Nubia obediently pulled back Flaccus’s handkerchief.
‘It’s not too bad,’ said Jonathan, examining her forearm. He lifted the lid from a tiny round ceramic pot, dipped his finger in the ointment and gently dabbed it on the cut.
‘He also gives me gum.’
‘Oh! Let’s see!’ cried Flavia.
Nubia held out her palm. On it were four little chunks of ivory-coloured resin.
‘You got a piece for Lupus,’ said Jonathan, taking one.
‘Yes,’ said Nubia. ‘So he does not feel forsaken. Shall we call him?’
‘No,’ said Jonathan. ‘Let’s give him time to calm down. He’ll come back when he’s ready.’
‘Lupus will come to his senses eventually,’ said Flavia, also taking a nugget from Nubia’s hand. ‘He’ll realise he can go and look for his mother after we’ve saved the children.’
‘I think it’s mastic,’ said Jonathan, putting the gum in his mouth. ‘My father sometimes prescribes it for bad breath and also for stomach pains. I’ve never tried it.’
‘Hey!’ said Flavia. ‘That must be where we get the word “masticate”. Because you chew it.’
The three of them chewed thoughtfully for a moment.
‘Mmmm,’ said Flavia. ‘It tastes a bit like carrot, only sweeter.’
‘A bit like aniseed,’ said Nubia.
‘And cumin,’ said Jonathan.
Flavia took hers out of her mouth and examined it. ‘Look! It’s turned white.’
‘Do you swallow it like food?’ asked Nubia.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Jonathan and added, ‘You know, I have an idea about the mysterious disappearance of Silvanus.’
‘What?’ said Flavia.
Jonathan looked at her, chewing thoughtfully, then shook his head. ‘No, it’s stupid. It’s crazy.’
‘What?’ said Flavia. ‘Tell us!’
‘Remember we made a list matching the people on board this ship with the heroes on Jason’s voyage? And we said Silvanus was like Hylas?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, don’t you think it’s strange that Silvanus disappeared just like Hylas, while going for water?’
Flavia stopped chewing her gum and stared at him.
Jonathan shrugged. ‘I told you it was a stupid theory,’ he said.
‘No, Jonathan. It’s not stupid at all.’
‘It is prickly,’ whispered Nubia.
‘What?’ said Jonathan.
‘It causes my neck hairs to be prickly,’ said Nubia, making the sign against evil.
‘Someone,’ said Flavia, ‘must have overheard us assigning roles to the passengers and crew.’
‘Unless they read it,’ said Jonathan. ‘Aristo had you ink it on the back of your tablet.’
‘That’s right.’ Flavia took out her wax tablet. ‘So whoever got rid of Silvanus can probably read and write. That eliminates Atticus straightaway; he can’t read. But Zosimus and Punicus can.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘And so can Floppy.’
‘Also Zetes,’ said Nubia. ‘I hear him reading from a scroll to Floppy yesterday.’
Jonathan pointed to the list written in ink on the wooden back of Flavia’s tablet. ‘Uh-oh! We made Punicus into Tiphys the helmsman. In the Argonautica Tiphys dies on the journey back from Colchis.’
Flavia’s eyes opened wide. ‘Do you think he’ll be the next to go?’
Nubia almost choked on her gum and they had to slap her on the back.
When she recovered she looked at them with her large amber eyes. ‘And I am Hercules,’ she whispered, ‘who is being left behind by Argo.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Flavia, giving Nubia a reassuring hug. ‘We would never abandon a good friend like you.’
*
The sun was low in the west when Nubia heard a sound that made her heart skip a beat: Tigris’s alarm bark.
She stood with the plate of sea urchins poised above the polished table and slowly turned towards the stern platform, where Jonathan’s big puppy stood barking.
‘Great Neptune’s beard!’ Captain Geminus had turned from the tiller in annoyance. ‘Someone stop that cacophony. Get that dog below!’
Nubia put the plate on the table and ran past the deckhouse and up the four steps to the stern platform. She arrived just before Flavia and Jonathan.
