The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  Was this a good omen, or a bad one?

  Lupus turned and began to climb the marble steps that led up into the precinct itself. At the top of them a young priest stepped forward. His white robes were tinted orange by the sinking sun.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said politely. ‘The sanctuary is closing for the evening. You can come back tomorrow. We open at dawn.’

  Lupus gazed around the sanctuary.

  It had not been difficult for him to get in.

  All he had needed was an ancient olive tree with twisted branches to help him up to the wall. He had run along the perfectly smooth marble top of the wall to another olive tree. The silver-grey leaves had trembled about him as he swung from one of the branches, then jumped lightly down. By staying low, and keeping behind the stadium, he had made it up the hill without being seen.

  Now he had reached the end of the stadium. He needed to get to the temple of Apollo on the upper slope. The theatre and other temples up there would hide him, but to reach them he would have to cross open ground with nothing but a few rhododendron bushes to offer cover. He glanced around, listening, watching, using his intuition. There was nobody here. He could cross the open space.

  But as he moved away from the stadium wall, he caught sight of something which made him stop and stare.

  On his left – only twenty or thirty yards away – was an oak tree. And over it lay a fleece, sparkling gold in the light of the setting sun.

  *

  Lupus stood perfectly still and a shiver passed over him as he heard something like the faint tinkling of wind-chimes coming from the fleece which covered the oak tree. He rubbed his eyes hard, but when the little spots of light faded and his vision cleared, the fleece-covered tree was still there.

  He moved towards it, drawn as if by some power. Then, at less than ten yards distance, he realised what it was.

  It was a votive tree.

  The oak wore thousands of rectangular leaf-thin scraps of copper on its branches, all with prayers inscribed upon them, each one probably offered with tears and vows. The votives were certainly dedicated to Aesculapius, for just beyond the tree stood a colossal statue of the Healer, and the sacred snake coiling up his staff was taller than the oak.

  Now Lupus was close enough to touch the ex votos. He stood on tiptoe and reached up and held one of the trembling sheets of copper still so that he could read its Greek inscription: ASKLEPIOS PLEASE HEAL MY BABY PHYLLIA AND KEEP HER SAFE

  He looked at some of the others. They all said similar things. Most were in Greek. But some were in Latin and some in alphabets that he had never met before. A glint of copper in the grass at his feet. He knelt and picked up a fallen ex voto. Someone had incised an eye on one side. The reverse was blank.

  Lupus grunted and searched in the wildflower-dotted grass for a sharp stone. When he found one, he rested the rectangular sheet of copper against the tree’s rough trunk and scratched a few words on its surface. He stretched to fold the scrap of metal leaf around one of the oak’s lowest branches and bowed his head for a moment.

  Then Lupus hurried on up the hill towards the grove of Apollo.

  To you, O Helios, the people of Dorian Rhodes dedicate this bronze statue reaching to Olympus. May its burning torch of freedom shine over land and sea.

  Lupus read the Greek inscription on the pedestal, then tipped his head back to see the two vast and trunkless legs of bronze, broken at the knees. He wondered what it must have looked like when it stood, visible for miles around holding its flaming torch high. The torch of freedom.

  Nearby lay the massive left arm and hand of the statue. The huge fingers curved up away from the ground but the thumb lay close to the earth and a polished band showed where a hundred thousand visitors had tried to embrace it. To his right, part of the torso lay silhouetted like a small mountain against the pale lavender sky.

  And on his left, further up the hillside and partly sunk into it, lay the enormous head of the fallen Colossus. The path up to Apollo’s temple took him past it and he stopped for a moment to stare at the unseeing face of Helios the sun god and the massive bronze spikes which represented its rays. A shudder of awe passed through his body.

  But he was not here to see the Colossus. He was here to find his mother.

  Lupus moved round the colossal head, following a well-trodden dirt path that led up to the ridge between rhododendron bushes.

  Suddenly he froze. He heard the scuff of footsteps further up the hillside. Voices, too, coming closer: clear in the soft evening air. He did not want the priests to see him, so he stepped back behind a red-blossomed bush and waited for them to pass.

