‘Then can’t we get married and live in Ephesus? We have a beautiful villa there.’ She looked down at Aristo and Nubia, sitting up in the plaustrum and wrapped in a grape-stained toga. They smiled back.
Flaccus turned her chin with his finger, so that she was looking at him again.
‘Flavia, listen. The emperor might make me his court poet.’
‘Domitian? But he’s evil.’
‘Is he? You unjustly accused him of fratricide and plotted to overthrow him, but he spared your lives. Is that evil behaviour? Poor Domitian. All he ever wanted was his father’s approval. And his brother’s.’
‘How can you say “poor Domitian” after what he did to Nubia?’
‘What?’ said Flaccus. ‘Domitian joined her publicly to the man she loves and he let them go, too.’
‘Well, then, what about the edict? He tried to have us killed.’
‘He may have issued the edict against you in his brother’s name but can you prove he tried to kill you? The way you “proved” he killed Titus?’
Flavia began to cry and he put his arm carefully around her.
‘Flavia. If Domitian makes me court poet, I could finish my version of the Argonautica. I could write epigrams and letters. I could be as famous as Virgil. Don’t you see? It’s my life’s dream. It’s my chance at immortality.’
‘You could write in Ephesus . . .’
‘If I left all my responsibilities to come with you, I’d bring disgrace on my family name. Nobody would read my writings. Flavia, my life is here in Rome. I’ve just been given access to the Sibylline books. I’m a priest now, and I’ll be helping to supervise foreign cults. I’m studying rhetoric with Quintilian. I’ve become good friends with Pliny. I have a household full of servants. A sister.’
‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’
‘I have a dog, too. That’s him you hear barking.’
‘You have a dog? What’s his name?’
‘Argos.’
‘My dog is called Scuto.’
‘Yes. I know.’ He kissed her forehead and then jumped down off the front of the plaustrum. Behind him the front door opened and she saw his body-slave Lyncaeus yawning and holding an oil-lamp.
‘Floppy,’ she whispered. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you, too, Flavia Gemina. But I can’t go into exile with you.’
Flavia was too miserable to speak as Flaccus drove them through the sleeping streets of Rome to the Via Ostiensis. She wanted to plead with him to reconsider, but how could she ask him to give up everything for her? That would be unspeakably selfish.
If only she had listened to her father that winter day half a year earlier. If only she had agreed to marry Floppy when he first proposed. If only she had never gone on the quest for Nero’s Eye, which had resulted in the edict against them, and had failed anyway. If only she had not fancied herself as a detectrix.
If not for her truth-seeking, she could be betrothed to Gaius Valerius Flaccus, and in a few years she might be living with him in his town house on Pomegranate Street, watching him plead cases in the law courts, helping him write poetry, raising fine sons and daughters. But that would never be.
She bravely fought back the tears as Flaccus helped her down from the back of the ox-cart. She stood beside her sleepy friends in the torchlit arch of the city gate and watched miserably as he negotiated another lift with an empty bread cart on its way back to Ostia after a night delivery.
She could not even bring herself to look at him as he said goodbye, and it was all she could do not to burst into tears when he took her face in his hands and gently kissed her forehead.
He had given them warm woollen cloaks and the bottom of the cart was padded with empty grain sacks. Lupus curled up and went back to sleep almost at once. Beside him, Nubia and Aristo lay in each other’s arms, the two of them speaking softly together. But Flavia sat cross-legged at the back of the cart and watched Flaccus, a solitary figure in the arched gateway, silhouetted against the smoky torchlight behind him, one hand lifted in farewell.
Tears were running down her face now, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away until he was out of sight. Then she used the cloak he had given her to dry her cheeks. The cloak smelled of him – of musky cinnamon – and she began to cry again.
The cart passed between tombs of the dead and tall, thin cypress trees. The moon painted the world silver and black, beautiful but bleak. As the cart crested the hill and began to descend, Flavia knew Rome would soon be out of sight. She might be seeing it for the last time.
‘Goodbye, Sisyphus,’ she whispered. ‘Goodbye, Aunt Cynthia and Uncle Cornix. Goodbye, Floppy.’ The tears welled up and spilled over again. ‘Goodbye, Rome. I loved you and I hated you, but mostly I loved you. And I only tried to do what was good for you.’
