The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  ‘Home to mummy and daddy?’ the bush replied in muffled Latin.

  Nubia glanced over at Aristo and Flavia, who had stopped to watch her from the shaded peristyle.

  ‘Yes,’ she said in Latin. ‘Home to mummy and daddy.’

  The branches of the shrub parted and a little boy of about four years old appeared, sucking his thumb. He was thin and grubby and pale.

  ‘What is your name?’ asked Nubia gently.

  ‘Gaius.’ The boy took his thumb out of his mouth. ‘Gaius Cartilius Poplicola.’

  ‘Great Juno’s peacock!’ Flavia ran forward to join Nubia. ‘He’s from Ostia.’

  ‘From one its most illustrious families,’ added Aristo, stepping into the bright sunlight. ‘He must be one of the children kidnapped last month!’

  ‘Have you found someone?’ called Bato, appearing in the shadowy doorway of a bedroom. When they nodded, he said: ‘Ask him where the others are.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Gaius.

  Nubia opened her belt pouch and pulled out the sesame-seed bread ring that Aristo had bought that morning. She broke it in half and handed him a piece. The little boy devoured it greedily, then held out his hand for the other half.

  ‘What happened?’ said Nubia. ‘Where is everybody?’

  ‘We heard Big Bear yelling,’ said Gaius. ‘He sounded angry, so I hid.’

  ‘Ursus?’ said Flavia. ‘Do you mean Ursus? About half an hour ago?’

  The little boy nodded, and Nubia gave him the other half of the sesame ring.

  ‘Are there any other children here?’ asked Nubia softly. ‘Is anyone else hiding?’

  ‘My friends are making carpets,’ said Gaius, his mouth full. ‘But someone else is hiding. One of the bad men.’

  ‘One of the men who enslaved you?’ cried Flavia.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gaius. He swallowed the last of the bread-ring and pointed a grubby finger. ‘When he heard you coming he hid in that room over there.’

  Nubia glanced at Aristo. He nodded bravely back at her, so she whispered to Gaius. ‘Will you show me?’ She felt his hot little hand grip her fingers and let him lead her around the fountain, beneath the colonnade and into the cool tablinum. There was a desk here, and scroll niches on the wall and in one corner a small cupboard. Nubia knew it was the kind of cupboard in which Romans stored their family death masks. Gaius stopped before this cupboard and pointed with his free hand.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Jonathan, who had just come in with two soldiers. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Someone’s hiding in there,’ said Flavia. ‘We think.’

  ‘How can a man be hiding in there?’ said Jonathan, frowning at the cupboard.

  Nubia nodded. ‘It is too small.’

  Aristo stepped towards the cupboard, took a deep breath, then reached out to pull the little ivory knob at the top of the biggest door. At first the door seemed stuck, then it flew open and both Flavia and Nubia jumped back with a squeal.

  There were no death masks in the cupboard. It contained a crouching dwarf.

  ‘Behold!’ cried Nubia. ‘It is Magnus the dwarf!’

  ‘Bato, come quickly!’ cried Flavia, as Aristo grasped the little man’s arm and pulled him out of the cupboard. ‘It’s Magnus! The slave-dealer from Rhodes.’

  ‘So I see.’ Bato sneered down at the dwarf. ‘The little slave-trader who used to ride on the shoulders of his giant bodyguard,’ he said. ‘We meet again.’

  Magnus lifted his head. His handsome face was contorted with hatred.

  ‘I could smell you a mile off,’ he sneered. ‘You politicians all stink.’

  ‘If you could smell me a mile off,’ said Bato, with a sneer of his own, ‘then why did you linger?’ Bato beckoned two of his soldiers. ‘Put the manacles on this one. I don’t want him to get away again. Tell me, little man, where is your master?’

  Magnus snarled as one of the soldiers pulled his hands behind his back and fastened stiff leather manacles on his wrists. ‘Mindius is not my master!’ he said. ‘He’s my patron. We’re partners.’

  ‘Partners in the business of suppressio,’ said Bato. ‘You disgust me. How can you enslave freeborn children like this?’ He gestured towards little Gaius, who was hiding behind Nubia.

  ‘Slaves keep the empire running smoothly,’ said Magnus. ‘We haven’t had any wars recently, so supplies of captives are running low. Mindius and I are just filling a gap in the market. We’re doing you all a service.’

