The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  ‘I’m sorry, Captain Geminus,’ said the rat-faced banker, recovering himself somewhat. ‘But there’s been a run on our reserves and we’ve been forced to call in our loans.’ He licked his thin lips and glanced nervously round the forum, as if he were looking for someone to back him up.

  ‘Great Neptune’s beard!’ Gaius banged his fist on the banker’s table and caused the coins to jump. Beneath the table a watchdog began to bark.

  ‘We’re within our rights.’ The banker took an involuntary step back and licked his lips again. ‘Tell you what. I’ll give you an extra week to come up with the money. But you still have to vacate the premises by sundown this evening and hand over the key. We don’t want objects going missing.’

  ‘Very well,’ growled Gaius and started to turn away.

  Flavia tugged her uncle’s toga and when he bent down she whispered in his ear.

  ‘Writing,’ said Gaius, turning back. ‘I want that in writing.’

  The banker glared at Flavia. ‘Very well,’ he said between clenched teeth. ‘I’ll draw up a document now.’

  As Flavia and her uncle watched the banker scribble his promise on a scrap of papyrus, Nubia heard a sound which made her skin crawl: the clink of chains. She slowly turned and looked out between the columns into the bright forum.

  There. On a low wooden platform in the shadow of the great white temple across the forum. A dozen slaves, all chained at the neck just as she had once been.

  Her hand went involuntarily to her throat and she left the cool shadows of the colonnade to cross the hot, open space. People began to move with her: sailors, merchants, soldiers, a few women. The slave-dealer had not yet announced the auction but the jingle of iron links could mean only one thing. Some of the people jostled her, but she felt none of them, saw none of them.

  Nubia heard Flavia calling her name but her feet refused to stop. They took her across the forum.

  Now the slave-dealer – a man she didn’t recognise – was beginning to summon buyers. ‘Step closer, Ostians! Examine the fine flesh on show today.’

  Nubia stared.

  She had been sold naked, but these men wore white loincloths.

  She had been thin and covered with sores, these muscular young men were smooth and oiled.

  She had not dared to raise her eyes in her shame. These men looked straight ahead, proudly – almost arrogantly – above the heads of the crowd.

  The slave-dealer, a tall, dark-haired man in a toga, stepped onto the platform. ‘Young men in their prime!’ he called. ‘They’re not cheap but they’re quality . . . Suitable to be trained as gladiators, bodyguards, litter-bearers . . . Each one has a reserve price of twenty-five thousand sestercii. Step up! Have a good look before the sale next week!’

  Most of the chained men had olive skin and strong noses; Nubia guessed they were from Syria or Judaea. But two had skin as black as hers. And one of them, she saw as she finally arrived at the foot of the platform, one of them was her eldest brother Taharqo.

  Lupus’s thoughts were as tangled as seaweed in a net, but the deep blue interior of the carruca had begun to calm him. The carriage Pliny had sent for them had a cedar frame covered with blue silk curtains. These curtains were drawn against the hot noonday sun and created a deep blue light which filled the interior of the carriage, flickering gently as shadows and sunlight passed overhead. It was almost like being underwater, thought Lupus.

  Captain Geminus lay on the cushioned bench which ran along the left-hand side of the carruca. The rocking motion of the well-sprung carriage had put him to sleep, so the others spoke in low tones.

  Lupus sat forward and listened to Nubia. She was telling them how she had seen her older brother in the slave-market.

  ‘Are you sure it was your brother?’ Jonathan asked her in a whisper.

  Nubia nodded. In the blue light her lemon-yellow tunic looked green.

  ‘Did someone buy him?’ asked Miriam softly.

  Nubia shook her head and Flavia explained, ‘The auction’s not until the Ides, in three days.’ Flavia had perched beside her father to make sure he didn’t slip off the bench.

  ‘Did your brother recognise you, Nubia?’ asked Aristo.

  ‘Alas! I do not think so.’ Nubia hung her head. ‘The slave-seller had the whip.’

  ‘If the slaves don’t keep their eyes straight ahead,’ explained Flavia, ‘then he whips them.’

  ‘Maybe we could buy your brother and set him free!’ suggested Jonathan in an excited whisper.

