The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  ‘Oh, Marcus!’ cried Helena. ‘You never told me there was a special elixir. I want it!’

  ‘It’s not cheap . . .’ said Mordecai.

  ‘I’ll pay any price!’

  ‘Very well. I’ll prepare some as soon as we’ve bled you. I think I have most of the ingredients here . . . Jonathan, can you go to my cabinet upstairs and bring me some poppy-tears, turpentine and honey?’

  ‘Um . . . I don’t think there’s any honey left.’ His father turned, frowning. ‘What do you mean? Just last week one of my patients paid me with a large jar of the finest Hymettan honey.’

  ‘It’s gone.’

  ‘Already? But how?’

  Jonathan hung his head. ‘I ate it.’

  ‘You ate it? You ate an entire jar of honey?’

  Helena laughed her silvery laugh and this time Jonathan shot her a glare.

  ‘I just wanted a little taste,’ he said to his father. ‘And then I went back for another and . . . I’m sorry.’

  Helena was still laughing and Mordecai tried not to smile. ‘Thank you for telling me,’ he said, ‘I appreciate your honesty. But honey isn’t just food: it’s medicine!’

  ‘I know,’ said Jonathan. He didn’t tell his father that food was the only thing that seemed to fill the empty ache inside him.

  ‘Did you devour the sugar, too?’ said his father dryly.

  ‘Sugar? What’s that?’

  ‘The sugar loaf is the large greyish-white cylinder in the medicine cabinet of the upstairs storeroom. Be careful, Jonathan, it’s extremely expensive and rare.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Jonathan and a few moments later he carried an object as long as his forearm back into the atrium. It looked like a big marble pestle, so he was astonished to see his father take a scalpel and scrape a small amount of white powder from its surface onto a piece of papyrus.

  ‘Hold out your hands.’

  Both Helena and Jonathan obligingly held out their hands and Mordecai sprinkled a little powder into the palm of each.

  ‘Taste it,’ said Mordecai, with a smile.

  ‘Mmmm,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘It’s delicious!’ Helena giggled. She licked her small red lips and batted her eyelashes at Jonathan’s father. ‘Almost as sweet as you are, Marcus.’

  ‘Helena Aurelia. She’s the one to watch,’ growled Jonathan, as he and Lupus stepped through Flavia’s door into the atrium. It was shortly past dawn on the following day. ‘I’m sure she’s after father. She’s always – Great Jupiter’s eyebrows! What are those?’

  ‘Those are the death masks of my family ancestors.’ Flavia led the boys around the rainwater pool to the family shrine. The lararium was a wooden cupboard with a miniature temple on top. Usually the red and blue doors were shut but today they were wide open, revealing painted beeswax masks of men and women.

  ‘They look so real,’ said Jonathan with a shudder. He counted fourteen of them. Six on the central shelves and four hanging on the inside of each door.

  Lupus was writing on his wax tablet:

  DEATH MASKS?!

  ‘Yes,’ said Flavia quietly. ‘Whenever one of my family dies they make a mould of their face with plaster, then pour in beeswax and paint it. We bring them out during the festival of the Parentalia to show them reverence. And on the last day we go to the tombs.’

  Lupus pointed at the mask of a fierce-looking old man and raised his eyebrows questioningly at Flavia.

  ‘That’s my great-grandfather, the first one of our branch of the family to come to Ostia. He grew up in the north of Italia. I never knew him. After he moved here, he made his fortune trading salt. Later he bought the farm in Stabia.’ After a moment she pointed. ‘That’s my mother.’

  ‘She looks like you,’ said Jonathan. ‘Was her hair really that dark?’

  Flavia nodded. ‘I get my fair hair from pater.’ She gazed at the mask for a moment and then turned away. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s sit at the table. It’s almost time for lessons and I want to look over the passage before Aristo comes down.’

  ‘Can’t we have our lessons somewhere else today?’ Jonathan shot an uneasy glance towards the lararium. ‘Those death masks are spooky!’

  ‘Memento mori. Alma says it’s good to be reminded that one day we will all die. It helps us live every day as if it were our last.’

  ‘What a cheerful thought to start the day with,’ said Jonathan, and then added, ‘but if it’s all the same to you, I’ll sit with my back to the death masks this morning.’

  ‘Tragedy,’ said Aristo, ‘touches the lives of us all. None of us is immune.’

