‘I know that!’ said Jonathan. ‘I mean: how does it help us find a treasure beyond imagining?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Flavia. ‘But I’ll bet Vulcan the blacksmith does.’
‘This was an excellent idea,’ said Jonathan later that afternoon. He was testing the weight of a leafy branch.
The four friends were back on the farm, in a fig tree so ancient that it had long ceased to bear fruit. From its upper branches came the liquid notes of Nubia’s flute.
Jonathan pushed some large green leaves aside. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘From here we can see anyone coming to the farm, and anyone travelling on the road from Stabia to Pompeii. But they can’t see us!’
The old fig tree grew near the edge of an olive grove surrounded by Gaius’s vineyards.
‘My uncle says we can use those old planks in the tool-shed by the wine press,’ added Flavia.
‘I’ve always wanted to build a tree fort,’ Jonathan said. ‘I’ll draw up plans and we can take turns building it and keeping watch.’
Abruptly the flute music stopped and Lupus grunted urgently above them. All Jonathan could see of him were his grubby feet in their too-large sandals.
‘What is it, Lupus?’ he asked. ‘Is Vulcan coming?’
Lupus grunted no. The leaves parted and he pointed to the vines below them.
‘You see something in the vineyard?’ asked Flavia.
Lupus grunted yes.
‘Behold!’ said Nubia. ‘An orange tunic. But it is now gone.’
‘Scuto!’ scolded Flavia. ‘You’re a pathetic watchdog!’
Scuto, tussling with the puppies in the shade beneath the fig tree, looked up at his mistress and wagged his tail.
‘They’re all useless,’ said Jonathan with a grin. ‘It couldn’t have been one of my uncle’s slaves,’ mused Flavia, ‘they all wear brown.’
‘Then it must have been someone spying on us!’ said Jonathan. ‘We’ll have to keep a sharp lookout from now on.’
Over the next few days they spent every free minute working on the tree fort.
At the hottest time of the day, when the adults bathed or napped, the four friends hurried to the leafy coolness of the fig tree to hammer planks, make rope ladders and watch for Vulcan’s approach. Once they invited Miriam to help them, but she preferred to stay in the shady house and garden, picking flowers and weaving with Frustilla.
Then, late one morning after their lessons, as they were hurrying off to the tree fort, Gaius’s guard dog Ferox finally had his revenge.
After the first evening, Scuto had been careful to give Ferox a wide berth. At first he had behaved in a sensible manner, hugging the farmyard wall fearfully, with his tail firmly between his legs. But as the days passed, his confidence increased.
On the morning in question, Flavia’s dog pranced into the farmyard with his tail held high, barked amiably at the hens and began to sniff out an interesting smell. As usual, Ferox shot to the end of his chain and erupted with a torrent of furious barks which Scuto totally ignored. Nose down, Flavia’s dog continued to sniff closer and closer to the watchdog, now almost hysterical with rage.
Ferox strained so hard at his collar that his eyes bulged from their sockets and his deep barks were reduced to wheezing gasps. Scuto wandered off nonchalantly, as if the slavering beast at the end of the iron chain were no more threatening than one of the brown hens.
Then Scuto made his mistake. He squatted thoughtfully by the chicken coop, intending to relieve himself of some deep burden. This Ferox could not tolerate. With a last mighty effort, using every fibre of strength in his huge body, he pulled at his iron chain. After a moment there was metallic ping as a link of the chain broke.
Like an arrow released from a bow, Ferox sped towards the hapless Scuto.
Flavia had just turned back to call her dog when she saw a golden-brown blur pursued by a huge black streak. They were heading through the vines, towards the coast, and in the time it took Flavia to blink, they had vanished from sight.
It was easy enough to follow Ferox’s trail: the hound was dragging two yards of iron chain behind him. The four friends and their puppies tracked its snaking path in the dust between the vine rows. Flavia tried not to think of what Ferox might do to Scuto if he caught him.
After half a mile, the trail emerged from the vineyard and ended at the coastal road which marked the border of her uncle’s land. There was a distant rider approaching from the direction of Pompeii, but otherwise the road was empty. Across the road and set back from it were the imposing backs of opulent villas overlooking the bay.
