The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  Zosimus laughed. ‘That boy’s no German. As I remember, his father is prefect of the fleet at Ravenna.’

  Flaccus’s tanned face grew pale and he clutched the table to steady himself.

  Zosimus spat again. ‘That’s right. He’s as highborn as you are. And if his father ever found out you’ve been enjoying him as your slave he’d have your head on a platter.’

  The wind groaned in the rigging and snapped at the sails. It whipped at Flavia’s tunic and made her skin break out in gooseflesh. Beneath her feet, the deck still moved with its strange twisting motion. Tied to the mast, Zosimus was crying, the tears running down his narrow cheeks. But she was only vaguely aware of these things.

  She was watching Flaccus.

  They all were. He was on his knees, head down, bloody hands tugging his hair, the feathered corpses of half a dozen headless pigeons scattered around him.

  Flavia did not move. None of them did. Even Tigris was still.

  Presently the beautiful boy Zetes knelt beside Flaccus and patted his young master’s shaking back. He was weeping, too.

  It may have been the writhing deck, but Flavia suddenly felt that nothing in her life was solid anymore.

  While Atticus gathered up the feathered corpses, Lupus went down to the hold to watch the other men tie Zosimus to one of the iron rings.

  Presently Lupus came back up on deck. Although only a short time had passed, the sky was now the colour of dirty wool and a gust of wind almost knocked him off his feet.

  Flavia’s father was back at the helm, bellowing orders to his two remaining crew members. Bare feet planted on deck, bald Punicus and grey-haired Atticus were trying to pull the ropes called brails that would raise the heavy mainsail, but they were struggling.

  ‘Lupus!’ Captain Geminus called out. ‘Can you take the helm for a moment?’

  Lupus nodded and staggered across the plunging deck to grasp the polished tiller. He was amazed at the strength it required to hold it steady and he gritted his teeth as Captain Geminus joined his crew at the ropes. Slowly the painted dolphin disappeared as the sail gathered itself up towards the yard-arm. Finally, the Delphina’s crew secured the brails to the polished pins and Lupus breathed a sigh of relief as Punicus took over the helm.

  At that precise moment Lupus heard Captain Geminus bellow, ‘Hang on tight! Everyone, hang on!’

  Lupus turned to see an enormous wave rushing towards them like a grey-green mountain of glass. Uttering a Phoenician oath, Punicus pushed the tiller hard, bringing the Delphina’s nose around to take the wave head on. Lupus barely had time to grip the stern rail before his ship thrust her prow almost straight up to the sky, then plunged forward with a sickening drop as the great wave slid smoothly under her keel.

  ‘The wind has changed!’ cried Captain Geminus. ‘It’s the Africus!’ He made the sign against evil along with the other members of his crew. ‘The water’s too deep to drop anchor. But we’ve got to find shelter. We’ll have to run before the wind with just the artemon. And we’ll have to haul the skiff on board and make her fast. Lupus, I’m two crew members down. Will you stay on deck?’

  Lupus nodded and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Jonathan and Zetes had come to help him.

  They had barely closed the hatch when the Delphina gave such a violent lurch that Flavia and Nubia were thrown across the width of the ship. Their heads cracked together hard. Tied to his ring at the other end of the dim hold, Zosimus laughed through his cloth gag.

  ‘Wedge yourselves between bags of salt,’ gasped Bato. ‘But help me first.’

  Flaccus moved out of the shadows to help Flavia wedge Bato, then he helped the girls.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Flavia, rubbing the sore spot on her head.

  Flaccus nodded bleakly, then sat on a bag of salt beside Bato with his head in his hands. ‘Germania. My father told me he was from Germania,’ he said presently. ‘I was only nine years old. How was I to know the boy was freeborn?’

  Bato shook his head wearily. ‘Don’t worry, Valerius. These things happen. That’s why we’re trying to crack this ring.’

  ‘But it’s terrible,’ repeated Flaccus. ‘By the gods, I don’t even know his real name. I should have guessed he was highborn. He has all the qualities: bearing, beauty, nobility . . .’

  ‘And he’s brave,’ said Flavia coldly. ‘He’s up on deck now, helping pater and Jonathan and Lupus.’

