Circle of Stones (12 page)

He was silent, so she said, “What?”

“A door. Locked. Come and see.” She edged in beside him. In the back wall of the cellar was a door so old that its blackened wood panels were warped and rotting. Simon tugged at it. “As old as the house, I'd say. I'd love to get this open.”

He tugged again. Beyond the door, something slid and rattled.

“Leave it.” Sulis stepped back. For a fleeting moment the door seemed threatening, a solid warning. “Are we under the street?”

“Farther. Under the grass, I should think. The tree roots probably break into some of the cellars.” He edged back, dirt smudged on his face, and she saw his grin of enthusiasm. “Just think of it, Su, an underground circle of rooms, all hidden. Forrest must have seen prints of the Coliseum at Rome, where there are rooms under the central space. He had this crazy idea about games in an arena, you know, before the stuffed shirts on the town council got to him.” He took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “I'm filthy. Hannah will kill me.”

“No she won't.” Sulis moved the flashlight around.

He laughed uneasily. “No. No she won't. Stupid . . .”

“Are we finished?”

“Oh, yes. I think so.” He turned off the light, and there was only the glow from the flashlight, a narrow beam of the twenty-first century. At once the room beyond it seemed to sink back into an older time; the walls glistened, the ceiling descended to a dark overhang.

Sulis flickered the flashlight over the walls. Then she stopped and focused it. “Look at that.”

He came back. “Well. That's wonderful.”

The initials were carved deeply, in the keystone over the locked doorway. Z S 1754. And around them, something rough and circular.

Simon reached up and fingered them. “This must be Zachariah Stoke. Fantastic, and unrecorded, as far as I know. I'll take a photo of it, and then we'll definitely get this door open.”

“He must have been young then.”

“Still an apprentice. I think he designed a few good things himself later, though I'm not sure.”

She glanced up at the letters again, aslant in the light, their shadows deep, then followed Simon cautiously up the steps, but the sidewalk was empty. There was no one in the Circus. The lit circle of bright windows reassured her, brought back the feeling she had first had here, of safety, of enclosure, of ordinary people sitting down to tea. But as she turned on the step to close the door, she saw that the central grass was dark, and under the trees shadows moved, rustling, as if the streetlamps only made them restless.

Zac

I
should have been traveling in Europe. Well, the university, first, of course—Oxford, like my father & his father before him. Reading Greats, or Law—it would hardly have mattered what, because Oxford is about more than learning. It's there I would have met the important men, the future politicos & churchmen, the givers of patronage, the friends that can make a young man's career in the world. Lords & noblemen with great houses & landed estates. After that, I would have gone abroad. The Grand Tour. Paris, Venice, Rome. At this very moment I would have been lounging in some gondola on the Grand Canal, or sipping champagne in the salon of a society beauty in the Latin Quarter. Instead, here I was, soaked & tired & hanging in terror on to a ladder that rose up before me twenty rickety feet into the air.

“Take it zlow, mazter. Nice & zlow.”

George Fisher was just below me. Did the fool think I was going to race up & fall to my death!

“Don't worry,” I said, my teeth gritted tight. “I intend to.”

What makes it worse is that Forrest, twice my age, had climbed it easily. He was up there already, on the platform, speaking to the masons, though he coughed now & wheezed.

I hauled myself up. My arms were sore & my shoes slid on the damp wood. The rungs were ridiculously narrow.

Of course, Forrest's son is the one who's abroad. Jack. Studying Palladio's work in Italy. One day he will come home & be his father's right-hand man & what will happen to me then?

“Come on, Zac! What's keeping you?”

I hate him when he's growling at me, but I hate him more when he's laughing. As I scrambled up breathless & stepped out onto the planks I wondered what inner demons drove him, because everything has been going wrong on this site & he knows it. And yet he was in a wild mood today, as if the joy of the rising building was in him. I confess I felt it too, even as I gripped the rail like a man on the gallows & looked down.

The site was a maelstrom. A clamor of chipping & a haze of stone dust. All the stone is hauled rough from the quarries & dressed here, on the spot, to fit where it is needed, so the din of mallets & hammers was almost unendurable. Every man had a stone & was cutting it or chipping it or sawing it & the dust-fog they made gusted down over the city like a snow. Streets & doorsteps & roofs were golden with it. Men & donkeys & dogs choked on it. As if we made not only the round world of this building, but its weather too. Sometimes we even blotted out the sun.

“Zac. Look here.” He was watching the base of one of the pillars being lowered into place. “Take note of how they do this. Methods haven't changed much since the Greeks.”

