The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  ‘Flavia?’ whispered Nubia. ‘I am so sorry.’ She held out a goblet of posca. ‘Drink this to refresh your mouth.’

  Flavia lifted her face. She was a ghastly white and her skin had a sheen of sweat on it. ‘Oh, Nubia,’ she whispered. ‘He’s betrothed.’

  ‘I know,’ said Nubia. ‘But you must come back and act as if nothing is bad. Otherwise they will come seeking you and ask many vexing questions.’

  ‘I’m such a fool. I turned him down and now I’ve lost him for ever. I can’t go back in there.’

  Nubia put down the goblet, gripped Flavia’s shoulders and pulled her almost roughly to her feet.

  ‘You must come back,’ said Nubia fiercely. ‘You want to help those poor children who were taken from their homes. You want to find Miriam’s baby, who must be sorely missing his beloved twin. You want to think about others and not yourself.’

  ‘But . . . but . . .’ Flavia’s chin was trembling and her eyes brimming.

  ‘Stop it!’ hissed Nubia, and gave her friend a shake. ‘Now is not the time to cry! Now is to be brave. That is what he admires about you. Be Flavia.’

  ‘But I’ve lost him!’

  ‘Yes. You have lost his love. But you do not want to lose his respect. Now drink this.’

  Flavia took the goblet and drank, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘You’re right.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to lose his respect.’

  ‘Later you can cry,’ said Nubia. ‘But not now. Now we have a criminal mastermind to catch and a tiny baby to rescue.’

  Flavia looked up in astonishment, then gave a sob of laughter. ‘Oh, Nubia!’ she cried. ‘What would I do without you?’

  ‘One hundred tetradrachms,’ said Marcus Artorius Bato later that evening at dinner. He pushed a pile of silver coins across the table towards Aristo.

  Jonathan and his friends had been to the baths before checking in to Chione’s Hospitium, near the Eastern Gate, where Bato was staying. A boy had been dispatched to the Ourania to pick up their few belongings. Bato had convinced the landlady Chione to give them Captain Geminus’s old rooms. Now they all sat at a table on a balcony overlooking the circular harbour of Halicarnassus.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Aristo to Bato. He counted out five tetradrachms each for Jonathan and the others, then started to put the rest in his coin pouch. ‘Captain Geminus will repay you as soon as he returns.’

  ‘I’m counting on it,’ said Bato drily. He was wearing his tunic but not his official toga.

  ‘They won’t all fit,’ said Aristo, looking up from his coin purse.

  Lupus held out his hand palm up and grinned.

  Aristo smiled and shook his head. ‘Thank you for the offer, Lupus, but I can put the rest in my travel bag.’

  ‘That’s the good news,’ said Bato. ‘The bad news is that Sextus and Decimus were not able to catch Mindius and the others.’

  ‘Alas!’ murmured Nubia. ‘Poor Popo.’

  ‘One disaster after another,’ muttered Jonathan.

  ‘Gustatio,’ trilled a plump woman, sliding a platter of cheese-stuffed pastries onto the table. ‘Isn’t it the most beautiful evening?’

  Something in her voice made Jonathan look up at her. It was a pleasant enough evening. Bats flitted in the lavender sky above and the temperature of the air was perfect. But her tone seemed to convey that it was the most beautiful day in the history of the world.

  Bato opened his mouth to say something but the woman interrupted.

  ‘Do you like the way I delivered that to you?’ she asked.

  ‘The service is excellent, as always, Chione,’ said Bato.

  ‘But did you see me come over here?’ Chione persisted. ‘Remember my limp?’ Her round face almost glowed with happiness.

  ‘Yes, I remember your limp.’

  ‘But I don’t anymore, do I?’

  ‘If you say so. Could you bring some more of that nice apple tea?’

  ‘Only if you watch me walk!’

  ‘We’ll watch.’ Bato rolled his eyes but dutifully watched plump Chione walk back towards the kitchen door.

  ‘Behold, she does not limp,’ said Nubia.

  Bato shrugged and turned back to them. ‘One of my soldiers was interrogating the kitchen slaves,’ he said. ‘Apparently Mindius had a house in Ephesus.’

  ‘What is effy sis?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘It’s a sea port about eighty miles north of here,’ said Bato. ‘It’s the biggest, richest city in the province of Asia.’

