He moved past stalking pharaohs and animal headed gods, past a silent babble of hieroglyphs etched into the honey-coloured walls. Presently he found his way into the innermost sanctuary. A curtain hung in front of it, but when he peeped inside, he saw no priest, only a black granite shrine with a golden statue of a falcon-headed Roman emperor: a hybrid of Horus and Titus, no doubt. The cult statue was clothed and wearing jewels. Beside it, two oil lamps showed the midday offering of food, plus many votive offerings, in the Greek and Roman manner. Lupus crept in and searched for messages. At last he found the riddle – this time in chalk – in tiny letters at the bottom of the shrine.
Lupus was coming out of the sanctuary of Horus, when his acute senses warned him of danger. He had caught a turpentine-sweet whiff of terebinth.
He knew of only one person who wore that scent. It was faint, but distinctive, and as he moved into the hypostyle hall, the smell became stronger.
Presently he heard a man speaking in Greek. ‘I told you, we need proof. Without proof, no reward.’
Lupus moved forward to peer round a fat column.
Two men stood beneath a vertical beam of sunlight, so that their heads seemed to glow. The big bald one wore a one-sleeved pink tunic. The other man had curly dark hair, greying at the sides. He wore a cream tunic with a blue chlamys.
‘We were lucky to rescue the mute boy’s turban,’ said Thonis, holding the bloody tatters of turquoise linen. ‘We mustn’t make the same mistake with the three others. Ideally,’ he added, ‘we need their heads.’
‘Thonis!’ breathed Flavia, a short time later. ‘He’s pursued us all this way. The reward for us must be huge. More than a thousand drachmae each . . .’
‘And Pullo,’ said Jonathan. ‘The man with him was Pullo, wasn’t it?’
Lupus nodded. He had made his way safely back to the Scarab.
‘Who’s Pullo?’ asked Seth.
‘Pullo,’ said Flavia, ‘is the slave of Titus’s cousin Taurus, our contact in Sabratha.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Nathan. ‘You mentioned this Taurus before. You said you stole a gem for Titus and he took it to give to the Emperor.’
‘Yes,’ said Flavia. ‘And now I think I know what happened!’
‘What?’ they all cried.
‘What if Taurus kept the emerald for himself but told Titus that we had kept it for ourselves? That would make Titus angry, wouldn’t it?’
‘Angry enough to want our heads?’ said Jonathan.
‘Maybe he wants to frighten us into telling him what we’ve done with the emerald.’
‘Was this gem so very valuable?’ asked Nathan.
‘Yes, but the real value was the prophecy,’ explained Jonathan. ‘That whoever possessed the gem would rule Rome.’
‘And you didn’t keep it for yourselves?’ asked Nathan.
‘Of course not!’ cried Flavia and Jonathan together. Lupus put his fists on his hips and glared at Nathan.
‘All right! All right!’ said Nathan. ‘I was just asking.’
‘And he said he wanted our heads?’ said Flavia to Lupus. Her hand went to her throat.
‘Was there a riddle?’ asked Seth.
Lupus nodded and beckoned for a wax tablet. Not on Tiber’s boat-shaped island, nor at green Epidauros do I heal, nor even near fair Alexander’s tomb, but rather at the double shrine of the biter.
‘Aesculapius is the healing god on the Tiber Island,’ said Flavia. ‘And his Greek counterpart heals at Epidauros, near Corinth . . .’
‘And some of the scholars treat people at the Museum near Alexander’s tomb,’ said Jonathan.
‘But what is the double shrine of the biter?’ asked Flavia.
Seth pursed his lips. ‘At Ombos,’ he said, there is a double sanctuary to Horus in his guise as healer. He is known as Haroeris. He shares the shrine with Sobek.’
‘Sobek the crocodile god!’ cried Flavia. ‘The biter.’
‘That’s easy enough,’ said Jonathan, examining Nathan’s leather map. ‘Ombos is only a day or two from here.’
But now Lupus was holding out a piece of papyrus and Jonathan saw something he rarely saw in his friend’s face. Fear.
‘What’s this?’ said Flavia. ‘A notice?’
Lupus nodded and mimed ripping it off a wall, rolling it up and slipping it under his tunic.