  Two figures appeared in the dusk, moving down the path. They were not priests, but a man and boy, both wearing hooded capes. They passed so close that Lupus caught a whiff of rose-scented body oil and heard one of them say in Greek: ‘. . . to make sure he clears away all evidence of our existence.’

  The light voice was familiar. He had heard that voice recently. This morning, in fact. His heart skipped a beat as he remembered Flavia’s words: Maybe it’s a father and son team.

  Lupus looked up towards the sanctuary where his mother might be, then crept out from behind the large bush and started back down the path, almost slipping on some loose gravel as he approached the wicked spikes of the Colossus’s head. Where were they? Had he lost them?

  The path took Lupus round the statue’s massive head and suddenly the breath was slammed out of him as he found himself held in the iron grip of a big man.

  Magnus, the Colossus of Rhodes.

  Lupus thrashed, trying to kick him, then bent his head to bite the forearm, but the arms squeezed tighter and now he couldn’t breathe and the evening was darkening too fast. He stopped struggling and went limp. The arms relaxed a little and with a sob, Lupus filled his lungs with precious air.

  As his vision cleared, Lupus saw the hooded boy standing a few paces away. The boy spoke. Not with the voice of a boy, but with the voice of a man. With Magnus’s voice.

  ‘Hello, Lupus,’ he said. ‘I thought I might find you up here. That’s my bodyguard, Ursus. And my name – as I’m sure you know – is Magnus.’

  The boy pulled back the hood of his cloak, and Lupus felt his jaw drop. He was staring at a man’s head. A man’s head on a body no bigger than his own.

  Magnus was not a giant. Magnus was not a boy. Magnus was a dwarf.

  ‘Sextus,’ cried Flavia. ‘We have to go to the authorities. Something has happened to pater and the others. I just know it. They should have been back by now. And Lupus might be in danger, too.’

  ‘Your father told you to wait here.’

  Flavia took a deep breath. ‘He also told us to get help if they weren’t back by moonrise. He said we should tell the authorities, remember? And look! There’s the biggest moon I’ve ever seen rising behind the masts of those ships.’

  Sextus shrugged. ‘Get up, then. Let me put the rope around your necks in case Magnus’s men are still watching this ship.’

  ‘Oh thank you, Sextus! Bato said the governor’s headquarters is on the way into town. It’s the big yellow villa just inside the gate. The one with the palm trees in front.’

  Sextus made sure the rope was securely round their necks and then said, ‘I can’t let you go.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry, Miss Flavia, but I can’t let you go anywhere. I have to follow orders.’

  ‘But . . . but those were pater’s orders,’ she spluttered. ‘He told us to go and get help.’

  ‘I said I had to follow orders.’ Sextus pulled her hands roughly behind her back and began to bind them. ‘I didn’t say whose.’

  ‘Ursus and I have just been up to the temple of Apollo,’ said Magnus the dwarf, stepping forward until he was less than a yard away from Lupus. ‘It’s a beautiful temple. And attended by such lovely priestesses.’

  Lupus stared.

  ‘I asked them if they’d seen a young boy with no tongue. They said no, but one of them
seemed greatly moved by my question. Zosimus told me you were devoted to your mother, Lupus. I’m surprised it’s taken you so long to finally get here.’

  Jonathan cursed as he realised they had been trapped. What good were all his new boxing skills if his wrists were bound tightly behind his back? Once again, he had let down those around him.

  ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ he asked angrily.

  ‘Yes, Sextus, why?’ Flavia’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You used to be our bodyguard. You protected us.’

  ‘You saved the Pliny from drowning,’ said Nubia.

  ‘Why am I doing this?’ said Sextus, now tying Zetes’s hands. ‘Money. Magnus pays good money, much more than your father gave me. Magnus is very important. He knows everyone in this town. When I first arrived here, he sent me a gift of a new tunic and sandals. He found me a job at the shipyard. And I’d never even met him. Then, about a week ago, he learned that your father was on his way here. Because he’d taken the time to find out about me, he made the connection. He is paying me very well.’

  Tigris was looking up at them and whining. Suddenly Jonathan had an idea. He turned to Tigris and said loudly, ‘Where’s Lupus, Tigris! Go find Lupus!’

  Tigris barked and wagged his tail and scampered across the deck, nose down, sniffing the deckhouse and hatch-cover, then hesitating at the side of the ship. Sextus lunged for the big puppy but Tigris was already running down the boarding plank.

