The Spook Who Spoke Again: A Flavia Albia Short Story by Lindsey Davis

which I can assure you was your place of conception. Mind you, it was on a ship I first met that filthy rogue Geminus so we can call you a sea-baby. Juno, you are a strange little tyke, Postumus!’
    Oh good, she was so surprised she forgot her other questions. That saved me having to own up or to be a bad boy who tells lies. Helena and Falco have a rule that I must always tell the truth, which I have solemnly promised to obey, but that is in their house so it might not apply when I was with another mother. Thalia had not thought up any rules for me. If I stayed long, she might get around to it.
    The only other thing that happened that morning was that Thalia got in a bate because no members of the public had paid to come inside the Circus. Apparently the usual thing was that after sightseers went to the menagerie they were offered cheap tickets to watch a rehearsal as well. Lysias, who was attending to Roar, told her that now visitors had to pay my new price for the menagerie they wouldn’t part with any more money afterwards.
    Thalia and Lysias stood with their arms folded, looking across the track at where I was. They didn’t say anything to me, so I just continued to practise my walking in a torchlight procession.
    I had some thoughts there on my own. I was considering this Circus that Nero had completed for chariot races. Afterwards I had been told it was convenient for the crucifixion of many Christians who had confessed to causing a great fire that nearly burned down Rome. This shows that you should never take confessions on trust because it is perfectly possible Nero started that fire himself to clear land to build his Golden House, or that it was simply an accident.
    Confessions can be beaten out of people. That was a fact worth remembering. I had not forgotten my investigation into the python’s crime. Sometimes you must pretend to be busy doing something quite different, to lull your quarry into a sense of false security. Any boy knows how to pretend to be playing happily, while he is planning to do something else.

15
    Lunch was on the hoof, which only meant flatbreads in the hand and carry on with what you were doing.
    Since the acrobats were barred from performing, they just huddled by the racetrack so I went to sit with them. Hesper came slinking up to Pollia.
    ‘Don’t come whining around me, Hesper. You have ruined my marriage!’
    ‘You ruined your own marriage!’ snarled Hesper, trying to stop the others hearing, especially Pedo, Pollia’s husband. He was watching with a faint sneer. ‘I thought you were true but you ruined my life!’
    ‘Get lost, waste of space.’
    ‘Oh shut up, the lot of you!’ shrieked Sassia, the tiny woman. Everyone looked shocked. Questioning looks were passed between them. Sassia jumped up and strode off by herself, aiming a kick at Hesper as she passed him. I had no idea what that was for, though the others looked as if they had just twigged something.
    The play rehearsal was starting, so I left them and went to sit with the actors. I looked around for Falco but I could not see him. That made me worried, in case nobody came to fetch me for dinner that evening.
    The Young Hero was to play Moschion, the Prince of Chersonesos Kimbrike.
    ‘Wherever in Hades that is,’ muttered Chrysis, who was elegantly lolling in a seat alongside me. I tried not to look at the wart on her face, for I know that is rude.
    ‘Chersonesos Kimbrike is in the far, far north,’ I informed her. ‘We have a Map of the World on a wall at our house, so I have learned all the places.’
    ‘How clever you are! Plays always have to have exotic settings, Postumus. You couldn’t set a comedy in Italy or Greece, it’s too familiar.’
    I didn’t recognise the Young Hero at first because he was wearing a black wig to show he was youthful and virile (even though dim and cowardly).
    First Davos came on as the old father, in a long white gown with a staff. A short prologue explained to us that he was