The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  ‘I see I was correct all along,’ she said coldly. ‘Now I know why you won’t have me back.’

  ‘Dear Jupiter!’ cried Titus, and his faced drained of colour. ‘Berenice!’

  Jonathan knew the woman who stood in the open doorway was at least fifty years old, but she looked half that age. As Berenice stepped forward he saw that her eyes – exotically outlined in black kohl – were as green as the emeralds at her throat.

  ‘So Titus,’ said Berenice, lifting her chin, ‘is this why you summoned me? To publicly humiliate me? I invest ten years of my life in you and now you discard me for a younger version! Again!’ She glared at Delilah who ran to hide behind the loom.

  ‘I . . . you . . . I didn’t summon you,’ spluttered the Emperor. ‘What gave you that idea?’

  ‘This letter, stamped with your seal.’ She extended a folded piece of papyrus.

  Jonathan’s stomach flipped and he took a step backwards.

  ‘No,’ he muttered to himself. ‘It’s not supposed to happen like this.’

  Titus was studying the letter. ‘I don’t recognise this handwriting. This letter was not penned by any of my scribes.’

  Jonathan took another step back.

  Titus turned the parchment over to examine the broken wax disc which had sealed it. ‘This seal is mine . . . but it’s old . . . not one I use any more. Though I have seen it recently.’

  Suddenly he turned his head to look at Jonathan.

  ‘You!’ he said between clenched teeth. He moved to Jonathan, grasped his wrist and wrenched it towards him. ‘There! The ring I gave you last year. It was you who sent this letter to Berenice, wasn’t it?’

  Jonathan nodded. He felt sick.

  ‘How?’ said Titus. ‘How did you know where she could be reached?’

  ‘I knew,’ said Simeon, moving into the room. ‘Jonathan sent the letter to me and I took it on to her last known address, in Brundisium. His plan made sense to me.’

  Titus rounded on Jonathan.

  ‘So this was your plan?’

  Jonathan nodded again and gazed at the floor.

  ‘Just as it was your plan,’ continued Titus, ‘that I summon your father to Rome?’

  ‘Jonathan! Is this true?’ His father’s voice.

  Jonathan could not bring himself to look at his father. ‘Yes, father. It’s true.’

  ‘You meddling fool!’ said Titus through clenched teeth. ‘Do you realise what you’ve done! By the gods! I should . . .’

  Jonathan glanced up at his parents, praying that they at least would understand.

  But there was only disappointment in his father’s face, and betrayal in his mother’s eyes.

  ‘Get out!’ Titus commanded Jonathan, his face as red as his cloak. ‘Out of this room! Out of my palace! Out of my city!’

  Jonathan turned and ran through the double doors, shouldering aside one of the long-haired boys, past his friends’ wide-eyed stares, towards a flight of marble stairs.

  And as he fled – already feeling the tightening in his chest – he heard Titus’s voice echoing along the marble corridor behind him. ‘That goes for the rest of you! Get out of my city and never come back!’

  Half-blinded by tears and gasping for breath, Jonathan stumbled through the crowded streets of Rome, not caring where his feet took him. Presently he stopped to catch his breath in a cobbled square. As he stood panting, he gazed at the peeling walls of the tall buildings around him. They were covered with graffiti, mostly Latin obscenities, but he also saw a star of David and some Hebrew slogans. One in particular caught his eye:

  THE GREAT BABYLON WILL BE DESTROYED

  AND THE BEAST WILL PAY.

  Jonathan’s chest rose and fell as he tried to fill his lungs. His brand was throbbing. Titus’s brand.

  ‘Yes,’ he muttered between clenched teeth. ‘The Beast will pay.’

  Somehow the anger welling up inside loosened his chest so that he was able to breathe more easily. He looked around the square, a square like so many others in Rome.

  Against one wall was a sputtering fountain. Three sullen-looking boys sat on the fountain’s edge. Nearby, two heavily made-up women leaned against a tavern wall. The togas they wore showed their profession. One of them stared openly at Jonathan and whispered something in her friend’s ear. They laughed.

  Jonathan quickly looked away, went to the fountain and drank. Ignoring the boys’ hostile looks he stood and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. There was a harsh grating of iron wheel-rims as a grim-faced man pushed a laden handcart across the paving stones. The smell of decomposing corpses was so strong that Jonathan almost retched.

