The Seven Stars Read online

  ‘And what’s that?’ asked her father.

  ‘It’s a work attributed to Josephus that’s mentioned in passing by Suetonius, the Roman historian. Supposedly it’s a major demolition job on the early Christian Church but no copies survive.’

  ‘So what happened to it?’

  ‘The smoking gun suggests it was suppressed by Eusebius, one of the church fathers who edited the Bible to suit the status quo of the time.’

  ‘I think we did something about him at school – can’t remember much about it though, rather a long time ago.’

  Flora smiled at him indulgently: playing the old buffer again. She continued. ‘A few of the writings that got kicked out of what became the New Testament have turned up in places like Qumran and Nag Hammadi, some have been lost forever. Other works Eusebius and his chums didn’t like got the chop too.’

  ‘Like The Seven Stars, you mean?’ said her father, taking a sip of his wine and settling back in his seat with a contented sigh.

  ‘Precisely. And if Francesco’s people have found even a fragment from it, well,’ she paused. ‘It would be too wonderful for words.’

  ‘Well I think that sounds like cause for celebration,’ he said, pouring the last of the wine into their glasses. ‘I’ll open another bottle.’

  Flora’s mother turned a beady eye on him. ‘No you won’t,’ she said. ‘Flora’s got things to do tomorrow and besides, it’ll make you snore.’

  ***

  And so the following Monday, with most of her last-minute good intentions for the weekend still pending, Dr Flora Kemble, head of Oxford University’s palaeography department, set off to catch the 10:55 flight from Heathrow to Naples.

  As the door swung open and Flora stepped onto the air-bridge the heat at Capodichino airport hit her like the blast from a jet engine. From the controlled chaos of Naples station she took a Circumvesuviana train to Pompei Santuario.

  By the time she arrived her t-shirt was clinging to her back and she could feel beads of sweat gathering under her thick hair starting to trickle down her back. The reality of seeing modern Pompeii for the first time came as a shock. Even on a hot summer’s afternoon the dirty streets wore a sombre air of menace: two prostitutes lounged semi-naked on a bench under a tree, indifferent to the disapproving looks of an elderly nonna who scuttled past like a black beetle; stray dogs squabbled over the contents of shredded bin-bags in the streets which were criss-crossed by a web of wires providing illegal electrical connections to the tenements on either side.

  Pulling the bag behind her, she trudged the few hundred metres to the hotel Sorrento which was in a side-street just off the Via Sacra. After what seemed like an eternity, her ring on the reception counter bell produced a surly young woman whose tousled appearance suggested she’d just got out of bed. On hearing Flora’s fluent Italian, she became more welcoming and even offered a better room at no additional charge. The room itself was clean, basic and to her surprise, not only did the air conditioning work but the small en-suite bathroom looked as though it had been refurbished by someone fully-sighted and was devoid of live bare wires.

  The following morning dawned cloudless and, fortified by almost ten hours’ sleep and an industrial-strength coffee with breakfast, Flora, clad in shorts and t-shirt, a pair of stout boots and wearing a broad-brimmed hat to keep off the sun, slung her bag over her shoulder and set off to walk the few hundred metres to the dig site. The local policeman at the entrance was reluctant to let her in, but over his shoulder, she saw a familiar tall, angular figure striding towards her, arms outstretched. His, angular, high-cheekboned face creased into a boyish, lop-sided grin. She subconsciously rebuked herself for the reaction it caused: unbidden and unexpected, that same indefinable sensation that she’d felt when he had phoned her in Oxford was back.

  Moretti greeted her with a hug and a smacking kiss on both cheeks: the policeman shrugged and without further comment let her pass. Moretti’s words tumbled out in an excited rush as they walked across the sun-baked patch of waste-ground that had once been the communal gardens of the flats. ‘We’ve found more this morning,’ he said. ‘It just keeps coming.’

