The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  Suddenly Flavia remembered the plans she had studied with Sisyphus. There was a click in her mind, like the sound of a wax seal being broken. She knew what the palm trees surrounded and which room was below them.

  ‘Lupus!’ she cried. ‘The eye! It’s inside the palm trees. Be careful!’

  Lupus heard her, but so did the assassin. The man skidded to a halt, then whirled to face them, his long hair flying. He crouched and his eyes narrowed as he saw his closest pursuer was just a boy.

  Flavia knew she had to act quickly, before the assassin could attack Lupus. She drew back her arm and threw her tambourine hard, like a discus, giving it a spin as it left her hand. Amazingly, it went exactly where she had intended: the beribboned tambourine struck the assassin a hard jingling blow on the chest, then bounced to the ground. The man staggered back, flailing wildly with his arms, trying to keep his balance.

  Then he was gone.

  Flavia and Nubia ran to the rim of the eye, the circular skylight in the dome. A shower of dust and gravel rattled over the side and disappeared into the octagonal room below. Lupus was breathing hard, hands on his knees, gazing down into the void below. The female guards and finally the Emperor himself came puffing up behind them.

  ‘Careful!’ cried Flavia. But they knew the layout of the Golden House and slowed down before they reached the rim of the circular gap.

  If there had ever been glass in the skylight, it must have been stripped away, along with other precious materials. The man in black had plunged sixty feet and had hit the platform where they had been playing music a few minutes earlier. His long hair fanned out across his back, giving him the look of a jointed wooden doll which a child has thrown down in disgust. It was obvious from the impossible angle of his head that his neck was broken.

  The assassin was dead.

  In a triangular room somewhere near the back of the Golden House Jonathan asked his mother: ‘Was Jonathan the Zealot my real father?’

  ‘No.’ His mother raised her head. ‘You are Mordecai’s son. I hadn’t been unfaithful to him.’ She lowered her eyes again. ‘Not then.’

  ‘Then how? When?’

  His mother turned to face the plaster wall. There was a fresco of Venus on it and she reached up to touch the goddess’s face.

  ‘Jonathan was the first man I ever met who wasn’t a close relative,’ she said. ‘I was fourteen and he was seventeen, a few months older than Simeon. The two of them had been throwing rocks at the Romans and some soldiers were chasing them. They ran into our house and I hid them behind my loom. Jonathan had hurt his hand so while Simeon went out of the room to see if it was safe, I dressed Jonathan’s wound. While Simeon was gone, in only a few short moments, Jonathan kissed me and told me I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He said he wanted to marry me. He was young, brave, handsome . . . Even then his name was whispered by all the girls. I was dazzled.’

  Jonathan felt unsteady and had to lean against the wall. His mother still had her back to him.

  ‘A few days later,’ she continued, ‘my father said a man had asked to marry me. I was overjoyed. Then father told me he was a doctor, a man of twenty-seven, and my heart sank. I heard nothing more from Jonathan, so I married the doctor, your father. He was a kind man. We went to live in his house near the Beautiful Gate. Soon I had the two of you. I was not unhappy.’

  ‘You were not unhappy,’ repeated Jonathan dully.

  ‘Miriam was born the year the rebellion started. It was the same year your father joined that sect. While everyone praised the bravery of Jonathan the Zealot, all your father talked about was loving our enemies.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘One day, I was visiting my parents when Simeon and Jonathan came in from one of their secret missions against the Romans. It was the first time I had seen Jonathan in nearly five years. I watched him from behind a lattice-work screen. “Have you heard?” Jonathan was saying to my father. “The Christians are leaving the city. Going across the Jordan, to Pella. I hope your son-in-law isn’t one of them. Cowards!” My father didn’t say anything but I could tell by the way he clenched his jaw that he agreed with Jonathan. “I should have accepted your offer to marry Susannah,” he said to Jonathan. “I didn’t want a Zealot as a son-in-law. But it would have been preferable to one of those madmen who think God had a son.” That was when I realised Jonathan had asked to marry me.’

