The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  Cosmus glanced over his shoulder.

  ‘The tall man talking with Diaulus? A Jew, if I’m not mistaken . . .’

  Flavia nodded. ‘The Emperor invited him to the clinic to help find a cure for the fever. How are your patients?’

  ‘Good!’ said the man on the bed in a muffled voice. He was obviously enjoying his massage.

  ‘You hear that?’ said Cosmus. ‘A satisfied customer.’

  The man on the bed coughed: a deep hacking cough that echoed off the walls of the small room.

  ‘That cough doesn’t sound very good,’ said Flavia.

  ‘Oh but it is! He needs to bring up the phlegm! Better out than in.’

  The man obliged Cosmus by spitting into the basin beside his bed.

  ‘That’s what Doctor Mordecai says,’ began Flavia doubtfully, ‘but I don’t know if—’

  ‘Tac!’ Cosmus held up a finger. ‘Flavia Gemina, in all modesty, I am the best doctor in Rome. I follow the school of Asclepiades. Have you heard of his five principles?’

  Flavia shook her head and took out her wax tablet.

  ‘The five principles of Asclepiades are these: fasting, abstinence, walking, rocking and massage.’

  ‘Rocking? What’s that?’

  ‘Going for a ride in a well-sprung carriage. It loosens the phlegm and the noxious humours.’

  ‘You prescribe carriage-rides for ill people?’ said Flavia.

  ‘Of course. Not these patients, however.’ Cosmus applied his elbow to a spot between the man’s backbone and shoulder blade. ‘For those suffering from the pestilence, I prescribe fasting during the fever and massage,’ here he pressed with his elbow, ‘after the fever. That’s my maxim.’

  ‘It’s working!’ said the man on the bed, and again coughed up a rich harvest of phlegm.

  Cosmus rose smiling and wiped his oily hands on a towel. ‘See? I am the best doctor in Rome.’ He held up his index finger. ‘Not the richest, mind you, but the best.’

  ‘Thank you, best doctor in the world,’ grunted Hairy-back from the bed. ‘I’ll sleep now.’

  Flavia stepped back as Cosmus emerged from the cell.

  ‘Sweet dreams,’ said Cosmus, and pulled a gauzy blue curtain across the doorway, and then, ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he asked Flavia with twinkling eyes.

  She glanced around. ‘I’m not being impolite, but isn’t it hubris,’ she whispered, ‘to say you’re the best?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s not hubris. It’s the truth. Thanks to the five principles of Asclepiades and my skilled fingers and especially my nose, I am the best!’

  Flavia narrowed her eyes to give him a sceptical look.

  He grinned. ‘To be the best I need the biggest. Now tell me, Flavia Gemina, is this not the biggest nose you have ever seen?’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Flavia. ‘It’s the biggest nose I’ve ever seen. Why, it’s as big as a box!’

  *

  Jonathan passed along the columned walkway, not looking at the patients, not looking at the doctors, not even pondering Flavia’s quest. He was trying to think of a way to get his father and mother to meet. He had not really expected the first stages of his plan to succeed and as a result he had not thought out the later steps very carefully. He was still amazed that his scheme seemed to be working. His first letter had obtained the desired result of an invitation to Rome. And his uncle Simeon was not in Rome, so he must be delivering the second letter, just as Jonathan had asked him to.

  Presently Jonathan found himself at the far end of the colonnade, standing before an arched doorway. Stepping through it he saw a small baths complex on his left, public latrines on his right and before him – where the island tapered to its end – another sacred precinct. Like the sanctuary at the front of the island this precinct had a well, an altar, a temple and a tiny grove. But the feel of the place was very different.

  This temple was smaller, with black and green marbled columns and a green pediment. The trees around it seemed older, with the poplars, chestnuts and oaks casting darker shadows. And this precinct was oddly deserted. The sun went behind a small cloud and Jonathan shivered as he slowly skirted the altar, mounted the temple steps and peered between the black and green columns into the open door of the cella. In the shadowy interior he saw the cult statue. At first glance it looked like a naked dancing man but as Jonathan drew closer he saw that the bearded figure had little horns and a goat’s tail.

