In front of them stood a group of about twenty turbanned men, staring up at the cult statue and discussing it with expansive hand gestures. As they turned and started to move back towards the entrance, Flavia saw that the colossal statue was reflected by a shallow pool of water at its base. There were one or two other suppliants there, including a kneeling man. He had his back to them, but Flavia could see he wore a white tunic and that his hair was the colour of bronze. She heard Nubia’s sharp intake of breath.
The kneeling man was not wearing his red cloak but she knew immediately that it was Aristo. She had caught up with him at last.
Flavia looked around. There was no altar here for him to cling to so he could not seek sanctuary. She would ask the priests to seize him and deliver him to the authorities. Here in the House of the Maiden he would finally face her, his accuser, just as the Pythia prophesied.
But she could not see a priest and the smell of incense was making her feel sick. Suddenly she heard a cry of alarm which echoed in the vast space above. A man in a red cloak had just appeared from behind the statue’s massive base.
As the figure moved forward, splashing through the shallow pool towards them, she saw Aristo rise from his knees to his feet and she heard him cry out again in terror.
The man coming towards him was himself.
For a moment Flavia’s mind was as blank as a freshly pumiced piece of parchment. How could Aristo be confronting himself?
Then the Aristo who had been kneeling turned and ran, and Flavia saw at once that he was not Aristo. He was taller and thinner and his hair frizzy rather than curly. The turbanned men scattered before him and as he blundered within arm’s length of Flavia she saw the terror in his eyes and caught an acrid whiff of sweat mixed with fear.
The man with the red cloak – the real Aristo – was running through the shallow pool now, his feet shattering the reflected image of the goddess. Someone shouted in Greek and a few of the turbanned men turned to intercept him. Aristo knocked them aside. As he charged towards Flavia and Nubia his eyes did not even flicker their way. All his concentration was focused on the man he was pursuing, his brother Dion.
‘Stop him!’ someone was shouting in Greek. ‘Stop him!’
Aristo was within arm’s length of them when suddenly Flavia saw Megara step forward.
Aristo went flying headlong, sliding along the polished floor of the temple.
‘Run, Dion! Run!’ screamed Megara, scrambling to her feet. Aristo was on his feet, too. He shot Megara a furious look. Then he was off again, running fast, arms pumping, red cloak flapping. Megara started to run after them, but Nubia caught her arm.
‘No!’ cried Nubia fiercely, swinging Megara round and flinging her back down onto the marble floor. ‘Leave him alone!’ Then she was off, running towards the bright doorway after Aristo and his brother.
Flavia stared, then followed Nubia through the huge doorway, between the massive columns, down the marble steps towards the round temple of Rome and Augustus. She heard screams and turned to see the crowds on her left part to make way for the running men.
She ran down the steps and turned to keep up with Nubia, who had doubled back and was weaving in and out of statues and steles, heading back towards the entrance of the Acropolis.
Flavia passed startled faces on her left and right, and almost tripped over a bleating lamb, but regained her balance in time to see Lupus waiting at the base of the colossal Athena.
‘Where are they?’ she cried, when she reached him. ‘Which way have they gone?’ She skidded to a stop on the marble path.
‘Unnggh!’ grunted Lupus and pointed towards the entrance of the Acropolis.
Flavia turned just in time to see Nubia’s dark head disappearing among the crowds by the monumental entrance gate. But Nubia did not go through the gate and down the ramp. Instead she veered left again and disappeared between the elegant Ionic columns of a small temple.
‘Come on, Lupus!’ cried Flavia, and a few moments later they stood panting before a marble slab near the little temple. The altar was still dripping with blood from the evening sacrifice and a dark plume of smoke rose up from it. The priest who had performed the ritual stood to one side of the altar, his fingers buried in the glistening entrails of the animal. His head was lifted and turned towards the retaining wall of the Acropolis.
Flavia followed his gaze and saw Dion crouched on top of the wall. She knew that beyond this wall was a sheer drop of maybe a hundred feet or more onto jagged rocks. Between the altar and the parapet, Aristo stood panting, his knife in his hand. Nubia stood a few paces behind him.
Dion was muttering in Greek, both hands up, his eyes full of fear.
For a moment, the two brothers formed a strange frozen tableau against the pink backdrop of the evening sky.
