The Legatus Mystery Read online

  I aimed a playful cuff at his ear, and left him to it, aware that the kitchen slave was gaping like a frog.

  It was no great distance to the temple, even from the rear entrance of the house, but it was raining enough to make me very glad of the veranda over the entrance and the ambulatory. The temple slave was there to greet me, together with Trinunculus who seemed to have appointed himself my especial guide. In the distance I could see Meritus and his attendant priests all huddled together at the entrance to the Imperial shrine. Of Marcus and the pontifex there was no sign.

  ‘This is a dreadful business, citizen,’ Trinunculus said, with only the faintest sideways glance at my ungentlemanly attire. ‘It has caused quite a stir, I can assure you.’ He waited for me to wash my hands again in the sacred water bowl. ‘No doubt you know by now what’s happened here?’

  ‘You have found the corpse?’

  Trinunculus looked startled and shook his head. ‘If only it were something so simple.’ He glanced towards the temple slave. ‘He didn’t tell you?’

  The slave boy flushed, but he answered steadily enough. ‘There was someone listening. And the pontifex instructed me to say nothing at all . . .’

  Trinunculus silenced him with a nod. ‘Very well. In that case, citizen,’ he said to me, ‘you’d better come and see things for yourself.’

  All this secrecy was making me thoroughly uneasy, and as we crossed the courtyard I turned to Trinunculus for an explanation. I knew his love of gossip and he was clearly bursting to tell me, but something – perhaps the mention of the pontifex – had silenced him, and he resolutely said nothing until we had almost reached the entrance to the Imperial shrine.

  ‘There you are, citizen,’ Trinunculus said. ‘You can see it with your own eyes.’

  He stood back, and I approached the shrine. Only one half of the screen door had been fully opened, and the little group at the entrance had to step back to let me in.

  I am not normally a nervous man, but I confess that I was almost overcome by fear. Nobody spoke. Only Scribonius kept up a quiet sing-song chant – muttering charms and incantations, I realised, to keep the evil influences at bay. Meritus stood stock-still, like a human mountain, shaking his head as if in disbelief, while Hirsus had his hands pressed to his mouth and was gibbering faintly. By this time the hairs on my back were stirring with disquiet, and the palms of my hands were uncomfortably damp.

  I swallowed hard, and peered into the religious gloom of the shrine. I was preparing myself for almost any horror: dismembered bodies, monsters, sacrilege. What I was not expecting was that – at first sight at least – everything in the temple seemed exactly as I’d left it.

  I took a step forward.

  ‘There,’ Meritus murmured. ‘On the floor. We found it this morning when we first came to the shrine.’ He paused, swallowed and looked around, as if some malign presence might be listening, before he went on. ‘I think you know we washed it yesterday.’

  I looked where he was pointing, and I felt my veins run cold. There on the shadowed tiles before the altar, in the self-same place where yesterday I had seen Hirsus kneel and soil his priestly robes, was the ominous, dark stain once more. And yet I had watched, with my own eyes, as a temple slave had knelt and scrubbed all trace of it away.

  I have seen death, even murder, many times, but this was something else. Something unnatural, unhuman and unclean. ‘A curse on all things Roman?’ Was that it? I felt my spine tingle, and my breath come short. But the priests were watching me. I had to do something.

  I sent up a prayer to whatever gods there were, then knelt and touched my finger to the floor. It came up sticky and it smelled of blood. Fresh blood.

  Unreasoning terror took my power of speech. I looked at Meritus. He shook his head helplessly. I tried to rise, but my knees seemed to be made of melting wax. Behind the altar the huge bronze statue of the Emperor gazed down at me, its cold face cruel and unforgiving. I put my hand upon the base to raise myself, then drew it sharply back again and found myself somehow on my feet.

  ‘Uuugggh!’ I had not meant to, but I’d cried aloud. More blood. Dear Mercury! My hand was red with it, and with something else – something that looked like scraps of human flesh.

  It was too much for me. Blank terror made my stomach heave. I fought my way out of the temple, past the priests, and plunged my hand into the ceremonial bowl. The purifying water streamed with red.

