The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  ‘The day after tomorrow? Why is that bad news?’ said Flavia, and called over her shoulder, ‘Alma? Caudex?’

  ‘It’s bad news because it’s terribly short notice. It also means I won’t be able to defend her. I have to go to Rome for a few days. Urgent business.’

  ‘Our slaves must both be out shopping.’ Flavia looked around the atrium. ‘Or maybe Alma’s walking the dogs. And I can’t imagine where Aristo—’ she looked at Pliny in alarm. ‘You can’t defend Hephzibah?’

  ‘Unfortunately not.’ He had not followed her into the atrium, but remained standing just inside the doorway. ‘I’m on my way to Rome now. Urgent business. But I wanted to tell you as soon as possible. And to give you this.’ He held out an official-looking wax tablet.

  Flavia moved back to the doorway and took the tablet from his outstretched hand. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Details of the case. Time, place, formula, magistrate presiding and so on. You should give it to whoever decides to defend her.’

  ‘But who? Who can defend her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Pliny stepped back over the threshold so that he was outside again. ‘Your father, perhaps? Or your tutor?’

  ‘Pater’s not back from Sicily yet. And Aristo isn’t a Roman citizen. He’s Greek. Can a non-Roman citizen plead in court?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Flavia.’ Pliny gestured vaguely up Green Fountain Street in the direction of the Roman Gate. ‘My carruca’s waiting for me. I must go. Good luck!’ he called over his shoulder.

  Flavia gazed open-mouthed until he was out of sight.

  ‘Flavia!’ called Jonathan. ‘Why are you standing in the road with messy hair and a blanket wrapped around you?’

  Flavia turned to see Jonathan coming down the street with his father and Lupus and Tigris. Copper-haired Hephzibah was with them, too, looking pale and tired.

  ‘Have you only just got up?’ continued Jonathan. ‘It’s already the second hour!’

  ‘Is it?’ She stooped to stroke Tigris, then stood up again. ‘Pliny was just here. He gave me this.’

  ‘Peace be with you, Flavia,’ said Mordecai, and gave his little bow. ‘As you see, we’ve just collected Hephzibah from the cells of the basilica.’

  ‘Good morning, Hephzibah,’ said Flavia. ‘Was it awful there?’

  Hephzibah gave a small shake of her head. Flavia saw she was shivering, although it was a sunny morning, and mild for December.

  Flavia gave Hephzibah an encouraging smile. ‘Are you going back to Miriam’s now?’

  ‘No,’ said Mordecai. ‘I want Hephzibah to stay here with us until the trial. It’s more convenient for her to be here in town. Are those the details of the trial?’

  ‘Yes.’ Flavia showed him the tablet. ‘Seven days before the Ides. The day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Master of the Universe! That won’t give young Pliny much time to prepare.’

  ‘Doctor Mordecai! Pliny can’t defend Hephzibah after all. He has urgent business in Rome.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mordecai. ‘Oh dear. That is grave news indeed.’

  ‘Can’t you defend her, father?’ asked Jonathan.

  ‘No, my son,’ said Mordecai. ‘I have very little knowledge of the procedure in Roman law courts, and even less of rhetoric.’ He looked at Flavia. ‘Perhaps your uncle?’

  ‘Good idea!’ said Flavia, and her eyes lit up. ‘We’ll go to Laurentum to ask Uncle Gaius to defend Hephzibah, and at the same time we can see Nubia. May we go to Laurentum, Doctor Mordecai?’

  He sighed and nodded. ‘Very well, but take the dogs to protect you.’

  ‘Good idea,’ she said. ‘As soon as Alma brings Scuto and Nipur back, we’ll take all the dogs to Laurentum and leave Nipur to comfort Nubia.’ She looked at Jonathan and Lupus. ‘Aristo’s nowhere to be seen, so he can’t complain that we didn’t turn up for lessons. How do you both fancy a nice long walk?’

  ‘Great Jupiter’s eyebrows!’ muttered Flavia’s uncle Gaius an hour and a half later. ‘I can’t defend Hephzibah! I have no training.’

  It was a glorious morning, more like late autumn than early winter. The four children and their dogs were having a late breakfast in the tablinum of the Laurentum Lodge. Miriam and Gaius were both pale and tired; they had been up all night attending a childbirth. Nubia looked tired, too, but she had been overjoyed to see her friends and her dog Nipur, who now panted happily at his mistress’s feet.

