The Spook Who Spoke Again: A Flavia Albia Short Story Read online

  I didn’t ask Lysias, but when I took over I just raised the ticket price myself. It wasn’t written anywhere. When people arrived they were told what they had to pay. Nobody argued when I said my new cost. I told everyone they must now apply my new price. Although they looked surprised, they seemed to accept what I said.

  The entertainers were lucky to have my expert knowledge. To make the increased price good value, I gave visitors a short lecture on the animals they were going to see, and I showed them around myself, making sure they learned as many useful things as possible. People ought to have an educational experience, not just stand by the cages with their eyes popping, waiting to squeal if some wild beast roared at them. That is no benefit at all.

  Roar did roar. His body was half-grown but his roar was already stupendous. I liked him.

  As the afternoon wore on, the public stopped coming. I was tired and growing bored. I really wanted to go to get my note tablets, to start all the new charts and lists I had invented. Also, I thought it was high time someone kept accounts for the menagerie ticket money. Thalia still never appeared again, so I wandered closer to her tent. Perhaps she had just forgotten to come and fetch me.

  I had asked Lysias who Soterichus was and what my mother was discussing with him.

  ‘He’s an animal importer from North Africa. He supplied the damned giraffe that sickened on us. Thalia will be having a go at him over that, then trying to extract a refund. We know he wants us to take a crocodile off his hands as quid pro quo. Nightmare. Can’t be trained to perform and they are too bloody dangerous. She won’t fall for it – at least I damn well hope she doesn’t.’

  As I mooched about looking at the tent, I noticed the door flaps to the round entrance part had been lowered, though the tapes down the edges were not actually tied up. I was thinking about squirming close and peeking through the flaps to see what was happening inside.

  While I was planning my move, I had one of my big ideas. North Africa is where Egypt is.

  I went back to the menagerie and asked Lysias what part of North Africa the beast supplier had come from.

  ‘Alexandria, I suppose. They all do.’

  So that was when I solved the mystery. Soterichus must be ‘the man in Alexandria’ that Falco and Helena Justina spoke about. I knew then why I was forbidden from interrupting. Thalia wanted to stop me meeting him. The man who was in her tent with her must be my real father.

  4

  I assumed Thalia and Soterichus must be doing ‘what men and women do’ which is what my sisters say to keep it a secret from me. I think I know what it is, though I have never seen it happening. Julia and Favonia explained that this is how people make babies, so I wondered if my mother would have another one. Since I had three sisters already, two of them very annoying, I didn’t need more and even though silly people sometimes suggest I must want a little brother, they are wrong.

  I decided to go in and put a stop to this.

  I strolled up to the tent humming, so it would seem as if I was breaking the strict instructions by accident, while very busy thinking about other things. When I went inside, I saw that what men and women do is to sit on cushions with a low table in front of them, containing little drinks cups for visitors, like the silver ones Father has for dealers at his antiques warehouse when he is trying to make them pay too much for items. There was also a large bag of money and tablets of lists. I had not known that making a baby is a financial transaction, though I suppose it makes sense. Father is always saying that bringing up his children costs him a lot of money.

  I might ask my mother how much she paid Soterichus for me. She seemed too busy at the moment to ask. She wasn’t taking much notice of me coming into the tent because she had Jason coiled around her and he was fidgeting.

  I was disappointed in Soterichus. He was an unhappy-looking man with a big belly and a red face. Although his beard was stubbly, otherwise he had very little hair, with what remained being crinkled and greyish. He was dressed in a long brown tunic, with deep, brightly coloured braid on the hem. He wore battered old sandals through which big ugly toes were visible, with thick snagged nails, and he had several bangles on his hairy arms. All his skin was the colour of burnt wood and he smelt like the menagerie.

  Thalia didn’t seem too bothered by me appearing in the tent. She was still trying to organise Jason more suitably around her. ‘This is my lad. Say hello nicely to Soterichus.’

