I shook my head. ‘You are most kind, citizeness, and I don’t wish to be discourteous, but just at the moment I don’t think I could eat. Outside, in the town, there are armed men searching for me, wanting to kill me.’ I found myself explaining as though talking to a child. ‘All I want is to rest here, and to see your husband when I can.’ I stopped, suddenly recalling what she’d told me earlier. ‘Did you say he was expecting me?’
She nodded. ‘That’s right, citizen. Your slave brought word to us. He came here looking for your patron and told us what happened. He said that you were coming here.’
‘Marcus Septimus was already here?’
‘Indeed, because we had just received a messenger from Fabius Marcellus insisting that he will visit Glevum anyway.’ She looked at me. ‘Marcus has been with my husband half the afternoon. They’re in the temple making a special sacrifice, so they can read the entrails and find out what to do.’ She made a little face. ‘I hate all that — sticking your hands into an animal’s blood and looking at its innards. Thank Jupiter I didn’t have to watch. But my husband felt he had to do it. He is taking this very badly, you understand? All these goings-on in the temple, and disturbances in the street. And with the legate coming too. He knows this is the end of his hopes of getting the flaminate.’
‘I’m very sorry about that,’ I said. I meant it sincerely. I was desperately reliant on the pontifex for help, and I was not going to endear myself to him if he saw me as someone who’d helped destroy his dreams.
Aurelia shot me a look. ‘Don’t be sorry on my account, citizen. I shan’t be at all upset if this is the end. Perhaps then he will be persuaded to give up these ridiculous rules of his, and allow us to live a normal sort of life. There are restrictions enough in being High Priest of Jupiter, without adding to them of your own accord. I could wear my rings and necklaces again — he can’t be in the same house with “bonds” like that! — and eat bread and beans and goat’s cheese like anybody else. And get rid of this stupid wreath he makes me wear — because the Flaminia Dialis has one, of course. And wear my own hair, too, instead of this!’
To my astonishment she seized the piled black locks and tore them off, revealing them as a clever wig. Her own hair, dark, uncombed and wispy, fell around her face. I had been warned about her hairpieces, but the transformation was startling. Without her wig she looked younger and more vulnerable than ever.
‘You see what I have to put up with, citizen? You realise, if he was appointed, I’d have to weave and sew all my own clothes and his — with my own hands? Not even a slave to help me. And go back to live in Rome, which I don’t think I could bear. But the Flamen of Jupiter cannot leave the city for more than three nights in a row. Or take his hat off at any time. Or even have an empty table in his house. He’s got to be ready to make sacrifice at any hour of day or night! You know he already has the legs of his bed rubbed with earth, as the flamen does? It’s perfectly disgusting. The gods alone know why!’ She paused suddenly, sighed, and gave me a rueful smile. ‘Believe me, I shall not be sorry if he doesn’t get the job.’
I found myself saying gently, as though to a child, ‘Let’s just hope that he doesn’t lose the job he has. You realise he might? If the Emperor holds him responsible for what has been happening here? It is his temple, after all.’
She looked at me in evident dismay. ‘You think that’s possible? By Hermes, citizen, I hadn’t thought of that. Commodus can be. . well-’ She broke off, biting her tongue. Even she felt the need for some discretion here — no one criticised the Emperor in front of strangers.
‘Swift in his punishments?’ I suggested.
She nodded gratefully. ‘Exactly, citizen. My husband is an old fool, sometimes, but I should not wish any harm to come to him.’
She always called him ‘my husband’, or ‘the pontifex’, I noticed. More deference to his would-be rank, no doubt, even when calling him a fool. I wondered how she referred to him in private. Even the high priest must have a name. Perhaps, if a man wishes to be flamen, not even his family can use his praenomen.
I was about to make some conventional remark when we heard the opening of the inner gate and the murmur of voices in the garden court.
‘Ah! No doubt that will be my husband now. By the way, citizen, I hardly like to mention this, but I suppose you are aware that your face is smeared with dust, and you seem to have stone chips in your hair?’
Great Jupiter, I had forgotten that. No wonder those citizens outside had stared at me. How could I meet the pontifex like that? And my patron was arriving too. I looked around wildly. I thought of using the water in the jug, but that was specially matured, and cost accordingly. My eyes fell on the ornamental pool, but before I could do anything the page came in.
‘His Excellence Marcus Aurelius Septimus and my master have arrived,’ he announced.
The two men came in, accompanied by the unmistakable odour of sacrifice — burnt feathers and fresh blood — and also by Junio, to my great relief, though naturally he was unannounced. I saw his eyes widen as he saw me and took in the ashes on my hair and face. He shook his head pityingly.
But it was too late now. I knelt to greet my patron, as I was. ‘A thousand apologies, Excellence. .’
He waved his acceptance loftily. ‘Very well, very well. Get up, Libertus.’
The high priest said, in that reedy voice of his, ‘Ah, there you are! I hear you’ve become the centre of a storm. Dear me. Most unfortunate. However, since you’re here, you can tell us all about it.’ It was not exactly a welcome, but he held out his staff of office to be kissed.
I bowed over it. ‘All homage be to Jupiter, Greatest and Best. .’ I began, but I got no further.
‘Gracious Hercules, what’s that?’ Marcus exclaimed, but, with a sinking of my heart, I had already recognised the sound.
From the direction of the temple, clearly echoing around the high priest’s garden court, there came that long, low, unearthly moaning sound again, like the desolate wailing of the dead.
Chapter Nineteen
There was a moment’s horrified silence. Marcus and Junio both turned to me, shock and dismay carved on their faces. Aurelia and her page looked terrified. Only the pontifex seemed unconcerned.
‘That noise again,’ Marcus said, after a little pause.
‘A noise? Ah! One of the temple trumpeters, I expect.’ The high priest was vague. ‘No doubt they’re practising for later on.’
Behind him, Marcus met my eyes and shook his head. I scarcely needed the assurance. No temple trumpet ever made a noise like that. It moaned into silence and was still. Everyone breathed a sigh of palpable relief.
‘All the same, Sacredness,’ Marcus persisted. He spoke in the loud and measured tones which everyone used when talking to the pontifex, but he was courteous. The temple might be part-servant to the state in many things, but the priest was final arbiter on actual dealings with the gods. ‘I think someone should make sure. Perhaps if. .’ I thought for a moment that he was going to suggest that I investigate again, and I was horrified. I was in enough trouble already. If that had been his idea, he seemed to think better of it. ‘Perhaps if Junio. .?’
‘If you so wish, Excellence.’ The pontifex was preoccupied with a pair of elaborate folding chairs, which a silent slave had brought and was setting down near the impluvium.
It was tantamount to an order from the highest sources, but all the same Junio looked towards me for permission. I would have been much happier not to have him leave my side, but in the circumstances I could hardly refuse.
I nodded and he bowed himself quietly out, while Marcus settled himself on the grander of the seats, and the high priest sat down fussily on the other.
Aurelia, instead of disappearing discreetly into the interior as most women would have done, sank down upon the visitors’ bench and watched us with an air of alert curiosity, like a spectator at the games, or at a trial.