The Last Ember (49 page)

He dragged his leg across the arena’s sand, marking the spot. He looked to the nearest arch that aligned with his feet.
XVIII.
The rays of light converged in front of the Colosseum’s eighteenth arch.

With sudden violence, someone grabbed Jonathan from behind and threw him against the arena’s railing. Jonathan’s helmet smashed against the steel, and Jonathan fell to the ground. The butt of a sword landed on his head, nearly knocking him unconscious. Jonathan scrambled up and jumped back, just as the metal edge of a sword sparked against the stone behind him.

The man was dressed in gladiatorial uniform with a black breastplate and two swords, a
dimachaerius
, known as the most dangerous of gladiators. One of his swords remained sheathed at his waist; he tossed the other one side to side.

“Jesus,” Jonathan said, winded. “I’m not part of the—”

Jonathan did not have time to finish the comment before the man charged, striking another blow at his chest, denting the breastplate so deeply that the costumed aluminum nearly folded in two. The man wasn’t using any rubber tape around his sword.

Out of the dust, the man swung again, and Jonathan rolled off to the side of the sandy arena. He could hear exuberant screaming from the stands and he realized that the crowd was cheering him on, enjoying the performance. Jonathan was knocked down again, this time by one of the actors, who theatrically rolled away.

“I said, watch your dramatic space!” the actor reprimanded him. By the time Jonathan stood up, he could not distinguish the man who attacked him from other members of the troupe, who were swirling around him in a kaleidoscope of glinting tin and dust.

A blow landed on the back of his helmet, and Jonathan pivoted, but his helmet blocked his peripheral vision. The man struck again. His blows were different from those of the others. Trained, cutting strokes of someone who was used to wearing the plastron of fencing gear, rather than the tin breastplate of gladiatorial costume.

“Who are you!” Jonathan shouted, stumbling back.

Their swords clashed, hurling Jonathan toward the arena railing. But the force of impact did not compare to the shock of glimpsing, with unnerving clarity, the familiar features between the two cheek guards of the Roman helmet.

As a reflex of rage, Jonathan unleashed his own cutting strokes. He expertly maneuvered his sword to connect first beneath the man’s rib cage, sending him reeling backward in the sand, and then struck again, using the flat end of his sword to smack the man’s head, knocking his helmet clean off to reveal his tousled hair and reddened face.

“Aurelius,” Chandler Manning wheezed. A bitter smile twisted his lips. “I told you I’d take the match.”

A
s Jonathan stood up, his mind fit the pieces together with blinding speed: Chandler finding him in the Forum, Chandler giving them maps of the Domus Aurea—all so that Jonathan and Emili could move another step in the direction in which he had been secretly steering them all along.

“You’ve been in on this the entire time, haven’t you, Chandler?”

“That’s it, now,” Chandler said with a taunting smile. “That’s the brilliant Marcus I remember.”

“And for what?” Jonathan said, containing his rage. “To be the one who finds it? You would endanger Emili’s life to find an ancient artifact?”

Chandler laughed. “Is that what you think it is, Jon? The irony, it’s magnificent.”

“Irony?” The shock of discovery was wearing off and a fury rose inside Jonathan.

“That you, Aurelius—you were always the first to call me gullible. You would always say that it was me who chased after alternative histories and far-fetched tales of lost treasure, and now it’s you who bought it hook, line, and sinker. You really think there’s some lost relic of Jerusalem, Jon?” Chandler said. “Just another example of the fantasies that kept us all busy at the academy. But now I’m finally making some money for it.”

“This man Salah ad-Din is a monster,” Jonathan said loudly.

“ ‘ Client’ is the term I prefer,” Chandler said, spreading his arms. “And with the king’s ransom this guy offered me, he could have said he was looking for the goddamn sword of Excalibur and I would have said, ‘Agreed.’” Chandler approached Jonathan slowly, pointing his sword straight at him.

“Fight, you two!” said the gruff voice of an acting troupe member. “You’re not getting paid to talk!”

