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 know 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.’