The road from Pompeii to Stabia was not wide, but it was well-paved, with tightly fitted hexagonal stones. The daily sea breeze had blown all the surface dust away, and the track left by Ferox’s chain ended there.
‘Now where?’ said Flavia, close to tears. ‘Where could he be?’
‘Behold!’ Nubia pointed. ‘Nipur something smells.’
Nipur had been sniffing round the base of a roadside shrine to the god Mercury on the other side of the road. Now he nosed his way through dried grasses and thistles towards the back of one of the seaside villas.
The puppy led them to a high white wall with ancient cypress and cedar trees rising up behind it. In the centre of the garden wall was a solid-looking, wooden door with the words ‘DO NOT ENTER’ in faded red letters on the wall next to it. Despite the warning, a gap had been scraped in the earth beneath the door.
Flavia uttered a cry. Half of Ferox protruded from this gap. The rear half.
‘Your dog is stuck,’ came a piping voice from above them. Flavia and her friends looked up in astonishment to see a small girl sitting on the high wall, half hidden in the shade of an umbrella pine.
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ remarked the girl, and added, ‘I thought this was the safest place.’
‘Have you seen another dog pass this way?’ called Flavia desperately. ‘One with curly light brown fur?’
The little girl regarded Flavia with eyes as dark and bright as a sparrow’s. She was barefoot and dressed in a bright orange tunic.
‘Don’t worry about Scuto. He’s safe inside with my little sisters.’
Flavia whispered a prayer of thanks.
‘Wait!’ cried Jonathan. ‘How did you know Scuto’s name?’
‘The same way I know you’re Jonathan, and you’re Flavia and Nubia and Lupus –’
‘You’re the one who’s been spying on us!’ cried Flavia.
The little girl smiled brightly. ‘Not spying exactly – just watching. My name is Clio.’
At the sound of their voices, Ferox had begun to squirm. He was wedged as tightly beneath the door as a cork in a wine skin. Clio grasped a pine branch and pulled herself up. ‘I’ll get help,’ she offered.
‘Wait!’ said Jonathan. ‘See if you can find some strong rope and – no! get a fishing net!’
Clio grinned, nodded, and scampered off along the top of the high wall as confidently as if it were a broad pavement. Lupus watched her in admiration.
As soon as she was out of sight, the four friends turned their gaze on Ferox, wedged beneath the door. Flavia almost felt sorry for him, but when he began to whimper and scrabble feebly with his hind legs the sight of his quivering black bottom reduced her to helpless laughter.
Impulsively, Lupus picked up a piece of gravel and flicked it at the animal’s vulnerable rear.
‘Lupus, don’t!’ giggled Flavia nervously. ‘You’ll just make him angrier!’ Lupus gave her an impish grin. He took another stone and fitted it into the sling Jonathan was teaching him to use.
He had obviously been practising.
The stone hit the watchdog squarely on the bottom. Ferox yelped like a puppy and they all collapsed with mirth.
Suddenly, Ferox began to growl and squirm. This time he tried retreating, inching back towards his tormentors. And this time he succeeded.
Nubia had seen this coming.
As Ferox shook himself off and
began to turn, she scooped up Nipur and thrust him at Flavia.
‘Hold puppies. Nobody is moving!’
Jonathan nodded and clutched Tigris tightly.
Ferox crouched. A low growl rumbled in his chest.
But before he could leap, Nubia caught his gaze, held it and murmured soothing words in her own language.
After a few moments, she slowly extended her hand – palm down – and took a small but confident step forward. Ferox growled again, but with less conviction. Nubia continued to reassure him. Presently, she took another step forward. The huge dog’s hackles gradually flattened and he rose from his crouching position. Nubia took another step.
Ferox sniffed her fingertips, gave a half wag of his tail and allowed his gaze to flicker sideways for a moment. Without taking her eyes from Ferox’s face, Nubia crouched and groped in the dust. When her hand closed around the metal links of his chain, she stood again and breathed a small sigh of relief.
It was at that precise moment that Tigris, squirming in Jonathan’s arms, uttered several sharp, defiant barks.
Ferox crouched again, opened his dripping jaws and launched himself at Jonathan.
Flavia screamed and Jonathan instinctively threw himself to one side.
