The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

‘When Alexander first came to Egypt, four centuries ago, he visited the oracle of Ammon at the great oasis at Siwa.’

  ‘Ammon the ram-headed god?’ asked Jonathan.

  ‘Yes. Ammon is also associated with Zeus, your Jupiter,’ said Seth. ‘At Siwa he allegedly claimed that Alexander was his son.’

  ‘Alexander was the son of Zeus?’ breathed Flavia.

  ‘Or Jupiter. Or Ammon. Whatever you want to call him.’

  Lupus used both hands to make twirling motions beside his ears.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Seth. ‘From that moment on, Alexander had himself depicted with the rams’ horns of Ammon, to show the god’s favour.’

  Jonathan nodded. ‘Our tutor Aristo told us that. I remember now.’

  ‘So we have to go to Siwa?’ asked Flavia. ‘Is it far?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Seth. ‘At least three days from here by camel. But there is also a Temple of Ammon here in Alexandria. We should check there first.’ He was looking over Lupus’s shoulder. ‘Someone’s in trouble,’ he said. ‘The governor’s private guard are here. They wear red trimmed with gold,’ he added.

  ‘Governor?’ said Jonathan. He and Flavia ducked their heads, but Lupus slowly turned to look. A pair of burly soldiers had entered the courtyard. One had taken a stand by the exit to the street and the other was scowling round at the crowd.

  ‘Don’t tell me they’re looking for you?’ said Seth in a hoarse whisper.

  Lupus nodded.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We don’t know why!’ whispered Flavia. ‘Seth, you’ve got to get us out of here. And quickly!’

  ‘How?’ said Jonathan. ‘We’re trapped.’

  Lupus took a deep breath and tried to calm his thudding heart. His instinct told him to run. But that would only draw their attention.

  ‘What shall we do?’ cried Flavia, looking at the governor’s guards out of the corner of her eye. ‘There’s no way out!’

  ‘How about back the way we came?’ whispered Jonathan.

  ‘No,’ said Seth. ‘The guards by the sarcophagus only let the people move one way. If we tried to go that way, they’d arrest us at once. There’s only one exit. And the governor’s guard is standing right beside it.’

  With a horrible sinking feeling, Flavia saw that the beer seller was pointing their way. But the scowling guard hadn’t seen them yet; he was still scanning the crowds.

  Suddenly, Lupus dipped a trembling finger in Flavia’s glass and wrote on the table: SEE YOU AMMON!

  ‘What?’ said Flavia and Jonathan together.

  Lupus rubbed out the liquid words and with a whoop he ran towards the guards.

  ‘There’s one!’ shouted the scowling guard. ‘Get him!’

  The guard by the door moved forward to intercept Lupus, but with a howl the boy dodged round him and ran under a table.

  ‘Look!’ said Jonathan. ‘The door’s unguarded. Let’s go!’

  ‘We can’t leave the boy!’ said Seth.

  Flavia’s heart was pounding. ‘Lupus is doing that so we can escape. He knows they’re looking for three children, not a scribe and two children. Walk, don’t run.’

  She glanced over her shoulder at Lupus. He was at the far end of the garden. He had scrambled up a fig tree and was jumping up and down on one of the branches. All eyes were on him.

  Slowly Flavia, Jonathan and Seth walked towards the exit. Behind them they heard leaves rustling and Lupus whooping like a monkey. They had almost reached the open door and freedom, when another guard put his head round to see what was happening.

  ‘There are three children over there,’ said Seth calmly. ‘They seem to be giving your friends a merry chase.’

  The guard cursed and clanked past them towards the crowd surrounding the fig tree.

  Now Flavia, Jonathan and Seth were outside on the pavement.

  ‘Pollux!’ cursed Flavia. There was another guard waiting outside. He was talking to a member of the gathering crowd but when he saw them he shouted: ‘Stop! Wait!’

  ‘Run!’ cried Seth. ‘RUN!’

  Jonathan lifted the hem of his long beige tunic and ran. The sandals Thonis had given him were cushioned with palm fibre, like the wheels of Alexandrian chariots, and they were perfectly silent. Jonathan could hear the guard clanking and cursing as he pounded after them.

  ‘Stop!’ cried the guard in Greek. ‘Stop in the name of the governor!’

  Jonathan could tell the guard was falling behind. But for how long? Soon the asthma would tighten his chest and make it impossible for him to run. He could see Flavia, her short fair hair bobbing up and down, and in front of her Seth, puffing along in his papyrus-coloured scribe’s tunic. Abruptly Seth turned down a broad street with stalls along the pavements. Jonathan’s nose told him this was a street of perfume makers and spice-sellers. They hadn’t been this way before.

