The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  The steward raised his eyebrows, then said in Latin, ‘Of course. I shall take excellent care of them until you return. Come,’ he said to Flavia and her friends. ‘Follow me.’ And he gave them a smile which Flavia did not trust one bit.

  ‘Thonis said what?’ whispered Jonathan a quarter of an hour later. The three of them had finally been left alone in a bedroom on the first floor. They were having a conference.

  HE SAID NOT TO LET US OUT, wrote Lupus.

  ‘And what were they saying back at the governor’s mansion?’ asked Flavia. ‘When they were speaking in Greek?’

  WE ARE WANTED BY SOMEONE VERY HIGH UP, wrote Lupus with a trembling hand.

  ‘Faustus said that? The man behind the desk?’

  Lupus nodded.

  ‘And Thonis agreed to help him?’ whispered Jonathan.

  Lupus grunted yes. FAUSTUS SAID THERE WAS A BIG REWARD

  ‘For us?’ said Flavia. ‘A reward for us?’

  Lupus nodded again.

  ‘Anything else?’ said Jonathan. ‘Can you remember anything else?’

  HE MENTIONED NUBIA BY NAME, wrote Lupus. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then snapped his fingers and added: HAD A LETTER FROM AN OFFICIAL IN SABRATHA.

  ‘Who do we know in Sabratha?’ asked Flavia and then answered her own question. ‘Taurus! Titus’s cousin and friend. The one who sent us on the mission to get the emerald.’

  ‘And then took the gem and the glory for himself,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘But Taurus set sail for Italia almost two weeks ago,’ said Flavia. ‘From North Africa. How can he be back in Sabratha already?’

  ‘It’s just about possible,’ said Jonathan. ‘But I admit, not likely . . .’

  WE HAVE TO GET AWAY FROM HERE, wrote Lupus.

  ‘I agree,’ said Flavia. ‘And we have to find Nubia.’

  ‘But how?’ said Jonathan. ‘You saw that slobbering hound in the vestibule. And there’s no back door. How can we get away? And how will we find Nubia?’

  ‘If we can just get out of here,’ said Flavia, ‘I know where to start looking.’

  Thaemella the gem-cutter was carving a tiny Hermes into a carnelian when a thud on the red canvas awning above him almost made him decapitate the messenger-god with his fine chisel. A moment later a girl in blue dangled from the awning at arms’ length, then thumped down onto the pavement. She cursed in Latin as she rolled on the ground, then stood up and brushed herself off.

  The girl had short fair hair and grey eyes and she was wearing a long blue tunic with a blue scarf tied around her hips. He was about to ask her what she was doing when she gave him a smile and put her finger to her lips.

  Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, Thaemella nodded, then gave a violent start as another body fell onto the awning above, causing it to sag alarmingly. This body belonged to a boy about the same age as the girl. He was wearing a long beige tunic tied in a knot above his knees and a dark blue turban. A moment later a third and smaller body thudded on the awning. Thaemella could see the dents of knees and hands move towards the awning’s edge and now a younger boy in a turquoise turban dangled before him. For a moment the boy gazed with green-eyed alarm at Thaemella. The gem-cutter put his own finger to his lips. The boy grinned, and his friends helped him jump down to the pavement. Now the older boy was looking up and tugging something. From somewhere above the awning came a sudden crack and a rope of coloured cloth came tumbling down onto the three children.

  ‘Thank you, sir!’ whispered the girl in Latin, a language Thaemella barely understood. She handed him the bundled rope of cloth – bedspreads tied together by the look of it – and she gave him a rapid explanation. But he only caught one word: ‘kidnapped.’

  The girl put her finger to her lips again and he nodded his understanding. Then – still open-mouthed and holding the knotted bedspreads – he watched as the three of them ran down the pavement, turned a corner and disappeared from sight.

  It was almost noon by the time the three friends found an entrance to the great Museum of Alexandria. After the heat and brilliance of the granite streets, the vestibule was cool and dim. But the entryway was guarded by two soldiers.

  ‘No entry to the public this afternoon,’ said one of the guards, without even looking at them. ‘There’s a lecture this evening at the twelfth hour, but that’s in the exedra.’

  ‘We don’t want a lecture and we don’t need a scroll,’ said Flavia in her best Greek. ‘We’re looking for one of your scribes. A eunuch.’

  The guards exchanged a glance and the first one smirked.

