The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection

by Lawrence, Caroline

  ‘Pater?’ said Flavia. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘You know very well what’s wrong. You’re wanted by the emperor and there are people looking for you everywhere. They’re even watching me.’

  ‘But we didn’t do it!’ said Flavia.

  ‘I know,’ said Captain Geminus grimly, ‘that’s why I’ve agreed to let you go and explain yourselves.’ He turned to Aristo. ‘I’ve arranged a cart to take you and the children to Rome. Atticus is standing in for a sick driver who was supposed to deliver some glassware to the Quirinal Hill. He’ll pick you up on the Via Ostiensis in about an hour.’

  Lupus rested his hoe on his right shoulder, the way he had seen slaves do.

  ‘Good,’ said Captain Geminus. ‘That’s good.’ And to the girls: ‘Carry your hoes the way Lupus is doing and remember to walk like boys. Anybody on the road will think you’re slaves with their foreman going from one field to the next. Join the road about a mile out of Ostia, at the place where the aqueduct begins to move away from it. Whatever you do, avoid the town gates, as we discussed. Go through the necropolis. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aristo.

  Lupus pointed at himself and gave Captain Geminus a thumbs-up. He had lived in the necropolis for two years and he knew a good route through the tombs to the Via Ostiensis.

  ‘All right,’ said Captain Geminus. He ran his hand through his hair and Lupus thought he seemed more distracted than he had on board the ship, when they had first come up with the plan. ‘When Atticus comes by in his cart,’ continued Flavia’s father, ‘pretend to flag a lift. He’ll take you the rest of the way. You should arrive at dusk, when carts are allowed into Rome. Under cover of dark, Atticus will drop you off at the foot of the Clivus Scauri. Go to Senator Cornix’s house and make sure it isn’t being watched. If it’s safe, spend the night there, then go straight to the emperor the following morning. You’ve been to the Palatine Hill before, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aristo with a glance at the others. ‘We’ve been there.’

  Lupus grinned when he remembered how they had once dressed up as a troupe of travelling musicians.

  Captain Geminus nodded. ‘When you reach the imperial palace, tell the guards you need to see Titus on a matter of life or death.’

  ‘We’ll tell them that Titus’s brother wants to kill him and seize the throne,’ said Flavia.

  ‘Great Neptune’s beard, Flavia! How many times must I tell you? Don’t you say a word. Let Aristo do the talking. If you get a private audience with Titus, then you can tell him what you’ve learned about his brother.’

  ‘Yes, pater,’ sighed Flavia, and added: ‘Can’t you go with us?’

  He shook his head. ‘I daren’t go with you, Flavia. They’re watching me constantly. That red-haired official is lurking on Green Fountain Street and I think I was being followed when I was in the forum. If they catch you before you see Titus, then Domitian could execute you. You must see Titus in person. I believe he is an honourable man. He will vindicate you.’

  Lupus frowned and Nubia asked: ‘What is vindicate?’

  ‘It means he will clear you of blame,’ said Aristo.

  ‘And revoke the decree against us,’ added Flavia.

  Captain Geminus looked at them all. ‘If necessary,’ he said, ‘clasp the emperor’s ankles and beg for mercy. At the games last year, Titus pardoned two men who openly conspired against him.’

  Lupus nodded. He himself had exposed the conspiracy against Titus. That should count for something.

  ‘That incident proves that Titus can be merciful,’ Captain Geminus was saying. ‘So even if he suspects you of conspiring, he will at least hear you out.’

  Captain Geminus handed Aristo the burlap shoulder bag. ‘There’s a change of clothes for the girls in there, for when you go to see Titus, and a wig for Flavia. She can’t very well address the emperor with short hair.’

  ‘Where did you get the wig, pater?’

  ‘From Cartilia’s sister Diana. I saw her in the forum just now and asked where I could buy a wig and she said I could borrow one of her mother’s.’ Captain Geminus looked at Aristo. ‘And you’ve got the money I gave you? Five hundred sesterces in gold?’

  Aristo nodded and patted the coin purse at his belt. ‘It’s far too much,’ he said.

  ‘You never know,’ said Captain Geminus. ‘You might need something to bribe the guards.’