Suddenly Flavia understood the Greek words Dion was repeating: ‘Forgive me! Forgive me!’ His eyes were red and swollen with weeping.
Aristo shook his head and advanced towards his brother.
Dion glanced over the side and then – without a sound – he jumped.
As Dion leapt from the Acropolis, a woman screamed. Flavia turned to see Megara slump to the ground in a faint.
‘Don’t bother with her!’ Flavia shouted to the priest. ‘Stop that man in the red cloak! He’s a murderer! Get him!’
Then she gasped as Aristo heaved himself up onto the wall and disappeared over the side, too.
Nubia was at the parapet now, and Flavia ran to join her. She looked down, expecting to see two broken bodies on the rocks far below. But at this part of the wall there was only a six-foot scramble over slippery boulders past a roofed sanctuary built into the rock, and down to a path. The path forked left to a huge theatre and right towards the Areopagus. The red light of the setting sun made the tall cypress trees throw long purple shadows across the rocky ground so that at first she could not see Aristo or his brother.
Then she saw the two running men: Aristo and his long shadow pursuing his brother down the path towards the right, towards the Areopagus.
Suddenly Nubia was on the wall beside Flavia.
‘Nubia!’ cried Flavia. ‘What are you doing? He’ll kill you, too!’
But Nubia had already jumped down and was scrambling over pale boulders to the path.
Now Lupus was on the parapet, too.
‘No, Lupus!’ cried Flavia. ‘You can’t run with your bad ankle!’ She looked back at the priest, who was fanning Megara with his hand. ‘Tell them what happened. Tell him to get help!’
Lupus only hesitated for a moment. Then he nodded and he eased himself back off the parapet. ‘I’d better save Nubia,’ said Flavia, clambering ungracefully onto the parapet. ‘Wish me luck!’
Lupus gave her a thumbs up.
Flavia sent up a silent prayer to Castor and Pollux. Then she jumped.
As Nubia ran down the slope of the Acropolis, she was intensely aware of everything around her: the sound of someone’s sandals slapping on the path behind her, a bird’s dusk warning cry, the tang of wood smoke and roasting meat from the evening sacrifices, and the two men running down the shadow-striped hill before her.
Dion was making straight for a green hill with a jumble of smooth boulders and painted shrines. Aristo was not far behind him. There were pine trees down there and the recent rain had brought out lush green grass. She saw Dion disappear around the far side of the hill.
She heard her own breath as she rounded a pine tree on the steep incline of the slope. Then she saw the smooth marble wall of a sanctuary and beyond it the top of a cave in the craggy rock face. She remembered the prophecy: ‘He will receive the verdict in the Cave of the Kindly Ones.’ She wasn’t sure what a verdict was, but she knew this must be the cave.
Although it was sunset, the barred bronze doors of the sanctuary gate were still open. Through its arch, Nubia could see that Dion had fallen on his knees before a statue of a woman. He was sobbing uncontrollably and talking to the statue in Greek.
Then he turned and his eyes widened again and he ran. A tree blocked Nubia’s view for a moment, but as she moved into the sanctuary she saw Aristo pausing before the statue of the woman, too, then moving off after Dion.
Nubia glanced round for help, but the sanctuary seemed deserted. There appeared to be no cult temple. There was only the cave, like a silently screaming mouth in the face of the rocky hill.
Nubia ran towards the cave mouth and then stopped to look at the painted marble statue which Dion had worshipped. The statue depicted a woman wearing a short fluttering tunic and holding a bronze torch which flickered with real flames, thin and pale in the pink light of dusk. Up close, Nubia could see that the Fury was beautiful, with large eyes, smooth skin and parted lips. There were no snakes in her hair and none crawling on her arms.
Nubia remembered something Atticus had told them about the sanctuary of the Furies: Anyone who enters will go out of their mind with terror. Then she knew where the snakes would be.
She turned and stepped towards the cave entrance. There, as she had expected, writhed a dozen snakes, eyes bright as rubies and forked tongues tasting the evening air.
If she wanted to help Aristo, she would have to follow him into that cave full of snakes and madness and terror and death.
‘Stop, Nubia!’ she heard Flavia gasp behind her. ‘Don’t go in there! That’s the Cave of the Kindly Ones. You’ll go mad in there!’
