George Gardiner - A Forbidden History.The Hadrian enigma

"Our contacts in Alexandria as well as Rome and Antioch, have tried to seek out her details. She arrived in Alexandria from Rome at the same time as the Governor about four years ago. We thought she was his wife, but she is not. She doesn't look Roman, yet she is the representative of one of Rome's most ancient cults. It is a tradition very popular with women among Romans and Greeks, like Isis."

"She doesn't look Roman, you say?"

"To my eye she looks to be of a barbarian race. But that cannot be. Her cult is Roman by definition."

"Anything more?"

"She is reputed to engage in arcane rituals. Some at Alexandria say she sacrifices to alien gods. There are stories, unpleasant stories."

Kenamun fell meaningfully silent.

"Yes. Go on. What stories?"

"There are whispers. At the Governor's Rhakotis Palace children are known to disappear. Very young children. Boys only. Bones and flesh debris have been found in palace drains. Palace slaves say they have been obliged to clean rooms sprayed with gore. There are grisly tales. But perhaps these are slanders by inferiors about their Roman mistress."

"I see, I think. Anything else?"

"She is reputed to possess a lively sexual appetite. She is thought to be a female cinaedus. She charms many men. She has her way with them. She is the Governor's consort, but she has lovers elsewhere. One or two have disappeared, I've heard it said."

"What else?"

"Anna Perenna is not her real name."

"What is her real name?"

"We don't know. When Pachrates journeyed to Rome last year he sought to find out. All he could discover was she was a chosen adoptee of her cult, no more. Perhaps they do not know her real origins themselves, the source has been lost."

"Do you think she had some influence over Antinous?" Suetonius posed.

"Yes. Perhaps. They have been seen talking together."

"So, do you think you know what happened to the boy?"

"I only know facets of his mind. The youth was set upon a mission. I overheard his urge often in Household conversations. But I do not know what the mission may have been.

At one time he asked certain services of us, services we will not — or cannot — provide, and Caesar refused to us anyway. How these services connected to his mission is unknown to me. But, my lords and lady," Kenamun offered thoughtfully, giving Surisca's presence an unexpected acknowledgement, "I can recommend to you a special method of enquiry into Caesar's companion's fate."

The group of four stirred to life again. It was very late, and their attention was drooping. Kenamun continued.

"We have residing with us here the famous Priest Si-Amun of the Temple of Zeus Ammon at Siwa Oasis. Si-Amun is this generation's Oracle of Siwa. Si-Amun is a master medium. He has travelled the long journey from Siwa to pay his respects to Caesar and participate in Hadrian's announcement today."

"Today? It's here already?" Suetonius asked without expecting an answer.

"A medium? An oracle? A seer?" Clarus queried.

"Yes indeed. Si-Amun knows nothing of your companion Antinous yet I am sure his gift as an Oracle will tell you much you do not yet know."

"What do we do? Ask him questions? Beg his advice? What form does this Oracle take?"

"You ask a few simple, direct questions. Si-Amun will respond in the language of the Oracle, which is the language of the Amazigh peoples of Libya. They often have blue eyes with fair hair, their origin is unknown. I will translate his words into Greek for you. His responses are for you to interpret according to your understanding. Afterwards you pay the Oracle whatever sum you feel he deserves for his insights."

"Let's do it now," Suetonius said.

The venerable ancient had been woken from his sleep. His bleary eyes, crumpled linens, and tattered ethnic knits hung from his bony frame in untidy drapes. His shaven head had a week's growth of blotchy grey fuzz while a straggly single lock of hair bundled to one side of his cranium tied with a ribbon signified his racial origin.

The Amazigh priest put on his weathered headdress of ostrich feathers with curled ram's horns at each temple, and snapped beaten metal bracelets to his arms with decorative chains hung around his neck. They were inscribed in all manner of arcane symbols.

The priest was no youngster. In fact his age, like that of Pachrates, was indiscernible. His skin had tanned under the Siwa desert sun to a leathern dun, with deep corrugations creasing into craggy facial flesh. He had the weathered appearance of a sun-dried, dusty Siwa date of considerable age.

He observed his late night clients with an unblinking, intense gaze.

Both Suetonius and Clarus were immediately struck by the penetrating blue-gray of his eyes squinting from within his bronzed crevasses. The squint's focus probed deep into their eyes. His gaze penetrated behind their corneas, behind their deeper vision, and searched into some distant part of their being hidden at their core. The gaze was disturbing.

Kenamun spoke to the priest in an unfamiliar tongue. Surisca feigned disinterest in the dialogue as occasional familiar words and phrases stumbled through her comprehension. She listened as carefully as she could.

Kenamun spoke in a hushed, reverential whisper. A solitary oil lamp cast flickering light across the old man's features.

"The Great Oracle, Si-Amun of the Ammoneion of Siwa, will prepare for his special vocation," Kenamun announced. "Si-Amun will consume the special sacrament of his gift. It is a substance found only among the desert stones of Siwa."

The ancient of days produced a small receptacle filled with several unprepossessing lumps of a substance with the appearance of crumbled rock or wood ashes. He took silver tweezers and placed a few small lumps onto a metal ornamental tray. One of Kenamun's servants held a lighted taper beneath the tray to heat its thin base.

After some moments wisps of white fume rose from the tray. Si-Amun did precisely as Suetonius had done only two days earlier at The House of the Blue Lotuses. He fanned the fumes into his face and nostrils with both hands while muttering a low chant in his foreign tongue. Minutes of chanting in the stillness passed.

Si-Amun was suddenly galvanized. He sat bolt upright on his stool. He fumbled to unpin a fibula to permit a beaded veil to fall from his headdress across his face, masking his features from sight. His voice assumed an energized clarity of tone. His antique age seemed to dissolve as he fell into a thoughtful silence awaiting Kenamun's questioning words.

"You may begin," the priest mortician nodded. "Ask, but be respectful."

Clarus was moved to ask the opening question.

"Oracle of Siwa, who speaks to us here tonight?" he asked magisterially as Strabon's stylus prepared to flutter over fresh wax.

There was a lengthy pause before Si-Amun spoke. He repeatedly shook his ostrich feather headdress, which gave a rustling sound akin to a feathery systrum, while he rattled a real systrum in one hand. The voice was no longer the sharp clear vocal character of the ordinary priest, it had a rumbling depth of throatiness as though calling from the bottom of a deep well. His Amazigh words were haltingly translated by the mortician.

"I am Amun, the hidden god. Amun is Ra. Amun is Ptah. Zeus Ammon is Amun. Jupiter is Amun. Serapis is Amun. I am Osiris who Seth destroyed but Isis restored. I am who I am."

Suetonius was startled by this heady declaration, yet adventurously posed the next question.

"Great Ammon of the Oracle of Siwa please tell, why did Antinous of Bithynia die?"

Again a long pause as the ostrich feathers shimmered, flurried, and trilled while the systrum rattled. Kenamun slowly translated the stumbled response.

"The son of Apollo ascended to the sun. The sun burnt the youth. The wild forces of Eros overcame the civil power of Aphrodite. A hidden secret unleashed the chaos of Eros so stalking wolves could devour their prey."