‘I certainly will!’ muttered Flavia under her breath.
‘Wait here,’ grumbled the sour-faced porter, and went off with his dog to find Libertus.
While they waited in the atrium, Flavia and Nubia looked around in wonder. Flavia had never been in Cordius’s house before. It was the home of a very wealthy man: at least three times as big as hers.
The atrium had a beautiful floor of black and white marble, and in its middle – under the open skylight – a fountain bubbled in a gold-tiled impluvium. On the walls around them were frescoes depicting scenes from the travels of Aeneas, the legendary hero who founded Rome.
‘Look,’ pointed Nubia. ‘Dog with three heads.’
Flavia gazed in delight at the pictures on the wall. ‘Yes, it’s Cerberus. Cerberus. He is very fierce. He’s the hound who guards the gates of the underworld. Land of dead people.’
‘Cerberus,’ said Nubia in wonder and walked over to the wall. Flavia followed her and they both examined the three-headed hound opening all his mouths at a startled Aeneas. Behind Aeneas, a woman held out her hand to the dog.
‘I don’t remember that part of the Aeneid,’ murmured Flavia to herself.
‘Book six,’ said a man’s voice behind them, and they both started guiltily. It was Libertus, but he did not seem angry. His dark blue eyes sparkled as he quoted: ‘“Huge Cerberus makes the caves of the underworld echo with his three-throated barking . . .”’
Libertus pointed.
‘That’s the scene where Aeneas’s guide gives the hellhound a drugged biscuit, so that he can pass by . . .’
Libertus nodded at the frescoes with approval. ‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they?’ he said.
‘Very beautiful,’ agreed Flavia.
‘Come through to the garden,’ he said with a smile. ‘As you know, Cordius is away, and in his absence I am the master of his house.’
He led them out of the atrium and down some steps into a beautiful garden as big as Flavia’s entire house. At its centre was a large ornamental pool with two bronze dolphins spouting water at each other. Six laurel trees, trimmed into perfect balls, had been planted on either side of the pool, and at one end stood an elegant palm tree, its top half lit gold-green by the early morning sun.
Flavia could see mosaic patterns on the garden paths and bronze statues half hidden in the fragrant shrubbery. She heard the snip of a gardener’s shears and then noticed another slave sweeping the peristyle – the columned walkway that surrounded the garden. There was not a leaf out of place and even the dew on the mimosa seemed to sparkle like diamonds.
‘Have a seat.’ Libertus gestured to a cedarwood couch with orange linen cushions. Taking a seat on a similar couch opposite the girls, he leaned forward, elbows on knees, and smiled.
‘How may I help you, Flavia Gemina?’
‘Remember we told you yesterday that Jonathan’s dog was killed?’
‘Yes,’ he replied gravely and a frown creased his smooth forehead, ‘a terrible matter.’
‘And you saw a man running?’
‘Yes. Carrying a leather bag . . .’
‘Well – is this the man you saw?’ Flavia pulled the wax tablet from her belt and showed it to him.
Libertus took the tablet from her and examined it carefully.
‘Yes,’ he said slowly, ‘clean-shaven, hair combed forward, and those heavy eyebrows – yes!’ He nodded. ‘I remember the eyebrows, how they met over his eyes. And I think he was wearing a pale tunic.’
‘Pale yellow?’
‘It was pale yellow, now that you mention it. Yes! I’m certain this is the man I saw running down the street yesterday!’
The girls had just told Jonathan and Lupus their exciting news about the running man when they heard a knock on the door and Mordecai’s voice calling his son.
‘We really must get a new watchdog,’ sighed Mordecai as they let him in. ‘I do miss Bobas,’ he added sadly.
Jonathan had cleared away the breakfast things and now he brought his father a cup of mint tea. They all sat on the carpet in a sunlit corner of the garden.
Mordecai was wearing a Roman-style tunic and mantle, presumably to impress the city officials, and for the first time Flavia saw him without his turban. His hair was black, streaked with grey, and quite long. He had tied it all back, including the distinctive locks which usually fell in front of his ears.