  He sat at one end of the oval table and looked round at his four pupils. The deep Egyptian blue of the plaster wall behind him made his face look pale. And not for the first time, Nubia noticed shadows under his eyes. She knew that her handsome tutor was still hopelessly in love with Jonathan’s sister.

  Nubia wondered if Aristo thought his own life was tragic.

  ‘We Greeks,’ he continued, ‘are famous for our tragedies. The heroes of our plays aren’t just sad at the end. They are destroyed. If they aren’t dead, they wish they were.’

  ‘Why do the Greeks write such sad plays?’ asked Flavia. ‘It’s so depressing.’

  Lupus grunted his agreement.

  ‘When we read a tragedy,’ said Aristo, ‘or watch one at the theatre, we see people whose lives are much worse than ours. And somehow that brings us comfort. My life may be hard, I may suffer, but at least I didn’t murder my father, marry my mother, and stab out my eyes like Oedipus.’

  Jonathan snorted. ‘The next time I’m sad, I’ll read about a man who murders his father, marries his mother and stabs out his own eyes. Then I’ll feel much better.’

  ‘Be as sarcastic as you like,’ said Aristo, ‘but it’s true. I’ve seen people go away from a tragic play encouraged, comforted, even uplifted.’ He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the polished walnut surface of the table. ‘But tragedy serves another purpose. It warns us about hubris.’

  ‘What is who bricks?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘Bris, not bricks. Hubris. The word means overweening pride. Presumption. Insolence. Towards other people but especially towards the gods.’

  ‘Overweening?’ said Nubia.

  ‘Let me illustrate it with an example. Do you know who Medusa is?’

  Nubia smiled and nodded: here was something she knew. ‘Medusa is a horrible monster-woman,’ she said, ‘having snakes for hairs and is turning men to stone by her ugly face. Perseus cuts off her head and puts it in a bag.’

  ‘Yes, but did you know that she wasn’t always ugly? Once she was the most beautiful woman on earth. But one day she boasted that her beauty was greater than Venus’s—’

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Flavia. ‘You should never, ever boast if it concerns the gods.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Jonathan. ‘Those naughty gods will turn you into a spider or a slug before you can blink.’

  ‘Thank you for that demonstration of mild hubris, Jonathan,’ said Aristo dryly. ‘Would you care to take it up a notch?’

  ‘I don’t even believe in your gods,’ Jonathan snorted. ‘They’re just a bunch of made-up stories.’

  ‘That will do nicely.’

  ‘Doctor Mordecai,’ Flavia asked casually, as they ate dinner together later that afternoon. ‘How did you meet Jonathan’s mother? Was your marriage arranged? Or did you marry for love? I don’t want to be rude, but I’m going to be betrothed soon and I was just wondering . . .’ she trailed off and glanced at Jonathan. He had confided his fears to her and she had agreed to help him get more information. Love and marriage were subjects his father found painful to talk about, but he just might reply to a direct question from a guest.

  Flavia saw Jonathan give her the merest nod of thanks and then pretend to be more interested in dipping a scrap of bread in the stew.

  Mordecai put his wine cup down on the octagonal table and stared into the pink liquid.

  They
all held their breath.

  ‘It must have been sixteen years ago, now,’ he said at last. ‘A perfect spring evening in Jerusalem. I was walking down a street between the Joppa Gate and the Spice Market and I heard laughter – a girl’s laughter. It came from an inner courtyard. I stopped. She laughed again and – this sounds ridiculous – I somehow knew that I was to marry her.’

  ‘Oh!’ cried Flavia. ‘That’s so romantic!’

  ‘But you do not know if she is being old or ugly!’ said Nubia, her eyes wide with amazement.

  ‘The thought never occurred to me,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘I went back every evening at the same time. There was a palm tree on the street near her house. I used to stand beneath it, waiting for that laugh. I discovered that a priest owned the house, and that he had a daughter of marriageable age. I went through the proper channels, asked for her hand in marriage, and he agreed.’

  Flavia wiggled her eyebrows at Nubia, who covered a giggle with her hand.

  But Jonathan had a strange look on his face. ‘You fell in love with my mother’s laugh?’ he asked.

  Mordecai nodded. ‘It was a beautiful, silvery laugh, and so infectious . . . The first time I heard it, I knew I could love her.’

  ‘And when you saw her for the first time, you must have fallen in love even more,’ sighed Flavia.

