Sibylline Greetings (Book 2, the LiteraTours Cozy Mystery Series)

Chapter 2 - Secret Foes - Part 2

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Half an hour later and Jupiter only knew how many metres down, Ike wasn't sure any more the ministry visit should count as a treat.

Not that the resident archaeologist was to blame. Far from resenting a visitor group three times the foreseen size, he must have fancied himself in an auditory and went all out, his voice bouncing along a passage so narrow, Ike could almost reach the other side with her arm. On the left and the right, stone walls honeycombed by man—or woman—sized ledges rose as high as houses. Strip-lighting buzzed and hummed above their heads and the two groups moved through the underground space like a multi-coloured human caterpillar, filling the corridor with an army of uneasy shadows and the soft shuffling of feet.

All of a sudden, the passage opened into a domed chamber lined with whitish boulders that Ike suspected to be marble. Blocked by a solid mass of tourists, Ike could not make out much more than two pillars to one side and an opening ahead of her, where the passage continued. As spacious as the chamber might be, the tourists had stirred the quiet air and the dank smell of a root cellar lost in time assaulted Ike's nostrils.

The archaeologist harrumphed, drawing a tingly response in Ike's parched throat. "Okay, Signore, before I explain where we are, let me briefly tell you something about the portal we passed on our way down. These days, it might not look much, but once the Porta Collina was a landmark in ancient Rome. It was supposed to have been built by Servius Tullius, a semi-legendary king way back in the sixth century BCE. These days, it's mostly remembered for the Vestals."

A dramatic pause followed.

Nobody dared to speak.

"Vestals?" Ike prompted from behind. And coughed.

"Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe you are familiar with the concept? Chaste virgins whose main job was to guard the sacred fire. It was forbidden to spill their blood. So, if one of them broke her vows, she got entombed alive. To avoid ill luck that had to happen outside the city walls. Right outside the Colline Gate."

Excited murmuring from the mixed group. Feet shuffling. More earthy odours.

Gruesome deaths always got people's attention.

Like the tickly feet of a millipede, the small hairs on Ike's arms rose. Her neck tingled, and she felt the weight of the tons of soil and building above them. Sensed the walls of the corridor coming closer. Pressing in on her.

But there was no space left inside the marble chamber for either Shalon or herself.

More shuffling of feet, shifting of bodies. A sneeze. Another dramatic pause that got broken by Viktor. "Where would we be here?"

"Inside the city walls. The catacombs started under the road that leads out of Rome." From the sea of touristic heads an arm rose and pointed at the passage at the other end of the chamber. "Eventually, the builders burrowed their way in."

A female voice came from somewhere within the barrier of bodies in front of her. "Did you find any Vestals?"

"Not to our knowledge," the archaeologist responded. "It's a distinct possibility though, that the Christians, when they dug out the catacombs, might have come across one of these burials and annexed the space for their own purposes. It's a real hodge-podge down there. They even used stones from the Colline gate."

"How would you know?" Another female voice, somewhere on the right.

When the archaeologist spoke, there was a smile in his voice. "I might say chemical composition. But no, there's a little text on it. Dates back to the time of the last king of Rome, who had parts of the gate repaired."