The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  ‘Maybe he slipped and fell,’ said Flavia.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Seth. ‘But one of the other scribes said he heard Chryses and Onesimus arguing. A few moments later he heard a cry and found Onesimus lying dead at the foot of the stairs.’

  ‘Great Juno’s peacock!’ breathed Flavia. ‘Do you really think Chryses could be a murderer?’

  Seth shrugged.

  Flavia gripped his arm. ‘That gives us even more reason to find Nubia. If Chryses is with her then she might be in danger!’

  Seth sighed deeply, then nodded. ‘I think I know where they’re going,’ he said, and looked at Flavia. ‘But when you find out you may not want to go on.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Flavia. ‘Where are they going?’

  ‘To Crocodilopolis, the city of crocodiles.’

  ‘Crocodilopolis?’ gasped Flavia. ‘There’s a place called Crocodilopolis?’

  Jonathan and Lupus exchanged looks of amazement.

  ‘Several,’ sighed Seth. ‘Entire towns devoted to worshipping crocodiles. The nearest Crocodilopolis has a tame jewel-encrusted crocodile who takes food from your hand.’

  ‘A tame crocodile? Is that true?’ Jonathan asked Nathan.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nathan. ‘And it’s only a day or two from here, near Lake Moeris in the region called Fayum, in the nome of Arsinoe.’ He frowned at Seth. ‘But how did you know that?’

  ‘Strabo,’ said Seth. ‘He also mentions a labyrinth at Crocodilopolis, and calls it the Eighth Sight of the World.’

  ‘And you think that’s where they’re going?’ asked Flavia in a small voice. ‘To the city of crocodiles?’

  Seth shrugged. ‘It’s the nearest place where the god Sobek is worshipped . . .’

  ‘But I thought the main clue was the camel riddle!’ protested Flavia, and added hopefully: ‘Is there maybe a place called Camelopolis?’

  Nathan laughed. ‘As far as I know, there is no place or sanctuary associated with camels.’

  Jonathan added: ‘You heard what Abu told us at the pyramids, Flavia. Camels are new to Egypt. Aren’t they Seth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then what did the camel part of the riddle mean?’ asked Flavia.

  Seth shrugged. ‘Perhaps it means they are going by camel. Although I doubt Chryses has ever ridden a camel in his life.’

  ‘But Nubia has!’ cried Flavia. ‘Nubia loves camels. She’s very good with them.’

  ‘Of course!’ said Seth. ‘I completely forgot: Chryses hates water! He’d never sail in a boat if he had a choice. The only other way upriver is by donkey or camel. That must be why he took Nubia with him; camels are much faster.’

  ‘And Abu told us there was a camel-market at the pyramids, the day before we arrived,’ said Jonathan.

  Seth nodded and glanced at Flavia. ‘Now that you know they’re probably on their way to the City of Crocodiles, are you still determined to follow them?’

  Flavia looked at her friends. Jonathan and Lupus nodded their encouragement and she swallowed hard. ‘We must find Nubia,’ she said, and turned to Nathan. ‘Take us to Crocodilopolis.’

  ‘I’d be happy to take you there,’ said Nathan, ‘but there’s a slight problem. The wind has just died.’

  By noon they had all taken a turn at punting, except for Seth.

  ‘Come on, Seth!’ cried Nathan impatiently. ‘The punt pole and I are waiting.’

  ‘I’m busy teaching Flavia the hieroglyphic alphabet,’ replied Seth, without looking up from his wax tablet.

  ‘I don’t mind if you punt for a while,’ said Flavia.

  ‘I’m wounded,’ whined Seth. ‘My head is throbbing.’

  ‘It wasn’t bothering you a moment ago,’ said Nathan.

  ‘Well, it is now.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be an infant!’ snapped Nathan. ‘Even the girl here has tried her hand at it.’

  ‘I don’t even want to be on this boat.’

  ‘Listen, Seth!’ growled Nathan. ‘Either you punt or I’ll make you a eunuch and feed your bits to the sharp-nosed fish.’

  Jonathan and Lupus both laughed. Seth glared at them, then sighed and rose and went to the back to the stern.

  Flavia bent her head over her wax tablet. With Seth’s help, she had written out the hieroglyphic alphabet and now she was trying to memorize the characters. Lupus and Jonathan were fishing with a plank of wood and a net. Standing in the bows of the boat Jonathan would strike the water hard with Nathan’s small gangplank, while at the stern Lupus used a net to scoop up the stunned fish as they floated to the surface. They had already caught several good-sized pike. Soon they would be grilling them for dinner.