  Susannah was silent for a moment. Then she continued. ‘As soon as my father left the room, I stepped out from behind the screen. Jonathan ran to me and told me he had never stopped loving me and that he would die for me. We said many other things. When I finally returned home that day I found your father about to flee the city. He begged me to come but I refused, saying that my father had forbidden me to leave. I let him go. And I let him take you with him.’

  ‘So you loved Jonathan more than you loved us,’ said Jonathan in a flat voice. He felt sick.

  ‘I don’t think it was love.’ His mother leaned her cheek against the wall. ‘It was a kind of madness. The next week the gates of Jerusalem were closed and the armies of Titus encamped outside. Jonathan and I had a few weeks together, maybe a month. We lived secretly in your father’s house, for I was still a married woman and adultery was a crime punishable by death. Then the famine set in. One day Jonathan went out and never returned. I heard later that he was killed fighting a man for a piece of dead mule. A brave death,’ she said bitterly.

  She turned to face Jonathan. Her eyes were dry.

  ‘That’s the reason I didn’t come with you.’

  ‘But now . . .’ said Jonathan, ‘now I’ve come to rescue you. To take you home.’

  ‘Jonathan. My dear brave Jonathan. I can’t come with you. I must stay here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Titus needs me.’

  ‘We need you! I need you. I came all this way to bring you home.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  For a moment it was as if Jonathan was standing above the scene. He could see himself: thin, pale, his head shaved and an angry red brand on his arm. He looked like a slave. And his mother standing with her head bent before him. He saw that he was almost as tall as she was.

  ‘Can you forgive me, Jonathan?’

  He stared at her. He had risked his life to save her and now she refused to escape with him. Just as she had refused his father ten years earlier.

  ‘Please, Jonathan?’

  Slowly Jonathan shook his head. Then he turned and stumbled out of the room. He ran along the cryptoporticus, and although he was half blinded by tears, somehow he found the dark tunnels Rizpah had shown him. Like a mole, he made his way blindly along them until he found the darkest, most hidden place of all.

  ‘Flavia Gemina,’ said the Emperor, mopping his brow.

  Flavia glanced over at the Emperor in amazement. They were all walking back along the golden portico towards the octagonal room. The Emperor’s sandy curls were plastered to his pink forehead and he was breathing as hard as a bull led to sacrifice.

  ‘How do you know my name, Caesar?’ she stammered.

  ‘I have an . . . excellent memory.’ Now he was mopping his chin and neck. ‘I met you . . . at the refugee camp . . . south of Stabia . . . Your uncle – Flavius Geminus – was with you.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Flavia.

  ‘And you’re her slave-girl . . . Sheba.’

  ‘Nubia.’

  ‘That’s right. Nubia.’ He looked at Lupus. ‘And Lupus. A most . . . unusual name.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ said Flavia. ‘That you should remember our names.’

  ‘Confession,’ the Emperor said. ‘Jonathan’s uncle Simeon . . . mentioned you . . . Told me you were the boy’s friends.’

  ‘Simeon!’ cried Flavia. They had reached the octagonal room and she stopped beside one of the golden columns. ‘He’s an assassin, Caesar. He’s going to kill you,’ she gestured with her tambourine, ‘like that man just tried to kill you.’

/>   ‘No.’ The Emperor smiled. ‘But I appreciate your loyalty in telling me. Simeon came to warn me, not to kill me. You see it was his own sister – Jonathan’s mother – he was sent to assassinate. That assassin intended to kill Susannah. Not me.’

  ‘Yes, he did intend to kill you,’ said a voice. It was a woman’s voice, full of hatred.

  The women of Jerusalem stood round the platform in the middle of the octagonal room, looking down at the dead assassin. One of them was kneeling beside his broken body and it was she who had spoken. She had dark, fluffy hair and narrow eyes full of hatred.

  Titus walked to the platform and frowned down at her.

  ‘My name is Rachel,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘But you wouldn’t know that, even though I’ve been your slave for nine years. His name was Pinchas. I only knew him a few hours but in that short time I could tell he was a brave man. One of our freedom-fighters. Berenice hired him to kill that traitor Susannah. But afterwards he was going to kill you, too. He was a true hero. You are a pig.’