They reached Ostia an hour before dawn, and the cartdriver had to shake them all awake.
As if in a dream Flavia and her friends climbed down off the cart and stumbled along the moonlit Decumanus Maximus.
They turned left down Bakers’ Street and left again at Green Fountain Street and at last they stood before Flavia’s front door, so familiar and yet so strange. Lifting the bronze knocker of Castor, she rapped it urgently against the brass plaque of Pollux. A chilly pre-dawn breeze skittered some dry leaves along the pavement, and she pulled Flaccus’s cloak tighter around her shoulders. Something about the sound of the dry leaves brought a chill of foreboding.
Flavia knocked again, and heard the rapping echo in the atrium. Some of the neighbourhood dogs had begun to bark, but there was an ominous silence from within her house. She glanced at the others – bleary-eyed and shivering in their cloaks – and then knocked a third time. ‘Oh please, Castor and Pollux,’ she whispered. ‘Please let pater be home.’
But although she knocked and knocked and knocked, no one answered.
Lupus stood in the deserted nighttime street and wondered if he was dreaming.
In the moonlight, the place looked both familiar and strange.
Flavia sat on the cold pavement, weeping silently. Nubia was next to her, with her arm around Flavia’s shoulders.
Aristo stood before them, wearing a toga and very little else. His head was turned in profile. In the moonlight he looked like the marble statue of an athlete with a spotted blanket draped around its shoulders.
Then a dog barked somewhere and Aristo turned his head. Lupus realised he was back in Ostia and he remembered how he had got there.
Nubia was looking up at Aristo. ‘We must try Jonathan’s house.’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘We can’t go to them!’ wailed Flavia. ‘I betrayed him and informed on his father.’
‘I know,’ said Aristo. ‘But we’re cold, tired and hungry. And we have to tell his mother what’s happened. I’m knocking.’
‘No!’ cried Flavia, pulling out of Nubia’s arms and standing up. But Aristo was already rapping on the front door of Jonathan’s house. Lupus pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders. It was a good cloak – warm and woollen – but he couldn’t remember where he had got it.
After a short time the door opened and Lupus heard Aristo speaking and a woman’s low voice answering.
Then the slim figure of a young woman came out onto the pavement. Her fluffy hair was unpinned and floated like a cloud around her shoulders. ‘Come in, my friends,’ said Hephzibah. ‘I will give you hot mint tea and warm blankets and a soft divan to rest on.’
Flavia sat on the red and orange striped divan of Doctor Mordecai’s study, wrapped in a cumin-scented blanket. She listened to Hephzibah telling them what had happened in the past six months. They were sipping mint tea and it reminded Flavia of the first time she had been in this room. She had twisted her ankle and Doctor Mordecai had carried her to the divan and served her mint tea, hot and sweet. She still could not believe that gentle Mordecai had killed the emperor.
Hephzibah sat on the divan, stroking Tigris’s head. ‘When the four of you di
sappeared at the end of February,’ said Hephzibah, ‘we were shocked. Then in June, we heard the news that you had died in a shipwreck. We were devastated. Almost immediately there was another wave of kidnappings, and Popo went missing. One tragedy after another.’
She looked up at Flavia. ‘Your father became obsessed with finding Popo; I think it gave him a reason to keep living. But Doctor Mordecai nearly died of grief. He was always in a stupor of poppy tears and wine. Susannah, Priscilla, Delilah and I made sure Soso was safe. One of us is always with him. He is all we have left.’
‘Where is Ferox?’ asked Nubia. She was sharing a blanket with Aristo at one end of the divan, curled up in his arms.
‘Poor old Ferox died last month,’ said Hephzibah. ‘He was old but I believe he died of grief.’
Nubia nodded sadly and laid her head on Aristo’s shoulder.
‘Captain Geminus set off to find Popo,’ said Hephzibah, ‘so he didn’t see the notices about you go up. But as soon as we read the decree, we realised that you were still alive and that you were probably somewhere in Egypt.’
