The Seven Stars Read online

  Moretti peered at the screen. ‘I can see there are pairs of symbols but I couldn’t even tell you what alphabet that is.’

  ‘It’s Latin cursive – lower case to you and me. And what’s more, I think I’ve got a translation thanks to grid number three.’ She tabbed back to the previous view. ‘If you take this pair of letters, RL and go to row R, column L you get the letter A, EM gives you Q and so on until you get AQYR.’

  ‘And what does that stand for?’ asked Moretti, looking even more puzzled.

  ‘It doesn’t stand for anything but if you try it phonetically, Alaph, Qoph, Yudh Resh and then read it right-to-left, you get something that sounds like “ryacka”.

  ‘Is that Hebrew?’

  ‘It’s Aramaic. It means “fool”.’

  ‘Could be a coincidence.’

  ‘It isn’t. I’ve got some complete phrases. Listen.’

  When she finished Moretti’s eyebrows raised. ‘Could be Chinese for all I know, but I’ll take your word for it,’ he said. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘The name is missing, but from the gender of the direct object, the writer is referring to a male and he says, “…fool….bring him to me” then there’s a gap and I think this fragment is the adjective, “alive”.’

  Moretti looked at her, wide-eyed in admiration. ‘But that’s amazing, Flora. You’re a genius. When I think of all the years –’

  ‘That’s because everyone who’s tried to decipher it has assumed that because the cipher was written in Latin, then the encrypted text had to be in Latin too. One of the other fragments gives coherent phrases when you take grid one and transliterate the output into Koine Greek – that was the lingua franca of the Mediterranean in the first century. You know something else?’

  ‘N-no,’ he stammered.

  ‘I’d put money on there being more grids down there in that trench of yours. How many did you say you’ve found?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Well I reckon there should be seven at least.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Take another look at your scan of grid two,’ she said, handing him the print-out. ‘See that image in the top right hand corner?’

  He squinted through the magnifying glass. ‘You mean the thing that looks like a tadpole?’

  ‘Yes. And now look at grid four. It’s the only other one with the top right corner intact. What do you see?’

  ‘The dotted outline of a tadpole.’

  ‘Except it isn’t,’ said Flora. ‘I took the liberty of asking your people to re-run the scans at different magnification and to change the spectrographic filter settings to enhance the relief. Now look at your tadpoles.’

  She handed him two more print-outs and Moretti let out a low whistle. ‘That’s Ursa Major.’

  ‘Not only is it Ursa Major but if you look carefully, there’s a faint outline around one of the stars in the tail, see, where it bends. The star’s called Mizar. And on this one, the bottom left star of the body, Phecda, also has a ring round it.’

  ‘But what’s it showing us?’ asked Moretti, wide-eyed. ‘It couldn’t be a reference to The Seven Stars, could it?’

  ‘I’m trying not to let myself carried away,’ said a beaming Flora. ‘Depends on whether you believe Suetonius who says the book existed, or Eusebius who says it didn’t.’

  ‘But if any of those fragments turn out to be from The Seven Stars –’

  ‘Then you’ve discovered the find of the century. The Church won’t like it but you’re going to be famous, Francesco.’ She jumped up and gave him a hug.

  ‘I’d sooner be rich than famous,’ he said, giving her an affectionate peck on the top of her head. ‘For now, we can’t assume anything about The Seven Stars: I think we should look for a more prosaic explanation.’

  Flora thought for a moment. ‘If you want prosaic then I’d say that whenever someone – let’s assume it was Josephus – wanted to tell the recipient how to decipher a message, there’d be something, a mark maybe or perhaps something in the first line of the text, to indicate which grid to use and the stars in Ursa Major correspond to the numbers one to seven. But you know what I’m really looking forward to?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Donald’s face when we show him.’

  Moretti looked at her indulgently. ‘Please be nice to him, Flora. Remember, he is my guest.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry, Francesco,’ she replied, with a grin. ‘I’ll be as nice as can be: far better to stick the knife in with a smile on your face. After all, that’s what he always does.’

  They walked back down the corridor to the office where Sumter was working, their knock receiving a grunt that they took as an invitation to enter. As usual, he didn’t bother looking up to see who had had the temerity to disturb him and continued to ignore them, even when Flora went and stood next to him. She politely cleared her throat to announce her presence.

