The Rome Prophecy

107

Guilio puts his hand on Tom’s arm. ‘Keep a hold of me. We have a little way to go before I can put a light on.’

Tom grabs a clump of jacket and allows himself to be dragged into the darkness.

‘We’re going down two steps. Watch that leg of yours.’

‘Thanks.’ Tom can’t see his own hands, let alone watch his leg, but he appreciates the concern.

Within a dozen steps, Guilio brings them to a halt. ‘Just stay still while I find something.’

From out of the pitch blackness comes the rough scraping sound of a match being struck. It takes several attempts before there’s a burst of orange flame.

In the tiny halo of light, Tom sees a paraffin lamp and Guilio concentrating on winding up a wick.

As the flickering flame gradually grows in the dusty glass chamber, the room becomes visible.

It’s fashioned out of ancient stone.

There’s no furniture.

Nothing hangs on the bare walls.

The floor is no more than an endless slab of compressed dirt and grit.

Tom can’t see the ceiling, but he’s sure it’s unsafe and given his luck will collapse any minute.

Guilio seems to read his mind. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not going to fall down. This place has existed for more than two thousand years, so it’ll be safe for another twenty minutes.’

‘Where are we?’

Guilio squats beside the lamp and holds his hand near the glass to catch a little heat. ‘It’s an old house. There are two rooms, one to cook and eat in, another for sleeping and breeding.’

‘So it should be part of the excavation out there?’

‘It will be soon enough. The archaeologists are so focused on identifying artefacts that they’ve already recovered they have no current desire to open the dig further.’

Tom gets the feeling that he’s only brushing the surface of Guilio’s knowledge. ‘Do you know lots of places like this – secret hideaways beneath the city?’

Guilio laughs. ‘Most Roman kids do. If you’re brought up here, it’s like living on top of a thousand old building sites covered with boards and sand. Dig a bit and you just find one den after another.’

Tom lowers himself to the floor and rests against the stone wall. His left knee is throbbing. The kick he took has aggravated an old injury.

Guilio watches him feeling the leg. ‘What have you done to it?’

‘It’s been dodgy for years. Every now and again it locks up when I take a knock or a fall. I saw a doc in Paris and he thinks it’s full of gunge, bits of cartilage and gristle.’

Guilio pulls a sympathetic face. ‘You need one of those keyhole ops.’

‘No thanks.’ Tom stretches out his right arm and grimaces. ‘Shoulder might be worse than the knee. I think that guy with the bat has bust something.’

‘Let me feel.’ Guilio kneels in front of him. ‘Say when it hurts.’ He uses his fingers to feel his way from the shoulder to the neck.

Tom flinches. ‘Whoa! You got it.’

Guilio keeps one hand in place and slips the other beneath Tom’s shirt. ‘I can feel a huge bruise. That’s before I even get to the bone.’

‘Then don’t get there,’ urges Tom.

Guilio ignores him. ‘You’ve got a cracked clavicle. There doesn’t seem to be nerve damage, at least not from the way you reacted. When we get out of here, I’ll give you something for the pain and we’ll make a sling. All you can do is rest it. There’s no miracle cure for fixing collar bones.’

‘Impressive diagnosis. You a doctor?’

Guilio smiles. ‘Let’s just say I was taught a lot about the human body.’

Tom stretches out flat.

It feels good to lie down and straighten his spine and shoulders.

He mentally checks off all the aches and pains and realises it’s going to take days for his body to recover from the beating. ‘I need you to tell me something,’ he says into the flickering shadows.

‘What’s that?’

‘Everything. I need you to tell me it all. Let’s start with your relationship with Anna and finish with how come you were at Santa Cecilia at exactly the same time we were.’