  Slowly and deliberately, Rachel spat in the Emperor’s face.

  Everyone gasped and stared at him.

  Then Titus did something Flavia would never forget.

  ‘You may not believe this, Rachel,’ he said quietly, mopping his cheek with his handkerchief, ‘but I would rather be killed than kill one more person. I am sorry this man is dead. And I am truly sorry,’ he looked round at all the women, ‘for what I had to do to your country. To your people.’

  He looked round at them all. ‘You are not my slaves but Berenice’s. But she will not return.’ He hung his head for a moment and Flavia was close enough to hear him murmur, ‘I should have done this before.’

  The Emperor raised his head again and continued in his commander’s voice. ‘I hereby set you all free. You may remain here as my freedwomen, under my protection, and begin to receive wages for your weaving. Or you may go. The decision is yours.’

  He started to turn away, and then added, ‘If you stay, I will allow you to marry. I believe Berenice was only trying to protect you by keeping you from men. Because whether you believe it or not, she loved you all. Her parting wish was that I watch over you.’

  He turned away from the women of Jerusalem and said to Flavia and her friends, ‘Come, Flavia Gemina. Let us find your friend Jonathan.’

  But though they searched and searched, Jonathan was nowhere to be found.

  *

  Jonathan remained in his dark hole for a long time. There was barely enough room for him to sit, so he curled up and huddled there. Thoughts raced round and round his head, like chariots at the circus. Presently he slept and dreamt of his childhood. He woke and sought refuge in sleep again; the dreams were the most vivid he had ever had.

  Someone regularly left a jug of fresh water outside the entrance, but nobody spoke to him and it seemed that he was alone for weeks.

  What finally drove him out was the hunger.

  He was sick and dizzy with it, and as he wormed his way along the tunnel he had to stop every few minutes and gasp for breath. Once or twice his throat contracted and he almost retched. He could taste the bitter juices of his empty stomach.

  At last he staggered blinking into the cryptoporticus and stared towards the light in wonder.

  A figure stood there. The filtered sunlight behind her made her white hair and her white tunic glow like an aura around her.

  ‘Rizpah?’ he croaked.

  She nodded, and stepped forward. She handed him a jug of cold water. In the crook of her arm she cradled a grey kitten.

  ‘How long have I been in there?’ he asked her after he had drained the jug.

  ‘Three days.’

  ‘Only three days?’ Jonathan slumped down onto the floor and leaned the back of his head against the cool plaster of the cryptoporticus. ‘It feels like weeks.’

  ‘No,’ said Rizpah, sitting beside him. ‘Only three days.’

  ‘I’m ravenous,’ he turned his head to look at her. ‘Have you got any bread?’

  ‘No,’ she was stroking the kitten. ‘No food today. We’re all fasting.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Today is Yom Kippur,’ she said. ‘The Day of Atonement. Everyone here in the Golden House is fasting. But don’t worry. We’ll eat this evening.’

  He gulped some air and tried to stand. But he felt too dizzy and let his back slide slowly down the wall again.

  ‘How is my mother?’ he asked after a while.

  ‘Waiting for you. They all are. The Emperor and your friends looked everywhere and finally they went away. I didn’t tell them where you were but I told them you were all right.’

  ‘Will you take me to her?’

  ‘Of course.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘But first you might want to visit the baths.’

  ‘All right,’ said Jonathan. ‘You lead the way and I’ll crawl after you.’

  ‘Please, mother. Tell me why you won’t come back to Ostia with me.’ Jonathan sat facing his mother in the shaded peristyle by the Cyclops’ cave. He had bathed in hot sulphur water and cold sea water. Now, dressed in a loose white tunic, he felt clean and new, though the brand on his left arm throbbed and his stomach was empty as a pit.

  His barefoot mother was also dressed in white: a long linen tunic, unbelted because leather could not be worn on the Day of Atonement.

  ‘Tell me why you can’t come home with me,’ he repeated.

