John Roberts - The Sacrilege

This might prove embarrassing. I had already told my friend Milo that I would aid him in his courtship of the woman. He would not take it kindly if she were to be exiled because of me. Between Celer's insistence that I keep Clodia out of the scandal and Milo's infatuation with Fausta, I was placed in something of a quandary. Trouble with women was nothing new in my life, but this was a novel variant of it.

Who else might have been in that house on the night of the rites? And for what purpose? The fact that they had gone to such extremes to keep their doings secret, and were murdering people to cover themselves, meant that whatever it was was very, very bad indeed. And what could Capito have had to do with it?

I reached my house without any attempts being made on my life.

The next morning I found that Hermes was mostly recovered from his malady, pale but upright and rubbing his belly from time to time.

"Can't guess what it might have been," he said. He had a furtively guilty look but he usually looked that way, so I could not tell whether that signified anything. "Maybe an enemy put a curse on me," he said.

"More likely you broke into my wine closet and drained a jug or two," I said. "I'll look into it later."

I greeted my clients, and in the midst of it a man arrived with a note. I recognized the fellow as one of Asklepiodes's slaves.

Please come visit me at your earliest opportunity, it read. Below the message was the whimsical seal the Greek used: a sword and caduceus. This looked promising. Perhaps he had discovered something.

We all trooped to Celer's house, and at the first opportunity I took him aside.

"Have you determined anything?" he asked.

"Just a great deal of confusion," I said. "But I must ask you something. A few days ago I spoke to Caesar in this house. He said that he had come to ask you for a night's lodgings while he was banned from his own roof."

"So he did."

"Was he here all night?" I asked.

"Well, no. About midnight he went out. He said that he had to go take the omens. He was wearing his trabea and carried his crooked staff. Why? Is this significant?"

"It may be," I said. "Did you see him after that?"

"Yes. He came in shortly after I got up. He said he'd been up on the Quirinal, but that the night had been too cloudy for decent omen-taking. Why?"

"Oh," I said, trying to sound casual, "I am just trying to account for everybody's location that night. It all happened at his house."

"Stick to Clodius, my boy. Don't go trifling with Caius Julius."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said. I did not tell him that I suspected more powerful men than Caius Julius were involved.

I dismissed my clients and told Hermes to follow me. We walked back through the Subura and trudged up the Quirinal to the ancient Colline Gate. Like all the gates, it was a holy place and had seen many battles. Hannibal is supposed to have heaved a spear over it as a gesture of defiance, and just twenty-one years before Sulla had smashed the Samnite supporters of the younger Marius outside the gate, a battle the Romans had watched from atop the walls as at an amphitheater. After the rigors of the previous years, I am told that it was something of a relief seeing blood shed outside the walls.

Since Rome had no military or police within the walls, the guardianship of the gates was parceled out among various guilds, brotherhoods and temples. The Colline Gate was the responsibility of the collegium of the nearby Temple of Quirinus. These were the Quirinal Salii, who danced each October before all the most important shrines of the city. The young patricians did not pull night guard themselves, of course, but their servants did.

In the temple I went to the wardroom, where the gate guards stayed. Then I requested to be shown the tablet of the night when the rites had been profaned. The slave who kept the wardroom rummaged among the tablets while I looked over the small facility. There was no one else there. The gates were only watched at night.

"Here you are, sir," the slave said. I looked at the scratchings on the wax. Several freight wagons had entered the city during the night. All had left the same way before first light. There was no record of the Pontifex Maximus going out to take the omens. I asked the slave if he knew anything about it.

"The augurs are always supposed to check here at the temple before they go out the gate after dark, sir. The pontifex Spinther came here about ten days ago, with his striped robe and lituus. None since then." I thanked him and left.

"Why are you asking these questions?" Hermes asked me as we descended the hill. "Is it something to do with the patrician who tried to poison you and ended up dead instead?"

"I don't know, but I suspect that it is all connected. Why do you want to know?"

Hermes shrugged. "If you get killed, I'll just get passed on to somebody who's not as agreeable."

"I am touched. Yes, there's something very strange going on. Somebody tried to murder me, and Capito was murdered on the same night. The next night the rites of Bona Dea were profaned in Caesar's house. Caesar told Celer that he was going out to look for omens on the Quirinal that night, but he didn't. The boy who tried to poison me was murdered. The woman I suspect of selling him the poison was murdered. The boy was staying with Clodius, my worst enemy. The murdered woman was with Clodius when he sneaked into Caesar's house dressed as a woman. Doesn't it strike you that there is some common thread running through all this?"

Hermes shrugged. "Free people are mostly crazy. Noble ones are the worst."

"Stay a slave," I advised him. "That way your problems will always be simple."

We crossed the city and went over the bridge to the Island, then over the other bridge to the Trans-Tiber.

"Where are we going now?" Hermes asked.

"The ludus of Statilius Taurus, to visit a friend."

He brightened at that. "The gladiator school? You must know everybody!" He was always impressed with my familiarity with the lowest strata of Roman life.

At the school I left him in the training yard, gaping at the netmen as they went through their drills and practice fights. For some reason the netmen had caught the fancy of the slaves and lowest classes. Probably because sword and shield were the honorable weapons of citizens. Like many boys his age, he probably thought of gaining fame as a gladiator. He was too inexperienced to realize that it was just a delayed death sentence. Luckily, he was old enough to understand the whip and the cross.

Asklepiodes greeted me and insisted on going through the usual amenities with wine and cakes before he would enlighten me. Eventually, we sat by a wide window and looked down upon the men practicing below.

"Since we last spoke," he said, "I have been flogging my brain to remember where I had seen that hammer wound. Yesterday I was sitting here, idly watching the men at practice, when I saw some new men arrive. They were to have direction of the munera Pompey will give after his triumph. Some were old champions paid enormously to come out of retirement to grace the games, but among them were some Etruscan priests. Have you ever seen the fights as they are conducted in the more traditional areas of Tuscia?"

My scalp prickled. "No, I have not."

He beamed with satisfaction. "Well, the sight of these Etruscans reminded me. Some years ago, I accompanied a troupe to some funeral games near Tarquinia. There I witnessed something I had not seen before. Now, in the munera, what happens after a defeated man has received the death-blow, before the Libitinarii come to drag the body away?"

"The Charon touches the corpse with his hammer to claim it for the death-goddess, Libitina," I said.

"Exactly. Have you ever wondered where he got his attributes? The long nose and the pointed ears, the boots and the hammer? These are not the attributes of the ferryman of the Styx who bears the same name."