Down on the sandy floor of the arena the convicted criminal looked as small as a desert mouse. He had heard the crowd gasping and he was looking around in terror for the beast that was to devour him. It had not yet occurred to him to look up.
Nubia heard the women around her taunting him.
‘You’re in for it now, Ganymede!’
‘Here’s Jupiter!’
‘Bye-bye, parricide!’
Flavia turned bright-eyed to Nubia. ‘It’s from a myth. Jupiter liked a beautiful boy called Ganymede and took the form of an eagle to kidnap him. He carried him off to Mount Olympus and Ganymede served wine to the gods and goddesses . . . according to the legend.’
The water organ had been sounding ominous chords but now, as ‘Ganymede’ finally spotted the descending birdman and ran, it began to play a comical tune. All around Nubia people were laughing, even Flavia, Lupus and the twins.
‘Watch out, Ganymede!’ screamed the woman in the row behind them. ‘Jupiter likes you!’
‘Better run away!’ shouted a boy from somewhere to their left.
Little Rhoda laughed, too. ‘Big bird chases man!’
‘Oh!’ gasped thousands of people as the birdman almost grasped his prey.
Ganymede had writhed from Jupiter’s grasp this time, but Nubia knew he couldn’t hold out forever. Presently he stumbled and fell and the bird grasped the long-haired criminal round the waist. Suddenly they were rising fast, not spiralling but moving straight up.
The nearly-naked criminal was struggling in his captor’s arms when something detached itself and fell to the sand below. His curly yellow hair.
‘Hey, Ganymede!’ screamed the woman behind them. ‘You dropped your wig!’
The terrified man had stopped squirming. Nubia saw Lupus nod grimly and exchange a knowing glance with Sisyphus. She guessed what they were thinking: if the man fell from the eagle’s grip at this height, the fall would shatter him.
The water organ was playing a dramatic series of chords that mounted higher and higher up the scale as the two men rose up through the vast space. Presently they were at her level. Lupus looked up in order to see the men working the cords, but Nubia couldn’t take her eyes from Ganymede’s terror-struck face.
When the birdman and his prey could go no higher, and were silhouettes against the fresh blue sky, the trumpets suddenly blared. This must have been the birdman’s cue: he let go of Ganymede.
With a guttural shriek the criminal fell, his legs and arms pumping wildly, as if the empty space around him might suddenly grow solid. As he plummeted, Nubia’s stomach seemed to plunge with him. Down and down he fell, and a great cheer rose up from the throng as he struck the arena far below with a puff of sand.
The sand settled over the crumpled body.
Suddenly Nubia cried out as the body twitched.
The criminal was still alive.
Nubia watched as a figure in dark robes and a white mask stepped into the arena and walked over to the broken man.
‘I think that’s supposed to be Pluto,’ said Sisyphus.
‘Pluto,’ Flavia said to Nubia, ‘is the god who rules the Underworld.’
‘And he’s about to claim poor Ganymede for his kingdom,’ said Sisyphus.
The masked man lifted something like a mallet and for a moment he seemed to hesitate. Then he ended the broken man’s life with a swift downward blow.
Nubia lowered her head between her knees and breathed deeply in short little gasps.
Lupus patted her back.
‘Are you all right, Nubia?’ Flavia leaned forward and whispered. ‘It’s easier if you imagine they’re dolls and not real people.’
‘Mummy,’ came Rhoda’s clear voice. ‘Why did that man fall down?’
‘He was a wicked man.’ Cynthia’s voice. ‘He killed his daddy.’
‘He killed daddy?’
‘Not your daddy. His own daddy.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, dear.’
‘Mummy, can I go to the latrine?’
Cynthia sighed. ‘Yes, dear. I’ll take you. Sisyphus, did you notice where the latrines are located?’
‘I think they’re two levels down, Lady Cynthia. Shall I accompany you?’
‘No, thank you. We can manage.’ Cynthia nodded to her slave-girl. ‘Come, Prisca.’
Nubia’s nausea was subsiding. She lifted her head and twisted on her wooden seat to let them pass. The twins were going, too, leaving their tin helmets atop their cushions on the wooden bench. It was nearly noon and pleasantly warm.
Sisyphus extended a water-gourd to Nubia. She took it, drank and handed it back.
