The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

‘No, it’s not.’ Miriam calmly lifted the tablet off the heat with a pair of tongs and tipped it to one side. The liquid wax ran off it and was absorbed by the ashes of the hearth. Miriam replaced the tablet on the metal pan for a moment and then poured off the rest of the yellow wax.

  ‘I can see marks,’ cried Aristo.

  Lupus nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘Let’s take it out into the sunlight,’ said Miriam.

  The three of them hurried out into the garden courtyard and Miriam tipped the rectangle of wood until she found the right angle of light and shadow to make the marks clear.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think I can read it.’

  ‘What does it say?’ said Aristo.

  ‘“Gone to Rome. Please . . . don’t worry. Simeon . . . is with me. He thinks . . . mother is . . . alive and a slave in the Golden House . . . We will try to save her.”’

  Miriam’s face went pale. ‘But father always told us mother was dead,’ she said slowly. ‘Simeon must have lied to Jonathan.’ She gripped Aristo’s hand and looked up into his face. ‘Flavia was right: it’s some kind of trap,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to help Jonathan!’

  ‘Jonathan,’ said Simeon, ‘are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to come in with me. You can wait back at our rented room until I come out. If I come out.’

  They stood by a fountain in the dappled shade of the umbrella pines on the Palatine Hill. Beside them, two marble sea nymphs poured splashing water from carved shells into a granite basin.

  Jonathan pulled his new cream-coloured tunic away from his perspiring body. It had been a stiff climb up the Palatine Hill. He was wheezing, too.

  ‘Just tell me again,’ he said.

  Simeon turned his head and looked straight into Jonathan’s eyes.

  ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that your mother is still alive and a slave in the Golden House.’

  Jonathan gazed back into his uncle’s blue eyes and then nodded.

  ‘Then I’ll come in with you.’

  ‘First you should know the full extent of my mission.’

  ‘All right.’ Jonathan sat on the cool granite edge of the fountain and waited.

  ‘Three assassins,’ said Simeon, ‘have been sent from Corinth to the Palace of Titus.’

  ‘Three?’ said Jonathan.

  Simeon nodded and reached into his leather belt. From a hidden slit he pulled out a curved dagger.

  ‘Three,’ he repeated, ‘and I am one of them.’

  ‘Titus and Berenice,’ said Sisyphus. ‘were very wicked people. Before they met one another. And after.’

  ‘What were they doing?’ asked Nubia. Although breakfast was over and the plates cleared away, they lingered in the green coolness of the ivy pergola.

  ‘My dears, you don’t need to know the gruesome details. Suffice it to say the people of Rome called them “Nero and Poppaea”.’

  Flavia gasped.

  Nubia frowned. ‘What is Neronpopeye?’

  ‘Nero was an evil Emperor,’ said Flavia. ‘Poppaea was his girlfriend. I know because pater told me some of the things they did. They were horrible.’

  Sitting on the edge of the splashing fountain in the cool shade of the Palatine Hill, Jonathan grew pale as Simeon explained his mission.

  ‘If they catch us before we reach the Emperor,’ his uncle concluded, ‘they may very well torture us. And afterwards they will certainly kill me, probably by crucifixion. You will most likely be enslaved. Are you still willing to come with me?’

  Jonathan nodded and tried to speak, but his throat was suddenly too dry. He scooped up a handful of water from the fountain behind him and turned back in time to see Simeon toss the curved dagger underneath a myrtle bush and kick a thin layer of pine needles and dust over it.

  ‘If they found that knife on me,’ explained Simeon, ‘I would be hanging from a cross before I could blink. Now our only weapons will be our wits.’ He stood up and slung the barbiton over his shoulder.

  Jonathan stood too. His heart thumped and he felt sick.

  ‘Nervous?’ His uncle looked down at him.

  Jonathan nodded.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Simeon. ‘The guards won’t think it odd. Anyone about to perform for the most powerful man in the Roman Empire would be nervous.’

  ‘But my dears, let me tell you.’ Sisyphus leaned forward. ‘Since he became Emperor three months ago, the most remarkable change has come over Titus. He is completely reformed. For example. You’ve heard of Vesuvius?’

  Flavia and Nubia glanced at each other.

  ‘The volcano,’ said Flavia.

