The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  Flavia laughed. ‘He is amazing!’ she agreed. ‘Look how hard he’s concentrating.’

  Nubia felt an intense compassion for the ponderous creature, making his way delicately across the arena on a rope which from this distance seemed little more than a thread. The amphitheatre was utterly silent and now even the twins were still. Nubia kept her eyes on the elephant, afraid that if she took her eyes away, he might fall.

  But he did not fall and as he stepped onto the safety of a ramp the vast space of the amphitheatre erupted in cheers.

  With barely a pause, the water organ played a dramatic chord, the trumpets blared and the crowd chattered excitedly as two creatures whirled onto the sand of the arena below them.

  ‘One of them is a bear, but what’s the animal with the horn? Nubia?’

  ‘I am not knowing his name in Latin.’

  ‘Rhinoceros,’ said Sisyphus. ‘We use the Greek word.’

  ‘Why are they being chained together?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘It forces them to fight each other,’ said Sisyphus. And he shuddered.

  ‘Look, Mama!’ chorused the twins. ‘Bear!’

  ‘That’s not just any bear,’ said Sisyphus. ‘That is a Nubian bear. They are the fiercest bear in the world. Correct, Nubia?’

  But Nubia had covered her eyes.

  Nubia did not watch the rhino gore the bear with his horn and then trample him into a pulp. Nor, in the next beast combat, did she see the leopard bring down a terrified giraffe and feed on its still-living body.

  She couldn’t bear to watch the elephant fight the bull, and even when Flavia described how the victorious elephant lifted the huge dead creature on its tusks she refused to look.

  But when Lupus hopped up and down on his seat and Flavia squealed ‘Monobaz!’ then Nubia uncovered her eyes.

  A beautiful golden lion with a dark mane had entered the arena

  Nubia gripped Flavia’s arm.

  ‘It is!’ she cried. ‘Alas! It is the Monobaz! And they are going to make him fight a beast!’

  Flavia was studying the programme. ‘Saevus,’ she said, ‘He’s going to fight Saevus.’

  Nubia’s heart stuttered and she gazed at Flavia in horror. ‘But doesn’t that word mean . . .’ Her voice trailed off, and Flavia nodded grimly.

  ‘Saevus means “savage”!’

  Lupus laughed as Monobaz’s opponent hopped into the amphitheatre. It seemed minuscule from this distance.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Flavia. ‘It’s just a dot from up here . . .’

  ‘It is little black rabbit,’ said Nubia, and a smile spread across her lovely face.

  The catcalls and laughs were stilled by a thundering roar from Monobaz, who had crouched on the sand. The rabbit fearlessly hopped forward.

  Now the crowd was utterly silent as the dark rabbit and golden lion approached one another. Suddenly the rabbit charged. Monobaz turned and loped away from the rabbit and the crowd laughed and clapped in delight. The water organ played a jaunty tune. For several minutes the bunny chased the black-maned lion around the sandy oval.

  Lupus saw that many of those in the crowd were pointing at the Imperial Box. The Emperor had risen to his feet and had folded his arms across his purple chest. Even from this distance Lupus could make out a scowl on Titus’s face as he turned to say something to a bald man in a toga, who stood behind him. Lupus saw the man shake his head and point down at the arena floor. Lupus looked too and saw that finally the lion had stopped to face his foe.

  Saevus the rabbit charged one last time.

  Straight into Monobaz’s open mouth.

  ‘Oh!’ cried Flavia, Nubia, Hyacinth and a thousand other soft-hearted Romans. A sympathetic chord from the water organ echoed the crowd’s lament and then died away.

  Monobaz stood, padded over towards the Imperial Box, and looked up. Then he opened his great mouth and the arena erupted with cheers and laughter as the rabbit hopped down, apparently unharmed.

  Titus applauded and laughed. Then he gave the two animals a thumbs-up to show he approved.

  To thunderous applause – and triumphant chords from the water organ – the hopping bunny led Monobaz out of the arena.

  Nubia turned to Lupus and Flavia. ‘I like the games,’ she said with a smile. ‘They are not so bad as I feared!’

