The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  Jonathan led Scopas to the caldarium and helped him down into a circular hot plunge. Scopas did not even flinch as he entered the steaming hot myrtle-scented water.

  After a long soak, Jonathan guided Scopas carefully back up the marble steps and helped a slave to towel him off. They led him to the massage room and Jonathan asked the gentlest-looking slave to rub olive oil into the boy’s bruised body. Jonathan knew Scopas did not like people to touch him, but the boy did not even flinch.

  When the slave had finished a long, thorough massage, Jonathan anointed the cuts on Scopas’s face and arms with vinegar. Again, the boy did not react. Finally, Jonathan dressed him in the new tunic he had sent the slave to buy. It was a man’s tunic, not a boy’s, and it made Scopas look small and vulnerable.

  As Jonathan bent to lace up Scopas’s sandals he wondered what a terrible childhood the boy must have had.

  ‘Urbanus,’ said Scopas suddenly, and Jonathan looked up in surprise.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Scopas wants Urbanus—’ his voice was as flat as ever ‘—and Pegasus.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jonathan, standing up and extending his hand. ‘Come on. I’ll take you back to the stables. To Urbanus and your horse.’

  ‘I want to offer a votive,’ said Flavia later that day, ‘for Scopas’s recovery.’

  It was afternoon, and the three friends were passing the medicine stalls on their way back to Senator Cornix’s.

  ‘What kind of votive?’ asked Jonathan, shifting his parcels in his arms. ‘What do you offer when you don’t even know what’s wrong with the person?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ murmured Flavia, stopping to examine the objects on one of the stalls. ‘I’ll know it when I see it.’ On the cloth before her were clay ears, eyes, noses, hands, feet, even little clay models of the private parts of both men and women.

  ‘No,’ murmured Flavia. ‘None of those . . .’ She moved onto the next stall and then the next and presently she uttered a cry of triumph. A moment later she returned with a little bronze model of a centaur.

  ‘That must have cost a few sesterces,’ said Jonathan. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Offer it at the Temple of Aesculapius, of course,’ said Flavia. ‘Coming?’

  Jonathan looked over at the Tiber Island, with its red temple rooftops, green trees and white marble obelisk.

  ‘No’, he said with a shudder. ‘I don’t like that place. I’ll wait for you in the Forum Boarium.’

  ‘Any news?’ asked Flavia half an hour later, as she and Nubia came up to Jonathan with their parcels. He was standing before a noticeboard near the Temple of Hercules.

  Without turning Jonathan quoted, ‘The Ludi Romani begin tomorrow. Two weeks of chariot races in honour of Jupiter. To be opened with a dawn sacrifice by the Pontifex Maximus at the Temple of Jupiter Stator.’ He glanced at the hill rising above the forum. ‘According to this, they usually have the sacrifice at the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill,’ he said, ‘but it’s still being repaired after the fire.’

  ‘Oh.’ Flavia and Nubia exchanged a quick look. They knew Jonathan blamed himself for the terrible fire six months before.

  ‘We made an offering for Scopas,’ said Flavia brightly.

  ‘We also searched for Aristo,’ said Nubia. ‘But he was not there. Behold!’ she whispered, her golden eyes suddenly wide.

  Flavia followed her gaze and gasped. The one-legged beggar sat beside the round temple of Hercules, at the foot of one of its fluted, honey-coloured columns.

  ‘I am sure he was not there a moment ago,’ said Nubia. ‘He appears as if by magic.’

  The beggar was beckoning to them and despite the heat, Flavia felt a strange chill. ‘Come on then,’ she said, and a moment later she was standing before him, fishing in her coin purse for something smaller than a gold coin.

  ‘No,’ said One-leg. ‘This time I want to give you something.’ He held out a dark strip in his twisted left hand. Flavia shuddered to see the stumps where his last two fingers had been amputated. But she reached out and bravely took the strip from his hand. It was as long as her thumb but slightly wider. And surprisingly heavy.

  ‘It’s a lead tablet,’ she said.

  The beggar nodded. ‘I just found it near the Stables of the Greens,’ he said, ‘beside a bound, headless rooster. I think it’s a curse-tablet. You should warn them. They wouldn’t listen to a humble beggar.’

  Flavia frowned. ‘The letters aren’t Greek or Latin. I don’t recognise the language.’

  ‘The characters are Hebrew,’ said Jonathan, looking over her shoulder, ‘but the words are gibberish. May I see?’