  ‘Precisely. A terrible disaster. Thousands left ruined and homeless. And do you know what Titus did? The man we all thought would tax us to death in order to pay for his orgies?’ Sisyphus slapped his thigh and sat back on the bench. ‘He used his own money to help the survivors!’

  ‘Amazing,’ said Flavia.

  ‘Quite,’ said Sisyphus. ‘You can be certain a man has had a real change of heart when he opens his coin purse.’

  ‘And you don’t think he was just pretending to be good, to get the senators to like him?’ asked Flavia.

  ‘And for making the other people to like him?’ added Nubia.

  ‘Some people think that. But I don’t. Let me tell you why I think Titus has really changed. Within a week of his father’s death Berenice hurried back from Athens, ready to be Poppaea to his Nero. But do you know what happened?’

  Flavia and Nubia shook their heads.

  ‘He sent her away again! He had complete power. Could have made her his queen. Could even have kept her as his secret girlfriend. But he sent her away for the second time without even seeing her! Something has happened to him. I tell you, the man has changed.’

  There was an urgent snipping noise outside the ivy pergola and Flavia pushed her head out.

  ‘Caudex!’ she said. ‘What are you doing out there?’

  ‘Just trimming the ivy.’ The big slave blushed and looked down at his feet. ‘And I wanted to hear the rest of the story.’

  *

  Somewhere on the Palatine Hill, slaves were building an extension to the already vast palace. Jonathan could hear the faint sounds of hammer, saw and workmen shouting. But here by the slaves’ entrance it was peaceful, with only the twitter of birds and a slight breeze rustling the leaves. There was a shady porch, with cool marble benches and columns. Two soldiers stood guard, one either side of the double doors, but they kept a discreet distance.

  A door slave had gone to find his superior.

  ‘Remember,’ Simeon told Jonathan as they waited for the steward, ‘just bang the tambourine as you did last night; you’ll be fine.’

  Jonathan nodded and told himself this was his chance to make things right.

  Presently a tall man with grizzled hair appeared in the open doorway. He had a large nose and bushy eyebrows.

  ‘Good morning.’ Simeon’s voice was as deep and sweet as the barbiton. ‘We’re travelling musicians. We’ve come to play for the Emperor.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the steward in a well-educated voice. ‘We aren’t allowing any strangers into the palace at the moment.’

  ‘But I thought the Emperor enjoyed listening to new music,’ said Simeon.

  ‘Ordinarily, he does. But security is tight at the moment. I’m afraid it’s impossible to gain access to the palace.’

  Simeon turned away and then back. Things were obviously not going as he’d planned.

  ‘Is it possible to speak to someone named Agathus?’ he asked.

  The door-slave looked from Simeon to Jonathan and then back. ‘I am Agathus,’ he said slowly.

  Simeon glanced at the soldiers standing guard nearby. Casually, with the tip of his new sandal, he traced a symbol on the dusty threshold of the porch. Before Jonathan could see it, he scuffed it out.

  But Agathus had seen it. He looked up at Simeon from under his bushy eyebrows and then nodded.

  ‘There may be a wa
y . . .’

  ‘So how do we know whether Jonathan has been able to get into the Golden House?’ Flavia asked Sisyphus.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that.’ Sisyphus’s dark eyes gleamed. ‘We have to come at this problem from a different direction.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Flavia.

  ‘We could waste valuable time merely trying to find out if Jonathan’s been able to get in. I think we should assume he has been successful, and try to find out how we can get in to the part of the Golden House where the Jewish slaves are kept.’

  ‘So you think we should learn more about the Golden House,’ said Flavia slowly. ‘Like whether there are any secret corridors or tunnels.’

  ‘My dear, if Nero built it, there are bound to be secret corridors and tunnels. We just need to find out where they are.’

  ‘Hurry, Lupus! The cart’s leaving.’

  Lupus looked up and down Ostia’s main street. He could hear Aristo but he couldn’t see him. He had just been approaching the mule-driver’s fountain when he heard his tutor’s voice calling.

  ‘Quickly!’ cried Aristo again. ‘I’ve saved you a place.’

  Then Lupus saw the cart. It was already moving into the shade beneath the arch of the Roman Gate up ahead. Lupus sprinted down the Decumanus Maximus, his sandals slapping the hot white paving stones. He dodged two giggling women with papyrus parasols and a carpenter carrying planks of wood. He nearly knocked over a slave carrying a jar of urine to the fullers.