  But even as she spoke the trumpets blared again and a hundred wild beasts poured into the arena from a dozen side entrances. There were bears, lions, wild boar, leopards and one creature with a single horn in the middle of its forehead. The crowd gasped.

  ‘Look, Nubia!’ cried Flavia. ‘A unicorn!’

  ‘Look!’ echoed the twins. ‘A unicorn! A unicorn!’

  ‘Municorn!’ squealed Rhoda.

  ‘No,’ whispered Nubia. ‘It is just an antelope. They make two horns one when he is young . . .’

  ‘He’s beautiful!’ said Hyacinth. ‘How do they make his two horns one, Nubia?’

  ‘Yes, tell us!’ laughed Flavia.

  ‘When the horns are still soft they twist them together. It hurts them because –’

  But Nubia could not finish. Her hand went automatically to her throat. Even from this distance she caught a whiff of scent rising from the animals on the sand below.

  It was the smell of fear.

  Flavia managed to watch for a while. At first the animals had not wanted to fight. They hugged the inner net in silent fear. But slaves prodded them with red-hot rods and finally the creatures began to attack one another.

  It helped that they were far enough away to look like toys.

  Presently one of the lions buried his face in the unicorn’s belly and Flavia had to turn away. Even from this height she could see the lion’s beautiful prey was still alive.

  As she turned her head, she saw her aunt leaning forward with parted lips and bright eyes. Little Rhoda was looking wide-eyed from her mother to the animals and back. She was not crying but she was tugging her mother’s stola.

  Flavia could not hear Rhoda over the roaring crowd, but she could see her lips moving. Cynthia was oblivious.

  The little girl’s lower lip began to quiver so Flavia beckoned her over. Rhoda came to Flavia and climbed onto her lap.

  ‘Lion is eating municorn,’ she said in Flavia’s ear.

  Flavia nodded sadly. ‘I know.’

  Rhoda put her thumb in her mouth and turned her head to watch. Flavia kept her own face averted.

  Presently the water organ played a chord loud enough to be heard above the crowd. Flavia forced herself to look back down just in time to see the hunters run barefoot into the arena.

  Lupus nodded with approval as the hunters came on. Their timing was perfect. The predators had settled down to feed on their victims and the beast fight threatened to become boring.

  There were six hunters. Three men and three women. They wore white tunics and padded white leggings, but no shoes. The women held bows and the men had hunting spears. None of them had any protective armour.

  Behind him he heard a woman’s hysterical cry. ‘Carpophorus! Carpophorus!’

  And then a shrill cry from right beside them: ‘Carpo!’ It was Flavia’s aunt Cynthia. Lupus followed her gaze.

  Carpophorus must be the fair-skinned youth with a mane of tawny hair. It was hard to tell from this distance and this angle, but he seemed a head taller than the others.

  The crowd gasped as he charged the lion who had killed the unicorn. The lion raised his face from the creature’s belly and the entire amphitheatre erupted in a resounding cheer as Carpophorus plunged his spear deep into the lion’s chest. As usual, the water organ punctuated this thrust with a deep, dramatic chord.

  ‘Isn’t he magnificent?’ shouted Sisyphus above the cheers. ‘He’s only seventeen years old, but already he’s known throughout the Empire.’

  For a long minute the youth and lion struggled over the carcass of the unicorn. Even from this distance Lupus could see the hunter’s muscles bulge as he held the raging lion at bay. One false m
ove might alter the balance. The spear could break like a toothpick and the lion would take the hunter in his bloody jaws. The chords of the water organ climbed higher and higher as the tension built.

  Lupus watched in admiration as the tawny youth continued to hold the lion at bay, waiting until all its blood had pumped out onto the unicorn. Presently the lion slumped onto the body of its victim and Carpophorus wrenched the spear free.

  The water organ sang. The crowd cheered.

  Carpo did not even pause to acknowledge his triumph. He turned immediately to attack the bear, which had seized one of the female beast-fighters and was embracing the woman in a terrifying hug.

  In a magnificent two-handed arc, Carpophorus drove his spear into the bear’s back. The Roman ladies around Lupus went wild, and it seemed the whole amphitheatre was chanting: ‘Car-PO! Car-PO!’

  The bear opened his mouth in a roar which could not be heard, dropped the girl, and began to pursue Carpophorus.

