The high priest said, in that reedy voice of his, ‘Ah, there you are! I hear you’ve become the centre of a storm. Dear me. Most unfortunate. However, since you’re here, you can tell us all about it.’ It was not exactly a welcome, but he held out his staff of office to be kissed.
I bowed over it. ‘All homage be to Jupiter, Greatest and Best . . .’ I began, but I got no further.
‘Gracious Hercules, what’s that?’ Marcus exclaimed, but, with a sinking of my heart, I had already recognised the sound.
From the direction of the temple, clearly echoing around the high priest’s garden court, there came that long, low, unearthly moaning sound again, like the desolate wailing of the dead.
There was a moment’s horrified silence. Marcus and Junio both turned to me, shock and dismay carved on their faces. Aurelia and her page looked terrified. Only the pontifex seemed unconcerned.
‘That noise again,’ Marcus said, after a little pause.
‘A noise? Ah! One of the temple trumpeters, I expect.’ The high priest was vague. ‘No doubt they’re practising for later on.’
Behind him, Marcus met my eyes and shook his head. I scarcely needed the assurance. No temple trumpet ever made a noise like that. It moaned into silence and was still. Everyone breathed a sigh of palpable relief.
‘All the same, Sacredness,’ Marcus persisted. He spoke in the loud and measured tones which everyone used when talking to the pontifex, but he was courteous. The temple might be part-servant to the state in many things, but the priest was final arbiter on actual dealings with the gods. ‘I think someone should make sure. Perhaps if . . .’ I thought for a moment that he was going to suggest that I investigate again, and I was horrified. I was in enough trouble already. If that had been his idea, he seemed to think better of it. ‘Perhaps if Junio . . .?’
‘If you so wish, Excellence.’ The pontifex was preoccupied with a pair of elaborate folding chairs, which a silent slave had brought and was setting down near the
impluvium
.
It was tantamount to an order from the highest sources, but all the same Junio looked towards me for permission. I would have been much happier not to have him leave my side, but in the circumstances I could hardly refuse.
I nodded and he bowed himself quietly out, while Marcus settled himself on the grander of the seats, and the high priest sat down fussily on the other.
Aurelia, instead of disappearing discreetly into the interior as most women would have done, sank down upon the visitors’ bench and watched us with an air of alert curiosity, like a spectator at the games, or at a trial.
It felt rather like a trial. I was the only person, apart from the slaves, still on my feet. In any normal social situation, someone of my humble status would have been expected to sit somewhere inferior – as Aurelia had done – so that my head was decently lower than my betters’. If the room had reminded me of a courtroom earlier, the impression was ten times stronger now – and it was clear what role I was playing here. Marcus and the high priest were both senior magistrates, and even without bonds or chains (which, in any case, no one could wear in the presence of the pontifex) I felt like a man accused. Especially as I still had penitential ashes on my head.
What’s more, I was beginning to suspect that this was how the pontifex intended me to feel. When he turned to me he seemed more pale and fragile than ever, but though his voice was cracked and feeble his glittering eyes were shrewd. ‘Your patron and I have sacrificed a pair of doves and consulted with the augurers. We think a full procession round the town is best – a proper torchlight ceremonial, that sort of thing – carrying small statues of the triad gods, and a threefold sacrifice at dawn. Marcus is arranging for the animals.’ He rubbed his thin hands briskly, as though he were relishing the prospect.
Marcus nodded his agreement.
‘We’ll have the censers, dancers, pipers and cymbals too,’ the old man went on happily. ‘I’ve sent word to the households of all priests from the other temples of the Olympian gods. Trinunculus and several of the slaves are calling on the chief priests of Apollo, Mercury, and all the other patron gods of the major craftsmen’s guilds. No doubt some of the priests will join the ritual. Dear me! That will ensure a good crowd at the shrine, and that should satisfy the populace. Nothing like a big religious procession to make the townsfolk think that something’s happening!’
‘It’s most unfortunate the townsfolk have turned on you, Libertus!’ Marcus leaned back on his chair, placed his fingertips together magisterially and addressed himself to me.
I said nothing. I could think of nothing to say. I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable.
