‘That would be a good idea if we were certain he was headed for Athens,’ said Flavia, ‘but although they call this the Athens Road it leads to other places. Right, Atticus?’
‘Correct,’ he replied. He had wrapped the reins around his leather wristbands.
Jonathan looked up from the guidebook at some bushy green pines scrolling past on either side of the road. ‘It might have been somewhere around here,’ he said, ‘that Theseus met Sinis the Pine-Bender.’
‘Why do they call him Pine-Bender?’ asked Nubia.
Lupus grunted and stood up in the carriage. When he had their attention, he stretched out his arms and legs to make an X shape, wobbling a little as the carruca rocked. Then he twitched violently as if pulled from one side to the other, uttered a blood-curdling scream and fell to the wooden floor.
‘What is it?’ cried Nubia.
Jonathan snorted. ‘Lupus was just demonstrating Sinis’s modus operandi. He would catch helpless travellers, rob them and then kill them in a horrible way. First he would bend a pine tree on one side of the road and tie one arm and leg to its top. Then he would bend a pine tree from the other side of the road and tie their other arm and leg, and when he simultaneously let the two pine trees go—’
Lupus opened his eyes, sat up and nodded enthusiastically.
‘—they would be torn in two, right down the middle!’
‘Oh!’ cried Nubia, covering her ears with her hands. ‘That is terrible!’
Jonathan nodded. ‘They must have been tall pines,’ he said, ‘not these bushy ones . . . Oh, look there! Like those. Those are tall and flexible.’
He bent his head over the book again. ‘The village of Cromyon is around here, too. That’s where Theseus met the man-eating sow—’
‘What is sow?’ asked Nubia.
‘Female pig,’ said Flavia.
‘After he killed the man-eating sow,’ said Jonathan, ‘Theseus vanquished Sciron, another robber who pushed travellers off a cliff to the sea below, where his man-eating pet turtle would finish them off. Then there was Procrustes, an innkeeper with a special bed. If you were too short for this special bed, he stretched your arms and legs out of their sockets to make you longer. On the other hand, if you were too tall—’
Lupus stood up again and made chopping motions.
‘—he would chop off your feet.’
‘Top of your head, too, if necessary,’ said Atticus with a chuckle.
‘Don’t worry, Nubia,’ said Flavia, twisting round on her seat and looking down at them. ‘They’re just myths.’
Jonathan nodded. ‘I don’t think we’ll meet any axe-wielding innkeepers, and there’s no such thing as a man-eating sow.’
‘Are you certain there is not such a thing as a man-eating sow?’ said Nubia, pointing straight ahead.
They had passed the sanctuary of Isthmia, with its theatre and white marble race-course visible between a row of pines, and the sun was low in the west as they approached a low farmhouse set back from the side of the road. The plaster had been white once, but now it was grey and peeling. If it had not been for half a dozen chickens pecking in the dust around it, Lupus would have thought the building abandoned. Between the road and the farmhouse was a muddy fenced enclosure. Lupus could see a shaven-headed slave-boy throwing slops to several huge creatures on the other side of the wooden fence. The creatures in the pen were enormous pigs.
Tigris had run ahead to investigate these strange creatures but now he backed off, tail between his legs.
Atticus reined in the mules with a click of his tongue. As they all piled out of the carruca, the slave-boy looked at them in alarm, and then ran towards the house.
Lupus was the first to reach the pen. He uttered a low whistle. The pigs were huge. They were big as donkeys, though their legs were far shorter.
They all stood in silence for a few moments, watching the pigs snort and squeal as they fought over their slops.
‘You know,’ remarked Atticus, ‘I’ve heard there really are man-eating pigs. They develop a taste for human flesh. Throw a corpse in there and they’ll eat it all up.’
‘Ugh!’ said Flavia.
‘I wonder,’ mused Jonathan, ‘what would happen if you put a live but wounded person in the pen with pigs used to eating human flesh?’
‘Jonathan! What a horrible thought!’ said Flavia. ‘Being eaten alive by an enormous pig.’
At that moment, a sturdy old woman came swaying up the dirt path from the house. She wore a greasy apron over a voluminous rust-coloured stola and her grey hair was twisted around a polished cow horn. She held a hunk of brown bread in one hand.