‘Great Juno’s peacock!’ breathed Flavia, ‘it’s a revised description of us. It must be recent, because they don’t mention you, Lupus; they think you’re dead.’ She looked at Jonathan. ‘But they know about the brand on your arm! Listen: Reward offered for two children: Jonathan son of Mordecai, aged twelve years, of medium height, olive skin, short curly hair (may be wearing turban), scar on left shoulder. Flavia Gemina, daughter of Marcus Flavius Geminus, sea captain, aged almost twelve years, medium height, fair-skinned, grey-eyed, no visible blemishes. Reward also offered for Nubian girl travelling with a eunuch on camelback. 1000 drachmae for any information leading to their capture. Posted the Nones of June in the second year of Titus.’
She looked up at them in horror.
‘Do you know what this means?’ said Flavia.
Seth, Nathan and Jonathan nodded. But Lupus shook his head.
‘It means that in the five days since we left Tentyra, someone has betrayed us. But who?’
They reached Ombos the following day at about the fifth hour past noon.
Rounding a bend in the river, they saw the temple on the east bank, its columns golden in the late afternoon sun. On the sandy bank below it, lay half a dozen massive crocodiles, basking in the intense heat.
‘Are you sure they’ll be here?’ asked Nathan, wiping his brow. ‘This site is on the east bank.’
‘Yes,’ said Seth. ‘They could easily have crossed on one of the ferries.’
‘Look!’ cried Flavia, as Nathan steered the boat towards a high part of the riverbank, well past the crocodiles. ‘There’s the governor’s galley!’
‘And look there,’ added Jonathan. ‘Those two camels kneeling in the shade of that tamarisk tree. It looks like that little boy is guarding them.’
‘Do you think those camels belong to Nubia and Chryses?’ asked Flavia. ‘That they’ve crossed over?’
‘If they are, then Nubia’s in danger,’ said Jonathan. ‘She doesn’t know there are people after her.’
‘Chryses knows that Seth is after him,’ said Flavia. ‘But he doesn’t know Nubia’s wanted by the governor.’
Nathan moored the Scarab to a landing place below the imposing temple.
‘That Temple,’ said Seth, ‘is a double temple. The left hand side is devoted to Haroeris and the right to Sobek. I spoke to a local guide when I was waiting for you at Thebes,’ he explained. ‘It must be the double shrine the riddle referred to.’
‘Look at those village women!’ cried Flavia. ‘They’re coming to draw water from the river. The crocodiles will eat them!’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Seth. ‘The guide also told me that the crocodiles here are tame and used to being fed. It’s their way of keeping them under control.’
‘They don’t kill them, the way they do at Tentyra?’ asked Flavia.
‘No,’ said Nathan, ‘Here at Ombos the crocodile is revered. There is even a special pool inside the Temple precinct, and the sacred crocodile lives there. When it dies,’ he continued, ‘the priests mummify its body and the people give it a great funeral, and put it in a tomb with the previous sacred crocodiles.’
‘Great Juno’s beard!’ exclaimed Jonathan. ‘That boy is doing a handstand on the crocodile’s back!’
‘Where?’ cried Flavia, and then gasped as she spotted a boy on the basking place. He was about their age and wore only a loincloth. There were two other boys with him. They were also somersaulting over the crocodiles and doing handstands.
‘They’d better not try that with the crocodiles at Tentyra,’ muttered Jonathan. ‘They’d be dead in an instant.’
Nathan had finished mooring the Scar
ab to a post. Now he took a deep breath and faced them.
‘I have to tell you something,’ he said. ‘Something bad.’
The three friends and Seth looked at him.
‘When we were in Tentyra,’ he said. ‘I went to the soldier from the boat and told him I had information about you.’
Flavia and the others stared at Nathan, uncomprehending.
‘I’m the one who betrayed you.’
‘What?’ said Flavia.
‘I began to doubt there would be any treasure,’ he said, turning away from them. ‘And the reward . . . it was so great!’
‘What did you tell them?’ asked Flavia.
‘I told them I had seen you at Tentyra. I told them you were travelling as Egyptian boys, in turbans and long tunics. But when they killed that poor boy . . . I thought it was Lupus at first . . .’ he turned back and looked at them with pleading eyes. ‘I never dreamt they wanted you dead. I thought they would just take you back to Alexandria and put you on a boat to Rome.’
