Lupus knew almost everyone in this part of town, and he knew the woman who occupied the tiny room behind the bead curtain. She was an Egyptian soothsayer who called herself Hariola.
As quietly as a grass snake, Lupus slipped across the street, closer to the doorway. Then, making himself as small as possible, he sat in the narrow shadow cast by the overhang of one of the shops.
No one would notice him, and even if they did, they would just see a sleepy beggar-boy. He listened as hard as a rabbit, but although he could hear a man’s muffled voice and then Hariola’s husky croak, he could not make out their words. The voices went silent for a while. Lupus guessed the soothsayer was poking at chicken entrails or staring into a sacred bauble. Presently the woman’s voice rang out, it sounded dramatic and false. Then he heard the man replying angrily and now he could hear the words clearly.
‘You’re lying! You don’t know a thing about it!’ Avitus shouted.
Abruptly, there was a clatter of beads as Avitus pushed through the curtain. A moment later the wooden beads rattled again and at the same time the sickly-sweet aroma of cheap musk filled Lupus’s nostrils: the soothsayer had come out, too.
‘Where’s my silver?’ she hissed. ‘That’s three sestercii you owe me!’
Lupus did not dare put his head round the wall to look. Then he heard Avitus’s retreating footsteps and Hariola’s rasping voice: ‘Unless you offer a sacrifice to the god Anubis, your daughter’s spirit will never be at rest!’ There was a pause and then he heard the woman shriek:
‘May the gods curse you!’ She muttered something in a language he could not understand.
As soon as he heard the bead curtain rattle again, Lupus quickly ran off to follow Avitus.
After Avitus left the soothsayer, he went straight to a tavern. Lupus rounded the corner just in time to see him disappear through the door. It was an inn Lupus was familiar with, and he hesitated a moment before entering.
The Medusa Tavern smelled of sour wine and fish soup. As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, Lupus saw several drinkers slouched over trestle tables. Avitus stood at the bar, already draining his first beaker.
Lupus took an empty wine cup from one of the tables, sat cross-legged in the sawdust on the floor, and placed the cup in front of him. Then he hung his head to make himself look more pathetic. He didn’t expect to receive any coins, but there were three coppers in his cup by the time Avitus moved unsteadily out of the dim tavern into the blazing heat of the afternoon.
Lupus shadowed Avitus from one inn to the next, all the way to the docks. By the time Avita’s father staggered into an inn beside the mouth of the river Tiber, Lupus had made nearly two sestercii from begging.
The Grain and Grape was a favourite of the soldiers stationed in Ostia: their barracks were nearby. An entire cohort from Rome – six hundred soldiers – patrolled the town in shifts. They worked hard keeping law and order, and guarding against fires. In their spare time, many of them liked to relax at the waterfront taverns with a cup of spiced wine and a game of dice.
A group of off-duty soldiers were there now, gaming with a few civilians at a table overlooking the river harbour. Unlike the other inns Avitus had visited, the Grain and Grape was light and airy. Large open windows offered views of the Mediterranean on one side and the mouth of the Tiber on the other. The late afternoon breeze, which sailors called Venus’ Breath, had just started to rise off the sea. It brought a delicious coolness to the inn.
As the gamers called loudly for grilled sausages and honeyed wine, Lupus scanned the room for Avitus: predictably, he was hunched over a drink at the bar.
Hearing the clatter of dice and the laughter of the soldiers, Lupus judged they were in just the right mood to be generous. It would be a shame to miss this opportunity.
Keeping his head down, the beggar-boy approached the soldiers’ table, and pitifully held out his empty cup. Most tossed in a few small coins, and one civilian put in half a spiced sausage. Satisfied, Lupus sat on the floor in the sawdust.
Avitus hadn’t budged. He was still leaning on the bar pouring wine from a flagon. It was his ninth or tenth drink in under two hours.
Lupus emptied the coins into his cloth pouch and put the empty cup in front of him. He tossed in a coin – one always encouraged more – and munched the sausage carefully.
