‘I’m sorry, Miss Flavia,’ said Atticus. ‘I went to ask the authorities if they’d seen your fugitive. Or his brother. They made me wait and I must have dozed off. It turned out to be a wasted trip, they haven’t seen anything.’
‘Oh Atticus, I’m sorry,’ said Flavia. ‘I forgot you were awake all night. Why don’t you sleep now? Nubia can drive. Or Lupus. The road is flat.’ She added.
‘I would love a little nap,’ he said. ‘I think Nubia can handle the team. But only as far as the mountains, mind. Then the road gets tricky as I recall.’
As the road began to climb up through a landscape of pines and grey stony hills, Nubia glanced over her shoulder at Atticus, snoring gently on his pile of blankets on the floor of the carruca. Lupus grinned; he was sitting beside her at the front.
‘Shall we wake him?’ Nubia asked Flavia. ‘As he requested?’
‘These are hardly the mountains, yet,’ said Flavia. ‘Let him sleep a little longer. If you’re still happy driving, that is.’
‘I am most happy driving,’ said Nubia. She gazed at the puffy white clouds blanketing the tops of the mountain range ahead, and wondered if the road would take them up that high. She had never been inside a cloud before.
Jonathan glanced up from his guidebook. ‘This is interesting,’ he said. ‘A thousand years ago a young goatherd wandered into the cleft of Delphi with his flock. He smelled a wonderful sweet smell and started to prophesy. That was when people first realised there was something special about Delphi. Some of the old gods occupied it first but then Apollo decided he wanted it. Oh, you’ll like this, Nubia. There’s a huge snake in this story.’
‘Of all creatures I do not like the snake,’ said Nubia, without turning around. They had left the ruts behind and she needed to concentrate on guiding the mules along the bumpy road of hard-packed earth.
‘Well,’ said Jonathan. ‘You certainly would not have liked this snake. It was called Python and it lived in a cave at Delphi. Apollo killed it when he took the sanctuary for his own and the priestess who gives the oracle is called the Pythia after it.’
‘Is she having snaky hair like Medusa or the Kindly Ones?’ asked Nubia.
‘No,’ said Jonathan. ‘According to this, she’s just a priestess who’s been specially trained to give the oracle.’
‘What is oracle?’
‘Sometimes when people want important advice or need help,’ said Flavia, ‘they ask the gods. Like Orestes when he wanted to know how to stop the Kindly Ones from pursuing him. Or Oedipus when he wanted to know if the King and Queen of Corinth were really his parents.’
Jonathan turned a papyrus page. ‘This says the word “oracle” can refer to the person who gives it, the place it’s given or the prophecy itself.’
‘But oracle did not help Oedipus,’ said Nubia, keeping her eyes on the road. It was climbing more steeply now.
‘That’s right,’ said Jonathan. ‘It says here that the Pythia’s answers can be ambiguous.’
‘What is ambiguous?’ asked Nubia without turning around.
‘Oh, I know!’ said Flavia. ‘It’s when something can mean one of two things but it’s not clear which. Like when Xerxes asked the Pythia if he should attack another country and she said if he attacked, then a great kingdom would be destroyed and so he attacked and was defeated because – you see – it was his own kingdom that was destroyed.’
‘It wasn’t Xerxes,’ said Jonathan.
‘Yes it was,’ said Flavia. ‘I’m sure it was Xerxes.’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Jonathan. ‘It was a king of Lydia called Croesus. It’s right here in the book: “Before Croesus sought advice about his invasion of Persia, he wanted to test the oracles. So he sent envoys to all the famous ones. On a certain day that had been agreed beforehand, each of the envoys went to a different oracle and asked what Croesus was doing on that day.”’
‘And?’ said Flavia.
‘Only two got it right and the Pythia was one: “King Croesus,” she said, “is cooking tortoise and lamb in a bronze cauldron.”’
‘That’s what he was doing?’ asked Flavia, her grey eyes wide.
Jonathan nodded.
Flavia shivered. ‘Amazing.’
Jonathan snorted. ‘But then – when he finally asks his really important question – about going to war – she gives him that ambiguous message.’
Next to Nubia at the front, Lupus shook his head and looked up at the heavens, as if to say: Strange.
