The Legatus Mystery Page 12

  He went ahead of me, holding the taper high. I was not mistaken. The heavy bolt, which yesterday had been so firmly closed, was now pulled back, so that although the door rested in the same position it was no longer fastened shut. It had been carefully done – if I had glanced more casually I would never have observed it in the shadows. I exchanged looks with Scribonius.

  He said nothing, but we moved in unison. We pushed at the door together and it opened at our touch. Outside under the columns, however, there were scuff-marks on the ground, as if the swinging of the door had marked it recently. I opened and shut it once again – it was moving freely enough now.

  Scribonius looked at me helplessly. ‘I know what you are thinking, citizen, but you are wrong. I didn’t do this. I didn’t open the bolt, or arrange the blood, and I don’t know anything about this moving corpse at all.’

  He sounded so defensive that I turned to face him. ‘I can see that someone went that way, and was unable to pull the bolt shut after them. Why should I suppose that it was you?’

  He shook his head. ‘I have said too much.’

  ‘You have not said enough,’ I told him crisply. ‘I repeat, why should I suppose that you, in particular, might be involved in this? You must have a reason. Everyone else seems to suspect the hand of the gods.’

  Scribonius glowered. ‘I think you know the reason very well. Trinunculus will have told you, if no one else. One might as well keep water in a sieve as try to keep him from spilling information. It’s perfectly clear why everyone will suppose that I have been involved. Weren’t my forefathers rebellious Iceni, executed after the rebellion and their wives and children sold?’

  I gulped. So that was what Trinunculus had meant by saying that Scribonius had to be particularly careful because of his ‘background’! The famous Iceni. They had become a legend in the province – a byword among the tribes for their resistance to the Roman occupation force. The spirited rebellion under their warrior queen Boudicca had been doomed, of course, but they had torched Londinium and harried their conquerors for years, before they were finally subdued and their leaders put horribly to death. The very reprisals which had allegedly called down this curse.

  ‘The Iceni?’ I said inanely.

  He rounded on me. ‘How do you think I came to be born a slave? My family were cultured men, minstrels and poets, generations of them – but they were herded up and those that were not tortured to death were sentenced to the mines. As I am sure you know. After all, you are a Celt yourself.’

  He spoke of his inheritance with pride, and when I looked more closely at him I could see that there was Celtic blood in him, though I guessed that there were Romans somewhere in that ancestry too. Patricians, probably – the build was too slender for a Celt and the nose too long. That was not surprising, of course. Everyone knew for what purposes the Romans liked to use their female slaves. I had only to think of Gwellia to remember that.

  I changed the subject hastily. ‘Do you speak Celtic?’ I enquired, using that tongue myself.

  He glanced around as if the walls were listening. ‘I do not understand what you are saying, I’m afraid. I never learned to speak my native language. I was raised in a Latin-speaking household all my life. And only the highest quality of Latin too – my master was a grammarian and orator, and very strict about our speech.’ He moved a little closer, and added, in a fierce mutter, ‘And do not try to trap me, citizen. The Romans do not trust the Iceni to this day. You know that it would do me harm if I appeared to be conspiring with you in a tongue which no one else can understand.’

  ‘And yet you serve the Imperial cult?’ I said.

  The hand that held the taper trembled a little. ‘Of course. It is the only way of proving my allegiance and having any influence at all. I was succeeding too. I had hoped, before all this . . .’ He gestured towards the bloodstain on the floor. ‘I have the necessary capital, and I’ve been freed. I hoped I might rise to the equites, or that at least my son could hope to join the knights. You can’t imagine how much work I’ve put into it – ensured that nothing that I did could be construed against me, studied all the documents, learned all the correct rituals, made all the right offerings – and now, I suppose, it will all have been in vain. No emperor will look favourably on me, after this. Even if these horrors prove to be the work of the gods, I shall be suspected of somehow bringing their wrath down on the shrine – just because it was an Icenian who laid the curse. More likely someone will decide that I am actually guilty of carrying it out myself. Dear Mars . . .!’