“Chandler, listen, just listen,” Jonathan said, using every bit of his self-discipline to check his rage. “This is all
real
. Do you hear me? The menorah is
real.
”

“Well, I know that
now
. And you’re going to tell me where it is. Eight feet of solid gold has suddenly made Salah ad-Din’s fee seem a bit paltry, don’t you think? That’s why I’ve got it all worked out.” He patted his breastplate. “Brought my sketches of every possible escape route from the Colosseum. Only need to know which arch Josephus used to—”

“Chandler,” Jonathan cut him off, “they have
taken
Emili. You don’t understand—”

“I don’t understand?
I don’t understand!
” Chandler screamed, his eyes wilder than Jonathan had ever seen them. “No, Jon, for once
you
are the one who doesn’t understand! Jonathan Marcus,
golden boy
of the American Academy in Rome when I was just the
lowly
librarian.”

Only at that moment did Jonathan realize how much Chandler despised him, how easy it had been for him to pull off this deception, pretending to learn each part of the mystery along with them piece by piece.

“Where is she, Chandler?” Jonathan asked, walking toward him con frontationally. “Why do they need her?”

Chandler’s eyes became slits and he began waving his sword. “Ever playing the hero, aren’t you, Aurelius?”

Without another word, Jonathan lunged and caught Chandler’s sword. Their metal tinged loudly. Neighboring actors looked stunned that they were not using precautionary grip tape. Chandler vanished into the swirling dust and Jonathan spun around, unable to find him among the actors. Jonathan saw a glistening sword split the air above him, and his defensive blow was so forceful it sent an actor’s sword flying into the air. The man dived in theatrical slow motion to collect his sword.

“Relax, man!” the actor exclaimed from behind his mask. “My kids are here, okay?”

Jonathan limped toward the center of the arena. On all sides of him, actor pairs battled it out in a neatly choreographed mayhem. Another man came at Jonathan, but spying the rubber tape on his sword, Jonathan only ducked, letting the man harmlessly glide by. Out of the maelstrom of dust, Chandler struck again, a crushing blow, splitting Jonathan’s dented tin armor in two, sending him to the ground, his rib cage pounding with pain.

“Must hand it to you, Aurelius, you aren’t the same boy who left Rome seven years ago. Cast out of the Garden of Eden of academia and you didn’t so much as say a word in defense of yourself. Salah ad-Din wasn’t expecting a bloody hero. He was expecting a lawyer.”

“Just tell me where she is.” Jonathan coughed, standing up. “Why do they need her?”

“The great Jonathan Marcus,” Chandler said, leering. “You still haven’t figured it out, have you?” Chandler picked up his sword in an en garde position. “It’s not her they need.
It’s you.
”

“What?”

“You think any of this is an accident, Aurelius? Your background in Josephus. Coming to Rome to defend mysterious pieces of the Forma Urbis? He arranged the whole damn thing. Why do you think those fragments were loaned to the museum here in Rome? Salah ad-Din knew she’d recognize them and have the Ministry of Culture bring the case. You think Salah ad-Din didn’t know you’d be coming to Rome? Who do you think your client is, Jon? The one behind the shadowy Geneva corporation?
It’s him
.”

“But what for! He has seen everything I have!”

“Not quite everything,” Chandler said. “Seven years ago in the catacombs, Aurelius. Whose tomb do you think you stumbled into?
It was Berenice’s
. And you saw information drawn on the walls that all but told you where the menorah was,
only you didn’t know it
.”

“The fresco,” Jonathan said.

“Precisely
,
”
Chandler said tauntingly. “The fresco destroyed in the collapse.”

“So I was the last person to see inside the tomb,” Jonathan muttered.

“Bravo,”
Chandler said. “Not the last technically, but Gianpaolo isn’t much use to us, is he?”

“Chandler,
you idiot
, do you think he will let you live? This man killed Sharif in cold blood to protect his pursuit.” Jonathan raised his arm to strike when something seized him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides.

“We Thracians will defeat you!”
One of the large actors of the group had grabbed hold of him as part of a routine. Jonathan wrestled for a moment, the tin cheek plates of his helmet preventing him from seeing the man restraining him. Chandler walked toward him, holding his sword out. In the chaos of the arena’s dust, Jonathan’s writhing looked as staged as the rest of the faux combat.