  Lupus patted his belt pouch to remind Flavia’s father that they had money for emergencies, too. But Captain Geminus did not notice. He put his hand on Aristo’s shoulder. ‘I’m trusting you with the life of my only child and her best friends,’ he said, ‘Don’t let me down.’

  Lupus looked at his tutor. Although Aristo was twenty-three, at this moment he looked very young.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Aristo.

  Captain Geminus turned to Flavia and embraced her. ‘May the gods protect you, my Little Owl, and may they grant you favour in the eyes of the emperor.’ Then he put one hand on Nubia’s hat and the other on Lupus’s. ‘May the gods protect you, too,’ he prayed.

  Flavia waved goodbye to her father and the three dogs, then turned to follow Lupus through the necropolis. She had her hoe over her shoulder and her straw hat on her head. It was late afternoon now. The air was still warm and the sun made the needles of the pine trees glow like emeralds. After hiding in the tomb for two hours, being outside was like being reborn.

  As she moved through the pine-scented necropolis, the memories washed over her, like waves on a beach.

  She remembered the first time she had seen Lupus, climbing an umbrella pine here: swinging from its branches, then falling and glaring up at them with feral eyes. How much he had changed in two years.

  She remembered how Nubia had calmed the wild dogs with her haunting song. She remembered how Aristo had often hunted here in the pine groves, and how he had once killed a giant bird called an ostrich. That reminded her of Diana, the nineteen-year-old huntress who had cut her hair and renounced men after being spurned by Aristo. Diana’s sister Cartilia came to mind: a beautiful young Roman matron whom her father had loved. Flavia flushed with shame as she remembered her mistake. She had convinced herself that Cartilia was an evil sorceress after her father’s wealth. In reality, Cartilia had been warm and wise and loving. When she died of fever, Flavia felt she had lost a second mother.

  ‘I’m so stupid sometimes,’ she muttered to herself.

  ‘What?’ whispered Nubia behind her. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Flavia. She glanced over her shoulder. Nubia’s golden-brown eyes were filled with concern. Flavia felt a rush of affection for her ex-slave-girl. She wanted to squeeze her hand, but they had a role to play and fieldworkers didn’t hold hands. ‘Just memories,’ she said, and Nubia nodded.

  The sky was blue and the woods were cool and green. The cicadas creaked softly in their branches and the umbrella pines filled the air with their spicy resinous smell. Flavia inhaled deeply and closed her eyes for a moment. She loved Ostia, even the graveyard. Especially the graveyard, where she felt close to all those she had lost. Her friends believed that after you died you went to a beautiful place which Aristo called Paradeisos in Greek. Flavia knew the word meant a royal park. She wanted to believe in a beautiful life after death, and on such an afternoon it almost seemed possible. Then she caught sight of the epitaph on a small tomb, painted in faded Greek:

  Eat, drink, be merry and make love; all below here is darkness.

  She thought of her mother, and of Cartilia, and blinked back tears.

  They reached the main road to Rome a few moments later. With a hesitant look to the left and right, Lupus beckoned them out onto the dirt path beside the paved Via Ostiensis.

  They walked single file with Lupus at the front and Aristo taking up the rear: a foreman moving three young slaves from one field to the next.

  They were walking past the tombs of the rich now, and Flavia glanced at them curiously, r
eading the epitaphs and inscriptions. Some were long and heartfelt. Others were blunt and brief. Some were in Latin, some in Greek, one or two in Hebrew. Suddenly she stopped so abruptly that Nubia bumped into her from behind.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Nubia.

  Flavia stared at the tomb and her eyes welled up again. She had never read this inscription before. Up ahead, Lupus stopped and turned and gave her his bug-eyed look, as if to say: What are you doing?

  ‘Flavia!’ whispered Aristo behind her. ‘You’re supposed to be a field slave. Field slaves can’t read. Keep walking. Keep walking!’

  Flavia resumed walking, but when she heard Nubia catch her breath, she knew her friend had read the epitaph, too. As Flavia felt Nubia’s comforting hand on her shoulder, she began to weep.

  It was Cartilia’s tomb, and the Latin inscription read:

  A cruel fever took Cartilia Poplicola. She lived twenty-four years, six months, twenty days and four hours. Her loving mother and sister provided this memorial to her, because she was deserving. Friend, stop a moment and remember her.

