The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  ‘Always keep Ithaca in mind,’ repeated Flaccus softly. ‘Arriving there is what you are destined for.’

  At that moment he turned, and Flavia found herself staring straight into his dark eyes. It was obvious he had not expected to find anyone standing there because he turned away almost at once. But in that instant she had seen that his eyes were wet, too.

  *

  JUST AS THIS SHIP, OUR MOTHER, BORE US IN HER WOMB WITH MUCH GROANING, SO NOW WE MUST TAKE HER UPON OUR SHOULDERS AND BEAR HER ACROSS THIS COUNTRY OF SANDY WASTES.

  ‘Excellent, Lupus,’ said Aristo. ‘Would you continue, Jonathan?’

  ‘Why are we translating this passage?’ sighed Flavia. ‘If we’re going to skip around can’t we read a romantic part, like the one where Jason and Medea gaze into each other’s eyes and fall in love?’

  ‘I chose this passage for my last lesson with you because we’re approaching the Isthmus of Corinth,’ said Aristo. ‘And we’re about to carry the Delphina across dry land.’

  Lupus and the others stared at him.

  ‘Well it won’t be us personally,’ said Aristo with a laugh. ‘We’re not heroes like Jason and his argonauts. The Delphina will be carefully set on rollers and pulled along the diolkos.’

  ‘Aren’t we going to sail through the isthmus?’ asked Flavia.

  It was Aristo’s turn to look puzzled.

  ‘Sail,’ repeated Flavia. ‘You know: wind, sails, boat.’ She gestured around her.

  ‘We can’t sail across the land.’

  ‘No, I mean the isthmus. We’ll sail through the isthmus.’

  Aristo shook his head. ‘The canal was never finished,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘But pater always sails through the isthmus. He goes via the Isthmus of Corinth.’

  ‘Of course he goes via the isthmus,’ said Aristo, ‘but he goes over it, not through it. After Nero’s death, work on the canal was abandoned. People still have to cross on land. Slaves pull the ships across on a kind of trolley.’

  ‘Will you unembark at Corinth, Aristo?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘Yes. I’ll disembark in Corinth.’

  Lupus raised his eyebrows at Aristo to ask why.

  ‘It’s part of my contract with Flavia’s father. Our agreement was that I teach Flavia – and the rest of you – for ten months of each year, and that I spend at least one month every year with my family. If the gods will it, you’ll pick me up in a month or two, on your way back to Ostia.’

  ‘How long does it take to cross the isthmus?’ asked Jonathan.

  ‘Only a day,’ said Aristo. ‘Unless there are lots of other ships ahead of us.’

  Flavia tapped her stylus thoughtfully against her bottom teeth. ‘Corinth will be our first chance to do some proper investigation. Maybe we can find out if the kidnapper’s ship came this way.’

  Lupus wrote on his wax tablet: HOW CAN WE FIND OUT?

  ‘Good question,’ said Jonathan. ‘We don’t even know the name of the ship that took Porcius and the rest.’

  ‘The Medea,’ said a low voice. Lupus looked up to see Bato standing behind them. ‘The ship that took the children is called the Medea.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us about the Medea before?’ Flavia asked Bato a few hours later. The four friends and Bato were walking across the scrubby soil of Greece towards some shaded taverns set back from the water’s edge. Tigris raced ahead ecstatically, scattering lizards and barking at seagulls. They had stopped briefly in Lechaeum – Corinth’s western port – to meet with the harbourmaster and give thanks at the altar for a safe arrival. Then the Delphina had sailed a few miles further to reach the western end of the diolkos. Flavia’s father had given her a handful of sesterces to buy everyone lunch.

  ‘Keep your voices down,’ whispered Bato, glancing back. Aristo, Flaccus and Zetes followed a few paces behind. ‘I don’t trust anyone.’

  After five days at sea, Flavia felt the strange light-headedness that always came when she found herself on dry land after a sea voyage, as if she had drunk too much wine the night before. The scrubby ground jarred her feet and the air felt hot and heavy.

  As they reached the tavern, Aristo and Flaccus chose a table in the sun but Flavia and her friends joined Bato at a shaded table beneath an awning of slatted reeds and grapevines.