  ‘Yes, Flora. What is, it? I am in the middle of something you know,’ he said, remaining head-down over his work.

  ‘Just thought you’d like to know that thanks to Francesco and his team, we’ve had a bit of a breakthrough.’

  ‘Flora is being modest,’ added Moretti. ‘It’s a miracle.’

  ‘Not loaves and fishes?’ said Sumter, still with his back to them.

  Moretti’s English didn’t run to sarcasm and he turned to look quizzically at Flora.

  ‘Donald’s just made a joke, Francesco. First one since records began in 1965,’ she said in Italian.

  At last Sumter stood up and turned to face them. ‘Listen, Flora, I’ve got a lot to do. If you’ve got some information pertaining to the work we’re supposed to be getting on with, then please tell me.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing really, Donald, and if you’re busy I can always come back. It’s just that thanks to the copper grids, I’ve deciphered some of the Devil’s Codex.’ She paused, expecting the news to take the wind out of his over-inflated sails but if he felt any emotion, his face betrayed none.

  ‘I’m impressed. Well done,’ he said, making eye contact for the first time. ‘I never said the Devil’s Codex wasn’t old, I merely said that all the fragments we have are either worthless or more recent fakes. What have you got?’

  She spread the handwritten text in front of him, trying to hide her anger at his crushing dismissal. ‘These are from some of the Oxyrhynchus fragments and using the grids from the dig, they transliterate into Aramaic. Not only that but the grids show the Romans were using this kind of cipher fifteen hundred years before Vigenère came up with it.’

  He put his glasses back on and scrutinised her work like a teacher presented with homework that even the dog wouldn’t eat. ‘Impressive but you’ve mis-transcribed some of it: that’s to be expected, I suppose.’

  Flora bristled. ‘I think you’ll find that I’ve transcribed it perfectly correctly. If whoever encrypted it made errors, that’s hardly my fault.’ Moretti caught her eye and his expression seemed to be pleading with her not to start a row.

  ‘It matters little anyway,’ said Sumter, ‘What you’ve got is indeed in the Western Aramaic dialect, but deciphering insignificant messages that’ve been in the public domain for thirty years is hardly what you’re here for. I’m more concerned, and I’m sure Francesco is too, about the anomalies in this version of the Antiquities. You do realise it’s missing the Testimonium Flavianum from book eighteen. Now, I’m not saying you haven’t been very clever, my dear –’

  It was the opening shot in a re-run of the squabble they’d been having since they first met, and being addressed as “my dear” was a provocation too far. ‘Listen, Donald,’ Flora said, her voice rising in anger. ‘Don’t you bloody well –’ Moretti laid a calming hand on her arm.

  ‘Flora, don’t take the bait. He’s just being a smart-arse.’ He used the Italian word cacasenno to make sure Sumter wouldn’t understand. ‘Let him think he’s wonderful if he wants to. Be nice, remember. Now tell me, what’s the missing text?’
/>   She turned her back on Sumter to speak to Moretti. ‘The Testimonium Flavianum is the name for a series of passages in Antiquities where Jesus is mentioned by name. It describes him as “the Christ”, it also says he was “a doer of wonderful works” and says something along the lines of “after the crucifixion, he appeared to them, alive, after the third day, as the prophets foretold along with tens of thousands of other wonderful things about him.”’

  ‘Did Josephus write that or was it added afterwards?’ asked Moretti.

  ‘Depends who you ask,’ she replied. ‘I say it’s definitely a later addition, Donald says not – ’

  ‘Not even worth discussing,’ he said with a snort. ‘The Testimonium Flavianum is one of many proofs of the New Testament’s literal truth. I know that may offend your atheistic sensibilities, but there’s no way round it. God’s honest truth, like it or not.’

  ‘Any chance of seeing what you’ve translated so far?’ asked Flora, eager to change the subject and to stop the argument before it boiled over into something worse.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Sumter indicating a neatly-stacked pile of handwritten papers. ‘I’ll e-mail it to you when I’ve transcribed it onto one of those wretched word-processor things.’ His tone made it clear that so far he was concerned, the conversation was at an end.

  ‘Oh, before I go,’ said Flora, stopping and turning round in the doorway. ‘Anything in the version of Antiquities from the dig about the number seven?’

  ‘Seven?’

  ‘You know, seven-headed beasts, seven stars, anything like that which wasn’t in the existing version.’