  Flavia handed him the tablet and after a few moments he looked up. ‘It’s Aramaic, but written backwards.’ He glanced down at One-leg. ‘It’s a curse-tablet, all right.’

  ‘Can you decipher it?’ asked Flavia.

  Jonathan nodded. ‘As this cock is bound, legs, wings and body, I adjure you, O demons, by the Great God of the Heavens above, to bind the legs, hands and bodies of the charioteers of the Greens, and the horses they are going to drive, especially Bubalo, Glaucus, Sagitta and Latro. And I adjure you, by him who sits on the Cherubim, that you destroy Castor, Cresces, Antilochus, Gegas, Phoenix, Tatianus and Eutychus so that they might not greet Victory tomorrow but encounter Nemesis instead. Now. Now. Quick. Quick.’ Jonathan turned the tablet over and then looked at the beggar. ‘Where did you say you found this?’ he asked.

  ‘Buried in the dirt at the foot of the wall where I usually sit. Just outside the Stables of the Greens. It wasn’t there yesterday,’ he added.

  ‘But who would do such a thing?’ said Nubia.

  ‘Maybe the same person,’ said Flavia grimly, ‘who abducted Sagitta and tortured him.’

  ‘We have to warn Castor and the other charioteers about the curse-tablet,’ said Flavia as they left the Forum Boarium.

  ‘Are you mad?’ said Jonathan. ‘That would cause maximum panic.’

  ‘But the beggar entrusted it to us.’

  ‘There’s something strange about that beggar,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘I am thinking you are right; that he is maybe a god in disguise,’ said Nubia.

  Jonathan stared at her. ‘I was only joking when I said that. You can’t really believe he’s one of the gods?’

  ‘Of course we don’t,’ said Flavia, ‘but there is something mysterious about him. He always appears just when we need him.’

  ‘I still don’t think you should tell anyone about that tablet.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in curses.’

  ‘I don’t. But my father says curses can be dangerous because some people really do believe them.’

  ‘All right,’ said Flavia. ‘But if we don’t warn the charioteers about the curse-tablet and something happens tomorrow, it will be on your head.’

  Bulbus the door-slave greeted them with a vast grin.

  ‘He’s here!’ he said in a stage whisper. ‘Castor! The head trainer, too! Right here in the senator’s house!’

  Jonathan stared past the big slave in surprise. Flavia’s uncle always grumbled about how Rome was sinking into a swamp of decadent luxury. But here was his atrium, festooned with smiling garlands of jasmine and ivy, and there was Sisyphus hurrying towards them with expensive, market-bought garlands for their heads.

  Jonathan and Flavia handed their parcels to a slave and together with Nubia they followed Sisyphus into the shade-dappled inner garden.

  ‘Flavia! Jonathan!’ boomed Senator Cornix. He slid off one of the couches which had been arranged on a brick path around a bubbling fountain. ‘Castor is here!’ He gestured to the hawk-nosed man reclining on the central couch.

  Jonathan stared. ‘Great Juno’s beard!’ he muttered. ‘I spent the morning hugging the greatest auriga of our time and I didn’t even know it.’

  Senator Cornix continued the introductions. ‘And you know the head trainer.’

  Urbanus reclined beside Lad
y Cynthia. Jonathan saw that the head trainer was freshly shaved and his long sandy hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  ‘How is Scopas?’ Jonathan asked him.

  ‘Much better, thanks to you,’ said Urbanus, and his eyes were smiling. ‘He’s sleeping in Pegasus’s stall. I offered him my own bed but he wanted to stay with the horse. I think he’ll be fine.’

  ‘Praise Juno,’ breathed Flavia, and then turned to her aunt. ‘I’m so sorry we’re late. Our friend was beaten and we stopped to offer a prayer for him.’

  ‘You’re not late,’ said Lady Cynthia. ‘You’re just in time.’ In addition to the flowered garland in her dark hair, Jonathan noticed she was wearing much more jewellery than she usually did.

  ‘Is Lupus back?’ he asked.

  ‘Just now,’ said Aulus Junior from the table. ‘He’s in the latrine.’

  ‘And Aristo?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘Aristo!’ muttered Jonathan to Flavia. ‘I forgot all about him.’

  ‘Aristo is resting in a darkened room,’ said Cynthia. ‘The wretched boy had a bad time with the tooth-puller so I called our physician to give him a dose of poppy-tears.’

  ‘No wonder he never came back to the stables,’ murmured Flavia.

