The Sirens of Surrentum excerpt :: The Roman Mysteries

The Sirens of Surrentum
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Flavia Gemina and Jonathan ben Mordecai were kissing. They had been kissing for some time.

At least it felt like it to Flavia.

Finally she pulled back and gasped for air.

'That was my first time,' said Flavia. She was almost eleven years old, with grey eyes and light brown hair pinned up in a simple knot. She wore new leather sandals and a short, sleeveless tunic of sky-blue linen. The gold bulla hanging from a silver chain around her neck showed that she was both freeborn and rich.

'It was my first time, too.' Jonathan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He was eleven and a half, with curly dark hair and brown eyes. Like Flavia, Jonathan was freeborn, but he wore a small herb pouch rather than a bulla around his neck.

'So?' said Flavia. 'How was it?

Jonathan considered for a moment. 'Did you have salad for lunch?'

Flavia nodded. 'Why? Could you tell?'

'I could taste the vinegar.'

'And you had olives, didn't you?' said Flavia.

Jonathan nodded.

'But how was the kissing part?' asked Flavia, brushing away a strand of hair that had come unpinned.

'Well,' said Jonathan, 'apart from it being interesting because we could both tell what the other one had for lunch... I have to say it didn't clang my gong.'

'Me, too,' sighed Flavia. 'I mean, me neither. I mean, I like you, but not like that.'

'That's a relief,' said Jonathan, getting up from the marble bench and bending over the bubbling fountain at the centre of Flavia's inner garden. He took a long drink of water, then turned to look at her.

'So why did you want to kiss me?'

The jasmine bush beside the fountain trembled as a dark-haired boy in a sea-green tunic jumped out from behind it. He flourished a wax-tablet.

'Lupus!' Flavia jumped up from the marble bench. 'How long have you been spying on us?'

Lupus ignored her. He was dancing in front of Jonathan, laughing and waving his open wax tablet. Flavia saw the first words written on the tablet: FLAVIA NEEDS TO PRACTISE

'No!' She lunged for the tablet, which Lupus was holding at arm's length.

'What?' said Jonathan. 'Why does Flavia need to practise? Give me that!'

He tackled Lupus and they rolled in the dust beneath the quince bush.

Flavia hovered over them, trying to snatch the tablet. 'Give me that, Lupus! Give it - OW!'

The wax tablet flew through the air and the three of them scrambled towards the pebbled pathway where it lay.

Just as Flavia was about to grasp it – and she knew she would have been first – a sandalled foot and a walking stick appeared beside the tablet, and a man's hand closed over it. Flavia, Jonathan and Lupus looked up the folds of a toga into the amused eyes of the man who held the tablet.

'Pater!' stuttered Flavia, who should have been behaving like a proper Roman girl.

'Captain Geminus,' wheezed Jonathan, who suffered from asthma.

'Unnggh!' grunted Lupus, who had no tongue.

The three of them stood up.

Flavia's father handed the wax tablet to a dark-skinned girl standing next to him. 'Nubia,' he said, 'would you like to show me how much your Latin has improved in the past year?'

'No!' cried Flavia. 'Please don't let her read it, pater! It's private.'

'On the contrary,' said Captain Geminus pleasantly. 'I believe it concerns all of you. Nubia?'

The dark-skinned girl frowned down at the tablet. Flavia knew that although Nubia's reading was much improved, she could still only read if she pronounced the words out loud.

'Flavia needs to practise,' Nubia read haltingly, 'because we've been invited... to the Villa... Lim-o-na... and Pul-chra says there will be lots of highborn young men there.'

'Excellent, Nubia,' said Captain Geminus. 'Isn't that nice? The four of you have been invited to spend the rest of June in Surrentum, at the villa of Publius Pollius Felix. So, my little owl,' he said, turning to Flavia, 'what were you and Jonathan practising?'

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