  ‘Oh, Gaius, you have to defend Hephzibah!’ said Miriam. ‘If you don’t, who will?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Gaius. ‘But I can’t do it. I’ve never studied rhetoric, not properly. It takes years to master the skill.’

  ‘Who do we know who has studied rhetoric?’ said Jonathan through a mouthful of porridge.

  ‘I know!’ cried Flavia suddenly. ‘I know who might do it!’

  ‘Tell us, Flavia,’ said her uncle, stifling a yawn. ‘Who?’

  ‘No.’ Flavia’s shoulders slumped and she shook her head. ‘It’s a silly idea. I don’t know if he’s in Rome. Or even in the country.’

  ‘By all the gods, Flavia!’ cried Gaius. ‘Give me his name and I’ll ride into Rome right now.’

  ‘But he might not be at home,’ said Flavia. ‘The odds are a hundred to one.’

  ‘And what about your olive harvest?’ said Miriam.

  ‘I’ll take the odds he’s there,’ said her uncle.

  ‘Do you have something I can write on?’ asked Flavia, and added, ‘So that I can write him a quick note?’

  Lupus held up his wax tablet, but Gaius leant back in his chair and plucked a sheet of papyrus from a shelf. He passed the papyrus to Flavia, then handed her an ink-well and quill pen, and she began to write. Presently she wrote an address on the back of the papyrus, folded it and accepted a lit candle from her uncle. She dripped some wax on the place where the edges overlapped, then pressed her signet-ring into the glob of liquid wax. As she waited for it to dry, she looked up at her friends. They were all staring at her.

  ‘Can’t you think who I mean?’ she asked them.

  They all shook their heads and Lupus gave her his bug-eyed look and an exaggerated shrug, as if to say: ‘Who?’

  Flavia smiled. ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ she said. But her smile faded as she handed the papyrus note to her uncle: ‘If he’s there. And if he accepts.’

  When Flavia and the boys returned home an hour later, they found Aristo pacing back and forth in the atrium.

  ‘I’ve spent all morning in the forum,’ he said, after they told him their news. ‘Trying to find out more about Papillio and Mercator, the two murdered men.’

  ‘What did you discover?’ asked Flavia. ‘Did they know Hephzibah?’

  ‘As far as I could discover: no. There is no connection between either of them and Hephzibah. In fact, neither of them seem to have anything in common, apart from the fact that they both knew Hephzibah’s former master, Dives. I’m going back into town and find out everything I can about him; about Dives, I mean.’ He took his cloak from its peg and then turned to look at them.

  ‘You three may go to the baths this afternoon,’ he said. ‘But nowhere else. No more charging off to Laurentum, as you did this morning.’

  ‘But Doctor Mordecai told us we could go. Besides,’ added Flavia, ‘now that we’ve rid Ostia of kidnappers, it’s perfectly safe to walk around town.’

  ‘Flavia. Yesterday there were two brutal murders within a five-mile radius of this house. I don’t want you to be next. While your father is away you are my responsibility.’

  ‘May we at least go to Jonathan’s?’

  Aristo rolled his eyes. ‘Of course you may go next door. But be sensible. I’ll be back in time for dinner. Probably sooner.’

  ‘We’ll be sensible,’ said Flavia and waited for the door to close behind him. Then she turned to the boys. ‘Good. He’s gone. Let’s go investigate.’

  ‘Where?’ said Jonathan.

  ‘Next door, to your house, of course.
It’s time we had a long talk with Hephzibah.’

  ‘She’s resting in Miriam’s old room,’ said Jonathan’s mother Susannah. ‘I don’t think the poor girl got much sleep in that cold cell last night. I promised to take her to the baths when they open, but I’ll see if she’s happy to come down and speak to you first.’

  Flavia nodded and stared at Susannah. Jonathan’s mother rarely spent time with her family. She occupied her days either wandering the streets of Ostia or weaving in the privacy of her bedroom, which was separate from her husband’s.

  ‘We’ll wait in the dining room,’ said Jonathan.

  Susannah smiled at him, and touched his cheek, then turned to go upstairs.