  Mordecai nodded again. He had a faraway look in his eyes.

  Tigris lifted his head from his lamb-bone, uttered a single bark and ran out of the dining room. Lupus followed him and a moment later they heard a knock on the door.

  ‘Who could it be at this hour?’ said Jonathan with a scowl.

  Presently Lupus reappeared with a scrawny slave. ‘My mistress,’ said the slave in a meek voice, ‘apologises for the hour of this visit but she is in urgent need of the doctor’s services and begs him to come to her home on Mulberry Street.’

  ‘Who is your mistress?’ asked Mordecai, rising to his feet.

  ‘Helena Aurelia,’ said the slave. And added, ‘She says it’s an emergency.’

  ‘Emergency my big toe!’ Lupus heard Jonathan mutter at the sound of the front door closing. ‘Her only emergency is finding a new husband.’

  ‘At least we know she’s not just after his money,’ said Flavia. ‘Alma says Helena Aurelia is very wealthy because her husband left her a warehouse full of rope and tar and sailcloth and other ships’ tackle.’

  Lupus nodded his agreement. He had heard similar rumours in the markets.

  ‘I should have bled her dry this morning!’ growled Jonathan.

  Lupus opened his eyes wide. He had helped Mordecai bleed patients on occasion but had only been allowed to hold the cup. He pointed at Jonathan as if to say: you?

  ‘Yes, me,’ said Jonathan, lifting his chin a little. ‘It was the first time he’s let me make the cut.’ Then his shoulders slumped. ‘Now that Miriam’s gone I suppose he’ll train me to be his assistant.’

  ‘What is bleed?’ Nubia stopped stroking Tigris, who had just come in from the inner garden.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ Jonathan looked surprised.

  Lupus ran out of the room, opened the cabinet in Mordecai’s study and found a cupping vessel. A few moments later he handed it to Nubia.

  ‘It is smooth and bronze and is looking like a big goat-bell.’ Nubia shook it and frowned. ‘But with no bell noise.’ She peered inside.

  Lupus nodded to say: That’s what I thought at first, too.

  Nubia let Tigris sniff the cup. He sneezed and they all laughed.

  ‘It’s a cupping vessel,’ said Jonathan. ‘You make a cut in someone’s arm so that the blood starts to flow. But the blood would stop after a minute if you left it alone. So you take a piece of lighted papyrus or lint . . .’

  Here Lupus fished in his belt pouch and produced a scrap of papyrus. He held it to one of the coals in the brazier and when it caught fire, he dropped the flaming scrap into the bronze bell. Immediately, he applied the open end of the cup to the soft underside of his upper arm.

  ‘Does it not burn?’ asked Nubia.

  Lupus grinned and shook his head. He felt the warmth and the pleasant suction as the cupping vessel adhered.

  ‘It doesn’t hurt,’ Jonathan confirmed. ‘The fire goes out the moment you press it to the skin and it makes a vacuum which sucks out the blood. Or the vicious humours if you haven’t made a cut. Look!’ He pointed at Lupus, who stood with his arm extended.

  Lupus took his hand away to let the heavy bronze cup hang from his arm. He grinned at Nubia’s look of amazement. She tentatively reached for it. The smooth bronze cup came away with a satisfying sucking sound.

  ‘Where are the vicious humours?’ She peered into the cup.

  ‘You can’t see them,’ said Jonathan. ‘They’re invisible. You can see blood, of course, but not the vicious humours.’

  Nubia let Tigris sniff the cup again. This time he wagged his tail.

  ‘What are vicious humours anyway?’ asked Flavia, feeding Tigris a piece of gravy-soaked flatbread. ‘I’ve heard of them, of course. Everyone has. But I don’t really understand what they are.’

  ‘Each of us tends to have too much of one of the four humours,’ said Jonathan. ‘For example, according to father, Lupus is phlegmatic. That means his brain produces too much phlegm sometimes.’

  ‘Flem?’ said Nubia.

  ‘The stuff that comes out of your nose?’ said Flavia.

  Lupus nodded proudly. He was writing on his tablet:

  PHLEGM MAKES YOU BRAVE

  WARRIORS DRINK IT

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Flavia.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Jonathan. ‘According to father, some Greek soldiers used to drink a mixture of bull and goat mucus before battles. It’s called snorteum.’

  ‘Ewww!’ said Flavia, and then sat up straight. ‘Do me! Which of the four humours do I have too much of? Maybe good humour?’ She grinned.