Tigris turned his head and whined up at them and Nubia almost fainted. Before her lay an empty expanse of glittering water. There was no skiff following the Delphina, not even a rope trailing behind.
Lupus had vanished.
‘By all the gods! What was that boy thinking?’
Flavia could tell that her father was more upset than angry by the way he ran his hand through his hair.
‘He wanted to find his mother,’ said Jonathan.
‘On the isle of Symi,’ said Nubia.
‘So he decided to row there?’ cried Flavia’s father.
Suddenly Flavia realised something.
‘Pater!’ she cried. ‘The tow-rope.’
He turned and looked at her.
‘It’s gone!’ she cried. ‘If Lupus had untied his end it would be trailing behind in the water. But it’s not here. That means Lupus didn’t do it. Someone on board the Delphina did it!’
Lupus took a long drink from the water skin he had found in the Cygnet and looked around.
He had woken slightly before sunset to find himself adrift, surrounded by nothing but water and sky. His eyes were still swollen from weeping but he could see that the horizon was perfectly straight. There was no dark hump of an island and no white nick of a sail. He might have been alone in the world.
He knew he should be terrified but he felt strangely calm.
The Delphina had been sailing southeast, and on the previous nights the sun had set on over the right-hand steering oar. Lupus pushed out one of the oars in the skiff and turned it in the water until the skiff swung round to bring the lightest part of the sky onto her right side.
At least he could make sure he was travelling in the same direction as the Delphina, so that if she turned . . . And with this thought the fear began to seep in. Jove’s wind had been favourable for the past four days. Since they had left Corinth it had been right behind them. And Lupus knew that no ship without oars could sail directly into the wind.
He needed help. He needed the gods. Lupus fingered the good luck charm around his neck and heard the little bronze bells tinkle.
‘You don’t need that,’ said a quiet voice.
Lupus looked around, heart thumping. There was no one in the boat. No one in the water. No one but him for miles and miles.
The voice did not come again but the words still hung in his mind, not fading but growing stronger, heavier, more compelling.
You don’t need that.
As Lupus stood up he realised his knees were trembling. He pulled the linen cord over his head and after only a moment’s hesitation he threw the amulet into the sea. It broke the pearly skin of the water with barely a sound and then it was gone. But just as Lupus was about to sit down again he saw something. A moment earlier the horizon had been blank. But now he thought he could make out a smudge away to the northeast.
He wasn’t sure whether it was land or just a cloud, but he sat down in the skiff and took up the oars and began to row.
Twilight. The current was with him and the opalescent water was so smooth that it might have been oiled. The sky had deepened from mauve to lavender to violet, now pricked with stars. Glancing over his shoulder, Lupus caught sight of land silhouetted sharp and flat against a silvery glow on the dark horizon. And presently the glow became a lopsided moon which swam up among the stars like an enormous pearl bowl graciously tipping her light onto the sea, making a shining path straight towards the land.
Much later, he heard the sound of breakers and saw the white line of surf, and although the moon was now at her remotest place high above, she still smiled kindly. Lupus leapt out into the cold shock of black, chest-high water and fel
t the shifting slippery pebbles under his feet as he pulled the boat towards the beach. At last he fell exhausted onto the sand and slept.
The cheeping of tiny chaffinches woke Lupus just after dawn the next morning. Six of them were pecking in the coarse damp sand not two feet away. He watched them for a while but when he raised his head they flew off.
His mouth was dry and his hands were blistered, but apart from that he was unscathed. The previous night’s magic seemed still to be with him, for he heard the chuckling of fresh water and soon he found a stream running down to the sea. Its water was pure and sweet. He brushed the sand from his cheek and he cupped his hands and he carefully drank.
Presently, Lupus wiped his mouth on the back of his arm and looked around. The crescent beach led up to a strand of grey-green tamarisk trees, with a few palm trees here and there. Beyond the trees rose a mountain, still violet-shadowed in the early morning.
All he had on him was his sea-green tunic and the leather belt which also served as a sling. He did not have sandals, for everyone went barefoot on board the ship. He did not even have his wax tablet and stylus because he had thrown them down in anger. Then he remembered what else he possessed. He went back to the skiff and untied the heavy rope that had attached the Cygnet to the Delphina. He coiled it and carefully put it out of sight under one of the benches. Then he found the empty water skin. He brought it to the stream and filled it as full as he could.