  From somewhere in the grove outside the temple came the haunting, breathy sound of shepherd pipes and Jonathan suddenly knew whose shrine this was: Pan. Also known as Faunus. Half man, half goat. Pagan god of the groves. Something about his tail and horns made Jonathan shiver, so he turned and hurried out of the temple and back down the steps.

  As Jonathan left the Temple of Faunus he noticed something he had not seen before. A room built against the back of the long colonnade, between the latrines and baths. At first glance it looked like a tavern, because it had a wide door with a counter.

  Jonathan stepped in and immediately a hundred different smells filled his head. The wall behind the counter was covered with cube-shaped niches, each of which contained a box full of herbs or spices.

  And there on the marble-topped counter before him lay all the medical paraphernalia any doctor could ever want: bronze scales, weights, spoons, scoops, probes, needles, tweezers, saws and cupping vessels. Most of the instruments were double-ended. He picked one up, holding it in between the elegant iron scalpel at one end and a bronze probe at the other. It balanced beautifully in his fingers. He replaced it carefully in its soft leather case and moved along the counter.

  Here were votive body parts. These little clay images would be dedicated at the temples to remind the god of someone’s particular affliction. There were tiny clay feet, hands, ears, noses, eyes, tongues. There were even clay models of the inner and private parts of the body, both male and female.

  Moving further along Jonathan found marble mortars and pestles, ceramic ointment pots, leather cylinders, silver plaques, brass votive feathers, muslin sachets of herbs, even lead curse tablets.

  And then there were the boxes. Big boxes and little boxes. Boxes made of wood, clay, bronze, even ivory. Some were round, some square, some rectangular.

  ‘Yes please?’ A curtain of beads rattled as a young man parted them and stepped into the shop from an inner room. ‘May I help you?’

  ‘Are you a doctor?’

  ‘No,’ said the young man. ‘I am Smintheus, a humble apothecary. I supply the doctors and priests with any supplies they might need.’

  ‘Smintheus? Doesn’t that mean “mouse” in Greek?’

  ‘Yes. It means “mouse”.’

  ‘I’m Jonathan. My father Mordecai is one of the doctors here at the clinic. I’ve never heard of half these medicines.’ He gestured up at the spice drawers on the wall behind Smintheus and read out their names: ‘Absinthe, Acacia Gum, Aloes, Alum, Ambrosia, Anise, Asafoetida, Asclepion . . . what’s Asclepion?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes please. It is an ointment for the healing of scars.’

  ‘I have a scar.’ Jonathan shrugged back his nutmeg-coloured cloak and lifted up his tunic sleeve to show the apothecary his left shoulder.

  ‘Ah,’ said Smintheus softly. ‘The Emperor’s brand.’ He leant forward to examine it. ‘Five, six months old?’

  Jonathan nodded.

  ‘Is it painful?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  Smintheus crouched behind the counter, then rose up again with a small phial of blue glass. He removed a tiny cork stopper and poured a drop of milky ointment onto the palm of his left hand.

  ‘Yes, please,’ he said. ‘Let me anoint the wound.’

  Jonathan closed his eyes as Smintheus gently smoothed some of the cool balm over his brand.

  ‘My father’s been using Syrian balm,’ said Jonathan after a moment, ‘but this one feels better. I don’t suppose you have anything for asthma.’

  ‘Of course.’ Smi
ntheus turned and stretched up so high that his cream tunic rose up, exposing the backs of his knees. Carefully he eased a box out of its niche and set it on the counter.

  ‘Ephedron?’ said Jonathan, reading the painted letters. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘I’m surprised. It’s the best cure for asthma I know.’ He pulled out a dried branch with thin twigs sprouting from it, closely bunched and pointing one direction, so that it looked like a small broom.

  ‘It doesn’t look like anything special.’

  ‘Ah, but it is. It provides miraculous results.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Jonathan. ‘It smells familiar.’ He lifted the box to his nose and inhaled, then sniffed at the herb pouch around his neck. ‘That’s it! That’s the herb my father has been trying to identify!’

  The young man examined Jonathan’s herb pouch with interest.

  ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘A man named Pliny gave it to me last year.’

