The Rome Prophecy

20

Tom showers and shaves. He pulls on black Levis and a black shirt.

A passing glance in the mirror appals him.

Bar a dab of white on the collar, he looks like a priest.

He changes the shirt for a green one made from thick Egyptian cotton. One warm enough never to need a jumper over the top.

He pulls out his cell phone and sends a text message to the only old friend he has in Rome, Alfredo Giordano. Being Sunday, he knows exactly where Alfie is, and it’s not the kind of place where you can have a phone ringing.

He’s at church.

Saying Mass.

While he waits for Alfie to reply, Tom makes espresso as thick as treacle and fires up Valentina’s Vaio. There’s mail stacked high in his AOL account, but that’s not what he’s looking for.

He finds several Google entries for ‘Cassandra Prophet of Doom’ and is pleased his basic grasp of Greek mythology hasn’t completely deserted him. Cassandra, also known as Alexandra, was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. She was so beautiful that Apollo granted her the gift of prophecy.

Tom vaguely remembers that Sassy Cassy spent a night at Apollo’s temple, and when she fell asleep, magical snakes licked her ears so clean she was able to hear the future.

Neat trick.

If only you could order a couple of snakes like that from iwantoneofthose. com.

After a little searching, he tracks down Cassandra’s family tree. Her father Priam was the son of Laomedon and grandson of Ilus and ruled during the Trojan War. Tom becomes lost and bored as he traces the generations back through Trus, Erichthonius and Dardanus, but he feels compelled to complete the task.

He makes another espresso and is pleased when he recalls that Dardanus was the son of Zeus and Electra.

No Harleys back in those days!

The temporary amusement disappears when he reads that the wife of Dardanus was Batea, the daughter of a king called Teucer.

Teucer.

He sits back from the computer.

Until a few years ago, the name Teucer had never meant anything to him.

But then there was Venice.

In Venice, he became more than familiar with it.

Teucer was the name at the centre of a case that stretched back six hundred years before Christ. A case that almost killed him and Valentina.

He comforts himself with hard logic. These are different Teucers.

Very different.

One was from Greece and ruled Troy. The other was from Etruria and was part of a dark satanic legend.

But he can’t help but add up the coincidences.

A crazed woman believing she is Cassandra, who is a dark descendant of Teucer, turns up covered in blood after a ritual dismemberment at a legendary site of truth and justice. On its own it’s disturbing.

That it should happen at exactly the time that Tom is visiting Valentina is more troubling. It’s almost as though fate – or God – has decreed that he has to be here.

That this is the place where he is needed.

He puts his hand to his lip.

It’s bleeding again.

Outside the window he hears church bells ringing. The sound of Mass beginning makes him check his phone to see if there’s a message from Alfie.

There is.

Tom reads it and can barely believe his eyes.