‘That’s when I went to Alexandria,’ said Aristo, ‘to try to find you and warn you not to come back here.’
‘Did Jonathan’s parents do anything?’ asked Flavia.
‘Susannah began to spend all her time in prayer,’ said Hephzibah. ‘She became very devout, as devout as Mordecai once was. She is devoted to Soso and spends all her free time helping the poor and doing good works. She attends the synagogue here in Ostia.’ Hephzibah looked at Lupus. ‘I know she remembers you every day in her prayers,’ she said.
Lupus nodded from his place on the divan; he was cocooned in a blue and green striped blanket.
‘And Doctor Mordecai?’ said Flavia. ‘What happened to him?’
‘It was quite extraordinary,’ said Hephzibah. ‘When he realised Jonathan and the rest of you were alive and wanted by the emperor, he stopped mourning. He got up, went to the baths, dressed in clean clothes and shaved off his beard, which had grown long and straggling. Then he set out for Rome, telling Susannah he was going to petition the emperor on your behalf, or at least try to gain an interview. But we never saw him or heard from him again.’
‘How long ago was that?’ asked Aristo.
‘About six weeks,’ said Hephzibah.
At her feet, Tigris pricked up his ears and gave a single bark.
‘And you haven’t seen him since?’ said Flavia, leaning forward, ‘Not even in the past day or two?’
Tigris trotted out of the study, towards the back door.
‘No. Why do you ask?’
‘Mordecai didn’t go to Rome to ask help of the emperor,’ said Flavia with a sigh. ‘He went to kill him.’
Hephzibah’s brown eyes grew wide. ‘Mordecai?’ she said. ‘He killed Titus?’
‘Yes,’ said Flavia. ‘Jonathan found out what his father had done. He tried to take the blame himself, but I couldn’t let him do that. And now he hates me for it!’ She began to cry.
‘I don’t hate you,’ said a tired voice.
Flavia looked up and through her tears she saw Jonathan swaying in the doorway. Tigris panted happily at his feet, gazing up at his beloved master. Jonathan’s mother Susannah stood behind him, a sleeping baby in her arms.
‘I’m sorry I got angry with you, Flavia,’ said Jonathan. ‘You were only doing what you do. Trying to solve a mystery. Trying to find the Truth. You deserve to hear what happened. You all do.’
As Jonathan limped into the study, Nubia gasped. In the lamplight, he looked terrible. He had a black eye and his lower lip was cut and swollen.
‘Behold your face!’ she cried. She and Aristo both sat forward and the blanket fell from around their shoulders.
‘Not a pretty sight, am I?’ said Jonathan.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Flavia.
‘Did they beat you again?’ asked Aristo.
‘No. These wounds are just getting ripe.’
‘How did you get here?’
‘I stole a donkey. I left it out in the necropolis.’
Susannah handed Popo to Hephzibah and said something to Jonathan in Aramaic. She clutched his arm and tried to pull him out of the room.
‘I can’t rest now, mother.’ He pulled his arm free and eased himself carefully onto the divan. ‘There’s no time. We’ve been exiled and we have to leave Italia by this evening.’
‘No!’ wailed Susannah, throwing her arms around his neck. ‘Don’t leave me!’
Jonathan winced. ‘Mother, you’re hurting me. Please!’ Susannah pulled away from him and began to moan and scratch her cheeks.
‘Don’t do that either,’ he said in Latin. ‘You can mourn me later. I have to tell you what happened.’ He added something in stern Aramaic.
Susannah stopped scratching her cheeks and sat up straight, as if preparing herself for a blow. Her black hair fell loose to her shoulders and Nubia saw there were strands of silver among the black.
‘Tell us, my son,’ said Susannah. ‘Tell us what happened.’
Nubia moved away from Aristo’s side to pour Jonathan a beaker of mint tea. He took it with a grateful look but winced as he took a sip.
‘Is it too hot?’ asked Nubia.
‘No,’ he said. ‘My lip is just swollen. It’s good. The tea is good.’ He looked around at them. ‘I left Ephesus secretly,’ he said, ‘because I saw you were happy there. I wanted to make things right so that you could come back to Italia. So that we could all live here again.’ He turned and looked at his mother. ‘When we were in Asia, I started having visions.’
