ran off into the earth, sloping gently down toward the well so that it, too, acted as a drain. William Ham was left to sit sentry in the Temple of Mithras, and to run for help if they never emerged. But after a very brief shuffle down the tunnel they sensed space above their heads, and found stone steps, which turned to the right and led them down to the level of the groundwater. A creek, perhaps eight feet in breadth, ran sluggishly off into the dark, wending round pilings, moles, and foundations one could only assume supported buildings up on the street. In rainy weather they might have had to stop and turn back. But it was the first day of August and the level did not rise above their ankles as long as they stayed along the side of the channel. So they ventured downstream, shining their lights on walls and foundations as they went, and speculating as to which belonged to which building.
“During the Plague,” Daniel said, “my uncle Thomas Ham—William’s father—enlarged the cellar of his goldsmith’s shop, which cannot be more than a stone’s throw from us. He discovered a Roman mosaic, and diverse pagan coins and artifacts. My wife in Boston is wearing one of them in her hair.”
“What did the mosaic depict?” Solomon asked.
“Some figures that called to mind Mercury. Mr. Ham styled it a Temple of Mercury and made of it a good omen. But it contained other images that would call his opinion into question—”
“Ravens?”
“Yes! How did you know?”
“Carox, the raven, was, to Persians, a messenger of the Gods—”
“As Mercury was to the Romans.”
“Indeed. The worshippers of Mithras believed that as the soul descended from the sphere of the fixed stars to be incarnated on Earth, it passed through all of the planetary spheres along the way, and was influenced by each in turn. In passing through the sphere of Venus the soul became amorous, and so on. The innermost sphere, and the last to wreak its influence on the soul, was that of Mercury or Corax. The practitioners of this cult believed that as the soul prepared for death, and a return to the sphere of the fixed stars, it must reverse that transmigration, shedding first the trappings of Mercury-Corax, then those of Venus, et cetera, and finally—”
“Saturn?” guessed Saturn.
“Indeed.”
“I am honored to be closest to the fixed stars, and least worldly of vices.”
“Accordingly, there were seven ranks. For each rank was a chamber—always subterranean. Your uncle’s cellar was that of Mercury-Corax, where new initiates were taken in. Later they would move through a gate or passage to the next chamber, which would have been decorated with images of Venus, and so on.”
“What was the big chamber under the Bank?”
“You shall be pleased to know it was the chamber of Saturn, for the highest-ranking members,” Solomon said.
“I did feel wondrously at home in the place!”
“If it is true that we are passing the foundations of the Ham goldsmith shop,” said Solomon, “then we are traversing the hierarchy in reverse order, following the same course as souls coming down from the Coelestial Sphere to be incarnated in the World.”
“Funny that,” Daniel said, “for I have just recognized the name of an old friend of mine, who’d be pleased to know where his work stood in the hierarchy.”
They had stopped before a pile of relatively new stone-work, where heavy blocks had been laid to repair some ancient foundation, and to make it ready to support a new building. For the most part it was an uninterrupted bulwark of massive stones; but in one place a long slab had been laid like a lintel across a gap between two others, creating a low squarish opening through which the cellar on the other side could drain if need be. Carved on that lintel in spidery Roman letters was:
CHRISTOPHER WREN A.D. 1672
“This is the Church of St. Stephen Walbrook,” said Daniel.
“No better place for souls to enter the world,” Saturn mused.
They crawled up the drain—a tight fit—and emerged in the church’s tombs. The bell was tolling above. “A grim birth,” Daniel said. It took him a few moments to get his bearings, but then he led Saturn and Solomon up a stair to a room at the back of the church. They were surprised to see daylight coming in through windows—but not half so surprised as the vicar’s wife was to see them. Her eyes were swollen half-shut from weeping, her cries of terror were relatively