  Jonathan and Lupus looked at one another thoughtfully.

  Then Lupus wrote:

  SANGUINE!

  ‘I think you’re right, Lupus,’ said Jonathan. ‘Sanguine people have too much blood. Their cheeks are pink and they blush easily.’

  ‘That’s me,’ said Flavia.

  ‘They’re quick at making decisions, even impetuous.’

  ‘That’s definitely me.’

  ‘They’re usually cheerful. Although they can be moody,’ he added. ‘Their season is spring and their element is air.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It just is.’

  ‘I like being spring and air,’ said Flavia. ‘What’s Nubia’s type?’

  Jonathan and Lupus looked at one another. Lupus shrugged, then wrote:

  PHLEGMATIC LIKE ME?

  OR MAYBE CHOLERIC

  ‘What?’ asked Nubia, frowning at the tablet. ‘How do you know so much, Lupus?’ said Flavia. ‘I don’t know any of that.’

  Lupus shrugged. He liked helping Jonathan’s father treat patients.

  ‘Choleric people can be anxious or irritable,’ Jonathan explained to Nubia. ‘Their livers produce too much bile. Bile is a kind of thick yellow liquid.’

  ‘Nubia’s hardly ever irritable,’ said Flavia. ‘But you do get anxious sometimes, don’t you?’

  ‘Anxious?’

  ‘Worried.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nubia. ‘I have overweening nightmares.’

  ‘If Nubia’s choleric,’ said Flavia, ‘then what’s her element?’

  FIRE wrote Lupus.

  And Jonathan added, ‘And her best season is summer.’

  ‘I like summer,’ said Nubia. ‘When it is dry and hot. And I am born in the summer.’

  ‘That doesn’t really have anything to do with it,’ said Jonathan. ‘But I think you probably are choleric.’

  ‘Are you flem attic, like Lupus?’ Nubia asked Jonathan.

  ‘No.’ He sighed. ‘According to father, I’m melancholic. That means my spleen tends to produce too much bile. But it’s black bile
, not yellow.’

  ‘Ewww,’ said Flavia.

  THAT’S WHY HE’S DEPRESSED wrote Lupus.

  ‘No,’ said Jonathan slowly, as if speaking to Cletus the town idiot. ‘The reason I’m depressed is because my mother would rather be in Rome with the Emperor than here with us.’ And as Jonathan turned away Lupus was sure he heard him mutter: ‘But I’m finally doing something about it.’

  The next day at noon, when Jonathan and Lupus came back from lessons at Flavia’s house, they found a big soldier standing in Jonathan’s atrium. He had just handed Mordecai a message and was trying to ignore Tigris’s persistent barking. Jonathan’s puppy was deeply suspicious of men who wore bright strips of metal.

  ‘It’s a message from the Emperor,’ said Mordecai, glancing up at the boys. He thumbed off the wax seal, unfolded the papyrus and took it to the compluvium, where the light was best. Jonathan tried to look unconcerned, but his heart was racing. He and Lupus followed Mordecai. Tigris stopped barking and followed them, too.

  ‘Titus says he has not forgotten the care I gave the people injured by the eruption of Vesuvius,’ murmured Mordecai as he read the scroll, ‘he has heard of my success in dealing with the fever here in Ostia . . . requests my medical expertise in Rome where the fever is killing hundreds every day . . . Dear Lord.’ Mordecai absently refolded the message. ‘I was afraid this might happen.’

  ‘Will you go, father?’ Jonathan’s throat was dry and his heart still pounding.

  Mordecai looked at his son from his heavy-lidded eyes.

  ‘That man has the blood of ten thousand Jews on his hands,’ he said in a very low voice. ‘But I can hardly refuse a direct invitation from the Emperor, especially as he recently made me a Roman citizen.’

  He turned back to the imperial messenger. ‘Every stranger is an uninvited guest.’ He bowed to the man. ‘Please come in and take some refreshment.’

  The soldier’s armour clinked as he shook his head. ‘I’ve a carriage waiting by the Roman Gate. The mules are being fed and watered. It would be best if we could leave as soon as you are ready, within the hour if possible.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Mordecai. ‘We’ll be there as soon as we can.’ When he had closed the door behind the departing soldier he turned to the boys. ‘You’d better get your things together,’ he said, ‘and don’t forget to pack your musical instruments.’