  ‘But it’s illegal to enslave freeborn children,’ cried Flavia. ‘And it’s wrong.’

  Magnus glared up at her. ‘Well, Miss Straw Hat, why don’t you tell that to their parents? These children may be freeborn, but half of them were sold to us by their parents in order to pay their debts. We give them shelter, food and a useful occupation.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Bato, his voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘You’re doing a great public service.’

  Flavia folded her arms. ‘Where is my cousin Popo?’ she said coldly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jonathan. ‘Why did you kidnap my sister’s baby? He never did anything to hurt you!’

  The dwarf’s handsome face went blank for a moment, then understanding dawned and he sneered. ‘Why do you think we took him?’ he said.

  ‘Was it to get revenge on us for thwarting you last year?’ asked Flavia.

  ‘Why would I want revenge on you?’ he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘Do you think it might be because you destroyed my business, ran me out of my home and humiliated me in front of the entire population of Rhodes?’

  Flavia and Jonathan exchanged a helpless glance.

  ‘Where are the other children?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bato. ‘Show us where the other children are.’

  Magnus’s smile vanished. ‘Find them yourself.’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ piped a child’s voice. Little Gaius emerged from behind Nubia and held out his hand to Bato.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Bato to the little boy, and to his soldiers: ‘Take the dwarf back to Halicarnassus, lock him up in the basilica cells.’

  Flavia watched the two soldiers escort Magnus out of the tablinum and along the colonnade towards the main entrance, then she turned to follow the others.

  Clutching Bato’s hand, little Gaius led them through the fountain courtyard and out through the back of the villa into the pounding heat and brilliant light of the afternoon. Behind the vegetable garden and the stables was a wooden shed. Flavia followed the others inside.

  ‘By Hercules!’ cried Bato, and she heard Nubia gasp.

  It was hot in here, and dim. She recoiled at the stench of urine mixed with the unpleasant garlic-seaweed smell of purple dye. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw twenty or twenty-five children, sitting before looms and weaving grimly.

  ‘Great Juno’s peacock!’ she murmured.

  The children’s hair was lank, their eyes swollen and their skin chalky white. Some of them were coughing weakly.

  Bato pulled out his handkerchief and held it to his nose. ‘Poor creatures,’ he said. ‘Chained to the looms. It looks as if they’ve been beaten as well.’ He stepped forward to examine two little girls, one dark and one fair.

  But as he approached, the girls cringed and whimpered, so Bato stopped and turned to Flavia.

  ‘Will you reassure them? Just until we find the key to unlock them.’

  Flavia knelt in the straw beside the oldest girl.

  ‘My name’s Flavia Gemina,’ she said in Latin. ‘That’s my friend Nubia, and Jonathan’s the one with dark curly hair, and that’s our tutor Aristo. The man in the toga, holding hands with Gaius, he’s Bato. We’ve come to set you free! What’s your name?’

  The girl was eight or nine, with sallow skin and lank dark hair. She did not reply but the younger girl beside her whispered: ‘Salome doesn’t speak Latin.’

  ‘But you do?’

  The little girl nodded.

  ‘What’s your name?’

&
nbsp; The little girl looked at Flavia with swollen eyes. Her skin was bitten by fleas and her fingertips were raw. ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ whispered the girl.

  Flavia smiled and took off her straw sunhat and shook out her shoulder-length hair. ‘I’m a girl. My name is Flavia. Do they make you weave carpets all day?’

  The little girl nodded, then whispered, ‘My name is like yours.’

  ‘What is it?’ Flavia made herself smile.

  ‘Flavilla. My name is Flavilla.’

  ‘Flavilla?’ said Flavia gently, ‘What happened to your fingers? Did you burn them?’

  Flavilla looked at Flavia with her red-rimmed eyes. ‘If we cut our fingers they burn them, so we don’t bleed on the wool,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ whispered Flavia, and she felt tears prick her eyes.

  Flavilla’s eyes were also filling with tears. ‘And they beat us if we don’t do enough. And they don’t let us use the latrine.’ Her lower lip began to quiver.

  ‘Don’t cry, Flavilla,’ said Flavia. ‘You don’t have to weave any more and as soon as we find the key, we’ll let you go free.’ And to Salome, Flavia said in Greek. ‘You’re going to be free.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Bato in Greek. ‘We’re here to end this.’