  Flavia followed the boys into Jonathan’s triclinium. It was the same size and shape as hers, but it felt very different. The plaster-covered walls were a deep cinnabar-red. Winter carpets of red, blue, gold and purple covered the black and white mosaic floor. Richly embroidered cushions and bolsters surrounded a low octagonal table of dark wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

  Flavia closed her eyes and inhaled the pleasant scent of cinnamon, mint and cumin.

  Presently Susannah brought Hephzibah into the dining room. The slave-girl looked pale but rested in a cream stola. Her magnificent auburn hair was netted but unpinned and Flavia saw that it reached halfway down her back.

  ‘I’ll ask Delilah to bring you all some sage tea and sesame cakes,’ said Susannah, and then added, ‘Be gentle with Hephzibah. So much has happened in the past few days.’

  ‘Yes,’ murmured Flavia. ‘So much has happened in the past few days.’ She looked up at Hephzibah and patted the scarlet bolster next to her. ‘Come, Hephzibah. Sit. We need you to help us, so that we can help you. Tell us about your life. Tell us everything.’

  ‘I was born in Jerusalem, in the reign of Nero, one year before the Great Revolt in Judaea.’ Hephzibah was sitting cross-legged on a cushion, sipping hot sage tea. ‘They say I was born on a portentous day: the ninth of Av.’

  ‘The day the First Temple was destroyed,’ murmured Jonathan.

  ‘And the Second Temple, too,’ said Hephzibah in her low, accented voice. ‘I turned five on the day they burned God’s House. I remember my father had taken me to a place where there might be food. He wanted me to have something to eat on my birthday. But when we got there, we found the food had all gone. I cried and cried; I had set my heart on a persimmon.’

  ‘What’s a persimmon?’ asked Flavia.

  ‘It’s a fruit like an apple,’ said Jonathan, ‘but with a shiny orange skin, and softer.’

  Hephzibah sipped her tea. ‘The Jews had burned all the persimmon groves outside the city, to stop them falling into Roman hands, and all the trees in the city had been stripped long before. By this time the famine was very bad.’ Hephzibah set her beaker on the octagonal table and continued.

  ‘Father lifted me up in his arms and carried me back home. That was when we stopped to watch the Temple portico burn. I will never forget the sight of the Romans running like ants up on the flaming portico. Most of those watching lamented to see God’s Temple burn, but some cheered to see Roman soldiers on fire.’

  Beside Flavia, Jonathan groaned and hid his face in his hands.

  Hephzibah continued. ‘Suddenly everyone grew silent. One Roman soldier was calling out to his comrades below. We could not hear his words, but we could guess what he was saying. He was trapped on the upper level, with the flames almost upon him. Then a Roman on the lower level ran forward and held out his arms. I will never forget that. It was a huge drop, but that Roman held out his arm to his friend.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The first Roman jumped and the second one caught him. The man who jumped got up, but I think the one who tried to catch him was killed. I often wonder what happened to those two men. They must have been good friends for one to give his life for the other. I often wonder, because before we reached home, a fellow Jew – one of our own – attacked my father and killed him. The man killed my father for his leather belt. I think he wanted to eat it.’

  ‘Oh!’ cried Flavia.

  ‘My father died in my arms,’ said Hephzibah. ‘With his last breath he prayed that the Eternal One would protect me.’

  Out of the corner of her eye Flavia saw a small movement. Lupus’s fists clenching and unclenching. Jonathan’s head was still down.

  ‘When I led my mother to my father’s body,’ said Hephzibah, ‘she collapsed and became delirious and nearly died. Later, when the Romans came they took one look at her and tossed her onto a pile of dead bodies. I went to lie beside her, there among the corpses, not knowing if she was alive or dead, not knowing whether I was alive or dead.’

  Hephzibah took a sip of sweet sage tea and closed her eyes. ‘We did not die,’ she continued presently, ‘nor were we put in chains, like the thousands of others. At the time we thought this is a blessing. Later we knew we would have been better off if we had been sold as slaves.’

  ‘Better off as slaves?’ Jonathan raised his head and looked at her in amazement.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hephzibah. ‘My grandfather Eleazar – my mother’s father – was one of a small group of rebels taking shelter in the desert. They had occupied a stronghold, a place where even the Romans could not reach us. My mother decided we should go to him. It took us many days and we overcame many hardships. But at last we reached our refuge.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Jonathan, his dark eyes wide. ‘You didn’t go there, did you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hephzibah. ‘We went there.’