  ‘Where’s Lupus?’ shouted Jonathan again and then flinched as the furious Sextus loomed before him and brought back his massive arm.

  The blow came with an explosion of bright shards behind his eyes and then he was falling . . . and he should have struck the deck by now but he was falling down and down and down into darkness.

  Lupus was still gazing open-mouthed at Magnus. Even if he had been able to speak he would not have had any words.

  ‘Go on, stare your fill,’ said Magnus pleasantly. ‘Ursus here has no tongue. Perhaps you should stare at him for a while, too. Still, I would have thought that you of all people would know what it feels like to be thought a freak.’

  Lupus dropped his gaze in confusion.

  ‘Oh yes, I know all about you. I make it my business to know my enemies, which is more than I can say for you and your friends. You didn’t even know I was a dwarf, did you? I sit on the shoulders of Ursus here and they all think I’m a giant.’ He laughed and then stopped. ‘You were fools to imagine you could outwit me.’

  Lupus raised his head angrily.

  Magnus curled a lip. ‘You sail into my port with a dolphin sail, then change it for a striped one. Did you really think that would fool anyone? Then you eat breakfast in the main square before pretending to be captured victims of a shipwreck? I’m not a fool. My people are everywhere. You can’t trust anyone, Lupus.’

  ‘Don’t cry, Nubia. Jonathan’s not dead. I think he’s just unconscious. I know it looks hopeless, tied up like this in the hold of your old slave-ship, but pater will rescue us. He’ll come charging in here with Bato and Floppy close behind, I just know he will. Or maybe Lupus will bring help. If Tigris can find Lupus then he’ll know something’s wrong. Oh please, Castor and Pollux, please save us!’

  Lupus resisted the urge to hurl himself at the dwarf in fury. He was acutely aware of the fact that the more quietly he stood, the more Ursus relaxed his grip.

  So he forced himself to stay calm as Magnus said, ‘You’re wondering if your friends succeeded, aren’t you? Of course they didn’t. I’ve taken care of Bato and Geminus, and that romantic poet. The Medea was just a decoy. She won’t be sailing tonight. She served her purpose by leading the men into a trap. They’ll find the ship full of my bravest fighters. As for your friend Jonathan and the girls,’ he chuckled, ‘and the beautiful Zetes, they will be part of tonight’s delivery. Sadly, the last delivery ever,’ he added, ‘because I’m leaving Rhodes, and this time I’m taking all the children with me. By the way, Lupus, I must thank you for providing me with a new ship. We’ve loaded all the children on the Delphina. Or should I say the Vespa? She’s a slave-ship again. After all, it’s what she was built for.’

  The rhythmic sound of clanking chains made Nubia’s throat tighten involuntarily. She stared in horror at the children coming down the wooden stairs to join them in the Delphina’s hold. Most were thin and barefoot, dressed in ragged, greasy tunics. They were moving awkwardly, as if they had not walked for many months, and some of them were hunched like old men or women. Many were squinting and almost all were coughing.

  ‘Nubia!’ A boy was calling her name. ‘Nubia!’

  ‘Quiet, you!’ came a harsh voice, along with the evil sound of a birch whip.

  But Nubia had seen the boy who had called out her name.

  ‘Porcius?’ she whispered, and the boy nodded.

  Nubia stared at Porcius in disbelief. The last time she had seen him in Ostia he had been a pudgy, self-confident boy who loved animals and kept mice for racing. He was thinner and paler, but what made him almost unrecognisable were the bruises and marks on his face. The left-hand side of his jaw was swollen and he had two spectacular black eyes.

  Suddenly Nubia was furious. Furious with men who would beat an eleven-year-old boy, steal little girls from their parents, force children to make carpets against their will.

  And she made a silent vow. From now on she would not be afraid. She would be angry.

  Lupus had been standing quietly throughout Magnus’s boasts because with each moment that passed Ursus unconsciously relaxed his grip a little more.

  Suddenly, Lupus wrenched himself free of the big man’s grasp and ran. He couldn’t go down the hill, for Magnus stood directly in his path, so he ran back along the slope, dodging among the pieces of the fallen Colossus.