‘The magistrates have received other complaints about the wild dogs and they assured me that they have men out looking for them even now. They promised they would bury the dogs I killed last night. As for the crime of Bobas’s killing, it’s not so simple. They’re reluctant to get involved.’
Mordecai sipped his mint tea reflectively.
‘I have an appointment to see an official later this morning and then I must visit some patients, so I may be out all day. Flavia, may Jonathan and Lupus stay at your house? I don’t want to leave them here alone . . .’
‘Of course,’ said Flavia. ‘They’ll be perfectly safe at our house.’
‘I’ve locked our door,’ said Mordecai to the four of them a short time later. They were standing on the hot pavement outside Flavia’s house.
‘Here’s the key, Jonathan. Keep it at Flavia’s, and only use it if you need to get in urgently. With any luck I’ll be back shortly after midday, but who knows? With city officials, anything is possible. Now promise me you won’t get into trouble and that you won’t go far.’
‘I promise that we won’t even leave this street, father,’ said Jonathan earnestly.
‘Very well,’ smiled Mordecai. ‘Peace be with you, my children.’
‘Peace be with you,’ they answered, and watched him hurry up the road.
As soon as he turned the corner by the green fountain, Flavia turned to Jonathan.
‘We promised not leave our street,’ she said, ‘but Avitus’s house is on this street and I’ve just thought of a brilliant plan for getting in!’
‘Avitus might recognise the three of us from the graveyard yesterday,’ Flavia began, ‘but if I pinned my hair up and put on a nice stola, and went with Lupus, I don’t think he’d recognise me.’
The four of them were sitting on the marble bench in Flavia’s garden while she told them her plan to find out more about Avitus, the man they had seen weeping in the graveyard.
‘A disguise!’ cried Jonathan. ‘What a good idea!’
Flavia explained the rest of her plan and the others agreed it was a clever one.
‘There’s only one problem,’ he pointed out. ‘For your plan to work, we’ll have to clean up Lupus. I mean really clean him up . . .’
They all looked at Lupus.
‘You’re right,’ agreed Flavia. ‘It’ll take a little extra time, but it has to be done. You’ll have to take him, Jonathan, and Caudex can go with you.’ She turned to Lupus.
‘I know you’ve slept outside the Baths of Thetis,’ she said with a grin, ‘but have you ever been inside them?’
A few hours later, at mid-day, Flavia was reading book six of the Aeneid to Nubia. Suddenly Scuto, curled up at their feet, lifted his head and uttered a bark, and shortly afterwards they heard a knock at the front door.
‘We’ll get it, Alma!’ Flavia called, and hastily put down the scroll. ‘They’re back!’ she exulted. ‘Oh, I can’t wait to see this!’
The girls hurried to the door. Scuto sensed their excitement and ran barking after them, his claws skittering on the marble floor.
Flavia slid back the bolt and threw open the door to reveal Caudex and the two boys. All three wore large grins.
‘Lupus!’ cried Flavia. ‘You’re clean! Your skin is three shades lighter! And they’ve cut your hair!’
‘Shaved it more like!’ said Jonathan, patting Lupus’s fuzzy stubble. ‘His head was crawling with nits!’
‘Even that old tunic looks cleaner,’ marvelled Flavia.
‘They cleaned and pressed our clothes while we were in the baths,’ said Jonathan, stepp
ing into the atrium. ‘Show them your hands, Lupus!’
Lupus held out his hands reluctantly as he followed Jonathan in. They were almost spotless and the nails neatly manicured. Nubia commented shyly,
‘Smell nice!’
Scuto sniffed at Lupus’s foot and then sneezed.
Caudex, who smelled strongly of rose oil, closed the door behind them and took up his usual post.
‘I don’t think Lupus liked the steam room much,’ said Jonathan over his shoulder, ‘but I couldn’t get him out of the pool. He’s a brilliant swimmer and he was as happy as a newt in a puddle. Weren’t you, Lupus?’
Lupus nodded as they went into the garden.
‘You’re not limping any more!’ cried Flavia.
‘We both had a long massage,’ said Jonathan. ‘I thought it might ease his aches and bruises.’
