The Spook Who Spoke Again: A Flavia Albia Short Story (7 page)

‘It’s blunt. That’s intentional. It wouldn’t go in, but if you ran at an opponent fast, you could inflict a really cracking bruise. Believe me, that has happened. Actors are always involved in deadly rivalries so they whack one another “accidentally”.’ I pricked up my ears, in case I had discovered more murky situations to investigate, then I reasoned that the acting troupe had only arrived this morning so none of them were relevant to the death of Ferret. While I thought about that, I swished the wooden sword about, frowning seriously.

‘What are you thinking of, Postumus?’ demanded the props man in a suspicious tone. His name was Dama. He seemed a better class of person than the acrobats, though not much better.

I gave him my mysterious smile. That normally settles a conversation. Most people who receive my mysterious smile go away in a hurry.

I had got the hang of investigating, and the next stage would be something that always happens to annoy the investigator. That was clear because of what Dama said: ‘Ho, ho!’ He sounded alert and stern. ‘Don’t tell me you are looking for a means to protect yourself, young man?’

This is what I mean about the next stage of the investigation. I know from my father and sister that when you have stirred up everyone sufficiently by your penetrating enquiries, the suspects and conspirators believe they have to defend themselves by trying to block you from asking any more questions. This is likely to involve some kind of violent attack on you. Suspects are always dim people who imagine you will be frightened off. They never reckon on courage and grit.

What it tells you is that you have touched a nerve and are worrying them by coming too near the truth for comfort. This confirms you are being successful. You can take heart – though you must also be extremely careful and keep looking behind you wherever you go.

Although Dama had suggested it was me who might need protection, I knew he must be bluffing. Underneath his question was a threat. What he meant was: ‘Are you wanting protection? – Because I am going to lure you down a dark alley and thump you horribly until you are covered in blood and can barely crawl home to be bandaged up and given hot soup.’

Of course there were no alleys in the Circus of Gaius and Nero, though threateners who were small enough could crouch down and hide between the seats, ready to jump out at you.

I gave Dama my thoughtful look, the one Albia says means I am considering whose head to put a hatchet in. Normally people who receive that smile then make themselves scarce. Sometimes I hear them muttering. If they complain to my parents, it used to be that Falco or Helena had a little talk with me, but they have now stopped bothering.

‘Oh,’ I replied coolly when he failed to leave the scene. ‘I am a boy, Dama. Naturally I like to pretend I am a soldier thwacking the enemy. I do it every day until my mother says, Alexander Postumus, do stop damaging the furniture and making such a racket. Please may I borrow this sword while nobody else is using it, so I can march around being a legionary in my imagination?’

‘No,’ said Dama.

‘It’s only a game, Dama.’

‘The theatre props are not toys, Postumus. Put it back immediately and don’t touch anything else.’

I put back the sword tidily as soon as he told me to, like a meek obedient boy. This time I gave him my saddest look, all downcast and big brown eyes.

‘Cut it out,’ said Dama. ‘Now hop off and irritate somebody else.’

I walked off as he had told me, still pretending to be well-behaved. I went far enough for him to think he had safely got rid of me, then I turned around. I was still in hearing distance. Of course I was, or there would have been no point.

‘Just one other thing, Dama, if you don’t mind.’ This is called tactics. Dama scowled. I ignored that. He was pretending I had not spoken to him. You have to carry on anyway, to catch them out. ‘What was the reason, please, why you thought I might need to protect myself?’ He wasn’t going to answer me, but I made myself look horribly anxious about it. ‘Am I in some kind of danger that I don’t know about?’ I sounded as nervous as I could. Since I didn’t know of any danger, I wasn’t really.

Dama still made no answer but he stopped looking angry. I waited a little then walked back slowly until I was close up again. I was showing I trusted him utterly, so it was his duty to be kind to me. I sat down cross-legged beside one of the props baskets. Then I waited. I am an extremely patient person.

‘You’re not in any danger,’ Dama said, after he had fiddled with the props for a while. Obviously I then knew I
was
in danger. That was a surprise.