  ‘They’re starting the bidding at twenty-five thousand sestercii,’ said Flavia, and added: ‘Each.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Flavia looked at Aristo. ‘What did you find out at the magistrate’s? Is it true the bailiff can take our house?’

  Aristo leaned forward, and kept his voice low. ‘I’m afraid your father didn’t read the whole contract when he borrowed the money. He didn’t read the part in small writing at the end: the codicil.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Flavia, and glanced down at her father’s thin face. ‘He’s not very good at that sort of thing.’

  ‘I usually advise him, but this time he didn’t consult me,’ said Aristo. ‘He can be a bit impetuous.’

  Flavia gave him a rueful smile. ‘It runs in the family,’ she said.

  Lupus showed Jonathan his wax tablet.

  Jonathan nodded and turned to Flavia. ‘Bato also told us why they let Venalicius go.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He bribed them.’

  Aristo explained: ‘They claim there are no witnesses. Venalicius gave the chief magistrate Aulus Egrilius Rufus an amount of money to let him go until they can find enough witnesses for the trial. If he runs away, he forfeits the money.’

  ‘Rufus!’ cried Flavia, and then covered her mouth with her hand as her father stirred. ‘Rufus?’ she said again. ‘He’s one of the bankers who wants to take our house away!’

  ‘We know,’ said Jonathan. ‘Was he the one you saw at the forum today?’

  ‘No,’ said Flavia. ‘That was Dexter. He’s horrible. He has a face like a rat.’

  ‘And he has big watchdog,’ added Nubia.

  ‘Did he say why they were being so mean to your father?’ said Jonathan.

  ‘He said they didn’t have any money or reserves or something . . . but wait! You just said Venalicius gave them a huge bribe to let him out until the trial. So they were lying when they said they didn’t have any money.’

  ‘Either that or their debts are so big that even Venalicius’ bribe wasn’t enough to cover them,’ suggested Aristo.

  ‘Oh,’ moaned Flavia. ‘My head hurts just thinking about it. And I feel a bit sick.’

  ‘Me, too,’ said Jonathan. ‘It’s bumpier now. I think we’ve left the main road. Can you open the curtains, Lupus? The ties are by you.’

  Lupus scowled. He liked the underwater effect caused by the sun shining through the blue silk. It helped him think. And he needed to think up a way to raise one hundred thousand sestercii.

  ‘Lupus,’ hissed Flavia. ‘Please open the curtains.’

  Reluctantly, Lupus untied one panel of the filmy fabric and pulled it back. Behind him was the sea, glittering in the hot October sun. A faint breeze filled the interior and caused the silk walls to balloon.

  ‘Oh, that’s better.’ Jonathan burped gently.

  ‘Behold!’ said Nubia and pointed to a butter-coloured villa further along the coast, just visible through some pines. ‘House of Pliny.’

  Lupus sighed. There was no way he could ever come up with one hundred thousand sestercii. And without that money it would be very difficult for him to fulfil his vow to take revenge on Venalicius.

  Difficult, but not impossible.

  Nubia had been to Pliny’s Laurentum villa once before. A few months earlier, the four friends had helped rescue its previous owner, Admiral Pliny. On that occasion the old man had invited them to dine in his triclinium overlooking the sea.

  It was in this same tri
clinium that they now settled down to eat. The serving girls had put linen dining-slippers on their feet and poured water over their hands. As the sun began its dazzling descent, they waited for the slaves to bring in the first course.

  Nubia gazed around the room. On three sides, spiral columns of pink marble framed the sparkling sea. The columns rose from a low marble wall about as high as her waist. Beyond this sparkling white parapet was a dizzy drop to the rocks and sea below. On the remaining side of the triclinium, two green pillars flanked a tunnel of sunny and shaded courtyards which stretched all the way back to the double doors through which they had entered.

  Nubia’s eyes kept returning to an object in the dining-room that had not been there before. Against one of the green marble columns stood a life-sized statue of the hero Perseus.

  The story of Perseus was one of the first myths Nubia had ever heard. Later she learned that heroes in Greek and Roman stories were always having to go on long journeys, usually to defeat a monster and bring back something as proof.

  Perseus had to bring back the head of a creature named Medusa. Once she had been a beautiful woman, but she had boasted of her beauty to the gods. As a punishment, they had made her so hideous that anyone who looked at her turned to stone. Perseus avoided her terrible gaze by using his shield as a mirror, and cut off her head without looking directly at her.

