Casina nodded. ‘Sometimes,’ she sang, but her voice cracked and she had to begin again: ‘Sometimes things are not what they seem. Sometimes a duplicate appears, a dangerous one takes the place of the real. Sometimes False appears instead of True. And so I cry: Beware! All is not what it seems!’
‘Come here, Kitty,’ Gaius was saying. He had put down the table and was leaning forward to put the leash around Ungula’s neck. Flavia’s heart was thudding. He had not heard their warning. She opened her mouth to call a warning but before she could a voice came from her left.
‘No! I’m not false. I’m the true one!’ With a cry, Mendicus broke free of the guards’ restraint, leapt up onto the proscaenium and ran for the objects that had scattered on the stage. ‘Where’s my seeing-thing?’ he cried. He did not seem to notice the leopard, but she noticed him. As Mendicus barged past, the big cat swiped at him with her paw.
And suddenly Mendicus was down on the stage, screaming and clutching his thigh. People in the upper rows of the theatre began to scream and point. And Flavia’s eyes widened in horror as she saw what they saw: a pool of red was spreading across the stage. And this was no silk scarf. It was human blood.
Up on stage, Flavia’s Uncle Gaius was white as chalk: ‘Great Jupiter’s eyebrows!’ he cried, backing away. ‘It’s not Nissa. It’s Ungula. It’s the man-eater!’ He bumped into the table, hesitated, then reached behind him and lifted it. With the legs pointing towards the creature, Gaius slowly approached. With one lazy motion the leopard batted a leg of the table, knocking Gaius back against the scaena. His head flew back and struck a marble column, then he slowly sank to the stage, unconscious.
‘Ow, it hurts!’ Mendicus was screaming and leaving a glistening smear of blood as he pulled himself backwards across the stage. ‘Ow, it hurts!’
But the she-leopard Ungula was no longer concerned with the beggar or with Gaius, she was approaching Narcissus. The pantomime dancer stood pinned against the scaena. His mask still wore its incongruous frozen smile, but Flavia was close enough to see the stark terror in his eyes. The whole theatre was suddenly still and silent as the leopard crouched, reading herself for the spring to his throat. Even Mendicus had stopped moving, and watched the big cat in horrified fascination.
‘No! Leave him alone!’ Casina was suddenly on stage, the tambourine in her hand, banging it hard against her thigh.
With a snarl of fury the leopard turned towards Casina, crouched and launched itself at the girl.
The she-leopard had sunk her teeth into Casina’s shoulder and was shaking the screaming girl from side to side, like a dog with rabbit.
Lupus knew he had to act now. He vaulted onto the stage and ran for the net that lay beneath Gaius’s shoulder. Ignoring the blood, he tugged the net free and ran towards the leopard, now dragging Casina towards the exit. With a quick prayer, Lupus tossed the net.
The big cat dropped Casina and batted the net away. But one of her claws caught the rope and soon both forepaws were entangled. The she-leopard snarled as she fought the strange ropy creature and now the guards had finally come to their senses. They were rushing forward with their swords and one of them darted in to have a swipe.
The she-leopard snarled and in trying to bat him she overbalanced and rolled back onto the stage.
The crowd cheered. This was better than any pantomime or wild beast hunt they had ever seen.
Lupus looked around frantically for something he could use as a weapon: a bow, a blunt object, a stone for his sling belt, anything.
‘Lupus!’ called a voice from up above. ‘The table.’
Lupus looked up to see a canvas strap descending on ropes suspended from a beam. This was Jonathan’s method for lifting Antonius up to Cleopatra.
‘Hang the table from the harness by one leg!’ called Jonathan.
Instantly, Lupus understood Jonathan’s plan. He ran to the small props table, and lifted it. He was surprised by how heavy it was: the polished top must be solid marble. The harness swung back, then down towards Lupus, and he was easily able to pull the canvas strap under one of the bronze legs of the table.
At once the table rose into the air and moved across the stage – swinging precariously – until it hung directly above the netted leopard.
Ungula stopped struggling with the net and tried to bat the table’s shadow. Then she looked up. For an impossibly long moment, the whole theatre held its breath. Then the table fell on the she-leopard, and she lay still, stunned by the direct hit.
