‘Just water, please,’ replies Valentina.
Tom agrees, so Louisa grabs three glasses and a bottle from off the top of a metal filing cabinet and pours the drinks. She slips the DVD into a player beneath a TV mounted on the wall and starts the recording. She studies the time code at the bottom of frame, then skips it on, until the recording starts mid-sentence.
Louisa: ‘… all right to continue, Suzanna?’
Suzanna: ‘I’m not Suzanna. Why do you call me Suzanna? Get down on the ground, quick, get down with me. Keep low!’
Louisa: ‘I’m sorry, I thought Suzanna was your name. Who are you then?’
Suzanna: ‘Claudia. I’m Claudia.’
Louisa: ‘Claudia. That’s a nice name.’
Claudia: ‘Who are you? I didn’t see you arrive. You didn’t travel with us. Are you some demon sent from the underworld to punish me?’
Louisa: ‘No. No, I’m not. Don’t be frightened. I’m here to help. You can trust me.’
Claudia: ‘Then get down flat like me; lie on your belly, or they’ll see you.’
Louisa: ‘Like this?’
Claudia: ‘Flatter. Right down, like you’re a snake.
’ Louisa: ‘My chin’s almost on the floor, Claudia, I can’t get-’
Claudia: ‘Shush. Quiet! If they hear you they’ll take both of us again.’
Louisa: ‘ Who? Who will take us?’
Claudia: ‘The soldiers over there. The ones lying like lizards on the rocks.’
Louisa: ‘I can’t see any soldiers, Claudia. Outside the door there’s a Carabinieri guard, that’s all. He’s there to protect you, not hurt you.’
Claudia: ‘How can you say that? We are at war with them. They took my sister, my friends. They killed my brother and my father. We are at war with them.’
Louisa: ‘I don’t understand. What war?’
Claudia: ‘The war that never ends between us Sabines and those pig-faced Romans. Our men have either fled, been killed or are still in battle. My brother fought for me, but a brute like that one out there came along and cut him down with his sword.’
Louisa: ‘How did you get away, Claudia? Did you run, is that how you escaped?’
Claudia: ‘No. At first, the Romans took me. They trussed me up like a lamb for slaughter, then flung me in a cart with the other Sabines. Sweet Curitis, our divine goddess, must have been protecting me. There was a battle some hours back. The soldiers had to leave our cart to fight with troops sent by Mettus. We were on low-lying land by the bend of the river near where an island floats in the great water. We could see Romans on the hills, moving around near their fires, working their lands. While the soldiers fought, another woman and I escaped from the cart. We cut our bonds on sharp rocks by the shore. We were beneath a bridge about to try to make it to the island to hide, when…’
Louisa: ‘What happened, Claudia?’
Claudia: ‘… a soldier grabbed me. I didn’t see him. He came up behind me and put his arm around my throat. I thought I was going to choke to death. I’m sure I would have if it hadn’t been for the other woman. She was very brave. Very quick.’
Louisa: ‘What did she do?’
Claudia: ‘She hit him. She had to. She hit him with a big stone. Hard. Hard on the back of his head. It made a sound like a dropped melon. She kept hitting him and he fell. Then… then she picked up his sword and plunged it into his stomach. It was horrible. His blood was everywhere. All over him – all over my face and my clothes. I was terrified.’
Louisa: ‘Are you all right?’
Claudia: ‘I can still see his eyes. Staring at us. She pulled out the sword and stabbed him again and again to make him be quiet.’
Louisa: ‘It’s okay. It’s all over. We don’t need to talk about this any more, Claudia.’
Claudia: ‘We hid his body. We hid it beneath a place where they launched boats to the island. Just piled boulders, wet with plants of the river, on top of his corpse and left him. The woman said she hoped that Mars, the soldier’s god, would forgive such an inglorious death.’
Louisa: ‘This other woman – what was her name?’
Verdetti stops the tape.
She looks towards Tom and Valentina. ‘She didn’t answer. I asked her several times but it just became incredibly distressing for her.’ She points to her desk. ‘She was so emotionally exhausted and so frightened she crawled right under my desk and fell asleep. I couldn’t move her. It was almost as if she was in a coma.’
Valentina wishes she had time to sympathise.
But knows she doesn’t.
She looks down at some notes she’s made and tries to ask her questions as gently as possible. ‘Louisa, I have to confess my ignorance. I’m not from Rome. Are there significant things in what she said? Things that have special Roman meanings.’
The doctor nods. ‘The place Claudia is describing – the spot where she said her friend killed the soldier is on the edge of Campus Martius, The Field of Mars. I know exactly the area that she’s describing. It’s the Ponte Fabricio, what I think is the oldest surviving bridge in Rome – maybe in the world – and a link to Tiber Island. She mentioned seeing Romans on the hillsides across the water – that would be right as well. I think she would be looking towards the Quirinal Hill.’
‘What’s that?’ asks Tom.
‘An area of Rome, like the Aventine, but originally it was essentially a shrine to Quirinus, the Sabines’ equivalent of Mars.’
Valentina takes a deep breath. She knows she shouldn’t ask what she’s about to, but she’s going to anyway. ‘Louisa, this may sound strange, but would you take us there?’
Verdetti frowns. ‘Now?’
‘I know,’ says Valentina, ‘It’s dark, cold and ridiculously late. But I’m running out of time. Will you? Please.’
36
Tom folds himself into the back of the Punto and they trundle towards the Field of Mars.
It’s a near-impossible fit.
Certainly a feat worthy of a Guinness World Record for the biggest ex-priest carried in the smallest ever space.
Tom remembers just a few days ago standing on top of the Eiffel Tower with his friend Jean-Paul, looking down at the Parisian park by the same name.
Coincidence?
He certainly hopes so.
There must be dozens of military parade grounds throughout the world dedicated to the god of war. The only nagging doubt is that while looking out across the great darkness, he felt the overwhelming conviction that he would not be returning to France. Since then, he has increasingly felt that Rome is where his own god wants him to be, the place where a very specific type of modern battle is about to be fought.
His type.
Louisa coaches Valentina on the route. ‘You’ll have to cross the river twice because of our stupid roads. Go west at the Popolo, south down the Lungotevere, all the way past the Ospedale Santo Spirito and keep on until I tell you.’
‘Frankly, I’m struggling with all this,’ says Valentina. ‘Not the roads, the case. I thought I was making sense of the Cassandra Complex, then phew, straight out of the blue, another alter breezes in and turns everything upside down.’
Louisa smiles. ‘I know. I find it difficult too. There is a pattern, though.’
‘There is?’
‘Our patient is fixating on special women and events. Cassandra is the name of a goddess.’
‘And Claudia?’
‘Almost as special. The Claudii were among the most powerful and respected clans of ancient times. Just as the Cassandra alter was caught up in the history of the Bocca della Verita, Claudia is caught up in the epic chapter depicting the Rape of the Sabines.’
‘Not rape as we generally refer to it,’ adds Tom from the back seat.
‘No, that’s right. It wasn’t enforced intercourse. Well, at least not initially. We’re way back in history, probably the days of Romulus, when Rome was mainly male and there was a shortage of wives. The incident she was living out was when Roman soldiers crossed into Sabine, the area we now call Lazio, Umbria and Abruzzo, and carried off the women. They brought them back to the Seven Hills to raise families.’