The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  Soon all the children were calling out their names, laughing and crying, asking for news of their parents, relatives or friends.

  Abruptly they all fell silent.

  Jonathan and Flavia slowly turned to see Lucrio coming towards them. He held a birch switch in one hand and was tapping it against the palm of the other.

  ‘Turn around,’ he said coldly. Jonathan turned and faced the children. Every eye was on him, so Jonathan smiled and winked at them.

  Lucrio shoved Flavia. ‘You, too, Knobbly-knees,’ he sneered, and his jaw dropped as all the children burst out laughing.

  Jonathan laughed too. But he knew as the first blow landed on his back that he would pay for that laughter.

  Lupus paced up and down the lower portico of the Villa Limona, desperately trying to think what to do next.

  Felix was gone. Polla was obviously insane. The slaves were useless.

  He had two choices. He could try to rescue his friends himself or he could go back to the refugee camp for help.

  He glanced at the sun, already beginning its descent. He reckoned he had about four hours till sunset.

  Finally he made his decision. In Jonathan’s room he found an extra wax tablet and after a few minutes thought, he composed a careful message to Felix, in case he should by some miracle turn back from Rome.

  Then he made certain he had a sharp knife, his sling and stones, his wax tablet and a gourd of water.

  He grunted a firm ‘Stay!’ to the dogs and made his way to Felix’s tablinum, where he slipped the wax tablet under the double doors.

  Then, looking around to make sure no one was watching him, Lupus made his way through the villa and down the path to the secret cove.

  Lupus pulled the rowing boat up onto the crunchy beach, and sprinkled it with ashy sand to make it less noticeable. It had taken him longer than he had hoped to row from the Villa Limona to the crescent beach, but he still had a few hours before sunset.

  Crouching behind the rocks, he studied the narrow strip of ashy beach and the cliffs which rose up from it. When he was sure he had not been observed, he slipped back into the water and swam a short distance out to sea.

  He stopped to tread water and get his bearings. There were several grottoes along the water line. Which one had the blue boat come from? Not the largest one. At last he struck out for the middle cave.

  The water was cool and silky against his skin, and as he swam Lupus thought of his father.

  He remembered the time they had sailed together to a neighbouring island, how they had caught fish and grilled them right there on the beach and lay under the stars talking long into the night. And in the morning they had sailed home.

  Suddenly Lupus almost swallowed a mouthful of seawater. In his memory, the image of his father had been replaced by that of Felix. Gasping for breath, he clung to some rocks and took several deep breaths.

  He must never forget his father’s face. He must never forget his father’s death. He closed his eyes and forced himself to remember. His father had been shorter than Felix, with straight black hair and green eyes.

  After a while his father’s image grew clear in his mind and his heartbeat slowed to normal. Lupus released the slippery rock he’d been clinging to and looked around. He was at the entrance to the grotto, and he could see it went a long way back. This must be the one.

  He took several breaths and finally pushed all the air out of his lungs before filling them as full as he could.

  Then he frog-kicked down and down, feeling the familiar weight of the water above him. Fine ash suspended in the water made it seem thick and green, so that for a moment he imagined he was swimming in a giant liquid emerald. He kept his mouth closed and his eyes open and saw a silver cloud of fish flicker and turn before his eyes. He looked up. Above him rays from the late afternoon sun struck the surface skin of the water like spears, and bled light into the emerald underbelly of the sea.

  Lupus rejoiced in the water’s beauty and swam on. Gradually the emerald water became turquoise, then sapphire, then lapis lazuli.

  Presently he knew he must surface for air. Luckily the rock above formed a kind of shelf. He found a place where the rock projected above the water and slowly surfaced. Quietly he filled his lungs with cool, life-giving oxygen. Then he looked around.

  High in the mountains, in one of the cliff-caves overlooking the sea, Nubia sat stroking Nipur’s silky fur and gazing out at the sunset. It was evening and though the stones of the cliff still glowed with heat, a cool breeze ruffled her tunic.

  Beside her sat Kuanto of the Jackal Clan, whom the other slaves called Fuscus. He and Nubia had been sitting here all afternoon in the cool shade, talking about their desert homeland and learning about each other.