  ‘And Mindius has a house there?’ asked Aristo. ‘As well as his estate here?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bato, ‘And not only does he have estates here and in Ephesus, but he also has property in Ostia.’

  ‘Of course!’ said Jonathan. ‘I knew his name was familiar. There are some members of the Mindius clan at the synagogue in Ostia.’

  Lupus wrote something on his wax tablet and held it up. NO HOUSEHOLD SHRINE. JEWISH?

  Bato raised both eyebrows. ‘Correct. It took us a few days to work that out. Yes, Mindius is indeed Jewish. I intend to visit the Ostian branch of his clan when I return. In the meantime, I have decided to sail to Ephesus by ship. I suspect that’s where Mindius was heading when Lupus saw him riding away.’

  ‘With big Ursus and the tiny baby?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What can we do?’ asked Aristo. ‘What can we do to help?’

  Jonathan looked over at Flavia, this was the sort of question she usually asked. But Flavia was staring bleakly at her plate, her food untouched.

  ‘You and the children,’ said Bato, ‘can help Flaccus find the names and places of origin of the children, so we can return them to their families. They’re all staying at the tetrarch’s villa; Flaccus and his sponsa are there, too. Apparently Flaccus’s father knew the tetrarch.’

  Nubia frowned, ‘What is tet ark?’ she asked.

  ‘Tetrarch,’ corrected Bato: ‘the local official.’ He turned back to Aristo. ‘We need to know who these children are, where they’re from, how old they are now and how old they were when they were captured. Also, whether they were freeborn or sold as slaves. You’ll need to help Flaccus write letters to the families. If any children can’t remember their families or are too young, write detailed descriptions.’ He smiled at Flavia. ‘An observant girl like you should be particularly good at that part.’

  Flavia did not look up from her plate. Bato’s smile became a puzzled frown. ‘Flavia Gemina,’ he said. ‘I’ve sent word to your father, telling him that you and your friends are alive and well. I’m sure he’ll be rushing back here to see you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Flavia quietly, but did not look up from her untouched dinner.

  Bato caught Jonathan’s eye. He raised his pale eyebrows quickly and dropped them, as if to say: Well, I tried. He cleared his throat, but before he could speak, Chione plonked a pitcher of fragrant apple tea on the table.

  ‘Oh, if only you could have been in the theatre today!’ She said. ‘That prophet is amazing. He preached the gospel.’

  ‘What is god spell?’ asked Nubia.

  ‘Why, the Good News!’ said Chione. ‘Gospel means good news. He told lots of wonderful stories about miracles and god’s love and this man called Jesus who died and then came alive again.’

  Jonathan stiffened. ‘The prophet is a Christian?’

  Chione shrugged happily. ‘No idea. All I know is that I used to limp and now I don’t. I don’t know what you call that, but I call it good news.’

  In his vision he is flying above the land. Far below, the hills are the golden folds of a velvet blanket, the rivers are ribbons, the lakes are drops of molten silver. On a dusty thread of road he sees three horses, four souls. The horses are small as ants from this height, but his eyes are eagle-sharp and he can see their flaring nostrils, their eyelashes, the foam on their flanks. He can see the riders, too. A giant of a man with a wild expression. An older man, grim and determined. And a young woman,
with the baby still at her breast. Three horses. Four souls. And one of them is the Key to a great battle in the constellation of the Maiden.

  The next morning the tetrarch’s secretary led Flavia and her friends through various frescoed rooms and marbled corridors to an inner courtyard lined with green spiral columns. Flavia saw Flaccus at once, standing over his slave Lyncaeus, who was writing something at a marble-topped table. A large carpet had been spread on the ground and on it sat two dozen children, painfully thin, but bathed and clean and playing happily.

  ‘Alas!’ said Nubia. ‘The poor children are sitting on carpet like the ones they weave with wounded fingers. This is very cruel.’

  Aristo nodded grimly. ‘I’ll mention it to Bato.’

  Prudentilla and her slave-girl were moving among the children. Each of the boys had a wooden horse and every girl had a wooden jointed doll with coloured woollen hair and a matching tunic.

  A little girl tugged Flavia’s hand and said in Greek: ‘See my doll?’

  Flavia glanced down. It was Salome, the sallow-skinned girl with dark hair. Flavia gave the little girl a smile then looked back at Prudentilla.

  Nubia bent to examine Salome’s doll. ‘It is charming,’ said Nubia in Greek. She sat gracefully on the carpet between Salome and Flavilla.