  ‘Hello,’ I said, not nicely because I was so displeased to learn I had been fathered by a glum man in horrible sandals. ‘My name is Marcus Didius Alexander Postumus. Postumus is supposed to mean I was born after my father had died.’ That was if my father was my grandfather Favonius.

  I was watching Soterichus closely, but he made no reaction to being told he was dead (if it was him). He just gave me a nod, as if a no-account person had been introduced to him, then he seemed to be waiting to return to his transactions with Thalia. She looked put out; she was concentrating on the python. You would think if he was arranging to have another baby Soterichus would want to inspect me, to see how well the first one had turned out. Or perhaps he could instantly tell from my impressive demeanour.

  I decided to bide my time before letting them know I knew he was my father.

  ‘Do you want to fetch your ferret, darling?’ asked Thalia, in a kindly voice. By this she was indicating to Soterichus that she was a good mother. It was the first time she ever said ‘darling’ to me, though Helena does. Falco calls me Scruff although I am not scruffy at all, but a neat person unless I have happened to get dirty; He says his nickname is ironic.

  I nodded and started looking around the tent; then came the horrible moment when I began to realise Ferret was not there. Thalia and Soterichus continued their meeting. It involved a tense conversation about the giraffe. They were pretending it was all trading banter, but I could tell they were just saying routine things, not meaning anything real. He claimed he would persuade her to have the crocodile eventually, because he knew she wanted it really. She said he was smooching as usual but he could forget it. Crocs were lethal. She did not have the staff or the facilities. He said yes but the public adored them. She called him a rude word.

  I had not heard that word before; it was obviously very bad. I would have to write it down.

  While Soterichus was spluttering in surprise, I said loudly, ‘My ferret’s gone!’

  ‘Cough up, Soterichus,’ Thalia ordered him. ‘The giraffe was piss poorly from the off and you bloody well know it. You pulled a fast one when you passed him off, more fool me for believing you … Postumus, dearie, I shall help you to look. He can’t have gone far. He must have burrowed in somewhere.’

  She jumped up, pretending to help me, though I could tell it was only to show she would definitely have no more to do with Soterichus’ offer of the crocodile. She still believed nothing had happened to Ferret.

  As Jason slid off her when she leapt to her feet, I felt a terrible premonition creeping over me, like when you have accidentally stood in a very cold pond. I looked at the python. He smirked back at me. He was the kind of guilty criminal who stands there and dares you to accuse him, saying ha, ha, you can’t prove anything, while he’s laughing.

  I said, in a quiet voice, ‘I wonder if Jason has eaten my ferret.’

  ‘No, Postumus darling, of course he hasn’t. Jason had a rat two days ago, he won’t be hungry again yet.’

  ‘He has eaten Ferret! I know he has.’

  ‘Don’t get yourself worked up.’

  I wanted to scream and create like a very little boy, but I was twelve, or more likely eleven as Helena would say, so I knew better. I wanted to cry big tears, because I had lost my friend Ferret and also I was afraid he must have had a frightening experience when the snake attacked him. I hated to think of him in that predicament. He must have been horribly surprised. I always looked after him as nicely as I could, so he was not used to anything bad happening. I hated to think of him slowly going down inside the
python, at first perhaps still alive. I wondered what that must have felt like.

  I wished we had never come here. I wanted to go home. Sometimes I imagined that if I could just run home, I might find Ferret sitting up on his normal bed there and it could be as if none of this had happened to us. But I knew that was no good.

  I went back to searching, madly throwing things aside while I looked everywhere again.

  Thalia went out to Soterichus in the round part of the tent. I heard her say in a low tone, ‘You had better go. I need to see to him. His pet is lost and you can see his poor little heart is broken.’

  I did not say goodbye or watch Soterichus leave. Even if he was my father I had no interest in him now.

  Thalia helped me hunt for Ferret. She was very methodical. She said she had had to hunt for lost creatures before. I bet she meant Jason. Our searching made him agitated, so Thalia wound him up and fastened him in a huge basket. She didn’t think I noticed, but as she fed his coils into it, she ran her hands over his body, which I guessed was to check if she could feel Ferret inside him. After she tied down the lid of the basket, we could hear Jason thumping about and trying to break the container so he could escape and cause havoc.