  Flaccus lifted his face from his hands and looked at her. His expression was no longer aloof, but vulnerable.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said after a moment. ‘Zetes is braver than I am. Here I am, weeping like a child . . .’ He brushed his hair from his eyes and rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘I’m going up.’ He glanced over at Zosimus, uttering muffled threats and struggling against his bonds at the far end of the hold. ‘Are you going to be all right down here? With him making that noise?’

  The three of them nodded.

  Flaccus started towards the hatch, then turned aside and took a few lurching steps to his hammock. He removed something from a leather satchel nearby, then staggered back and squatted beside Flavia. Her eyes widened as he took her hand and pressed something cool and round and waxy and fragrant into it.

  ‘Take this lemon, Flavia,’ he said, ‘I have a feeling we’re in for a rough time.’

  It wasn’t until after he had gone that Flavia realised it was the first time he had called her by name.

  Lupus sat high on the mainmast.

  The ill-omened south wind was driving them back the way they had come, undoing all their hard-won progress. Now it tore at the crests of the waves and shrieked in the rigging like some malevolent harpy.

  Lupus’s legs were hooked over the yard-arm and he hugged the mast. Behind him, wedging him in, was the very top of the rope ladder. From this safe vantage point he could see any approaching rocks and he shouted down warnings with his tongueless mouth and pointed towards the danger.

  In this way they managed to skirt the southernmost shore of Symi and other rocks and islands that could not be identified in this howling world of sea and spray.

  *

  Nubia shivered in the hold of the ex-slave-ship Vespa.

  She did not know how long the storm lasted or what Flavia’s father and the others were doing on deck. All she knew was that the Delphina was being driven in some new direction. They were wedged between their bags of salt, but Nubia could hear the amphoras grinding against each other and the timbers of the ship groaning.

  Despite sniffing the lemon which Flavia had pierced with her fingernails Nubia still felt cold and nauseous. Worse, she felt a deep despair. Was it her destiny to die in the hold of this ship?

  She searched the timbers above her for the image of the woman. Finally she found it. ‘Oh mother!’ she whispered in her own language. ‘Please help us. Please save us from the storm.’

  With dusk came the portent.

  The world was deep purple when one terrible thunderclap filled the whole sky, loud enough to split the cosmos. Lupus clung to the trembling mast and felt the air around him crackle with terror.

  Presently he saw the dark boiling clouds move off to the northwest, towards the part of the sky that was palest. The stinging rain softened a little, and Lupus thought the worst of it was over. But now the men on deck were crying out in horror. Lupus squinted into the twilight, trying to see what new terror they had spotted, which rocks or reef he had missed. But they were not looking ahead. They were pointing straight up at him. Punicus was kneeling on the deck and at the helm Captain Geminus had a look of amazement on his face.

  ‘Castor and Pollux!’ cried Atticus, and despite his age he began to dance like a child on the wildly gyrating deck. ‘We’re saved!’

  Lupus wondered if the whole crew had gone mad. Then he saw something that made him nearly leap off the mast into the black water below. On the very end of the yard-arm, the spar on which he perched, blazed a blue star.

  Atticus was still dancing and point
ing and Lupus followed his finger to see a similar star on the other end of the yard, only a few feet away from him. Then, to his utter amazement, the blue stars became flames: giant twin flames burning at either end of the Delphina’s yard-arm. They burned, but they did not consume.

  Nubia felt the ship run easier now. It was still pitching and bucking, but there was a steady rhythm now, less frantic. Outside, the roar of the wind had softened and she knew they were through the worst of the storm. And with that knowledge she finally sank into deep, dreamless sleep.

  It seemed only a few moments later that she was aware of Flavia gently shaking her awake and extending a copper beaker of water.

  Nubia washed the sour taste from her mouth and blinked as the pure light of morning poured down through the open hatch. She was stiff from lying wedged between bags of salt, but she managed to follow Flavia up onto the brilliant sunlit deck. A glance showed the Delphina battered but whole, and now gliding into a beautiful cove. On her right was a city of coloured marble – the most beautiful city she had ever seen – rising in tiers like the seats in an amphitheatre. She saw porticoes, colonnades, temples, fountains and even a theatre.