Marcus smiled at me indulgently. ‘Most unfair, I know,’ he went on, in that brisk this-is-not-of-my-choosing tone which officials always use to convey unwelcome news, ‘Especially as you were not even there when the first of these phenomena occurred. But people do seem to associate all this with your presence in the temple, or at any rate with your return to town.’ He was interrupted as the page, on a signal from the pontifex, brought him the plate of honeyed dates. Marcus picked one up and bit it thoughtfully. ‘And once they get an idea like that, an angry crowd is hard to reason with. Ah . . . wine!’
He broke off again as the slave poured a little from a ewer. It was already watered – no respectable Roman household would offer undiluted wine – but the pontifex motioned for it to be topped up with additional water from the jug.
My patron took a sip. ‘Good water, this.’
‘Oak-aged five years,’ the pontifex said, tasting his own, and nodding his white head with satisfaction.
I did not need an augurer to read the omens here. This diversion was not merely a gesture in the direction of social convention. I was convinced that the pontifex was deliberately contriving it: partly to emphasise my inferior status – important visitors like Marcus merited wine and folding chairs, whereas I did not – and partly to add to my anxieties by keeping me waiting helplessly. If that was his intention, he was succeeding admirably.
The old man shot me a sly look, and then said silkily, ‘You were saying, Excellence? About the crowd?’
Marcus took another date. ‘Ah, indeed. The crowd.’ He seemed oblivious of these undertones. ‘It seems to us, Libertus my old friend, that the best thing you can do is join the procession as a flagellant. It looks penitent, that sort of thing – and with the sacrifice, that should dispel the mob. I see you’ve smeared yourself with dust and ashes, so you’re already half prepared for it.’
A flagellant! I felt myself grow pale. Of course self-flagellation was by no means unknown – young converts followed some parades, dressed in skins or ragged skirts, whipping themselves savagely until they fell bleeding and half-senseless to the ground. But for an ageing man? And it was no good doing the thing half-heartedly: some helpful member of the crowd would seize the whip and do the job himself. I swallowed. I might as well have stayed to face the sticks and stones.
‘But Excellence!’ I blurted. ‘I have been the merest bystander.’ I gave him a brief outline of my day.
He condescended an uncomfortable smile. ‘Unfortunate for you, I know, but the imperial ambassador has decided that he’s coming after all. It is essential that some gesture should be made. One must think of the greater good – the peace and welfare of the town.’
My heart sank. So there was nothing to be hoped for there. Marcus only retreated into that kind of social rhetoric when he felt forced into some course of action which he did not like.
The high priest wafted all this aside with a wave of his thin hand. ‘Citizen, it’s no good you muttering your discontent like this. You did defile the sanctuary. Dear me! Some public gesture of atonement is required.’ He looked at me with his pale, vague smile. ‘Though we can arrange to administer it, if you would prefer.’
The public torturers, he meant. Men had been known to die under their floggings. I found myself babbling. ‘As to my desecration of the shrine, that was an accident. And it was this morning, Mightiness, long after most of this had happened. I wasn’t at the temple when that moaning first began. Or when the corpse was found. Or the returning bloodstain—’
The high priest interrupted me impatiently. The old man was as pale as ashes but he could be decisive when he chose. ‘This is all very well, citizen, but it is no excuse. The crowd are superstitious, but there is justice in what they say. There have been supernatural happenings here, there’s no denying that. I’ve been a Priest of Jupiter for thirty years, and I’ve never seen anything to equal it. And they are right. These things have all occurred since you returned to town. No, pavement-maker, don’t protest. Even if you have done nothing deliberate, it is possible for a man to be the unwitting channel of the gods.’
This was what Scribonius had been frightened of. I felt my hands go clammy.
I was about to protest my innocence again, when something suddenly occurred to me: a danger I hadn’t thought of before. Gwellia had come from Londinium with me, and it was the first time she’d visited the town. If the townspeople once learned of that, she would become a target too. If she wasn’t already. The thought made me turn quite cold. If so, there was little I could do to help. She was officially a mere female slave, with none of the protections of a citizen. Better that I should take my flogging like a man.
I couldn’t bring myself to speak the words, but I bowed my head submissively.
