The Dolphins of Laurentum scroll I :: The Roman Mysteries

The Dolphins of Laurentum
Scroll I

Lupus was drumming.

He sat on the wooden floor of the small bedroom and played his goatskin drum: one beat with his right hand, another with his left. His eyes were closed but in his head he clearly saw the pattern he was making. The hits were small black pebbles, the no-hits were white pebbles. He played the pattern, built up the white and black pebbles and then entwined them in a plait. Just like the black and white mosaic chips in the floor of the triclinium downstairs.

When he wove drum patterns, it drove everything else from his mind.

And that was good.

The mosaic rhythm lifted him up and carried him along. When he drummed, he lost track of time. He was only aware of the ache in his forearms and the tingling in the tips of his fingers and the pattern unwinding in his head.

'Lupus!' The voice had been calling him for some time now.

He opened his eyes.

Jonathan was sitting on his low bed tuning a Syrian barbiton.

'Enough warm up,' said his friend with a grin. 'Let's play.'

Lupus nodded and looked at Jonathan hard. Sometimes, when he'd been drumming, it was as if he'd been dreaming. And when he stopped it was like coming out of a trance: everything looked strange.

His friend Jonathan looked strange.

Maybe it was because his hair, once thick and curly, was now shorn to a soft dark stubble. Maybe it was because Jonathan had lost weight, and his dark eyes looked huge in his face. Maybe it was because the brand on his left shoulder was still red and swollen.

Jonathan ben Mordecai had recently turned eleven. He seemed older than his age. Lupus felt older than his own eight and a half years, too. He hadn't felt like a child since his tongue had been cut out.

Lupus watched Jonathan settle the smooth wooden bulb of the instrument between his bare feet and support the long neck with his hands, one over, one under.

He heard the deep note as Jonathan began to thumb the fattest string. The sound was sweet and round. It needed a drumbeat that sounded not like pebbles, but like something softer, rounder, more muted.

Lupus picked up the new drumstick he'd found at Flavia's.

He gave the drum an experimental tap and nodded in satisfaction at the sound. Perfect. He found the beat and started to weave a new pattern, holding the drumstick in his right hand and using the palm of his left.

'Lupus!' Jonathan was staring at him in horror.

Lupus stopped drumming and gave Jonathan his bug-eyed look: What?

'What on earth are you using as a drumstick?'

Lupus held up the sponge-stick and shrugged, as if to say: It's a sponge-stick.

'Where did you get it?'

Lupus tilted his head towards Flavia's house next door.

'Lupus. Do you know what that is? I mean, what it's used for?'

Lupus shook his head.

Jonathan sighed. 'I know you used to be a half-wild beggar-boy,' he said. 'But you've been living with us for nearly four months now. You're practically a civilised Roman. You're sure you don't know what that sponge-stick is used for?'

Lupus shook his head again. And frowned.

Jonathan leaned forward and grinned. 'It's for wiping your bottom after you've been to the latrine.'

order it!