The Spook Who Spoke Again

13

I felt extremely annoyed. It was bad enough that I might need to execute my mother, once I could organise it, but now by hitting him with the sword I had helped Soterichus to fall against the snake basket, which offended Jason, who killed this man who might have been my father. How fortunate I was that Falco and Helena had adopted me. Otherwise I would soon be all alone as an orphan. I felt a worry I sometimes have: who would then take care of me?

‘He was carried off by shock,’ announced Davos. ‘The snake hadn’t finished; his heart gave out.’

People were fussing around me, so I pulled my sad little boy face. As I hung my head looking frightened, they asked gently what I had seen before I ran out of the tent. I replied in a brave tone that while I was sleeping in my bed where my mother had tucked me in, I heard an intruder. Startled by me and seeming drunk, Soterichus fell over. Jason escaped. I ran for help.

People sniffed at the corpse and remarked that yes, Soterichus had must have had a lot to drink; he reeked of it. Apparently he was known for it, too. Lysias patted me in approval for having been so observant.

‘Coming to sell you his crocodile!’ rasped Davos to Thalia, with a snooty look. ‘Still negotiating sales on your back, are you?’

‘Rubbish!’ Thalia threw back at him crossly. ‘Why do you think I made sure I was not in the tent when he toddled up?’

‘Because you know you can never resist temptation! Yet you left your boy there.’

‘I left my python too, may I remind you — I thought if Soterichus wandered by, he would just put his head in, see I wasn’t there, and bugger off. He would only be after one thing and it didn’t involve either Postumus or Jason.’

Somebody had found the wooden sword. Dama, the props man, asked me in a dark tone whether I had taken it. Thalia snapped that of course not because I was tucked up nicely in my bed by her, my loving mother, a poor little soul innocently waiting for an intoxicated livestock merchant to crash in and spoil my happy dreams. Dama backed off, looking nervous.

Hesper arrived. I was sure I would now have to confess about the sword, but Hesper told a story that he had been to the Circus because he smelled smoke and heard the little doggies barking. He made no mention of Pollia. While he was there, he said, he was terrified by an apparition that suddenly jumped at him, a man wearing the spook’s costume. Hesper reckoned it must have been Soterichus. Everyone agreed that Soterichus had no reason to steal a wooden sword from the props basket, so he must have been at the Circus for some other bad reason. They decided it was because he knew Roar was left there. Soterichus was hoping to kidnap our lion.

So that was all right. It served the lion-thief right that Jason constricted him.

‘How is the poor python?’ Hesper asked Thalia. Apparently it had taken lots of them to haul Jason off Soterichus, coil by coil. Once he started constricting, he wanted to finish the job.

‘Highly agitated. He never attacks people. He must have felt threatened to do anything like this. It’s going to take weeks to nurse him through it.’

Everyone then told me what a brave boy I had been. I was not to worry about what had happened. As the body of Soterichus was towed away somewhere else, even Davos was kind to me, taking me back to my bed and saying he would sit and keep me safe until I fell asleep again.

I would have fallen asleep quite fast, only Thalia replaced Jason in the big basket, which took her some trouble, aided by Lysias and Hesper. Jason did not want to be there. He kept me awake for a long time, bumping and banging as he tried to escape again.