The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  Nubia edged over to Jonathan and cut the leather thongs around his wrists.

  ‘I am thinking it was not sleeping powder you gave me to put in the wine,’ she whispered, as she cut Flavia’s bonds.

  ‘I must have taken father’s mushroom powder by mistake,’ muttered Jonathan. ‘It makes people see things that aren’t there.’

  Nubia cut Leda free and then moved on to Pulchra. For a brief moment the two girls gazed into each other’s eyes; Pulchra looked away first. Nubia cut her bonds without a word and moved on to Rufus and the others.

  Suddenly Pulchra screamed. Lucrio was running at them with a knife. ‘Vermin!’ he yelled. ‘Rats and vermin!’

  His knife embedded itself in the railing inches from Rufus’s shoulder. The red-haired boy bent, grabbed Lucrio round the ankles and flipped him neatly over the ship’s side. A moment later they heard a resounding splash. All the children cheered.

  ‘Good work, Rufus!’ said Flavia.

  ‘Thanks.’ He grinned and pulled the knife out of the railing. ‘I work out in the palaestra.’ He helped Nubia cut the others free.

  Soon the children were running all over the deck, cheering and laughing and roaring at the remaining pirates and Captain Murex.

  ‘Hey!’ said Flavia. ‘It’s just like the picture in the cup. The pirates are jumping overboard! Look, Sorex! I’m a lion! I’m coming to get you!’ She charged the little actor, roaring like a lion.

  With a high-pitched squeal of fear Sorex leapt overboard, into the wine-dark sea.

  Jonathan and Nubia joined Flavia. Their three heads peered over the rail.

  ‘Is Sorex turning into a dolphin?’ Jonathan asked.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ said Flavia.

  ‘Behold!’ said Nubia. ‘He sinks like a stone!’

  Flavia Gemina was tying Actius’s hands together when she heard Jonathan call out: ‘Hey, Flavia! Your father’s a sea captain. How do you sail one of these things?’

  Jonathan was back at the helm, struggling with the steering paddle.

  ‘No idea!’ she yelled back. Actius gazed up at her with fear-filled eyes. ‘Grrr!’ she growled. The big actor whimpered and pressed himself against the ship’s rail.

  Pulchra and Leda were binding Kuanto and Crispus back to back, winding the huge cobra rope around them.

  ‘I found bread!’ cried Rufus, coming up from the hold with a basket. The children yelled with delight and mobbed him. He laughed as they grabbed the flat discs and tore into them. It was ship’s bread – brown and hard – but most of the children hadn’t eaten in over three days.

  Soon the basket was empty. ‘There’s more down in the hold,’ said Rufus. ‘I’ll bring up another basket.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ said Melissa, the frizzy-haired girl. Together they disappeared down the stairs.

  ‘Help!’ cried Jonathan, wrestling the steering paddle. ‘We keep going in the same direction. We’ve got to turn around. Otherwise we’ll crash into the island.’

  ‘I believe,’ said old Socrates, coming up to him, ‘that you need a man up in the rigging. Have any of you got experience as sailors?’ he called to his fellow slaves. They all shook their heads at him.

  ‘I’m good at climbing trees,’ said Flavia. ‘I’ll go up!’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Nubia.

  Flavia and Nubia started for the mast. Then they stopped and looked at each other. Then they hugged.

  ‘Nubia, I’m so sorry! I was horrible to you! Please forgive me.’

  Nubia nodded. ‘You are all I have now. Please don’t be angry if I am being stupid.’ Her golden eyes were full of tears.

  ‘You’re not stupid,’ said Flavia, holding her friend at arm’s length and looking earnestly into her face. ‘I meant the bulla was stupid because I was trying to impress that . . . that spider Felix.’

  ‘Felix is not the spider,’ said Nubia. ‘Kuanto is the spider. And the other one. The Crispus. He pretends orders come from Felix.’

  ‘Then Felix isn’t behind all this?’ said Flavia.

  Nubia shook her head.

  Flavia whooped with delight, and Nubia giggled behind her hand.

  As they climbed the webbing up the mast, Nubia told Flavia what she had learned from Kuanto. How he and Crispus had been re-selling slaves and kidnapping freeborn children behind Felix’s back.