The stone was hung from a wooden crane hoisted by a windlass. It swung menacingly past our heads; the men tugged & dragged it into place, the gang leader shouting down orders in some slang so ancient the bath-builders must have used it.

Forrest turned. “This section is speeding up now. Once all the column bases are done, the design will start to be apparent.”

“It looks like chaos to me.”

“Then you must do as I do. Come up here at night in the moonlight, when the place is quiet. Then you almost see it growing, Zac. Rising out of the ground like trees of stone.”

He had some papers in his hand. Quite suddenly I wanted to tell him what I'd done.

“Master . . .”

“We must watch Harris. His men are working faster, but their cutting is shoddy.”

“Yes. So I see. But, sir . . .”

A hod of stone barely missed my ear. Seeing me jump, he laughed & clapped a hand to my arm.

“A building site is full of danger, Zac. Perhaps we should get down.”

“I wanted to . . . I have to tell you . . .”

He turned to me, his eyes brown & bright. “What?”

I swallowed. “Things have been going wrong  . . .”

“Not more than usual.”

“The ashlar blocks that went missing. Four guineas worth of stone.”

“There are always thefts, Zac.”

“But have you thought . . .?” I gulped & cursed myself & stammered on. “Have you never thought in these last weeks that someone might be trying to damage the project. Even drive you out of business?”

Why did I say it? I stared at him & he stared back. He said, “Why should I think such a thing? It's true that I cannot afford losses. We're existing on loans & borrowings & Ralph's goodwill. It's true that he's our only backer with any real money. Master Greye has been spreading his brainless gossip around the town. But, Zac, when the building is clear, they'll be lining up to buy & speculate & invest in it. It will be the most fashionable thing in Aquae Sulis . . .”

“I know. I know. But if you cannot finish  . . . if someone else  . . .”

His eyebrows rose. “By God, Zac, I would never sell! This is my monument. My tomb. I would never—”

“Your tomb!”

He laughed. Now it was he that looked uneasy. “Did I say that? A foolish thing to say. Aubrey—have you read him, Zac?—Aubrey writes that the builders of the great circles designed the structures as their own tombs. Druids of great power, their grave goods gold & amber & jet. But look, I have to see to those footings down there. Keep a watch for our guests, Zac!”

He was gone, swinging himself down carelessly. I watched him & it made me dizzy & I longed to sit down, but there was nowhere. Men shoved past me. I was horribly in the way. Leaning on the rail, I closed my eyes. I had tried to tell him. And that was stupid, because if I did, I would be dismissed. And what had happened to my fierce anger & my pride? Where had they gone? Is everyone as changeable as this, or is it just me?

“Zac!”

My eyes opened.

Sylvia was below, with a parasol to keep off the dust. She waved. “Come down. Show me around!”

For a moment I stared at her & then I swung myself down, awkward. A few of the men gave me a good-natured shove or hand; I reached the ground breathless & disheveled, but Sylvia was gazing around in delight.

“Look at it! It's wonderful. So many people all working on one thing . . . on Master Forrest's ideas.”

She was dressed in a pale blue silk outfit & looked well. Her complexion has quite cleared now, her red hair shines. She was pretty before, but Forrest's care has restored her almost to beauty.

“Stop staring at me.”

“I'm not. I just . . .” I shrugged.

She spun the parasol. “It's not like Master Peacock to be tongue-tied.” Then she stepped away & looked slightly flushed. “Or is it that you're ashamed to be seen with me out of the house.”

“Of course not.” People were looking. I offered her my arm. “Come on. I'll show you the site.”

We walked together along the half-finished section. The calm sweep of the facade amazed her. She gazed up at it & said quietly, “He is a genius, isn't he.”

“Probably.”

“You're so lucky, Zac!”

“Am I?”

“To be able to work with him on this. To learn about design & architecture & history! I would give anything to be a boy & have those things.”

I stepped over a pile of bricks. “It's hard work. And sometimes dull as dirtwater.”

She shrugged. “One day women will study & build.”

“I very much doubt it. Women don't have the brains.”

She glared at me, & then when she saw I was teasing her she laughed. I laughed with her. Her arm was delicate in mine. For a moment I felt happy, & proud to show off the site, as if it were my own. “Those are the stones . . . there . . . to be used for the first floors. These are the carpenters' lodges—I believe they're cutting the sash window frames. Over there you see Will the Smith hammering out hinges.”

“And you're in charge of it all.”