  Greece. She was in Greece. It was only a barren stretch of warehouses and docks, but it was Greece! Flavia closed her eyes and inhaled. She could smell the faint scent of olive oil, sardines and wine. And there were other smells she couldn’t identify. She savoured the delicious coolness of the shade on her skin and the coarse feel of the linen tablecloth under her forearms. When she opened her eyes, she had to squint against the dazzling light which bathed the scene. From here they could see the Delphina’s crew down on the quay-side, sweating in the hot sun as they unloaded the ship’s cargo onto several ox carts. There were only two other ships in front of theirs, so the wait should not be long.

  Flavia leaned closed to Bato. ‘How did you know the name of the slave-ship?’

  ‘I told you I visited Ostia’s harbourmaster the day we left.’ Bato looked at each of them with his pale eyes, ‘He told me that Medea was the name of the ship that sailed without authorisation the day before.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?’ asked Flavia.

  Bato sighed. ‘The fewer people who know I know, the better. And I didn’t want to involve you children.’

  ‘Then why are you telling us now?’ asked Jonathan, as Tigris flopped panting at his feet.

  ‘Because now I need your help. After lunch I’m going to walk back to Lechaeum to speak to the harbourmaster and see if the Medea has passed this way. I doubt she has, especially if she is carrying an illegal cargo of freeborn children. But I have to be sure. If she did not sail by way of the isthmus, she must have taken the longer and more dangerous route around Cape Malea.’

  ‘Do you know where the Medea is going?’

  ‘Rumour says Delos. But we can’t be sure. That’s where you can help me. Children can often go where an adult can’t. Go down to the diolkos after lunch and mingle with the workmen, officials and slaves. See if you can find out anything about slave-traders. You speak a little Greek, don’t you?’

  Flavia glanced at her friends. ‘A little. And Lupus understands everything.’

  ‘Good,’ said Bato. ‘Most Greeks like children. They won’t mind you asking questions.’

  He nodded towards the line of slaves and sailors taking goods off the Delphina in the shimmering heat. ‘Your father and his men will be a couple of hours yet, so we have some time.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ asked Jonathan.

  ‘What?’ Bato looked surprised.

  ‘You’re not a magistrate any more. Why did you leave Ostia to come searching for kidnapped children?’

  Bato sat back and shrugged. ‘I have never hidden the fact that I want to climb the ladder of honours,’ he said. ‘As you know, magistrates are not allowed to hold the post for more than a year, nor are they allowed to hold office two years running. Next year I will run for a higher office. Meanwhile, during my year off I intend to make an impact, to do something special for Ostia. If I can restore freeborn children to their parents and break this slave-ring, I will earn the gratitude of many people.’

  ‘You want to help stolen children?’ asked Nubia. ‘To bring them home?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Bato leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘After Venalicius died, I wondered if the kidnappings would stop. If they did . . .’ he broke off as a pretty serving-girl appeared before them. She placed a bowl of water under the table for Tigris, then stood and smiled down at them.

  Bato said a few words to her in Greek, and she recited a list, obviously food, because Flavia caught the Greek words for olives and pistachio nuts.

  ‘Try the stuffed vine leaves!’ called Aristo from his sunny table. ‘This place is famous for them.’

  ‘We shall,’ said Bato. When
the girl had gone, he lowered his voice again. ‘Where was I?’

  ‘If the kidnappings stopped . . .’ prompted Flavia.

  ‘That’s right. If the kidnappings stopped after the death of Venalicius, that would probably mean he had been running a private operation.’

  ‘I think he was,’ said Flavia. ‘When we were in Surrentum after the volcano exploded, some men were taking kidnapped children to Venalicius. They called him “The Buyer”.’

  ‘Yes, I know about that,’ said Bato. ‘But there could have been someone even more senior than Venalicius.’

  ‘You mean Venalicius might have had a buyer, too?’ asked Jonathan.

  ‘Exactly. Someone could have been supplying slaves to him, but then he sold them on to another slave-dealer, probably one with connections in Asia.’

  ‘But the kidnappings didn’t stop with the death of Venalicius,’ said Flavia. ‘They’ve started again.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bato. ‘As I see it, there are only two possibilities. The first is that this other buyer, let’s call him Big Buyer, has appointed someone to take over Venalicius’ area. The second possibility is that one of Venalicius’ own men has decided to fill the vacancy left by his death. Either way,’ said Bato, ‘it appears as if the network is still operational, which makes me think—’

  He stopped again as the girl set down a tray with two large copper beakers and five cups.