The crowd cheered then grew silent again as Narcissus tore off his mask and ran to Casina.
‘Casina! My love!’ he cried, and lifted her onto his lap. ‘Are you all right?’
She nodded her head weakly. ‘I think so,’ she groaned. ‘Are you?’
Flavia saw him close his eyes in relief. Then he raised his face and looked out at the crowd. ‘Have you ever seen anything so brave?’ he said in a voice that must have carried to the furthest seats. ‘She risked her life for mine!’ He looked round at the audience. ‘Such bravery can only come from noble stock.’
He smeared his palm into the blood pooling beneath her shoulder and held up his red and dripping hand.
‘This blood,’ he cried, ‘the blood of this girl, is royal blood! Although her father was illegitimate, his blood and hers also is royal.’ Narcissus filled his lungs. ‘For this brave girl is a descendant of—’
‘No!’ cried Casina, catching his wrist. ‘I’m not her descendant! Stop it!’
‘You what?’
Casina was crying. ‘I only said that to make you like me. I never thought it would go this far. I never thought you would really do it.’
‘You mean you’re not the great, great-granddaughter of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra?’ He was whispering but Flavia was close enough to hear him. ‘Their blood doesn’t run in your veins?’
Casina shook her head. ‘My grandmother wasn’t Julia Urania, and my mother wasn’t Drusilla. She’s just a seamstress from Alexandria. And my father owns a fuller’s shop.’ Tears were running down her cheeks. ‘I’m just an ugly girl with a big nose and frizzy hair. None of the boys would even look at me. Then one day my best friend showed me a picture of Cleopatra on a coin. That’s what gave me the idea.’
He stared at her aghast.
‘I looked just like Cleopatra on the coin,’ she sobbed. ‘She had frizzy hair and a big nose, too. But men adored her. That’s what gave me the idea.’
Narcissus stood up, allowing her head to fall with a crack onto the stage. ‘You lied to me?’
‘Only to make you notice me!’ She lifted up her arms. ‘Narcissus, I love you! I’d do anything for you. But I can’t pretend to be who I’m not.’
‘You let me come two thousand miles to this barbarian backwater, practising the story of Cleopatra every night, just to tell me you’re a fuller’s daughter?’ He took a step back. ‘You deceiving harpy! How could you do this to me?’
Casina allowed her wounded arm to fall back to the stage. ‘Narcissus! Don’t leave me! I love you. I would die for you.’
He took a step away, then turned back and bent down. His tawny hair covered his face but Flavia heard him hiss, ‘You made a fool of me. I hope you do die.’
Then he turned and hurried to where Mendicus lay moaning on the stage.
Nubia ran up the half dozen steps to the stage in order to help the sobbing Casina. Flavia followed to attend to her uncle. She almost slipped on a pool of blood beneath his head. A moment later the crowd cheered. Flavia turned to see some of her uncle’s beast-hunter friends rolling a wheeled wooden cage towards the stunned she-leopard.
And now everything happened at once. Men and women swarmed onto the stage, the beast-hunters gingerly lifted Ungula into the cage and lictors arrived to calm the crowd and usher people out of the theatre. Several doctors had rushed onto the stage, too. Flavia saw a turbaned man attending to Casina, and a bald one had just finished binding Mendicus’s thigh. And now a man was standing over her uncle’s unconsc
ious form.
‘I am a doctor,’ he said in Greek-accented Latin. ‘May I help?’
‘Oh please!’ cried Flavia. She eased her uncle’s head onto her lap and allowed the doctor to feel a pulse in his neck and pull back one of his eyelids. Gaius groaned and his eyelids fluttered.
‘He’s going to be all right,’ said the doctor. ‘But I must apply styptic to staunch the flow of blood, and I must bind his wound. Then he must rest.’
A shadow fell across her and she looked up to see Jonathan standing beside the doctor, he had come down from the scaena.
‘He’s going to be all right,’ said Flavia. ‘The doctor’s going to bind his head.’
Jonathan nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He’s regaining consciousness. I’m going to see how Casina is. That leopard was chewing her shoulder. What on earth happened?’ he began, then caught himself, shook his head and ran to Casina.
