The Deadliest Returns by June Trop
About The Deadliest Returns:
Black pearls are rare, coming from an
exotic oyster found in the French Polynesian waters. Even Miriam’s husband, an
accomplished jeweler, had never seen one. And they aren’t exactly black.
Instead, they come in various dark colors, such as gray, purple, blue, or
green, giving the illusion of black. But with the power to heal the
brokenhearted and restore the health of the one possessing it, could its
properties be a sufficient motive for murder?
If, like Miriam, you thrive on pursuing the twists and turns of a baffling
mystery while uncovering the guilty longings, secrets, lies, and evil deeds of
others, then, as Miriam’s deputy, you will have ample opportunity to engage
your curiosity.
And if you are new to Roman-occupied
Alexandria during the first century CE, you will experience, along with the
splendor of the city, its malignant underbelly. You will blunder through its
haunted alleys and wend your way through its shrill parade of macabre
creatures. At the same time, the stench of each tumbling tenement and the
scratch of every whirling piece of trash will coat the back of your throat with
bile.
And if you have never been to Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia, never seen the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, then prepare yourself for the glassy heat of that July summer and the unnerving sight that will turn your festive visit into a mystifying tragedy.
Each adventure stands alone. Still, they are connected chronologically such that an event from an earlier story forms the backdrop for a later one. In any case, escape the monotony of everyday life as you accompany Miriam into that nail-biting world of adventure and three of her most daring exploits.
Excerpt:
The Deadliest Returns: The first story, “The Bodyguard”
The Tenth Year of the Reign of Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus [Nero]
64 CE, July
Alexandria ad Aegyptum
The old
fart’s eyes were drilling into me. I shouldn’t have risked coming. The games
were a bore anyways. I was tired of the wild beast hunts and the roar of
spectators whenever a gladiator’s ass hit the sand. And right then, I was sick
of those lice-infested clowns, the praegenarii, and the clack of their
wooden swords as they mocked the gladiators with their corny antics. Besides,
the sun was pricking through the awning of the hippodrome, staring down at me,
coating my throat with dust. Time to hit a snack bar.
I joined the stream of bozos funneling
through the arch, taking advantage of the break between bouts, most to push
their way to the latrines. Shoving past the bookmakers wigwagging to their
regulars, I carved my way around the hundreds of sweaty bodies milling about
the souvenir hawkers. Finally, I elbowed through the gate and headed toward the
sausage vendors. Their stalls were easy to find; they stunk up the air with
fennel and fried grease.
Hey, I asked myself, why
not just leave after I grab a bite? I’d seen enough of the ludus of
Alexandria, the dinkiest gladiator school in the empire, and its lousy troupe
of gladiators to last more than a life—
Whoa! That shitty geezer was right on my
tail, sharking toward me. I cursed myself over and over for coming, but when I
wanna do something, I gotta do it. That’s the way I am. Now that I was back in
Alexandria, I was that kid again, skipping school to sneak off to the games.
The gladiators were like gods to me then, flexing their well-oiled muscles in
the early morning light. And how I thrilled to those waves and applause when I
was a retiarius, the kind of gladiator to fight with only a net and
trident. No helmet. That was so Claudius, that prick, could watch our faces
when our throats were cut. Anyways, my lanista, the manager of my troupe
of gladiators, said I was too handsome to fight with a helmet.
“Agrippa, Agrippa Fortitudo!”
His voice pierced my eardrums like an
icepick. Agrippa Fortitudo was my tag as a gladiator. That’s what I meant about
taking a risk. I was supposed to have been killed in the arena eight years ago.
Panic mushroomed in my chest. He was close enough for his shallow breath
to foul the back of my neck. I tried to ignore him, but if he continued to
shriek, a crowd would gather, and worse yet, draw one of those shit-eating
soldiers. No way was that prune-puckered dude gonna leave me alone. Sure
enough, a moment later he was poking me between my shoulder blades. So, I
turned around and pitched him a scowl.
Ma Zeus, I knew him! Underneath that receding cap of silver curls was the moth-eaten version of Gershon ben Israel, aglitter with gems, reeking from verbena, and draped in a gaudy silk robe. A phony if I ever saw one. Another of Papa’s ass-kissing buddies, all of them full of crap, just like my dear departed father.
“Sir, you must be mistaken. My name is
Aquila—”
“Say again?” His head springing forward
like a turtle’s, he squeezed together the wrinkles across his forehead and
cupped his ear.
That’s when I remembered the Khamaseen
winds, those hot, sand-filled windstorms that blow across Egypt in the spring.
They must have burned out most of his hearing. With a furrowed brow, I threw up
my hands and shook my head as if bewildered.
But he just took my hands and leaned into
me. “Don’t you remember me?”
I snapped my head back as if he’d struck
me. Oh yeah, I can ham it up better than any of those sissy actors,
Thespis included. Just one of the many tricks I’d learned to deflect my
father’s wrath.
“Who me, Papa?” I’d say, dropping my voice
and blinking my eyes like a shitty cave dweller. “You think I did what? Jumped
out the window to relieve my lust with Zenon’s daughter? Where? In the pantry
of her father’s cookshop? How could that be? I was right here studying geometry.