‘You must be Atticus,’ she said in accented Latin. ‘You’ve been asking about me. I’m Aphrodite.’ She stopped and looked Flavia up and down. ‘I’d guess you’re the murdered man’s daughter.’
‘He’s not dead!’ cried Flavia.
‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’ Aphrodite tore at her bread with hard, toothless gums. ‘People say he was stabbed and strangled and finally beaten to death by a jealous husband.’
‘What?’ cried Flavia and looked at her friends in horror. ‘WHAT? No! That’s not what happened at all. There’s no jealous husband and pater’s not dead.’ She took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice calm. ‘But he is badly wounded and it seems he can’t remember anything from the past eight years.’
‘Oh dear.’ The old lady spat in the dust and made the sign against evil. ‘Sounds to me like a curse.’
‘Yes,’ cried Flavia, ‘and unless we find the man who did it we’ll never reverse it.’
‘Sorry I didn’t grab him when I had the chance,’ said the old woman, looking wistful.
‘Were you that close?’ asked Jonathan.
‘I was.’ The woman gestured with her piece of bread. ‘I was checking on my swine and I saw a flash of red and white over there. Under that poplar, where your black dog is sniffing. The white was his tunic fluttering in the breeze, and the red was a cloak bunched up around his neck. He looked like Adonis, fast asleep and waiting for his Aphrodite.’ She chuckled. ‘But his Aphrodite obviously wasn’t me. When I came closer he jumped up and looked around, all trapped and wild, like a weasel in a wine-press. It was then I noticed he was barefoot and that his wrists were tied behind him.’
‘I hear you chased him off,’ said Atticus.
‘Not quite!’ She laughed. ‘We stood staring at each other for a few moments. Then he went haring off down the road, his bare feet slapping and his legs pumping . . . Nice legs,’ she added. ‘Muscular but not too thick.’
There was a moment’s silence, broken only by a bird’s trill and Tigris’s steady barking from the foot of the poplar tree.
Suddenly Lupus remembered his portrait of Aristo. He stepped forward, extending his wax tablet.
‘What’s this?’ Aphrodite took the tablet and her beady eyes widened as she saw the portrait on the back. ‘Oh, yes,’ she gave a wheezing chuckle. ‘That’s him all right. That’s my sleeping Adonis.’
*
Jonathan looked around with interest as the carriage rattled over the deep ruts in the stone diolkos. He had been here twice before. The first time a month previously, when the ship Delphina had been transported from west to east, and the second time only a few days ago, when she had been rolled back to the Gulf of Corinth. On both occasions the diolkos had been swarming with slaves and ships and wagons. Now it was almost deserted, though he heard a splash and the cries of men off to his right. It was dusk and the last ship of the day had just crossed over the isthmus.
‘Say goodbye to civilisation,’ said Atticus, as they regained the dirt road.
‘What?’ said Jonathan.
‘We’re leaving the Roman world,’ said Atticus, ‘and we’re about to enter the Greek one.’
‘What do you mean, Atticus?’ Flavia frowned. ‘We’ve been in Greece for weeks.’
‘The diolkos marks the limit of Colonia Corinthiensis and of Roman influence,’ said At
ticus. ‘I don’t suppose you even noticed how many people speak Latin back there.’ Atticus chuckled as they shook their heads. ‘Half the people who live in Corinth are of Roman descent, or Phrygian, or Jewish. But that,’ he lifted his chin towards the landscape before them, ‘that’s proper Greece. Land of sheep and goats, brigands and robbers, and disreputable guest houses.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us that before?’ said Flavia.
‘Don’t you worry, Miss Flavia. Atticus is here to take care of you. And Flora, too.’
Jonathan looked down at the object Atticus was patting. ‘You call your sword “Flora”?’
‘She’s just a dagger,’ said Atticus with a grin, ‘though I did name her after an old girlfriend named Flora who had a tongue on her like a two-edged sword.’
‘I thought it was illegal to carry a sword,’ said Jonathan. ‘I mean, a dagger.’