Nubia tried to hold the huge animal back, but was jerked off her feet as the iron chain whipped out of her grasp. Ferox’s sharp teeth missed Tigris by a whisker. Snarling with rage, the big dog skidded in the dust and turned to attack again.
As Ferox gathered himself to leap, something like a spear struck him hard on the side. It knocked him to the ground. A heavy oak staff lay in the dust beside the stunned dog.
‘Quickly!’ called a man’s voice. ‘The net! Throw the net!’
Flavia looked up in time to see Clio standing on the wall above them. A motion of the girl’s arm unfurled a yellow fishing net.
It floated to the ground.
Clio’s aim was perfect: as Ferox struggled to his feet, the net enveloped him.
Then Flavia saw a young man lunge forward, grasp the net and give it a deft tug. Ferox’s legs flew out from under him. Confused and stunned, the big dog tried to right himself, but the more he thrashed, the more hopelessly entangled he became.
‘Get right back, Lupus!’ Jonathan scrambled to his feet. ‘He might still get loose! Tigris! Come here! You bad dog!’ Jonathan gave his puppy a fierce hug.
Flavia helped Nubia up from the ground. ‘Are you all right?’
Nubia nodded, but she was trembling.
The garden gate squeaked open and Clio rushed out. She stood with her hands on her hips, looking down at Ferox. ‘He’s wrapped himself up as tightly as a sausage in a vine leaf,’ she observed.
Lupus guffawed and Clio grinned at him.
As Gaius’s watchdog thrashed furiously on the ground, Flavia looked up at the strong youth. He wore the one-sleeved tunic of a tradesman and had a chest and arms like Hercules.
‘Thank you,’ she said solemnly. ‘You saved our lives.’
The young man limped cautiously towards Ferox to retrieve his staff. Flavia saw that one of his leather boots was an odd shape. Glancing back towards the road, she saw a donkey tethered to the shrine of Mercury. In its basket-pack were a workman’s tools: tongs, a hammer and an axe.
‘Vulcan!’ she squealed, jumping up and down and pointing at him. ‘You’re Vulcan the blacksmith!’
Scuto had escaped Ferox only to be captured by Clio’s younger sisters. They had pounced on him with cries of delight. After they had bathed, combed and brushed him, they had anointed him with scented oil. Clio rescued him just in time; her sisters had been about to tie pink ribbons to his fur.
Now he hurried furtively through the vineyard, trailing a cloud of jasmine perfume and a small procession.
First came the two puppies, stopping to roll in the dust whenever Scuto did.
Then came Vulcan, riding his grey donkey and pulling Ferox – still cocooned in the yellow fishing net – on a makeshift stretcher of pine branches. Nubia walked beside Ferox, softly playing her flute. Whenever she stopped playing, the big dog began to thrash and moan.
Clio had fallen into step beside Lupus, and was chattering away to him non-stop, waving her arms expansively.
‘I wonder how long it will take Clio to realise that Lupus can’t speak,’ Flavia said to Jonathan with a grin. They took up the rear of the procession.
One of her uncle’s field-slaves must have run ahead to alert the farm, for when they emerged from the vines, most of the household was waiting in the farmyard.
Nubia’s flute music trailed off and Ferox began to moan again.
‘What happened?’ said Aristo.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Mordecai.
‘Where’s Ferox?’ said Gaius.
‘Uncle Gaius!’ Flavia squealed. ‘Ferox broke his chain and we followed him to a villa and he got stuck but then he wiggled out and attacked us but Vulcan saved us!’
‘Ferox broke his . . . Who?’ said Gaius.
‘Vulcan the blacksmith,’ said Flavia. ‘The one we’ve been looking for!’
‘You’re Vulcan the blacksmith?’ Gaius asked the youth on the donkey.
But the young man did not reply. He was gazing over their heads, towards the garden. There was a look of awe on his face, as if he had seen something miraculous. Flavia and the others turned to see what he was staring at.
Miriam had just emerged from the garden, her arms full of ivy and fragrant honeysuckle. Dressed in a lavender stola, with her glossy, dark curls pinned up at the neck, Venus herself could not have looked more beautiful.