  ‘Lupus!’ called out Flavia. ‘Here’s a riddle for you. What do a lion and a quail chick have in common?’

  Lupus looked at her and shook his head.

  ‘They’re both hieroglyphic letters in your name.’

  Lupus gave her a thumbs-up and a grin.

  ‘And Jonathan,’ continued Flavia, ‘you have a cobra and two vultures. I also have two vultures, and two horned vipers.’ She looked up at Nathan. ‘What is a horned viper, anyway? Do they really exist?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Nathan. He was showing his cousin how to punt. ‘You don’t want to meet one of those.’

  Flavia stared hard at the riverbank, but she couldn’t see any horned vipers, just lush green fields and shaggy palms, and beyond them the barren desert, hot and shimmering in the midday heat. A white egret rose out of the reeds and flapped away to the east.

  ‘Hallelujah!’ said Seth, as a breeze ruffled the sail and then caused it to balloon. ‘I think the wind is rising.’

  ‘Master of the Universe, you’re lucky!’ Nathan shook his head in wonder. ‘You were only at it for a few moments and this breeze gets up.’

  ‘That’s because the Lord in his wisdom wants to spare my hands, these skilled hands of a scribe and scholar.’

  Flavia put down her tablet and went to Jonathan in the bows of the boat. She lifted the tail of her turban and let the breeze cool the damp back of her neck.

  ‘Look,’ said Jonathan, shading his eyes. ‘I think I see some pyramids.’ He was wearing a nut-brown turban which Nathan had found in one of his storage spaces.

  ‘Yes,’ came Nathan’s voice from behind them. ‘There are more than one hundred of them here in Lower Egypt. And all of them pillaged.’

  ‘Which pyramids are those?’ asked Flavia.

  ‘The pyramids of Acanthus,’ said Nathan. ‘They say the oldest of all the pyramids is there.’

  Seth came up behind them, mopping his cheeks. Flavia noticed that his face and the back of his neck were very pink.

  ‘When do we stop?’ he asked.

  ‘Stop?’ Nathan frowned at his cousin. ‘Tonight the moon is full. If we carry on through the night and if this good wind holds, we might reach Crocodilopolis before they do.’

  Seth shook his head. ‘The Sabbath begins this evening,’ he said. ‘And I do not travel on the Sabbath.’

  Before the first stars pricked the evening sky, Nathan guided his boat to the west bank and moored it to a pink-blossomed mimosa at the water’s edge.

  Lupus shared Nathan’s frustration as they furled the sail. Flavia’s eyes were red from crying and even Jonathan was annoyed. He had pointed out that it was permitted to travel on the Sabbath if it was an emergency.

  ‘This is not an emergency,’ Seth had grumbled. ‘It’s a wild-ibis chase.’

  Suddenly Lupus’s head went up.

  ‘What’s the matter, Lupus?’ asked Flavia.

  Lupus grunted for them to be quiet and put his finger to his lips. He had seen someone in the sycamore grove on the bank above them.

  ‘Just as I suspected,’ said Chryses, coming into the sandy clearing. ‘Seth won’t travel on the Sabbath.’

  ‘Seth?’ said Nubia, looking up from her work. She was lying on her stomach near the fire and making a reed flute. ‘The scribe who hates you? He is here?’

  Chryses see
med flustered. He eased the bulging basket from his shoulder onto the ground and went over to the camels.

  ‘Er . . . yes. About a stade upriver from here, not far from the village. He . . . um . . . he thinks I took something of his and he’s pursuing me. I should have told you before. But don’t worry. They won’t be travelling tomorrow.’ Chryses opened his canvas pack and took out a rolled up reed mat.

  ‘They?’ Nubia put the glowing end of an acacia twig to the reed. ‘Is Seth travelling with others?’

  ‘With his cousin and some boys,’ said Chryses, unrolling his mat beside the fire. ‘Seth’s cousin owns a boat. The boys are probably his nephews. I didn’t get a very good look,’ he added, ‘because I didn’t want to get too close to the riverbank.’

  ‘You do not like the river?’ asked Nubia. The twig had burned a hole in one side of the reed.