  He was right, of course. The idea had even occurred to me. But he had frightened himself by voicing the thought, and there was a danger that he would lapse into silence altogether. I did my best to appear supportive.

  ‘So you suspect a human hand?’ I said. ‘So do I, especially now I know that door’s been opened up. The gods would hardly need to move the bolt! But if they didn’t do it, who did – that’s the question. That catch could only have been pulled back from the inside.’

  ‘I can’t imagine, citizen. When we left the shrine last night the place was empty. We locked the door, and opened it this morning with the key. How could anyone have slid the bolt?’ He looked around nervously. ‘Perhaps this is the doing of the gods, after all. We must have transgressed the rituals in some way.’ He did not sound convincing or convinced.

  I looked around. There was still no hiding-place in the shrine that I could see. I put a hand on the statue, avoiding the sticky patch, and tried its weight. It rocked, but did not shift its position. I did the same thing to the altar stone. That brought Scribonius hurrying forward, instantly, yelping like a scalded puppy.

  ‘Citizen, the altar! You have defiled it with your hands.’

  Of course I had. I should have thought of that. Doubly defiled it, probably, because despite my splashings in the sacred water pot my fingertips still bore traces of where I’d touched the blood.

  I looked down at the stain on the floor again, and something caught my eye. There, in the shadowed recess at the altar’s foot. I felt the hairs prickle on my neck. ‘Give me that taper here,’ I whispered. My voice would hardly answer my command.

  ‘You should not be kneeling there.’ He was still fussing, his thin voice quivering with anxiety. ‘Not without a proper sacrifice.’

  He was too late. I was already on my knees. And I did not need Scribonius’s taper to see the object which my shaking hands had found.

  I held it up into the light. It was a ring. A legate’s ring. Identical to the one I’d found there, yesterday; the one I’d last seen in Trinunculus’s hands.

  I stood there in the gloom, looking from the object in my hand to Scribonius. He was staring at it with a kind of fascinated horror, and little moaning noises were issuing from his lips.

  ‘Do you know something about this, Scribonius?’ I asked him softly.

  He raised his head then and met my eyes. When he spoke, his voice was strained and high. ‘I know nothing about it, citizen, except that . . .’ He glanced at the ring again, looking rather as I imagine I had looked when I put my hand down in that sticky mass. He shook his head. ‘Except . . . Nothing! . . .’

  Faced with that kind of half-confession, I have often found that confrontation is the most efficient strategy. I tried it now. ‘You know something that you have not confessed to me! Is it about the disappearing corpse, the bloodstain, or the ring?’

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘I have done nothing, citizen. But perhaps I am to blame. I am an Icenian, after all. I can’t escape from that – and perhaps that’s why these things keep happening.’ He sighed. ‘I have tried to persuade myself otherwise – that the curse could not be manifested through me without my knowing it – but even I cannot deny this evidence.’ He glanced at the ring, which I was still holding in the gloom, and looked away again as though he could not bear to see it.

  I was surprised. A moment ago Scribonius had been completely in control of himself. What was there about this rin
g that had unmanned him so? ‘You have seen this ring before?’

  ‘I saw it yesterday,’ he said. ‘First when you found it at the shrine, then later when Trinunculus brought it back to us. The pontifex refused to handle it, he said, so Meritus told him to put it in the sacred water butt, as a propitiation to the gods.’ He shrugged, as if giving up a struggle. ‘But that’s not the really important thing. The truth is, I’m sure I’ve seen it once before. On the finger of that legate who was murdered all those years ago. He came to dinner with my master once. I was a young man then, and I never saw him again – but that ring is very like the one he wore. The way that eagle doesn’t sit quite straight, you see? And then I heard that he’d been set upon and killed. I don’t know why I should remember it, especially, except that he was so very proud of it. But of course no one else here has ever seen the ring before, so that uneven eagle would have no significance for them. That is what upsets me, citizen. Its reappearance must be meant for me!’

  I stared at the ring. It was the same one that I’d seen before. I had noticed the imperfection earlier. ‘But surely . . .’