  ‘Hey! Seth!’ cried one of the shopkeepers. ‘What have you done to upset the governor?’

  ‘Nothing!’ Seth stopped and reached for a glass bottle full of yellow liquid. ‘I’ll pay you back!’ he cried, and threw the bottle down onto the pavement. It shattered just behind Jonathan, and the air was suddenly filled with the scent of rose blossoms. ‘Perfumed olive oil!’ puffed Seth, coming up beside Jonathan. ‘Let’s hope it slows him up a little.’

  ‘Ohe!’ came the soldier’s gruff cry behind them, and Jonathan heard the crash of metal armour as the man hit the pavement. The soldier had slipped on the spreading pool of scented oil.

  ‘Clever!’ muttered Jonathan, amazed that he was not wheezing. ‘Very clever.’

  ‘Flavia!’ cried Seth, ‘this way!’

  On the broad pavement ahead Flavia skidded to a halt, turned and doubled back, following Seth and Jonathan as they wove through the spice stalls in the multicoloured shade of overhead awnings.

  ‘Aeiiii!’ came the soldier’s cry and Jonathan glanced over his shoulder. The guard had slipped again and crashed into one of the spice-sellers’ stalls. Cones of coloured powder had toppled onto him and the stallholders were showering him with curses.

  ‘In here!’ gasped Seth from the doorway of an opulent perfume shop. Jonathan and Flavia followed him through the arched doorway and a moment later the guard charged past them, only a few feet away. He was coated in powdered spices of orange and yellow, and he was sneezing. ‘That way!’ some of the stallholders were shouting, and pointing further into the depths of the spice market. ‘They went that way!’

  ‘Herodion!’ panted Seth, mopping his brow. ‘Are you here?’

  A bead curtain tinkled as the perfume-seller emerged from a back room. ‘At your service,’ he said with a little bow.

  ‘Do you have access to the cisterns? My friends and I are . . . on a quest.’

  ‘Of course, Master Seth. This way.’

  The perfume seller held back the curtain and the three friends filed through into the back of his shop.

  ‘Thank you, Herodion,’ said Seth, as the perfume-seller opened a low wooden door in a back wall. I’ll repay you for your kindness soon.’

  ‘I know you will, sir.’

  Seth led the way down the stone steps into darkness. Flavia followed him and Jonathan took up the rear, keeping close to the rough limestone wall on his right. He could smell damp and hear the plop of water. When they reached the foot of the stairs he gazed around in amazement. It was dim down here, but as his eyes adjusted he could see that he was not in a tomb-like room but in a vast space of columns and arches with water where the floor should be. Here and there beams of light slanted down from the world above, illuminating the jade green water and throwing back strange wobbling patterns on the vaults and arches above them.

  ‘Great Juno’s peacock!’ exclaimed Flavia, and her voice echoed strangely in the vast space. ‘It’s like a massive underground temple.’

  ‘Where are we?’ breathed Jonathan.

  ‘The cisterns of Alexandria,’ said Seth. ‘Underground aqueducts bring water from the Canopic branch of the Nil
e. Almost every homeowner has access to fresh water and some, like these, are for public use.’

  ‘But they seem to go on for ever,’ said Jonathan, peering into the dim vaulted distance.

  ‘Yes,’ said Seth. ‘The entire city of Alexandria is suspended over air and water.’

  By the time Lupus found the Temple of Zeus-Ammon it was late afternoon. He had shown his wax tablet to several stall-keepers before one of them had finally told him it was in the Brucheion by the Great Harbour, not far from the Poseidium.

  When he finally entered the temple, the thin beams of sunlight filtering through latticework windows were almost horizontal. He glanced quickly around, taking in the cult statue and hieroglyph-decorated walls, while at the same time alert for either his friends or guards in pursuit. But there was only a young priest, an old man, and a veiled Egyptian mother with her two daughters.

  Lupus went forward and knelt before the porphyry statue of Zeus-Ammon and pretended to worship. He was hungry and tired and he needed to think. Had Jonathan and Flavia been caught after all? Even after all his efforts to provide a diversion? Had Seth betrayed them to the guards?

  A hand on his shoulder made him jump and he looked up into the face of the Egyptian woman. A brown palla almost obscured her curly red hair. Her long-lashed hazel eyes were heavily made up with kohl and she had a few wispy hairs on her chin. It wasn’t an Egyptian mother. It was Seth in disguise.