  Carpophorus danced backwards before the bear, who was staggering forward on its hind legs like a man, the spear still protruding from its back. It batted at the young beast-fighter, first with one paw, then with the other. The crowd was voicing its support and Lupus realised he, too, was screaming with his tongueless mouth.

  But then Carpophorus let the bear come too close. The crowd gasped and the water organ groaned.

  ‘The bear got him,’ screamed a matron a few rows behind. ‘The bear got Carpo!’

  Sure enough, Lupus saw a dark stain begin to bloom on the white tunic stretched across the beast-fighter’s chest.

  Suddenly Sisyphus yelped. Lady Cynthia had swooned onto his lap.

  By the time Sisyphus managed to revive Lady Cynthia and Lupus turned his attention back to the show, Carpophorus had vanquished the bear and was pursuing a huge boar. A quick glance showed Lupus that most of the other beast-fighters were either dead or wounded. One of them – a dark-skinned woman – had lost her bow and was wrestling a leopard barehanded. Lupus alternated his concentration between Carpophorus and the venatrix.

  Carpophorus was apparently unaware of the gash across his chest, even though the front of his tunic was now dark with blood. He had speared the boar and was struggling to keep it at bay. The bristling creature had squirmed halfway up his spear and its wickedly curved tusks were almost within range of the hero’s padded thigh.

  Suddenly the crowd gasped. For no apparent reason the leopard had writhed away from the dark-skinned venatrix and was approaching Carpophorus from behind.

  The leopard crouched, tail twitching. The crowd and the water organ sang out a warning.

  As the leopard launched itself into the air Carpophorus jumped aside.

  Resounding cheers as the leopard landed on the wounded boar and Carpophorus rolled safely on the sand. He was on his feet in a moment, and, grasping a fallen comrade’s spear, he returned to the fighting animals. He raised his arms high above his head.

  A momentary pause.

  Then he plunged the spear downwards, impaling both leopard and boar in one powerful stroke and pinning them to the arena floor. As a massive cheer resounded around the amphitheatre, Carpo turned towards the people and lifted his hands in a gesture of victory.

  The crowd went wild.

  As Flavia watched the blood-soaked, tawny-haired hunter help the female beast-fighter to her feet she realised that she was on her feet. When had she stood up? Everyone around her was standing, too, but now some were beginning to sit down again. Gratefully, Flavia lowered her weight to the cushioned bench and watched the two distant beast-fighters pick their way among the carcasses of animals and the corpses of men to stand before the Emperor’s box.

  They knelt on the sandy floor of the arena, and Titus tossed something to each of them.

  ‘Bags of gold,’ said Sisyphus, shouting to make himself heard above the roar of the crowd.

  Flavia’s knees were trembling violently now that she had taken her weight off them, and so she put her hands on them to stop them. But her knees were still moving so much that she laughed at the strangeness of it. She suddenly felt intensely alive and full of an inexplicable joy.

  The two surviving beast-fighters were leaving the arena now and Flavia surrendered herself to the crowd’s mood.

  ‘Car-PO! Car-PO! Car-PO!’ she cried along with thousands of others. And although she was shouting with all her might, she could not even hear her own voice above the roar.

  It was late morning and warm enough for Flavia to shrug off her blue palla.

  The dead animals had been dragged from the arena with hooks and fresh sand raked over the patches soaked by blood. Now the water organ was playing a slow, thumping tune that reminded Flavia of a funeral dirge.

  ‘What is happening now?’ asked Nubia. ‘Who are all those marching?’

  ‘Let me look.’ Flavia consulted her papyrus programme. ‘Oh. It’s the Parade of Informers.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Informers!’ Sisyphus spat out a date stone. ‘The lowest breed of creature on earth. They spy on other people and if they see someone doing the least thing wrong they take him to court. If they win their case they share out the poor fellow’s estate with the Emperor.’

  ‘There are so many of them,’ said Nubia.

  ‘And some of them are senators!’ gasped Flavia. ‘See the broad stripes on their tunics?’

  Sisyphus nodded grimly. ‘Titus can’t execute highborn men here in the amphitheatre. But for men of rank – like those men – the shame of being paraded in front of their peers is almost worse than death.’