‘And did it?’ Flavia asked Lupus.
For a reply, the beggar-boy nodded again.
‘Hmmmn,’ said Flavia. ‘The only thing he needs now are sandals. He can’t go in bare feet!’
‘I have some at home. I outgrew them last year, but they’re still in good condition . . .’ suggested Jonathan.
‘You and Lupus take the key and get them,’ said Flavia, ‘while I change into a different person, too!’
A girl and a boy stood outside a house with a red door at the bend of Green Fountain Street. The girl had clear grey eyes and wore a white stola. Her light brown hair was neatly coiled on top of her head, though one or two strands had already escaped. The boy had green eyes and very short brown hair. His tunic was faded but clean. Both wore bullas around their necks, marking them out as freeborn.
The girl knocked again. Presently, an old man opened the red door and after a moment they all disappeared inside.
Meanwhile, behind the same house in the graveyard, another boy and girl were climbing a tall poplar tree. The girl moved up quietly and fluidly, as if she had climbed trees all her life. She was beautiful, with very short black hair, dark brown skin and golden eyes. Among the dark leaves of the poplar, she was almost invisible. The boy who followed her had dark, curly hair, a strong, straight nose and eyes so dark they were almost black. Unlike the girl, he was not a graceful climber: he kept getting poked in the eye with twigs and leaves. And under his breath he uttered words a polite Roman boy should not even have known.
Flavia looked around the atrium. It had originally been the same size as the one in her house, but flimsy rooms had been constructed on either side, making it a narrow, dark corridor. An entire family seemed to occupy the atrium. She could hear a child singing tunelessly behind one of the curtained doorways, and a woman was washing nappies in the impluvium. Beside her squatted two runny-nosed toddlers, intent on a game they were playing with seed-pods and pine cones.
‘Avitus and his wife have the balcony rooms,’ mumbled the toothless old man. ‘Go through the garden and up the stairs . . .’ He didn’t wait for a reply, but shuffled back to his cubicle and disappeared behind the curtain.
The woman washing clothes nodded at them as they squeezed by and Flavia murmured a polite greeting. Damp laundry hung from a washing line beneath the skylight, blocking off what little sunshine managed to enter the dismal room. A faint odour of stale sweat and frying onions hung in the air.
Flavia tugged Lupus’s hand and they moved hesitantly down the corridor into what should have been the garden. Here too, old rooms had been enlarged and new rooms built, so that the garden had shrunk to a few paving stones with weeds pushing between them. A wizened vine struggled up a rickety trellis towards what little light there was.
It was hotter in the garden than in the atrium. The family who occupied this part of the house had left the curtains of their cubicles open to catch any breeze. It was still siesta time and Flavia glimpsed suspicious eyes watching her from low beds in the dim rooms.
As she and Lupus started up the stairs a young woman in a black stola appeared on the balcony above them. She had a long nose and small mouth, and large, moist brown eyes.
‘Have you come to see me?’ The woman called down.
‘We’ve come to see if Avita can play,’ said Flavia in her little-girl voice. ‘My name is um . . . Helena, and this is my brother Lucius. We have just returned from a voyage.’
‘Oh!’ cried the woman, and then said, ‘You’d better come up.’
She met them at the top of the stairs and led them into a small, stuffy room with a low couch against one wall and a table against the other. A few flies buzzed round the remains of a meal on the table. The woman in black perched on a stool and invited the two of them to sit on the couch. Flavia noticed that some of the plaster was missing from the ceiling and one or two cracks snaked along the walls.
‘My name is Julia Firma,’ said the woman. ‘I have some very sad news. My daughter died several weeks ago.’
Lupus burst into tears, quite convincingly, Flavia thought. She pretended to pat him consolingly. Then she said to Julia, ‘But Avita always seemed so healthy.’
‘I’m afraid she was bitten by a rabid dog.’
‘Oh how awful!’ cried Flavia. ‘How did it happen?’
‘It’s so crowded here, as you can see.’ Avita’s mother waved vaguely towards the garden. ‘My daughter loved to play in the graveyard among the trees and I never thought . . .’