  ‘Lupus, it’s us!’ hissed a familiar voice.

  Lupus’s jaw dropped as he took in Flavia. With her black wig and heavy eye make-up she looked at least sixteen years old. Amazed, Lupus turned to the other girl. Jonathan wore a blue palla, a black wig, eyeliner and a sheepish expression. Lupus stifled a guffaw and made it a cough, then gave them a secret thumbs-up. It was a brilliant disguise.

  ‘Come on,’ hissed Flavia. ‘We’ve been waiting for nearly an hour. But we have the next clues and we need to go right away. Seth thinks his black-sheep cousin Nathan might be able to smuggle us out of Alexandria.’

  ‘And Lupus,’ added Jonathan, his kohl-rimmed eyes shining, ‘wait till you see what’s underneath this city.’

  An hour later the three friends and Seth were sailing across the surface of Lake Mareotis, watching a huge red sun sink behind the reed beds to the west. They had made their way through the cisterns of Alexandria to the canal and from there to Lake Mareotis, where they found Seth’s smuggler cousin Nathan and his flat-bottomed sailing boat, the Scarab.

  Nathan stood at the stern, at the tiller behind the sail, and the three friends and Seth were having a whispered conference at the front.

  ‘Tell us, Lupus!’ hissed Flavia. ‘How did you get away from the guards?’

  ‘Yes, tell us,’ said Jonathan. He had taken off his palla and black wig. With his bald head and heavily made up eyes, Lupus thought he looked like a young Egyptian pharaoh.

  Lupus grinned and took out his wax tablet. EASY, he wrote. THE PEOPLE WERE ALL ON MY SIDE. I JUMPED OUT OF THE TREE AND THEY USED HANDS TO PASS ME ALONG OVER THEIR HEADS. THEY SLOWED DOWN THE GUARDS FOLLOWING ME, he added, LONG ENOUGH FOR ME TO GET AWAY

  Seth nodded grimly. ‘Most Alexandrians endure Roman rule, but they hate Roman soldiers and will obstruct them at every chance. That’s because the soldiers always accompany tax collectors and they’re the ones who stop you and search you for contraband every ten feet.’

  Jonathan patted Lupus’s back. ‘It was very brave of you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Flavia. ‘Thank you, Lupus.’

  Lupus shrugged and bent his head to retie the strap of his sandal. He could feel his cheeks flushing with pleasure and he didn’t want them to see.

  ‘Speaking of soldiers,’ said Jonathan to Seth. ‘How did you manage to get us past those ones on the dock?’

  ‘They’re friends of Nathan’s,’ said Seth. ‘He gives them a few drachmae every week and they leave him alone.’

  ‘I’m sure our disguise helped, too,’ said Flavia, and added. ‘It’s lucky your cousin has a boat.’

  Lupus nodded and leaned back to look past the sail towards the young man at the tiller. Like the other boatmen they had seen on the docks, he wore a short one-sleeved tunic and a white cone-shaped cap. He had curly hair, but unlike Seth’s it was dark brown. And while Seth was pudgy and pale, Nathan was tanned and lean from long days on the lake.

  Flavia leaned over, too, so that she could see Nathan. She whispered in Lupus’s ear. ‘Seth was telling us about Nathan. Instead of becoming a scribe or a rabbi he chose to be a smuggler, because he loves mammon. Whatever mammon is.’

  ‘It means “wealth”,’ said Jonathan.

  Nathan saw the two of them watching him and winked back.

  Lupus leant forward again, so that the sail blocked Nathan from view. WHERE ARE WE GOING? he wrote on his tablet.

  ‘We’re going to a place near Memphis,’ said Seth glumly.

  ‘We found two clues at the Temple of Zeus-Ammon,’ explained Flavia.

  ‘The first clue,’ said Jonathan, ‘was written in charcoal on the back of the cult statue. It was a riddle:

  First I was buried in earth’s deep depths: a dark and hidden band.

  But flames have changed my looks and name, and now I purchase land.’

  Flavia looked at Lupus, her grey eyes shining. ‘Can you guess the answer?’ she said. ‘I got it and so did Jonathan.’

  Lupus thought for a moment, then nodded and wrote on his wax tablet: I AM GOLD

  ‘Correct,’ said Jonathan.

  Suddenly Lupus hit his forehead with his hand.

  ‘What?’ they all cried.

  His hand shaking with excitement, Lupus rubbed out what he had written on his wax tablet and wrote: NOT WORD QUEST. TREASURE QUEST!

  ‘Treasure quest?’ said Flavia to Lupus. ‘What do you mean?’