  ‘The dolls were Prudentilla’s idea,’ said Flaccus, coming up to Flavia with a smile. ‘She bought them in the market yesterday. Thank you for coming,’ he added. ‘It will make our job much easier.’

  Flavia knew his eyes were on her but she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze; instead, she pretended to watch two boys playing with their horses.

  ‘Flavia,’ he said, his voice low. ‘Don’t be angry with me for asking her to marry me. Word reached us in June that you were dead and besides, didn’t you take a vow to remain a maiden for ever? Prudentilla is a wonderful woman. I know you’ll like her.’

  Flavia looked up into his dark eyes, so full of tenderness and concern. Half a dozen different emotions bubbled up inside her: frustration, anger, love, jealousy, confusion and longing. Tears were welling, too.

  ‘Flavia,’ he said huskily, and took a step towards her. But before he could add anything Prudentilla came up behind him, smiling sweetly.

  ‘Hello, Flavia!’ she said. ‘Hello, Jonathan, Nubia and Lupus. Aristo.’

  Prudentilla’s cheeks were flushed and she looked very pretty in a rose coloured stola with a matching necklace of tiny pink pearls and gold beads. Flavia noticed she was also wearing a gold betrothal ring on the fourth finger of her left hand; it was exactly like the ring Flaccus had once offered her, showing two right hands clasped.

  ‘Here,’ said Prudentilla, handing a doll to Nubia and a wooden horse each to Jonathan and Lupus. Then she held out a doll to Flavia. ‘And this one is for you.’

  Flavia made no move to take the doll. ‘I’m not a child,’ she said. ‘I am twelve years old now and of a marriageable age.’ She darted Flaccus a look.

  Prudentilla’s brown eyes were wide. ‘Are you of marriageable age now? I thought you’d taken a vow never to marry. At least that’s what Gaius told me.’

  ‘Maybe I’ve changed my mind,’ said Flavia.

  A flash of alarm passed across Prudentilla’s pretty face, but she recovered quickly and shrugged. ‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘you needn’t be ashamed to use these. They are much more than toys.’

  ‘Are they?’ said Flavia coldly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Prudentilla. ‘If you ask a frightened child a direct question, they’re often afraid to speak to you. But if your toy horse or doll asks their doll or horse a question, they will tell you many things.’

  ‘Giving them dolls is very wise,’ said Nubia from her place on the carpet between Flavilla and Salome. Her doll had mustard-yellow hair and tunic and she was already making it walk over to greet the girls’ dolls.

  ‘Try it,’ said Flaccus gently. ‘It really does work.’

  Reluctantly, Flavia took her doll from Prudentilla. It had a blue tunic and pale blue hair.

  ‘What we’re doing,’ continued Flaccus, ‘is trying to find out as much as we can about each child. Then we write down what we learn on a piece of papyrus, one sheet per child. There are pens and ink and papyrus on that table over there. Pick a child who hasn’t had a sheet filled out, talk to them.’ Here he smiled at Lupus. ‘Or just listen to them chatter, and write down anything which might be important. We’ve managed to get all their names, but we still need information like their ages, home towns, family name, how they were kidnapped and how long they’ve been in captivity.’

  ‘I can help you record their details, if you like,’ said Aristo to Flaccus.

  ‘Yes, please. Oh, Jonathan. Little Joseph over there speaks Aramaic. Can you interview him?’

  ‘Of course.’ Jonathan looked up from examining his toy horse.

  Flaccus led Jonathan and Lupus over to where some of the boys were playing. Aristo joined Lyncaeus at the table.

  Prudentilla caught Flavia’s free hand. ‘Come!’ she said. ‘Let’s talk to little Agatha here.’

  Prudentilla’s fingers were cool and slightly moist. Flavia snatched her hand away as if it had been burnt. Prudentilla smiled, but the flush on her cheeks deepened.

  ‘Here’s Agatha,’ she said, sitting gracefully beside a dark-haired Greek girl. ‘We think she came from one of the islands, but we don’t know which one.’

  Flavia sat facing Flaccus’s wife-to-be and the little girl.

  ‘Hello!’ she made her doll say in Greek. ‘I’m Flavia Gemina.’

  ‘Hello.’ Agatha’s doll replied timidly in Greek.