Suddenly something about the scene seemed utterly familiar.
The excited babble of the people around her, the vast space before her, the pure light coming from above, Flavia drinking from the gourd, Lupus yawning . . .
‘What’s the matter, Nubia?’ asked Flavia, passing the gourd to Lupus.
Nubia shook her head, then said, ‘I have dreamed this most exactly.’
‘Oh, I have that sometimes,’ said Flavia. ‘You feel you’ve been here before?’
Lupus nodded, too.
‘Yes,’ said Nubia. ‘I have been here before.’
‘You know what that means, don’t you?’ Sisyphus raised his eyebrows at her.
‘No.’
‘It means you’re exactly where the gods want you to be.’
‘The gods want me to be in this place?’
‘Yes. They sometimes give you dreams which you forget until you are in the place you dreamed. My old grandmother, may Juno preserve her soul, said that means you’re on your life’s path: in exactly the right place.’
‘This is the right place?’ Nubia stared at the crowds around her, then down at the distant sandy oval of the arena where slaves were raking fresh sand over dark patches.
‘What’s next?’ murmured Flavia, picking up a sheet of papyrus from her aunt’s seat. ‘Oh! This isn’t the programme. These are the highlights for the next few days . . . Look at this, Nubia! Tomorrow they’re going to kill five thousand animals. And it says – oh no!’
‘What?’ said Nubia.
‘Lupus,’ said Flavia. ‘When you saw the prisoners who were condemned to death . . . was Ganymede there, too?’
Lupus looked blankly at her.
‘The man who killed his father, the man they just executed . . . was he with the other prisoners?’
Lupus slowly shook his head and wrote on his wax tablet:
THEY WERE ALL JEWS
‘That means there must be other prisoners being kept somewhere.’
Lupus frowned.
Flavia pointed to the programme. ‘This sheet has highlights for the next few days,’ she said. ‘Look at who they’re executing the day after tomorrow!’
* * *
EXECUTION OF CRIMINALS
DAY I
A PARRICIDE WILL DIE RE-ENACTING
THE ABDUCTION OF GANYMEDE
A THIEF WILL DIE RE-ENACTING
THE DEATH OF LAUREOLUS
JEWISH ZEALOTS WILL FIGHT BEARS
WITH CURVED DAGGERS
EVENING EVENT: A TRAITOR WILL DIE
THE DEATH OF LEANDER
DAY II
A MURDERER WILL DIE RE-ENACTING
THE STORY OF ORPHEUS
DAY III
AN ARSONIST WILL SUFFER
THE TORMENT OF PROMETHEUS
DAY IV
DAEDALUS WILL BE PUT INTO HIS MAZE WITH A BEAR
DAY V
A MURDERESS WILL RE-ENACT
THE SHAME OF PASIPHAE
DAY VI
A PLUNDERER OF TEMPLES WILL DIE
THE DEATH OF HERCULES
DAY VII
A RUNAWAY SL AVE WILL RE-ENACT
THE DEATH OF ACTAEON
Lupus pointed to the entry for day three and raised his eyebrows.
‘That’s the one,’ said Flavia grimly. ‘If Jonathan is alive, and if they think he starte
d the fire, then he must be here somewhere. You just didn’t find him. And the day after tomorrow they’re going to kill him in the same way Prometheus was tortured.’
Nubia felt sick again. ‘Alas!’ she whispered. ‘Prometheus was having his liver pecked out by a bird.’
‘Mama, why is that man being tied to sticks?’ Rhoda’s voice piped brightly above the deep chords of the water organ.
‘He’s another bad man, dear,’ said Flavia’s aunt. ‘He robbed people. They’re crucifying him. Or perhaps a fierce beast is going to devour him. Let’s see.’
‘Laureolus,’ said Flavia with a frown, studying the programme. ‘I thought I knew all the myths but I don’t remember a mythological character called Laureolus.’
‘That’s because he was a real person. I saw a play about him once . . .’ Sisyphus leaned over to look at the sheet in her hand.
‘How did he die?’ asked Flavia.
‘His victims tied him to a cross and let a boar gore him.’
‘Oh,’ said Flavia, and then turned to Nubia. ‘I don’t think we want to watch this.’