  The bronze statue in Pliny’s triclinium showed the moment after the deed. Perseus, his handsome face averted, was holding up his gory trophy. Medusa was shown with her mouth open in a silent scream of rage and her snaky hair writhing as if still alive. From the hero’s left arm hung a shield, round and curiously flat. Nubia looked closer. The shield was coated with a thin layer of silver, polished to mirror brightness.

  Pliny noticed her gaze. ‘My uncle loved beautiful things,’ he said. ‘That statue is one of his most recent purchases.’

  Jonathan narrowed his eyes at it. ‘Isn’t it a bit . . . gaudy?’

  ‘It’s Hellenistic,’ explained Pliny. ‘The Hellenistic Greeks adored the overly dramatic. It’s not particularly to my taste, either.’

  Pliny reclined beside Miriam on the central couch. Flavia’s father lay on the couch to his right, propped up with several cushions. Occupying his own couch on the left, Aristo rarely took his eyes off Pliny and Miriam.

  The slave-girls were serving the appetisers now: prawns glazed with honey and cumin. Nubia took one from the dish and ate it thoughtfully. She wondered why Pliny kept glancing at the shield on the statue.

  Suddenly she had the answer: he could see Miriam’s face reflected in its mirror-like surface. Pliny had a double view of Miriam: her profile as well as her front view.

  ‘I’m only here for another week or so,’ Pliny was saying, ‘then it’s back up to Rome, where I’m studying to be a lawyer.’ He looked away from the shield and glanced round at them all. ‘But I wanted to make notes about my uncle’s last hours while it was still fresh in my mind. I’m a historian, too, you see. And architect; I’m designing an extension to this villa.’ He dabbed the corner of his mouth with his napkin. ‘I’ve already drawn up my own plans,’ he added, and glanced at Miriam. ‘Would you like to see them?’

  Without taking her eyes from her plate, Miriam nodded politely.

  ‘I’d like to see your plans,’ said Jonathan, sucking some honey sauce from his fingers. ‘I design things, too.’

  Pliny nodded at Jonathan. ‘I’ll show you tomorrow.’

  ‘Delicious,’ said Marcus from his couch. ‘Those were delicious prawns. It’s good to be back in civilisation.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain Geminus. They’re very fresh. One of the local fishermen caught them just this morning.’ Pliny smiled at Flavia’s father. ‘Tell me, are you feeling better?’

  ‘Much better, thank you.’

  ‘After dinner I usually have one of my freedmen read to me from one of the classics. But your experience must rival that of Odysseus . . . will you tell us how you were shipwrecked?’

  ‘Yes!’ cried Flavia. ‘You said you’d tell us when you felt stronger.’

  ‘Only if you don’t mind,’ said Pliny.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Flavia’s father. ‘Though I am hardly Odysseus.’ He lay back on his cushions.

  ‘I believe the volcano caused the wreck, though we didn’t know it at the time. It was the last week of August, and we had left the port of Alexandria the day before, having taken on a full cargo of spices. We were making the run to Crete. That’s the most dangerous part of the voyage because it’s across open water.

  ‘Suddenly, without warning, an enormous wave was upon us. At one point it was no further than you are from me.’ He looked up at them with something like awe in his expression. ‘It was like a cliff of green glass and I could see fish swimming in it above my ship.’ He paused for a moment, shaking his head.

  ‘There was no time to tack. The wall of water struck the Myrtilla amidships. It was terrifying. One moment my ship was beneath us, the next she was gone. Thank Jupiter my crew and I were all on deck. We found ourselves floating among flotsam and managed to cling to bits of timber.’

  His eyes filled with tears. ‘In only one respect am I like Odysseus,’ he said quietly. ‘I lost all my men. When it grew light again, they were gone.’ For a moment he was silent.

  ‘After a day or two,’ he continued presently, ‘I was washed up onto a rocky island inhabited only by birds. I survived for a few weeks by killing the birds and eating them raw.’

  Nubia tried not to shudder.