  ‘We must turn ship around soon,’ concluded Nubia. ‘Because the buyer is waiting behind this island.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Flavia. ‘We have to get back to the Villa Limona. Oh, dear. The sail is too heavy. I don’t think we can lift it. Can you pull that rope, Nubia? Nubia! What’s wrong?’

  There was a look of horror on Nubia’s face as she stared towards the island. A ship was emerging from behind a cliff. As they watched, the ship’s sail fluttered then ballooned as the wind filled it and pushed the vessel towards them. Both girls knew the sail well. It was a striped sail, yellow and black, like the colouring of a wasp. It was the sail of the slave-ship Vespa, and now they knew who the buyer was.

  It was Venalicius the slave-dealer.

  ‘The little sail at the front,’ cried Jonathan. ‘I think you turn the boat with the sail at the front! But you have to take the big one in first I think.’

  ‘I can’t!’ Flavia sobbed, ‘It’s too heavy.’

  ‘Come down,’ yelled Rufus. ‘We’ll try to turn the ship anyway but it could be dangerous for you up there.’

  Hand over hand, like monkeys, Flavia and Nubia descended loose ropes attached to the ends of the yard. When they were a few feet above the deck they jumped.

  ‘Now!’ cried Jonathan.

  Rufus undid a rope and pulled at it. The ship shuddered and tipped alarmingly to one side.

  ‘Hey!’ some of the children yelled as they tumbled head over heel. The brazier and drugged wine tipped and spilled out over the deck.

  ‘The coals!’ cried Jonathan. ‘Douse the coals or the ship will catch fire!’

  The ship had righted itself with a groan but it had lost all momentum and there was no hope now of outrunning the slave-ship.

  ‘Jonathan, what is it?’ said Flavia. ‘Are you all right?’

  Jonathan had been staring into space. Now he turned to her and said slowly, ‘I think I’ve dreamed this.’

  ‘Well, now is no time for dreaming. It’s time to do something.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Jonathan and began to undo the belt of his tunic.

  ‘What are you doing, Jonathan?’ hissed Flavia.

  ‘It’s my sling!’ said Jonathan proudly. ‘It looks like a belt, but it’s really a sling! Now what can I use as missiles? Something small but heavy . . .’

  Nubia went to Kuanto and reached under the thick ropes binding him to Crispus. Shivering and babbling to themselves, they were oblivious to her. She pulled out a small leather pouch, opened it and tipped out a few heavy gold coins.

  ‘Perfect!’ cried Jonathan. ‘Now we need a way to catch them off guard . . .’ He scratched his curly head and looked around. Suddenly his face lit up.

  ‘Chickpeas!’ he shouted.

  Flavia and the others looked at him as if he were mad.

  ‘Down in the hold!’ he said. ‘I spent the night with my back against a sack of dried chickpeas! Listen carefully. Here’s what we’ll do . . .’

  The slave-ship had drawn up alongside them. From high in the rigging, Nubia watched her hated enemy jump down onto the deck of the ship. Three of his henchmen were with him; the other two remained on the Vespa.

  Nubia forced herself to look down at his face. Venalicius’s blind eye was white and milky and swollen in its socket. The other eye, small and bloodshot, contained enough malevolence for both. His left ear was missing and the wound was still red and weeping.

  Venalicius held a razor-sharp dagger in one hand and swivelled his big head. Nubia prayed that Jonathan’s plan would work: that he would see what he expected to see.

  ‘What took you so long?’ said old Socrates
, putting on a good show of being irritable.

  ‘Who are you?’ sneered Venalicius.

  ‘I’m Sorex. Actor and pirate. And here they are.’ He made a dramatic flourish with one hand towards thirty children, all standing against the opposite rail of the ship with their hands apparently bound behind their backs.

  ‘I thought there’d be more,’ Venalicius grumbled. ‘Still, they’re a fine lot.’ He walked along the line of miserable-looking children and Nubia saw him stop in front of Pulchra, who had volunteered to stay on deck. ‘High quality,’ said Venalicius, and fingered a strand of her hair. ‘This one should clean up nicely.’ He moved on. ‘Well, well, well! The sea captain’s daughter. You’re a long way from home, my dear.’

  Even from her perch high in the rigging Nubia saw Flavia shudder.

  Venalicius nodded and looked around. ‘Where’s Crispus?’

  ‘Right here!’ said the younger Greek slave Phoebus, coming up from the hold. He was dark, like Crispus, and about the same height. ‘Where’s our money?’