  ‘Get him, Ursus!’ he heard Magnus yell. ‘Don’t let him escape!’

  Ursus was quick for such a big man, and the crunching hobnailed boots were coming up fast behind him. Lupus swerved and clambered into the gaping tunnel of the colossal arm. There was just enough light for him to see the places where the bronze had solidified in huge drips, like those on a wax candle. This was the inside, and never meant to be seen. The further he ran, the dimmer it became and once he stumbled on one of the drips of bronze. But he caught himself and ran on, for he could hear the ringing sound of hobnailed boots echoing in the vast bronze tunnel of the arm.

  When he reached the colossal hand, Lupus used the bronze drips to help him climb up into it. Pausing for a heartbeat, he looked into the hollow interior of the hand, with the smaller tunnels of the curved fingers. There! One of the fingers had a hole in its tip, he could see the violet sky showing through. Was he small enough to squeeze through the hole? He’d have to try.

  He turned quickly and backed into it on his stomach. Now he could see Ursus’s running shape silhouetted against the opening at the far end of the arm. Behind him his feet felt for the opening. Now they were out in the cool evening air. He wormed his way back, felt his knees kicking in space and the bronze, cold and rough on his thighs. And now Ursus was there, grunting and stretching and straining, blocking what remained of the light. But Lupus had squirmed further back into the hollow space of the colossal finger, just beyond Ursus’s reach.

  Suddenly Lupus was out, dangling at arm’s length from the statue’s middle finger. He looked down and his stomach twisted. He was at least twelve feet above the ground. He remembered the time he had fallen from an umbrella pine in Ostia and he felt his mouth go dry. But he had no choice. He let go.

  The fall jarred every bone in Lupus’s body, and as he scrambled to his feet, he felt a stab of pain in his right ankle. He knew it wasn’t broken but it twinged when he put his full weight on it. If he couldn’t outrun Ursus he would have to fight him. There was not a moment to be lost. Even now Ursus would be charging back the way he had come, ready to resume the pursuit.

  Lupus began to untie the knot in the leather belt around his waist. The belt could also serve as a sli
ng. Already he heard the thump of Ursus’s hobnailed boots as he jumped down from the far end of the arm. But where was Magnus? Quickly, quickly . . . Lupus’s fumbling fingers could not undo the knot in his belt. There. It was free. He scanned the ground for a stone, snatched one up, fitted it into the pocket of the sling.

  Now he could see Ursus coming straight towards him, charging along the dark bulk of the colossal arm.

  Lupus had one chance. He could not afford to miss.

  He quickly fitted the stone into the widest part of the belt and looped one end of the sling around the middle finger of his right hand. Then, holding the other end with the fingers of the same hand he whirled the sling until it hummed like a bee. Just pretend you’re aiming at a seagull, he told himself. The trick was to visualise exactly where you wanted the stone to strike. Lupus imagined the stone striking Ursus right in the middle of his forehead. Then he let go of the sling’s free end.

  Ursus seemed to slam into an invisible wall, then he staggered backwards and sank onto the ground. Unconscious. Maybe even dead. Jonathan had once told Lupus that a big stone will knock people out but a small stone can kill them. But he didn’t have time to check whether Ursus was dead or alive. And he didn’t have time to look for another stone, because Magnus was coming up fast out of the dusk, his short arms swinging and his little legs pumping. The sight was almost comical, but Lupus did not laugh. Even in the deepening violet light Lupus saw the gleam in the dwarf’s hand.

  It was a dagger.

  Gasping at the pain in his ankle, Lupus lurched towards the fallen head of the Colossus. He couldn’t outrun Magnus. Maybe he could outclimb him.

  The sun god’s head had settled so deeply into the earth that some of its wickedly pointed rays and part of the neck were buried in the ground. But here at the back of the neck was a crack, and Lupus was able to pull himself onto the cold rough surface of the bronze. Now he was scrambling up onto the head, over the jaw and along the flat incline of the cheek. In the whorls of the colossal ear, he found a cavity deep enough to offer shelter for a few moments while he tied his belt around his waist again. Even if Magnus threw the knife it couldn’t reach him here. But scuffing sounds told Lupus that Magnus was trying to follow him up onto the head.