It felt rather like a trial. I was the only person, apart from the slaves, still on my feet. In any normal social situation, someone of my humble status would have been expected to sit somewhere inferior — as Aurelia had done — so that my head was decently lower than my betters’. If the room had reminded me of a courtroom earlier, the impression was ten times stronger now — and it was clear what role I was playing here. Marcus and the high priest were both senior magistrates, and even without bonds or chains (which, in any case, no one could wear in the presence of the pontifex) I felt like a man accused. Especially as I still had penitential ashes on my head.
What’s more, I was beginning to suspect that this was how the pontifex intended me to feel. When he turned to me he seemed more pale and fragile than ever, but though his voice was cracked and feeble his glittering eyes were shrewd. ‘Your patron and I have sacrificed a pair of doves and consulted with the augurers. We think a full procession round the town is best — a proper torchlight ceremonial, that sort of thing — carrying small statues of the triad gods, and a threefold sacrifice at dawn. Marcus is arranging for the animals.’ He rubbed his thin hands briskly, as though he were relishing the prospect.
Marcus nodded his agreement.
‘We’ll have the censers, dancers, pipers and cymbals too,’ the old man went on happily. ‘I’ve sent word to the households of all priests from the other temples of the Olympian gods. Trinunculus and several of the slaves are calling on the chief priests of Apollo, Mercury, and all the other patron gods of the major craftsmen’s guilds. No doubt some of the priests will join the ritual. Dear me! That will ensure a good crowd at the shrine, and that should satisfy the populace. Nothing like a big religious procession to make the townsfolk think that something’s happening!’
‘It’s most unfortunate the townsfolk have turned on you, Libertus!’ Marcus leaned back on his chair, placed his fingertips together magisterially and addressed himself to me.
I said nothing. I could think of nothing to say. I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable.
Marcus smiled at me indulgently. ‘Most unfair, I know,’ he went on, in that brisk this-is-not-of-my-choosing tone which officials always use to convey unwelcome news, ‘Especially as you were not even there when the first of these phenomena occurred. But people do seem to associate all this with your presence in the temple, or at any rate with your return to town.’ He was interrupted as the page, on a signal from the pontifex, brought him the plate of honeyed dates. Marcus picked one up and bit it thoughtfully. ‘And once they get an idea like that, an angry crowd is hard to reason with. Ah. . wine!’
He broke off again as the slave poured a little from a ewer. It was already watered — no respectable Roman household would offer undiluted wine — but the pontifex motioned for it to be topped up with additional water from the jug.
My patron took a sip. ‘Good water, this.’
‘Oak-aged five years,’ the pontifex said, tasting his own, and nodding his white head with satisfaction.
I did not need an augurer to read the omens here. This diversion was not merely a gesture in the direction of social convention. I was convinced that the pontifex was deliberately contriving it: partly to emphasise my inferior status — important visitors like Marcus merited wine and folding chairs, whereas I did not — and partly to add to my anxieties by keeping me waiting helplessly. If that was his intention, he was succeeding admirably.
The old man shot me a sly look, and then said silkily, ‘You were saying, Excellence? About the crowd?’
Marcus took another date. ‘Ah, indeed. The crowd.’ He seemed oblivious of these undertones. ‘It seems to us, Libertus my old friend, that the best thing you can do is join the procession as a flagellant. It looks penitent, that sort of thing — and with the sacrifice, that should dispel the mob. I see you’ve smeared yourself with dust and ashes, so you’re already half prepared for it.’
A flagellant! I felt myself grow pale. Of course self-flagellation was by no means unknown — young converts followed some parades, dressed in skins or ragged skirts, whipping themselves savagely until they fell bleeding and half-senseless to the ground. But for an ageing man? And it was no good doing the thing half-heartedly: some helpful member of the crowd would seize the whip and do the job himself. I swallowed. I might as well have stayed to face the sticks and stones.
‘But Excellence!’ I blurted. ‘I have been the merest bystander.’ I gave him a brief outline of my day.
He condescended an uncomfortable smile. ‘Unfortunate for you, I know, but the imperial ambassador has decided that he’s coming after all. It is essential that some gesture should be made. One must think of the greater good — the peace and welfare of the town.’
My heart sank. So there was nothing to be hoped for there. Marcus only retreated into that kind of social rhetoric when he felt forced into some course of action which he did not like.
The high priest wafted all this aside with a wave of his thin hand. ‘Citizen, it’s no good you muttering your discontent like this. You did defile the sanctuary. Dear me! Some public gesture of atonement is required.’ He looked at me with his pale, vague smile. ‘Though we can arrange to administer it, if you would prefer.’
The public torturers, he meant. Men had been known to die under their floggings. I found myself babbling. ‘As to my desecration of the shrine, that was an accident. And it was this morning, Mightiness, long after most of this had happened. I wasn’t at the temple when that moaning first began. Or when the corpse was found. Or the returning bloodstain-’
The high priest interrupted me impatiently. The old man was as pale as ashes but he could be decisive when he chose. ‘This is all very well, citizen, but it is no excuse. The crowd are superstitious, but there is justice in what they say. There have been supernatural happenings here, there’s no denying that. I’ve been a Priest of Jupiter for thirty years, and I’ve never seen anything to equal it. And they are right. These things have all occurred since you returned to town. No, pavement-maker, don’t protest. Even if you have done nothing deliberate, it is possible for a man to be the unwitting channel of the gods.’
This was what Scribonius had been frightened of. I felt my hands go clammy.
I was about to protest my innocence again, when something suddenly occurred to me: a danger I hadn’t thought of before. Gwellia had come from Londinium with me, and it was the first time she’d visited the town. If the townspeople once learned of that, she would become a target too. If she wasn’t already. The thought made me turn quite cold. If so, there was little I could do to help. She was officially a mere female slave, with none of the protections of a citizen. Better that I should take my flogging like a man.
I couldn’t bring myself to speak the words, but I bowed my head submissively.
My co-operation seemed to reassure Marcus. ‘That should dispose of popular unrest.’ He took a thoughtful sip of wine. ‘And win us a period of quiet, though it may not solve the problems at the shrine. Libertus is quite right; he has not been here all the time. But there are people who have. Any of the priests, for instance, pontifex. If we are looking for “channels of the gods”, there might be other candidates. .’
I glanced at him gratefully. Marcus was doing his best for me.
The pontifex was not so accommodating. He did not dare to contradict my patron outright, but his thin voice was querulous. ‘Excellence, you have heard the augurers. Someone’s presence here has outraged the gods. The priests are in the temple every day. So why should these things suddenly occur?’
There were a dozen possible replies to that, but I understood the message. It was no use trying to justify myself. It was expedient for a ‘culprit’ to be identified.