  Sumter’s tone was off-hand and dismissive. ‘I think there may’ve been a vague mention,’ he said. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, nothing really,’ replied Flora, trying to hide the note of triumph in her voice. ‘Just thought you’d be interested to see what was in the top right-hand corner of a couple of the copper grids, that’s all.’ She walked back to Sumter and, ignoring his outstretched hand, placed the print-outs on the table beside him.

  Sumter picked them up and although he feigned indifference, Flora noted with satisfaction that he recoiled slightly with surprise at the sight of the star pattern.

  Flora and Moretti returned to his office. ‘Is this as big as I think?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably bigger. Until today everybody accepted that Antiquities was published just before the end of the first century. But that’s all been chucked out of the window.’

  ‘So do the existing copies date from that time?’

  Flora hopped up onto the side of the desk and sat, swinging her legs, looking every inch the schoolgirl on an outing, rather than a twenty seven year-old PhD. ‘No. Just like the Bible, what’s come down to us has been heavily edited to favour one particular point of view.’

  ‘Not Donald’s at a guess.’

  ‘Not Donald’s at all,’ she said with a smile. ‘The earliest fragments of Antiquities are from the Codex Ambrosianus which was written by sixth century copyists, whereas the earliest full-length copies are as late as the eleventh century. Now, there are a number of academics, me included, who reckon that Josephus’ references to Jesus’ divinity are all later add-ons – probably originated by Eusebius around 300 AD – given that no other contemporary sources mention Jesus until the fourth century.’

  Moretti smiled. ‘I can see why Donald doesn’t share your opinion,’ he said.

  ‘Precisely. So far as he and his friends at William Sunday are concerned, Antiquities helps validate the literal truth of the New Testament.’

  ‘And now this new version has turned up – ’

  ‘It does just the opposite. Quite.’

  ‘Which is why he’s so keen for it to be a copy, a fake or some earlier source document rather than Josephus’ original version.’

  ‘It’s a pretty contorted way of looking at the facts,’ said Flora. ‘But that’s Donald all over.

  Chapter Five

  The Ionian Sea, September AD 62

  Like a leaf in a mill-race Josephus tumbled end-over-end through the water. To his surprise, he felt no panic, no fear, no pain even: drowning was nothing like he’d expected, a brief pang of regret, but the acceptance that death was inevitable left him strangely at peace. Suddenly, his tranquil, green dreamscape lightened and he bobbed to the surface like a cork, gasping in lungfuls of air, all thoughts of submission to the elements forgotten as he fought to stay on the surface.

  The Cygnus was now fifty feet away and the waves were driving him further away from her with each second. Despite knowing it was hopeless, some inner force drove him to try and swim back but after the second flailing stroke, his arm crashed painfully into something solid. At first he thought he’d hit a rock but as he tried to grab hold, it moved under his grasp and he saw it was a section of the deckhouse about ten feet square. Ignoring the splintered edges which tore at his skin, he tried to haul himself onto it but it gave under his weight and he slithered back into the water. At the third attempt he managed to get his upper body onto it and by grabbing a cross-beam was able to hold himself in place, too exhausted to do more. On occasions as he was lifted onto the crest of a wave, he saw other survivors struggling nearby, but then his raft would slide down into the next trough and they were lost to sight.

  While trying again to haul himself further on to the raft it moved in a way that suggested something was pulling it down from the other side. Rational thought fled in the face of what Gubs had said about Lamia and her predilection for shipwrecks. He had to get clear of the water, maybe she couldn’t harm him then, and so with a despairing heave, he clawed his way onto the flat planking. As he did so, he came face-to-face with a man he recognised as a passenger from the ship, who was also scrabbling for purchase on the bare boards. ‘Here, give me your hand,’ shouted Josephus. The man’s grasp was weak and no sooner had he taken hold than he let go, so Josephus crawled towards him and, taking hold of the shoulders of his tunic, hauled him onto the wood. Their combined weight pushed it lower in the water, making the task easier and so, now clear of the rocks, the makeshift raft and its human cargo drifted on the swell, driven towards the distant coastline by the wind.

