The Last Gospel by David Gibbins Read Free Book Online Page A

look, then crawled forward until she was just beyond the statue. The dust was settling, and ahead of them they could just make out a white patch where another fragment of the tunnel wall had been dislodged by the tremor. As the beams of their headlamps concentrated on the fracture, they could see something dark at the centre. Hiebermeyer pulled himself forward and turned to Maria, his face ablaze with excitement. ‘Okay, we’ve passed Anubis, and we’re still in one piece.’
    ‘Superstitious, Maurice?’
    ‘Let’s go for it.’

3
    23 August AD 79
     
    C laudius gulped at the wine, holding the cup with trembling hands, then shut his eyes and grasped the pillar until the worst of the fit was over. Tonight he would go to the Phlegraean Fields, stand before the Sibyl’s cave for the last time. But there was work to do before then. He lurched sideways on to the marble bench, lunging wildly at his toga to stop it from slipping off, then tripped and fell heavily on his elbows. His face twisted in pain and frustration, willing on tears that no longer came, retching on empty. In truth he was going through the motions. He barely felt anything any more.
    He raised himself and peered rheumily at the moonlight that was now shimmering across the great expanse of the bay, past the statues of Greek and Egyptian gods that lined the portico of the villa. The nearest to him, the dog-headed one, seemed to frame the mountain, its ears and snout glowing in the moonlight. From his vantage point on the belvedere of the villa he could see the rooftops of the town he knew intimately but had never visited, Herculaneum. He could hear the clinking and low sounds of evening activity, the rising and falling of conversation, peals of laughter and soft music, the lapping of waves on the seashore.
    He had all he had needed. Wine from the slopes of Vesuvius, rich red wine that flowed like syrup, always his favourite. And girls, brought for him from the back alleys below, girls who still gave him fleeting pleasure, years after he had stopped pondering what it did for them.
    And he had the poppy.
    He sniffed and wrinkled his nose, and then looked up. The soothsayers had been right. There was something about the sky tonight.
    He looked across the bay to the west, past the old Greek colony of Neapolis towards the naval base at Misenum, on the far promontory beside the open sea. The shadow of the mountain darkened the bay, and all he could make out were a few merchantmen anchored close inshore. He was used to looking out for the phosphorescence left in the wake of the fast galleys, but tonight he could see nothing. Where was Pliny? Had Pliny got his message? It was hardly as if he was away on naval manoeuvres. Claudius knew exactly what the commander of the Roman fleet at Misenum did. The fleet had not put out for action since Claudius’ grandfather Mark Antony had been defeated at Actium, over a century before. Pax Romana . Claudius nodded to himself. He, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, Imperator , had helped to keep that peace. He looked back towards the half-empty pitcher on the table. Pliny had better get here soon. What he had to say tonight demanded a clear head. It was getting late.
    He reached out to pour himself another cup, letting the wine overflow and trickle down the table to join the wide red stain that had permeated the marble floor over the years. He could see back into his little room and the line of wax images ranged along the wall, caught in the moonlight. Ancestral images, the only things he had saved from his past. His father Drusus, cherished in memory. His beloved brother Germanicus. With his waxen skin, Claudius felt he was already one with them. He was old, old enough to have lived through the Age of Augustus, the Golden Age tarnished for ever by the debauchery of Tiberius and Caligula and then Claudius’ successor, Nero. Sometimes, in his bleaker moments, usually after the wine, he felt that time had made a monster of