  ‘Behold . . . Look!’ said Nubia. ‘What is around their necks?’

  Lupus made a V with his forearms and locked them around his neck.

  ‘Yes, you’re right, Lupus,’ said Flavia. ‘They’re wearing some kind of yoke which makes them look up.’

  ‘Ha!’ Sisyphus clapped his hands and looked at them bright-eyed. ‘They’re wearing wooden forks. That’s where we get the word –’

  ‘Furcifer!’ squealed Flavia. ‘Scoundrel! It means someone wearing a fork!’

  Sisyphus nodded. ‘The wooden forks force them to keep their heads up, so that people can see who they are.’

  AND THROW THINGS AT THEM

  wrote Lupus, as members of the jeering crowd began pelting the informers with eggs and rotten lettuces.

  Sisyphus held out a papyrus twist full of dates. Lupus took a handful and hurled them towards the informers. They fell short, raining down on some senators in the lowest tier.

  Lupus hurriedly crouched below the low wooden wall and made his ‘Oops’ face back up at them.

  Sisyphus gave him a look. ‘They’re for us, not the informers,’ he said dryly, and extended the papyrus cone towards Flavia.

  Flavia grasped a handful but Nubia shook her head without taking her eyes from the scene below her. Flavia suddenly remembered the first time she had seen Nubia being led to the slave market, naked and chained at the neck.

  ‘What sorts of things do informers report?’ Flavia asked Sisyphus quickly, hoping to distract Nubia.

  ‘Oh, real or imagined plots against the Emperor, criticism of his rule . . . anything,’ Sisyphus popped a date in his mouth. ‘In Nero’s time they bred like maggots in rotten meat. Good for Titus, I say, exposing them for who they are.’

  ‘What will they do to them afterwards?’ asked Flavia. ‘Are they going to kill them?’

  ‘No,’ said Sisyphus. ‘The lowborn ones might be auctioned off as slaves and those of senatorial class will be deported to some barren island.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Flavia, nodding wisely and removing a date stone from her mouth. ‘Exile.’

  ‘What is exile?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘It’s when you are sent far away from your home, with no hope of ever returning,’ said Flavia, then bit her lip as she saw the expression on Nubia’s face.

  Sisyphus waved the papyrus programme sheet and said: ‘The next event
is an execution. That man killed his father.’

  Nubia saw two guards prodding a man around the arena. Behind them walked a slave with a sign on a stick. Even from this distance Nubia could make out the criminal’s long curly yellow hair and red lips. Apart from a tiny loincloth, he was naked. Curses and catcalls erupted from the crowds and some of those on the lower levels tossed the last of their rotten fruit at him.

  Flavia leaned forward and squinted at the sign carried by the slave. ‘I plunged a sword in my father’s throat,’ she read.

  ‘Murderer!’ screeched a harsh female voice behind Nubia.

  Nubia turned to glance at the people in the row behind her. The young matron was pretty, but hatred contorted her face and made it ugly. Then – even as Nubia watched – the hatred was replaced by delighted surprise.

  Nubia turned and gasped.

  A winged man was flying straight at her.

  Nubia cringed as the man flew towards her. So did the others in the surrounding seats. All except for Lupus, who uttered a bark of laughter.

  Then Nubia realised what it was: a man with feathered wings attached to his arms.

  His tunic was covered in feathers, too, and he wore yellow leggings to make his legs look like an eagle’s. The man’s skin was dark brown like hers, and the feathers matched perfectly. He flapped his wings comically, but above the imitation beak his eyes showed fierce concentration. The birdman swung past her, so close that she felt a breeze on her face. The next instant he was spiralling down towards the arena below. People in the other sections of the arena shrank back and shrieked with delight.

  Nubia saw thousands of faces looking up in wonder, laughing, exclaiming, pointing. Many – like Lupus – were trying to see what was holding the birdman up. The man-eagle flew back again, this time towards those on the lower level, and now Nubia could see the thin ropes that held him.

  She followed the line of the cords up to see the dark silhouettes against the blue sky. There were men at the top of the amphitheatre standing on the ropes which held the coloured sheets of cloth. They were operating a complicated system of ropes and pulleys.