“Time to stop playing the hero, Aurelius. Where is the tunnel leading to the first Arch of Titus.”

The crowd roared, but Jonathan heard none of it, for at that moment something in him snapped. Without thinking, he sharply flicked his head backward, butting his helmet’s plume into the actor’s helmet behind him. Amid expletives, the actor promptly dropped Jonathan, who with both hands wheeled his sword around, hitting Chandler in the abdomen with the flat end of the sword’s blade. Chandler stumbled backward as Jonathan swung again, harder now. Chandler fell to the sand. The crowd’s cheers strengthened at the realism of it all.

“Where is she?” Jonathan raged, punching Chandler in the face with the handle of his sword. “Tell me or I swear I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Chandler said as he spit up some blood. “That a threat, ol’ boy? Suppose Seneca was right:
‘Gladiator in arena consilium capit.’
No lawyer’s advice in the arena, is there? Just brute force.”

Chandler stood back up and pivoted his foot in the sand, throwing his weight into Jonathan’s cracked breastplate with such force that Jonathan’s sword flew out of his hand and landed ten feet away. Chandler took the advantage, charging as he rotated his sword on either side to gain torque. Jonathan then did something that no one in the acting troupe would ever forget, or be able to replicate no matter how many Saturday afternoons they tried on the blue mats of their practice studio.

Rather than retreat, Jonathan ran toward his sword, charging bare-handed in Chandler’s direction. Without breaking stride, Jonathan stomped his heel on the blade’s tip, popping up its hilt to his hand, and in the same fluid motion swung its flat edge squarely into Chandler’s kneecap, dislocating the bone with an audible pop. Chandler screamed in anguish. Jonathan used Chandler’s forward motion to hurl him into the iron railings of the arena so that his body tipped over the edge. Only his right arm managed to prevent him from falling into the thirty-foot drop to the underground labyrinth below. He kicked one leg at the ancient brickwork beneath the arena, trying to find a foothold.

The guests at the event had fallen silent in shock. Jonathan got up slowly, bruised and shaky at first, hands on his knees. And then fully upright. With almost a rehearsed suddenness, the Colosseum’s crowd roared. Even the actors were applauding.

“Who does their choreography?” one of the actors asked.

“We should recruit these guys,” said the other.

Chandler hung on the railing with one arm, grunting. “Help me up, I can’t hold on!”

Jonathan stood over Chandler. “How does Salah ad-Din know so much about me? You told him about my research seven years ago?”

“No, he told me
.” Chandler said, letting out a sound too painful to call a groan as he swung from the edge. “It was like . . . he
knows
you. Now help me up! My damn knee is on fire!”

Above the cheering crowd, Jonathan heard the sounds of approaching police sirens. He turned toward the arena’s exit.

“How am I supposed to get up from here? The carabinieri—what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Sorry, Chandler. ‘
Gladiator in arena consilium capit
,’” Jonathan said, turning to leave. “No lawyer’s advice in the arena.”

J
onathan ran out of the arena, and in one of the outer arches changed back into his suit. As instructed, Orvieti was waiting. Together they moved through the radial corridor, weaving among the guests, looking up at the numbers on the arches. Carabinieri officers rushed past him, and no longer with the benefit of a mask’s anonymity, Jonathan faced the walls as he walked past them.
We must get down to the labyrinth beneath the arena floor.

“This is the gate,” Jonathan said, pointing at the number XVIII above one of the arches.

“Of course,” Orvieti said softly.
All these years, how could I not have guessed?
It now seemed obvious to him that the slaves of Jerusalem would have chosen to burrow an escape tunnel under the number eighteen, a number that in Hebrew,
chai
, had endless mystical associations with life and survival.

They ducked into the dark apse, and Jonathan held Orvieti’s arm tightly as they moved down a steep stone stairwell to the maze beneath the arena. Kicked-up sand floated over the railing of the half-reconstructed arena floor above them. Orvieti struggled as his shoes sank in the labyrinth’s mud with each step.

The tunnel must be here,
Jonathan thought. They now stood directly beneath the eighteenth arch and Jonathan’s flashlight caught a half-height archway that resembled an abandoned mine shaft, owing to the partially buried old wooden plank that boarded it up.