  The three friends and Seth were sailing across Lake Mareotis on a flat bottomed boat.

  Lupus looked at Seth and wrote: MISSING PAPYRUS LOOKED LIKE MAP. TREASURE MAP?

  Seth nodded. ‘I suppose it could have been. Egypt’s packed with fabulous treasures. If you know where to look . . .’

  ‘Of course!’ cried Flavia. ‘Chryses isn’t looking for a handful of nuts or a new quill pen. He’s looking for fabulous treasure.’

  Lupus nodded enthusiastically.

  Flavia stared thoughtfully over the water. ‘But why has he taken Nubia with him?’ she asked.

  ‘And why,’ added Jonathan, ‘is he leaving Seth clues? If there is treasure, you’d think he would want it all to himself. He doesn’t want his rival in hot pursuit.’

  ‘I know why!’ cried Flavia, and looked at Seth. ‘You said some of the words on the treasure map were Hebrew. You are fluent in Hebrew, but is Chryses?’

  ‘He can read the alphabet,’ said Seth. ‘But he isn’t as fluent as I am.’

  ‘Maybe,’ continued Flavia, ‘he wants you to tag along a few steps behind so that when he needs help with the Hebrew, you can decipher them.’

  Jonathan shook his head. ‘Couldn’t any Jewish person help him with that?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Seth. ‘Most Jews who live here in Egypt speak Greek, not Hebrew. They use the Septuagint. So Flavia could be right.’

  Flavia clapped her hands. ‘Maybe he’s taken Nubia with him for the same reason. To translate Nubian clues!’

  YOU SAID TWO CLUES AT AMMON TEMPLE wrote Lupus. ‘That’s right,’ said Flavia. ‘Remember all those hieroglyphs carved into the wall?’

  Lupus grunted yes.

  ‘Well,’ continued Jonathan. ‘I noticed that a circled group was underlined in charcoal.’

  ‘Luckily,’ said Flavia, ‘Seth understands hieroglyphs. Once Jonathan pointed out the circled sequence of hieroglyphs, he wrote them down. Seth, show us your wax tablet.’

  Seth reached into his belt pouch and handed Flavia his wax tablet.

  *

  ‘See that circle around the hieroglyphs?’ said Flavia. ‘You only get that around the name of
a king or a god. These little symbols – the ball of string, the quail chick, the horned viper and another quail chick – spell out the name Khufu, which is Cheops in Greek. He was a pharaoh of ancient times. Is that right, Seth?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Seth. He had turned to watch a heron flying low over the lake, so his voice was barely audible.

  Lupus grunted and pointed at the other symbols in front of the king’s name – a wasp above a bowl and something like a bending tree above a bowl.

  ‘That bendy thing represents a plant called sedge,’ said Flavia.

  ‘It’s a kind of rush or reed that grows in rivers,’ said Jonathan. ‘It represents Upper Egypt.’

  Lupus pointed to the wasp. He made a buzzing sound.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Flavia. ‘It’s a bee, the symbol for the Delta, where we are now. The semicircle below it is the sign for ‘Lord’. Taken all together it says: Cheops, Lord of the Lands of Sedge and Bee.’

  Lupus frowned at her.

  ‘Lands of Sedge and Bee is just another way of saying Egypt,’ said Jonathan. ‘Upper Egypt plus Lower Egypt equals Egypt!’

  ‘And Cheops,’ said Flavia. ‘Is the famous pharaoh whose tomb is considered one of the Seven Sights of the World!’

  Lupus shaped a pyramid with his hands.

  ‘That’s right!’ said Flavia. ‘The treasure must be in or near the great pyramid!’

  ‘It’s that way,’ added Jonathan, pointing south across the water. ‘About a day’s journey, according to Seth.’

  ‘Master of the Universe,’ said Seth suddenly. ‘What am I doing? This is madness.’

  Lupus and the others looked at Seth, who was resting his head in his hands.

  ‘How did this happen?’ moaned Seth. ‘This morning I was happily copying scrolls. Then you three arrive and six hours later I find myself dressed like a woman, sailing in a boat owned by my reprobate cousin, in flight from Roman guards and on the way to the great pyramids a hundred miles from here.’

  Lupus reached out and gave Seth a tentative pat on the back.

  ‘Don’t be sad, Seth,’ said Flavia. ‘Think of it as an adventure.’

  ‘Adventure?’ said Seth. He raised his face and stared at the friends in disbelief. ‘Until today I’ve never set foot outside Alexandria. This is no adventure. This is a disaster!’