‘Of course. Is that all you want?’
Nubia nodded and shivered.
‘You’re not afraid of him, are you?’ asked Mnason.
‘No,’ whispered Nubia. ‘I am just cold.’
‘Come here, Monobaz. Look! Just scratch him behind the ear. He’s like a big kitten.’
‘Oh,’ giggled Nubia. ‘He is making a big purring.’
Mnason grinned. ‘I told you. Lions are just big cats.’
‘Except cats don’t bite your arm off at the elbow,’ said Jonathan.
‘May I ask a question?’ said Flavia.
‘Anything for a friend of Nubia’s,’ said Mnason.
‘Do you know of a woman named Cartilia Poplicola?’ asked Flavia.
‘That’s an unusual question!’ said Mnason. ‘Most people ask me if Monobaz is a man-eater!’
‘It’s for an investigation. I’m—’ Flavia’s eyes widened: ‘Is Monobaz a man-eater?’
Mnason laughed. ‘Of course not.’
Jonathan turned to look at the trainer. ‘Then what’s in his stomach?’
‘A sheep,’ said Mnason, his expression becoming serious. ‘They found its remains yesterday. I’ll have to compensate the owner. But Monobaz would never eat a person. He’s as tame as a big kitten. In fact, I’m teaching him to hold a live rabbit in his mouth.’ He saw Flavia looking at him and raised his eyebrows.
‘Cartilia,’ she said patiently. ‘Cartilia Poplicola?’
‘I’m not a native of Ostia,’ he said, ‘but everyone knows the Poplicola family. They’ve been here for generations. The harbour master is called Lucius Cartilius Poplicola.’
‘I know,’ said Flavia. ‘But he’s not married.’
‘Well,’ said Mnason, ‘his brother Quintus is a chief grain measurer. He might be Cartilia’s father, or husband, if she took his name . . .’
‘Her husband’s dead,’ said Flavia.
‘Then it must be her father,’ said Mnason. ‘I don’t know much about him. But I do believe his corporation is that one there, right across the square. You’ll recognise it by the mosaic of a man measuring grain.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Flavia and started across the grass. Lupus tapped her on the shoulder and showed her his wax tablet. Flavia read the question he had written there and turned back to the Syrian. ‘Just one more question,’ she said politely.
‘Yes?’
‘What does a camelopard look like?’
‘Cartilia Poplicola?’ The dark-skinned African frowned and scratched his head. Behind him and the column he leaned against, a group of men were drinking and laughing. Flavia could hear the rattle of dice and the clink of coins. She knew the Saturnalia was the only time when gambling was legally permitted.
Flavia studied the African. He had a bald head with two alarming bumps in it: one over his left ear and one over his right eye. ‘Which Cartilia Poplicola?’ he said.
‘There are more than one?’ Flavia tried not to stare at the lump on his forehead; it was the size of a chestnut.
‘My master has three daughters. All called Cartilia Poplicola. Is she the youngest?’
‘Maybe.’
Bumpy-head glanced round, then leaned forward. ‘He’s always moaning about one of them.’ Flavia could smell the wine on his breath. ‘He says she’s a bit demented.’
‘Demented like insane?’
He shrugged, then nodded.
‘Which one is that?’ asked Flavia.
‘I’m not positive, but I think her nickname is Paula.’
‘Nubia! Look out!’ screamed Flavia Gemina. She pressed a hand to her heart. ‘You almost dropped some eggshell in the bowl.’
‘No,’ said Nubia patiently. ‘There is no eggshell.’ She sighed. She wasn’t enjoying herself. They were supposed to be making omelettes for the first course of the feast. Flavia might be a good detective, but she was not a very good cook.
Nubia shivered. Even though she had all her tunics on, she was still cold. And damp. Nothing ever seemed to get really dry. The only good thing about preparing dinner was that she could stand near the glowing coals of the kitchen hearth.
Alma was in the garden, loitering near the quince bush, pretending to look for any remaining fruit. Nubia knew she missed being in her kitchen.
‘It’s all right, Alma,’ said Flavia, without looking up. ‘I’m not going to break anything. Oh look! Saffron. Can we use some in the stew?’