  ‘There are some of those working here,’ he said. ‘But I don’t keep track of them.’

  ‘Wait,’ said the other guard. He had very hairy legs. ‘Weren’t they telling us to keep an eye out for a missing eunuch?’ He turned to Flavia. ‘What’s this eunuch’s name?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Flavia. ‘He was with our friend. We think he kidnapped her.’ It was an exaggeration but it had the required effect. Hairy legs turned and disappeared down a hall towards a bright inner garden.

  The first guard snorted and stared straight ahead, ignoring Flavia’s questions about the Museum: how big was it, how many rooms did it have, where was the Library. Presently she wandered over to Jonathan and Lupus, who were examining the frescoed walls. Lupus was pointing at a composite god with the body of a hippo and head of a crocodile. Near this god were scales with a tiny person on one side and a feather on the other.

  ‘A man not a man saw and did not see a bird not a bird sitting on a stick not a stick,’ said a quavering voice behind them in Latin.

  The three friends turned to see an ancient man bent over a walking stick. He wore a long black tunic trimmed with yellow, marking him out as a scholar of the Museum. Wispy white hair and beard framed a face as brown and wrinkled as a walnut. His bright black eyes were keen and sharp, but his smile was kind. The hairy-legged guard was close behind him.

  ‘Roman are you?’ said the old man in Latin, looking from Flavia to Lupus to Jonathan.

  ‘Yes, sir. We are,’ said Flavia.

  ‘In search of a eunuch who works here as a scribe?’

  Flavia nodded.

  ‘I am Philologus, the Head Scholar of this place,’ he announced in his tremulous voice. ‘At your service.’

  ‘Thank, you, sir,’ said Flavia. ‘We’re actually looking for our friend Nubia. She was shipwrecked a few days ago and doesn’t know anybody here in Alexandria. But a priest at the Poseidium saw her yesterday; she was with a eunuch dressed in yellow and black.’

  ‘One of our eunuchs with your shipwrecked friend?’ said Philologus, stroking his wispy white beard. ‘Fascinating. And you think this eunuch has kidnapped her?’

  ‘We’re not sure if he kidnapped her exactly,’ stuttered Flavia. ‘But they were together.’

  ‘We do have several eunuchs employed here in the chicken coop of the Muses. And one of them is missing.’

  ‘Chicken coop?’ said Jonathan with a puzzled frown.

  The old man chuckled. ‘That is what some call this place,’ he said. ‘They refer to our scribes as cloistered bookworms scratching endlessly in the chicken coop of the Muses.’ He looked up at them with his bright black eyes. ‘A bad mixture of metaphors. Bookworms don’t scratch; they devour.’

  The three friends exchanged puzzled looks. Flavia had no idea what the old man was talking about, but when he beckoned them on, she and the boys followed.

  ‘A man not a man saw and did not see a bird not a bird sitting on a stick not a stick,’ repeated Philologus. He was slowly leading them back down the corridor towards a bright inner garden with a bubbling fountain at its centre. ‘It’s a riddle from the fifth scroll of Plato’s Republic. “A man not a man” means a eunuch, “saw did not see” means caught a glimpse of, “bird not a bird” is a bat, and the “stick not a stick” was a reed. Ergo: a eunuch caught a glimpse of a bat on a reed. Of course, you’re not looking for a bat or a reed, just for a eunuch.’
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br />   Flavia nodded, then gave her friends a quizzical look.

  ‘My specialty is codes and puzzles,’ said the old man, as they passed from the bright garden into a domed room ringed with statues of robed females. ‘Also hieroglyphs, the sacred writings of the Egyptians. By the way,’ he said, stopping abruptly and using his walking stick to gesture towards the statues of nine women surrounding them, ‘this whole place is dedicated to the Muses, hence the name: Museum. It is a shrine to knowledge.’

  ‘Do you know the eunuch who was with our friend?’ asked Jonathan.

  The old man seemed to nod as he led them out of the cella and along another colonnade – this one with gilded columns. Presently they emerged into a sunny courtyard with a shell of semi-circular benches at its centre, like a small theatre. ‘I lecture here at the exedra on the Ides of every month,’ he said, leaning on his staff. ‘And anyone can attend.’ He glanced at Flavia. ‘Even women.’

  ‘Can women be scribes here at the Museum?’ asked Flavia.