Although the farmyard was like a furnace in the noonday heat, Flavia and her friends gathered round Vulcan to watch him mend Ferox’s chain. He was crouched over the chain with a pair of pliers. His one-sleeved tunic revealed tanned, oiled shoulders gleaming with sweat. The powerful muscles of his arms and chest bulged as he squeezed the link.
‘There. That should hold him.’ Vulcan glanced up at Jonathan and Lupus, who were gazing at him with open-mouthed admiration. ‘Could one of you bring me a cup of water? I’m very thirsty.’
The boys nodded and both ran off towards the house.
Flavia couldn’t take her eyes off the blacksmith. Somehow his neat head seemed all wrong on the powerful body. With his sensitive mouth and long eyelashes, it was as if a sculptor had wrongly put the head of a poet on the body of Hercules. His dark eyebrows met above his nose, giving his face a mournful, brooding look.
And Flavia’s gaze kept straying to the strangely shaped boot he wore on his right foot.
Jonathan and Lupus ran empty-handed back out of the garden. ‘My sister’s drawing cold water from the well,’ said Jonathan.
Vulcan nodded and turned to Flavia’s uncle, who stood leaning against the shady doorway of the olive press. ‘You can put his collar on again, now.’
It had taken Gaius a good half hour to calm his dog and cut off the fishing net.
‘I think I’ll leave him in his kennel to calm down.’ Gaius stepped forward. ‘Thank you for saving the children, and for repairing his chain.’
The young blacksmith acknowledged Gaius’s thanks with a nod. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his forearm.
Flavia was desperate to ask Vulcan about the riddle, but there were too many people within earshot, including Clio and some of her uncle’s farm slaves.
So she decided to try the codeword.
‘Asine! You jackass!’
Vulcan turned slowly and looked at her, his eyes smouldering under his single eyebrow. Then he looked back at Miriam, coming towards him with a shy smile and a cup of cold water.
Flavia shivered. It felt as if he had looked right through her.
‘Thank you,’ Vulcan said quietly to Miriam, and without taking his eyes from her face, he lifted the cup to his lips and drank. Jonathan’s sister lowered her gaze.
The shrill cry of the cicadas had ceased some time earlier, and the hot afternoon seemed to be
holding its breath. The only sound Flavia could hear was Vulcan swallowing great gulps of cold water.
Suddenly, she felt dizzy and unbalanced, as if she were about to faint. She gasped and reached out for Nubia, who reached for her in the same moment. Clutching at each other, the two girls looked up just in time to see Miriam fall forward into Vulcan’s arms!
‘What in Hades?’ Jonathan lay flat on his back in the dust, and wondered why Vulcan was holding his sister.
It felt as if the farmyard court had been given a brisk shake by a giant’s hand. They had all staggered, Jonathan and Clio had fallen down. Doves exploded out of the dovecote and the hens ran clucking out of their coop. In their stables the horses whinnied and in the garden the dogs began to bark.
Vulcan gently set Miriam back on her feet. Her face was as pale as alabaster.
Fine dust from the farmyard had risen in a golden cloud. Now it began to settle again.
‘Earth tremor,’ explained Flavia’s uncle, helping Clio up. He extended his hand to Jonathan and pulled him to his feet. ‘Nothing to worry about. We’ve had quite a few minor quakes this summer. That one wasn’t too bad. All the same, Xanthus and I had better have a quick look round the farm to make sure nothing’s been damaged. Xanthus!’ he called.
Gaius turned away and then turned back.
‘I imagine you’re all feeling a bit shaken. Miriam, perhaps you could ask Frustilla to prepare lunch now? I’ll join you presently. Vulcan and Clio, I hope you’ll both join us.’
Lupus followed Vulcan through the garden, admiring the smith’s muscular back and wondering why he limped. Jonathan’s father must have wondered the same thing, for as Vulcan came into the dining-room, Mordecai stepped forward with a look of concern on his face:
‘You’ve hurt yourself. You’re limping.’
Vulcan looked flustered. ‘It’s nothing. I’ve had it from birth.’
‘Please,’ insisted the doctor. He gestured for Vulcan to recline and then nodded at Miriam, who had just come in with a copper pitcher and basin. She poured a stream of water onto her father’s hands, catching the overflow in the basin. Mordecai dried his hands on the linen napkin over her arm. Then he turned back to Vulcan, who was reclining on one of the low couches.
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 18