  ‘Pater says it’s Cnidos,’ whispered Flavia in her ear. ‘Come on. We’re going to give thanks for surviving the storm.’ Flavia took her hand and led her up to the stern platform where the others waited beside the little altar.

  Then Nubia gasped. The wooden swan’s head had been torn away by the storm. Only a ragged stump remained.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Captain Geminus was pale and unshaven, but his eyes shone. ‘Last night,’ he said, ‘the gods showed their mercy. When the storm was at its worst, Castor and Pollux came and sat on either side of the yard-arm.’

  ‘Oh!’ cried Flavia. ‘The sea stars that Admiral Pliny wrote about?’

  Captain Geminus nodded. ‘And something else that I have heard of but never seen.’

  Nubia and the others all looked at him. Even Tigris was quiet.

  ‘Before the twins settled on the yard-arm they shone round Lupus’s head. Like a garland of blue light.’

  Nubia stared at Lupus. He seemed as surprised as they did.

  ‘It was a portent, Lupus,’ said Punicus in his light voice. ‘Your whole head shone. The gods have chosen you for some great task.’ There was such reverence in his voice that for a moment Nubia thought the big Phoenician might fall at Lupus’s feet and worship him.

  Flavia’s father solemnly covered his head with a fold of his toga and turned to the battered altar.

  ‘Castor and Pollux,’ he said presently, ‘we thank you for coming to our aid and for saving us from the storm. Venus, we thank you for bringing us safely to your beautiful harbour of Cnidos. Please accept this offering until the proper one can be made.’ He carefully laid a tiny bronze model of a sheep on the altar.

  ‘And now that we have given thanks,’ he said, pulling the toga from his head. ‘Let’s have something to eat before we begin the repairs. I believe that wonderful aroma is Atticus’s pigeon stew.’

  ‘No news of the Medea or any other slave-traders, I’m afraid,’ said Captain Geminus, coming up the gangplank with a smiling young man close behind him. ‘But Alexandros here and some of his friends have offered to help us repair the Delphina.’

  ‘What does he say about all the jellyfish?’ asked Flavia from the rail. ‘I’ve never seen so many before.’ She looked down at the hundreds of grey blobs floating in the harbour water.

  Her father said something to the young man, who turned to Flavia and replied in broken Latin.

  ‘These ones are dead,’ said Alexandros. ‘The storm kills them.’

  ‘Can they still sting?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said with a gap-toothed grin. ‘They sting very good.’

  Flavia shuddered, then turned as the sound of Greek curses rose up from the hatchway. Bato and Flaccus were hauling Zosimus out onto the deck. His hands were still tied behind him, but they had removed his gag.

  ‘I’m leaving you here, in prison,’ said Bato to Zosimus. ‘Later, I’ll take you back to Rome to stand trial. But first I want a few more answers.’

  ‘You killed all my pigeons!’ His red-rimmed eyes blazed. ‘Why should I tell you anything?’

  ‘Because if you don’t,’ said Flaccus, as they dragged him to the rail, ‘we’re going to toss you in for a swim.’

  When Zosimus saw the undulating carpet of jellyfish his eyes grew wide.

  ‘Now,’ said Bato, ‘tell us where they take the children on the full moon.’

  Zosimus hesitated.

  ‘Tell us!’ shouted Flaccus, physically lifting the little man over the rail.

  ‘Halicarnassus!’ cried Zosimus. ‘They take them to Halicarnassus.’

  ‘Who’s in Halicarnassus?’ asked Flaccus. ‘Who takes the children?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  Flaccus lifted Zosimus a fraction higher.

  ‘Nobody knows, only Magnus!’

  ‘What about Silvanus,’ asked Flavia. ‘What did you do with him? Did you kill him?’

  ‘No. I just tied him up and left him in a cistern. I swear on my mother’s eyes that I’m telling the truth.’

  Flaccus eased Zosimus back down onto the deck.

  ‘Speaking of your mother,’ said Captain Geminus, ‘who was that old woman at the docks?’

  ‘Nobody. She came off a Cretan ship the week before. I put her up at the Grain and Grape, and paid her a few sesterces to act motherly at the docks.’

  ‘She’s not part of the ring?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I trust you’re telling the truth,’ said Bato. ‘If not, you and she will end up in the arena. Now tell us about Magnus.’

