‘Lupus tried to steal from us!’ was all she could say in her defence. ‘That’s why he wanted to spend the night here. He . . . he betrayed us!’
‘Flavia.’ Mordecai twisted a gold ring on his finger. ‘And Jonathan,’ he added, looking up at his son, ‘do you have any idea what kind of life Lupus has led?’
‘No,’ admitted Flavia, hanging her head.
Jonathan just shook his miserably.
‘He’s been on his own in this city for as long as he can remember. He has no mother or father, as far as we know. No home, no place to be safe, no family of any kind. As if that weren’t bad enough, he hasn’t even got a tongue with which to communicate. You were probably the first real friends he’s had in his life.’
Flavia swallowed. Her throat hurt.
‘His entire life has been a fight to survive, and he must have fought very hard to have stayed alive this long. He has had to beg or steal every bite of food that’s come into his poor mouth.’ Mordecai sighed, and softened his tone.
‘Can you not find it in your hearts to forgive him? I admit he did something that was wrong. He was tempted to steal and he gave in to that temptation. But haven’t you ever given in to temptation? Haven’t you ever done anything wrong?’
None of them spoke.
‘Jonathan, you broke your promise to me the day you were almost kidnapped. You promised you would stay on this street. Flavia, your father told you never to go into the graveyard but you have gone there repeatedly. You know what you did was wrong, don’t you?’
Flavia nodded and then blurted out, ‘What about Nubia? You haven’t said anything to her.’ She immediately regretted saying such a spiteful thing and bit her lip. But Mordecai surprised her by saying, ‘You’re right, Flavia, I’m sure Nubia has done things in her life that she is ashamed of.’
Nubia raised her head and nodded. Her eyes were full of tears.
‘Well,’ said Mordecai gently, ‘our faith teaches that if you say sorry to God for the wrong things you have done, and if you forgive the people who have done wrong things to you, you will be forgiven. Would you like that?’
Nubia and Jonathan nodded immediately. After a moment Flavia did, too. It sounded suspiciously easy.
‘Are you sorry for all the wrong things you’ve done?’ asked Mordecai. They all nodded this time. ‘Then say sorry to God.’
‘How?’ asked Flavia.
‘Jonathan?’ said his father.
Jonathan closed his eyes and said, ‘I’m sorry for all the wrong things I’ve done, Lord.’ and then added, ‘Amen.’
Straight away, Nubia closed her eyes and imitated Jonathan. ‘I’m sorry for wrong things also. Amen.’
‘What does “amen” mean?’ Flavia asked cautiously.
‘It’s like saying: I really mean it,’ said Mordecai with a smile.
Flavia closed her eyes and tried to imagine which god she was speaking to. Finally she settled on the beardless shepherd with a lamb over his shoulders.
‘I’m sorry for all the wrong things I’ve done,’ she whispered to him, and then added, ‘amen.’ When she opened her eyes a moment later she felt lighter somehow.
‘And now,’ said Mordecai, ‘will you forgive Lupus?’
They all nodded.
‘Then what are you doing sitting here? Get down to the forum and find him and invite him to your party!’
The three of them jumped up and began to run for the door.
‘Wait!’ said Mordecai.
They all ran back. Mordecai slipped Jonathan some coins. ‘You’d better take him to the baths again.’
‘Yes, father!’ Jonathan grinned, and they all charged off toward the door.
‘Wait!’ cried Mordecai. They all ran back.
‘You’d better take Caudex and Scuto with you this time.’
‘Yes, Doctor Mordecai!’ Flavia nodded vigorously, while Nubia ran to get Scuto’s lead.
‘Wait!’ shouted Mordecai. They all ran back.
‘Who’s going to drink all this peach juice?’ he asked, gesturing at Alma coming towards them with a tray.
‘You are!’ they laughed, and ran out of the garden.
It was a perfect summer evening. The warmth of the late afternoon sun had released all the scents of the garden and a sea breeze touched the leaves just enough to make them tremble. The sky was lavender and the garden was deep green, filled with cool shadows.
The nine of them were sitting or reclining in the dining room.