‘He’s stopped screaming,’ said Flavia presently. ‘Does that mean I can look yet?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Sisyphus in a muffled voice. ‘I stopped watching when his leg came off.’
‘The blood,’ whispered Nubia. ‘Look at all the blood.’
‘Don’t look,’ said Flavia, and turned her head to see what Lupus was writing on his wax tablet.
HE’S STILL ALIVE
‘But it’s been nearly half an hour,’ muttered Flavia. ‘Or it feels like it.’
‘I think I am going to be sick,’ whispered Nubia.
‘Me, too,’ said Flavia. ‘Let’s go and find the latrines.’
Lupus sat forward on the bench as a blare of the trumpet and a herald announced the final event before the gladiatorial combats. The execution of one hundred Jewish zealots. It was fitting, proclaimed the herald, that these men should spill their blood, for they were some of the rebellious Jews who had caused Rome such trouble ten years ago.
As the water organ thumped out a sequence of sinister, discordant notes, Lupus watched the men stumble into the arena, shading their eyes against the pure spring sunshine. The crowd roared with anger, drowning out the music.
These were the prisoners he had seen the previous day; he recognised the rabbi. Almost immediately the bears moved into the arena. Unlike the animals which had come before them, these fearsome creatures did not need to be prodded with red-hot irons. They must have been trained to crave human flesh.
With breathtaking speed, one bear gripped a zealot in a deadly embrace. At this some of the Jews began to scream and run. Others – like the rabbi – stood and waited for death. A few fought back bravely with their little curved knives. Lupus saw that Sisyphus and Hyacinth had hidden their faces in their hands. The twins had grown bored with the distant executions and were playing toy gladiators on Nubia’s seat cushion. Little Rhoda was fast asleep, thumb in mouth, on her mother’s lap. But Lady Cynthia was oblivious. Her lips were parted and her clear grey eyes fixed on the scene of bloody carnage below.
Lupus could see she was drinking in every drop.
‘Are you feeling better?’ asked Flavia.
Nubia nodded and lifted her head from the fountain. Her knees were still trembling but her stomach felt more settled. The water, tinted pink with wine, had settled her stomach and cleared her mouth.
For the first time she noticed a marble statue in a niche behind the spouts: a man holding a lyre. The name carved in the base of the sculpture told who he was. Orpheus was so skilfully carved and painted that he looked like a real person. Someone had tied a white scarf over his eyes. Nubia looked around. All the other statues she could see were also blindfolded.
She pointed. ‘Why?’
‘Why the blindfolds?’ said Flavia, wiping her mouth. ‘So that the gods and heroes won’t be upset by the sight of those wicked criminals. And all that blood.’
Nubia stared at her ex-mistress. These people let little children watch a man being slowly disembowelled but they covered up the eyes of their statues.
She would never understand the Romans. Never.
‘Nuuuu!’ Flavia uttered a strangled cry and Nubia whirled to see a hundred red balls raining down from the sky.
Nubia lifted her hands to ward off the swarm of falling balls and as one smacked her right hand her fingers instinctively gripped it.
Around her people were screaming and diving. A few aisles below she saw three men struggling for something. Slowly Nubia opened her hand and gazed at the object lying in her palm. It was a red wooden ball, the size of a small apple.
‘It’s a lottery ball,’ squealed Flavia, and clapped her hand over her own mouth. Then: ‘Quickly! Hide it before someone sees it and murders you.’
Nubia stared at Flavia.
‘Hide it now!’
Obediently, Nubia undid the string of her leather purse, pushed the ball into it and drew her lionskin cloak tightly around her.
‘Come on!’ hissed Flavia. ‘Let’s go back to our seats. Don’t tell anyone you have it.’
‘Why not?’ Nubia felt Flavia’s urgent hand on the small of her back, hurrying her up the stairs.
‘It might be worth a fortune,’ whispered Flavia.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Sisyphus was telling me earlier. The balls are hollow. There should be a piece of papyrus inside telling you what you’ve won.’
‘I win something?’
‘Yes! Sometimes they’re just jokes. The papyrus might say you’ve won a basket of chickpeas. Or an ivory toothpick. But usually they’re fabulous prizes. Like a horse, a slave, a ship, even a whole villa.’
‘Oh,’ said Nubia. ‘I wonder what my ball is saying inside?’
