John Roberts - The River God

“Yes, but we don’t know exactly where we are going,” I told him. “What’s still above water?”

“The whole Forum Boarium is awash,” he said. “So is the Valley of Murcia,” this being the old name of the depression in which lay the Circus Maximus. “The Forum was wet, but not much higher than your ankles, just awhile ago. Might be deeper now.” The area near the Forum was densely populated, though not as densely as the Subura, where I lived.

I looked up to our left, where the Capitol rose in splendor, crowned by the great Temple of Jupiter. Uphill and to our right was the Temple of Ceres on the lower slope of the Aventine Hill, where I had what was termed, sarcastically, my headquarters as aedile. I pointed toward it.

“We could go up there. I have a right to use the place at any hour. The slaves will find couches for us. They hold feasts there, so there must be some sort of furniture.”

“Probably no food, though, or any other comforts,” Hermes said. “You have friends over there on the Palatine.” He nodded toward the hill that rose to the east above the Circus Maximus. “It’s not so far.”

“The problem is,” I said quietly, “I don’t know who my friends are anymore.”

I negotiated with the boatman until we agreed on his fare, and we boarded the boat.

It was a strange, dreamlike experience drifting slowly southward in this place where I had walked all my life. We passed silent buildings, and the water was alive with the rats fiushed from their cellars. We passed other boats and barges as people were ferried to and fro. The boatmen called out to each other, using the peculiar jargon of their trade. The moon was bright, spreading a silvery light over the strange scene. It might have been almost pleasant, except for one thing.

“What a stench!” Hermes said, gagging. Owing to some trick of the still air, the smell had been nearly unnoticeable from atop the embankment; but here, just a few feet from its surface, the foul reek was all but visible, making my eyes water. I had been right. It was the sewers backing up, fiushing years of neglected corruption right back into the City.

“It’s ripe,” the boatman agreed. Neither the smell nor the situation seemed to upset him. “I wish there was money in rat fishing. I’d get my nets out and be a rich man by sunup. It’s certain that there’s no fishing to be done on the river this night or for a good many nights to come.” He shook a couple of rats off his pole to emphasize his point. When he pushed it back in, I could see that the water was no more than knee-deep, but it might as well have been deeper than Oceanus, as far as I was concerned. There was no way I would ever wade through that water.

We poled across the Forum Boarium, now as bereft of occupants as it had been before the Aborigines came to Italy. We drifted past the towering chariot gate end of the Circus, and I decided that some work would be called for before I could hold my races there. The condition of the track would have to be horrendous after this.

Eventually, we nosed ashore at the base of the Aventine. Even before Hermes and I could disembark, a couple rushed down the gentle slope, calling for the boatman to wait. He was in for a busy, profitable night even without any money to be had from rat fishing.

“Take us to the Palatine at once, good man!” said a haughty female, and somewhat familiar, voice. I went impolitely close and stooped, squinting, toward the patrician features beneath the shawl that covered the woman’s head. The light of the boat’s torch and the much smaller one carried by Hermes revealed an unmistakable face, which glared at me like a Gorgon.

“Why, revered Lady Cornelia! I scarcely expected to see you here so late.”

“Why are you here, Aedile Metellus?” she spat out. “No doubt out carousing late as usual, with the City in a state of emergency!”

“The whole City is my concern, and I never rest in the service of Senate and People. I was about to pay a visit to the temple, and who should I find but the lady second in esteem only to the wife of the Flamen Dialis and the Virgo Maxima , accompanied by one of her eunuchs.” But there was no chance I would have mistaken the blocky, shaven head of her companion with its furious face. “Why, excuse me, Marcus Porcius, I thought you were one of the temple drones! Well met, indeed! You are just the man I need to talk to.”

“Metellus,” Cato said, or rather growled, “if you have any ambitions to live until sunrise, you’d better take care!” Cornelia put a hand on his arm, and he quieted like an unruly dog who calms at its master’s touch. This was a night for revelations.

“Decius Caecilius,” Cornelia said, in an entirely new voice, “how may I help you?”

“Oh, as it happens, I can’t go home tonight, and I’m sure all my friends are putting up clients from the lower parts of the City, so I thought I’d just go to the office of the plebeian aediles and curl up in a corner.”

“By no means,” she said. “Just tell the slaves to take you to the guest quarters. They are quite well appointed. Tell the slaves that they must render you every service or risk my severe displeasure.”

“Why, that is most kind of you, my lady. And Cato, I need to confer with you at first light tomorrow.”

“Why should I-”

“It’s about that matter we discussed earlier today.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’ve learned something, eh?”

“A great deal. You will like this. And there may be some violent action very soon.”

He jerked his blocky head in an emphatic nod. “I’ll be here if I have to swim!”

“You haven’t been out on that water yet. Don’t make any promises you can’t keep.”

I helped Cornelia aboard. “Decius,” she whispered, “you have the reputation of a man who can keep his own counsel. They say that is why Caesar trusts you with important matters. May I also rely on your discretion?”

I placed a hand over my heart. “To the grave, beauteous Cornelia.”

The boatman poled them away toward the Palatine, and I laughed as Hermes and I strolled up toward the lovely temple. “Cato and Cornelia! Who would have imagined it? The most reptilian man in the Senate, and the most fearsome dragon this side of Caesar’s mother! Cato has a human weakness after all!”

“It’s not his only weakness,” Hermes said. “He drinks too much; everyone knows that.”

“That is not a weakness,” I pointed out, “it is a mark of character. Well, I don’t think it makes me like him any more, but perhaps it makes me detest him just a little bit less.” I held my thumb and forefinger a trifiing distance apart to show him just how little that was. We climbed the temple steps. “We’re in luck, Hermes! I had no idea the Temple of Ceres even had guest quarters!”

As it turned out, the temple had very fine guest quarters indeed; and when I’d rousted the slaves from their rest and threatened them with Cornelia’s wrath, they led us there and saw to our comfort.

“Oh, yes sir!” twittered the head eunuch as he proudly displayed the suite that lay behind the splendid nave. “We often entertain the high priestesses and chamberlains of the great temples in Greece and Magna Graecia, where Ceres is worshipped as Demeter.”

I studied the sumptuous rooms. “Kept this all to themselves, eh? While we poor aediles sweated away in tiny little offices downstairs! Well, no more of that! Bring us whatever food you have handy and some decent wine. No! Make that the best!”

The half man bowed obsequiously. “At once, Aedile!”

Within minutes we were tearing into some of the best cold food to be had in Rome that night. We had dined earlier that evening, but we ate like starving men anyway. A soldier knows that he has to fill up when he has the chance because the next meal may be days away and plenty of fighting to be had in the meantime. I had a strong feeling that things were going to be moving very fast, very soon, and I had better be fortified for it.