  ‘I must have become delirious,’ said Captain Geminus, ‘because the next thing I remember is lying in the bottom of a Cretan fishing boat. A few days later we met a Syrian merchant ship on its way from Rhodes to Rome. The fishermen persuaded them to take me aboard. The Syrians let me sleep in the galley. They lived on a meagre diet of porridge, but they shared what they had with me. There was nobody willing to attend to my wounds and we made slow progress because many harbours were damaged by the earthquake and the wave. We finally reached Ostia a few days ago.’

  ‘Surely the gods were watching over you,’ said Pliny.

  ‘Yes.’ Flavia’s father stared up at the high blue plaster ceiling of the dining-room. Patterns of light reflected from the sea outside flickered across its surface. ‘I pray that some of my crew survived. But my ship and its cargo of spices lies at the bottom of the sea. There’s no doubt of that.’

  Nobody spoke for a long time.

  ‘My entire fortune was invested in those spices,’ added Flavia’s father. ‘If only I could recover it!’

  Pliny nodded gravely. ‘If we could bring up just a fraction of the treasure that lies beneath the sea then we would be rich beyond our dreams.’ He chewed his last prawn thoughtfully. ‘There’s even a wreck here at Laurentum. They say the ship was carrying casks of gold and the weight of the treasure sank it.’

  ‘Here?’ said Flavia, her eyes bright with interest. ‘A sunken treasure near here?’

  Pliny nodded. ‘Just there. Do you see those rocks? The ones with the cormorants on them? The birds drying their wings?’

  They all nodded and Nubia shaded her eyes with her hand.

  Lupus pushed back his chair with a scrape of iron on marble and ran to the low parapet that surrounded the triclinium.

  ‘When the water is clear you can see the wreck lying there, seemingly within your grasp. But it’s an illusion.’

  ‘Why doesn’t someone dive down and get it?’ asked Flavia, pushing her own chair back and standing up.

  ‘The water is deeper than it looks,’ said Pliny. ‘Several local fishermen have tried. As far as I know, the only one to reach the wreck never came back up. According to the peasants round here, a terrible monster guards the treasure.’

  ‘Oh.’ Flavia slowly sat down again.

  The serving-girls were bringing in the main course – fried veal in a raisin and cream sauce – so Lupus returned to the table. As he sat down Nubia glanced over at him. She saw a c
urious look in his eyes.

  Triumph.

  Flavia rubbed her teeth with her tooth stick and studied the mosaic seahorse on the floor. She and her friends had been given small but attractive rooms around a green courtyard near the sea-view triclinium. Each room had a different sea creature on the black and white mosaic floor.

  Flavia sipped some water from a small jug and rinsed her mouth, then swallowed. ‘I wonder if there is such a thing as a seahorse,’ she said to Nubia, who was sitting on the bed with Nipur, searching for ticks in his fur.

  ‘We have a dolphin on our floor,’ said Jonathan. He and Lupus stood in the doorway. ‘And Aristo has a crayfish.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful villa,’ sighed Flavia.

  ‘Lupus has something exciting to tell us,’ said Jonathan.

  Flavia looked at the younger boy with interest. Lupus’s sea-green eyes were bright as he held up his wax tablet.

  I CAN DIVE

  ‘You can dive?’ Flavia frowned. Then her eyes widened. ‘In the sea?’

  Lupus nodded and added another word with his stylus.

  I CAN DIVE DEEP

  ‘Deep enough to reach maybe some treasure?’

  Lupus nodded.

  ‘How?’ said Nubia. ‘Fishermen couldn’t do it. How can you?’

  I USED TO DIVE FOR SPONGES

  ‘You did?’ Jonathan stared at Lupus. ‘You never told us you were a sponge diver.’

  A shadow flickered across Lupus’s eyes and he wrote:

  MY FATHER WAS A SPONGE DIVER

  ‘Oh,’ they said.

  Then Flavia asked a question none of them had dared to ask before.

  ‘Lupus. You told us once that your parents were dead. Were they murdered?’

  Lupus scowled and gave an impatient nod.

  Then he underlined the first sentence he had written and held up his tablet:

  I CAN DIVE DEEP

  Flavia turned to the others. ‘Do you realise what this means?’ she whispered. ‘If we could bring up even one chest of that gold, then I could pay father’s debts. Maybe even buy him a new ship.’

  ‘And I could give your uncle enough money to buy a house with a garden,’ said Jonathan, ‘so he could marry my sister.’