  ‘I’m from Ostia in Italia,’ said Flavia’s doll. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Oh, Flavia!’ giggled Prudentilla. ‘You speak Greek with an Egyptian accent!’

  Flavia swallowed hard and said in Latin. ‘That’s because we’ve just spent two months in Egypt.’

  ‘That explains why you’re so tanned. I would rather die than be seen with such brown skin. And your hair is so short. It barely touches your shoulders. Is that the way the women wear their hair in Alexandria?’

  ‘No,’ said Flavia in Latin. ‘I cut off my hair to offer it to Neptune as a thanks offering.’ She turned back to Agatha and made her doll speak in Greek. ‘I have a dog called Scuto. He’s far away in Italia. I miss him very much.’

  ‘I don’t have a dog,’ said Agatha’s doll. ‘But I would love a puppy.’

  ‘Gaius has told me all about you,’ said Prudentilla to Flavia. She was still speaking Latin. ‘He told me he proposed to you.’

  Flavia ignored Prudentilla. ‘My friend Nubia found some puppies in the graveyard once,’ she made her doll say in Greek.

  ‘The man on the beach told me he’d lost his puppy,’ said Agatha’s doll. ‘He asked me to help him look for it.’

  ‘I’m not jealous of you in the least,’ said Prudentilla. ‘Gaius told me he was glad you rejected him.’

  Flavia couldn’t ignore this: ‘He was glad I said no?’

  ‘Yes. You see, he only proposed on impulse.’

  ‘He said that?’ Flavia felt sick.

  Prudentilla nodded sweetly.

  Agatha made her doll speak again: ‘The man said his puppy was on the boat. I went on the boat and looked everywhere but there was no puppy.’

  Prudentilla continued speaking in Latin: ‘Apparently,’ she said, ‘all Gaius’s friends were getting betrothed or married and he didn’t want to feel left out. You were the first person he thought of.’ She smiled. ‘He assures me he never really loved you. He was just in love with the idea of being married!’

  ‘That was the last time I saw mummy and daddy,’ said Agatha, her lower lip quivering. ‘And I miss them.’

  ‘After all,’ said Prudentilla, admiring her betrothal ring. ‘How could Gaius possibly love you? You’re not even a woman yet, whereas I am. No, I’m not jealous one bit.’

  Flavia stood up, threw down her doll, and ran out of the courtyard.
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  Jonathan and Aristo found Flavia pacing the atrium of the tetrarch’s villa.

  Jonathan sighed. ‘At last! We’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

  ‘Have you been crying?’ Aristo asked.

  ‘No!’ said Flavia angrily.

  ‘Come back to the courtyard, Flavia,’ said Jonathan. ‘Help us help the children.’

  ‘I can’t!’ said Flavia. ‘I can’t be in the same place as them.’

  ‘You can’t be in the same place as whom?’ asked Aristo.

  ‘As him! And her.’ Flavia glared at him with red-rimmed eyes. ‘I hate him!’

  Aristo frowned in puzzlement.

  Jonathan rolled his eyes at his tutor. ‘You have no idea what she means,’ he said. ‘Do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Aristo. ‘I have no idea what Flavia means.’

  Nubia and Lupus came hurrying into the atrium.

  ‘Behold! You are here,’ said Nubia.

  Lupus lifted his upturned hands to the ceiling and raised his eyebrows, as if to say ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes, Flavia,’ said Aristo. ‘Why did you bolt like that?’

  Jonathan folded his arms across his chest and tipped his head on one side. ‘Flavia’s in love with Flaccus,’ he said to Aristo. ‘And she can’t bear to see him with Prudentilla.’

  Flavia rounded on him. ‘I don’t love him. I hate him!’

  Jonathan nodded. ‘Of course you do. You hate him because you love him. Odi et amo, as Catullus says.’

  Aristo looked at Flavia in disbelief. ‘You? In love? But you’ve only just turned twelve,’ he said. ‘You’re too young to be in love.’

  ‘No, we’re not!’ cried both girls, and Flavia added: ‘We’re both of marriageable age now.’

  ‘By Apollo!’ muttered Aristo, looking from Flavia to Nubia. ‘I suppose you are. I’m so used to thinking of you as children.’

  ‘We’re not children,’ said Flavia vehemently. ‘And even if we don’t want to get married right away, we can still be in love.’

  ‘Both of you?’ said Aristo. He looked at Nubia in surprise. ‘You’re both in love?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jonathan. ‘Both of them.’