Lupus began to walk up towards the trees, his eyes scanning the mountainside for any sign of life. He did not know if he was on the mainland or on some island, but he felt there was something special about this place. The air was brilliantly pure, but there was a comforting weight to it, as if someone infinitely benevolent was watching over him. Was it his mother? He didn’t think so. He remembered the voice in the boat – a man’s voice – and the sense of peace that had filled him. This felt like that, only magnified one hundred times. His vision blurred, then cleared as he blinked away the tears filling his eyes.
Suddenly he stopped and sniffed. Wood smoke. And then another glorious smell, perhaps the most wonderful smell in the world. His stomach growled enthusiastically and although he was shipwrecked and destitute, Lupus felt like laughing.
The scent which filled his head was the smell of baking bread.
Lupus followed the scent of warm bread through the feathery tamarisk trees. Presently he stood before a small house built in the Roman style.
Outside the double doors were two plaster-covered pillars. Just as in Ostia or Rome, they were painted deep red to about the height of his shoulder. He stepped forward to knock at the front door, then hesitated and cautiously moved round the side of the house.
Standing on the other side of a circular courtyard with his back to Lupus was a dark-haired boy in a grey tunic. The boy was leaning to open the circular door of an outdoor oven. Plaster-covered and shaped like a beehive, the oven was raised on a platform so that it was almost as tall as the boy. Now the boy was inserting a large wooden paddle to scoop up half a dozen loaves of flat bread.
The courtyard was composed of black and white pebbles in a geometric design. As Lupus began to cross it, his bare foot crunched a leaf and the boy froze.
‘Who’s there?’ The boy spoke in Greek, without turning around. And then in Latin: ‘Domina?’
Lupus grunted no, and as the boy spun round the bread flew off the paddle and onto the pebbled floor.
‘Oh Pollux!’ the boy cursed, as half a dozen speckled hens appeared from among the trees and charged for the bread, clucking triumphantly.
Lupus lunged for the loaves and managed to reach all six before any of the hens. The soft discs were still hot, so he quickly dropped them on the plaster-covered ledge beside the oven door.
The boy turned his whole body towards Lupus, who smiled and gestured at the bread. But the boy did not look at Lupus or the bread or the hens. He stood with his head tipped to one side.
Then Lupus saw the milky film over his eyes and realised the boy was blind.
‘Where are you?’ asked the blind boy. ‘Please don’t taunt me.’
Lupus gently took the boy’s hand and placed it on the disks of hot bread.
‘Oh,’ said the boy. ‘Thank you. You startled me. Are you . . .?’ Here he moved his hand up Lupus’s arm and touched his face and hair with quick, light fingers. ‘You’re not from the island, are you?’ he said in Greek. ‘What’s your name? Mine is Pinchas.’
Lupus gently guided the boy’s fingers to his mouth and then inside.
‘Oh,’ said the boy, his hand recoiling. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t see. And you can’t speak. But . . . can you understand me?’
Lupus nodded, not minding that the boy was still lightly touching his head.
‘Are you from this island?’
Lupus tipped his head back in the Greek ‘no’ and then remembered that Romans shook their heads for ‘no’. So he shook his head.
‘But you’re Greek, aren’t you?’ The boy smiled. ‘I can tell just by the way you moved your head. Are there other people here with you?’
Lupus shook his head.
‘Were you shipwrecked?’
Lupus nodded and the boy gasped. Then: ‘Are you hungry?’
Lupus grunted ‘yes’, and his nod was so violent that they both began to laugh. The boy groped for a loaf and tore it and handed a piece to Lupus.
And then – to Lupus’s astonishment – he pronounced a blessing in Hebrew.
‘Pinchas!’ screeched a woman’s voice. ‘Pinchas, where are you? Where’s that bread? If you’re—’
The woman in the archway stared at Lupus and he stared back. She had frizzy red hair and pale skin and she wore a long unbelted tunic of cream linen.