  ‘I hate the river.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you sometime. At least it means we don’t have to travel tonight. My bottom couldn’t endure one more hour on that creature.’ He glared at Castor. The two camels were sitting at the foot of an acacia tree, smugly chewing their cuds.

  ‘What is he thinking that you took?’ Nubia held the acacia twig in the fire and waited for the end to glow again. The sun had set an hour before and now the twilight was turning to dusk. The sky above was a deep vibrant blue, and the stars growing brighter by the moment.

  ‘Nothing of importance,’ said Chryses. ‘He just likes to persecute me. Anyway, I had luck in the village. Some stalls in the market were still open. Food is so much cheaper here than in Alexandria.’ Chryses reached into the bulging basket and began to bring out food: two flat loaves of brown bread, four onions the size of apples, several papyrus twists and a fat disc of white cheese wrapped in a woven palm leaf basket. There was a gourd, too.

  ‘Palm wine,’ said Chryses, taking out the cork with his teeth. ‘But this is weaker and sweeter than the last lot. Want some?’

  Nubia shook her head.

  ‘Go on. Try some. Look, they make these cups from some kind of plant that grows around here. The stall-holder gave me some gratis. Here.’ Chryses poured some brown liquid from the gourd into the leaf and extended it to Nubia.

  She put down her reed and sniffed the liquid in the leaf cup. It smelled slightly sweet and yeasty. And there was another vegetable smell, too. She wasn’t sure if it was the wine or the cup. She took a tentative sip.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It is good. It is tasting like dates.’ She took another sip, swallowed and coughed. ‘But it is burning the back of my throat.’

  ‘That’s the fun part,’ said Chryses, tearing one of the loaves in half and putting it back on the mat. He unrolled one of the papyrus twists and tipped out a handful of raisins. Then he began to peel a large white onion.

  The palm wine made Nubia dizzy, so she put it down and picked up her reed again.

  ‘Here’s a riddle for you, Nubia,’ said Chryses. ‘See if you can tell me the answer. I bite the biters, no one else in sight. To bite me, biting, most are ready, quite. Because I have no teeth, they do not fear my bite.’

  Nubia stared at him, wide-eyed. He was always posing riddles and writing them on monuments. She could never understand them.

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Simple,’ he said, taking a bite of his onion. ‘The answer is an onion!’ His green eyes watered and he grinned at her. ‘It has quite a bite! But it’s delicious.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Nubia.

  ‘What are you making?’ asked Chryses presently, nodding at the reed. ‘A flute?’

  ‘Yes. Music comforts me.’

  ‘Aren’t you hungry, Nubia? Don’t you want some bread and cheese? It’s camel’s-milk cheese.’

  ‘No. Grief makes my stomach unhappy.’

  Chryses put down his onion. ‘Tell me about your friends,’ he said gently. ‘What were their names?’

  Nubia felt her throat tighten and the familiar tears fill her eyes. ‘Flavia Gemina was my mistress. She bought me two years ago in Ostia. I was to be her slave but I do not think she knew how to have slave. She set me free a few months later. She was very kind and good at solving mysteries.’ The tears spilled over and Nubia let them fall. ‘Flavia was like sister to me and I miss her so much.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Chryses. ‘Tell me about the others.’

  ‘Jonathan was living next door to us. He was Jewish and good hunter and he liked making things. He was pessimist but funny.’ Nubia smiled through her tears. ‘I remember first meal I have with him. He sticks snails up his nose. It was funny.’

  Chryses nodded. ‘He sounds very amusing. You said there were three of them?’

  ‘Lupus is youngest. His name means wolf. He has no tongue and cannot speak. The first time I see him he is swinging through branches of graveyard like monkey.’ Nubia wiped her cheeks. ‘Later Flavia writes an ode to him for his birthday: Then, like Icarus he fell from the sky, not onto billowing waves, his native element, but onto hard earth, which jars the bones and bruises the flesh. For wolves may swim and wolves may run, but never do wolves fly in the air.’

  Nubia was laughing and crying at the same time.

  ‘Poor Nubia,’ said Chryses. ‘Don’t despair. Maybe you’ll see your friends again one day.’

  ‘No,’ said Nubia, and now there was no laughter mixed with her tears. ‘They drowned in the storm. I will never ever see them again.’

  The next morning Seth woke them at dawn by vomiting over the side of the boat. He returned to his mat, shivering and sweating, his face and arms burned red.