  ‘Poor Aristo,’ said Nubia.

  ‘Sit at the table, children,’ said Senator Cornix. ‘There’s plenty of room for you all.’

  Jonathan washed his hands in the bowl proffered by a slave-girl and sat at the table between Aulus Junior and Hyacinth. The gustatio was salty strips of brick-coloured ham – so thin they were translucent – wrapped around sweet green cubes of melon.

  Castor the hawk-nosed charioteer winked at Jonathan. During the practice circuit earlier in the day, he had uttered only two words: ‘Hang on.’

  Now, bathed and fresh in a leek-green synthesis, and with a silver wine goblet in his hand, he became extremely loquacious, regaling them with tales of his adventures in the circus.

  Beside Lady Cynthia, Urbanus sipped his wine and watched his star charioteer hold court.

  ‘See this amulet?’ said Castor, pulling a vicious-looking yellow tusk from the matted chest hair above the neck of his tunic.

  Lady Cynthia uttered a polite exclamation: ‘Mecastor!’

  ‘It makes me brave as a boar,’ laughed the charioteer, ‘which is the creature it’s taken from. This helps me feel powerful, too.’ He took a twist of papyrus from his belt-pouch and poured a fine brown powder into his silver goblet. ‘It’s what all us charioteers drink. Combined with wine, it makes a powerful potion.’ He held out his cup and Sisyphus skipped over to top it up. He was not the senator’s usual wine-steward but Jonathan guessed he had asked to be allowed to wait on the banquet.

  ‘Sisyphus, don’t hover over our guest of honour,’ grumbled Senator Cornix. ‘Other people need refilling, too.’

  ‘Anyone want to try some of my special potion?’ said Castor. He stirred the wine with his meaty forefinger.

  Jonathan raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s in the powder?’

  ‘Same thing they smear on charioteers’ wounds if they’ve been thrown or trampled.’ Castor licked his finger and made the sign against evil. ‘Boar’s dung!’

  ‘Mecastor!’ yelped Sisyphus.

  ‘No,’ said the big charioteer. ‘Me Castor!’

  Everyone laughed and Castor took a long deep drink from his cup. ‘Ahhhh!’ He let out a theatrical sigh of pleasure and gave a textured burp. ‘Life’s a circus.’

  Lupus pointed at Castor’s goblet and shook his head and grunted no.

  ‘What?’ said Castor. ‘You don’t believe it’s really boar’s dung?’

  Lupus folded his arms and shook his head.

  ‘It’s perfectly true,’ said Castor cheerfully. ‘This potion’s made of powdered boar’s dung. Nero himself used to drink such a brew. Makes you strong as an ox and brave as a boar. Come on, then!’ He held out his goblet to Lupus. ‘I dare you to try some.’

  Lupus’s chair scraped on the brick path as he pushed it away from the table and stood up. He marched over to Castor’s couch and took the cup.

  ‘Lupus!’ cried Jonathan. ‘No!’

  Lupus glanced at him, scowled, and stared at the mixture. Then he took a deep breath and tipped the contents down his throat.

  Everyone stared in horror as Lupus clutched his neck, and – eyes bulging – sank slowly to his knees.

  Jonathan pushed back his chair as Lupus sank to the garden path.

  But before he could run to his friend, Lupus sprang up again, a mischievous grin on his face. Everyone laughed as he adopted the pose of an athlete in the palaestra showing off his muscles.

  Jonathan shook his head as Lupus handed Castor his silver goblet and rejoined his friends at the table.

  Through the main course of roast goose and the dessert of peppered pear patina, Castor continued to regale them with stories about the life of a charioteer.

  ‘I remember one horse,’ he said, gesturing with a half-eaten wedge of patina, ‘called Imperator. Imperator was an ex-cavalry horse. He was big and beautiful and as fast as a Roman legionary with a score of barbarian women on his tail. Everyone was convinced he’d be Rome’s new champion.’ Castor popped the last of the patina in his mouth. ‘Only problem was, whenever Imperator heard the trumpet, he bolted. He was terrified of that sound.’

  Castor blared an imaginary trumpet, pretended to leap forward, and made his fingernails gallop across the fulcrum of his couch.

  ‘Didn’t matter where he was,’ continued Castor, when their laughter subsided, ‘in the opening procession, trotting out his lap of honour, going back to the stables . . . Whenever he heard that trumpet, Imperator bolted!’