  Zosimus sneered. ‘Nobody has ever outwitted him, because he knows his enemies better than they know themselves. Information is his main weapon. That’s why he pays me so well. You’ll never catch him.’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ said Bato quietly. ‘Anything else you can tell us about Magnus?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Zosimus, and he began to giggle. ‘He’s a giant of a man.’

  The next morning Nubia and her friends stood by the Delphina’s new stern ornament and watched Cnidos diminish behind them.

  ‘It is a fair city,’ said Nubia. ‘The most beautiful I have seen.’

  ‘And the people were nice, weren’t they?’ said Flavia.

  Nubia nodded. ‘They give us very many tasty foodstuffs,’ she said, ‘like dates.’

  ‘And baby artichokes,’ said Flavia. ‘And fish and bread and lentils and onions.’

  ‘And dolphin,’ said Jonathan with a grin as Lupus patted the wooden dolphin that replaced the broken swan’s neck.

  ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Flavia, stroking the dolphin’s polished side.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nubia softly. ‘It is magical. Now that we trade Zosimus for a dolphin,’ she added, ‘I think Delphina is happy at last.’

  ‘Yes, now that we’ve traded Zosimus for this dolphin,’ said Flavia, ‘I think our voyage will get better.’

  ‘You think?’ said Jonathan. ‘So far we’ve had falling yard-arms, galley fires, sulphurous whirlpools, runaway skiffs and freak storms.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Flavia. ‘Apart from killer whales or Tritons, I don’t see how anything else could possibly go wrong.’

  ‘It is like Land of White,’ whispered Nubia.

  ‘It even sounds white,’ said Flavia. ‘As if everything is muffled in wool.’

  Lupus nodded.

  It was the morning of the day before the full moon. They had woken on a damp deck to find their hair and fleeces soaked with moisture from a thick fog.

  Jonathan looked around. The Delphina’s sails were limp and there was not even enough breeze to make her tackle clink. ‘This is all your fault, Flavia,’ he said with a sigh.

  ‘My fault?’ cried Flavia. ‘Why is it my fault?’

  ‘You said nothing else could go wrong.’

&nbs
p; ‘You said what?’ Captain Geminus appeared out of the mist. He wore his toga and had obviously been making an offering at the shrine.

  ‘Um . . . nothing, pater,’ said Flavia with a sheepish smile. ‘I would never tempt the gods like that.’

  ‘Just as well,’ he said drily. ‘But don’t worry. Alexandros is convinced we’re near Rhodes and Punicus says this fog should burn off by noon.’

  But the fog remained all day and most of the following night.

  ‘Great Neptune’s beard,’ whispered Nubia. The Delphina was gliding silently through a sea of mist. It was a breathtaking sight. With the yellow pre-dawn sky above and the mist swirling milky white just below the sails, the Delphina might have been sailing through the clouds.

  Then Nubia lifted her gaze and saw something even more extraordinary.

  Rising out of the fog bank before her were the peaks of an island.

  On top of the highest, nearest peak stood the dark shape of a temple and around it half a dozen figures, sharply silhouetted against the lemon-yellow sky.

  Nubia made the sign against evil, for the silent sentinels were twice as tall as the temple. They were giants.

  ‘They’re statues, Nubia. Gigantic statues,’ said Flavia.

  ‘I know. But there are so many.’

  Flavia nodded. ‘Pliny says that in addition to the Colossus, there are over a hundred other enormous statues on Rhodes. There are statues of Aesculapius, Dionysus and Athena. But those statues on the ridge are probably Helios and his bride, the sea nymph Rhoda.’

  ‘Which one is Colossus?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘Doesn’t it straddle the harbour?’ said Jonathan. ‘With a leg on either side?’

  ‘That’s a common mistake people make,’ said Flaccus, coming up behind them. ‘The Colossus was never at the water’s edge. It stood in the sanctuary, on the highest peak, but we can’t see it from here because—’

  ‘—it fell down in an earthquake!’ cried Flavia. ‘Pliny says so.’

  Flaccus nodded and smiled, but Nubia was disappointed. She had imagined sailing underneath a giant bronze statue of the handsome sun god. In her mind’s eye he looked just like Aristo.