Miriam had been counted an adult, because at thirteen she was legally old enough to marry. Wearing a dark blue stola which set off her glossy black curls and pale skin, she reclined next to Aristo. Flavia felt a pang of jealousy. Aristo, her tutor, had sailed back from Corinth with her father. He was young and handsome with olive skin and curly hair the colour of bronze. Flavia had always imagined she would marry him when she was older.
But Miriam had been silent, as usual, and Aristo was not even looking at her. He was chatting to the merchant Cordius, who as the guest of honour reclined on the middle couch. On the third couch Mordecai reclined next to Flavia’s father.
Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia and Lupus all sat round a table in the middle, so that they could be part of the conversation. All nine diners were bathed and perfumed, wearing their garlands of ivy, jasmine and grape hyacinth.
Cordius had brought along a young slave named Felix, who was helping Alma serve dinner. They had just finished the first course: bite-sized parcels of peppered goat’s cheese wrapped in pickled vine leaves. Felix removed their empty plates as Alma brought in the main course, rabbit with onion and date gravy.
‘This is delicious, Alma!’ said Flavia’s father. ‘I always miss your cooking when I’m at sea.’
‘I caught the rabbits this morning with my sling,’ said Jonathan proudly.
‘It is delicious,’ agreed Cordius. ‘Congratulations to both hunter and cook!’ He lifted his wine cup.
Flavia tried not to look at Cordius. The sight of a flowered garland above his mournful face made her want to giggle. But she couldn’t avoid looking at him when he said,
‘I owe a great debt of gratitude to you four children.’
He made a gesture to his young slave Felix, who quietly moved to stand near the table.
‘I knew there was a thief in my household. That’s why I removed the gold from my strongbox. But it was your quick action that exposed him and the crime. I know you expected no reward, but I would like to give you one.’ He nodded to Felix, who handed a heavy gold coin to each of the four friends.
They all gasped. Flavia and Jonathan thanked Cordius warmly. Lupus automatically put his coin between his teeth and bit it in order to test it was really gold. His face went red as everyone laughed, but when he saw they weren’t offended he smiled furtively. Nubia was staring at her reward with eyes almost as round and gold as the coin.
‘You might also like to know that Avitus’s widow will be looked after,’ said Cordius. ‘Doctor Mordecai told me about the tragic loss of her daughter and husband. She is an excellent seamstress and I have offered her a place in my household and a small allowance.’
‘Very gracious of you.’ Mordecai bowed his head to the merchant.
‘What will you buy with your newfound riches?’ Cordius asked Flavia with a rare smile.
‘A complete set of Pliny’s Natural History,’ she announced without a moment’s hesitation. Everyone laughed.
‘Nubia?’ said Captain Geminus.
‘Lotus wood flute,’ the girl said softly.
‘Ah! We have a budding musician in the household,’ Aristo leaned forward on one elbow with interest. ‘I’ll look forward to accompanying you on my lyre.’
‘Lupus?’ asked Mordecai.
Lupus shrugged. He had an odd smile on his face.
‘What will you buy with your coin, Jonathan?’ asked Flavia’s father in a jolly voice, a bit too loudly.
‘I’d like to buy a new watchdog,’ said Jonathan. ‘I’ve been readi
ng Pliny’s Natural History, too, and he writes about a kind of watchdog from India. Its mother is a dog, but its father is a tiger. It is the fiercest watchdog in the world, but they cost a fortune. I couldn’t buy one before, but now perhaps I can. A watchdog that fierce would never let anyone hurt the people it protected. And nothing could hurt it either. Don’t you agree, Nubia? Nubia?’
But once again, like a shadow, Nubia had disappeared.
‘How does she do that?’ marvelled Jonathan, scratching his curly head.
‘Shall we search for her?’ asked Aristo from the couch.
‘No,’ said Flavia. ‘She’ll come back. She’s probably just taken Scuto a bit of rabbit.’
Scuto had been shut in the storeroom as he always was when a party was given. Otherwise he would disgrace himself by begging for morsels or tripping up Alma as she came in with the soup.
‘I must ask you,’ said Cordius to Flavia as he took a sip of wine, ‘when did you first guess the true motive for the killings?’