Flavia looked back down at her uncle. His face was very pale but his eyes were open. He winced as the doctor tied off the strip of linen around his head.
‘You’ll be all right,’ said the doctor in Greek, and he stood up. ‘Just make sure you get plenty of rest. My name is Eudynamos,’ he added. ‘I live near the tanners’ quarter if you feel you need further attention.’
‘Flavia,’ muttered her uncle, ‘please give the doctor some money. In my belt pouch.’
Flavia nodded and reached into his coin purse. Her fingers encountered the cool polished surface of the emerald with a shock. In the chaos she had forgotten all about their mission.
‘How could I have taken the wrong leopard?’ he whispered, when the doctor had gone. ‘The label on the cage said “Nissa”.’
Flavia looked up at Lupus, Jonathan and Nubia, who had come to stand in a semi-circle around her uncle. Nubia’s yellow silk caftan was stained with blood.
‘They’ve taken Casina to the procurator’s house,’ said Jonathan. ‘The doctor says it’s a miracle that she’s alive.’
‘I’m sure it was the right leopard,’ whispered Gaius again. ‘I don’t understand.’
Jonathan squatted beside Gaius. ‘Don’t worry, sir. She’s going to be fine.’
Suddenly a woman screamed and Flavia heard someone cry: ‘It’s gone! Someone has stolen Nero’s Eye!’ The voice was Glycera’s.
Flavia looked at her uncle. ‘Didn’t you leave the replica among the other props?’ she asked in a low voice.
‘Of course,’ he said, his voice so faint she could barely hear. ‘With the garlands and the masks. I put it down carefully, so as not to break it.’
‘Great Juno’s peacock!’ Flavia breathed. ‘We’ve got the real one but now someone’s stolen the replica!’
‘Stop!’ cried Aufidius in a huge voice. ‘No person is to leave this theatre until we have searched everyone. Lictors! Guard the exits.’
Flavia looked wide-eyed at her uncle. If they found the emerald on his person they might crucify him.
An urgent grunt from Lupus. She looked up at him. He was opening and closing his hand very rapidly, as if to say: Give it to me.
Flavia reached over to her uncle’s leather coin purse and opened it. Lupus nodded, glanced around and reached into the purse. A moment later he was gone. When Flavia saw him again, he was standing on the other side of the wheeled wooden cage containing Ungula, which four men from the Pentasii Beast Hunting Corporation were wheeling away.
Presently Lupus was beside them again, helping Flavia and Jonathan assist Gaius to his feet. Flavia caught his eye, then glanced at the cage and raised her eyebrows. Lupus nodded.
And now they were in the queue to leave the theatre, supporting Gaius, who was still unsteady. Up ahead the lictors were searching those leaving.
Flavia watched them pat down the four beast-hunters, then held her breath as they glanced at the cage. Ungula was still entangled in the net, but blood stained her muzzle, and her green eyes gazed coldly at the two lictors. They glanced at each other, then waved the cage on. Flavia breathed a sigh of relief.
A moment later she and her uncle were patted down, and his belt-pouch searched, and then they were through.
‘Come on, Uncle Gaius,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you back to your lodgings.’
They were halfway to Calypso’s Caupona when an empty litter jogged up beside them. Flavia recognised the four litter bearers: they were black as ebony and wore only red loincloths and matching turbans.
‘Our master says the brave beast-fighter must come to stay at his villa,’ said the one called Jason. They put down the litter and helped her uncle in. When Gaius was installed, the four Ethiopians lifted the poles and trotted back towards the governor’s villa.
Flavia and her friends hurried after them.
‘What happened to Narcissus?’ Flavia asked Jonathan. ‘Did you see?’
‘Narcissus left just before the soldiers started searching people,’ said Jonathan. ‘I saw him helping Mendicus out of the theatre.’
‘He abandons poor Casina,’ said Nubia.
‘I know,’ said Flavia. ‘I guess he only liked her when he thought she was descended from Cleopatra. Poor girl.’
Suddenly a turbaned man clamped his hand on Flavia’s forearm. She gasped and looked up into the face of a stocky man in a cream turban. Behind him loomed his bodyguard: a man in a one-sleeved pink tunic with a head like an upside-down egg.