‘“But despite her ambiguous answers”,’ read Jonathan, ‘“people still flock to ask her questions and on the seventh day of every month you will find a long queue outside the Temple of Apollo.”’
‘Today’s the seventh day of the month,’ murmured Flavia. ‘Or is it the sixth?’
Lupus suddenly turned to look at Jonathan and Flavia.
‘What is it, Lupus?’ said Jonathan.
Lupus pulled out his wax tablet and wrote on it and showed it to them.
‘Of course there’s a temple of Apollo at Delphi,’ said Flavia. ‘Delphi is Apollo’s main sanctuary.’
‘That’s right,’ said Jonathan, ‘it’s the centre of Apollo’s cult. The centre of the world, in fact. Did you know you can see the navel of the world at Delphi? It’s called the omphalos.’
‘Why do you ask, Lupus?’ said Flavia. ‘Do you think it’s a clue?’
But before Lupus could reply, the carruca suddenly juddered and swung to the left. Nubia felt something in the harness give way and now the mules were going forward and the carruca was slowing down. The reins were suddenly taut in her hands and she knew that somehow the harness had come loose. As she felt herself being pulled off her seat she dropped the reins and commanded Piper to stop. He tossed his head and snorted and came to a halt but now it was too late. Completely free of the mules, the carruca had begun to roll backwards and on the steep slope it was gathering speed. Nubia heard screams behind her – Flavia and Nikos – and when she looked back she understood why.
The carruca was rolling straight for a precipice.
Jonathan thought quickly.
There was no mechanism to stop the carriage. Without the mules to make it speed up or slow down they were just a wood and wicker box on wheels. Wheels! How could he lock the wheels? He had to wedge them with something. He quickly knelt beside Atticus, still snoring among his blankets, and looked under the bench, where they kept the awning and other equipment. He pulled out one of the pine torches they had used the night before. It was as thick as his forearm and about a yard long.
‘Hang on!’ he shouted. Gripping the torch with both hands, he pulled his arms back, then drove it forward through the wicker side of the carruca.
Instantly one of the spokes caught it and jammed it against a timber in the side. The wheel stopped and the carruca swung violently round the pivot of the stationary wheel, scattering gravel and dust. Nubia cried out as she was almost thrown from her ledge at the front.
‘Lupus!’ shouted Jonathan, hanging on to the end of his torch, ‘Do your side!’ He could sense his torch beginning to splinter. If it broke, they would start rolling again, right over the edge.
Lupus used a second torch to spear his side of the carriage, and at last the carruca stopped straining towards the drop.
In the silence that followed, they could hear a raven cawing and the sound of something crashing down the mountainside. Jonathan peered over Nubia’s trembling shoulder and saw a boulder leaping down and down, getting smaller and smaller. They were only inches from the edge of the precipice.
‘What on earth?’ Atticus sat up, dishevelled and blinking in the back of the carruca. ‘What happened?’
‘We almost went over the cliff,’ whispered Flavia, ‘but Jonathan saved us.’
‘Out!’ cried Atticus. ‘Everybody out of the carriage for Neptune’s sake! I told you to wake me when we reached the mountains.’
‘We were talking,’ said Flavia, ‘and we didn’t notice.’
‘
And harness comes loose,’ said Nubia.
They all piled out of the carruca and Jonathan had to hold on to its side for a moment, until his knees stopped shaking.
While Nubia went to get the mules, the rest of them carefully removed the torches from the spokes and with the help of Atticus they pulled the carruca to a level place on the safe side of the road.
Nubia was speaking softly to the mules and leading them back. They still wore their leather chest-straps but the harness trailed in the dirt behind them. Jonathan took one of the leather straps and examined it.
‘It’s been cut,’ he called to Atticus. ‘So has this one. This was no accident. Somebody cut every strap of the harness.’
Atticus joined Jonathan and nodded grimly as he fingered the leather. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘These have been deliberately cut, and so have the straps attaching them to the wooden tongue. Someone’s trying to stop us.’
‘Aristo!’ said Flavia. ‘Aristo must have done it this morning when we were having breakfast in Thebes. He knew we were getting too close.’
‘Can you repair the harness?’ asked Jonathan.
‘We could have been killed!’ said Flavia.
‘I could tie knots in the straps,’ said Atticus. ‘But on this road I’d feel safer with a new harness.’
