‘What would happen if you were to untie it?’ Flavia asked him.
Flaccus stopped chewing and held her gaze with his dark eyes. ‘Then the yard-arm would fall down,’ he said, ‘exactly as it did today.’
‘I’m sure Floppy is the agent,’ whispered Flavia later that night. The four of them were wrapped in their fleeces in the shelter of the prow. ‘It was the way he looked at me with those beady eyes of his.’
‘You just don’t like him,’ said Jonathan, ‘but I do. And I think it’s much more likely that our culprit is one of the crew.’
Flavia sighed. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I suppose we should interrogate the crew. We’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning, using the Nubia-method.’
Lupus gave his ‘huh?’ grunt.
‘That’s where you go up to someone but don’t say very much. The awkward silence sometimes makes the person blurt out the truth.’
‘Interesting,’ said Jonathan. ‘I’ll try the Nubia-method on Atticus.’
‘I will try the Nubia-method on Zosimus,’ said Nubia. ‘While I help him send a pigeon-letter.’
‘Good,’ said Flavia. ‘I’ll interview Silvanus. I have a feeling about him.’
Jonathan snorted. ‘I think you have a feeling for him.’
Flavia ignored this last comment. ‘Lupus, can you interrogate Punicus?’
Lupus grunted yes.
‘Good,’ said Flavia. ‘But everybody keep an eye on Floppy. I still think he’s the one who’s trying to stop us.’
‘Myconos,’ said Silvanus to Flavia the next morning after breakfast. He had just sluiced the deck with a bucket of seawater and now he was arranging a length of rope in a spiral on its damp surface. ‘This island is Myconos. They call it the island of bald men. At least that’s what Atticus says. Zosimus says if I set foot on land I’ll lose all my hair.’
‘They were probably teasing you,’ said Flavia, gazing at his wavy black hair and wondering what it would feel like to run her fingers through it. ‘I don’t think you have to worry about going bald yet. How old are you?’ she asked, forgetting to use the Nubia-method.
He glanced up at her with his long-lashed green eyes, ‘I’ll be seventeen next month.’
Flavia gazed at him for a while, then remembered she was supposed to be questioning him. ‘Um . . . do you like being a sailor?’
‘Not really. I’d rather be a baker or a tavern-owner. I don’t think I’m very good at this. I almost killed poor Lupus last week.’
‘What exactly happened?’
‘I was supposed to be knotting or splicing or . . . something, and the rope was slippery. It just whipped out of my hand. That was when the wind caught the sail and jerked the boat and Lupus fell out. I’m not a sailor. The only thing I’m good at is arranging the rope in a pretty design like this. I’d much rather have my feet on solid ground.’
‘Why are you here, then?’ asked Flavia.
‘A girl.’
Flavia’s heart thudded. ‘You’re . . . There’s a girl you like? On board this ship?’
He flushed. ‘In Ostia. Her name is Titia,’ he said softly. ‘She’s not what you might call beautiful. She’s cross-eyed. But she’s got a lovely—’
‘Titia? The baker’s daughter?’
‘That’s the one.’ His flush deepened.
‘But she’s Porcius’s sister!’
‘I know,’ he said in a low voice. ‘That’s why I signed up for this cruise. I know the real reason for this voyage. I know you want to find the kidnapped children.’
‘How did you . . . What makes you think that?’
‘Everybody knows it,’ he said, looking up at her from beneath his straight dark eyebrows. ‘In a town as small as Ostia you can’t keep much hidden.’
‘You mean you knew before we even set sail?’ said Flavia.
Silvanus nodded. ‘Everybody knows how you and your friends killed that monster Venalicius, and that you’re trying to find the kidnapped children.’
Flavia opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again.
‘Titia knew her brother wouldn’t just run off and leave his pet mice behind,’ said Silvanus. ‘She suspected kidnappers. I thought that if I could find Porcius and save him, she’d be so grateful that . . . She doesn’t love me, you see. She loves someone else.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us you wanted to find the kidnapped children, too?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You’re all so clever and highborn. I’m just a pleb.’