  ‘Pliny the great naturalist?’ Smintheus let go of the pouch. ‘The man who died in the eruption?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘But didn’t he tell you? To smell ephedron is good, but to drink it is one hundred times better.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. I don’t think my father knows that either. But how do you drink twigs?’

  ‘You boil the branches gently for several hours, then strain the liquid through muslin. The resulting decoction is pale gold. Add seven or eight drops of this liquid to dry red wine and drink it down. It doesn’t work as quickly as breathing the herb, but it is much more effective. I know because I myself suffer from asthma. Wait here please.’

  The young man turned and disappeared through the bead curtain again.

  Jonathan read the names of the herbs for a few moments, then turned his attention to the objects on the counter.

  The bead curtain rattled softly again as Smintheus came back in. He put a ceramic jar on the marble counter.

  ‘Yes, please,’ he said. ‘Ephedron for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jonathan. ‘How much do I—’

  ‘Because you are the doctor’s son, no charge,’ said Smintheus. ‘Our illustrious Emperor pays for everything.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Jonathan took the jar and slipped it into his belt pouch. ‘Are any of these boxes dangerous?’ he asked. ‘If you open them, I mean . . .’

  ‘Only this one,’ said the young man, indicating a circular box with a lid the diameter of his forearm.

  Jonathan bent to examine it and on closer inspection he saw that it was really a basket: tightly woven strips of palm leaves for the base and a looser weave – one which left tiny hexagonal holes – for the lid.

  Suddenly he stood up straight.

  ‘Are those . . . air-holes?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  Jonathan took a step back. ‘So what’s in there?’

  ‘My pet cobra. I call him Ptolemy.’

  ‘Diet,’ said Egnatius to Lupus. ‘Diet is my method of treating the victims. Food is medicine. Did you know that, boy?’

  Lupus shook his head and stared at the doctor, whose frizzy hair and tanned skin were exactly the same shade of golden brown. The man looked like a golden statue that had come to life. Even the linen curtains of his patients’ cells were pale gold in colour.

  ‘Yes,’ said Egnatius, who stood before a wooden table, chopping cabbage. ‘Light foods for this, medium foods for that and heavy foods for the other.’

  He stopped chopping for a moment and confided in a dramatic whisper: ‘Never eat cheese.’

  Lupus raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Cheese causes too much phlegm. And fruit is dangerous, too. But cabbage will cure almost anything. And I always tell my patients to eat a raw onion every morning. Crunch it like an apple.’ He stopped chopping and looked intently at Lupus. ‘Would you like to know my special secret? The best medicine of all?’

  Lupus nodded.

  Egnatius leaned forward and whispered.

  ‘Urine.’

  Lupus opened his eyes wide.

  ‘That’s right: urine. It’s free. It’s yours. Morning urine is best, middle of the stream. Especially if you’ve eaten lots of cabbage the day before.’

  Lupus shook his head slowly in disbelief.

  ‘Really!’ said Egnatius, and recited, ‘It’s good for jaundice, rheumatism, gout, asthma, skin ulcers, burns, wounds, headaches, ear infections, snake bites, baldness, leprosy, obesity, fever, insomnia and fatigue.’

  Lupus opened his mouth and pointed inside.

  ‘Oh you poor boy! Your tongue has been cut out! I’m sorry but that’s one ailment urine won’t help . . .’

  Lupus shook his head and pretended to drink from an imaginary beaker.

  ‘Oh! You want to know if you drink the urine? Of course you drink it. But you can also soak your feet in it for ringworm, rub it into your scalp for baldness, and dilute a few drops in water for an eye bath. I also splash some on my cheeks after I’ve been to the barber. My skin’s wonderfully soft. Would you like to feel it?’

  Lupus took a step back and shook his head.

  ‘Look at my teeth then.’ Egnatius bared his teeth in a grin. ‘I use my own urine as a mouthwash. See how white?’

  Lupus nodded in wonder. The doctor’s teeth were brilliantly white – almost unnaturally so.

  ‘Best of all,’ concluded Egnatius, ‘is urine taken as a prophylactic, that is to say: a tonic to guard against illness. If you drink a little of your own urine every morning it will protect you wonderfully against pestilence.’

  ‘I think I’d rather have the pestilence,’ said Jonathan, reading the notes etched in Lupus’s wax tablet.