  Then I turned aside and was violently sick into the trees.

  Chapter Twelve

  Too late, I recognised the effect of that. I’d desecrated a sacred place. I hadn’t meant to, but that’s what I had done. Not merely a sacred place, but the Imperial grove! I was wondering rather groggily what the punishment for that might be, when I came to myself and realised that I had become the centre of a little tableau.

  All four priests – Trinunculus, Scribonius, Hirsus and Meritus – were lined up in a row and were staring at me with exaggerated expressions of dismay, like a comic chorus at the theatre. This, though, was no laughing matter. Apart from making an exhibition of myself, I had transgressed the laws of reverence, and could expect the anger of the god – or at least, his priestly representatives. That was no supernatural matter. News of this would reach the divine imperial ears, I could rely on that, since the Emperor has informers everywhere.

  I waited, half expecting to be marched off to a cell. But though there was a visible affront, none of the priests made any move at all. Sometimes it is useful to have a powerful man like Marcus as a patron, I thought – or perhaps it was simply that, after the other desecrations of the shrine, my accidental indignities made little difference.

  Whatever the reason, the sevir Meritus was the first to regain his composure.

  He murmured something to Scribonius (checking the proper rituals, I guessed) then signalled towards the amubulatory, and I saw that the temple slave who’d fetched me had taken up his station there, waiting for further instructions. I blushed to realise that he must have been watching my antics with astonishment.

  Now, however, the sevir clapped his massive hands and gestured with his head. The fellow disappeared at once, but in a trice was back again with half a dozen other of his fellow slaves.

  What followed was an impressive demonstration of temple discipline. Meritus merely nodded here, and gestured there, and within moments all the slaves were hard at work, pouring out the polluted water from the bowl – round the outer altar where it mingled with the blood of sacrifice – rinsing the bowl itself, refilling it, and cleansing the desecrated precinct with clean sand. All this without the chief sevir uttering a single word.

  When the slaves had finished, Meritus moved at last. He waited for everyone to withdraw and then he lifted the draped portion of his purple robe to form a hood – a clear sign that he was about to officiate. Then, and only then, he strode dramatically to the altar, raised his hands and in ringing tones he called down the mercy of the gods. The two assistant priests stood by: Hirsus wildly scattering purifying oils while Scribonius solemnly wafted sacred ‘fire’ by waving smoking incense in the air.

  And all this was because of me. I could hardly have created more of a stir if I had been a corpse myself.

  I glanced at Trinunculus, who was not taking part in the ceremony, and gave him a feeble smile. He whispered something to one of the departing temple slaves, who scampered off, and reappeared a short time later with a cup of watered wine for me. I was still feeling shaken and I drank it gratefully.

  Trinunculus sidled over to me. ‘Are you feeling better now, citizen?’ he asked me in an undertone. ‘I’m sorry you had such a shock. I would have warned you what you’d find – but that messenger was listening, and the pontifex himself had given strict instructions that no one was to say anything until you’d seen the blood yourself. He thinks the very mention of a corpse is unlucky, of course – since a flamen may not hear or speak of one.’

  I nodded. I’d learned enough about Roman superstition to kn
ow that.

  The young priest went on murmuring, with evident relish this time. ‘Also there is a story about some kind of curse – and he told me that the more you mention that the more you strengthen it. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it? Some executed leader of the Iceni calling down vengeance on all things sent from Rome?’ Even the pontifex’s warning, it seemed, could not prevent Trinunculus from passing on an interesting story.

  Scribonius was frowning at us, through his incense cloud. We should not be gossiping like this. I nodded hastily, avoiding words, but Trinunculus refused to be subdued. His whisper, if anything, became more penetrating.

  ‘I’m not surprised it made you feel unwell. That blood gave me a shock when I saw it, I can tell you, though I was more or less ready for what I was going to see.’ He saw my look of surprise and grinned. ‘Of course, I shouldn’t have known about it either. But one can’t stop rumours in a place like this. Once the stain was found everyone in the temple was whispering about it.’