‘But that’s silly, Nubia and Lupus aren’t highborn and they – oh never mind!’ Flavia sighed, then lowered her voice. ‘Silvanus, have you noticed anyone acting suspiciously during this voyage? Especially just before the accidents occur? Flaccus maybe?’
‘I don’t know. It’s all so new to me. But there are a few things that seem strange—’
‘Silvanus!’ called Flavia’s father from the hatchway. ‘Will you go into town with Zosimus and get some water and bread? I want to weigh anchor within the next hour or two.’
‘Yes, sir!’ said Silvanus, and turned back to Flavia, ‘One of the things that’s been bothering me,’ he whispered, ‘is how sometimes the ropes are dry and sometimes they’re slippery, almost oily. I think—’
‘Silvanus!’ Her father’s voice. ‘Now!’
Silvanus touched Flavia lightly on the arm. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said, with a heart-stopping smile. ‘As soon as I get back.’
Lupus saw the sea urchins as the sun rose behind the town wall and slanted its golden shafts into the water.
Dozens of them clung to the rocks below the jetty, just under the surface, as spiky as horse-chestnut seed cases and as brown as the nut inside. He ran below, found his net and went back up onto the deck.
Then, stripping off his tunic, he plunged into the water.
By the gods it was cold! This was not the mild Tyrrhenian Sea, warmed by months of summer sun or heated by sulphurous steam, but the Aegean after an unusually cold winter.
But soon his body grew used to the cold. Urchins had been his father’s favourite dish and he faintly remembered their sweet chewy taste. He might not be able to enjoy them, but his friends could. Although the urchins had wicked spikes, they came away from the rocks easily; he only pricked himself once.
After old Atticus helped him back onto the deck Lupus put on his tunic and sucked his wounded finger. He spat out the poison and shook his hand, but the finger still hurt like Hades.
‘Do you know how to make the stinging stop?’ Atticus stroked his woolly grey hair and grinned.
Lupus nodded and went to the rail. There he turned his back to his friends, lifted his tunic and urinated on his finger, making sure that the rising breeze was behind him.
‘Ewww! Lupus!’ cried Flavia. ‘What are you doing?’
‘It’s the only way.’ Atticus chuckled and lifted the dripping net full of urchins from a puddle on the deck. ‘Oh, Lupus, these are lovely! At least three dozen here. This will make us a tasty first course for our dinner tonight,’ he added, and disappeared towards the deck-house.
Lupus turned and grinned at his friends.
But his grin faded when he saw the expression on Bato’s face. Ostia’s junior magistrate had just jumped off the gangplank onto the deck and was gripping Captain Geminus’s arm.
‘Captain!’ hissed Bato. ‘I just spoke to some fisherman who saw a ship called the Medea leaving early this morning. They said she was heading south. If we hurry, we might catch her before she reaches Rhodes.’
‘Great Neptune’s beard! Where is Silvanus?’ asked Flavia’s father angrily. ‘The harbourmaster tells me this breeze only lasts until noon, and sometimes not even that long. Punicus! Atticus! Zosimus!’
‘Yes, sir?’ Punicus and Zosimus looked up from polishing the rail and Atticus appeared in the deckhouse door, wearing a leather apron and heavy canvas gloves. He’d been preparing the sea urchins and held a mallet in one of his gloved hands.
‘Where is
Silvanus?’ repeated Captain Geminus.
They all looked at one another. Then Zosimus put down his cloth and stepped forward.
‘Silvanus and me went into town together about an hour ago, rolling the empty water barrel between us. But we parted ways at the main square. I left him at the fountain and went to the baker’s. I brought the loaves back here and when I went back to the fountain Silvanus and the barrel were gone. I reckoned he got some local boys to help him roll it back. I never knew he wasn’t back until now.’
‘Jupiter blast it! Atticus! Zosimus! You speak Greek. See if you can find him. We’re sailing at noon and if he’s not back by then, we’ll have to sail without him.’
‘Can we help them look for Silvanus?’ cried Flavia, her heart thumping. ‘Something must have happened to him.’
Her father hesitated, then nodded. ‘Very well. Take Tigris with you and stay together. And promise me,’ he added, ‘that you’ll be back before noon.’