  Castor blared and his fingernails galloped. Lupus laughed so hard that wine spurted out of his nose.

  ‘But then, one terrible day,’ continued Castor in a dramatic whisper, ‘disaster struck! They’d just loaded all the horses into the starting gates . . . and the trumpet sounded! Imperator was off! And slammed right into the closed wooden doors of the gate.’ Castor slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand and imitated a horse slowly toppling over. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Life’s a circus.’

  Everyone was laughing except Urbanus, who gazed into his wine cup, apparently oblivious to everything around him. Jonathan fingered the lead tablet in his coin pouch. Should he tell the trainer about the curse? No. He was certain his first instinct was right; such information was bound to cause panic. Besides, he was sure that nothing would come of it.

  It is night when the chimera comes to burn the tents with its hot breath of hatred. Nubia rides Pegasus across the dark sand towards her family’s tent. But the tent is no longer made of goatskin. It is made of fire. She knows she and Pegasus must jump through the flames to save the person trapped inside. But who?

  Ever since she first saw Pegasus in Surrentum she has dreamt this dream. This nightmare.

  She knows she is dreaming but she can never change it.

  Or can she?

  She remembers what Flavia said. Imagine Pegasus is a winged horse. Imagine he can fly.

  ‘Fly!’ she cries out to him in her dream. ‘Fly!’

  And now the sand dunes are falling away below them and they are rising above the flames and she can hear the great whoosh of his wings and feel the breeze on her face. They are in the night sky, passing over the tent, and as Nubia looks down she sees a face looking up. For the first time since the slave-traders burnt their tents, her dream almost allows her to see the person she failed to save.

  Early the next morning Senator Cornix led his household in the predawn ritual of the Nones. Flavia and the others stood yawning in the torchlit atrium, facing the senator as he washed his hands before the household shrine. Even Aristo was there, smelling strongly of clove-oil and pressing a poultice to his swollen jaw.

  It was chilly, so Flavia pulled her new leaf-green palla closer around her shoulders; she was wearing it in honour of the Greens. Nubia had one just like it. Jonathan, L
upus and Aulus each wore a scarlet-edged toga praetexta, with green tunics underneath. Lady Cynthia and her three younger children were also present. Hyacinth and the twins had runny noses and kept sniffing.

  The senator dried his hands on a folded towel, sprinkled powdered incense onto the glowing coals of a small brazier and covered his head with a fold of his own toga, lit golden by the flickering torches. Then he stood for a moment in solemn silence. Flavia’s nostrils flared at the spicy scent of frankincense and cinnamon, a scent which always evoked early mornings standing before the lararium in her own home.

  ‘Salve, O Janus, bringer of the new day,’ intoned senator Cornix. ‘Salve, O goddess Juno who gives us health and protection. Salvete, O Lares and Penates, and you, O Genius of the household.’ After each ‘salve’ he made the gesture of adoratio, kissing his fingertips and stretching out his open hand, then sprinkling a little more powder on the coals.

  A sudden eddy of incense filled Flavia’s head, prickling her nose and making her want to sneeze. She stifled it by pinching her nostrils. She knew that if she sneezed or laughed or even coughed, the whole ritual might have to be repeated. Furthermore, it would be a bad omen, and with the terrible curses of that tablet hanging over the Greens, a bad omen was the last thing they needed.

  The senator continued, ‘Salve, goddess Vesta, guardian of hearth and home.’ He took a small cake from a three-legged table near the lararium. ‘As I give you this loaf of grain, do you likewise give health and happiness to me and to my familia.’ He touched his chest, kissed his fingertips and gestured around the atrium.

  Flavia looked up at the dark rectangle of sky above the impluvium; the stars were fading.

  ‘Salvete, O Castor and Pollux,’ continued her uncle, ‘divine twins and sons of Jove. Salve, O Jupiter Pater, on this your special day please bless us and our Imperator Titus.’

  At the mention of ‘Imperator’, Flavia remembered Castor’s imitation of the charging racehorse and she almost giggled. Instead she bit her lower lip hard, acutely aware of Lupus shaking with silent laughter beside her.

  ‘If anything of this ritual or offering is displeasing,’ the senator was saying, ‘then receive this incense of atonement.’ Here he sprinkled a final dusting onto the coals. ‘I, Aulus of the gens Caecilia, surnamed Cornix, receive on behalf of myself and my familia all that is good and pure and noble and right.’ The senator faced the lararium, pinched out the candle flame on the altar and uncovered his head.