My co-operation seemed to reassure Marcus. ‘That should dispose of popular unrest.’ He took a thoughtful sip of wine. ‘And win us a period of quiet, though it may not solve the problems at the shrine. Libertus is quite right; he has not been here all the time. But there are people who have. Any of the priests, for instance, pontifex. If we are looking for “channels of the gods”, there might be other candidates . . .’
I glanced at him gratefully. Marcus was doing his best for me.
The pontifex was not so accommodating. He did not dare to contradict my patron outright, but his thin voice was querulous. ‘Excellence, you have heard the augurers. Someone’s presence here has outraged the gods. The priests are in the temple
every
day. So why should these things suddenly occur?’
There were a dozen possible replies to that, but I understood the message. It was no use trying to justify myself. It was expedient for a ‘culprit’ to be identified.
The old man looked at me slyly. ‘In any case, who else—’ He got no further. Hirsus had rushed into the room, white-faced and shaking, his diadem askew. He brushed past me without a glance and threw himself before the rich men’s feet. His red hair looked startling in that sombre room.
‘Mightiness! Excellence!’ He scarcely seemed to know to whom he should address his agitated bows. ‘Excuse this unforgivable intrusion! Something most terrible has hap—’ He saw me suddenly and his voice, already high with anxiety, rose to a tormented squeak, and then failed altogether.
‘Something has happened? At the temple?’ Marcus enquired drily. ‘We heard it. That moaning sound again. We sent a slave over to investigate. Have you come from him?’
Hirsus shook his head. ‘It’s . . . it’s . . .’ He trailed off helplessly. He was staring at me and trembling so much he seemed incapable of speech.
Marcus was clearly losing patience. ‘By all the deities, what is it, man?’
Hirsus opened his mouth again, but still no words emerged. Instead he raised his hand in my direction as if to ward off blows and I realised that he was wearing an amulet under the folds of his elaborate robe. I had only glimpsed it, against the reddish hairs of his arm, but I could guess what it would be. I had seen similar things in the market many times. Pieces of auspicious herbs, no doubt, bound with a woven cord, and a silver image of some symbol of good luck – a phallus for example – dangling from the whole. Hirsus might be an Imperial priestling, but he was clearly not above using a magic talisman to protect himself from my evil influence.
In the presence of the high priest too, where knots and bindings of any kind were generally forbidden! It suddenly brought home to me with force how feared and hated I had suddenly become.
Still Hirsus did not speak. Indeed, it seemed as if we might have remained in ignorance for ever of what he had to say, had not Junio chosen that moment to return. We turned as one man to look at him.
He was looking almost as shaken as Hirsus, but his face was resolute. He shouldered his way past the slaves (who had been watching all this in astonishment from the inner door) and came to stand beside the central pool. He looked surprised to see the sub-sevir here, but he wasted no time in delivering his message. He did not pause to kneel or even wait for permission to speak.
‘Mightiness, Excellence, master – forgive my bursting in.’ He bowed his head politely to my patron and the priests, but he did not look in my direction. All the same I knew his words were meant primarily for me. ‘There is a lot of trouble at the temple. When the slaves tried to go out, as you commanded, to summon the priests from other shrines, they found that crowds were massing at the gate – all demanding that Libertus should be brought to trial. Shouting and screaming for blood-sacrifice, and calling on the gods. The temple slaves can’t hold them back for long. Someone should go to call the city guard. There bids fair to be a riot otherwise, and if the mob break in – who knows what they might do.’
He paused, and then at last he turned to me. ‘All the same, master, I think you’d better come. There seems to be another body at the shrine.’
There was an audible gasp from everyone. Marcus and the high priest started to their feet. ‘Dear gods!’
Hirsus gave a little moan of terror. ‘It’s true. That is what I came to tell you. Oh, merciful Apollo . . .!’
Marcus rounded on him. ‘This is what you came to tell us?’
Hirsus nodded.
‘Then,’ Marcus said dangerously, ‘perhaps you had better do that – since the high priest is not permitted to look upon a corpse. In fact, considering the danger from the mob, perhaps we none of us should go back into the temple precinct without the protection of the guard. Junio, go and summon them. Here!’ He slipped his seal-ring off and gave it to my slave. ‘Show this to the commandant. Tell him to send a dozen men – on my authority. Go!’