  I had once thought a python would be an interesting pet to have, but now I just hated Jason. He was a killer. I hid my feelings, which I am very good at, but I was already deciding I would prove what had happened to Ferret. If I could find any bits of him, I would hold a proper funeral. And then I would make those responsible pay for his death.

  5

  Thalia kept refusing to admit that Jason must have killed Ferret. We searched the whole tent and even went to those next door, asking if anyone had seen him. Nobody had.

  I didn’t want any dinner. I went to bed. I was pretending not to mind as much as I did. Thalia tried to soften me up but I stayed quiet and private. My father and sister say you should never consent to be drawn in by people you need to investigate. Trust nobody. People are all devious. Suspect them all. So I played the brave boy and agreed whatever was said to me. However, I was not talking. I kept my thoughts to myself.

  In the morning Thalia sat down with me saying, as if she cared, that we would keep searching when we had time. I was not to worry about it. He was bound to turn up again.

  She knew nothing. Well, she wouldn’t admit it. Classic, as Falco would say. She would be found out. I would do it.

  At least now Ferret was officially designated a missing person, so I was allowed to write up posters in order to describe him and to seek information.

  LOST: Sable ferret, guard hairs dark, mask white, tail dark, paws dark, eyes black, nose pink, expression sweet, character lively, answers to Ferret. Useful info to MDA Postumus care of Thalia, finder’s fee. No timewasters, please.

  Thalia had offered to pay a small reward for anything that led to his return. That was easy for her to say. She knew she would never have to cough up.

  I wanted to go to the vigiles and make a report, but Thalia would not let me. In the Transtiberina I didn’t know where the cohort lived so I couldn’t just go by myself. She claimed they had better things to do, saving peoples’ lives in fires, letting burglars run away and harassing innocent performers about their entertainment licenses.

  When someone goes missing you have to consider whether they have recently been anxious over anything. I supposed Ferret might be worried that he had come to a strange new place. I didn’t think so, because I was here with him. In the past he had visited the coast with me and came along if anybody ever took me on an outing. Albia took me with her to Nemi to bring me out of myself, though it didn’t. It never bothered Ferret. He just wriggled inside my tunic during the journey and became madly excited when he could explore a new place.

  Lysias said if Ferret was a dog or some other kind of animal he might run off and try to find his own way back to what he thought was his real home. I should send a message to Falco and Helena in case he turned up. I didn’t know who would carry a message for me, but if Ferret appeared at our house on the Aventine, they would know I needed to hear he was safe and to have him back immediately. My parents have thoughtful natures. But I couldn’t see how he would travel through the streets to their house without some other boy deciding to grab him to have as a pet of his own.

  Hermes and Sizon asked if Ferret had a girlfriend he might have eloped with. They were giggling about their suggestion, trying to annoy me. ‘Has he run off to have a fling, or is he unlucky in love and has gone into hiding to get drunk and mope? Ooh, you don’t think he could be suicidal, do you, Postumus?’ I ignored them.

  On my own I thought about that. The menagerie had plenty of animals but no female ferrets he could have fallen for. Anyway, he was loyal to me. Or, as Helena Justina would announce to nobody in particular in her special voice, as a male, he knew when he was well off.

  The next question was, did he have any enemies? Only Jason. Normally, when they belong to a responsible boy, captive ferrets have nothing to be afraid of.

  I could not remember who told me this but I knew in the wild ferrets are attacked by large birds of prey, badgers and foxes. If he had gone into the lion’s cage to look at Thalia’s half-grown lion, Roar, that might have had fatal consequences but nobody I spoke to had seen him heading towards the menagerie, let alone Roar’s cage. In any case, I had been at the menagerie myself all that morning and much of the afternoon, so he would have seen me there and come joyfully to jump down my tunic-top as usual. He could have poked his head out and looked at the lion from there.

