Dream Boat Read Free Page A

pleurisy, pneumonia, bronchitis and wondered, what were the symptoms of dropsy?
    'Dammit, Drusilla, the Games of Apollo start in two days!' Festivals and frolics, feasting and tomfoolery. Chariot races, processions, athletic events, theatres. Oh, and did I mention processions? So how does Claudia Seferius choose to spend her time? Playing 'tag' with a gang of kidnappers!
    She hurled the mirror out of the window. Useless bloody thing. Doesn't even show up deadly rashes.
    'Of course, I'd have a better chance at catching them, if they followed up with the ransom note they threatened.' Await further instructions, the original letter said. But for how long?
    Is Flavia alive?
    Resting her elbows on her red-painted balcony rail, the heatwave - what else? - pressed like an anchorstone upon her chest. Claudia let her gaze fall on the seething tide below. Dogs, oxen, wagons, carts and barrows surged and staggered, cranked and rumbled their way along the street by the light of dimly flickering torches mounted on the walls. Since Caesar's time, wheeled traffic had been banned during daylight hours (the streets were clogged enough), leaving only night-time free for deliveries too cumbersome to be transported in simple panniers on the backs of donkeys and mules. But short nights squeezed tempers as well as consignment times.
    'Oi, you!' Red in the face, a wagoner transporting slimnecked amphorae of olive oil cracked his bullwhip. He was late, as usual, and the delay was always someone else's fault and never his. 'You're blocking half the bloody road, move over.'
    'Sorry, mate, this here's my drop-off point.' The carter, his arms full of new roofing tiles for the house three doors down, staggered under the weight. 'You'll have to back up and go round the block.'
    'The hell I will! Now you move that cart or I'll bloody move it for you!'
    Traffic began to jam in both directions, and when the sweaty wagoner took it upon himself to lead the carter's mule down the nearest side street, sending a score of terracotta tiles crashing into splinters as they slid off the open back end, punches needed no encouragement. Gradually more and more drivers became embroiled in the brawl, pitching in with either verbal or physical abuse, until the rumpus had attracted half the population of the city, or so it seemed. Swarms of beggars
    gushed from the twisting narrow alleys. Pie sellers, cutpurses, whores, wine vendors - out they came, ever hopeful of cashing in on the occasion, and suddenly everybody was shouting over everybody else in an effort to be heard. No wonder they called Rome the city which never sleeps!
    'Mrrr!'
    'No one's locking you in,' Claudia told Drusilla, 'but I can't hear myself think with that racket.' Heatwave or not, she slammed the shutters and instantly the tumult dimmed to a throb. In her bedroom, a single lamp burned with aromatic lavender oil.
    Where are you, Flavia ?
    'Frrr.' Drusilla uncoiled herself from Claudia's pillow and scratched at her ear.
    'Yes, poppet, I know she's a horrid little beast and we'll all be glad to see the back of her.' Claudia considered her supper tray and selected a fat, pink prawn for the cat. 'But that doesn't make kidnapping right.'
    Have they hurt you? Mistreated you? Are you frightened, crying and alone?
    She picked up a still-warm roll, inhaling the smell of garlic, thyme and rosemary and found the aromas made her stomach heave.
    Have they treated you civilly?
    Pictures formed and dissolved in Claudia's mind and she squeezed her eyes shut. The possibility of Flavia being snuffed out like an old tallow candle sent a vicious pain through her head. She's too young, she thought. Too naive. She'll be terrified.
    When Flavia's mother died giving life to the girl, she left behind a daughter who Gaius didn't want and three sons who he did, with the result that Gaius used his famous bullyboy tactics to dump Flavia with his youngest sister, taking care to oil the path,