‘Taurus!’ cried Flavia. ‘And Pullo. You’re here!’
Taurus nodded. ‘We just arrived. Heard there was a commotion at the theatre. Came straight here to find lictors searching people at the exits and everyone talking about a stolen gem.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Did you really do it? Did you get it? Where is it?’
Flavia stared at him. He had deserted them over a month ago, and now he wanted the fruit of their labours.
‘Why did you sail without us?’ she cried. ‘And where are all our things? Our clothes, our money, our musical instruments? You abandoned us in Sabratha!’
‘My dear girl, we didn’t abandon you. We all thought you were on board, down in the hold. When we realised our mistake we returned to Sabratha.’
‘You did?’
‘Of course. We spent a week scouring the town for you but had no luck. So we set sail again for Lixus, intending to meet you here. Contrary winds delayed us, but as you can see, we got here eventually.’ He bent closer. ‘Did you succeed in your mission?’
‘Yes,’ said Flavia. ‘Only we didn’t mean for the theft to be discovered so soon. We made a glass replica and switched it for the real thing. But someone stole the replica. They probably think they have the real gem.’
‘Two thefts!’ he said. ‘And one of them deceived.’ He chuckled and then stopped. ‘But where is the real gem? Do you have it on you?’
Flavia glanced at Lupus. He gave her a tiny shrug.
‘They were searching everyone,’ she explained. ‘So we hid it under the straw in the leopard’s cage.’
‘What? That cage they were wheeling past a few moments ago?’
‘Yes. They didn’t think to search there. We were going to get it later.’
Taurus gave Pullo a rapid but meaningful glance, then turned back to Flavia. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You’ve done your part. We will take over from here.’
‘What?’ gasped Flavia.
‘But the emperor!’ protested Jonathan. ‘He asked us to bring it to him in Rome.’
‘Of course,’ said Taurus, his red mouth curving in a smile. ‘And I am on my way to Rome now, with fast imperial horses up to Tingis and then an oared warship to Ostia.’
‘Then you can take us home!’ cried Flavia.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Taurus smoothly, ‘but I don’t have room to take all of you. However, here’s enough gold to pay for your passage back. And I’ll have your belongings sent to the governor’s villa.’
‘Wait!’ cried Flavia.
He patted her arm: ‘Speed is essential, dear girl. I must get that gem to Rome. Once again, well done all!’
He turned and hurried after Pullo, and within moments they were out of sight.
The four friends looked at each other.
‘What just happened?’ said Jonathan.
Flavia shook her head. ‘I’m not sure.’ Suddenly a terrible thought occurred to her: ‘You don’t think he’s going to steal the gem for himself, do you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Jonathan after a short pause. ‘He knows we know he has it. And besides, he was our contact, and also Titus’s cousin and agent. No,’ he said. ‘He’ll give it to Titus. And he’ll get all the glory.’
‘You did not warn them of savage she-leopard Ungula,’ said Nubia.
‘I tried to just now . . .’ said Flavia. ‘But he wouldn’t listen.’ She allowed herself a grim smile. ‘I almost hope he finds out the hard way.’
Flavia found her uncle resting in a bed in an upper guest room of the proconsul’s villa. His head was wrapped in linen strips and his face was pale. The red light of the setting sun punched through the latticework screen to make pink lozenges of light on the white marble wall. Above him hung a wicker cage, and in it a blue and yellow bird sang with piercing sweetness.
‘Hello, Uncle Gaius,’ said Flavia, pulling up an ivory stool. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Terrible. That poor girl almost died because of me. Is she all right?’
‘Yes. The governor’s wife is looking after her in a room downstairs. They’re very kind here.’ She frowned. ‘Uncle Gaius, how on earth did you get the wrong leopard?’
‘I’ve no idea. The only explanation I can think of is that one of my colleagues switched the signs on the cages.’
‘But why would they do such a thing?’
He gave her a rueful look. ‘They were always playing practical jokes on me. They probably had no idea I intended to take Nissa on an outing. Probably just wanted to give me a fright when I went to toss her an antelope steak. But tell me about that poor girl . . . what was her name?’
‘Casina. I think she’s suffering more from a broken heart than from the leopard bite. How do you feel? How’s your head?’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 216