  Lupus ran past the columned shop-fronts on his left and the long water trough on his right and charged through the Roman Gate with its laughing soldiers. He emerged into the hot sunlight again and reached out to grasp Aristo’s extended hand. Then he felt himself lifted up and onto the hard, wooden bench. The other men in the cart grinned at him. The driver – who’d been going slow – gave him a wink over his shoulder before turning back to flick his whip at the mules.

  ‘Did you give Mordecai the balm?’ asked Aristo in a low voice.

  Lupus nodded, then turned to watch the white marble arch of Ostia’s main gate grow smaller and smaller.

  He was going to see Rome at last.

  In an inner room of the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill a dough-faced man with greasy black hair was interviewing Simeon and Jonathan.

  ‘My name is Harmonius,’ he said. ‘Agathus has recommended you but I want to satisfy myself that you are genuine. And the only way I can do that is to audition you. We’re on alert against a possible assassination attempt, but the Emperor’s headaches have been particularly bad. Music is one of the few things that gives him any relief. If your music can help him, then your reward will be great.’ He folded his arms. ‘But first you must show me whether you are real musicians or merely impostors.’

  ‘There it is.’ Sisyphus stood beside Lady Cynthia’s private litter with his hands on his hips and squinted up at an enormous structure. ‘The eighth wonder of the world.’

  Flavia and Nubia leaned out of the litter and gasped at the sight of a huge oval building, white against the turquoise sky above Rome.

  ‘Bulbus. Caudex. Have a little rest,’ said Sisyphus.

  The two door-slaves set the litter onto the hot paving stones and helped Flavia and Nubia out.

  ‘It’s the biggest building I’ve ever seen,’ said Flavia tipping her head back and shading her eyes. ‘It’s colossal!’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘It’s Vespasian’s new amphitheatre,’ said Sisyphus. ‘When it opens in a few months there’ll be gladiatorial fights, sea battles, beast hunts . . .’

  ‘What is that twigs all over it?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘Scaffolding.’

  ‘What are they doing?’ asked Flavia. ‘Painting it?’

  Sisyphus shook his head. ‘They’re covering it with stucco, a type of plaster. They mix it with marble dust so that it sparkles like the real thing. When they’ve finished,’ he said, ‘the entire amphitheatre will look as if it’s made of solid marble. Then they’ll paint it and put statues in the niches.’

  Flavia glanced at Sisyphus. ‘There must be hundreds of slaves working on it,’ she said.

  ‘Thousands, my dear. Simply thousands. And almost every one of them a captive from Judaea, brought back by our illustrious Emperor Titus.’

  By the end of Simeon’s second song, two dozen slaves, scribes and soldiers of the Imperial Palace had crowded into the wide doorway to listen to the music. As the last note died away, they all broke into spontaneous applause.

  Harmonius passed a handkerchief across his eyes. ‘Extraordinary,’ he whispered. ‘I have never heard anything quite like that. Sir, you are an artist.’

  Simeon bowed his big head modestly, and Jonathan breathed a secret sigh of relief.

  ‘The Emperor has an official engagement this evening,’ continued Harmonius, ‘but his younger brother Domitian is having a small dinner party here in the palace, and I’m sure he would pay you just as well. Then you can perform for the Emperor tomorrow.’ Harmonius stood. ‘Now, if you would both like to rest and prepare yourselves, I will show you to your rooms.’

  ‘Of course, there’s more than one forum in Rome,’ said Sisyphus, helping Flavia and Nubia down from the litter a second time. ‘But when people say the Roman Forum, this is the one they mean.’

  Flavia gazed open-mouthed at the buildings towering around them. She had never seen so many columns in one place. Somehow, she’d always imagined the Roman forum would be of pure white marble, but the roofs were red tile, almost all the statues were brightly painted, and there were dazzling touches of gold on most of the buildings.

  Something else was not as she’d imagined. Apart from a few slaves going about their business and a boy driving a flock of goats between two temples, the forum was almost deserted.

  ‘It’s so empty,’ she said. ‘I thought it would be crowded with people.’

  Sisyphus nodded. ‘It usually is,’ he said, ‘but listen.’