  ‘No problems with the Soprintendenza Archaeologica wanting you to conserve rather than dig?’ she asked. The administrative body charged with overseeing Herculaneum, Pompeii and the other Roman sites in the shadow of Vesuvius, had decided a few years earlier to concentrate on conserving and protecting what had already been found, rather than adding to the problem by allowing new excavations. As they neared the dig site, Flora recognized several familiar faces from the Soprintendenza Archaeologica di Pompei and from the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, for whom Francesco Moretti worked.

  ‘They were as keen as we were to dig this site and to get it as much publicity as possible,’ he said, stopping a few paces short of the trench.

  ‘That’s not like them,’ said Flora. ‘Pompeii’s falling apart faster than they can conserve it.’

  ‘Local politics,’ said Moretti, with a shrug.

  ‘But I thought you were part of the Ministry of Culture, what’s local politics got to do with it?’

  ‘The land has been bought by local businessmen, the building company is owned by local businessmen, the same local businessmen who also own the demolition company and same ones whose company is putting in the drains. Now do you understand?’

  ‘The Mafia, you mean?’ asked Flora.

  ‘Shh, not so loud. Anyway, they’re called the Camorra round here. But yes, them. They usually have no cause to bother us but it’s easier to stay on good terms.’

  ‘What? Even the Soprintendenza?’ she asked.

  He gestured for her to follow him, away from where the diggers were working. ‘You don’t know how this place works, and it’s not just Pompeii and Naples, it’s the whole Campania region.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The Camorra. Everything that moves, anything that’s sold, every contract that’s signed, they’re involved. If we upset them over this dig another Roman pillar will just happen to fall down at the ruins or another restored building will catch fire. Tomorrow I’ll show you all the illegal restaurants and souvenir stalls – in fact on second thoughts, I’ll show you the legal ones, there are fewer of them.’

  Flora looked at him aghast. ‘D’you really mean they’d damage Roman Pompeii itself? Surely, not even the Mafia –’

  ‘Camorra. Yes, they do when it suits them or they’ve got a bone to pick. To them, it’s theirs, their livelihood to exploit as they see fit: the Soprintendenza is nothing more than a minor irritation if they feel like digging up something valuable and clearing off with it. Just remember, Flora, they’re everywhere.’

  ‘It just seems so unfair,’ she said.

  ‘I sometimes think God has a sick sense of humour,’ said Moretti. ‘Look at the countries that’ve got all the oil and if that wasn’t bad enough look where he left Pompeii for us to find: Campania. Great eh? So please, for my sake, watch what you say and who you say it to.’

  She nodded. ‘Understood. Can we take a look? I’m dying to get started.’ Donning a hard hat, she accepted the invitation of Moretti’s archaeologists and climbed down the ladder into their trench. Patiently and with the finesse of a watch-maker, one of the diggers, a young woman about the same age as Flora, was using a dental pick and an artist’s brush to remove two-thousand-year-old solidified ash from around what had once been a wooden box.

  ‘It’s a difficult balance,’ she explained to Flora. ‘We have to work quickly because the wood has already started to deteriorate in contact with the atmosphere, but if we go too fast, we risk destroying the archaeology.’

  ‘Is the wood carbonised?’ Flora asked.

  ‘Amazingly enough, no. There was enough depth of pumice to protect it.’

  ‘Any idea what’s likely to be inside?’

  ‘More of the same at a guess. Parchment, papyrus, writing tablets.’

  ‘Any dating evidence?’ asked Flora, eyes wide
with excitement.

  ‘Not yet. I don’t know whether Francesco told you but we found a box like this containing letters, but they’re too delicate for us to handle.’ She stopped scraping at the concretion for a moment and turned to Flora. ‘I suppose that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’ she said with a smile.

  ‘It is. And I can’t wait to get started,’ she replied, getting to her feet and brushing the grit from her knees.

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ said the digger. ‘There were some other finds and they’ve been taken back to the Applied Research Laboratory: an astrolabe and several sheets of what we think is copper, but nothing datable. They’re covered in some sort of grid and there are a few letters: it looks like some kind of board game.’