‘Be careful, dear.’ Alma abandoned the quince bush and hurried to the doorway of the kitchen. Nubia glanced up from beating the eggs in time to see the look of dismay on Alma’s face as Flavia dropped six thin red filaments of saffron in the stew.
‘Saffron is terribly expensive . . .’ Alma’s voice trailed off.
‘Don’t worry!’ said Flavia brightly. ‘You only have a Saturnalia feast once a year . . . er, well, five afternoons a year.’
‘You’re going to cook again tomorrow?’ said Alma in a small voice.
‘Of course! We’ll cook every day this week. We want you and Caudex to have a nice rest. Don’t we Nubia? Nubia!’ Flavia turned away from her stew and wrenched the ceramic bowl from Nubia’s hands. ‘Don’t beat the eggs like that. Beat them like this.’
The dogs sped joyfully across the cold ground, barking as they went.
Nubia breathed a sigh of relief. Dogs were so simple and uncomplicated. They never told you what to do. They just loved you.
She was glad she could go into the woods again. Monobaz the lion was safely in his cage, everyone said the ostrich was not dangerous, and the camelopard had not been sighted since it loped off down the beach.
Nubia looked up at the sky. It was a sky unlike any she had ever seen before: very low, with swollen layers of bruised pink clouds all moving at different speeds. It was not long after noon, but already the light was fading. And it was cold. Always cold. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders.
As Nubia followed the dogs into the woods, she inhaled. She loved the spicy fresh scent of the umbrella pines, and she knew she would always associate that smell with Ostia.
‘Ostia.’ She whispered the name to herself. It was a bittersweet word. It was her new home and she loved it, but sometimes she missed the clean hot sands of the desert and its infinite sky full of burning stars.
Suddenly Nubia stopped.
She had heard the snap of a twig. And a low moan.
It was not the dogs, they were off to her left, urgently sniffing the base of an acacia tree.
Was it the ostrich again? The camelopard?
Nubia heard the distant moan again.
Silently she stepped forward, then put out a hand to steady herself against an umbrella pine.
The couple were quite a distance away. A man and a woman, locked in a passionate embrace. Nubia felt the hot rush of blood to her face. She moved closer to the tree. The rough, wet bark of its trunk was cool against her cheek. She couldn’t see the face of the woman in the dark hooded cloak, but when the man moved a little she saw his curly hair and short red hunting cape.
It was Aristo.
‘So, Cartilia,’ said Flavia Gemina, setting a platter of omelettes on the table in front of the central couch. ‘Tell us about yourself. Tell us everything.’ Flavia and Nubia had prepared the first feast of the Saturnalia all by themselves. Nubia was in the kitchen garnishing the main course while Flavia served the starter.
As she stepped back, Flavia saw her father frown. He was reclining next to Cartilia. Aristo occupied the right-hand couch and Alma and Caudex reclined rather stiffly on the left-hand couch.
Jonathan and Lupus were not with them; they were at home, observing the start of the Sabbath with Mordecai.
‘Do you have a big family?’ Flavia asked Cartilia sweetly, ignoring her father’s warning look.
Cartilia swallowed a bite of omelette. ‘Yes. There are five of us. My father and mother, me, and my two sisters. My poor father is surrounded by women.’
Flavia laughed heartily, th
en stopped. ‘And what does your father do?’ she asked.
‘He’s one of Ostia’s main agents for the grain business.’ Cartilia took another bite of her omelette. Flavia glanced round at the others.
‘Hey!’ she said. ‘Why aren’t the rest of you eating your omelettes?’
‘It’s a little too salty for me,’ said Aristo. He put down his spoon.
‘And terribly fishy, Flavia,’ said her father.
‘And a bit slimy,’ mumbled Caudex. ‘Don’t like slimy egg. Makes my throat close up.’
Alma sighed and pressed her lips together.
‘Well,’ said Flavia defensively, ‘the recipe called for lots of garum. And I had a little accident with the salt pot. Watch out for shards of clay.’
Flavia turned back to Cartilia and nodded with approval as the woman dug in.
‘So’ she prompted. ‘You have two sisters.’
‘Yes,’ said Cartilia. ‘I’m the eldest. My middle sister is married. She lives in Bononia, up in the north. And my younger sister Diana lives here in Ostia. She’s not married yet, even though she’s almost eighteen. She still lives with my parents.’