  He gave a bitter, sharp, uncertain laugh. ‘You do not know the sacred writings, citizen. I do. It is clear from them that a man can sometimes be what they describe as “the unwitting tool of the gods”, the channel through which the deities pour out their wrath and work out their purposes.’

  I stared at him. ‘Did you put this ring here?’

  ‘Of course not, citizen. But it manifested itself when I was here. Just as the blood did earlier. Oh, dear Mercury! I knew that it was an unlucky sign yesterday, when Hirsus dropped the sacrificial knife. He is such a feeble creature, he seems incapable of doing things correctly. And I allowed him to rush the purification rituals. Then I connived at unconsecrated persons entering the sanctuary. It serves me right. The recorded precedents are very clear!’

  As one of the unconsecrated persons he was alluding to – and one who had desecrated the sacred grove, as well – I could see that I was troubling him by simply being there. Any moment now, he would decide that the reappearance of the ring was somehow connected with my presence – after all, I had found it twice. And if he persuaded the other priests of that, I would be in serious difficulty. Not only would I have to make more propitiation to the gods (which would certainly be expensive, and possibly even physically painful) but I would assuredly be banished from the shrine. Yet there was a great deal more that I needed to discover. Somehow Scribonius must be persuaded to let me stay – and even to help me if necessary.

  I thought quickly.

  ‘I wonder what the pontifex will say when he hears that these things are happening around you?’ I murmured, with a pretence at sympathy.

  ‘I know what that pontifex will say!’ He sounded petulant. ‘That I am ill-omened and not fitted to continue as assistant priest. After all the effort I have made. And to think that I was worrying about my promotion to the equites! If this is proved against me, I shall be never be a knight. I shall be lucky to get out of this alive.’

  I could think of nothing adequate to say. He was probably right – as he pointed out himself, he knew the priestly code better than I did. After all, military messengers are sometimes executed for bringing their generals bad news in the field. Doubtless the same principle applies to priests. There was, however, one ray of comfort I could offer him. ‘But it was to Meritus, surely, that the body first appeared?’

  Scribonius brightened visibly. ‘You are quite right, citizen. It was.’

  ‘Perhaps I can say so to the pontifex, if he tries to argue that you are one of these “unwitting instruments of the gods”? Or even a deliberate one.’

  He emitted that moaning sound again. ‘You don’t believe that, do you, citizen?’

  I shook my head. ‘That you are an unwitting instrument? Not for a moment, I assure you, sub-Sevir Scribonius.’ I was prevaricating. If he was an instrument, I thought, he would not be an ‘unwitting’ one – but my words appeared to calm him.

  ‘Thank you, citizen. If you would really speak to the Pontifex . . .? It is clear that he respects your judgement. See how he deferred to you yesterday.’

  ‘If I am to help you,’ I said severely, ‘I shall need your help in return. There are things about this temple that I need to know.’

  ‘If there is anything that I can do – anything at all – to help in your enquiries, be sure that I shall be delighted. Rituals, customs – anything that’s not forbidden by the laws. Where would you care to have our talk?’

  ‘Here, where we are unlikely to be disturbed. Put down that taper and come and sit beside me.’ I patted the marble floor invitingly.

  ‘But citizen, the temple . . .’ he began, and then tailed off. He put down the taper where I had indicated, prostrated himself before the statue of the Emperor, kissed the altar, smeared his forehead with the ashes from it, and finally came to squat gingerly beside me, moving his robes carefully to avoid the stain.

  I regarded him coolly. ‘You can begin,’ I said, ‘by telling me exactly what happened here last night. I understand you all slept at the temple. Where, and when, and how was it arranged?’