I was not, & yet for a second I hesitated to tell her so. But she laughed, arch as ever. And then she turned away, a little too quickly.

I glanced behind me. One of the workmen was leaning there, watching us. I could not be sure, but I felt I had seen him before, lounging outside Gibson's.

My sunny mood turned to acid. I said, “Does all this really interest you, Sylvia, or are you just finding out all you can for Compton?”

My tongue is always my own worst enemy. She pulled away from me, a jerk of shock and anger.

“If that's what you think, then good-bye, Zac. I can walk around on my own.”

I let her go for a moment & ducked into the shelter, & stood there warming my hands, brooding.

The doorway behind me darkened.

I turned.

The workman I had recognized stood there. Close up, he was a thick-necked, poxy thug. He said, “Message, zirr. From a gennleman we both know.”

I wouldn't be played with. “Compton sent you? How dare—”

“Just to remind you of your debt, zirr. And to tell you not to speak to Forrest. You're too far in now.”

I stared at the rogue in disbelief.

“And as the mazter said, zirr, the site be dangerous. Stones slip from the scaffolding. Pitfalls and muck be everywhere. Anything might happen.”

For a moment then I felt a stab of fear such as I had never felt. I shoved past him & out into the dust & clatter, grabbing the arm of a mason. “Have you seen a . . . lady? Young, in blue, with a parasol? Did you see where she went?”

He winked at me. “I did zee. Couldn't miss she.”

“So where, man?”

He jerked his head. “Them cellars. Zirr.”

I hurried over. The cellars were rooms built on the natural level of the site, but when everything was finished, they would be underground, the earth piled & leveled above them. Now they were treacherous heaps of piled masonry. What was she doing there?

As I drew near, I saw a closed carriage waiting, the windows up, the coachman smoking a pipe & glooming vacantly into space. Many idlers came to stare at the site, there were often carriages & sedan chairs about, but the dark anonymity of this one worried me. I ran into the first room, the raw stonework golden-yellow.

“Sylvia? Where are you?”

I heard her. She was talking, her voice low & urgent. I fumbled my way through the uneven mounds around to the next cellar, its roof open to the skies. Squeezing between a barrow & a wall, I edged closer.

Or to be honest, I crept. Because now I did not want her to hear me.

She said, “I never wanted to see you again.”

“If that was true, you would have left the city.”

The voice was Compton's
. I closed my hand into a fist against the cold brickwork.

“If I had had anywhere else to go . . .”

“You don't fool me, Sylvie. I hold you by an invisible thread, don't I? It's called your past.”

They were close to me; on the other side of the wall. But I had to strain to hear them over the racket of chipped stone & rumbling wheels. I stepped nearer.

He was laughing now. “I have to say you're looking very well. Being Forrest's mistress suits you.”

“I'm not his mistress!”

“No? That's what all the town thinks.”

“It's what you tell them!”

I saw his shadow shrug easily. “Not only me. There are plenty of gossips in Aquae Sulis. It's full of idle tongues & rich ladies with nothing else to do & a great love of scandal. Are you telling me you simply work for him?”

“He . . . I keep his house.”

He snorted, & Sylvia snapped, “How can I explain Forrest to someone like you! He treats me like his daughter. Is kindness so rare?”

“Yes. No one does anything for nothing. Maybe he wants some strange druidical sacrifice for the foundations of his round temple. Be careful, Sylvie. You & I know obsession is dangerous.”

I could see them now. He had his hand on her arm, was holding her close. She swore at him—a word I was amazed to hear from a girl—& she pulled away. He stepped after her, so I came at once around the wall & stood before him.

If he was surprised, he covered it well.

“Master Zac. Always the gallant.”

“Let her go,” I said.

“I hardly think Sylvie needs you to defend her. I've seen her fight in the gutter & blacken the eye of at least two men.”

That rattled me, though I pretended it did not. “I would rather you let her go.”

For a moment he was still. Then he took his hand from her arm very slowly. “You know what she was, of course?”

“I don't—”

“Care? I doubt that. She was a girl who lured foolish rich young men into the gaming house. Even me, when I was innocent. She worked for the woman who runs the place. What other services she offered I can only imagine.”

She slapped him, a hard slap to the face with nothing ladylike about it. It would have floored me, but Compton stood it, though he went as pale as milk & his anger was like ice in his voice.

“By God, Sylvie, I will destroy you for that.”

They glared at each other. I felt that I had stepped into an old quarrel; that they had known each other for much longer than I had guessed. I stood aside to let him pass. “You will leave. Now.”