  The girls stood very still; Caudex and Bulbus, too. At first they could only hear the soft clanking of the goat bells growing fainter and fainter. Then they heard a muffled roar.

  ‘I am hearing that earlier,’ said Nubia.

  ‘It’s coming from the Circus Maximus,’ said Sisyphus. ‘Just the other side of this hill, which is the Palatine, of course. The races are under way. That’s the sound of a quarter of a million people cheering for their teams.’

  Flavia gasped. ‘A quarter of a million?’

  Sisyphus nodded. ‘That’s why Rome feels so empty. It’s the Ludi Romani.’

  Nubia frowned. ‘What is the loo dee ro ma nee?’

  ‘A twelve-day festival to Jupiter. With chariot races every day. That’s where all the Romans are. Can’t stand the races myself. All that noise, dust and heat. I much prefer a good comedy by Plautus. Or a musical recital. Now have a look behind you.’

  ‘Great Neptune’s beard!’ exclaimed Nubia.

  Flavia shrieked: ‘What is THAT?’

  Behind them towered an enormous gold statue of a nude man. It was almost as tall as the huge new amphitheatre which stood behind it.

  ‘It’s the sun god.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like the sun god.’ Flavia squinted at the statue.

  ‘You’re absolutely right, my dear, it’s not,’ he hissed. ‘It’s actually a portrait of Nero which he erected to himself. But no Roman will give him the satisfaction of acknowledging that. Vespasian put some rays on his head and now we all call it the sun god.’

  ‘He looks like a big pudgy bully.’

  ‘Yes,’ murmured Sisyphus. ‘It is an excellent likeness. Anyway,’ he continued. ‘Here’s me.’ He gestured at a marble building with greyish green columns and bronze doors. ‘The plans of the Golden House should be in there. They’ll let me in because I work for Senator Cornix. But you won’t be allowed.’

  ‘What shall we do, then?’ said Flavia.

  ‘Thought of that already,’ said Sisyphus. ‘B
ulbus, take the girls to Lady Cynthia’s baths. You and Caudex wait outside.’

  He turned to Flavia and Nubia. ‘You’re going to enjoy one of the great pleasures of Rome,’ he said. ‘A day at the baths. Have a manicure. Or a massage. Get your hair done. Just tell them you are Lady Cynthia’s niece and put it on her account. I’ll see you back at the house by the eleventh hour. Hopefully with some useful information.’

  It was mid-afternoon of the same day when Harmonius led Jonathan and Simeon to the private dining room of the Emperor’s younger brother. Domitian and his guests were just finishing their first course when Jonathan and his uncle passed between pink columns to a low platform facing the diners.

  Fifteen guests reclined on five couches, eating peppered wedges of a strange orange fruit which Jonathan had never seen before. It was still early, only the ninth hour. Outside, the city of Rome was sweltering. But the summer triclinium of the Imperial Palace was a cool oasis of greens and pinks. Across the entire back wall a sheet of glassy water hissed into a trough of pink marble. Potted palms and gardenias provided colour and fragrance, while six Egyptian slave-girls created a breeze by waving peacock-feather fans.

  Jonathan recognised Domitian at once. He was a slimmer version of his older brother, but where Titus’s hair was sandy, Domitian’s was brown. He was stretched out on the central couch, between a bearded man and a lovely red-headed woman.

  The woman was laughing throatily at something Domitian had said. Jonathan supposed she thought him handsome. He had curly hair and large brown eyes, but Jonathan didn’t like his smirk.

  When Simeon had settled the barbiton between his feet, he glanced over at Harmonius, who raised his eyebrows and nodded.

  Simeon bowed his head for a moment, then found the beat of his heart on the deepest string. Gradually the diners grew silent. After a moment, Jonathan echoed the beat on his tambourine, damping it somewhat to make the instrument resonate more than jingle. Then Simeon added the melody and finally the words.

  Jonathan didn’t have to look at the diners to know they were moved. He felt a kind of stillness within the room. Finally, near the end of the third song, he did look up.

  Some of the dinner-guests were smiling, and tapping the beat with their fingers. Others had closed their eyes to concentrate. But the bearded man had leaned forward and was speaking into Domitian’s ear. They were both looking at Simeon, who was lost in his music.