  I turned to him, struck by a sudden thought. ‘Who discovered it?’ My voice was louder than I meant.

  He made a little face, and nodded towards the Imperial seviri, who were on their knees by this time, their foreheads pressed into the dust. ‘All three of them at once, I understand, though by rights it should have been Hirsus on his own. Usually on low days he opens up the shrine.’

  I nodded. Every day is either auspicious or non-auspicious in the Roman calendar, fastus or nefastus to some extent – so much so that the civic calendar depends on it. Therefore (unlike public ceremonials, where different participants have specific jobs, so that the man who anoints the statue is not the same man who carries it in procession) within the temple priests may sometimes take it in turns to perform the rituals, according to the degree of seniority required to avert ill-luck.

  ‘So what happened this morning?’ I was about to say, but the Imperial priests had risen now to their feet, and were processing round the altar, doing something ritual with fire held aloft.

  Scribonius hissed at us as he passed. ‘If you must talk while we’re purifying, kindly move away.’

  We did as we were bidden, and went to stand a little further off. ‘I suppose after yesterday’s events, everything was unlucky and the day required special sacrifice?’ I said to Trinunculus, in a more normal tone. ‘That’s why all three of them performed the rites today?’

  He nodded. ‘Partly that, of course. None of them even returned home last night – Hirsus was positively quivering with fright, and much too scared to sleep here in the robing room alone, as the duty priest would normally have done. He wouldn’t go into the shrine by himself this morning, either, although Scribonius wanted him to do it – kept saying that if the rituals were not performed strictly according to the calendar it would mean even more bad luck, and take longer than ever to atone.’

  That was interesting, I thought, glad to find my mind was functioning again. Did Scribonius have some reason for wanting Hirsus to go alone? I looked at Trinunculus questioningly. ‘And is that right?’

  ‘There may be a basis for it, somewhere in the rules – Scribonius knows the priestly regulations inside out – but I suspect that partly it was because he didn’t want to go in there himself. And of course Hirsus was almost hysterical with fear. I don’t know why he wants to be a sevir. He’s been frightened of his shadow ever since he came, and he’s terrified of Meritus – who’s twice his size, of course. But even that would not make him go into the shrine alone today. There was almost a rebellion until Meritus agreed that they all three should do it together.’

  I nodded. ‘So that is what they did?’

  ‘I believe so. And the moment they went into the shrine, there it was – a bloodstain, back in the very place where it was yesterday. At least, that’s what I understand. I didn’t see it personally. The first I knew of it was Hirsus screaming.’

  ‘Where were you at the time?’ I had to ask the question.

  ‘In the main temple with the pontifex. We had our own rituals to perform, of course. This business has been a desecration of the entire temple, not just the Imperial sanctuary, and the whole complex needed the most abject rituals,’ Trinunculus answered me with dignity. ‘Of course it is worse at the Imperial shrine. Meritus spent hours yesterday performing cleansing rites, and I understand they kept up prayers all night. But it doesn’t seem to have done a lot of good. This morning, there the bloodstain was again.’

  He spoke with such feeling that I was moved to ask, ‘What do you think, Trinunculus? This reappearing stain? Is it a sign, a warning or a curse?’ He was a priest after all, I thought, even if only a fairly junior one.

  ‘To tell you Jove’s truth, citizen, I don’t know. I’m glad I’m not a sevir in the Imperial cult, that’s all. When you join the priesthood you expect mysteries, of course – but nothing in my training covers this.’ He seemed to speak from the heart, but I noticed he had evaded the question.

  I persisted. ‘But what is your opinion?’

  He looked at me. ‘Well, citizen, if this is a vengeance curse, why should it suddenly strike now, when nothing has happened all these years? More likely this is some sort of warning sign – because one of the gods is angry. I believe the high priest thinks the same; he is beginning to talk about a formal investigation into the morals of the Imperial priests, since it is in their shrine that the manifestations have taken place.’

  ‘Their morals?’ I enquired, in surprise.