‘There are stables in the village up ahead,’ said Jonathan. ‘In a few miles the road becomes too narrow for carriages anyway. The guidebook says you can hire mules for the ascent to Delphi.’
‘We don’t need to hire mules,’ said Flavia. ‘We have our own. Atticus, will you stay here and guard the carruca while Nikos goes to the village to get someone from one of the stables to come look at it? If they repair it we can pick it up on our way back. Meanwhile, the four of us will ride the mules up to Delphi. Today’s the day of the oracle and I’m sure Aristo will be there. If we don’t go now, we might miss him.’
‘You want me to go to the village alone?’ asked Nikos in a small voice.
‘You can share one of our mules as far as the village,’ said Flavia. ‘On the way back, you can keep Tigris with you as your protector. Is that all right, Jonathan?’
‘Yes,’ said Jonathan. ‘That’s fine.’
‘That sounds like a plan, Miss Flavia,’ said Atticus, ‘but where will me and Nikos and Tigris meet you once we’ve dealt with the carriage?’
‘Do you know any good taverns or guest-houses in Delphi?’
‘Don’t know. It’s been a long time since I was last here. Back then I stayed in the campsite on the slopes below Athena’s sanctuary. Couldn’t afford to stay in a proper inn.’
Jonathan reached into the back of the carruca. ‘The guidebook recommends an inn,’ he said. ‘Here it is: a high-quality hospitium beside the famous Castalian Spring, right on the main road.’
‘Good,’ said Flavia, looking over his shoulder. ‘It’s got the courtyard symbol so it must have a kitchen and stables.’ She looked at Nikos and Atticus. ‘I’ll try to reserve rooms and we’ll all meet there for dinner. Does it have a name, Jonathan?’
He nodded. ‘The Castalian Inn.’
‘Clouds are like fog,’ said Nubia over her shoulder as they emerged from a cloud and began the descent to Delphi. ‘Just fog.’
‘What did you think they’d be like?’ said Flavia, who was riding behind her.
The four mules were roped together in a line with Nubia leading the way on Piper. Flavia followed on Cuminum and the boys took up the rear on Cinnamum and Coriandrum. Like the girls, they wore their packs and used blankets as saddles.
‘I thought clouds would be sharp when you enter and exit them,’ said Nubia. ‘Like egg whites when Alma whips them up stiff. But they are fuzzy and damp.’
As they descended the narrow rocky road, they met more and more people coming the opposite way. A Roman lady carried by a four-man litter stopped to tell them that the Pythia was in fine form. They showed her the portrait of Aristo but she hadn’t seen him. However, many other Greek pilgrims nodded vigorously when Lupus showed his portrait, and they pointed back the way they had come.
‘Apollo! Apollo!’ said several of them.
‘Not far away,’ said a large man on a tiny donkey. ‘He is there! He is there!’
‘According to this book we should have arrived by now,’ said Jonathan, as their mules rounded a bend in the narrow road.
‘Aaah!’ cried Lupus, and pointed up.
Nubia followed his pointing finger and a thrill of awe made her shiver. Above the tops of the tallest pines and almost touching the low clouds was the colossal head and shoulders of a bronze giant.
The towering statue showed a beautiful young man with smooth cheeks and curly hair. His eyes seemed to gaze over all of Greece. It was Apollo, the Far-Shooter, and he looked exactly like Lupus’s portrait of Aristo.
‘Oh Pollux, Pollux, Pollux!’ cursed Flavia. ‘All those people thought we meant Apollo, not Aristo. I thought we almost had him!’
‘Well,’ said Jonathan. ‘We’re here now, so we may as well look for him.’
‘Of course we’ll look for him,’ she snapped. Her bottom was sore from Cuminum’s bumping and although she wasn’t hungry, she felt hollow and dizzy.
Jonathan sighed. ‘Anyway, that’s the sanctuary of Athena down there,’ he said, pointing towards the slope on the left of the road, ‘where you can see the little round temple and the big gymnasium.’
‘Behold the deep valley and far-distant sea,’ murmured Nubia.
‘And this,’ said Jonathan, gesturing towards a roofed-off section of the rockface on the other side of the road, ‘must be the Castalian Spring. Any murderers who wash here are cleansed of their pollution.’