  ‘Flavia,’ said Jonathan. ‘Ask her about Popo.’

  Flavia nodded. ‘Flavilla,’ she said. ‘Is there a baby here? A little baby boy about seven or eight months old?’

  Flavilla frowned. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I think a baby is too little to weave.’

  ‘Or a girl called Lydia?’ said Nubia. ‘With blue eyes and light brown hair like yours?

  Flavilla shook her head.

  ‘I saw a baby,’ said little Gaius, who was still holding Bato’s hand. ‘Fusty took him with him when he ran away.’

  ‘Fusty?’

  ‘I think he means Mindius,’ said Bato. ‘Lucius Mindius Faustus is his full name.’

  Nubia crouched down in front of Gaius. ‘Did Fusty run away?’

  Gaius nodded. ‘He and Big Bear and the baby and the baby’s mummy all rode away. On horsies.’

  ‘And they took the baby with them?’ said Flavia.

  Little Gaius nodded, his brown eyes wide.

  ‘When?’ said Bato, also squatting down before the little boy. ‘When did he leave?’

  ‘A long time ago,’ said Gaius. For a moment his forehead wrinkled in a frown of concentration, then he said. ‘Twice as long as it takes me to count to a hundred.’

  Lupus emerged from the sun-dappled olive groves into the pounding heat of early afternoon. It was the hottest time of the day and the throb of the cicadas was almost deafening. He had lost Ursus in the olive grove but at least he had found the red-roofed villa.

  The rhythmic roar of the cicadas was so great that he didn’t hear the thunder of horses’ hooves until they were almost upon him.

  With a grunt of alarm, he threw himself out of the way just as the lead horse galloped past. It was a massive black gelding with a white blaze, and its rider was Ursus, the giant. For a moment his eyes locked with Lupus’s. By the time Lupus tore his gaze away to look at the others, they were almost past and the dust was rising up behind them, obscuring them from sight. But he had managed to catch a glimpse. The second rider had been a man: dark eyes in a yellowish face, between forty and fifty years old. The third rider had been a veiled woman with a bundle strapped to her front.

  Lupus stood and dusted himself off. Then he froze. He just realised what he had seen. It had not been a bundle lashed to the woman’s body.

  It had been a baby.

  Twenty-five children aged between four and thirteen were gathered in the cool atrium of the villa outside Halicarnassus. Some looked around in wonder; they had never been in this part of the villa before. Others were fascinated by the soldiers’ armour. Most were coughing, all were thin. Their eyes were red-rimmed and their fingertips bloody or calloused. Little Gaius stood sucking a corner of Bato’s toga as the magistrate tallied the number of children on his wax tablet.

  One of Bato’s soldiers had made up a batch of posca and was passing round a tray of mismatched beakers and goblets.

  Suddenly Lupus hurried into the atrium, waving his wax tablet.

  ‘Lupus!’ cried Flavia. ‘You just missed Magnus the dwarf! We arrested him.’

  Two sweating soldiers jogged into the atrium after Lupus, the jingle of their armour echoed in the cool lofty space. ‘This boy,’ puffed one of the soldiers, ‘saw three riders heading northeast.’

  ‘Sextus and Decimus,’ said the other, ‘are in pursuit.’

  ‘Three riders on horseback?’ exclaimed Bato. He looked at Lupus. ‘Was one of them a dark-haired man in his forties? Did he look like that?’

  Bato gestured towards an encaustic portrait on the wall in a corner of the atrium, where most Roman houses had a lararium.

  Lupus moved through the children to examine the painting. It showed a middle-aged man with dark hair and large brown eyes. Although the portrait was idealised, Lupus recognised the man. There was only one difference. Lupus scribbled on his wax tablet.

  ‘His skin was yellowish,’ said Flavia, reading over Lupus’s shoulder.

  ‘Then it was definitely Mindius,’ said Bato. ‘He’s got icterus.’

  ‘What?’ said Aristo. ‘What’s icterus?’

  ‘Jaundice,’ said Jonathan. ‘It’s a disease you get when you have too much yellow bile.’

  Bato’s soldier stopped before them and held out the tray. Bato waved his hand impatiently but Lupus took a beaker.

  ‘Did the woman have a baby with her?’ Nubia asked Lupus.

  Lupus nodded as he drank, then mimed having a bundle on his front.