  Lupus nodded, and wrote:

  HIS SKIN AND HAIR ARE SAME

  COLOUR AS WHAT HE DRINKS

  ‘Ewww!’ said Flavia and Nubia giggled behind her hand.

  ‘How about you, Jonathan? Does your doctor think he’s one step down from Jupiter?’

  ‘I didn’t find a doctor,’ said Jonathan, ‘but I found an apothecary with lots of boxes. I don’t think you’d like him, Nubia. One of the boxes has a snake in it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He says the venom of a snake is the only cure for a snake bite so he has to milk it every day. He gave me this,’ added Jonathan, reaching into his belt pouch and pulling out a small clay jar.

  ‘Is it snake milk?’ asked Nubia, taking an involuntary step backwards.

  ‘No.’ Jonathan smiled. ‘It’s for my asthma. And he didn’t even charge me. He said the Emperor pays for everything.’

  ‘So,’ said Flavia, looking around at her three friends. ‘Apart from Jonathan, we’ve all found doctors who think they’re one step down from Jupiter?’

  Lupus nodded emphatically.

  ‘My doctor,’ said Nubia carefully, ‘thinks he is one step up from Jupiter.’

  They all laughed and Lupus gave Nubia a thumbs-up for her joke.

  Then Flavia sighed and looked around at them. ‘So where does that leave our investigation? Are we any closer to finding our Prometheus? Or are we looking in entirely the wrong place?’

  Nubia did not like the black plaster walls of Titus’s private winter triclinium, or the small, ghostlike figures painted in white across the lower part of the panels. The scenes made her think of the Land of Grey, the land of the dead. But at least the room was warmer than any of the others she had been in. The black walls seemed to hold the heat from the brazier. She pressed her bare feet against the warm wall and pulled her lionskin cloak tighter round her shoulders. She and Flavia were reclining on the left-hand couch of three. Jonathan and Lupus sat cross-legged on the couch opposite them.

  Mordecai reclined on the central couch alone. One of the long-haired slave-boys had washed their hands and feet with warm rose-scented water, and the other had dried them with linen towels.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ said Titus, striding into the room. ‘I’m getting one of my headaches and I’ve just let
blood. It sometimes helps.’

  He sat on the central couch beside Mordecai and extended his legs. Instantly the black-haired slave named Biztha removed the imperial sandals and poured water from a silver jug on Titus’s feet, catching the overflow deftly with a silver bowl beneath.

  ‘Bigtha,’ said Titus to the brown-haired boy who had stepped forward to dry his feet, ‘will you bring us some warm mulsum? And tell the serving-girls to bring the first course immediately. I’m ravenous.’ He swung his feet up onto the couch and gave Mordecai a distracted smile.

  A few minutes later, Titus pushed away his empty plate and said, ‘That’s better. Now tell me, Jonathan. What progress have you made?’

  Nubia saw Jonathan look surprised. He had obviously been miles away. Flavia came to the rescue.

  ‘I can tell you,’ she said. ‘The mythological Prometheus did more than bring fire to man—’

  ‘Water!’ yelled the Emperor, and they all stared at him as Biztha rushed forward with a silver jug. Titus seized the jug and tipped it so that a stream of water spattered onto the marble floor beneath the tables.

  ‘Don’t you know,’ he said, handing the jug back to the boy, ‘that it’s bad luck to mention that word at a banquet?’

  Flavia frowned. ‘What word? “Fire”?’

  ‘WATER!’ bellowed Titus again, and again he tipped another stream of water onto the floor.

  Nubia giggled behind her hand and Lupus guffawed. But Titus’s scowl silenced them and he handed back the jug.

  ‘Proceed,’ he commanded Flavia. ‘You were telling me what you discovered about Prometheus.’

  ‘Um . . . yes. Well Prometheus brought . . . that hot yellow stuff to man. Although what he did was good for mankind, the gods considered it to be hubris – because he acted as if he knew better than Jupiter. Prometheus also taught mankind about medicine and healing. So we think your prophetic “Prometheus” might be one of the doctors you invited to the clinic on Snake Island. One who thinks he’s as good as Jupiter.’

  Biztha brought in three platters of cubed meat garnished with watercress and set one before each couch.