‘We’d better wait,’ said Flavia, panting a little as they reached a landing on the marble stairs. ‘It’s too crowded here. You saw those men fighting for a ball, didn’t you? Better not take it out until we get back to the house. Can you bear to wait till evening?’
But Nubia did not have to wait until that evening.
At their prearranged noon meeting, Senator Cornix took one look at his wife’s unnaturally bright eyes and flushed cheeks and gruffly announced that they were going home immediately.
‘But pater!’ cried Aulus. ‘The gladiators! We’ll miss the gladiators. And there are female gladiators fighting this afternoon!’
‘All the more reason to go,’ the senator said between clenched teeth. ‘And we’re not leaving Rome tomorrow. We’re leaving today!’
‘I can’t open it,’ said Nubia. ‘It is most sticky. Here Lupus. You try.’
She handed the red ball to Lupus who bent his head as he tried to unscrew the two hemispheres of the ball.
The three of them were in the girls’ bedroom back at Senator Cornix’s townhouse on the Caelian Hill. They had eaten lunch and now the sounds of a household packing drifted in through the open door.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Aulus, suddenly appearing over Nubia’s shoulder.
‘Nothing,’ said Flavia, and Lupus quickly hid the ball under his cloak.
‘You’re hiding something. Show me!’
Slowly Lupus took out his wax tablet and opened it.
‘See, Aulus?’ Flavia forced herself to smile up at him. ‘We were just making a plan of the amphitheatre, trying to remember where we sat today.’
‘Well, Lupus hasn’t drawn it right. It doesn’t look like that. That’s a stupid plan of the amphitheatre. The amphitheatre isn’t oval. It’s round.’
‘No it’s not,’ said Flavia with a scowl. ‘It’s oval.’
‘It’s round.’
‘Oval!’
‘Round!’
‘Aulus!’ came the Senator’s voice. ‘Have you finished doing what I asked you to do?’
‘Coming, Pater!’ Aulus Junior shot Flavia a glare. ‘Big nose!’ he muttered and stalked out of the room.
/> When he was gone Flavia breathed a sigh of relief.
‘The ball,’ she whispered. ‘Can you open it, Lupus?’
Lupus nodded and grunted until finally there was a crack and a squeak. He handed Nubia the wooden ball, now in two parts. Inside was a square of parchment, thick and translucent, and lightly powdered with fine chalk dust. One word was written on it in black and gold ink. Nubia took out the parchment and read the word and gasped. Then she held it up for the others to see.
Flavia read the word on the scrap of creamy parchment and her eyes grew wide. ‘GLADIATOR. Nubia, you’ve won a gladiator!’
‘I’m glad my uncle left you behind to stay with us,’ said Flavia to Sisyphus, as they set out for the second day’s events at the amphitheatre. ‘Especially as Caudex still hasn’t come back.’
It was early morning, still dark and with a bracing chill in the air.
‘I promised to look after you,’ said Sisyphus, pulling his deep pink cloak tighter around his shoulders. ‘I can’t imagine where your bodyguard has disappeared to.’
‘He’ll show up,’ said Flavia. ‘Caudex is not very clever but he’s very loyal. He probably got lost.’
‘By the way,’ said Sisyphus, ‘as your unofficial guardian, I must ask why you and Lupus are wearing grubby blankets instead of cloaks. And isn’t your tunic a bit short?’
Flavia looked at him. ‘We worked it all out last night: Lupus is going to pretend to be a slave again and try to find other prison cells. Nubia is going to stay with the beast-fighters; she has a pass. She wanted to bring Tigris but if he barks again, he’ll give us away.’
‘And you?’ said Sisyphus. ‘What are your plans?’
Flavia glanced at him. ‘I plan to get closer to Fabius, the magister ludi. I’m sure he knows who is going to be executed and when.’
‘Then I’ll be all alone!’ Sisyphus gave her an injured look.
‘But you can help. You know lots of people in Rome, other senators and people like that. Pretend you’re looking for a friend. Wander around the seats. Find out if anybody knows anything about the prisoners. We’re going to meet by the Orpheus fountain at noon, to see what we’ve found out.’
‘Very well,’ said Sisyphus and then narrowed his eyes. ‘You won’t do anything dangerous, will you? The senator would be quite upset if I let anything happen to you.’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 103