Dark Omens (23 page)

I tried to speak – to reason or to beg – but there was so much pressure on my ribs that I found that it was all I could do to breathe. Indeed I was close to losing consciousness. I closed my eyes, as if to shut the terror out, and was only half aware of being dragged along – part-carried almost – my toes making occasional contact with the steps, and although I could hear and smell the crowd on either side, it was clear the mob was parting to allow us through, no doubt to allow me to be thrown on to the fire. I think I actually fainted in the end.

When I came to myself I was sitting on a step, propped up against a pillar in the semi-dark. There was a small lamp glimmering just above my head and a strong smell of incense and spices in the air. For a moment I wondered if I’d been killed and had made the journey to the other world, but once my brain had cleared and my eyes had adjusted to the light, I could see that I was in the temple porch and the giant slave was bending over me.

‘A
h, good!’ he said. ‘I see you are awake. I feared I might have squeezed the life from you. I do apologize. But I had to get you safe. They would have harmed you otherwise, I think.’ He gestured down the steps towards the crowd, who were still roaring like a thousand gales.

‘You were my saviour.’ I ran a rueful hand around my ribs. ‘I’m still in one piece, too, though I’ll be black and blue tomorrow. But thank you, from my heart.’ I looked into his face, which looked even darker in the half-light here. ‘What made you rescue me? You might have risked your own life doing that.’

‘It was no more than my duty. You have business with the temple, I believe you said?’ The high pitch of his voice was oddly carrying. ‘I was standing right behind you and – since you’d been here earlier – I reasoned it was true. What is it, citizen? Something you failed to do when you were here before? Some little offering to the shrine, perhaps?’

I cast around for something plausible. I did not want to be sent off to face the mob again. ‘There is a would-be councillor from Dorn,’ I said, raising my voice above the shouting and jeering from below. ‘He has been missing since before the Agonalia. A man called Genialis …’

He nodded so that his giant earrings rang. ‘The one who hoped to offer the Janus sacrifice? I remember him. He was very angry with me when I had to tell him that a donor had already been agreed. Missing, is he? I noticed that he wasn’t at either sacrifice that day – but I supposed that he’d gone home to Dorn and the snow had simply prevented him from coming back in time.’

I shook my head and tried to rise, but found that I could not, so I had to go on shouting. ‘He never got to Dorn. He stopped at a friend’s villa and set off from there, apparently to return to Glevum. But he did not arrive. There is a ward – a certain Silvia – whom he had planned to wed and whom my patron, Marcus Septimus, has taken in his care, at any rate until Genialis can be accounted for.’

The mention of my patron had the usual effect. The slave became more deferential instantly and squatted down beside me so I did not have to raise my voice so much. ‘So you wished to sponsor an offering to the gods to entreat his safe return?’

I felt every inch the hypocrite that I was being over this. ‘Or at least that his body should be quickly found so that the lady’s future can be properly arranged,’ I said. That was safe enough. Since I was obviously going to be required to offer a small sacrifice – a pair of pigeons at the very least – I was content that it should be for such a cause. ‘But the shrine was closed today, and it is unlikely that tomorrow I shall be in town – I am due to join the search for him at dawn.’

He smiled. ‘Ah! So you have a personal interest in the case. I presume a lead prayer-plaque would meet the case for you?’

I nodded, relieved that he’d suggested such a minimum expense.

‘Then give me the money and I’ll see that it is done. One of the stalls outside here has a range of them, and will scratch any message on them that you wish. They’ll have a bumper day tomorrow with curse-tablets, I’m sure – all calling down vengeance on the soul of Commodus – so I’ll buy yours early. I’ll nail it on the lintel of a cella, if you like. Which god would you like to have it written to? Jove or Juno or Minerva – you can take your pick. Or all of them together if you would prefer.’

I’m not a follower of Roman deities, but I knew enough to say, ‘Juno, perhaps, since she’s the goddess of marriage.’

‘Very well. Then that will cost you a denarius.’

It was still a largish sum, but not as expensive as a pair of sacrificial birds. Anyway, I would have paid a great deal more, simply for rescue from the crowd. I rolled on to my side so I could reach my purse, loosed the drawstring and handed him the coin, together with a couple of brass asses that I found. ‘Here you are. And a little offering for yourself.’