  He averted his eyes from the bloated bodies. Rome really was a Babylon. It stank of corruption. He had to get away.

  But first he needed to get his bearings; he had no idea where he was. The tenement blocks reared up around him, blocking out much of the bright morning sky. Finally, looking through a gap in two of the buildings, he caught a glimpse of a pink temple high on a hill. It took him a moment to recognise the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill; he had never seen it from this angle.

  If the Temple of Jupiter was up there, it meant the Palatine was somewhere to his left. He turned and started to retrace his steps. He would have to go back to the palace and get his belongings. His friends and his father would be wondering where he was.

  His father. Jonathan’s face grew hot at the thought of his father lying on the ground at the Emperor’s feet, then rising to turn the other cheek to that bully Titus.

  And his mother. Seeing her husband humiliated like that.

  What had possessed him to bring his father to his mother without giving them any warning? Without making certain they would be undisturbed?

  ‘Stupid!’ he muttered. ‘I’m so stupid!’

  ‘I have to agree with you there,’ said a voice, and Jonathan found his way suddenly blocked by a boy in a greasy brown tunic. The boy was older than Jonathan – about twelve or thirteen – but his size and build were roughly the same. He spread his lips in a nasty smile that revealed several missing teeth. Jonathan realised he was one of the boys from the fountain. The other two stood behind him.

  ‘Any piggy as plump as you,’ said the first boy, looking Jonathan slowly up and down, ‘who wanders into our part of town . . . well, they really are stupid. Aren’t they, boys?’

  Before Jonathan had time to react, Greasy-tunic kneed him in the stomach. As he doubled over, retching, one of the other boys kicked his feet out from under him. Jonathan landed hard on the paving stones, then gasped as the first one grabbed his wrist and pulled it up so that his shoulder was almost torn from its socket. He tried to find his breath to yell.

  ‘Look at this,’ came a sneering voice. ‘A ring with a boar on it. A piggy wearing a piggy. Go on piggy: SQUEAL!’

  As Jonathan felt the ring being pulled from his finger he balled his hand into a fist, thrust it up, felt the satisfying connection of knuckles on chin.

  But his feeble blow enraged the boys and they began to kick Jonathan as he lay on the ground. He tried to summon the anger that allowed him to breathe, but they were not holding back, so he gave into fear and curled up like a hedgehog.

  Presently he felt a boot on the side of his head, pressing down, squashing his face onto cold, rough stone. ‘Don’t fight back, piggy, or we’ll give you more than a massage. We’ll have to play rough. Understood?’

  Jonathan gasped for breath, then cried out as the hobnails dug into his cheekbone.

  ‘I said: UNDERSTOOD?’

  Jonathan managed to grunt yes.

  The crushing boot withdrew and Jonathan lay sobbing for breath as they roughly stripped him. They pulled the ivory pass and herb pouch from his neck, the rings from his fingers, the belt and money purse from his waist. Then they began to remove his clothes.

  ‘Please God,’ the part of him that was not fighting for breath prayed silently. ‘Please don’t let them take everything.’

  Flavi
a Gemina stood in front of a house on the Caelian Hill near the aqueduct of Claudius. She stared at the sky-blue door set back from the two white plaster columns of the porch. The last time she had turned up at her aunt’s house unannounced she had almost been turned away.

  Finally, when she felt composed, she took a deep breath, stepped forward and banged the familiar door-knocker: a brass woman’s hand holding an apple.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll be here,’ she said to Nubia, Lupus and Mordecai, and tried to give them a reassuring smile. ‘They only leave Rome during the hottest months.’

  Presently she heard shuffling footsteps, the grumbling of a bad-tempered door-slave and the clack of the peephole being slid open.

  ‘Miss Flavia?’ said Bulbus and she saw his beady eyes light up.

  ‘Oh, Bulbus! I’m so glad to see you. Look! I’ve brought Nubia and Lupus and Jonathan’s father with me. Oh please Bulbus! Let us in! Jonathan’s missing and we need a place to stay while we look for him!’

  ‘Sorry Miss Flavia,’ said Bulbus gruffly. ‘You can’t come in. You’d best go away. We’ve all got the plague.’