Early that afternoon, Lupus found his friends sitting beside the crate of cooing pigeons in the V of the Delphina’s prow. He hadn’t tricked Punicus into blurting out a confession, but the helmsman had given him an old papyrus chart of the islands and Lupus had made an exciting discovery. His smile faded when he saw that Flavia’s head was bowed and Nubia was patting her back.
‘Flavia’s upset because we didn’t wait for Silvanus,’ said Jonathan, who was sitting beside the girls.
‘Pater makes me so angry sometimes!’ said Flavia, raising her tear-stained face from her hands. ‘Silvanus was about to give us some vital clues. And I know he would have been on our side. Remember Porcius’s older sister Titia? The one with the cross-eyes?’
‘The one who is loving Aristo?’ asked Nubia.
‘Yes. Silvanus loves her and he would have done anything to help us find Porcius. But now pater has left him behind on that island—’
‘Myconos,’ said Jonathan.
Lupus grunted and unrolled his papyrus chart and spread it on the moving deck. He pointed to the island labelled MYCONOS.
‘—and he didn’t give us enough time to look for him!’
‘But the wind might have died, Flavia,’ said Jonathan. ‘Your father made the only decision he could. If we hadn’t left at noon we wouldn’t have caught this breeze and we might have lost a whole day’s travel. We all want to catch the Medea.’
Nubia nodded. ‘Saving the children is most important,’ she said.
Lupus rattled the papyrus and when he had their attention he moved his finger along the map towards its lower right hand corner.
‘Yes,’ said Flavia, wiping her nose on her arm, ‘that’s the route the Medea will probably take.’
Lupus made his finger pass between various islands, but just before he reached Rhodes, his finger stopped and he jabbed at the papyrus chart. Between two peninsulas jutting out from the mainland labelled CARIA was a little island about the same size as Myconos.
Nubia read the letters slowly: ‘SYMI,’ she read, and then: ‘Symi!’
Lupus nodded, his eyes bright with excitement.
‘Didn’t you know that, Lupus?’ said Flavia. ‘Didn’t you realise that Symi is right next to Rhodes?’
Lupus shook his head and pulled out his wax tablet:
WE COULD BE THERE TOMORROW he wrote.
‘But Lupus,’ said Jonathan. ‘If we stop at Symi we may never catch the slave-ship Medea.’
‘We must save the children first,’ said Nubia.
Flavia nodded. ‘They’re right, Lupus. We’ve got to save the children first. Then you can go to Symi.’
Lupus stared at Flavia open-mouthed. A moment earlier she had been sobbing about Silvanus, a pretty-boy she barely knew. Now she was telling him he couldn’t take a few hours to try to find out if his own mother was still alive.
He stood up, uttered a cry of rage and threw down his wax tablet and stylus. Nubia cried out and as Lupus turned he realised the stylus had bounced on the deck and struck her forearm. But he didn’t stop. He had to get away. He had to be alone.
A rapid glance around showed him Zosimus up in the rigging as usual, Atticus in the deckhouse doorway, Punicus and Captain Geminus at the tiller. Flaccus and his slave-boy were probably below with Bato. Where could he go to be alone on board a small ship?
Suddenly he knew.
Lupus ran across the rolling deck and up the stairs to the Delphina’s stern platform. Ignoring the cries of his friends, he climbed over the rail at the back of the ship and dropped out of sight.
Lupus crouched in the skiff, breathing hard, every muscle in his body clenched with rage. He had his back to the Delphina because he didn’t want to see the others looking down on him from their superior position. He hated them.
He hated Flavia, who had been sobbing her heart out a few moments earlier because she couldn’t find the latest object of her desire. Flavia whose eyes were still red and swollen as she told him that he couldn’t take one day to try to find his mother.
He hated Jonathan, too, whose mother had returned to him and who covered him with kisses and wept when he left.
He even hated Nubia. He hated her because she was so gentle and perfect and never lost her temper. And because even though the stylus had made her bleed, she only looked at him with understanding in her eyes, not anger.
He hated them all. He hated them because they could talk and taste food and lick their lips and drink water without choking. He hated them because they had tongues while he had only a stump. Like an animal. No. Worse than an animal. Even animals had tongues.