He found himself thinking about the portrait of Avita, the little girl who had died of a dog bite. He thought of the way the artist had added a tiny white dot to each of her eyes to make them sparkle. He wondered how the paint was made, and how painters were trained. And who were they? Greeks, like the potters? Alexandrians, like the glassmakers? Ephesians, like the silversmiths?
He was studying a fresco of Bacchus and Ceres on the opposite wall when a scuffle broke out at the end of the table nearest to him. A soldier and his young civilian gaming partner were arguing.
The burly soldier grasped a handful of his companion’s tunic, pulled him across the table and growled threats into his ear. The others laughed and ignored them, but Lupus saw what they did not: the soldier’s dagger glinting beneath the table.
Drops of red liquid spattered onto the sawdust. Lupus stiffened. Then he relaxed as he realised it was only wine; the big soldier had knocked over the civilian’s wine cup.
The young man pleaded with the soldier in an urgent whisper. Lupus pricked up his ears, and leaned a little closer.
‘. . . at the house of the sea captain Flavius Geminus,’ he heard the young man hiss. ‘I swear it! A vast treasure! I promise I’ll have the money I owe you by tomorrow!’
A vast treasure!
Lupus had never met Flavia’s father, but he knew his name was Marcus Flavius Geminus, and that he was a sea captain. There couldn’t possibly be two captains by that name in Ostia.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lupus saw the young man relax back onto his bench as the soldier released him. He was well-dressed and, judging from his voice, well-educated, too: probably a young patrician who’d gambled away his allowance. For the next ten years.
The soldier resembled the statue of Hercules near the forum, only bigger and uglier.
‘Tomorrow then,’ growled the soldier, and Lupus saw the knife go back into its sheath.
Suddenly Lupus remembered what he was supposed to be doing in the tavern. He glanced at the bar, just to make sure the man he was following was still there.
But Avitus had gone.
As Jonathan ran up the narrow alley, with Flavia and Nubia close behind him, his mind was racing. Just beyond this warehouse, where the piers ended and the beach began, was the synagogue. Although his family had not been welcome there for several months, he knew it as well as he knew his own house. If only they could get there before the slave-dealers’ men caught them.
‘Can you see them yet?’ he gasped back to Flavia. He was finding it hard to breathe.
‘No . . .’ he heard her answer, then, ‘yes! They’re still chasing us!’
Jonathan nearly slipped on something slimy and wet, but he felt Flavia’s arm steady him.
‘Thanks!’ he said, and heard the wheezing in his own voice.
A moment later the three friends shot out of the alley and were nearly trampled by a two-horse carraca. They had come out onto the main coastal road.
‘Watch where you’re going!’ cried the angry driver of the wagon, trying to calm his horses.
‘Sorry!’ gasped Jonathan over his shoulder.
They ran down the road, overtaking a creaking mule-drawn cart and almost trampling three slaves napping in the shade behind a warehouse.
Jonathan knew exactly where he was going. When he had attended school at the synagogue, he and his friend David had discovered a way out via the courtyard. They would climb onto a branch of the fig tree, walk along the wall, and jump down onto a pile of stone blocks left behind by builders. If only the blocks were still there, he could lead Flavia and Nubia to safety. Once inside the synagogue, they should be safe. Even if the men followed
them, Jonathan knew a dozen hiding places.
‘Please God, may the blocks be there,’ Jonathan prayed silently.
As they rounded the corner of the warehouse, Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief. Although half hidden by weeds, the blocks were visible, still piled against the side wall of the synagogue.
Jonathan sprinted across a short stretch of sandy waste ground and was up the blocks and onto the wall in moments. Straddling the top of the wall and gasping for air, he helped Nubia and Flavia up.
‘It’s a long drop,’ said Flavia dubiously, looking down into the courtyard.
‘Along wall . . . to fig tree,’ wheezed Jonathan, fighting for breath. ‘Then climb down.’
Nubia, holding her arms out like an elegant tightrope walker, began to move quickly along the top of the wall towards the tree. Flavia followed, scooting rapidly instead of walking. By the time Nubia had reached the tree and had gracefully lowered herself down, Flavia was only halfway there.