  ‘Not so fast,’ said Venalicius. ‘Who says we’re going to pay you?’ He nodded at his henchmen, who grinned and pulled out their daggers.

  Phoebus saw the knives come out and he yelled the code-word at the top of his lungs: ‘Chickpeas!’

  ‘Beg pardon?’ Venalicius squinted at him.

  At that moment Flavia and Pulchra kicked over the sacks of chickpeas at their feet. As the tiny hard spheres rattled across the deck all the children lifted themselves up onto the rail.

  ‘What the . . .?’ As one of Venalicius’ big men took a step forward, his foot flew out in front of him and he crashed to the deck.

  Jonathan appeared on the cabin roof and swung his sling. Another henchman fell unconscious. The gold coin which had struck him rolled across the deck.

  ‘Don’t move!’ screamed Venalicius to his last man. ‘Stay still!’

  Hoping the man would obey, Nubia took careful aim. From her perch high in the rigging she threw a terracotta wine jug.

  It shattered on the man’s head and he sank gently to the deck.

  Venalicius looked up and for a moment Nubia’s blood ran cold as he spotted her. ‘You!’ he spat out. ‘One of the Nubias!’

  The first henchman was struggling to his feet. He looked round, saw Phoebus, and charged him again. Again he fell with a crash that shook the whole ship.

  ‘Your guys aren’t very bright, are they?’ commented Jonathan, and he let fly with his sling.

  A gold coin struck Venalicius in the centre of his forehead. He staggered and then fell on his bottom.

  ‘Oof!’ he grunted. He sat looking blearily around, half-stunned.

  Nubia grabbed the end of a free rope and launched herself into space. She swung out and then down in a perfectly judged arc. Her feet connected with Venalicius’ fat stomach and pushed him across the deck and hard up against the cabin wall.

  ‘Burrf!’ he gasped, both winded and stunned. Nubia dropped to the deck, one foot on either side of him, and sat hard on his chest. His horrible eyes were closed and a bright string of saliva emerged from the corner of his mouth.

  Nubia wrenched the razor-sharp knife from the slave-dealer’s hand and pressed it to his neck. If she slit his throat maybe the nightmares would end, not just for her but for others.

  But she couldn’t do it.

  After a long moment, Nubia stood and stabbed the knife into the wall of the cabin and left it thrumming in the wood. Then she turned to find a length of rope with which to tie Venalicius.

  The chickpeas had mostly rolled to the port side of the ship. Phoebus and the children were tying up Venalicius’ three men. And the slave-ship Vespa was sailing away.

  ‘Nubia! Look out!’ Flavia screamed.

  Nubia whirled to see Venalicius on his feet, staring at her in fury. One hand had closed on the handle of the dagger in the wall behind him. He was about to wrench it from the cabin wall.

  Time seemed to move very slowly.

  One motion of his arm and she was dead.

  Then a figure with tangled hair head-butted Venalicius in his stomach.

  He was down.

  The knife was still in the cabin wall.

  And now the children were swarming over him, tying his hands and legs and stomach until he was more rope than man.

  Nubia turned and looked at her rescuer in amazement. Polla Pulchra stood with her hands on her hips and her foot on the slave-dealer’s neck. She grinned back at Nubia. Suddenly Pulchra’s blue eyes focused on something behind Nubia and they widened in delight.

  ‘Pater!’ she squealed.

  Lupus followed the Patron over the ship’s rail.

  The boy had swum across the cove and reached the Villa Limona at dawn to discover Felix just emerging from his study with Lupus’s wax tablet in his hand. Felix had not gone to Rome the day before, just to the refugee camp. Pulchra had been right.

  The only ones to notice the swift approach of Felix’s racing yacht had been Venalicius’ two crewmen. The slave-ship Vespa was now small on the horizon.

  Pulchra ran squealing into her father’s arms and Lupus allowed Flavia, Jonathan and Nubia to hug him, too. Nipur scampered up from the hold and skittered across the deck, barking and licking everyone.

  ‘Pater!’ Pulchra cried. ‘They kidnapped us and tied us up and beat us and kept us in a grotto, but I headbutted the ugly one and I saved Nubia’s life! Didn’t I, Nubia?’

  Nubia nodded and Lupus gave Pulchra a thumbs-up.