Honest.” Then I’d shake my head and tighten my lips as if to hold back a moan
of pity. That fuckin’ tyrant wouldn’t even send me to a collegium iuvenum to study martial arts. Oh no, he wanted me to
learn the family business so I could waste my life counting money like him.
“Don’t you remember me?” Gershon repeated.
His voice had dropped to a croak. “And even if you don’t, I remember
when you were just a little-known contender about to be pitted
against…uh…uh… Orcus! Yes, Orcus, the betting favorite and most popular
gladiator in the empire.”
I had to hand it to Gershon. He was a
fucker-upper, fuckin’ up my plan because that’s what a fucker-upper does, but
he was also an aficionado. And Orcus? He may have been the favorite, but he’d
never faced me. That sucker, not a slave, prisoner a’ war, or criminal
but a hire like me, was just hours away from freedom, fighting his last bout
before the contract with his ludus ended. Round and round we went: the
flight of my net, the thrust of his sword. Me pressing every minute to my
advantage until he was worn out. Then my net flew one last time. He couldn’t
escape. When his legs got caught, I closed in with my trident. The stadium
suddenly, eerily silent, the fans stunned as I got the nod to plunge my pugio
into his chest.
I was about to laugh like a hyena when,
springing out of that memory, I realized I’d better do something about Gershon
before he ruined everything.
***
Okay, so I was gonna have to tell that
busybody something. Raising my palm to silence him and then beckoning him with
a couple of arm rolls, he accompanied me to that teahouse near the Gate of the
Sun, the Juno Regina. I figured anyone with any breath left would still
be at the games. Besides, by now my throat was lined with sandpaper, and my
lips were making a popping sound whenever I opened my mouth.
So, he shambled along while I tsk-tsked, shaken by how much that fogy had aged. All I saw was a lumbering old man with sagging jowls, a swinging dewlap, and a forward stoop, panting to keep up as we followed the curve of the city wall to the plaza with the teahouse.
Kicking aside eddies of trash and a dozing
loafer slumped in a puddle of shade across the threshold, I peeked inside.
Gershon wasn’t the only thing to have hit the skids. The Juno Regina was
now just a graffiti-scarred courtyard smothered in the heat with a cracked
mudbrick floor, a tattered canopy, and scattered planters of dried out
pomegranate trees. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention the army of flies
feasting on a counter of rancid cheese, moldy sesame cakes, and shriveled
grapes.
Good enough. The place was deserted.
Extending my hand to invite Gershon to enter, I pointed first with my chin to a
table in the corner and then with my finger toward its far chair. Now that I’m
in Alexandria, I sit with my back to the entrance to avoid having to tear a new
asshole in every bozo who recognizes me. Come to think of it, I should have
done that to this old goat. Instead, I had to watch him rub his palm across the
seat of the chair, arrange the folds of his robe, sit down like a pussy, and
smooth away the wrinkles in his skirt.
I rapped my knuckles on the table and then
joggled—and almost broke—the branch off one of those stinking trees while
shouting for service. All I wanted was a krater of honey-sweetened
wine—anything but pomegranate! Ha!—and plenty of it. A dough-faced boy with
constantly moving eyes and wearing the gray, coarse woolen tunic of a slave
shuffled over and bowed like we were in Nero’s palace. I gave him the order and
told him to make it snappy, whatever good that would do.
Gershon started screeching right away.
“What are you doing here? You were killed in Pompeii!”
I patted the air to calm him.
It didn’t work.
“Your sister had an honorable burial for
you with mimes, musicians, and professional mourners. She commissioned an
everlasting monument to you in the Jewish cemetery not far from here—”
For each point, he jabbed his bony
forefinger at me as if that deed alone should have made me dead.
“Inscribed with your record as a gladiat—”
“Listen,” I said. I could hear the
desperation in my voice over the sound of my heart as it punched the inside of
my chest like a pointed rock.
He leaned across the table close enough to
make my nose itch. But when he cupped one of his useless ears, I knew he was
ready to shut up and listen.
“It’s all been a mistake. I can explain.
Right now, I got a job as a bodyguard, a good job I’m not about to blow. And I
know I’m gonna have to tell my sister I’m here. And that’s where you come in.
When the time is right, you can help. So, you gotta keep my secret a while.”
When he stroked his jaw with his thumb, I
knew I had him.
About June Trop:
As an award-winning middle school science teacher, June used storytelling to capture her students’ imagination and interest in scientific concepts. Years later as a professor of teacher education, she focused her research on the practical knowledge teachers construct and communicate through storytelling. Her first book, From Lesson Plans to Power Struggles (Corwin Press, 2009), is based on the stories new teachers told about their first classroom experiences.
Now associate professor emerita at the State University of New York, June devotes her time to writing The Miriam bat Isaac Mystery Series. Consisting now of many short stories and seven books, several have won modest recognition, including as a finalist for the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award.
June, an active member of the Mystery Writers
of America, lives with her husband Paul Zuckerman, where she is breathlessly
recording her plucky heroine's next life-or-death exploit.
She’d love you to visit her at www.JuneTrop.com or on her Facebook page, June Trop Author,
where she publishes a blog every Tuesday afternoon about life in Roman
Alexandria.
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