‘Well, it was thanks to Aristo,’ said Flavia shyly. Everyone looked at the young Greek tutor in surprise.
‘He always tells me to use imagination as well as reason.’ Flavia looked down at her plate and then back up at Cordius.
‘I was lying in bed, trying to think like Aristo: if Avitus hadn’t killed the dogs, then someone else must have. And if someone else killed the dogs, then what was their motive? It probably wasn’t because they hated dogs!’
Everyone was listening intently, and Flavia noticed that Aristo’s eyes sparkled with delight.
‘Just as I was trying to imagine what motive there could be for killing dogs, Scuto barked. And I suddenly knew. It had to be the obvious motive.’
‘To silence the watchdog!’ cried Aristo.
‘Exactly,’ exclaimed Flavia. ‘But why silence Jonathan’s watchdog, or the watchdog across the street, or even our watchdog?’
‘“If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and not let his house be broken into”,’ quoted Mordecai.
Aristo looked at him curiously. The young Greek was very well-read but did not recognise the quote.
‘Yes,’ Flavia was saying. ‘The main reason for silencing a watchdog is to break in and steal something. But Jonathan’s family doesn’t have much worth stealing, and I thought we didn’t either, so I concluded the target must be Cordius.’
‘Logical,’ murmured Aristo.
‘Then, when Lupus discovered all the gold in our storeroom, I realised that we were the intended victims and that either Scuto would be killed, or the thief would try to frighten us away.’
‘But you knew who the thief was before Lupus told us,’ said Jonathan. ‘How did you work that out?’
The evening sky had darkened from violet to purple and the dog-star winked brightly above the tiled roof. Caudex came in to light the lamps and Felix cleared away the remains of the rabbit stew.
‘It was simple,’ Flavia ventured. ‘If Libertus was telling the truth, Avitus had to be the killer.’
Jonathan nodded.
‘If Avitus wasn’t the killer, then Libertus was probably lying. And if Libertus was lying, it must have been to protect himself. Libertus said he had been drinking at the fountain. But who would drink that smelly old water when there’s sweet water in your house just a few yards up the road?’
‘Unless you’re very thirsty!’ interjected Jonathan.
‘Or unless you had to wash blood off your hands or dagger! You wouldn’t do that in front of the slaves, would you?’
‘He had the head with him as we passed by,’ added Jonathan. ‘Probably wrapped up in his cloak. But he was standing on the other side of the fountain and we couldn’t see it.’
Flavia took a sip of her watered-down wine.
‘When we first went to Libertus, he gave a description which could have been almost anyone’s, to throw us off the track. To make it convincing, he made up the bit about the bag, because he knew a head was missing. Later he added details which pointed to Avitus, but only after I showed him the drawing and described what Avitus had been wearing.’
‘Why didn’t you suspect Libertus earlier?’ asked Aristo with interest.
‘Well, he was so polite and handsome,’ she said, reddening slightly. ‘It just never occurred to me he might be bad.’
‘An understandable error,’ Cordius murmured, and Flavia remembered that he had been prepared to make the young freedman his son.
‘“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart”,’ Mordecai quoted again, and everyone nodded their agreement, though Aristo gave him another keen look.
Flavia concluded. ‘As soon as I knew the culprit was Libertus, and that he probably wanted to get rid of the dogs in order to steal the treasure, I knew the real crime would soon be committed.’
‘I don’t understand something!’ said Flavia’s father in the rather loud voice he used when he’d had too much wine. ‘Lupus overheard Libertus in the tavern, correct?’
‘Yes,’ Flavia answered.
‘Then why didn’t he tell you that the man he overheard was Libertus from across the street?’
‘Because Lupus had never actually seen Libertus,’ explained Flavia. ‘Overhearing Libertus was just a piece of good luck. But if Lupus hadn’t told us, or shown us what he looked like, we might never have solved the crime.’
Cordius toasted Lupus and the rest followed suit.
At that moment Alma came in with their dessert course. She held a tray of hot pastry cases filled with honey and walnuts, each of them in the shape of a little dog.