  Jonathan lifted Nipur into his arms and turned to Lupus. ‘Is Tigris . . .?’ Lupus gave him the thumbs-up, too. And he gave Flavia the thumbs-up for Scuto.

  Pollius Felix looked around the ship in wonder. Behind him stood a dozen of his toughest soldiers, including the ugly giant Brassus.

  ‘Lucius Brassus!’ cried Pulchra, and threw her arms around him. ‘He’s really just a big softie!’ she grinned over her shoulder at the others.

  ‘Well,’ said Felix, looking around at the happy, grubby children and their bound captives. ‘Not much left for us to do! Shall we sail home again, Lupus, and leave them to it? Lupus?’

  But Lupus did not hear him. He was standing over Venalicius, looking down at him. The slave-dealer lay on the deck, trussed up like a pig for slaughter. His single malevolent eye opened wide in terror.

  Before anyone could move, Lupus wrenched the dagger from the cabin wall and in one savage motion he brought it down towards the slave-dealer’s throat.

  Flavia screamed as she saw the blood spurt from the slave-dealer’s head.

  He had writhed away and Lupus had only succeeded in cutting off the tip of his good ear. Now Venalicius screamed as he felt the searing pain.

  Lupus screamed too as he lifted the dagger up and brought it down towards the slave-dealer’s heart.

  ‘NO!’ cried Felix, lunging forward and catching Lupus’s wrist. He wrenched the knife from the boy’s hand and hurled it into the sea. Then he pulled Lupus away and held him tightly. Lupus thrashed and kicked and cried out incoherently but Felix did not let go. Finally Lupus’s howls of rage became sobs which racked his body.

  Felix was on his knees now, his arms still around Lupus, whispering soothing words in his ear.

  Flavia stared.

  She had never seen Lupus cry.

  She had never seen anyone cry like that.

  ‘Get him out of sight,’ Felix said quietly to Brassus over Lupus’s shoulder. Lucius Brassus nodded, lifted Venalicius with one massive hand and took him down to the hold.

  That afternoon, fifty-two very grubby children made use of the private baths at the Villa Limona. Afterwards, they were given new yellow tunics to replace their old ones. Then they were fed: roast chicken, salad and white rolls, with dried fig-cakes for dessert.

  Before the sun set, most of them were sailing back to the refugee camp on the Patron’s yacht. Felix had promised to deploy all his clerks and scribes and his vast network of contacts to reunite these children with their fa
milies.

  As for the twelve runaway slaves, Felix had promised them their freedom as a reward for helping to save his daughter. If any of their masters still lived, he would pay to redeem them.

  Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia, Lupus, Pulchra and Leda were asleep before the first star had appeared in the sky and they slept late into the morning of the following day.

  A strange, soft muttering woke Nubia, and she stretched and yawned. She felt Nipur stir at the foot of her bed.

  ‘Nubia?’ came Flavia’s voice from the other bed. ‘Are you awake?’

  ‘Yes.’ The light that filled the bedroom was pearly grey, though it must be nearly midday.

  ‘Lupus tried to kill Venalicius, didn’t he?’ said Flavia quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nubia. ‘He is hating him more than even me or you.’

  ‘I wonder why?’

  They were quiet for a moment and Nubia heard the pattering become a soft wet drumming. The air smelled different.

  ‘Nubia?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What did Venalicius mean when he said you were one of the Nubias?’

  ‘He was naming us all Nubia. All the girls he takes from my clan.’

  ‘You mean your real name isn’t Nubia?’

  ‘No.’

  Nubia heard Flavia’s bed creak as she sat up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘My name is Shepenwepet, daughter of Nastasen, of the leopard clan.’

  ‘Wepenshepet?’

  ‘Shepenwepet.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Flavia. ‘Shall I call you that from now on?’

  ‘No. I am used to wearing Nubia now. It is my new name for my new life.’

  The strange wet drumming outside their room had become a chuckling and gurgling in the gutters.

  ‘What is that sound?’ Nubia asked Flavia.

  ‘What? Oh. Sounds like rain.’

  Nubia sat up in bed and looked at the grey sky between the white pillars of the colonnade. But it was not an ashy grey. It was a wet, fresh, bright grey.

  ‘Rain,’ she whispered, almost to herself. Flavia, rumpled and sleepy, looked up from scratching Scuto behind the ear.