He went on with what he was doing, though it looked as if he was drawing it out to avoid speaking. He had a huge cloth costume, like a gigantic circular sheet with holes for eyes, which I guessed was the ghost’s robe. Lots of plays contain a ghost though in the ones I have seen it never does much. People tell you that you will like the play because it is really exciting with a ghost, then it never is. They are just trying to persuade you to go to the play with them, so we can all be together as a family for once. It’s best to go. That keeps them happy and they will hand around a lot of sweets.

The ghost’s eye holes had grown tattered so Dama was sewing around them neatly. He had a basket of stuff for mending jobs, with glue pots, shears, hammers, thread and different kinds of wire and string. I would have liked to investigate these things, but decided not to. Or not while Dama was watching.

He put the costume material over his own head to try it out; most people would have made woo-woo noises and waved their arms spookily but Dama didn’t bother. He must be a man of the world. Anyway, I had the impression he didn’t believe in ghosts.

I had waited this long time, because I could tell he was not a bad man, but one who wished me well. So I asked in a little voice, ‘Who doesn’t like me, Dama?’

Finally Dama gave me a straight look. ‘I can’t comment on who likes you or doesn’t like you, Postumus, but you need to be aware of your position, boy.’

‘What position, Dama?’

‘With the other company. You are Thalia’s lad. They have been an established performing group for two decades. Everyone thought they were a communal troupe, each with joint interests. Shared fates and shared fortunes. But now suddenly you arrive. Some people are bound to suspect that Thalia brought you in to be the heir.’

Did that mean I would own the menagerie and the tents, and I could give orders to the acrobats?

‘I am only twelve.’ I didn’t confuse him by mentioning Helena’s theory that I might be eleven.

‘Well, you’re twelve now,’ Dama told me in a dark voice. ‘You will grow. Some people might not want to stick around to watch.’

‘What do they think is going to happen, Dama?’

‘What always bloody happens – injustice and ingratitude!’

‘Oh will that happen in the theatre group as well?

‘Who knows? It doesn’t bother me. I can always go home to the hills and keep pigs in my old age. That’s assuming I can stand the rural life and my foolish bloody relatives.’ He had thin grey hair, a beaten-up manner and he looked quite old already.

‘So,’ I asked carefully, ‘do you think the acrobats believe I am a threat to them?’

‘Well, they are all mad buggers. Some of them can’t think. Even the ones that can do seem to leave their brains behind when they put on rosin and take hold of a balance pole. The animal trainers are the worst misfits in the universe – and I say that after working with bloody actors. But look closely, Postumus, and you may catch a tiny whiff of discontent about how you popped up as Thalia’s pride and joy. Word has already run around about you reorganising the gate money at the zoo like some little eastern king in a turban. It would hardly be surprising if there are those are around here who are worried. They could well be hoping to get rid of you.’

‘So what do I need to do about it, Dama?’

‘Keep your head down and try to stop annoying people.’

I promised him I would stop being annoying. It was easy. People are always making me say that.

I am brave. I was not worried. If any of the animal-keepers or acrobats were coming after me because I was the unwanted heir, I would thwart them with my cunning. All I had to remember was to look behind me when I was going anywhere, listen for sinister footsteps following me and watch out if any door handles began to open silently, That would be when I was sitting still indoors, probably absorbed in writing up one of my note tablets by the light of a whickering lamp.

Of course in a tent there are no door handles. To enter a tent secretly, you have to untie the door tapes. That takes too long for you to creep up suddenly, because there is a long row of tapes that are tied up in bows all the way down the door flaps. They are not just to keep out unwelcome visitors while people inside are doing private things such as sleeping or nose-picking, they are to stop wind and rain. Weather is very insidious, Thalia had told me. I thought that was a silly thing to say in Rome in August.

Of course a bad person with murderous intentions wouldn’t wait around untying a lot of tapes. They would simply cut through them in a trice, one big swoosh with a brilliantly sharp dagger that they had honed for days in readiness. Then they would have the dagger ready, for coming to get me. I must find a weapon of my own to use to kill them first. While they were looking everywhere in the tent for me evilly, I would jump out from behind Jason’s basket and take them by surprise.