  ‘Like you said, that’s why I’m here. And thanks for letting me look in your trench.’ Flora climbed the ladder back up to ground level and exchanged hard hat for sun-hat.

  She found Moretti, chatting to another group of archaeologists working on a section of painted Roman wall plaster. He broke off to join her. ‘Exciting, isn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘It’s great, but I won’t be happy until I’ve seen the documents themselves.’

  Moretti laughed. ‘Come on, I’ll drive you over to the lab and you can take a look. You can say hello to your old friend, professor Sumter, too.’

  Flora pulled a face at him. ‘Yeah, great. I can hardly wait.’

  They pulled up outside the modern, single-storey building and Moretti led the way into the air-conditioned cool of the conservation lab. The clinical silence together with the white coats of the technicians gave it the air of a medical facility rather than anything connected to archaeology. He introduced Flora to his staff and then took her to a smaller room where a tweed-coated back greeted them as they opened the door. Even at the height of summer, Professor Donald Sumter always wore a jacket and tie. He looked up from a series of fragments of The Wars of the Jews codex, turned and rose to greet them. Although he was in his mid sixties, the American academic looked younger: a full head of snow-white hair topped a suntanned and artificially lifted face. He flashed them his well-practised and artificially whitened TV evangelist’s smile. ‘Good morning, Francesco, and good morning, Flora. How nice to see you again.’ He took off one of his white cotton gloves and extended a hand which she shook, doing her best to return the smile. She already felt ill-at-ease in his presence and was aware of how scruffy she looked in her digging clothes.

  ‘So you’ve come to help me out?’ he asked. The smile had already been turned off and with his back turned once more; the question was addressed to the window opposite. She assumed it was meant for her.

  Flora searched for a diplomatic response. ‘Francesco asked me to come over. I’ll give the project any help I can.’

  ‘I think you may’ve had a wasted journey,’ said Sumter. ‘Based on the content and linguistic style, I think they’re either copies or earlier source texts. Maybe even doctored versions by an unknown scribe – fakes in other words – but I don’t think they’re by Josephus.’

  Moretti, who didn’t speak English well, looked at Flora with a puzzled expression on his face. She switched into Italian. ‘He thinks they’re not Josephus’ work.’

  He shook his head and rolled his eyes. ‘So he’s been saying for the last few days. Can you give us a second opinion?’

  ‘I’d be delighted,’ said Flora.

  ‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary,’ said Sumter in English, still facing away from them, hunched over the precious texts. Flora had forgotten that Sumter had a few words of Italian.

  She turned once more to Moretti, ignoring Sumter’s remarks. ‘Where do you want me to start?’

  ‘You can give me a hand indexing the –’

  ‘I was talking to Francesco, thanks, Donald.’ He’s started, she thought: treating me like his graduate assistant already.

  Sumter harrumphed, the mask of affability abandoned as quickly as he had donned it. Without speaking, Moretti indicated for her to follow him. ‘There’s something I’d like you to take a look at,’ he said as they headed for the door. ‘Something odd.’

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ said Sumter, once more without looking up. ‘I’ve told you, it’s some form of board game like a larger-scale version of latrunculi or pessoi. Interesting archaeology, but not what either of us is here for, Flora.’

  They returned to Moretti’s office. ‘Do you think he’s serious about the codices not being by Josephus?’ asked Flora.

  ‘He seems to be. When he first started he was convinced they were the real thing, but over the last few days he’s started to voice doubts.’

  ‘I think I can guess why.’

  ‘So do you think Donald’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Flora. ‘I won’t know for sure for days – weeks maybe – but given the cut-off date of August AD 79, even without looking at any of the codex fragments or having the precise archaeological context, I’d say they’re earlier, that’s all. And that could mean your team’s found one of the missing originals. Now the question is, which one?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, in the preamble to the Wars of the Jews – the version he presented to the emperor Vespasian just before his death in 79 AD – Josephus mentions an earlier version, written in Aramaic, but that of course never survived.’