‘Stop!’ cried Flavia. ‘Let’s see if anyone has seen a murderer being cleansed of pollution. Nubia! How do I stop this thing?’
Nubia pulled up Piper, and Cuminum and the other mules automatically slowed to a halt, too. In the sudden silence Flavia could hear the musical trickle of water off to her right.
‘Help,’ said Flavia, a moment later. She had swung one of her legs over the mule and was now on her stomach, looking over the creature’s back with her legs dangling over one side.
‘We’ve got you,’ came Jonathan’s voice from behind her. ‘Just slide down . . .’ She felt his hands on one leg and Nubia’s on the other so she let herself slip off the mule.
‘Ow!’ she cried as her feet jarred the ground. ‘These beasts are taller than they look.’ She limped towards the roofed spring house and peered in through the columns. ‘I can see steps leading down to basins cut in the rock,’ she said, ‘but there’s nobody here.’ She turned towards them. ‘We’ll have to ask in the sanctuary. Let’s find that hospitium you were telling us about and see if they’ll take these mules. I am not riding one more inch.’
Lupus grunted and pointed.
‘You’re right, Lupus,’ said Jonathan. ‘It must be that wooden building just behind those pine trees.
‘Good,’ said Flavia. ‘I hope all those people we saw going the other way means they have some vacancies.’
*
‘Yes, please!’ cried a shopkeeper in Latin. ‘Buy your votive gifts here! Figures in bronze, silver and gold. Clay, too, if your purse is flat.’
Half an hour earlier, they had stabled their mules and reserved two rooms at the Castalian Inn. Flavia had given her friends only as much time as they needed to drop their knapsacks and use the latrine before hurrying them up a well-beaten path through the pines and olives to the temenos.
Emerging from the trees, they all stopped to stare at the sanctuary spreading up the steep slope to their right. In the pearly light of an overcast afternoon they saw hundreds of statues and dozens of temples. Dominating them all was the colossal bronze statue of Apollo.
Now, as they passed through a row of Roman-looking shops which flanked the approach to the sanctuary, they were greeted by cries from the shopkeepers.
‘Dream garlands!’ called one of the shopkeepers f
rom his wide doorway beyond the columns. ‘Made of sacred bay leaves for lucky dreams! Get your dream garlands here!’
‘Guidebooks and maps!’ cried the shopkeeper next to him in a husky voice. ‘Lists of questions to ask the oracle. Descriptions of every monument. Comedies and tragedies.’
‘Love potions! Curse tablets!’ cried a female shopkeeper. ‘Make him love you and curse his girlfriend! Get them here!’
‘Hot sausages! Hot spiced sausages!’ The owner of a cook-shop came out from between two columns rolling sizzling sausages in an iron pan. ‘Hot sausages!’
‘Oh, Flavia, please for the love of God,’ whispered Jonathan. ‘They smell so good and I’m starving.’
Flavia bought four spiced sausages – each wrapped in a bay leaf – and was handing them out when a cheerful voice said, ‘Hello, children! You want guide to the sanctuary? I know everything. I be your personal guide for only one silver coin. I am Mystagogus.’
He was a cheerful young man of about Aristo’s age.
‘Thank you, Mystagogus,’ said Flavia, taking a tiny bite of her hot sausage, ‘but we’re in a hurry. We don’t want a tour. We want to find a fugitive.’
‘I help you find fugitive,’ said the youth. He had round cheeks, a snub nose and coarse wavy hair the colour of old straw. ‘I am Mystagogus. I speak the Latin very good,’ he said. ‘I answer all your questions. I help you find all fugitives.’ He showed his dimples and Flavia was reminded of the statue of a laughing faun she had once seen.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you can answer a question then you can be our guide.’
The young man raised his pale eyebrows at Jonathan and said, ‘This one is your sister? Girlfriend, maybe? Very bold young Roman girl.’
Jonathan almost choked on his mouthful of sausage.
‘Where,’ said Flavia, ignoring his remarks, ‘is the fugitive who tried to kill my father?’
The smile faded from the youth’s round face. ‘This I cannot tell you. This is question for the Pythia. But today she has very long queue and it is now late in the day.’
‘If you can’t answer my question, then you can’t be our guide.’ Flavia hooked her arm through Nubia’s and pushed past him.
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 136