  ‘There have long been rumours,’ Bato continued a moment later, ‘of a criminal mastermind running all the illegal slave-trade in the Empire.’ He poured wine and water from the beakers into the ceramic cups.

  ‘Is he Big Buyer?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘Perhaps. Or even someone above Big Buyer.’

  ‘Biggest Buyer!’ breathed Nubia.

  Bato nodded grimly. ‘We don’t know much about this mastermind. Only conflicting rumours, the most curious of which is that he is a child.’

  ‘A child?’ Flavia’s grey eyes were wide.

  Bato grunted, added water to his wine and took a drink. ‘But there are also rumours that he is a giant. And some say,’ here he glanced at Lupus, ‘some say he is mute. That his tongue has been cut out.’

  Lupus coughed up the watered wine he had been tipping carefully down his throat. Nubia and Flavia patted him on the back.

  ‘We don’t even know where his base of operations is,’ Bato continued, when Lupus had stopped coughing.

  ‘How do we save the children if we don’t know where he lives?’ said Jonathan.

  ‘Delos?’ suggested Flavia. ‘Isn’t Delos the base for slave trade? Pater promised we could stop there to investigate.’

  ‘I doubt it’s the base of our mastermind,’ said Bato. ‘We can certainly look around, but Delos was the official centre for slave trade under the Republic. It’s not much used any more. This man’s base is probably further away. Perhaps on the coast of Asia, somewhere like Ephesus or Cnidos. Or it might be on one of the big islands: Rhodes, Cos or even Calymne.’ He shrugged and took a sip of his wine. ‘So far we don’t have the faintest idea where he is. Or even who he is.’

  ‘You don’t know his name?’ said Jonathan.

  ‘No,’ said Bato. ‘Although he has several reported nicknames: Astyanax, Hector, Magnus, Minimus, even the Colossus.’

  ‘Astyanax and Hector?’ said Flavia. ‘But how can that be? In The Iliad, Hector was Astyanax’s father.’

  ‘Does not Magnus mean “big”,’ said Nubia, ‘and Minimus means “most small”?’

  ‘And a colossus is a huge statue,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘I know,’ admitted Bato with a sigh. ‘It’s a puzzle.’

  ‘Wait!’ hissed Flavia. ‘Maybe it’s a father and son team!’

  Bato raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s one of my theories,’ he said, and leaned forward again. ‘Lupus, you told me once before about your uncle’s last words. Remind me again?’

  Lupus opened his wax tablet and began to write.

  ‘They were in Greek,’ said Flavia.

  Lupus pushed the tablet forward. He had translated the words into Latin: PLEASE FORGIVE ME. HELP THE CHILDREN, THE ONES I TOOK.

  ‘Anything else?’ said Bato. ‘Anything at all? You see, I believe that your uncle was one of the few people to know the identity of this criminal mastermind.’

  ‘He did say one other thing,’ offered Flavia. ‘It was the last word he spoke.’

  ‘It was the name of a girl,’ said Nubia.

  ‘Probably one of the ones who was kidnapped,’ added Jonathan.

  And Lupus held up his wax tablet with the girl’s name in Latin: ROSA

  *

  Nubia held the pigeon gently in her hands, as Zosimus had taught her. They were standing on the flat roof of Helen’s Hospitium, a luxury hotel in Cenchrea, the eastern port of Corinth. Dusk covered the sky like a gauzy pink veil and the cool breeze carried the scent of salt water and jasmine, and the distant sound of a donkey’s bray. Slaves had pulled the Delphina on rollers across the four miles that separated the Ionian and Aegean Seas. Nubia and her friends had followed slowly on foot, chatting with sailors from other ships and those slaves who knew Latin. Jonathan had discovered that some of the slaves were Jewish, and had spoken to them in Aramaic. But nobody had heard of a ship called the Medea.

  It was late afternoon by the time they arrived here at Cenchrea’s best hotel, whose lovely owner Helen was known to Flavia’s father. The crew had worked hard all day, and because they would have to repack the hold the following morning, Captain Geminus had decided to take them for a men’s night out at the sanctuary of Aphrodite up on the Acrocorinth. Flaccus and Bato had gone, too. Only Zosimus had declined the invitation; he wanted to write a letter to his mother.