  Once again, Jonathan hid his face in his hands and groaned.

  Flavia and Lupus exchanged a glance of alarm.

  ‘Where?’ asked Flavia. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Herod’s great stronghold,’ said Hephzibah, and looked at Flavia with anguished eyes: ‘Masada.’

  ‘Masada?’ said Flavia. ‘Who’s Masada?’

  Jonathan lifted his head from his hands. ‘Not who,’ he said, ‘where.’

  ‘Masada was a barren mountain, rising up in the Judaean desert,’ said Hephzibah. ‘Then Herod built a magnificent palace there, with terraced gardens and living quarters and underground cisterns for unlimited water. It is in the heart of the fiercest desert known to man. From its highest tower you can see twenty miles in any direction, when the heat does not shimmer like an oven. Masada means “fortress” in our language. It was designed so that it could never be captured. It was impregnable. Invincible. Unassailable. My mother and I were there for three years. Then the Romans took it.’

  Nubia was in the tiny kitchen of the Laurentum Lodge, helping Miriam grind chestnut flour, when Nipur lifted his head from his paws and pricked his ears and growled. A moment later they heard Ferox’s deep bark coming from the vestibule.

  Miriam glanced at Nubia, then wiped her hands on a cloth and turned towards the front door. ‘It can’t be Gaius,’ she murmured. ‘Ferox never barks at Gaius.’ Before she had taken a single step they heard the pounding on the door.

  ‘Go, Nubia!’ whispered Miriam. ‘Out the back door. Go to the place we prepared for you! I will send them away if I can.’

  Nipur was on his feet now so Nubia crouched and took his big head between her hands and said, ‘Stay!’

  Then she quietly opened the kitchen door and ran to her hiding place.

  ‘Masada was impregnable,’ said Hephzibah, ‘and yet the Romans managed to take it. It took them an entire year to build a ramp, but only one week to breach the wall. When they finally broke through, they discovered our people had built another wall. This inner wall was made of wood and earth. The Romans tried using their battering ram. But its blows only packed the loose earth more tightly, and made it stronger.

  ‘Late that afternoon, the Romans realised they could burn our inner wall, because it was partly wood. They put the torches to it and we groaned as the last barrier between us and them caught fire. Then we cheered: the Lord had changed the wind and made it blow flames back
upon the Romans. In their eagerness to escape, they trampled each other and many fell from the ramp.

  ‘But the miraculous wind did not last. As the first stars appeared in the sky, the evening breeze arose and turned the flames back towards us. We watched the wall burn, our hearts dying within us. It was dusk and the Romans were retreating, but we knew they would finish the job – and us – at dawn the next morning. Their legions surrounded us. There was no escape.

  ‘That night our men stayed up late, debating what to do. My mother told me to watch some other children in her care, children without parents whom she had taken under her wing. She wanted to find out what the leaders intended to do. Their meeting was secret, but she knew a place from which she could listen and not be seen.’

  Jonathan stared at Hephzibah but she did not seem to notice. She continued: ‘We children were terrified of the Romans. We had all heard stories of what the Romans did to their prisoners. The other children were all younger, so I had to be in charge. I was eight. I told them stories to comfort them. My mother was a long, long time. She was so long that I began to be frightened that maybe the Romans had crept in by night and killed her. All the other children were fast asleep by now.’

  Hephzibah finished her sage tea.

  ‘Finally my mother returned. She had an old lady with her – Anna – who spent all her days in prayer. I always thought she was mad to do nothing but pray. I was about to ask my mother why she had brought a madwoman, when I saw that she was weeping. That was the first time I saw her weep since she had found my father’s body. Finally she dried her tears and woke the children, for by now it was after midnight. Mother made us all rise and dress ourselves and then she led us in silence along dark paths to the furthest cistern of the aqueduct that Herod had built. Old Anna came, too.

  ‘We were all very frightened, expecting the Romans to leap out of the shadows and cut our throats. Finally we reached the cistern and went carefully down stairs carved out of the rock itself. For a while the moon gave us a little filtered light, milky blue in the cistern. Then it set, and we were plunged into darkness.