‘You traitor!’ cried Seth. ‘I knew I should never have trusted you!’
‘What about Nubia?’ asked Flavia. ‘What did you tell them about Nubia?’
‘And Chryses,’ added Seth.
‘I told them . . .’ Nathan hung his head. ‘I told them the Nubian girl was travelling with a eunuch on camel-back and that they were a day or two—’
Without a word Seth launched himself at Nathan and began to throttle him.
‘Seth! Stop it!’ screamed Flavia. ‘You’ll kill him!’
Lupus and Jonathan tried to pull the struggling cousins apart. Finally they succeeded in pulling Seth back. Jonathan gripped one arm and Lupus the other. Seth was panting hard and the boat was rocking from their fight.
‘I’m sorry,’ croaked Nathan, still lying on his back beside the tiller. In the struggle his cap had fallen off. He sat up and rubbed his throat. ‘I know I did wrong. But I’m going to make it up to you. I’m going to tell them you’re dead, that you drowned back at Apollonospolis, and I’ll take them there. That will delay them long enough for you to find Chryses and Nubia and warn them.’ He ran a hand through his curls and replaced his cap.
‘What will you tell them when they can’t find our bodies?’ asked Seth. He was still breathing hard.
Nathan shrugged. ‘That crocodiles ate you?’
‘They would need to believe Nubia and Chryses are dead, too,’ said Seth.
‘I’ll tell them the Nubian girl went back to her own people, into the Nubian Desert. And that the eunuch went with her. I doubt they’ll follow them all that way.’
‘But what if they do follow them?’ said Flavia, ‘We still have to warn Nubia and Chryses. Just in case.’
‘Look,’ said Nathan, mopping his sweating brow, ‘take the Scarab. I’m giving it to you. My most precious possession. My only possession. Follow them all the way to the first cataract if you have to. Don’t worry about me. I’ll do everything in my power to make this right.’ He stepped onto the gangplank and looked back at them. ‘I doubt you’ll see me again.’
‘Now that the governor’s men know we’re travelling as three Egyptian boys,’ said Flavia to the others. ‘We need a new disguise. Just for this place,’ she added. ‘In case one of their men spots us before Nathan convinces them to go back down river.’
‘Do we trust Nathan now?’ Jonathan asked.
‘We don’t have a choice,’ said Seth. ‘And I think he will keep his word.’ He looked at Flavia and tried to smile. ‘So, what’s it to be? Shall we dress up as priests of Anubis? As mummies? As acrobats?’
Flavia returned his rueful smile. ‘I know you hate dressing up as a woman,’ she said. ‘But we do still have three black wigs, plenty of eye makeup and your palla.’
‘Look,’ whispered Flavia. ‘An inscription to Nero.’
‘At a temple devoted to crocodiles,’ said Jonathan. ‘That’s fitting.’
It was late afternoon, but a drachma slipped to a junior priest had ensured their entry. Flavia, Jonathan and Lupus were dressed as girls, and Seth pretended to be their mother. He had pulled his palla across his face, revealing only his heavily made-up eyes. He lisped that he needed to make an offering to the crocodile god to protect his three beautiful daughters against unwelcome suitors.
The walls around them were adorned with sensual figures carved in deep relief and painted in subtle colours. Slim men and beautiful goddesses in diaphanous gowns carried their eternal offerings to Sobek and Haroeris.
Their guide – a priest – was leading them through a hypostyle hall with massive pillars. Flavia fell into step beside him and whispered in Greek: ‘You haven’t seen two young men recently? An Egyptian travelling with a Nubian?’
‘Ah!’ said the priest with a knowing grin. ‘Are they unwelcome suitors?’
‘How pertheptive you are,’ lisped Seth.
‘So sorry,’ said the priest. ‘I have not seen the two suitors you describe. But you know, I myself have very good prospects. I would be a good husband.’
‘Oh?’ Seth batted his eyelashes. ‘Doth one of my daughterth take your fanthy?’
The priest giggled.
Flavia felt Lupus tap her arm. Following the direction of his gaze, she saw a flash of pink then blue pass between the columns. Seth saw it, too, and turned to the priest.
‘Two of your rivalth have jutht come in. Can you hide uth?’