Her voice trailed off and she swatted absently at a fly. ‘One day she came home complaining of a dog bite. She was very brave. She cried a little but it was not deep, so I merely put ointment on it and didn’t think about it again.’ The woman closed her eyes for a moment and then continued.
‘After a few days, we suspected something was wrong. First, Avita lost her appetite and then she began to be terrified of the sight of water. She even refused to drink. Finally she began to see things that weren’t there. The end, when it came, was peaceful.’
Julia looked down and brushed some plaster dust from her dark stola.
‘The tragedy was that her father was away on a voyage when it happened. Avita was our only surviving child and when my husband returned and discovered that we had lost her, he was inconsolable. He doesn’t share my faith,’ she added quietly.
‘Your faith?’ asked Flavia.
‘I believe that after we die, we will go to a place more wonderful than we can imagine. Not the cold, dark underworld, but a sunny garden – a paradise. I trust Avita is there now. She was also a believer.’ Julia Firma gazed at the faded plaster wall with a smile, as if she could see through it to a world beyond. Lupus and Flavia exchanged glances.
‘Would you children like to see her room?’ Avita’s mother asked suddenly.
‘Yes, please.’ Flavia nodded politely, remembering to use her little-girl voice.
Julia Firma rose and led them next door into a tiny bedroom. A small window looked out onto the graveyard and the walls were decorated with faded frescoes of trees, shrubs and birds.
‘She loved this room,’ sighed Julia, and looked around with a sad smile. ‘She used to tell me paradise would be like this.’
A narrow bed occupied most of the cubicle, which was tiny but spotlessly clean. At the head of the sleeping couch was a low table with Avita’s possessions still laid out: a clay lamp, a few tiny glass bottles, a bronze mirror, and a wooden comb. On the bed lay a small painting of the girl.
Flavia and Lupus gazed at the portrait of Avita. Coloured wax had been applied to a flat piece of limewood with such skill that the face painted there seemed about to speak. The girl wore small gold earrings and a bulla round her neck.
The face gazing back at them seemed so cheerful and alert that Flavia’s throat tightened painfully: for the first time she really felt the tragedy of the girl’s death.
Lupus picked up the portrait to examine it more closely and Flavia gazed out of the window into the graveyard. She couldn’t see Jonathan or Nubia anywhere, but as she pushed her face further out, she caught a spicy whiff of grasses and pine needles. She breathed the scent of life gr
atefully and then turned back to look for clues on the table.
The clay oil-lamp caught her eye. Its design was one she had never seen before. On its top – where most lamps had a cupid or a leaf – was a beardless man with a lamb across his shoulders.
‘The shepherd,’ murmured Julia, stepping in from the doorway. ‘He has carried my little Avita home, like that lamb.’
‘The shepherd?’ said Flavia.
‘Our God,’ Julia replied simply. ‘See the Greek letters alpha and omega on the spout? They mean . . .’
But Flavia never heard what she was going to say.
At that moment an angry voice behind them cried, ‘What are you doing in my daughter’s room? I warned you!’
Lupus whirled round and Flavia dropped the little clay lamp onto the floor. There in the doorway stood Publius Avitus Proculus. And he was very angry.
‘I told you never to come in here,’ shouted Avitus. He was rigid with anger and his heavy eyebrows made him look very fierce. But his anger was directed at his wife, not at Flavia and Lupus.
‘But Publius!’ Julia protested. ‘These children were her friends. I was just showing them –’
‘Get out!’ Avitus commanded his wife.
For a tense moment they stared at one another.
‘No I will not!’ Julia finally said. ‘She was my daughter, too. You’re not the only one who misses her!’
‘Yes, but you’ll see her again one day in paradise, won’t you?’ There was bitter sarcasm in Avitus’s voice.
‘That doesn’t mean I don’t miss her now, Publius . . .’ A tear slipped down her cheek. ‘. . . just as much as you do.’
Suddenly her husband sagged. The anger drained from his face and he began to weep.
‘It’s my fault she died!’ he cried. ‘If I had been here . . . I wasn’t even here when she . . .’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 7