  I could find no witnesses to anything that happened in the tent. Unless somebody went in secretly, only Thalia and Soterichus had been there after I left Ferret behind that morning. Thalia vouched for Jason being on good behaviour all the time she was there with Soterichus.

  She didn’t go back until the afternoon. Her python must have done the dirty deed by that time. When she arrived with the animal trader, Jason smarmed up to her looking all innocent. That was good enough for Thalia. She would never hear a word against him. She never gave a thought to my pet.

  It was deadlock.

  Well, I usually win situations like that.

  Today I had to go and clean up after the animals again, though only the most dirty cages. The entertainers loved their beasts, or at least took care of them because they were valuable, but did not muck them out every single day or it would cost too much in new bedding. About mid-morning I had finished, so the head keeper, Lysias, said I should go to the Circus and see the rehearsals which might cheer me up. He couldn’t bear me hanging around all moody. Frankly, I myself had had enough of him complaining about my attitude. When people suffer a bereavement, others should show them consideration.

  Hermes took me along to the Circus, though the building was large and right beside the tents so I was hardly going to get lost. I asked if he had come with me because he was hoping to get another kiss from the beautiful young woman called Pollia, like yesterday. Hermes jumped at that. He looked at me sideways and said no fear, because Pollia was married to one of the acrobats. They would be practising together and only a fool would touch her.

  I must have seemed surprised. Hermes warned me to keep mum. I said that would be a lot easier if I had a fig pastry to take my mind off the secret. I had noticed a sweetmeat seller with a tray, right outside the entrance gate. Hermes congratulated me on not being as dumb as I looked, then he bought me a cake.

  Some things are just too easy.

  The Circus of Gaius and Nero lies along a large road called the Via Cornelia. It is a very pleasant situation in the Gardens of Agrippina, who was Nero’s mother. Helena Justina says bringing up Nero was nothing to be proud of; she tried hard to do much better with me. I consider I have brought myself up, but to save offending Helena I don’t say so. I am generally a credit to my upbringing. Sometimes I accidentally do something bad, but if I am careful she doesn’t find out.

  Agrippina owned the land between the River Tiber and the Vatican Hill,
where this Circus had been built. Like the Circus Maximus near my own home, it is a long, enclosed monument for racing chariots, with anks of seating balanced on many fine arches. It has a solid barrier running up the centre, called the spina. The chariots dash up one side as fast as they can, career around the turning point at the end, and zonk down the other side. Each time they complete a circuit, a marker is removed to signify how many laps. Most races are seven laps. Removing markers helps drivers to pace themselves and to know when they have finished, assuming they avoid crashing. Of course everyone hopes chariots will come to grief, with huge splinters and wheels flying all over the place and someone screaming horribly as they die.

  In the middle of the spina at this Circus I saw a huge obelisk. Hermes informed me it had been brought to Rome from Heliopolis in Egypt. It was of a red colour, covered with signs that are called hieroglyphics, with a big metal ball on top. Falco’s secretary Katutis was trained at a temple in Egypt, the land of his birth, so he can read hieroglyphics. I was sorry he wasn’t here to tell me what these said. I might try to draw them and ask him later, though there were rather a lot. Now I was investigating the death of Ferret, I might not have time.

  On one side of the track, Thalia and her people were doing various kinds of acrobatics. She was trying to train the half-grown lion to walk along two ropes from the top of the spina to a special stand where someone stood offering him food. Roar didn’t want to do the trick so he just stayed still, with one big furry paw on each rope, while she called to him. She saw us and gave up, grumbling as she arrived, ‘I must have spent half my life trying to get one beast or another to perform this trick. I had an elephant who refused to do it for years and now here’s Roary playing me up the same. He will do it, sir. He will be ready by September.’

  Then I saw she wasn’t saying this to me, but a man who had been waiting quietly. He was Sir. He wore a heavy toga over a white tunic with purple stripes to show he was very important. Thalia had to be polite him. And she was hardly ever polite to people.