  ‘The way that they have kept their vows, I mean.’ He leaned forward, confidentially. ‘If anything is found against them, it could be serious. You heard what happened in the Imperial City, years ago, when one of the Vestal virgins was struck by lightning? Investigation showed then that some of the other Vestals had transgressed their vows. Several men had to be executed before the gods were finally appeased – and the women themselves were actually walled up, I think.’

  It seemed likely, from what I knew of the matter. Vestal virgins are protected by their calling from anyone’s laying violent hands on them – so that, if any of them were condemned to death, it was always by being bricked up alive in a confined space, without food or water, until they presumably perished of their own accord. Eventually.

  I was still contemplating the horror of that fate when a discreet cough behind me captured my attention. I turned. The seviri had finished their rituals of purification by now, and Meritus was standing there, already pushing back his hood. I was conscious once again of his enormous height.

  He stepped forward to speak to me. ‘I apologise for that interruption and delay, citizen. It was necessary, as you understand.’

  ‘I am the one who should apologise,’ I said.

  ‘Or propitiate, perhaps?’ he said, and I realised that I had not escaped entirely unpunished, after all.

  ‘Perhaps a little offering? A pigeon, maybe, or a dove or two?’ Something inexpensive, was what I really meant. Priests are generally inclined to suggest gold and silver, if one leaves the choice of offering to them – as no doubt ‘Lucianus the wretched’ had discovered long ago.

  Meritus gave me a condescending smile. ‘Perhaps a pair of pigeons would suffice but I think a white lamb might be more suitable. To be offered on the next auspicious day. In the meantime, I must make a sacrifice myself, and we must ask the pontifex to cleanse the inner shrine with fire. If this is the working of a curse – as seems more and more likely – we are in the hands of the great immortals, beyond the scope of my more humble prayers.’ He shook his head. ‘It is all too horrible. And at the Imperial shrine as well! I am coming to think the pontifex is right. It cannot be safe to have the legate here. However, that is not for me to judge.’

  ‘It’s up to Marcus Septimus,’ I said mechanically. I was thinking of nothing in particular beyond the cost of pure white lambs – always at a premium because of their value as a sacrifice.

  Meritus, though, seemed to interpret my remark as a reminder that I had status here. He made hasty sho
w of deference. ‘Will it be acceptable, do you think, to have the slaves wash down the temple floor? Or did you wish to look at it again? Scribonius thinks it should be cleansed at once, but the pontifex and Marcus Septimus were very clear that I should do nothing in the shrine until you agreed.’

  That would endear me to Scribonius, I thought – civil authority taking precedence over religious ritual. Yet, if anyone could tell me about the sacred rituals, there was no doubt that Scribonius was my man. Somehow I would have to win him over.

  I glanced towards the small, balding priest, who was indeed glaring at me in a most unfriendly manner. I nodded affably in his direction. ‘I’d be very glad to take another look,’ I said to Meritus. ‘But I have caused impurity enough. Perhaps if the assistant sevir would accompany me, he could advise me what I can and cannot touch, and so prevent me from doing anything else accidentally impious? I understand he is an expert on the rites?’

  Scribonius kept the sober frown on his face, but I could see that I had flattered him. ‘Admitting a person other than a priest is bound to desecrate a holy place,’ he grumbled, but he took a taper and led the way back to the little temple in the grove.

  He did, though, make me stop outside to ensure that I was thoroughly rubbed with ashes and sprinkled with water before he permitted me to set foot inside the shrine again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  This time, since the initial shock was over, I was able to pay more attention to my surroundings. I forced myself to look round carefully. At first sight, there appeared to be no alteration from the day before. Just the altar, the statue, the wall paintings, Augustus in his niche – and of course that bloodstain on the statue and on the shadowed floor. But surely . . .? I took a step forward.

  Scribonius moved to prevent me. ‘Citizen?’ He said it doubtfully.

  I wished I was wearing more official robes. I doubt if he would have stood in the way of a man in a toga. ‘The inner door,’ I said. ‘It has been unfastened.’