  Nubia was the first to hear the mule-cart. It overtook them at the salt flats, just beyond the place where the aqueduct left the road. An old man with woolly grey hair pulled the cart to a halt and asked if they wanted a lift to Rome. Then he winked at them. Atticus had been their shipmate for the past two weeks, and although they had shared many adventures, now they had to pretend they didn’t know him.

  Nubia also had to pretend she didn’t know Podagrosus, one of the two mules pulling the cart. She had met him two years before, and she recognised him by his peculiar limping gait.

  There was not much traffic on the road to Rome, only a vegetable cart so far ahead of them that it was sometimes out of sight, and a few riders and carts coming towards Ostia. The rumble of the wheels and the clopping of mules’ hooves drowned out low conversation, so Aristo finally gave Nubia permission to sit beside Atticus at the front.

  ‘Everything going according to plan?’ said the old Greek with a sidelong smile.

  Nubia nodded. ‘Yes. It is strange to be back in Italia after so long.’

  ‘Six months, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nubia.

  ‘Glad to be back?’

  ‘Little bit, not so much,’ said Nubia. To her left the marshy salt-beds were a sheet of dazzling brilliance in the late afternoon sun.

  ‘You prefer Ephesus, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nubia. She sighed as she thought of the Villa Vinea and the children still waiting to be reunited with their families. She had wanted to stay, but Flavia had insisted that they sail back to Ostia to help Jonathan save Titus and to clear their names. For once, Flavia’s father had agreed with his daughter: they couldn’t live under the shadow of a decree for the rest of their lives. So here they were, back in Italia, on the road to Rome.

  ‘And you don’t like Rome very much, do you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, and averted her eyes from the grisly remains of a body on a cross: a runaway slave, no doubt.

  ‘Would you like to take the reins?’ asked Atticus.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said happily.

  He handed them over and as she felt the living presences of two mules through the leather straps, joy welled up in her heart, and with it hope. Maybe Rome wouldn’t be as bad as she feared.

  Nubia smiled at Atticus. ‘I know that mule,’ she said, pointing with her chin. ‘His name is Podagrosus and he is also suffering from gout, like you.’

  Atticus chuckled. ‘Leave it to Nubia to know every mule in Ostia, and their troubles. I have never known anyone with such a soft heart as you.’

  ‘Try again, Aristo,’ said Flavia, glancing nervously up and down the street. ‘Even if Uncle Cornix is away, there should be some slaves here.’

  It was dusk. Flavia and her friends were standing on the porch of a townhouse on the Clivus Scauri in Rome. Above them loomed one of the great aqueducts that carried water to a hundred bath-houses and fountains.

  ‘All right,’ muttered Aristo, ‘but I can’t knock too hard. I don’t want to draw attention.’ He lifted the bronze knocker – a woman’s hand holding an apple – but at that very moment the little door in the rectangular peephole slid back and a pair of beady eyes appeared.

  ‘Bulbus!’ cried Flavia. ‘It’s us. It’s me. Let us in!’

  The eyes scowled back at her.

  Flavia glanced quickly around, then pulled off her hat and ran her hand through her short hair. ‘It’s me. Flavia!’

  A glimmer of recognition in the beady eyes, and a muffled voice: ‘Miss Flavia?’

  ‘Shhhh! Our lives are in danger and that’s why we’re in disguise.’

  The peephole closed and Flavia heard the bolt slide back.

  A moment later Bulbus held the door open. Flavia and her friends hurried into the atrium and looked around.

  ‘Uncle Cornix?’ Flavia called. ‘Aunt Cynthia? Sisyphus?’

  ‘Flavia?’ cried a Greek-accented voice. ‘Is that you?’ A young man in a black tunic came into the atrium, holding a bronze oil-lamp. When he saw them, his kohl-lined eyes grew wide. ‘What on earth are you wearing?’

  Flavia took off her straw hat. ‘We’re in disguise. Because of the decree.’

  ‘Great Juno’s peacock!’ exclaimed the Greek, and turned to Bulbus. ‘Close the front door, you big onion-head! We don’t want the neighbours to see. They’re dangerous fugitives.’ Sisyphus hugged Flavia and Nubia, shook Aristo’s hand and patted Lupus on the head. Then he stood on tiptoe and looked around the atrium. ‘And where’s Jonathan?’