‘In Rome, maybe, but it would be suicide not to carry one here in Greece. It’s even allowed back there in Corinth.’ He glanced up at the sky, dark blue and pricked with the first stars of evening. ‘But even Flora won’t help us,’ he said, ‘if we’re caught around here after dark. We’d better find a place to stay.’
‘How about that place,’ said Nubia, pointing towards a two-storey building further up the coast. ‘That could be a disreputable guest house.’
They all laughed.
‘Don’t laugh,’ said Jonathan, looking up from his guidebook. ‘I think Nubia’s right. This guidebook lists the Diolkos Tavern but doesn’t give it even one tower.’
‘Ugh!’ said Flavia, as they stepped into their bedroom an hour later. ‘That was awful: having to eat that gritty porridge with all those men staring at us.’
‘Only you didn’t actually eat any of your gritty porridge,’ said Jonathan, dropping his knapsack on the large low bed.
Behind him, Lupus groaned and pinched his nostrils.
‘He’s right,’ said Jonathan. ‘It smells terrible in here!’
‘It is most small and dark,’ said Nubia.
‘Oh no!’ wailed Flavia, holding up her flickering oil-lamp. ‘There’s only one bed!’
‘Don’t worry, Miss Flavia,’ said Atticus. ‘The bed’s fairly big. If the four of you lie sideways, you’ll all fit on. Tigris and I will curl up here by the door. I’m used to sleeping on my cloak.’
‘If we lie sideways our feet will hang over the side of the mattress,’ said Flavia in a small voice.
‘Well then,’ said Jonathan, setting his bow and arrows on the floor, ‘I’m sure the innkeeper would be happy to chop off our feet at the ankles so we fit.’ He walked to a dark corner of the room and stared down at a ceramic pot. ‘No wonder it stinks in here,’ he said. ‘I don’t think anyone’s emptied the vespasian for days. It’s full to the brim.’
‘Ugh!’ Flavia shuddered.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Atticus. He took a few steps across the room, set his own lamp down on a small table and elbowed one of the wooden shutters open. Then he carefully lifted the pot and tossed the contents out the window. They heard it splash below and someone shout angrily in Greek.
‘Oops!’ said Atticus. ‘Didn’t think anyone would be outside after dark!’ He set the pot back down in the corner. ‘Do you girls want to use it first, while we step out in the hall for a moment?’
Flavia nodded and sighed. ‘Yes please, Atticus,’ she reached into her own pack for her sponge-stick. ‘We’ll tell you when we’ve finished.’ When the bedroom door had shut behind them, she sighed. ‘Oh, Nubia, I’m so tired. I just know I’ll sleep like Hypnos tonight.’
Flavia did not sleep like Hypnos.
When the fleas were not biting and the spiders were not dropping onto her face and the sour-smelling straw mattress was not digging into her back, she kept seeing the image of her father’s body and her tutor standing wild-eyed over him.
She turned onto her left side and scratched a flea bite. Her father had only ever shown Aristo kindness. Why had he done this terrible thing?
She knew she was ignoring at least one important clue. Maybe more. She cursed silently. She had missed a chance earlier in the day. She should have gone to Aristo’s parents’ house in Corinth. Helen’s slaves had been there looking for him, and had found nothing, but she might have discovered something they missed. Maybe he had told his parents something or they had seen him acting strangely.
Flavia rolled onto her back again. Something else wasn’t right. Something in the back of her mind half emerged and she tugged at it as a robin tugs a worm from the soil. Finally she had it. The curse.
Why would one person curse another and then try to kill him? You either cursed someone or killed them, but not both. Yet that was what Aristo must have done, because there was no doubt he was guilty.
Suddenly she heard Tigris growl low in his throat. The door creaked and Flavia lifted her head to see a vertical sliver of light appear in the darkness. Someone was opening the door to their room!
She felt Nubia’s hand clutch her own and she heard Tigris growl again – a deeper, more menacing growl. Then Atticus said something in Greek and kicked the door shut and the thread of light was extinguished. Silence on the other side of the door. Then footsteps going away.
‘Don’t worry,’ came Atticus’s deep voice in the darkness. ‘Whoever he was, he won’t be back. Go back to sleep.’
