The Rome Prophecy

118

A shaft of honey-coloured sunlight forces its way through a crack in the dark, thunderous sky.

Guilio walks towards a lightning-blasted apple tree and swings on a thick dead branch until it splinters away.

Once he’s broken it off, he rubs the splintered end on the field wall until it sharpens into a spike.

He walks back to Tom and throws the stake into the ground just in front of him. He slips off his newly bought rucksack, puts his hands around the back of his neck and unclasps a rope necklace from beneath his shirt.

Tom recognises the black triangular stone dangling from it.

It’s identical to the one Anna had.

The same as the shape drawn on the confessional wall at the Sacro Cuore del Suffragio.

Guilio digs into his pocket and produces a spool of what seems to be fishing line. He ties it to the clasp on the necklace and then moves to the right-hand corner of the field.

Tom follows him, bemused and fascinated.

‘You can help,’ Guilio announces as he squats. ‘Hold this for a moment.’

Tom takes the spool.

Guilio places the longest edge of the scalene pendant on the ground, with the shortest edge to his left.

‘Give me the spool for a second.’

‘Sure.’ Tom hands it down.

Guilio makes sure the rope and the line attached run as precisely as possible along the upward slope of the triangle.

He stretches out a third of a metre of line and then stands up and presses it into the ground.

He checks the angle again, adjusts it a fraction and then turns to Tom. ‘Take this end and walk in a straight line until I shout stop.’

Tom wants to ask a dozen questions, starting with why, but he doesn’t.

As he walks, Guilio shouts for him to move a little to the left or a little to the right.

‘Okay! Stop!’ Guilio slowly moves towards him, checking the lie of the line as he goes.

‘This isn’t the middle of the field,’ says Tom. ‘I’m no expert but I can tell it’s not the centre.’

‘That’s fine. I don’t want it perfectly in the centre. That’s the whole point.’

As Tom takes up his position, Guilio retrieves his pendant and fishing line and swings the new rucksack over his shoulder again.

Next, he traipses to the left-hand corner of the field and repeats the entire process, with the shortest side of the triangle now on his right.

He ties it down and walks slowly. Makes sure the line is meticulously straight until he reaches a point just past where Tom is standing.

‘Here!’ he says triumphantly as the lines cross.

‘Really,’ says Tom with more than a touch of sarcasm. ‘And what exactly is here?’

‘Be patient.’

Guilio drops to the ground. He puts his ear to the turf and systematically slaps all around the spot.

He pauses, undoes the pull-cord on the neck of the rucksack, searches inside and pulls out a gleaming garden trowel.

Tom watches as he digs, but still can’t see evidence of anything except scuffed-up grass and soil.

Guilio’s working up a sweat.

He digs and scrapes one way, turns and digs the other.

Soil stacks up around him like he’s a human mole.

He stands and scrapes the trowel in a circle, stopping every now and again to shift stubborn stones and thick lumps of clay.

He gets down on his knees again and dips his hand into the thin circular trench, which is less than a metre in diameter.

He starts pulling up huge chunks of turf.

Tom’s not sure what he expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t this.

In the cleared circle something flat, cream-coloured and round becomes visible.

It’s a giant marble disc.

A kind of manhole or storm-drain cover like the Bocca della Verita.

On it is the face of a woman.

The goddess Cybele.

Guilio brushes away the soil.

Tom now sees that her face is covered by lines – the lines of a pentagram.