‘Hide you?’ said the priest. His eyes widened, then he nodded. ‘Yes, I can! This temple has a secret corridor between the two inner sanctuaries. The priests use a secret speaking hole to pass on the gods’ messages to the suppliants. Quickly, follow me.’
The four of them hurried after the priest as he moved deeper into the temple. He led them into a small room painted with scenes of Sobek, through a narrow door and left along a dim inner corridor. They passed three small shrines on their right and he led them into the fourth.
‘You must not tell anyone about this,’ said the priest in a dramatic whisper. He pressed the figure of a bee, carved a little deeper into the limestone than the surrounding hieroglyphs and pushed a stone slab, which swung open.
‘Down the stairs, then up again,’ he said. ‘I cannot let you have lamps but your eyes will adjust. There is a secret room between the sanctuaries, with a special speaking tube for the proclamation of Words and Oracles. You will be able to see and hear and breathe, but do not speak, or they will hear you. I ask only two things,’ he added. ‘First, don’t tell anyone about this secret room. Second, when the suitors are gone, I would like a kiss from that one.’
He smiled at Jonathan.
Flavia stood on tiptoe to peer through a tiny hole in the thick stone wall of the secret chamber.
It had been almost too dark to see at first, but gradually their eyes had grown used to the dimness: it was illuminated by arrow-thin shafts of light which came in through the peepholes. As Flavia put her eye to the hole, a man came into view. It was Thonis, still looking like Marcus Antonius with his curly hair and greying temples. Beside him lumbered Pullo, the massive egg-headed slave of Taurus, their enemy. The two men were speaking, but she could not hear their words.
Once again, Lupus was tugging at her tunic. She turned annoyed, but saw that both he and Jonathan were staring through peepholes on the opposite wall, into the sanctuary of Haroeris. Flavia turned and looked through the peephole behind her. She gasped.
Two slim youths in white turbans and long cream tunics stood in the sanctuary. They had their backs to her and one of them was using a piece of charcoal to write something on the sanctuary wall. Flavia could not see his face or what he had written, but she saw the profile of his turbaned companion and almost cried out with joy.
It was Nubia.
Flavia’s heart was pounding and her mind was racing. Nubia and Chryses were only a few feet away from their pursuers, men who would ruthlessly kill them.
She turned back and saw that Nathan had joined Thonis and Pullo in the sanctuary of Sobek. N
athan was speaking to Thonis, gesturing back towards the entrance, his expression urgent.
Yes, thought Flavia. Get them out of here, quickly!
She turned and peered through the other hole and saw to her horror that Chryses and Nubia were turning to go out of their sanctuary. If they left now, they would surely come face to face with Thonis and Pullo among the columns of the hypostyle hall. She had to do something.
But Seth was ahead of her. He had pulled off his palla and moved to a hole on the Haroeris side of their secret room. He put his mouth to this hole and stretched out his arm to block the opposite speaking hole with his balled up palla.
Lupus caught on immediately and held Seth’s palla firmly over the hole.
Seth spoke softly into the speaking hole for the sanctuary of Haroeris: ‘Nubia!’ he said softly.
In the secret chamber, his voice was barely audible, but Flavia saw Nubia stop at the doorway and turn in wonder.
She took her eye away and turned to peer into Sobek’s sanctuary, to see if Thonis and Pullo had heard. But Lupus was making a walking motion with the fingers of his right hand, as if to say: they’re leaving.
Flavia breathed a sigh of relief. Their pursuers hadn’t heard Seth’s disembodied voice, but Nubia had.
‘Nubia,’ whispered Seth again. ‘Beware the Pink and the Blue. Beware the um . . . beware the Egg and the Jackal.’
Flavia put her eye to the peephole in time to see Nubia move back into the sanctuary and look for the source of the miraculous voice. The turbaned youth appeared in the doorway and went to Nubia. It must be Chryses, but Flavia couldn’t see his face clearly. She could see Nubia’s, however, and the look of amazement as she repeated what Seth had said. The youth shook his head, and Flavia waited for him to move, so that she could see his face. She sensed the others were waiting for her and turned to see Jonathan already at the top of the steps leading out of the secret chamber. He beckoned her and she nodded.
They had prevented an immediate disaster. But Nubia and Chryses were still in danger. They had to be warned.
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 234