Flavia felt relief, then nausea. This was madness. Four children, a big puppy and an old Greek sailor trying to catch a fugitive in a country they barely knew. What had she been thinking? She should have stayed with her father and used his gold to hire someone to find Aristo.
Then she remembered what Jonathan had said earlier that day. What if all the mysteries she had solved in the past year had been a preparation for this one? If she could work out the motive for the crime, it might help her find Aristo. She would make him tell where he had hidden the lead strip so that they could undo the curse and restore her father’s memory. Then her father would be himself again and they could go home.
She knew she had to find the motive for Aristo’s attack on her father, but no solutions came. Only the terrible image of him, lying like a corpse on a bier.
They rose before dawn. In the torchlit stables of the Diolkos Tavern, Nubia helped Atticus harness the mules to the carriage. The mules wore leather chest-straps which were attached to the long stick – called a tongue – that pulled the carruca. Helen had named the animals after her four favourite spices: pepper, cumin, coriander and cinnamon. Piper was the leader and Nubia’s favourite. He was dark brown flecked with grey and very intelligent. Yoked to the wooden tongue next to him was Cuminum, a golden brown mule with long eyelashes and a docile temperament. Coriandrum and Cinnamum were the two following mules. Both were placid and patient. Coriandrum was a slightly lighter brown than Cinnamum, and had a white blaze on his forehead.
Tigris had found Aristo’s scent and soon the mules were trotting briskly after him. The beaten earth road wound along the coast not much above sea level, sometimes rising and sometimes falling. The sun would not rise for nearly an hour, but the sky and sea were already full of a deep vibrant blue light.
They had passed four milestones when the sun pushed up over the horizon to their right, making a molten trail of dazzling light on the sea. Now every rock and blade of grass cast a long shadow and Nubia felt an immediate delicious warmth where the sunlight touched her. Her stomach growled so she undid one of the napkins Helen had prepared for them and passed around pieces of bread spread with soft white cheese.
Tigris had been trotting ahead, nose down, when a large flat rock suddenly took his interest. The carriage rolled past him and Atticus pulled on the reins and they all turned their heads to look back at the big puppy. Tigris gave the flat rock a thorough sniff, then followed his nose across the road and through wildflower-dotted grasses to a nearby olive grove.
‘Tigris has found Aristo!’ cried Flavia, jumping down from the cart and staring across the road. Her piece of bread and
cheese was still in her hand, uneaten. ‘Hide behind the cart everybody, so he doesn’t recognise us.’
The sun pulled free of the horizon and Nubia felt its warmth on her back as she peered over the side of the carruca towards the olive grove. In the pine trees nearby a hundred chaffinches were having a lively discussion, and from somewhere behind them came the soft clank of goat bells. The goats appeared a moment later, swarming around the cart. To Nubia, they smelled exactly like the cheese she had just been eating. She glanced down into the baleful yellow eyes of a she-goat.
Suddenly Tigris appeared from the olive grove on the far side of the road. He was trotting purposefully towards them with something in his mouth.
The goats scattered, jostling each other in their eagerness to get away from the approaching dog. They clanked back the way they had come, and Jonathan stepped from behind the carriage to take the object from Tigris.
‘What have you got, boy?’ he said, taking a bite of his cheese and bread.
‘Snake!’ cried Nubia, starting back. ‘It is a snake!’
‘No,’ said Jonathan through his mouthful, ‘it’s a piece of green cord.’
‘Oh!’ said Nubia. ‘It is part of the curtain rope they used to tie up Aristo.’
Lupus nodded vigorously.
‘So it is,’ said Jonathan. ‘I thought it looked familiar. Good dog.’ He tossed Tigris his last bite of bread and cheese. The big puppy caught and swallowed it in one gulp, then sat waiting attentively for another.
Flavia took the cord and then dropped it. ‘Ugh! It’s soggy!’
‘I think it is being chewed,’ said Nubia, examining the cord. ‘Here look like tooth marks . . .’
Lupus suddenly pointed at the goats and then pretended to gnaw something between his two wrists.
Nubia nodded. ‘Yes! The goats.’
‘Of course!’ cried Jonathan. ‘Goats will eat almost anything. Aristo must have stretched his arms out behind him and let one of them chew through the cord.’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 132