  She had not intended to run away, even though Kuanto was handsome and Flavia had called her stupid. Not even when Pulchra beat her. But when Pulchra had snapped the lotus-wood flute across her knee, something inside Nubia had snapped with it.

  She had taken Nipur and run out of the Villa Limona and made her way up to the shrine of Dionysus. Then she had followed the red cords on the branches. Even before she reached the cave, Kuanto had seen her and had run to meet her, surefooted as a mountain goat on the steep path.

  The cave was wide-mouthed and bright, with a level sandy floor. A dozen other runaway slaves were there, cooking, weaving, chatting softly. They ranged in age from a newborn baby at his mother’s breast to an old Greek with a bushy white beard.

  One of the women slaves had smoothed ointment over the wounds on Nubia’s back. Then they gave her brown bread and cheese and a cup of hot sage sweetened with fig syrup.

  As she sat on a threadbare carpet at the mouth of the cave, Nubia sipped the bittersweet drink and listened to Kuanto speak of his life and his dreams.

  He was older than she had first thought: almost twenty. Seven years ago, he told her, Arab slave-traders had captured him and taken him to the slave-markets of Alexandria. A Roman slave-dealer had bought him and taken him to the great port of Puteoli, and there he had been sold again, this time to a rich man who owned many other slaves.

  This man put Kuanto to work on his estate of olives and vines. For seven years Kuanto worked well and, as he gained his master’s trust, he was given more and more responsibility.

  Then, a week ago he had been travelling on business to Pompeii. Suddenly the earth had trembled and the mountain exploded. Immediately he made for the town gates. The city officials were telling people to stay put, but he ignored them. Borrowing a horse, he rode south as fast as he could.

  After the days of darkness, Kuanto met other slaves separated from their masters or mistresses. They began to stay together, living in caves in the hills and stealing or buying food where they could.

  As he spoke, Nubia turned to look at the twelve slaves further back in the cave. They seemed content, and all of them had hope in their eyes.

  Kuanto told her his plan. He knew a ship’s captain willing to carry them to the great city of Alexandria in Egypt.

  Alexandria was a city of possibilities. One could begin a new life there. From there one could catch a ship to any land. From there one could follow the Nile back to the desert.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said to Nubia in their own language. ‘Come back to the sea of sand and the tents of my clan. Perhaps some of your family survived or escaped.’

  Nubia nodded. ‘My brother Taharqo,’ she said. ‘He fought bravely but they chained him and after the slave-traders came he went with the men and I went with the women. He may still be alive. Perhaps he escaped!’

  ‘It is possible,’ said Kuanto.

  Nubia frowned. ‘But how will you pay the ship’s captain?’ she asked. She knew that it cost a lot of money to hire a ship. Flavia’s father had very rich patrons who paid for each voyage.

  ‘My master entrusted me with a bag of gold. I was to purchase spices and fish sauce, but I never had a chance to spend it. That gold will pay for the voyage with plenty left over.�
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  He gazed towards the horizon and said quietly, ‘Of course, if they should catch me, I will be crucified. But it is a risk worth taking to rescue my fellow slaves!’

  Nubia looked sideways at Kuanto. He had a fine nose and a sensitive mouth and his body was lithe and muscular.

  ‘Look,’ said Kuanto, and pointed with his chin at the huge red sun just touching the horizon. He spoke softly in their native language: ‘To most of them a blood-red sun is a portent of doom. But those of us from the desert know differently.’

  He turned his tawny eyes upon her. ‘For us,’ he whispered, ‘the red sky is a sign of fair days ahead.’

  Before the pirates left the cave, they gave their fifty captives a drink of water. Then they bound Flavia’s and Jonathan’s ankles with leather thongs and poured buckets of sea water over the two of them. Flavia gasped as the cold salt water drenched her skin and tunic.

  Pulchra was conscious now. Her voice rang out clearly as the three men walked away: ‘You’ll be sorry one day.’

  The pirates did not even turn to look at her.

  ‘Goodnight, children.’ Actius’s deep voice echoed from the stairs. ‘Sweet dreams!’