  She nodded. ‘I’ll try to explain,’ she said and took his cold hands in her warm ones. ‘After the famine set in, the nightmare began. My lover Jonathan died, as I told you, fighting over a dead mule. After that, I went to stay with my parents. About this time Simeon became a Christian like your father. He renounced the Zealots and came to stay with us. Simeon and I watched our parents slowly weaken and die. There was nothing we could do to help them. We cooked belts, sandals, even scrolls. My mother died first, then my father. As my father lay dying I held him in my arms. He looked up at me and said, “I know you committed a sin which demands the penalty of death. God forgive me, Susannah, I could not stone my own daughter.” I wept when I realised he knew what I had done. “Atone for your sins,” he whispered. “Obey the Lord and follow his commandments.” I nodded. “I promise I’ll be good from now on.” He died smiling.’

  Susannah squeezed Jonathan’s hands and he looked up at her.

  ‘Jonathan,’ she said. ‘I know God spared me for a reason. I honoured my father’s dying wish. I have spent most of the past nine years at my loom in silent prayer. Somehow I knew you had all survived. I prayed for you every day. I prayed for everyone I knew, even Titus.’

  Jonathan nodded. He could smell her rose and myrtle perfume.

  ‘Then, last year, Titus sent Berenice away. But I know he missed her because he used to come back here and wander through the rooms she had occupied. One day he walked through the octagonal room. Most of the women turned their faces away, but I smiled at him as I prayed for him. The next day he summoned me into his presence.’

  Jonathan swallowed. His heart was pounding.

  ‘I think at first that he wanted me to take Berenice’s place. But we ended up talking. It became a regular occurrence. He especially likes hearing about our Torah. He is intrigued that our God is a moral one. Titus has committed many great sins, as I have. He does not fully believe, but he is beginning to.’

  Jonathan looked at her. ‘Then he’s not your lover?’

  She looked at him and for the first time he saw complete openness in her eyes. ‘No. We are not lovers. Only friends.’

  Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief. That meant she had changed. That meant there was hope. Hope that she might yet come back to them.

  ‘Jonathan,’ she was saying. ‘I am atoning for my sins. For letting my father down, my husband, my children. I would dearly love to come home to you but I believe God has led me here, to the most powerful man in the world, for such a time as this. Do you understand?’

  Jonathan shook his head. ‘No
t really.’

  She squeezed his hands again, and looked down at them. ‘My ring!’ she exclaimed. ‘Jonathan, where did you find my ring?’

  Jonathan looked in surprise at the sardonyx ring on his little finger.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I was looking through your things, trying to find out what happened to you. I found this,’ he slipped it easily off his finger. ‘And I found love letters that father wrote to you. Beautiful love letters quoting the Song of Solomon.’ Suddenly a terrible thought occurred to him. ‘Or did Jonathan write them?’

  ‘No.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘Your father wrote those letters to me.’

  Jonathan nodded and hung his head so she would not see his face.

  Presently he slid the ring onto the forefinger of her left hand. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take it. Promise me you’ll wear it. And whenever you catch sight of it, will you think of me?’

  ‘I have thought of you every day,’ she whispered. ‘Every day since the last time I saw you, looking over your father’s shoulder, waving goodbye to me with your chubby hand.’

  The octagonal court had been cleared of looms. There were too many diners for couches, so long tables had been brought in and every chair and stool available. It was just past dusk and a hundred candles and oil lamps filled the deep blue of the domed room with stars of light.

  Two hundred slave women and twenty-four children, all in white, sat at long tables, ready to eat the food set before them. Jonathan sat between Rizpah and the slave boy called Benjamin. On Rizpah’s right was her mother Rachel – the woman with fluffy brown hair who had spat in Titus’s face. She sat quietly and gazed thoughtfully at the candles.

  Jonathan’s stomach rumbled fiercely as he caught a whiff of roast chicken and coriander. He was dizzy with hunger.

  There was a murmur at the table as two figures in white entered the room through the golden columns: a man and a woman.

  Jonathan knew the woman was his mother, but the man didn’t look like Titus.

  ‘Is it Titus?’ Jonathan peered into the gloom. ‘I can’t see clearly in this light.’