‘Hurry, Flavia!’ gasped Jonathan as he rose to stand on top of the wall.
‘I am!’ she muttered between gritted teeth.
Flavia stretched forward, grabbed a branch and swung down. For a moment she hung from the fig tree, then dropped down into the courtyard.
‘Ow!’ she cried. ‘My sore ankle.’
Jonathan looked down. The girls’ faces seemed very small as they watched him balance on the wall. He felt dizzy and out of breath, but he had done this many times before. Only a few steps and then he would be safe.
He took one faltering step, then another. The trick was not to look directly down, but to fix your eyes on a point some distance ahead.
Another step. He was almost there.
Suddenly he heard a cry to his left. Jonathan’s head jerked round: Venalicius’s three henchmen had just rounded the corner of the warehouse and had caught sight of him. They were running towards him.
He shouldn’t have looked. It broke his concentration and he felt himself losing his balance. Flapping his arms wildly, Jonathan uttered an involuntary cry and tumbled off the wall.
Flavia screamed as Jonathan fell, but by some miracle one of his flailing hands caught a branch and he managed to hold on. For a moment he swung wildly among the leaves, startling a sleeping blackbird which flew up out of the tree with a staccato warning cry. Jonathan reached up with his other hand and grasped the branch. He hung for a moment, wheezing and gasping, trying to think what to do next.
Another shrill scream pierced the air. This time it was Nubia.
An ugly face had appeared over the wall. It was one of Venalicius’s men!
The three of them gazed in horrified fascination at his ugly face: he had a broken nose and eyes that pointed in different directions. One eye seemed to be looking at Jonathan, as he dangled from the tree. The other gazed fiercely down at the two girls.
Then the ugly eyes opened wide and he looked past the girls at something behind them.
Flavia and Nubia turned and screamed again.
Looming above them was a huge figure in a black robe and turban.
For a split second, Flavia thought it was Mordecai. Then she realised this man had a longer beard. Also he was taller, heavier and much fiercer-looking. Venalicius’s henchman must have thought so, too: his unpleasant face disappeared back down behind the synagogue wall.
The man in black gave the girls a cold look and then turned his gaze on Jonathan, still hanging limply from the fig tree.
‘Shalom, Jonathan,’ he said in a dry voice, and then moved underneath the boy and added something in Hebrew.
‘Shalom, Rabbi,’ wheezed Jonathan. He let go of the branch and fell into the man’s strong arms. The rabbi lowered him gently to the ground. Jonathan stood gasping and trying to catch his breath.
The rabbi looked sternly at the girls and said in Latin,
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Flavia, ‘but we were being chased.’
‘Yes,’ replied the rabbi, ‘so it would appear.’
He glanced at Jonathan.
‘This boy is not welcome here,’ he said tersely. ‘His father teaches dangerous lies and has disturbed many.’ He looked at Jonathan, who was breathing marjoram oil, and Flavia saw his face soften a fraction.
‘It is hard enough for us as it is,’ said the rabbi, ‘without being associated with these . . .’ he hesitated and then said bitterly: ‘. . . these Christians.’
Flavia gasped and looked at Jonathan. ‘You’re a Christian?’
Jonathan nodded miserably.
Nubia tugged at Flavia’s tunic.
‘What Christian?’ she asked.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ said Flavia grimly.
Jonathan turned to the man in black.
‘I’m sorry, Rabbi,’ he pleaded, ‘we didn’t know where else to hide.’
The rabbi’s face relaxed and he said to Jonathan,
‘I suppose you can’t be blamed for your father’s misguided beliefs. Besides, the Master of the Universe, blessed be he, tells us to act justly and to love mercy . . .’
He tugged at his thick beard.
‘However, I’m afraid there are others who would not be so understanding if they knew you were here. You must leave now.’
Jonathan nodded. ‘Of course. We’ll go immediately.’