  Flavia heard their echoing footsteps grow fainter and fainter. The sun must have been setting outside, for the diffused light from the entrance was orange now. She struggled to untie the bonds on her ankles but they were too tight. Tighter than they had been a moment ago.

  Suddenly Flavia realised why the kidnappers had poured water on her. As the wet leather thongs around her wrists and ankles slowly dried, they tightened. In an hour or so they would begin to cut into her skin.

  Nubia listened to the other runaway slaves tell their stories. They had all eaten from a communal pot, using the soft, flat bread to scoop the stew into their mouths, and now, as the sun set, they spoke of their past.

  The young mother, Sperata, was sixteen. She told how, when she was fourteen, she and her mistress had both given birth to baby girls on the same day. Although the master of the household had been father to both children, hers had been taken away and she had been forced to nurse her mistress’s child. The baby she held in her arms – a boy – was her second. The volcano’s eruption had prevented them from taking this one from her, too.

  The Greek with the white beard was named Socrates. He spoke three languages and had taught the children of a rich senator all his life. Now that the children were grown and had left home, he had been put to work in the vineyards, doing backbreaking work under a blazing sun. He was sixty-four years old and suffered from arthritis.

  Phoebus, a cleanshaven, dark-haired man of about thirty, was also a well-educated Greek. He had kept his master’s accounts until he had been falsely accused of stealing. His master had sold him to the manager of the Nucerian baths, where he had spent four years cleaning the latrines and scrubbing down walls. His poorly-educated new master resented his knowledge, and often beat him for fun.

  Kuanto looked across the fire at Nubia.

  ‘Do you have a story?’ he asked in Latin.

  Nubia swallowed. She had been well-treated from the moment Flavia had bought her. Already she was beginning to miss her friends.

  ‘No story,’ she replied after a moment. ‘But I have a song. A song of hope.’

  And because she had no flute, Nubia sang the Song of the Traveller, the song her father had sung the night he died.

  She sang of the young traveller who sets out to find happiness. He leaves his family in the Land of Gold, where the sun and the sand and the goats are golden. First he travels to the Land of Blue, where everything is water and fish and sky, and people live in boxes which float on the water. Then he travels to the Land of Red, where everything is made of brick and tile and the people do not move from place to place. He travels to the Land of White, full of snow and ice and frost, and so cold that people dress in white animal fur.

  Finally he travels to the Land of Grey, a terrible land full of smoke and ashes and drifting spirits. He believes there is still another land, the best land of all, but he cannot find it. The young traveller grows thinner and thinner, greyer and greyer, but he never stops searching.

  At last he finds the Land of Green, a garden full of fruit-bearing trees and shrubs and flowers and lush grass. A land of rivers and fountains and rain and life. He finds his family there, waiting for him. And so they live happily ever after, laughing and feasting, telling stories and playing music.

  The light in the grotto had turned from orange to a deep glowing red. The water was as purple as wine. Jonathan was leading the others in a chorus of ‘Volare!’ and the fifty voices echoing off the walls and dome of the grotto made the jolly song sound ethereal, as if angels were singing with them.

  Suddenly a girl screamed.

  A dripping figure in a sea-green tunic was rising up from the water.

  ‘Lupus!’ Jonathan and Flavia cheered at the same time.

  Lupus slicked his hair back with both hands and grinned at them. Then he took out his sharp knife, stepped forward and began to cut their bonds.

  As Nubia finished her song, three men appeared in the mouth of the cave.

  ‘What news?’ said the first one, looking down at Kuanto. ‘Has the ship arrived?’

  ‘Just there,’ said Kuanto. ‘Coming from Caprea with the evening breeze. She’ll be in the cove shortly and we’ll go as soon as the moon rises. But that’s not for a few hours. Come! Sit! Have a cup of spiced wine and some stew. We’ve saved you some.’

  ‘Who is this?’ said the first man, smiling down at Nubia. He had a narrow face and a jaw dark with stubble. ‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I, in the refugee camp?’

  Nubia looked at him and then at the other two, a short man and a tall man.