‘Who’s this, Pinchas?’ she said in Latin, not taking her eyes from Lupus.
‘It’s a boy, domina! And he’s been shipwrecked. I hope you don’t mind but I gave him some bread.’
‘I do mind,’ said the woman. Her tunic flapped about her as she strode across the pebbled courtyard to give Pinchas a cuff on the ear. ‘Shipwrecked indeed!’ She turned to Lupus.
Up close he could see that she was elderly, at least forty years old. She might have been pretty once, even beautiful, but her face wore a sour expression that looked as if it had been there for decades.
‘Ask him where he’s from,’ she said to Pinchas in Latin.
‘He can’t speak, domina,’ the boy replied in the same language. ‘He has no tongue.’
‘Wool fluff!’ she snorted, but her eyes widened as Lupus shook his head, then opened his mouth and pointed in.
‘Great Juno’s girdle!’ she exclaimed. ‘You understand Latin!’
Lupus nodded.
‘But you can’t speak?’ She peered into his mouth. ‘Ah. I’ve seen that before. Criminal are you? Thief?’
Lupus shook his head angrily.
‘Then what were you doing nosing around here?’
‘He was shipwrecked, domina,’ said Pinchas.
‘Is that true?’
Lupus nodded.
She gave him a keen look. ‘Are you from Rome?’
Lupus waggled his head – as if to say yes and no – then stepped over to the oven. He dipped his finger in some soot and wrote on the white plaster dome: OSTIA
‘Great Juno’s – You can read and write, too!’ said the woman, raising her eyebrows. ‘I don’t suppose you have any news from Italia? Is Titus still emperor?’
Lupus grunted ‘yes’.
Pinchas stepped forward. ‘What’s your name?’ the blind boy asked him.
Lupus touched the soot again and wrote on the white plaster.
‘Lupus?’ said the woman with a snort. ‘Not a very civilised name. Well, I’m Julia. Julia Aquila. You’re the first visitor I’ve had in nearly half a year. I suppose I should invite you to breakfast. Pinchas! Take this bread and lead our guest into the triclinium. I’ll go and see if I can find some fig cakes and the Calymnian honey.’
&nb
sp; An hour later, Lupus’s hand was aching and he had hardly eaten any of the food laid out on the table before him. Julia had found pen and ink and sheets of papyrus and she had forced him to answer all her questions in writing.
‘That’s enough,’ said Julia at last.
Lupus reached for a piece of bread and honey almost as eagerly as she reached for the papyrus sheets. While she read and re-read what he had written, Lupus was able to wash down the bread and honey with warm goat’s milk.
‘So,’ said Julia, at last. ‘Berenice wore green emeralds with a green silk gown?’
Lupus nodded, chomping the bread with his molars, then throwing his head back to swallow.
‘Wasn’t it a bit . . . overdone?’
Lupus shook his head and gave a thumbs-up.
‘So she’s as beautiful as everyone says?’
Lupus nodded enthusiastically.
Julia heaved a deep sigh and put the sheets to one side. ‘And now you’re on your way to Rhodes to rescue some children who’ve been kidnapped?’
Lupus nodded.
‘And you believe the people on board your ship will stop and come looking for you once they realise you’re missing? Even though they have dozens of other children to save?’
Lupus hung his head, and nodded again.
‘Well, I think they’re fools to bother with you,’ she said with a snort. ‘But if you’re convinced they’ll return then I suggest you go up the mountain and make some sort of signal for them. This is a miserable, barren little rock but it has many bays and inlets. Even if they make their way here they may never find you. Take these sulphur sticks and make a fire of brush wood up on the bare part of the mountainside. Be sure to make a clearing first. This is only a hovel but I don’t want it burnt to the ground. Pinchas will show you the path.’
It was very strange being led by a blind person, but Lupus allowed Pinchas to take his hand and guide him back across the pebbled courtyard, past the oven, through the feathery tamarisks to an inscribed boundary stone.
‘Do you see the stone?’ Pinchas asked Lupus.
Lupus grunted ‘yes’.
‘Do you see the path?’
Lupus grunted ‘yes’ again.
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 119