‘Just a minute.’ The rabbi put his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. ‘Let me check to see if it’s safe.’ He unbolted the double doors on the eastern side of the courtyard and peered out. Then he turned to them.
‘No sign of any pursuers,’ he said, and held open the doors.
As each of the three passed through the doorway he touched their heads and murmured a blessing.
‘Go in peace,’ he said gruffly, and then added, ‘and go quickly.’
As the synagogue door closed behind them, Jonathan turned to Flavia. ‘Which way shall we go?’ he asked her.
‘They might be waiting for us back at the docks.’ Flavia frowned.
‘The quickest way home is over the dunes through the graveyard,’ said Jonathan.
‘But what if we meet the wild dogs again?’ asked Flavia nervously.
‘Which would you rather meet again?’ said Jonathan, starting across the coastal road, ‘A few dogs, or those men?’
‘A few dogs, I suppose . . .’
‘Why didn’t you tell us you and your family were Christians?’ Flavia asked Jonathan as they set off across the dunes. ‘I thought you were Jews.’
The sun threw their shadows ahead of them and a light breeze ruffled their tunics. After a moment Jonathan spoke.
‘It’s hard to explain. We are Jewish, but Christus is the Latin name for our Messiah, so they call us Christians.’
Flavia said in a low voice:
‘I’ve heard that Christians eat their God and my father says they burned Rome the year he put on the toga virilis, the year he was sixteen.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Jonathan angrily. ‘Everyone knows Nero only blamed the Christians for burning Rome so that people wouldn’t be angry with him. Christians are peaceful. We are taught to love our enemies and pray for them.’
‘You love your enemies?’
‘We try to,’ Jonathan sighed.
‘But isn’t it dangerous being a Christian?’
‘Yes, it is. We can’t worship openly because so many people hate us.’ He trudged up a sand dune, wheezing a little, then added bitterly, ‘They don’t even take the trouble to find out what we believe.’
Flavia was about to ask Jonathan what Christians did believe when he stopped short.
‘Uh-oh,’ he said quietly. They were almost out of the dunes, and he had stopped to look up towards the graveyard. ‘Here they come.’
Trotting out of the shimmering heat to meet them, almost like old friends, was a pack of six or seven panting dogs. The friends froze and looked around, but out there on the dunes there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Lupus rushed out o
f the tavern and almost collided with Avitus, who was bending over the road. The boy jumped back just in time to avoid being spattered with vomit. Avitus didn’t notice the beggar-boy who had been in his daughter’s room earlier that day. He wouldn’t have noticed a sea nymph riding by on a centaur. He was being violently ill.
Lupus backed off and hid behind a statue of the Emperor Claudius.
Avitus was sick until finally he was retching up nothing. At last he stood, looking pale and haggard, his heavy eyebrows a dark line across his brow. He wiped his sweaty forehead with his arm and turned north towards the new imperial harbour.
It was a beautiful blue afternoon, and as the day cooled, the port was coming to life. Venus’ Breath had whipped up the sea beyond the river mouth and it was a deep sapphire colour. The sails of ships moving to and fro on the water made triangles of white and yellow against the blue.
The air was so clear that almost every brick of the distant lighthouse was visible against the afternoon sky. It was as if Lupus was seeing the structure for the first time. The tower looked like three huge red dice piled one on the other, each smaller than the one below, with a great plume of smoke furling away from the cylindrical platform at the very top.
Perhaps Avitus was also seeing the lighthouse as if for the first time, for presently he set off straight towards the ferry which would take him across the Tiber to the new harbour. Somehow, Lupus knew the little girl’s father was heading for the lighthouse. And somehow, he thought he knew why.
‘Sit down on the sand,’ said Flavia firmly to her friends as the dogs approached.
‘Sit down? Are you mad?’ Jonathan’s voice was a bit too shrill. ‘A pack of wild dogs are heading straight for us, about to chew us to pieces and you say sit down?’
‘That’s what Pliny says to do,’ said Flavia. ‘Your father lent me his book about natural history. Pliny says, “An angry attack can be averted by sitting on the ground”.’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 9