  ‘This is the girl who plays a flute like a bird and sings like an angel,’ said Kuanto. ‘Nubia has joined us in our flight to freedom. Nubia, meets the actors Lucrio, Sorex and Actius. They’re going to help us escape!’

  By the time Lupus had cut their bonds and fifty children had rubbed life back into their wrists the red light in the grotto had deepened to purple and then dark blue.

  ‘The light will be gone soon,’ said Jonathan, ‘but in a few hours the moon will rise. I saw it last night when we finished dinner: a full moon.’

  Lupus nodded to confirm this.

  ‘I don’t even remember going back to my room,’ said Flavia. ‘But if you’re right, it should give us enough light to escape and be far away from here by dawn.’

  ‘But where can we go?’ said Jonathan. ‘We can’t go back to the Villa Limona. Felix is behind all this.’

  ‘Of course he’s not!’ said Pulchra angrily. They were sitting in a circle on a dry patch of sand. ‘Pater would never be involved in anything like this!’

  Lupus flipped open his wax tablet and wrote:

  FELIX ISN’T THERE. HE’S IN ROME.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ said Pulchra. ‘Pater hasn’t been to Rome for years. Who told you that?’

  YOUR MOTHER

  Pulchra went silent and stared at the sand. Finally she said, ‘Mater isn’t well. She had a bad fever after Pollinilla was born. Ever since that she’s been getting bad headaches. Sometimes she can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t.’ After a moment Pulchra added, ‘That’s why we moved here three years ago. Pater wanted to keep her safe. He hardly ever spends the night away.’

  Lupus looked up sharply. If Felix hadn’t gone to Rome . . .

  ‘I’m sorry your mother isn’t well,’ said Jonathan.

  Pulchra looked at them. In the deep blue light it was hard for Lupus to see the exact expression on her face. ‘Pater thinks she’s dying,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s never told me, but I can tell. That’s why last night was so special. You don’t realise . . . She gets so tired . . .’

  Flavia swallowed. ‘We’re sorry,’ she said. Then she took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, too, Pulchra. I’m sorry I called you names and fought with you. But Nubia is more than my slave. She’s
my friend.’

  In the dark blue gloom which filled the grotto, Lupus saw Pulchra turn her head away.

  ‘You’re lucky to have such a friend,’ Pulchra said to Flavia.

  ‘Lupus,’ said Jonathan. ‘I can barely see you or your wax tablet. Is there anything you want to tell us before it’s completely black in here?’

  Lupus bent his head over his tablet and wrote. Then he showed it to them:

  LET’S GO TO VILLA LIMONA

  WHEN MOON IS UP

  ‘. . . and my name is Titus Tadienus Rufus,’ called a voice in the darkness. ‘I’m from Rome, but we were staying with my grandparents in Nuceria. My favourite colour is red, my favourite food is venison and the person I miss most is my little sister Julia. Even though she can be as annoying as a broken sandal strap.’ Jonathan could hear the grin in his voice. ‘And this is my favourite joke: A butcher visited a farmer from Oplontis who bred four-legged chickens. My customers would love these, he said to the farmer, but tell me, what do they taste like? I don’t know, said the farmer. They run so fast I’ve never been able to catch one!’

  Laughter echoed in the pitch black darkness of the grotto. It had been Jonathan’s idea, to help pass the time and give the others courage.

  ‘Thank you, Rufus,’ he said. ‘Next!’

  ‘I think that’s everybody,’ came Flavia’s voice.

  ‘No, there’s one more person,’ said Pulchra’s voice.

  ‘I know,’ said Jonathan, ‘but it’s too dark for us to read what Lupus writes . . .’

  ‘Not Lupus. Leda. My slave-girl.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jonathan. And then, ‘Um . . . sorry, Leda. It’s your turn.’

  There was a long pause and then a small voice said, ‘My name is Leda. I come from Surrentum. My favourite colour is blue, my favourite food is cod with lemon and the person I miss most is our cook, because she gives me food when I’m hungry. And I don’t know any jokes . . .’

  There was a hurried whisper and then Leda said:

  ‘How many gladiators does it take to light an oil-lamp?’

  ‘I don’t know, Leda,’ said Jonathan. ‘How many gladiators does it take to light an oil-lamp?’