  ‘That must have been Popo!’ cried Flavia. ‘And the woman was probably Lydia, his wet-nurse. But why did Mindius leave all these others and only take them?’

  ‘I dread to think,’ said Aristo.

  ‘If we’d got here half an hour sooner,’ cried Flavia, ‘we could have saved Popo.’

  ‘Sextus and Decimus are good men,’ said Bato to Flavia. ‘They’ll rescue the baby before Mindius can do anything.’ He automatically made the sign against evil.

  Flavia nodded and fanned her hot face with her sunhat.

  ‘What will happen to these children?’ said Nubia to Bato. She was holding a little girl on her hip. Two more clung to her mustard-yellow tunic.

  ‘Valerius Flaccus is on his way here with a carruca,’ said Bato. ‘He’s going to process them and make sure they get back to their parents and homes.’

  ‘Who?’ said Flavia, and her heart seemed to stop. ‘Valerius who?’

  Bato gave her a distracted look; he was trying to reclaim a damp corner of his toga from little Gaius. ‘Your friend, the young orator and poet. Gaius Valerius Flaccus. Your father convinced him to join our expedition, as well.’

  ‘Floppy?’ breathed Flavia, her heart now thudding like a drum. ‘Here in Asia?’ She and her friends all stared at Bato.

  Bato allowed a half smile to cross his face. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Gaius Valerius Flaccus is here in Asia. In fact, he’s right behind you.’

  Flavia turned to see a muscular young man standing in the vestibule. He wore a cream tunic with two broad vertical red stripes, like Bato’s. His straight dark hair flopped over his forehead and his mouth hung open as he gazed at her in utter astonishment.

  ‘Floppy!’ She dropped the hat and ran across the marble floor and threw her arms around him. ‘Oh, Floppy! I can’t believe you’re here!’

  For a wonderful moment she was hugging his slim warm waist and smelling his musky cinnamon body oil and hearing his heart thudding against her ear. But instead of greeting her in return, he took her gently by the shoulders and pushed her away. His hands were trembling and his face was very pale. ‘Flavia Gemina,’ he stammered. ‘Is it really you? We all thought you were . . . That is . . .’ He gestured stiffly towards two young women standing in the
shadows behind him. ‘Flavia, I’d like you to meet Prudentilla. My sponsa.’

  ‘Your sponsa?’ Flavia stared in horror at Flaccus. ‘Your sponsa?’

  ‘Yes!’ His deep voice had a strange tightness. ‘Prudentilla is a senator’s daughter. We were betrothed in July and we plan to marry in September.’

  A dark-haired girl of sixteen or seventeen stepped forward with a smile. The woman behind her with downcast eyes was obviously her slave-girl. Lyncaeus was there, too: Flaccus’s body slave. He was giving Flavia an encouraging smile, his eyebrows raised.

  Flavia turned to Flaccus. ‘But you . . . when I . . . I thought we . . .’ She could feel her face growing hotter and hotter.

  Jonathan came to her rescue. ‘Hello, Flaccus!’ he said, coming up and adopting the boxer’s stance. ‘Keeping fit?’ Jonathan made a false feint at the older youth and Flaccus smiled and pretended to parry Jonathan’s blow.

  Everyone laughed – a little too loudly – and now Aristo was stepping forward to greet Flaccus, and so were Nubia and Lupus.

  While they were greeting one another and making introductions, Flavia studied Flaccus’s fiancée. She was a classic Roman beauty: low forehead, long straight eyebrows above liquid brown eyes, a small mouth beneath a perfectly straight nose. Her dark hair was pinned up in a simple but elegant twist and she wore a leek green stola of the finest linen. Although she had just come in from the furnace-hot afternoon, she looked cool and fresh. Flavia felt a sickening lurch in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Prudentilla is going to help me look after the kidnapped children,’ said Flaccus. ‘She’s very good with children. They love her.’

  As if on cue, little Gaius detached himself from Bato’s toga and went straight to Prudentilla. She knelt and whispered a few words to him, then stood and ruffled his hair. Gaius embraced her knees and gazed up at her with adoring eyes. Flaccus gave his betrothed an equally admiring look and Flavia’s stomach lurched again. With a terrible certainty, she knew she was going to be sick.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she gasped. ‘I’m just . . .’

  And she ran out of the atrium in search of the latrines.

  Nubia found Flavia bent over one of the holes in the polished marble bench of Mindius’s three-seater latrine.