  ‘He’s suffering from sunstroke,’ said Jonathan, covering Seth with the lightest blanket they had. ‘It’s probably just as well we’re not sailing today.’

  ‘The fool,’ muttered Nathan, looking down at his cousin. ‘I told him to wear a turban instead of that little skullcap. We all did. But would he listen? Just because he can read and write four languages, he thinks he knows everything . . . What else can you do for him?’

  ‘We must keep him out of the sun,’ said Jonathan, looking towards the brightening eastern horizon.

  ‘Very well,’ said Nathan, rising to his feet. ‘Help me put up the awning.’

  ‘That should do,’ said Jonathan, when they had fixed the reed awning in place.

  ‘You know,’ said Nathan as they sipped their mint tea after breakfast. ‘Crocodilopolis is not far from here. Further up the Nile is a canal that leads to Lake Moeris, but we could cover the same distance by donkey, perhaps even faster now that the river is low. I’m sure we can hire donkeys from the village near here.’

  ‘Praise Juno!’ cried Flavia, and she clapped her hands. ‘We can go and look for Nubia after all.’

  ‘And the treasure,’ said Nathan with a wink. ‘Don’t forget about the treasure. Countless gold of Ophir . . .’

  Jonathan frowned down at Seth. ‘I don’t think we should leave him alone. One of us should probably stay here and bathe his forehead with a sea-sponge or damp cloth.’

  Nathan nodded. ‘Which one of you wants to stay with him?’

  Jonathan looked at Lupus, who was whistling and pretending to gaze off into the distance. Jonathan turned to Flavia.

  ‘Don’t look at me!’ she hissed. ‘I’d rather face a thousand crocodiles than stay with him.’

  ‘Well I don’t want to stay either,’ whispered Jonathan. ‘I want to see the labyrinth and the tame crocodile.’

  ‘Me, too!’

  ‘Lupus? Do you want to stay here with Seth?’

  Lupus stopped whistling and shook his head vigorously.

  Nathan laughed. ‘Why don’t you choose lots?’ He reached out and plucked a reed from the water, then broke it into three bits and showed them that one was shorter than the rest. ‘The one who draws the short piece stays with Seth.’

  Lupus drew first, and whooped when he saw his reed was one of the long ones.

  Flavia went next, and groaned when she saw the short piece.
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  ‘Don’t worry, Flavia,’ said Jonathan. ‘We’ll tell you all about the jewel-encrusted crocodile and the labyrinth. Just make sure Seth drinks plenty of water and keep him cool in the shade.’

  ‘My grandmother recommended black Nile mud for sunburn,’ remarked Nathan. ‘If he becomes too hot, plaster him with mud. Just the sunburned areas,’ he added quickly. ‘His face, neck and arms.’

  ‘Mud?’ groaned Flavia. ‘Instead of looking for Nubia, I have to put mud on him?’

  Nathan nodded. ‘Nice cool river mud. Cures anything. Ready boys?’

  Jonathan and Lupus nodded. They were both dressed in loose beige tunics and sandals, with their coin purses round their necks. Lupus wore his turquoise turban and Jonathan the nut-brown one.

  Nathan turned back to Flavia. ‘We should be back by sundown tonight,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry if we don’t get back until tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ she yelped. ‘You might not get back until tomorrow?’

  ‘That’s right. But we’ll try to be back tonight.’ He gestured around. ‘These trees should camouflage you, but if anyone bothers you, tell them Seth is a leper. He certainly looks the part.’

  Flavia tried to concentrate on learning the hieroglyphic alphabet but presently she put down her wax tablet and began pacing back and forth in the small boat. ‘What if they miss a clue?’ she muttered under her breath. ‘What if Nubia’s in disguise and they don’t recognise her? Oh, why did I have to draw the short reed?’

  ‘Stop pacing,’ came Seth’s feeble voice. ‘You’re making the whole boat rock. I feel nauseous.’

  Flavia glared down at him. It was mid-morning and the heat was like a furnace. She had to get away from him, if only for a few moments. She kicked off her sandals, stomped to the side of the boat and slipped over the side, tunic and all. The black Nile mud squelched between her toes and the flowing water came up to her neck, cooling her temper as well as her body. It was delicious and when she pulled herself on board again her wet tunic continued to make the heat bearable. This gave her an idea. She dipped Seth’s blanket in the river, then wrung it out and draped it over him.