‘But I must,’ whispered Nubia to herself. ‘I must.’
Flavia cursed as she saw Nubia disappear into the black mouth of the cave.
Then she took a deep breath and stepped forward.
‘Oh!’ she squealed, as the last of the snakes poured themselves down into a small pit at one side. She stood with her hand pressed against her chest and murmured a quick prayer to Castor and Pollux, and to Athena, whose beautiful wise image was still clear in her mind.
The prayer seemed to help. The blood no longer roared in her ears and now she could hear shouts and cries deeper in the cave. She put out her hand to steady herself and her fingertips encountered stone, cool and smooth.
Rounding a curve in the narrow corridor she saw Nubia standing in the doorway of a cylindrical room. It was shaped like the inside of a leather scroll case, with a high, circular ceiling, a curving wall and torches flaming in wall brackets. Flavia came closer and saw that at the centre of this room stood a cube of marble. It was an altar, still bloody from an earlier sacrifice. Circling this altar – half-crouched and with their eyes fixed on each other – were Aristo and Dion.
Dion was weeping and repeating a phrase and even though he spoke in Greek Flavia understood him. ‘Forgive me, brother,’ he was saying. ‘I didn’t mean to kill you.’
With that one phrase – I didn’t mean to kill you – all the pieces of the mosaic suddenly fell together in Flavia’s mind: Dion’s panic, Aristo’s anger, the red leather sandals, the cloak, the knife, Tryphosa and Megara, even the rustling bushes on the night of their last dinner in Cenchrea. Flavia understood what must have happened the night her father was stabbed.
The revelation made her gasp. The answer had been there all along, as clear as a painted fresco on the wall. She had been so blind. So had the rest of them. Only Nubia had sensed the truth, and Megara, who had all the facts.
Dion was muttering to himself in Greek, his voice hoarse from screaming, tears running down his face, his arms extended as if to ward off something terrible.
‘Be quiet!’ Flavia shouted in Latin and was surprised by the sound of authority in her voice.
The brothers stopped circling each other and turned their heads to look at her.
‘I don’t know what he’s babbling about,’ Aristo said to Flavia. ‘But I didn’t do it. He did it. Nubia believes me, don’t you?’
Nubia nodded.
‘So do I,’ said Flavia. ‘But neither of you – be quiet, Dion!’ She took a deep breath. ‘You each think you know what happened, but you’re both wrong. Nobody here knows the whole truth.’ As Flavia squeezed past Nubia, she took her friend’s hand and pulled her into the cylindrical room.
Then she shut the heavy bronze door behind her and heard the bolt fall emphatically outside. ‘Nobody knows the whole truth,’ she repeated, ‘and we’re not leaving here until we’ve found it.’
‘Flavia, you fool, you’ve locked us in!’ snapped Aristo.
‘Hello, Aristo. It’s nice to see you, too. I’m sure the priests will open the door at dawn,’ she said. ‘Or even sooner. Until then, sit down! And give me that knife.’ She stepped confidently forward, her hand extended.
‘I wasn’t going to use it,’ muttered Aristo. ‘I just wanted to give him a fright.’ He extended the knife handle first and she took it with a silent prayer of thanks. It was a crude wooden-handled shepherd’s knife.
Flavia tried to keep her voice steady. ‘Where’s your other knife?’ she asked him. ‘The one with the boar’s-head handle?’
‘At my parents’ house in Corinth,’ he said. ‘Along with the rest of my things.’
Dion was still sobbing to himself in Greek.
‘Speak Latin!’ commanded Flavia, then glanced at Aristo. ‘I have a good Greek teacher but I’m still not fluent. And sit down! Sit on the bench and listen! You, too, Aristo.’
Dion and Aristo obediently sat on semicircular marble benches opposite one another.
‘So,’ she said to Dion, ‘you killed Aristo. Your own brother.’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ he sobbed. ‘By the gods I never meant to kill him.’
‘Your brother isn’t dead. He’s alive. Look!’ Flavia thumped Aristo hard.
‘Ow!’ Aristo scowled up at her, rubbing his shoulder.
‘See?’ she said to Dion. ‘He’s flesh and blood.’
Dion stared. ‘Then you’re not a ghost? I didn’t kill you?’
