“Very amusing. This whole city is tumbling with them.”
“The place built by emperors to win the loyalty of the plebeians. The ruins in this city that are most difficult to miss.”
As I spoke, we skirted columns half-buried in muck where it was said Julius Caesar himself had been assassinated. After that, we plunged into narrow lanes, houses rising around us. Several churches emerged from the dark, silent now, their large doors closed.
I knew this route—at least, I hoped so—as it had been one I had explored when I’d first reached Rome. Brewster, who’d accompanied me on these walks, soon understood where I meant to go.
We emerged from the streets on the edge of a hill, damp air wafting upward. A path led down to the excavations, the track difficult to find in the dark, but at last, I located it.
Brewster went first, testing the ground, and I came behind him, tapping with my walking stick before I put each foot down. Pale columns thrust themselves skyward in the moonlight, though most of the ancient pillars lay on their sides or broken into pieces. I’d reveled walking where Augustus and Marc Antony had roamed, yet been saddened that the great Forum Romano had been reduced to a pile of rubble.
The Romans had used the road we picked our way down to begin their triumphal processions, making their way from the Capitoline and through various roads to the Via Sacra. Giant arches dotted the way, where Caesars through the ages had erected monuments to adorn the route.
When I’d explored a few weeks ago, with a trusty book to tell me what the various piles of stones were, I’d found the foundations of the temple to Julius Caesar, where passersby had left flowers; the Rostra, from which the speeches I’d learned in my youth had been given; and various temples to Saturn, Castor and Pollux, and Vespasian and Titus.
At the end of the ancient forums, rising in weighty might, was the Colosseum.
The Flavian Amphitheatre was now known as the Colosseum, the name taken from the immense statue of himself Nero had had erected near the great lake of his pleasure garden. The Flavian emperors, Vespasian and Titus, had drained the lake and used the treasure they’d looted from Judea to fund the vast amphitheatre, a temple to entertainment for the people of Rome.
Earthquakes had toppled a large portion of an outer wall, but the towering immensity was still impressive. That much survived intact was amazing, but various popes had named this a sacred space, believing Christians possibly had been martyred there, and in the last century had begun restoring it. Indeed, brick bracing had been put up not many years ago to keep the walls from falling completely. The original stones were pockmarked with holes from where people of the past had dug out the iron pins that held the edifice together.
The place had been captivating to me when I’d wandered about with Brewster in our first days in Rome. Tonight, I saw only darkness and danger.
As Brewster and I ducked under an archway and cool, dank air floated around us, I wondered if I’d guessed correctly. Baldini loved Colosseum, yes, and had even offered to take Grenville and I over it. But did he perhaps have a favorite place other than this he went to try to connect with his ancestors? Rubble of Augustine’s house on the Palatine hill? Ruins of the Theatre of Marcellas? A deep niche inside the Circus Maximus? Those could also, at a stretch, be called palaces of the people.
However, as a hiding place, the Colosseum was a good one. Corridors ringed the building, stairs leading upward to more hidden places, and perils wherever one turned. We might search for hours and find nothing.
I swallowed my qualms and followed Brewster through a vaulted opening to a long corridor that led around the lower floor.
The candle in Brewster’s lantern was a pinprick that floated right and left as he moved ahead of me. I listened for voices as we walked, but heard only the tramp of our boots, the occasional rustle of a night creature, and the wind and rain outside.
If the contessa was here, she’d be cold in this dampness. I did not know her age, but she could so easily take sick, especially in Rome, which was notorious for its fever-laced airs.
Brewster halted and motioned to an opening to our left. It led to a stair that went down toward the cells where the gladiators and wild animals had been kept for the games. The lower levels were more stable than the upper, a guide who’d lingered here had told me on my first exploration, and would provide perfect places to stash a person.
The trouble with the Colosseum, this late at night, was that it was more than simply a good place to hide. It was riddled with vermin, some of the human kind.
As I trundled down toward the Colosseum floor, a man stepped out from behind me. He must have silently followed us in or come at us from a cross-passage, because Brewster would not have missed him.
I turned to see a long knife gleaming in his hand. The man spoke in Italian, but I understood his gist as his grin flashed.
I dropped the lantern, and my sword rang from my walking stick. The ruffian took an uncertain step back, surprised to find me armed, but he wasn’t deterred for long.
His boot slid on gravel as he struck, but he regained his balance quickly. I sidestepped onto my good leg and smacked him with the blunt of my blade, trying to drive him back rather than commit murder.
He snarled in rage and rushed me. My assailant was practiced, but I could see—and smell—that he was also inebriated. Good thing, because he was fit and lithe, his knife darting about with skill.
A sound like a stampede came at us. In an instant Brewster was bowling me out of the way and landing on my attacker. The fight became brutal and swift, and I heard the attacker yelp in pain. Then more footsteps echoed as others raced toward us.
I pushed myself from the wall Brewster had shoved me into, stepped forward to go to his aid … and the floor opened under my feet. I must have found a hole between the stones, or a weak point in the bricks, because the next moment I, along with mortar and rubble, slithered down, down, down a long chute until I fetched up on hard floor somewhere below the earth.
My bad leg bent beneath me, and I groaned, but a quick assessment showed I’d only pulled it, not broken any bones.
“Brewster!” I shouted upward.
My voice fell flat against closed-in walls. Brewster either could not hear me or was too busy fighting, because no answering shout followed.
A watery sensation of panic flitted through me. I had been walled into a tomb in Egypt, an experience I hardly cared to repeat. My heart pounded, and I suddenly found it difficult to breathe.