  Moretti’s face lit up. ‘Some of the fragments we’ve found are in Aramaic so do you think we’ve got a copy of the early version? That would be wonderful.’

  Flora smile back. ‘I don’t see why not. What a brilliant find.’

  ‘It’s incomplete and much of it’s damaged but we’ve done some digital imagery. Do you want to look at the scans?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ she replied. ‘I’m sure Donald will take his time with the originals: especially now I’m here.’

  ‘Look, Flora, I know he’s difficult, but he is thorough and he’s good at what he does.’

  She laughed and held up her hands in surrender. Yes, I know, and I realise I’m a guest here too, but I just have a feeling he’ll be twice as thorough as he needs to be if he thinks it’ll hold me up.’

  ‘Perhaps, perhaps not,’ said Moretti, flashing a smile at her. ‘The conservators have said we can have more of the originals to work with tomorrow and then you can get started on dating them properly.’

  ‘This is worse than looking at your presents under the tree but knowing you’ve got to wait till Christmas Day,’ said Flora, melting slightly under the spell of that smile.

  ‘I know how you feel, but if it helps, there are other finds you can work with right now. Here, take a look at this.’ Moretti opened a climate-controlled document safe the size of a small filing cabinet and removed a clear Perspex box about a foot square by a couple of inches deep, containing a flat black slab. ‘It’s what Donald thinks is a board game. We’ve found six of them so far and this is the best preserved. Tell me what you think.’

  Flora took it from him and laid it flat on the desk. She swept a loose strand of hair from her eyes and, using a strong oblique light and a magnifying glass, started to examine the pitted metal surface. After a few minutes, she put the glass down and looked at Moretti intently. ‘I’m not sure what it is, but it’s definitely not a board game,’ she said. ‘Every square has a letter or character in it.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Now look at this,’ he said, handing her a piece of paper. ‘It’s a digitally enhanced scan of the surface.’

  Flora pored over the scan for a few moments. ‘Have you found any documents in the same trench, clay or wax tablets, anything that follows the format of the Devil’s Codex?’ she asked.

  Moretti looked puzzled, ‘Is that the same as the Devil’s Bible?’

  ‘No, you’re thinking of the Codex Gigas which is much later – thirteenth century I think. The Devil’s Codex is a bit of a misnomer, really because it’s not one document but lots of fragments, all of which date from the early first
century to the beginning of the second.’

  ‘You mean the code thing? I thought it was dismissed as a fake long ago.’

  Flora sighed. ‘Dismissed by Donald Sumter, yes, but he’s a linguist, not a palaeographer and given that no one’s managed to decode any of it, it’s hard to see his point.’

  ‘So you think it’s genuine after all?’ said Moretti.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. There are literally thousands of individual sheets and fragments in circulation, some of which are certainly fakes, but I’m still convinced some of them are genuine. Have you found anything written in what look like random pairs of letters in this dig?’

  An expression of suspicion crossed Moretti’s angular features. ‘Yes. We found two incomplete fragments on papyrus. But how did you know?’

  ‘Because of the copper sheets.’

  ‘I’m still not with you.’

  Flora picked up a marker pen and walked over to the whiteboard where she drew a five by five grid and then turning back to Moretti, said. ‘Francesco, have you ever heard of Polybius?’

  ‘Vaguely. You mean the Greek historian?’

  ‘That’s him. Now look at this.’ She filled in the grid with the letters of the modern alphabet:

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  1

  A

  B

  C

  D

  E

  2

  F

  G

  H

  I/J

  K

  3

  L

  M

  N

  O

  P

  4

  Q

  R

  S

  T

  U

  5

  V

  W

  X

  Y

  Z

  Flora continued. ‘Polybius invented a way of creating a substitution cipher, so if you stick to a “row-then-column” rule, then “BELLUM” becomes 12 15 31 31 45 35. You don’t have to use numbers for the row and column headings, letters or symbols will do just as well. It’s not a sophisticated code and was easy to break even then because the same letter is always represented by the same pair of figures.’