He tried to remember the time when he had still had a tongue. When he had been happy. Before he had known pain or fear. He closed his eyes and saw himself running on a smooth golden beach, playing ball with the children of Symi. He saw himself swimming in that silent blue-green world of fish and coral and silver bubbles. He saw his father, strong and tanned, sitting in a skiff like this one and laughing with his white teeth. He remembered his mother’s soft voice, and the refrain of a lullaby she had used to sing: When you come home, when you come home to me.
In his mind’s eye he saw her from behind, her honey-coloured hair screening her face as she set food on a table in the shelter of a grapevine. Lupus tried to make her turn around in his imagination. But she wouldn’t and he realised with a stab of grief that he could no longer remember what she looked like. He could not remember his own mother’s face.
Lupus opened his tongueless mouth and tried to call her, but the only sound which emerged was a strangled howl. How would he find her again if he could not even recognise her? Now he would always be alone. Alone and unloved.
He couldn’t stop the great tearing sobs which began to shake his whole body. So he surrendered himself to grief and as he wept he felt the hot tears dissolve his anger.
Presently, rocked by the dark blue waves of the Aegean, Lupus fell asleep.
Nubia was examining the cut on her arm when a shadow fell across her. She looked up to see Flaccus standing over her. The sun was behind his head so she couldn’t see his expression clearly. But his deep voice seemed kind.
‘You’re hurt. What happened?’
‘Lupus throws down stylus and it strikes me. Flavia and Jonathan go down to find ointment.’
‘Here,’ he said, squatting down beside her and taking a handkerchief out of his belt pouch. ‘Let’s stop the bleeding at least.’
He gently tied the cloth round her arm and glanced towards the back of the ship.
‘I saw Lupus go down into the skiff. Bato tells me the reason he’s as quiet as Telephus is because his tongue was cut out. Is that true?’
‘Yes, it is true. Lupus is only six years old when he sees his father being murdered by a bad man. The bad man cuts out the tongue of Lupus so he cannot inform.’
‘By Hercules!’ Flaccus sat cross-legged on the sun-warmed deck beside her. ‘Poor lad. I know what it’s like to have a disability,’ he said, ‘though mine’s nowhere near as bad.’
�
�A what?’
‘Nothing.’ He took some ivory-coloured nuggets from his belt pouch and popped one in his mouth. He held the rest out to her. ‘Have some gum. It’s nice.’
‘Thank you,’ said Nubia, and took four pieces.
‘And you?’ he asked. ‘How do you come to be in Rome? Or rather on a Roman ship?’
‘Last year,’ said Nubia, ‘some bad men come to my tents at night. They kill my father and put the rest of my clan in chains. They take us to a town called Alexandria and there they sell us to the bad man who killed Lupus’s father. He is being a slave-dealer with one eye.’
‘The same man who cut out Lupus’s tongue?’ Flaccus raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes.’
‘He should die.’
‘He is die.’
‘I thought you said he is a slave-dealer.’
‘I am still learning Latin,’ said Nubia. ‘Sometimes it is hard to find the right words for time. I am sorry.’
‘No, no,’ he said, chewing his gum. ‘You speak very well for someone who’s been learning the language for less than a year.’
‘Thank you. Flavia teaches me Latin by reading to me the Aeneid.’
‘Oh?’
Nubia nodded. ‘She buys me for a slave and then sets me free. Flavia is very kind.’
‘Is she?’ he said, flicking dark hair from his eyes and cracking his gum. ‘To me she seems like a bossy little domina. I pity the man she marries.’
Nubia felt her face grow warm and she kept her eyes on the deck.
‘And here she comes now,’ said Flaccus, rising to his feet. ‘So I’m off.’ He looked down at her and said quietly, ‘The Cyclops will hold no danger for you, Nubia, unless you erect an altar to him in your heart.’
Flavia narrowed her eyes at Flaccus’s retreating back.
‘Was Floppy bothering you, Nubia?’
Nubia shook her head. ‘No. He gives me his handkerchief.’ She held out her arm.
‘Ugh!’ Flavia shuddered. ‘It probably had patrician snot on it.’
Jonathan laughed and sat beside Nubia. ‘Take it off for a moment,’ he said, ‘so I can put some balm on the cut.’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 118