in the back by Leopardo; the grinning Caspar brought up the rear.

  A pair of ivory double doors swung open, and they entered a room that was even larger than the last. It was dominated by a giant aviary. Jake heard a deep cackle and saw, on the right-hand side of the cage, three massive, bloodthirsty vultures. Last night he had seen the room from above, as they were crossing the roofs. But he hadn’t appreciated the sheer size of the birds.

  As Agata approached them, cooing with delight, they flung themselves excitedly at the bars, flapping their wings and jabbing their claws at her. She let them nip at her hands, ignoring the pain and the dripping blood. Her pet falcon shrank away from them, digging its talons deeper into her shoulder.

  ‘Put him in there!’ Agata barked without turning round.

  Before he knew what was happening, Jake was being dragged towards the cage. His heart thumped at double, then triple speed. He turned in desperation. ‘What do you know about my brother?’ he shouted at Caspar.

  The boy merely sniggered as the iron grille was swung open and Jake tossed inside. He gasped as it slammed shut behind him, then turned to face the vultures, his hands raised protectively. Only when they flew up against the bars did Jake realize that he had been placed in a separate compartment – though this was no doubt a temporary reprieve. As he edged back, he tripped on something. He shuddered to find a pile of bones, stripped bare but for the odd shred of putrid flesh. He had seen this grisly cadaver from the skylight last night, but there was even less of it now. The stench made him retch and stagger back – setting Caspar off again, giggling and clapping his hands.

  ‘Don’t worry, your time will come too,’ Agata said, approaching her prisoner, ‘once we have returned from the Circus Maximus. By then my darlings’ – she waved at the vultures – ‘will be truly ravenous.’

  ‘What do you know about my brother?’ Jake persisted.

  Agata ignored him and headed for the door.

  He shouted after her: ‘Your plan will fail. The others are ten steps ahead of you!’

  Agata turned and
whispered through bloodless lips, ‘Caspar’s right, you are simple. We knew the bureau was somewhere below the Forum Romanum, but had not pinpointed it. You yourself gave us its precise location. In about ten minutes’ time your fellow agents will also be dead – those two inept boys, along with the ungrateful traitor who was once my daughter.’

  Jake’s fear was banished completely. ‘She was never your daughter. She got close to spy on you, that’s all.’

  Agata bared her teeth in rage; her cheeks momentarily turned crimson. ‘Prepare for death,’ she warned him, then took Leopardo’s arm and left the room.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ Caspar jeered from the doorway. ‘The lousier the agent, the tastier the lunch!’ And he slammed the doors shut behind them.

  Jake was alone – apart from the vultures, which stuck their necks through the bars. Their loud cries had now turned to furtive cackles, as if they were already plotting how to divide up the feast.

  ‘You don’t scare me,’ Jake shouted at them. It was a lie of course – they terrified him – but it helped him a little. He rushed at them, shouting a war cry. They shot away from the bars in surprise, but returned moments later, eyeing him hungrily.

  ‘You tell ’em, Yake,’ croaked a voice from the back of the cage.

  Jake’s heart leaped. ‘Lucius . . .?’ he called into the gloom. Only now did he notice the hunched figure in the corner. As he approached, Lucius looked up and Jake did a double-take. The soldier was a shadow of his former self – caked in blood, his face covered in cuts and bruises, one eye so swollen it was almost invisible.