  ‘Jonathan? Can you hear me?’ A man’s voice: low, husky, well-educated. ‘Don’t flinch so . . . I won’t hurt you. Are you all right? Here, put my cloak around you, boy.’

  Jonathan blinked up at a concerned face with a big nose and bushy grey eyebrows. He could already feel his right eye swelling shut. ‘Agathus?’

  ‘Yes. I saw those boys off. They won’t be back any time soon.’

  ‘You couldn’t have . . . chased them off . . . five minutes ago?’ Jonathan allowed the steward to help him to his feet and wrap a cloak round his bare shoulders. He was still shivering.

  ‘What are you doing in this district of town?’ Agathus’s voice was gruff but not unkind. ‘Hasn’t anyone told you never to come here without a bodyguard? Are you all right, Jonathan?’

  ‘Can’t breathe . . . herb pouch gone . . . need ephedron . . . get my father . . .’

  ‘The Palatine’s too far away. You need help right now. Listen, I have a friend who lives nearby. Let me take you to his room. We’ll see to your wounds and find you some clothes.’

  Jonathan peered up at him. He still couldn’t make his body stop shivering.

  ‘You have . . . a friend . . . who lives . . . in this district?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Agathus. ‘Just down this alley.’

  ‘Great Juno’s peacock, it’s Miss Flavia.’ The dark-eyed young man raised his head from the pillow, then let it drop again.

  ‘Sisyphus, you look terrible!’

  ‘If you can’t say anything nice . . .’ he coughed, winced, then managed a weak smile.

  ‘Oh Sisyphus!’ Flavia laid her head on his chest and gave him as much of a hug as the blankets would allow. ‘It’s so good to see you again.’ Sisyphus, her uncle’s secretary, had helped them the previous autumn when Jonathan had first disappeared to Rome.

  ‘Much as I’d like to catch up on gossip—’ Sisyphus coughed again ‘—you must go. We’ve all got the plague.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Doctor Mordecai, stepping forward. ‘Flavia’s had the fever. She should be immune.’

  ‘Sisyphus,’ cried Flavia, ‘Jonathan’s missing and we need somewhere to stay while we look for him. This is his father, Doctor Mordecai.’

  ‘Delighted . . . to meet you . . . Hello Nubia . . . Lupus.’ Sisyphus attempted a smile and then frowned. ‘Jonathan’s disappeared again? Shouldn’t you be . . . looking for him?’

  Mordecai nodded grimly and put his hand on Sisyphus’s forehead. ‘First tell me: how long have you had this fever?’

  ‘Four days,’ Sisyphus coughed, ‘maybe five.’ He struggled up onto one elbow, spat into a chamber-pot beside the bed and collapsed back onto his pillow.

  Mordecai glanced down at the contents of the bowl.

  ‘No blood in your sputum, that’s good. How do you feel?’

  ‘Weak. My head hurts when I cough.’

  Mordecai pulled back the blankets and rested his head on the young man’s chest. ‘Breathe,’ he commanded. ‘Hmmm. That’s not too bad at all. I don’t understand why you’re not up and about. Have you had medical attention?’

  Sisyphus nodded. ‘The doctor—’ he had a coughing fit, spat into the bowl again, and finally managed, ‘The doctor has bled us every day. He also prescribed a purge and a fast.’

  ‘Master of the Universe!’ Mordecai clenched his jaw. ‘Not Diaulus!’

  Sisyphus shook his head. ‘His partner.’

  ‘No wonder you’re weak, if he’s been draining you of blood and denying you food. Is this the treatment he prescribed for the whole household?’

  Sisyphus nodded again. ‘We lost the two little ones. The others all except for Bulbus . . . still in their beds . . .’

  Mordecai turned to them. ‘Nubia, I want you to go to the kitchen, find the biggest cauldron you can and make some soup. Use vegetables, barley and meat. Any meat you can find, but preferably chicken. Lupus, will you brew a pot of sweet mint tea? If there’s no mint in the garden, look in the storeroom. Flavia, you’d better come with me and introduce me to your aunt’s family. Let’s see if we can’t get the members of this household back on their feet.’