  Scribonius looked startled, as if he were surprised that I wanted to know anything so mundane, but he answered readily enough. ‘There is a room set aside in the outbuilding for the officiating priest who is on duty here at dawn – usually that is Meritus, but sometimes on low days it is Hirsus, and occasionally the honour falls on me. Meritus has a house nearby, of course – it is required of a sevir that he resides near the temple for his year of office – but it is convenient for us because we live farther away, and he himself often prefers to stay the night before. The previous sevir used to do the same. So there is always a mattress and some blankets here, and of course the temple slaves have sleeping spaces too – it was not difficult to find a place. Naturally, with the events of yesterday, it was thought proper for us all to stay. There was always to be one of us awake – to keep the sacred fire alight on the outer altar, and to offer propitiatory prayers throughout the night.’

  ‘So,’ I said, trying to disguise my growing interest, ‘any one of you might have come out into the courtyard and opened up the back door to the shrine? While the others slept?’

  ‘I suppose so, citizen,’ he answered doubtfully, taking up his taper again and holding it up to look at the offending bolt with lugubrious interest. ‘But no more so than any of the slaves. Or Trinunculus, for that matter: he lodges with the pontifex, and the house backs directly onto the temple enclosure. I suppose it would have been an easy matter for any of them to slip in here unseen.’

  Or Aurelia, I thought. Or even – with her help – Optimus. I sighed. There seemed little hope of finding a solution here. Then I remembered something. ‘But the front entrance to the shrine was locked. Who held the key?’

  ‘Meritus, usually. But last night Hirsus should have had it, since he was to open up the shrine at dawn . . .’ He hesitated.

  ‘You say he should have had it,’ I prompted. ‘That suggests he didn’t.’

  Scribonius’s prim face flushed. ‘You are quite right, citizen. He was terrified of even touching it. In the end Meritus put it on top of the storage chest where the robes are kept – and as far as I know it was there all night.’

  ‘Is that in the room where you were sleeping?’

  ‘We slept in different chambers, citizen. Meritus was in the inner cubicle, and Hirsus and I had partitioned spaces in the slaves’ quarters. The chest is in the robing room between the two.’

  ‘So anyone could have reached that, as well?’

  ‘Anyone who had access to the temple, and knew where it was put.’

  ‘And who was that?’

  ‘The pontifex, certainly – Meritus asked him where the key could properly be left – and I believe that Trinunculus was there, as well. Or any of the slaves, again.’ He shifted uncomfortably. ‘Is there anything else you wish to ask me, citizen? I should not be absent from my duti
es for too long.’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  ‘In that case, citizen, if you will permit . . .?’ He was on his feet in an instant, going through his elaborate performance at the shrine again.

  I stood up myself, put out an automatic hand to help myself – and narrowly missed touching the bloodstained plinth once more. Suddenly, for no reason that I could explain, the full horror of the last two days came over me, and I was overwhelmed by a desire to get out of there – away from disappearing corpses, mysterious bloodstains and supernatural reappearing rings.

  I made the sketchiest of obeisances to the Imperial Divinity and hurried out, gulping the honest clean fresh air like a prisoner released from a fetid dungeon.

  Scribonius was looking at me in astonishment, and I felt abashed. Out here in the daylight my fears seemed laughable. I tried to regain my dignity.

  ‘Of course, I may need to call upon your help again,’ I said.

  ‘It would be a pleasure, citizen,’ he assured me, although his tone said otherwise. He had not missed my moment of superstitious fear, and was clearly losing confidence in me.

  ‘I won’t forget to speak to the pontifex,’ I said, attempting to reassert what credibility I had. ‘I think you said there was a back way from his house into the temple. Can you take me there?’

  Scribonius gave me a look which said more clearly than any words that I was not dressed for visiting the high priest. ‘If you are certain, citizen?’

  ‘I don’t mean to call on him like this. Only I should like to see the route. It may help me to work out what happened here last night.’

  Scribonius still looked doubtful, but he took me there. Behind the central temple on its plinth, a narrow path led to a small gated opening in the perimeter wall. The gate was slightly open even now – only an inch or two, but by peering somewhat inelegantly through the gap I could see that it led into a peristyle garden beyond: a very ornate affair with fountains, arbours, statues, shrubs, a pool and narrow ornamental beds. I craned my head a little further round to get a better view, and drew back instantly.