  The light began to fade and all Josephus could think of was sleep. He was bitterly cold and the thought of just being able to doze off for a few moments was beyond tempting, but then he remembered the tales Gubs had told him during the first leg of their journey, of his own first shipwreck and the five men clinging to life in a swamped lighter off the coast of Dalmatia, and how the only ones to survive were those who’d fought the temptation to sleep that the cold always brought on, a sleep from which none of the others awoke. He could see Gubs’ face now and wondered aloud where he was, talking to him, asking him questions, babbling nonsense, anything not to let his eyes close.

  ‘What did you say?’ The voice came from close at hand.

  ‘Gubs?’

  ‘No. I haven’t seen him. My name’s Alityros. You were rambling.’

  ‘Sorry, I was trying to stay awake. Are you all right?’

  ‘I am thanks to you. We’re nearly ashore. Look.’ The sight that greeted them was little more encouraging than the Siren’s daughters. Long, raking rollers were breaking on a headland, backed by a line of low cliffs. To either side were short stretches of sand and pebble, scoured by the surf and littered with the detritus of the storm.

  Paddling and kicking as best they could to steer away from the rocks, the two castaways missed the jagged teeth of the headland by a matter of feet and were swept into the relative calm of the bay to its south. The surf was pounding on the fine shingle and the two men let go of their precious life-raft about three hundred feet from land, letting the waves carry them into the shallows. Alityros tried to stand up but the current pulled his feet from under him and Josephus, half dead with fatigue, dragged him through the breakers, stumbling and falling as he went. At last, the two men lay exhausted and shivering on the beach, unable to move and with the waves still
washing over them. By a supreme effort of will Josephus managed to rouse himself and crawled over to his companion. ‘Come on, Alityros, we can’t stay here. We’ve got to find help,’ he said.

  ‘Just let me sleep first.’

  ‘No,’ said Josephus, grabbing him by the back of the tunic and shaking him. ‘If you sleep here you won’t wake up – you can’t give in now. Come on, man, get up.’ Like two drunks trying to get each other home but merely making things worse, Josephus and Alityros clung to one another, weaving and stumbling their way up the beach. The shingle gave way to yielding sand as they reached a low ridge of dunes where the effort of each step took on a nightmare quality.

  On cresting the ridge, there was no sign of life, just the usual low scrub of holm oak, juniper and laurel. Alityros stopped, gasping for breath with his hands on his knees. ‘So which way now?’ he asked through salt-cracked lips. ‘I’ve got to find water. There must be a river, surely.’

  ‘North,’ said Josephus. ‘Gubs said we were south of Syracuse, so if we follow the coast we should find it.’

  ‘But it could be miles. I can’t walk that far.’

  ‘There’s no choice. If we stay here we’ll die.’

  Night was falling and the wind, which had backed to a northerly direction whistled through the clumps of Marram grass, rendering progress even more difficult, so they moved a little inland to get off the sand but the ground there was rocky and uneven and the coarse vegetation tore at their bare legs. The two men plodded on, bent forward into the wind, each lost in his own little bubble of suffering, their progress hindered by constant detours brought on by the shape of the coastline and the intrusions of creek beds, all tantalisingly dry. Gradually, Josephus, the younger and fitter of the two, began to leave his companion behind, until from behind him in the gloom, he heard Alityros’ rasping voice calling for him to wait. He stopped but when the Roman reached him, he just carried on past, seemingly oblivious to Josephus’ existence. Now it was his turn to suffer: he’d stopped and the effort required to get going again was almost too much.

  Somehow, Josephus managed to take the first step and then the next. In the gathering dusk he could see the dark outline of his travelling companion, about twenty paces ahead. Gaining on him slowly, they both descended into the next hollow, Josephus concentrating more on watching his footing to avoid taking yet another painful tumble into the spiky undergrowth rather than looking too far in front. However, when he looked up, the shuffling form ahead of him was now at least fifty paces distant. He rubbed his eyes and tried to force the pace but his legs just wouldn’t respond. ‘Wait,’ he shouted. ‘Wait for me, I can’t keep up.’ But the wind snatched his words away and the silhouette continued relentlessly on. He called out once more and then saw him stop, turn and retrace his steps. Josephus increased his speed, trying to make up the lost ground before his rejuvenated companion pushed on again. However, on approaching he thought he heard human voices and then the single form split itself into two, once more calling into question years of disbelief and scorn at the notion of barbarian deities. He stumbled closer: no gods, no demons, just two men, deliriously happy to have found one another. ‘Alityros, is that you?’ said Josephus.