  Jonathan woke by stages, climbing out of a deep, black, utterly dreamless sleep. His whole body ached, but if he did not move the pain was bearable. Presently he became aware of the straw-filled mattress pressing into his back, the heavy woollen blankets over him, the faint odour of mildew. He also smelled coals on a brazier, stale wine, gall-nut ink and the sickly-sweet odour of a chamber-pot. The light beyond his eyelids told him it was day, a fact confirmed by faint street sounds: people walking, talking, arguing, and a dog’s deep monotonous bark. From a room somewhere above him drifted a woman’s muffled sobs of grief. And from very close by came the scratching of a pen on papyrus. Someone was in the room with him.

  Jonathan carefully lifted his aching head from the pillow and opened his good eye. Agathus sat writing at a small table. He had his back to Jonathan but without turning he said, ‘You’re awake.’

  ‘Yes.’ Jonathan heard his voice come out like a croak. ‘What time is it? Did I fall asleep?’

  ‘Yes, you did sleep. It’s mid-morning of the first day of the week,’ said Agathus, dipping his quill pen.

  ‘The first day . . .? What happened to the Sabbath?’

  Agathus put down his pen and swivelled on the wooden stool to face Jonathan. The room’s single window was behind him and his face was shadowed. ‘I gave you a sleeping draught. Sleep is one of the best healers, as I’m sure your father has told you. And you obviously needed it; you slept for more than a day.’

  ‘Have you spoken to my father? Have you been back to the palace?’ The mattress crunched as Jonathan struggled to sit up. He winced. There was no part of his body not in pain. But at least he could breathe.

  ‘Yes, I went back to the palace yesterday, while you were sleeping. I’m sorry, Jonathan, but I’m afraid your father and friends have gone. They’re probably back in Ostia by now.’

  ‘Flavia.’ Senator Cornix sat in his bed, propped up by soft cushions and holding a steaming beaker of mint tea. ‘It has been many years. Too many. May I thank you for coming to our rescue at this time? I feel much improved, except for this cough. But your doctor assures me it will clear up if I inhale steam every day. What was the man’s name? He told me yesterday but I was still too weak to take it in.’

  ‘His name is Mordecai. He lives next door to us in Ostia.’

  ‘That’s a curious name. Where is he? Treating my wife?’

  ‘He’ll be back soon. He’s out looking for his son, my friend Jonathan.’

  ‘Well, his methods seem to be bringing us all back from the gates of Hades. And I believe he’s right about the doctor who treated us.’ Flavia’s uncle was seized by a coughing fit, and when the coughs subsided he said angrily, ‘By Hercules! Fever shouldn’t happen in the winter. It’s only suppose
d to happen in the summer. That’s why I bought that villa in Tuscany, so that we could leave the city during the dog days.’ Flavia saw his jaw clench as he struggled with the emotions he was feeling. ‘And now to lose my two babies . . . How is my wife?’

  ‘Aunt Cynthia cries all the time,’ said Flavia softly. ‘But she’s not sick any more.’

  Her uncle rested his head against the pillow and closed his eyes.

  Flavia gently took the beaker of tea from her uncle’s grip and put it on the bedside table. ‘Try to sleep now, Uncle Aulus. Nubia and Bulbus are making dinner. You’ll feel better after you’ve slept and had some nice boar stewed in red wine and prunes.’

  ‘My father would never leave Rome without me,’ Jonathan said to Agathus.

  The old man shrugged. ‘The Emperor gave your father a command, and he will have been wise to obey.’

  Jonathan groaned. He reached up to rub his right eye, then winced at the pain. The skin around it was swollen and tender, and also slightly greasy.

  ‘In the absence of a doctor,’ said Agathus, ‘I bathed your cuts in oil and wine and rubbed salve on your bruises. I put a special ointment on your eye. And I got the ephedron you asked for.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘I also bought you a tunic, handkerchief, cloth belt and some sandals. I’ve folded the clothes and put them at the foot of your bed. If you go out, you’ll have to use a blanket as a cloak.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Jonathan looked round the cube-like room, with its bare plaster walls, swept floor, table, chair, bed and cupboard. ‘Where’s your friend? The person who lives here.’

  Agathus did not reply.

  ‘It was lucky you found me. Were you coming to visit your friend?’

  ‘Jonathan, I’ll be honest with you. There is no friend. And I didn’t find you by chance.’