  ‘We’ve been in Ephesus, and he came back a few weeks before us,’ said Flavia.

  ‘Aren’t you taking an awful risk, coming to Rome?’ said Sisyphus.

  ‘We had to,’ said Flavia. ‘The things they say in the decree are a lie. We’re innocent.’

  ‘Of course you are. But still: why enter the lion’s den?’

  ‘We’ve come to help Jonathan warn Titus that his life is in danger.’

  Sisyphus’s dark eyes grew wide. ‘But haven’t you heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’ asked Flavia.

  Sisyphus lowered his voice and said in a dramatic whisper: ‘Titus is dead.’

  Flavia and her friends stared at him in disbelief. ‘Titus is dead?’

  Sisyphus nodded. ‘He died earlier today, at his Sabine Villa near Reate.’

  ‘No!’ cried Flavia. ‘He can’t be dead! Jonathan was going to warn him!’

  ‘Warn him of what?’

  ‘That Domitian intended to kill him.’

  ‘I don’t think Domitian did it. According to the reports, Titus died of a fever.’

  ‘Was Domitian with him?’

  ‘Yes. They were on their way to their Sabine villa when Titus became feverish. Domitian hurried back here to enlist the support of the Praetorian Guard – the soldiers who protect the emperor. He rode straight to their camp and said he would give them a generous pay rise if his brother died and he came to power. The moment the messenger brought news of Titus’s death, they proclaimed him Caesar.’

  ‘What about the senate?’ asked Aristo. ‘Doesn’t a new emperor need their approval, too?’

  ‘He does indeed,’ said Sisyphus. ‘They met late this afternoon but so far they’ve only issued an edict honoring Titus. Most senators are suspicious of Domitian and they haven’t yet agreed to grant him imperium.’

  ‘Good!’ cried Flavia. ‘He’s evil. Where’s Uncle Cornix? We have to tell him to convince the other senators not to let Domitian be emperor.’

  ‘Your uncle is dining with some of his fellow senators tonight,’ said Sisyphus. ‘They’re discussing the state of the empire. He told me he might not be back until midnight.’

  ‘Oh no! We’ve got to talk to him.’

  Sisyphus sucked his breath through his teeth. ‘Not a good idea,’ he said. ‘When they posted the imperial decree against you . . .’ He trailed off.

  ‘What? Tell us!’


  ‘Senator Cornix said he always knew you and your friends were devious. He thinks you’re enemies of the state and he gave me explicit orders not to have anything to do with you ever again.’

  ‘What?’ gasped Flavia. ‘I don’t believe it. We’re family!’

  ‘You’re Lady Cynthia’s family,’ he said. ‘And recently things haven’t been too good between the two of them. If the senator knew you were here, he’d throw you out. Me, too.’

  ‘But . . . You won’t . . . Oh Sisyphus! You’ve got to help us. We need a place to stay, just for tonight.’

  ‘Of course I’ll help you, my dear.’ He patted her on the shoulder. ‘You provide the only excitement I ever get in my life. How could I abandon you?’ He winked at Aristo. ‘Luckily the rest of the family and most of the slaves are still at the country villa. At the moment there’s just me and Bulbus and the cook. I think I can convince them not to mention your presence, but you must all go to the children’s wing and be quiet as mice! Don’t make a sound until after Senator Cornix and I have left tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Where are you going tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Why to the Curia, of course. The senate will be meeting to decide who should rule Rome.’

  ‘This is a disaster!’ said Flavia later that night. ‘Titus is dead. We’ll never get our pardon now.’ They had eaten a cold dinner of bean and bacon casserole followed by blackberry and yoghurt patina: leftovers from a dinner party Senator Cornix had hosted the night before.

  Now they were sitting in a bedroom in the children’s wing of the townhouse. They had lit only one small oil-lamp and they were speaking in whispers in case Senator Cornix came home early.

  ‘It’s a disaster,’ repeated Flavia, batting at a mosquito. ‘If only we’d arrived twenty-four hours earlier, we might have been able to warn Titus.’

  Nubia frowned. ‘Why did Jonathan not warn him? He departed from Ephesus more than three weeks ago.’

  Lupus nodded and pointed at Nubia, as if to say: Good question.

  ‘Maybe Jonathan’s ship didn’t go directly to Ostia,’ said Flavia.