‘Visions?’ she said. ‘Like the prophets?’
‘I suppose.’ Jonathan said something to her in Aramaic and then continued in Latin. ‘The dream that I kept having over and over was of warring brothers, like Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, Romulus and Remus. I remember the words: Dark against Light. Good against Evil. Ice against Fire.’
‘What did it mean?’ asked Hephzibah.
‘At first I thought it was something to do with Flavia.’
‘With me?’ cried Flavia. ‘Why?’
‘Castor and Pollux are your family deities.’ He picked up his beaker and warmed his hands on it. ‘But one night I realised my dreams were more about fighting brothers, like Romulus and Remus. I had a vision of a howling she-wolf, and I knew it was about Titus and Domitian.’
‘Because they were brothers struggling for power,’ said Flavia. ‘Like Romulus and Remus who were suckled by a she-wolf.’
‘Yes. I thought God was calling me to Rome to warn Titus that his brother was about to act against him somehow. I thought it would be my chance to atone for the fire . . .’ Jonathan frowned. ‘But there was a problem. The last time Titus saw me, he told me to go away and never come back. Still, I hoped he would see me if I told him I had a message of life and death.’
Jonathan sipped his mint tea, and Nubia drank some of hers, too. Its sweetness gave her strength.
‘When I got to Ostia,’ said Jonathan, ‘I went straight to Rome, to the Palatine Hill. But Titus’s secretaries and bodyguards told me the emperor was too busy to see me. The guard told me to wait. I waited outside the palace door for three days, me and a small group of other petitioners, but they wouldn’t let us in.’
Jonathan stared into his beaker. ‘Nothing went right. I should have known,’ he murmured, then looked up and continued: ‘I caught a chill and managed to find a room in the Jewish quarter across the Tiber before I passed out. I had a fever for a week. If it hadn’t been for the innkeeper’s kindness nobody would have fed me or looked after me . . . I must have been delirious at one point, because right before I left, he told me not to worry. He said the doctor would take care of Titus.’
‘The doctor?’ said Flavia.
Jonathan nodded. ‘At the time I thought he meant Ben Aruva. The innkeeper was always telling me how “one of our own” was Titus’s doctor and all about the miraculous ice-treatment. But now I know: he didn’t mean tha
t doctor. And he meant “take care of” in a different way.’
Jonathan drained his beaker and put it on the divan beside him. ‘When I recovered, I thought, What would Flavia do?’ He looked at Flavia. ‘Do you remember the Jew who was working for Titus, writing a history of the war against Judea?’
‘Josephus!’ said Flavia. ‘Titus’s freedman. The scholar we met the last time we were looking for you.’
‘That’s right. I went to the baths and ate some food and then I went to look for him. I found him in the Greek section of the library in the Temple of Apollo, where you told me you’d seen him once before. I told him about my visions, and that I thought Titus’s life was in danger. I think he believed me, because he told me Titus wasn’t too busy to see me: he was too ill. His headaches were almost constant and he was always depressed and weeping. He also told me about the prophecy of Apollonius of Tyana, that Titus would die like Odysseus from the sea. Josephus said he and some other scholars thought the prophecy might refer to the poison of the sea-hare.’
‘What is sea hare?’ asked Nubia.
‘It’s a kind of sea-slug. Its poison is deadly. But Josephus said the poison couldn’t be in Titus’s food because his tasters try everything.’
Nubia leaned forward again and poured the last of the mint tea into Jonathan’s beaker.
‘Josephus had to go prepare his booth for Succot. We agreed to meet the next day. I was still in the library, trying to find some more information about sea-hare venom, when someone said that Titus was about to leave Rome early, before the end of the games. They said Domitian was going with him to their Sabine farm. I still hadn’t figured out how Domitian would poison Titus. I only knew he would. I ran all the way to the Porta Collina and hired a donkey and bought a bag of charcoal. Because Titus wasn’t feeling well they were carrying him in a slow-moving litter, so I managed to keep ahead of him. I scrawled graffiti anywhere I could: Beware Remus. I hoped Titus would see that and understand.’
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 270