‘No, you blind fool!’ Aristo’s voice was cold with fury. ‘It wasn’t me in that bed.’
‘Shhh!’ said Flavia to Aristo, and to Dion: ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’
Dion blinked through his tears. ‘Three,’ he said.
Flavia moved closer to him, ‘And now?’
‘Three? No, four. I mean . . .’
‘You can’t see things up close very well, can you?’
Dion hung his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve had it from birth. Unlike him! He was perfect. Perfect sight, perfect hearing, perfect pitch, perfect looks . . .’
‘You blind idiot!’ said Aristo. ‘You didn’t kill me. You killed my employer! My friend.’ His voice broke. ‘This poor girl’s father.’
‘He’s not dead, Aristo,’ said Flavia. ‘He survived.’
Aristo turned wondering eyes on Flavia. ‘What? Not dead? But I’m sure . . . when I found him he was so still. There was so much blood!’
‘Pater is alive,’ said Flavia, taking a deep breath. ‘He’s very ill, but he’s alive.’
‘Thank the gods.’ Aristo rested his head in his hands. ‘Oh, thank the gods.’ His shoulders began to shake. Nubia perched on the bench beside him and put her hand on his back.
Dion’s voice cracked. ‘But, the Kindly Ones were chasing me and – I don’t understand . . .’
‘I think I know what happened.’ Flavia walked back towards the bronze door, tapping the flat of Aristo’s knife blade thoughtfully against the palm of her left hand. She turned to face Dion.
‘Three nights ago,’ she said, ‘around dusk, you followed Aristo from your parents’ house in Corinth to the hospitium in Cenchrea – the one where we were staying. Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes. Megara told me he had gone to meet Tryphosa.’
‘That little vixen!’ Aristo lifted his face and Nubia removed her hand from his back. ‘I wasn’t with Tryphosa that night.’
‘You weren’t with Tryphosa that night,’ said Flavia to Aristo. ‘But you’d spent other nights with her, hadn’t you.’
Aristo looked from Flavia to Dion, then hung his head and nodded.
&nb
sp; ‘I knew it!’ cried Dion, wiping his nose with his arm. ‘You stole her from me.’
Aristo snorted. ‘I didn’t steal her,’ he said. ‘She practically threw herself at me.’
‘Anyway,’ said Flavia to Dion. ‘You followed Aristo to the inn that night, didn’t you?’
Dion nodded. ‘Megara came to our house that morning. She said Tryphosa loved him not me, and that she could prove it. She told me to follow him one evening and see where he went. So I followed him that very afternoon. Later, in the garden, I heard him say he wasn’t going back to Rome . . .’
‘You were hiding in the bushes, weren’t you?’ said Flavia. ‘We almost caught you.’
Dion nodded. ‘I waited until it was dark and then I crept into the hospitium. I had to see if she was with him—’
‘Tryphosa, you mean.’
‘Yes. I started to pull back the curtains, looking for the room with the Orpheus fresco.’
‘Of course!’ said Flavia. ‘You heard us talking about that, too.’
‘It was dark,’ said Dion, ‘but I could see the painting of Orpheus on the wall. And I could hear him breathing. He always used to keep me awake with his breathing. By Zeus, I hated that! And I could smell her perfume. Her scent was in the room.’
‘What scent does Tryphosa use?’
‘Myrtle. Myrtle and rose oil.’
‘So you started to strangle him.’
‘No. It was dark, and I couldn’t tell if there was one figure or two in the bed so I took a step closer and leaned over. Suddenly his fist came up. He hit me here,’ he pointed to his bruised left cheekbone. ‘That made me so angry. I took him by the neck and started to squeeze, and then he was squeezing my neck, too – see? See the marks?’
Flavia nodded. ‘Then what?’
‘It was dark in the room but suddenly it was getting even darker and I knew I was losing consciousness. So I let go of his neck and used my knife. I only used it until his grip loosened but I knew I’d killed him.’ Dion began to sob.
‘Luckily you didn’t kill him,’ said Flavia coldly, then turned to Aristo. ‘You weren’t in the Orpheus room, weren’t you? You switched rooms with pater for some reason,’ Flavia glanced at Nubia, but her friend’s eyes were fixed on Aristo.
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 142