Nubia came into the room with the next course, lentil and chicken stew.
‘Where do your parents live? Do you live there too?’ asked Flavia.
Cartilia nodded. ‘We own one of the old houses behind the Temple of Rome and Augustus.’
Suddenly Flavia frowned. ‘Your sister’s name is Diana? I thought you were all called Cartilia.’
‘We are,’ said Cartilia with a smile, mopping up the last of her runny omelette with a piece of charred bread. ‘Diana is just her nickname.’
‘And do you have a nickname?’
‘Yes,’ said Cartilia brightly. ‘My parents call me Paula.’
With a sharp intake of breath, Flavia glanced over at Nubia, who was serving the stew.
‘And what was your husband’s name again?’ she asked.
Cartilia’s smile faded. ‘Postumus,’ she said quietly. ‘Postumus Sergius Caldus.’
‘Was his death sudden?’
‘Flavia!’
‘Sorry, pater,’ said Flavia.
But she had seen the blood drain from Cartilia’s cheeks and she was not sorry at all.
‘There’s something fishy about her and it’s not from my omelette,’ whispered Flavia to her Felix doll. ‘She smiles too much.’
It was dark and Nubia’s breathing came steadily from the bed nearby. The dogs were asleep, too, curled up at the foot of the beds. But Flavia’s mind was still too active for her to sleep.
‘And she seemed very nervous when I mentioned her dead husband.’
In the flickering light of a close-trimmed oil-lamp, the doll’s eyes seemed to gaze back at her. ‘If I can prove to pater that she’s not what she seems, then maybe he’ll let me keep solving mysteries. And maybe he won’t make me marry someone else. Then things can stay just the way they are.’
Flavia snuggled down under her woollen blanket and looked at the doll’s little face for a moment. It really was a remarkable likeness. ‘Goodnight, Felix,’ she whispered. ‘I hope I dream about you tonight.’
That night Flavia did dream. But it was not about Felix.
It was her old nightmare. Dogs were pursuing her through the woods on a steep mountainside. She ran and ran. At last she emerged into a clearing and skidded to a halt at the cliff edge. Below her the sea crashed onto jagged rocks. No escape that way.
She turned just in time to see a black-maned lion explode from the woods and launch himself at her. As Flavia tried to scream, a muscular man in a loincloth tackled the lion and wrestled it to the ground. Helplessly, Flavia watched them struggle, gripping one another with straining muscles and bared teeth. At last the lion lay limp on the ground, and the hero turned to face her. He had grey-blue eyes and hair the same colour as the lion’s tawny pelt. His bulging muscles gleamed with sweat and his brave chest rose and fell as he caught his breath. She knew it was Hercules.
‘Flavia Gemina,’ he said. ‘With my help, you have accomplished the first task. But you must complete eleven more, just as I did.’
‘What?’
‘You must complete twelve tasks. Thus will you atone for your offence.’
‘What offence?’ cried Flavia in her dream. ‘What have I done wrong?’
Hercules looked at her and shook his head sadly. ‘Your crime and mine are the same,’ he said.
And then he flew away.
‘And then he flew away?’ said Jonathan.
Flavia nodded solemnly. It was the second day of the Saturnalia and the four friends were sitting on a dining couch in her triclinium watching the wall-painter work. He had whitewashed the first wall the day before and now he was making sketches with a twig of willow charcoal.
Jonathan frowned: ‘And you think the dream was sent by the gods?’
‘Definitely.’
‘And in your dream Hercules said you had to atone for some offence? Like a sin?’
Flavia nodded again and Jonathan noticed she held the Felix doll in her lap.
WHAT OFFENCE? Lupus scrawled on his wax tablet.
‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ said Flavia. ‘I think my crime is the same one that Hercules committed.’
‘But Aristo is telling us that Hercules killed his family,’ said Nubia.
‘And you obviously haven’t killed your family,’ chuckled Jonathan. His smile faded as Flavia nodded.
‘That’s exactly what I’ve done.’
Her three friends looked at her wide-eyed.
‘I told pater I would never marry and he said that I was killing my descendants. Don’t you see?’ She looked round at her friends’ puzzled faces. ‘I’m pater’s last burning coal and if I don’t marry then I’ve killed my future family!’