That reminded me about Jason. I still had to deal with him.

Nobody at the Circus of Gaius and Nero was bothered about me, they were all too busily rehearsing and practising. I went by myself to the stone armchair seats and sat a few rows from the front. I spent some moments thinking sad thoughts about Ferret.

These front seats are reserved for senators, so it was an appropriate place for a boy who might eventually become a big rissole. I would have explained this to any ushers who came to ask me to move off, but there were none that day. I was free to get used to the armchair seats, which I did almost immediately. They had an excellent view. They would be better with cushions, but a rissole would bring those, or have his people carry them in for him.

I had saved up the cake Manlius Faustus bought for me so I ate it now, rather slowly because it was not long since I ate the other one that Hesper had provided. At one time I did see Thalia stand up straight and look around, as if she wondered what had become of me and whether I was doing anything she wanted me to stop. I waved, giving her my innocent look. That’s the look Father says is about as innocent as a nicker’s nadger. He never explains what a nicker is, nor the purpose of his nadging tool. That’s Father. He has wild ideas. We are all used to it.

Thalia was too far away to tell whether I was up to something. My innocent look satisfied her. She just waved back cheerily and went back to what she had been doing. She didn’t know me as well as Helena Justina, who would have come over to check more carefully.

After I licked the stickiness of the cake off my hands and as far around my face as my tongue would reach, I spent the whole of the rest of that afternoon sitting in the senators’ seats and thinking. I did an extremely large amount of useful thinking. A lot of people would have been very scared if they had known the thoughts I organised.

One idea that came to me was this: if somebody wanted to scare me away, so I would go home and no longer threaten them by being the unwanted heir, they might have chosen the well-known wicked ploy I had heard about, the one where you don’t actually harm the person you are aiming at, but instead of that you do awful things to somebody else they care about. Had someone deliberately killed my ferret so I would take their hint?

If that is what they tried to do, they must be a person who didn’t know the rules. You are supposed to leave the body on display in public. This is to send a visible message. Also, the person who has to receive the message must be able to understand what it is.

If I had found Ferret’s limp corpse nailed on a big tent pole with his paws outstretched and his fur bedraggled, and with his dead eyes looking at me, I would have been very upset. I felt quite upset just imagining it. Even so, I would not at first have realised it meant, Get lost unwelcome newcomer, don’t steal our rights because Thalia is your mother. Or anyway, she’s one of your mothers.

When it was time to leave the Circus, Thalia came to collect me so I asked her straight out. ‘Did you bring me here because I am intended to inherit your company?’

‘No, I bloody didn’t!’ How angry she was! I understood what was going on. It happens among people who are in charge and therefore occupied by many anxieties. Thalia had had a long day of people and animals not doing what she wanted. She sounded tired. Being tired had made her cross. ‘I brought you to muck out the cages – and look where that’s got me!’ She had a rant, while I listened politely. ‘It’s all very well looking forward to the day when I can say, “That’s my son, the Consul; he’s my boy!” You will have to be forty years of age, so what will that make me?’ I decided not to ask her. Mothers are old to start with, while according to Helena, having children puts many extra years on them. ‘Gods in Olympus, Postumus, I’ll be a hundred and long past caring.’

‘I see,’ I said.

‘Well, if I’ve got to stick it out that long, I just hope I keep my libido and all my teeth.’

I had never heard of a libido. Since Thalia was so fond of it, it must be some exotic creature that I had not met when I was sweeping out the menagerie. I wondered if it ate ferrets.

I still thought Jason was my chief suspect. That meant Thalia was responsible for him doing what he did to Ferret. So as we went to have our dinner, I thought further about ways I might be able to impose retribution on Thalia.

We went over to where the theatre people had pitched their tents; we were having dinner with them that evening. It was supposed to be all friendly and festive. That means people who really despise one another are pretending to be best pals, although you can see they are not trying hard. Terrible music is played while you eat, on whiffly flutes and twangy string instruments of country design. People sing miserable songs about other people leaving home. The food is delicious though nobody notices; they all tuck into the wine flagons, then pretty soon some fights start.