  ‘Sadly, no; we are a community of men. But women can attend lectures.’ He gave her a keen look. ‘Tell me, young lady, can you answer this riddle? I thrive on letters, yet no letters know. I love a book, be it codex or a scroll. And though I devour the Muses, no wiser do I grow.’

  ‘I thrive on letters,’ repeated Flavia. ‘And though I devour the Muses – I know the answer!’ she cried. ‘Tinea sum: I am a bookworm! A bookworm loves to eat through papyrus and parchment but it can’t read, of course!’

  ‘Excellent!’ said the old man, pounding his walking stick on the marble pavement. ‘Excellent.’ He happily led them out of the exedra to a lush inner courtyard with bars between the columns.

  ‘This,’ said Philologus, stopping to catch his breath, ‘this is one of our animal gardens. Creatures from all over the world live here so that our biologists can study them. Stop. Look. Listen. And here,’ he looked at Jonathan, ‘is a riddle for you: Although my step is slow, my attire is ravishing. Because I live so long, I should know everything. Alive I nothing say, but when I’m dead I sing.’

  Jonathan repeated the riddle in his mind and gazed thoughtfully into the animal garden. Suddenly he caught sight of a slow-moving creature in the sand beneath a shrub and he grinned. ‘I am a tortoise?’ he said. ‘Testudo sum?’

  ‘Yes!’ Philologus pounded his walking stick. ‘Tell me why?’

  ‘Because a tortoise is slow and old and silent, but after he’s dead you can make a lyre from his shell. So in a way he sings.’

  ‘Well done, Jonathan!’ cried Flavia and Lupus nodded happily.

  They moved on to the next animal courtyard. This one had a pool.

  ‘Aaaah!’ cried Lupus, suddenly. He pointed at a large crocodile basking in the sun. The crocodile opened one evil yellow eye, then closed it again.

  ‘Ugh!’ agreed Flavia. ‘I hate crocodiles.’

  ‘And finally, my young lad,’ said Philologus to Lupus, ‘a riddle for you. There is a little beast, whom you and I both know. Now if you catch this beast, you’ll want to let him go. But if you do not spy him, with you he’ll surely go.’

  Lupus thought for a moment. Then his face broke into a smile. He took out the wax tablet Thonis had given him and wrote: I AM A LOUSE? PEDIS SUM?

  ‘Euge! Euge!’ Philologus thudded his staff gleefully. ‘They say that the great poet Homer died of frustration because he couldn’t solve that riddle. And you did it in a moment.’

  ‘That’s because Lupus knows all about lice,’ said Jonathan with a grin.

  Lupus nodded proudly and pretended to scratch himself. They all laughed.

  ‘Come,’ said Philologus, ‘You have all passed the test. You are worthy indeed.’

  He led them down another long double-colonnaded walkway, this one with a medicinal garden at its centre. On both right and left were scroll-filled niches in the wall, with tables and chairs set before each one. Sitting at these tables were dozens of men in pale yellow tunics bordered with black. Most of the men were writing on papyrus with quill pen and ink, but some were making notes on wax tablets and others rolling or unrolling scrolls.

  ‘Do you see?’ cackled Philologus. ‘Do they not look like chickens in their coop, peck-peck-pecking away with pen on papyrus?’ He tapped his staff on the floor. A few of the scribes looked up at this and smiled at him.

  Philologus moved forward to peer over the shoulder of a young man with the looks of a Phoenician. ‘Good, good,’ he murmured, ‘but don’t ignore that rubric.’ He turned back to Flavia and her friends. ‘Come,’ he beckoned. ‘Not much further.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ asked Flavia. ‘But where is the Great Library? Someone told us it was here in the Museum.’

  ‘Why, it’s all around you, my dear girl. A million scrolls and books are spread throughout this place. Volumes and codices on exotic animals are found back there, near the animal garden.’ He waved his staff vaguely behind him. ‘The apothecaries study here in the medicine garden. The physicians congregate nearby – to perform autopsies and mix their potions – and of course the medical treatises are kept there. The astronomers and astrologers gather near the observatory and the physicists and engineers near Hero’s steam engine; literature and poetry is in another wing of the Museum, and as for religious texts and funerary rituals,’ he gestured straight ahead, ‘I am taking you there now, to a scribe called Seth.’

  ‘Is he the eunuch-scribe who knows our friend Nubia?’

  ‘He is not himself a eunuch,’ said Philologus, ‘but he might know where your friend’s eunuch has gone.’