Everyone made noises of great approval and appreciation. They each took one, and sucked the honey off their scalded fingers.
Bright stars pricked a sky which was not yet quite black, but deepest blue. The sweet fragrance of the jasmine and hyacinth garlands filled the air.
Suddenly Nubia stepped into the soft golden lamplight of the dining room.
‘Nubia!’ they all greeted her.
‘Have a honey and walnut dog!’
‘Have a drop more wine.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘Graveyard,’ said Nubia and crouched in the centre of the dining room. Carefully, she placed her woollen cloak on the marble floor. In its folds squirmed two small creatures.
‘Oh!’ breathed Miriam, jumping down from her couch. ‘They’re adorable!’
Everyone leaned forward to see the two little puppies, only a few weeks old, which lay squeaking on Nubia’s cloak.
‘They’re wonderful!’ said Jonathan in an odd, choked voice. ‘Was the father . . .?’
Nubia looked at him and nodded. The puppies looked like miniature versions of the fierce black hound who had first led the feral pack.
‘What will you do with them, Nubia?’ laughed Captain Geminus.
Nubia held one up and hugged it.
‘I keep it?’ she asked.
‘Of course!’ Flavia and her father answered together.
Nubia, her head bent, hugged the puppy as tightly as she dared. After a moment she looked up, with tears sparkling on her eyelashes and said, ‘I name him Nipur. Name of my dog at home.’
‘Nipur it is then,’ said Captain Geminus, in a hearty, booming voice, and wiped something out of his own eye.
‘And the other one,’ said Jonathan quietly. ‘What will you name him?’
‘I don’t name him. You name him,’ said Nubia, handing the other puppy to Jonathan. ‘Don’t get tiger dog.’
Jonathan took the small, squeaking bundle carefully, almost reverently, and kissed its wet black nose.
‘I will name him Tigris,’ said Jonathan solemnly, ‘and he will be my tiger dog. Oh, Pollux! He’s just peed on me!’
They all burst out laughing and Felix came round with the wine again.
‘I’m afraid we must go soon,’ said Mordecai apologetically, and winced as he waited for his children to protest.
> But they were too busy cooing over Tigris, who was licking rabbit gravy off Jonathan’s finger.
‘Before you go,’ said Captain Geminus to Mordecai, ‘I have a proposal for you. I must be off again soon, making the most of the sailing season. After all that’s happened this past month I would like to send Flavia and Nubia somewhere safer.
‘My brother has a large villa south of here on the bay of Neapolis, and he says he would be delighted to receive a houseful of people for the month of August. Your children are both invited, and you are very welcome, too.’
‘Would we be able to take the puppies with us?’ asked Miriam, looking up from Tigris.
‘Of course!’ said Flavia’s father. ‘Scuto will be going, though Alma and Caudex will remain here to keep an eye on things. I think they deserve a rest, too.’
‘Oh please, can we go father?’ begged Miriam and Jonathan.
‘I’ll think about it,’ said Mordecai, with a smile.
Captain Geminus turned to Lupus, who was stroking Nipur and keeping his head down.
‘Lupus, we would be honoured if you would come, too.’
Flavia, Nubia and Jonathan cheered and urged Lupus to come.
Lupus looked up at them and nodded once, gruffly. Then he lowered his head again and examined Nipur’s tail with intense concentration.
‘Of course,’ added Captain Geminus, ‘Aristo will be accompanying you, so there will be lessons in Greek, philosophy, art and music every morning . . .’
They all moaned.
‘Then we shall definitely come!’ announced Mordecai.
They all cheered.
‘To a peaceful August in Pompeii, then,’ said Flavia’s father, and raised his cup in a toast.
‘Pompeii,’ they all echoed, and raised their wine cups.
FINIS
Aeneas (a-nee- ass)
Trojan son of the goddess Venus who escaped from conquered Troy to have many adventures and finally settle in what would become Rome
Aeneid (a-nee- id)
long poem by the famous poet Virgil about the Roman hero Aeneas
amphora (am-for-a)
large clay storage jar for holding wine, oil or grain
atrium (eh-tree-um)
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 13