‘You’re never getting married?’ said Jonathan. ‘Not ever?’
Flavia looked down at the Felix doll. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I love someone I can never have.’
‘So Hercules came to you in a dream and said you have to complete twelve tasks. What tasks?’
Flavia lowered her voice. ‘I think I know what I have to do. That woman Cartilia has bewitched pater. She wants to marry him and get me out of the way. I need to find out why, and I need to stop her. Then everything will be the way it was and pater will be happy again. I think the twelve tasks will provide the clues I need to stop her.’
‘What are the tasks Hercules had to do?’ asked Nubia.
‘His first task was to kill a huge lion with his bare hands. I haven’t killed a lion, but you overpowered one, Nubia, and that led us to some clues: Cartilia’s nickname is Paula and she’s a bit demented. Now let me see if I can remember the other tasks. Aristo was teaching us a special way to remember them in order . . .’
Lupus raised his hand and eagerly began writing on his wax tablet.
LION
HYDRA
DEER
BOAR
STABLES
MAN-EATING BIRDS
‘That’s right!’ said Flavia. ‘Hercules’ second task was to kill a monster called the hydra, his third was to capture a deer sacred to Diana, his fourth was to capture a fierce boar, his fifth was to clean the stables and his sixth was to kill the man-eating Stymphalian birds.’ Flavia paused and frowned.
‘Impressive!’ said Jonathan, looking at Lupus’s wax tablet. ‘Are you using Aristo’s method?’
Lupus nodded and gave them a smug grin. He had completed the list.
CRETAN BULL
MAN-EATING HORSES
AMAZON’S BELT
RED CATTLE
GOLDEN APPLES
CERBERUS
Flavia nodded. ‘That’s right, Lupus! Task seven was to capture the Cretan bull, task eight to capture some man-eating horses, task nine to get the Amazon’s belt, ten was to capture the red cattle – they were sacred to Juno. His last two tasks were to get the golden apples of the Hesperides at the end of the world and to bring Cer
berus the three-headed dog up from Hades.’
Jonathan frowned. ‘So does that mean you have to kill a hydra and capture a deer and go to the ends of the world to fetch some apples?’
‘I don’t think I have to actually DO the tasks,’ said Flavia. ‘Hercules has done them already. But each task will give me a clue to help me find the truth about Cartilia.’
‘It sounds a bit crazy to me.’
‘Maybe,’ said Flavia, ‘but when I came downstairs this morning the gods gave me another sign as a confirmation.’ She pointed to the wall-painter. ‘Him. Hercules the wall-painter.’
‘He’s called Hercules?’ Jonathan raised his eyebrows and grinned. Hercules the wall-painter was a small man with round shoulders, a bald head and a weak chin.
Flavia nodded.
‘When I came downstairs, I found him making these sketches and when I asked him what he was going to paint he said . . . well, see for yourself.’
Jonathan looked at the scenes sketched on the white wall.
‘The first one shows a naked man wrestling a lion,’ said Jonathan, ‘and in the next one the naked man has obviously won because now he’s wearing the lion skin and . . . Great Jupiter’s eyebrows! It’s Hercules!’
Flavia nodded. ‘Hercules the wall-painter is painting the twelve tasks of Hercules the hero. As signs go, it couldn’t be much clearer.’
Lupus nodded.
‘Flavia,’ said Nubia. ‘If you are never having babies, maybe your father should be having babies.’
‘But not with Cartilia.’
Lupus shrugged at her, as if to ask: Why not?
‘I just have a feeling.’ She looked round at them. ‘Anyway, I think that each task I complete will give me a clue and so by the end of my quest I’ll know the truth. Yesterday – with Nubia’s help – we beat the lion. Our next clue will be something to do with a hydra.’
‘But hydra is snake-headed dog,’ said Nubia.
‘Where will we find one of those?’ asked Jonathan.
Lupus held up his wax-tablet:
HYDRA FOUNTAIN
‘Of course!’ cried Jonathan. ‘In the part of town where we used to live, near the Marina Gate, there’s a fountain called the hydra fountain. And there’s an old lady who sits and spins wool nearby. They call her the Wise Woman of Ostia. Is that any good?’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 72