  It seemed to Jonathan that they had been following the old scribe for miles along the colonnades and corridors of the Museum.

  ‘My father studied here,’ said Jonathan to Philologus. ‘When he was younger. Have you heard of him: Mordecai ben Ezra?’

  ‘I knew him!’ said Philologus and stopped to regard Jonathan with his keen dark eyes. ‘He was a fine young physician. And a wise man. You are Jewish,’ he added. ‘Good, good. We have many Jews working here. Jews and eunuchs, Greeks and Egyptians. We exclude no one.’

  ‘Except women,’ said Flavia.

  ‘Ah! You have me!’ the old man laughed and shot Flavia a keen glance. ‘But if it was up to me you would be welcome! Come!’

  He led them down another long colonnade to a bright courtyard with grey speckled columns. Instead of a fountain or garden, this one had an elaborate model of a monumental building at its centre.

  Philologus leant on his staff and glanced at Jonathan. ‘Do you recognise it?’ he said. ‘Or perhaps you were too young . . .’

  ‘The Temple,’ said Jonathan. ‘It’s a model of the Temple of God at Jerusalem.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Philologus, and his smile faded. ‘Sadly now destroyed.’ He gestured towards the men working against the walls. ‘These scribes work on religious texts,’ he said. ‘Scriptures, commentaries, spells, curses and invocations. In fact, I believe it was here that the Septuagint came into being.’

  ‘What’s the Septuagint?’ asked Flavia.

  ‘It’s the translation of our holy writings from Hebrew into Greek,’ said Jonathan. ‘It’s called the Septuagint because seventy rabbis translated it.’

  Some of the scribes had turned round to see who was disturbing the peace of their sanctuary. But one of them – a plump young man with curly red hair and a black skullcap – remained facing the wall.

  It was this youth that Philologus approached.

  ‘Seth,’ he said. ‘I would like to introduce you to three friends of mine.’

  Seth turned and looked up at them with something like alarm.

  ‘The only problem,’ said Philologus with a giggle. ‘Is that I don’t know the names of my friends.’

  Jonathan opened his mouth to speak, but as usual, Flavia stepped forward first. ‘My name is Flavia Gemina, daughter of Marcus Flavius Geminus, sea captain,’ she said. ‘This is Jonathan and that’s Lupus. Lupus can’t speak,’ she added.

  The youth s
tared at them.

  ‘This is Seth ben Aaron,’ said Philologus, ‘one of our most promising junior scribes.’

  Jonathan smiled at Seth. The youth had a chubby face and long-lashed hazel eyes. His beard was almost nonexistent and Jonathan guessed he was about seventeen or eighteen.

  ‘Shalom,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Seth to Jonathan in Aramaic. His voice was surprisingly deep. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘We were shipwrecked on our way from Mauretania to Italia,’ said Jonathan in Latin, so that the others could understand him.

  ‘We washed up at a place called Canopus,’ added Flavia.

  ‘Canopus!’ Philologus cackled and rubbed his hands together. ‘Canopus: famed for its decadence and debauchery!’

  Lupus nodded and staggered in a circle, as if tipsy.

  Seth stared at Lupus in astonishment.

  ‘Some of the people there were slightly drunk,’ admitted Flavia. ‘But they were kind. One of them drove us into Alexandria and took us to the Temple of Poseidon so we could make our thanks offering. Then we discovered that our friend Nubia had been there the day before: yesterday. So that means she also survived the shipwreck! The priest said she was with a eunuch wearing pale yellow and black. That led us here.’

  Seth looked at Jonathan. ‘You were making an offering at a temple of idols?’ he said in his husky Aramaic. ‘And now you’re wearing a turban?’

  Jonathan flushed and self-consciously patted his indigo turban. ‘It seemed the right thing to do,’ he said. ‘When in Rome . . .’

  ‘Oh, leave the boy alone, Seth,’ quavered Philologus in Latin. ‘And help us find the eunuch. I think you know who they’re looking for, don’t you?’

  Seth’s face clouded over. ‘Chryses?’ he said in accented Latin.

  ‘Exactly.’ Philologus turned to the three friends. ‘There are only three eunuchs employed here in the chicken coop of the Muses. Two of them are at their posts this morning, but one of them, Chryses, did not come down.’

  ‘And you know this Chryses?’ said Jonathan to Seth.