He put the coins into a small slot in his tunic-hem, as though that was a hiding-place he often used. ‘Thank you, citizen, I’m glad to be of use. It’s only a pity that the old priest has died. He would have placed it on the actual altar for you, for a fee – though he was apt to ask the maximum he thought you could afford …’ He broke off, obviously conscious – as I was – of a sudden lull below.

‘What is it?’ I said dimly, as he jumped up to look.

He bared white teeth in an enormous smile. ‘It is amazing what a difference a few soldiers makes. If you can stand up, citizen, you can witness it yourself.’ He reached out an enormous hand and pulled me to my feet. I found they would support me, if I held on to the wall, and I looked where he was pointing and saw what he had meant.

A group of Roman soldiers was marching into the forum, two by two, through the same lane entrance that I’d used myself. Their shields were linked to make a barrier, and their javelins held at ‘ready’, level with their ears. The crowd that had been rampaging so triumphantly had fallen silent now: all skirmishing had stopped, and where a moment earlier there’d not been standing room, there was suddenly a pathway opening to the fire. People were edging away backwards from the shields, climbing on pillars and one another’s backs to escape the crush, but mostly surging towards us up the temple steps – the only place that there was left for anyone to go.

‘Come!’ my rescuer said, and seized me by the arm – a fact which it bore witness to for several days. ‘I must get reinforcements. This crowd cannot come in here!’ He tugged me in the direction of the temple court, but already there were other shapes approaching through the gloom. One was hooded, and might have been a priest, but the others looked like temple-slaves or acolytes, all carrying tapers, their faces ghostly in the flickering light.

Nothing was said. They simply formed up in a line, as if to shield the inner sanctum from the rising tide of one-time rioters. But, all at once, it seemed that tide had turned. As the troops advanced towards the fire, so the mob began to melt away behind their backs, and soon there were people pouring from the forum through every exit – though there was hardly a lit torch among the lot of them. One unfortunate was trampled in the rush; his moaning body was rolled into the square and it was at this point that the soldiers moved.

‘Halt! Stand still! The next to move is dead.’ The officer, an
ordinarius
, barked the order in a clarion voice. He was clearly used to issuing commands and expected to be instantly obeyed. He was. People froze as surely as if they’d turned to ice – with the exception of his troops, who swiftly formed into a circle round the fire, so that all parts of the forum were in range of javelins.

The gaggle, prompted by the officer’s drawn sword, were quickly formed into a set of straggling lines. Another order and several of his soliders came and walked along the files, picking out obvious non-citizens from the crowd and setting them aside. Then: ‘The rest of you may go! Back to your homes at once. Anyone found out on the street tonight will find himself in jail.’ He stood back and let the subdued spectators straggle out into the dark.

A sort of peace had fallen on the square: there were a few people lying lifeless or moaning on the flags, and others with more minor injuries sitting in doorways, rather like myself – but otherwise only the group of non-citizens was left. It soon became clear what they were wanted for. A pair of Roman soldiers with their sword-blades drawn swiftly organized a bucket-chain to put out the fire, using water from the great tank in the fish-market and using the leather buckets which had been full of eels. As the pails of water passed from hand to hand, I recognized the cloaked tradesman who had hissed at me, now perspiring as he worked, and – to my relief – I saw Adonisius too, refilling emptied buckets at the pool. Already the flames were hissing and starting to die down.

I turned towards the line of temple-guards, who were observing all this quite impassively. ‘I think that it would be safe for me to leave,’ I hazarded.

They turned and stared at me, as if they’d not noticed my presence up till now and were not best pleased to find me there at all.

My giant friend spoke up for me at once. ‘This man is not a trespasser. I brought him here myself. I had already met him earlier today. He came to offer a petition plaque. I told him I would see to it on his behalf.’

The priestly figure half-inclined his head, then he and the rest filed silently back into the court again. It was quite uncanny – all this co-ordinated movement without a single sound – or it would have been if a skinny temple-slave of perhaps twelve years or so had not lingered a little as the others left.

