The Spook Who Spoke Again: A Flavia Albia Short Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

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