  Nubia and her friends had made use of the famous baths-complex next door to the hotel, then dined with Helen in her private triclinium overlooking a herb garden. They had reached the dessert course when Nubia heard cooing pigeons passing on the other side of a box hedge. She had slipped away from the table to follow the sound, and now she stood on the hotel roof, her whole being focused on the pigeon in her hands.

  ‘I think it is afraid,’ she said. ‘I can feel its heart beating fastly.’

  ‘That’s the normal speed for a bird’s heart,’ said Zosimus, his head bent over a square of papyrus and a piece of copper wire. ‘You can tell he’s not afraid because he’s resting quietly.’ He glanced up at her. ‘You’re very gentle. Animals can sense that. Even birds.’

  ‘I love all animals,’ said Nubia softly, ‘except snakes.’ The bird in her hands was surprisingly light and firm, like a warm, feather-covered gourd. It turned its head and regarded her with a bright ruby eye.

  ‘Just keep holding him like that.’ Zosimus was breathing heavily through his mouth as he rolled the tiny scrap of papyrus around a copper wire. ‘So I can put this round his leg.’

  ‘There you are, Nubia!’ Flavia came up the whitewashed stone steps onto the roof. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Look, Flavia!’ Nubia held out the bird. ‘His name is Achilles. Zosimus is sending a message to his mother in Ostia.’

  ‘Ugh!’ Flavia shuddered. ‘I hate pigeons, with their horrible little red eyes and those legs like worms.’

  ‘They’re very useful creatures,’ said Zosimus, pulling off his felt cap and stroking his short hair. ‘Within a few hours, my mother will know that I have arrived safely in Corinth.’

  ‘How?’ asked Flavia.

  ‘See that piece of papyrus around his leg? It’s a letter to my mother.’

  ‘Oh! I read about that in Pliny’s Natural History!’ said Flavia. ‘He tells of people who use swallows to tell their friends which team won the races – by dipping their wings in the winning colour – and he talks about commanders sending written dispatches tied to pigeons’ feet. But I’ve never seen anyone do it before.’

  ‘What is your papyrus saying?’ asked Nubia.

  Zosimus replaced his cap. ‘My old mother loves gossip. So I told her about o
ur boy overboard, the Jewish boy with asthma and the two long-legged nymphs, one dark and one fair.’ He winked at them. ‘I’ve also written about our two highborn passengers and the beautiful slave-boy. And I always have to tell her what I’ve been eating. She worries about me, you see.’

  Nubia felt her eyes grow wide. ‘You write all those things on that most tiny piece of papyrus?’

  Zosimus grinned. ‘I write very small. You can let him go, now.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Just like throwing a ball in the air.’

  Nubia lifted her arms and tossed the pigeon up, releasing the feathered body into the evening air and laughing as its beating wings made a breeze on her face.

  ‘Go with Hermes!’ cried Zosimus.

  Flavia squealed, covering her head with her hands, but her face broke into a smile as the pigeon flew up and then wheeled away to the east, where a star already burned in the darkening violet sky.

  Nubia frowned. ‘Isn’t Ostia that way?’ She pointed towards the setting sun.

  ‘Of course.’ Zosimus chuckled. ‘Achilles has to have a good look around before he gets his bearings.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Nubia, ‘But how does he know where to go?’

  Zosimus patted the wicker cage full of cooing pigeons. ‘Every one of these beauties was born and raised in Ostia, in the dovecote of my mother’s house. No matter how far away I take them, they can always find their way back to that dovecote.’ He stood up and smiled at them. ‘But don’t ask me how they do it. That’s a mystery.’

  In the darkest hour of the night, Flavia Gemina sat up in her bed in an upper room of Helen’s Hospitium.

  ‘Of course!’ she cried. ‘I’m an idiot!’

  ‘I agree,’ mumbled Jonathan from a bed across the room. ‘Only an idiot would get up in the middle of the night. Go back to sleep.’

  Flavia ignored him. ‘Lupus!’ she hissed. ‘Wake up!’

  Translucent geckos scuttled across the red and black panels of the frescoed wall as Flavia took her small bronze night-lamp over to a standing candelabra in the middle of the room. When she had lit all ten wicks, she perched on Lupus’s bed and reached for his wax tablet. At the foot of Jonathan’s bed, Tigris raised his head and thumped his tail.