‘Tomorrow there are likely to be a lot of plaques. And no doubt a penitential offering or two, as well!’ It was obvious that he was bursting with some kind of news. ‘Commodus may be dead but he was still a deity, and tearing down his statue from the Imperial shrine is a matter which will have to be atoned before the gods.’

My rescuer stared at him. ‘You can’t mean that the crowd broke into the temple, Popillus?’

I was boggling too. I could hardly credit it. Even if some people had taken too much wine, you would not expect anyone to desecrate a shrine. Especially not a Capitoline one. They would be too afraid of bringing down the wrath of Jove.

The boy called Popillus shook his head. ‘They didn’t come into the temple proper, only into the scared grove around the back.’

‘The one that houses the Imperial shrine?’ I was so surprised that I interrupted him. ‘But there’s a six-foot wall! How did they manage that?’

‘Someone seems to have found a ladder from that site just down the road where they are rebuilding that cloth-shop that caught fire – and it looks as if a group climbed over and wrenched the statue of Commodus from its plinth. Fortunately it was too heavy for them to carry off, otherwise it would have been smashed to pieces too, I expect. We’ve just found the ladder that they left up against the wall.’

‘And no one in the temple saw anything amiss?’ My slave friend was as astonished as I was myself.

Popillus shrugged. ‘It was not the hour for Imperial sacrifice and we have been too busy with cleansing rites for that – and some of you were elsewhere anyway – attending the cremation of that old priest’s remains.’

The giant nodded. ‘Indeed. And you may tell them that it is duly done.’

Popillus looked startled for a moment, then pulled his cloak around his ears and hurried back inside.

I turned to my companion. ‘The funeral’s been held already?’ I was surprised again. Usually such a ritual does not take place for days.

He shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘The augurers decreed it was the safest thing. We couldn’t have a desecrated body on the site and it wasn’t fitting to have it lie in state. Six of us slaves were given charge of it, to see that it was quickly cleansed with sacred herbs, and then it was taken to a funeral site just after dark and burned upon a pyre – just a priest and a few of us temple-slaves to offer a lament and see that everything was done according to the rites. I was sent back to say the corpse had been consumed.’

‘So that’s what you were doing in the forum!’ I exclaimed. It should have occurred to me before that it was odd – temple-slaves don’t generally wander round the town. ‘The pyre must have burned down very fast indeed.’

He nodded. ‘There was so little of the body that it did not take long – even the cremation-pyre wasn’t very large: though when the ashes are gathered later on, it is not quite certain where we’re going to put the urn. The high priest thought that it should be given a proper monument out by the northern road, but the ground’s too hard to bury anything, so it’s going into the public columbarium until there is a thaw. We’ll think about it then. But at least the body’s been disposed of decently, and any question of a curse will have been lifted by all the rituals.’

‘Except for the desecration of the Imperial shrine?’ I said. ‘Surely that will have to be pursued? Commodus was, after all, officially a god. In fact unlike his predecessors in the post, he hadn’t even waited to be dead: he’d declared himself a deity while he was still alive.’

Another massive shrug. ‘The culprits will be sought and punished, I suppose.’ He gave a sly, most un-temple-slave-like grin. ‘Though if he’s really an Immortal, he may avenge himself. In the meantime no doubt you’re right. The priests will have to make oblations to purify that shrine – and almost certainly they will require me to help. So I will leave you now. I will see your plaque is made and offered to the goddess, as soon as the stalls are open after dawn. Will you be safe returning to your house?’

I nodded. ‘I have an attendant down there in the square.’ I gestured in the direction of the bucket-chain, who – urged to their best efforts by threats and baton-strokes – had more or less put out the blaze by now. There was a pile of embers still smouldering in the dark, while charred and broken furniture and bits of statuary could be made out here and there. The forum would require hours of clearing up but there was no longer any risk of the fire spreading elsewhere in the town. ‘I think the fire fighters are about to be dismissed. Though I don’t know what has happened to our torch.’

The giant nodded. ‘Take this one with you! You can repay the temple for it next time that you come. I will look out for you!’ He unhooked the pitch-torch from the stanchion in the portico, and handed it to me.