The old man looked at me slyly. ‘In any case, who else-’ He got no further. Hirsus had rushed into the room, white-faced and shaking, his diadem askew. He brushed past me without a glance and threw himself before the rich men’s feet. His red hair looked startling in that sombre room.
‘Mightiness! Excellence!’ He scarcely seemed to know to whom he should address his agitated bows. ‘Excuse this unforgivable intrusion! Something most terrible has hap-’ He saw me suddenly and his voice, already high with anxiety, rose to a tormented squeak, and then failed altogether.
‘Something has happened? At the temple?’ Marcus enquired drily. ‘We heard it. That moaning sound again. We sent a slave over to investigate. Have you come from him?’
Hirsus shook his head. ‘It’s. . it’s. .’ He trailed off helplessly. He was staring at me and trembling so much he seemed incapable of speech.
Marcus was clearly losing patience. ‘By all the deities, what is it, man?’
Hirsus opened his mouth again, but still no words emerged. Instead he raised his hand in my direction as if to ward off blows and I realised that he was wearing an amulet under the folds of his elaborate robe. I had only glimpsed it, against the reddish hairs of his arm, but I could guess what it would be. I had seen similar things in the market many times. Pieces of auspicious herbs, no doubt, bound with a woven cord, and a silver image of some symbol of good luck — a phallus for example — dangling from the whole. Hirsus might be an Imperial priestling, but he was clearly not above using a magic talisman to protect himself from my evil influence.
In the presence of the high priest too, where knots and bindings of any kind were generally forbidden! It suddenly brought home to me with force how feared and hated I had suddenly become.
Still Hirsus did not speak. Indeed, it seemed as if we might have remained in ignorance for ever of what he had to say, had not Junio chosen that moment to return. We turned as one man to look at him.
He was looking almost as shaken as Hirsus, but his face was resolute. He shouldered his way past the slaves (who had been watching all this in astonishment from the inner door) and came to stand beside the central pool. He looked surprised to see the sub-sevir here, but he wasted no time in delivering his message. He did not pause to kneel or even wait for permission to speak.
‘Mightiness, Excellence, master — forgive my bursting in.’ He bowed his head politely to my patron and the priests, but he did not look in my direction. All the same I knew his words were meant primarily for me. ‘There is a lot of trouble at the temple. When the slaves tried to go out, as you commanded, to summon the priests from other shrines, they found that crowds were massing at the gate — all demanding that Libertus should be brought to trial. Shouting and screaming for blood-sacrifice, and calling on the gods. The temple slaves can’t hold them back for long. Someone should go to call the city guard. There bids fair to be a riot otherwise, and if the mob break in — who knows what they might do.’
He paused, and then at last he turned to me. ‘All the same, master, I think you’d better come. There seems to be another body at the shrine.’
Chapter Twenty
There was an audible gasp from everyone. Marcus and the high priest started to their feet. ‘Dear gods!’
Hirsus gave a little moan of terror. ‘It’s true. That is what I came to tell you. Oh, merciful Apollo. .!’
Marcus rounded on him. ‘This is what you came to tell us?’
Hirsus nodded.
‘Then,’ Marcus said dangerously, ‘perhaps you had better do that — since the high priest is not permitted to look upon a corpse. In fact, considering the danger from the mob, perhaps we none of us should go back into the temple precinct without the protection of the guard. Junio, go and summon them. Here!’ He slipped his seal-ring off and gave it to my slave. ‘Show this to the commandant. Tell him to send a dozen men — on my authority. Go!’
Junio looked reluctant (he knew that if there was trouble I’d prefer to have him at my side) but there was no arguing with Marcus. He made off obediently in the direction of the street door, and a moment later I heard the ring of his running sandals on the paving stones.
Marcus and the high priest resumed their seats, and my patron turned to Hirsus. ‘And you,’ he barked out, ‘tell us what you know. Quickly too! Before we call on someone to help you find your tongue.’
If I had been the hapless little priest, already too petrified to speak, that extra threat would have been enough to deprive me of utterance for ever. However, he licked his lips and managed painfully, ‘In front of the altar. . I went in. . lying there with blood all over him. . I. .’
He stopped, and glanced at me again.
My patron was looking seriously displeased. ‘Go on,’ he said icily to the priest. ‘You saw the body lying there. What did you do?’
Hirsus shrugged helplessly. ‘I. . nothing. . Meritus and Scribonius came. I was. . they didn’t. . they sent me to tell you.’
The pontifex had been leaning forward intently, watching and listening to all this. A spot of colour had crept into his ashen cheeks. ‘Speak up, man!’ His rustling voice was hardly audible itself. ‘A body, do you say? Was this before or after this noise they tell me about?’
Hirsus turned to him gratefully. ‘Oh, after, after, Sacredness! That was why I went into the shrine at all. Meritus sent me in to light the censers. Scribonius said it should be done from the sacred fire — there’s been one burning on the inner altar ever since it was cleansed.’ He glanced at me. For a moment his indignation got the better of his fear. ‘After this citizen had paid his visit there, and desecrated it again,’ he finished bitterly.
Marcus glanced at me. ‘Have you anything to say to that, Libertus?’
‘I have a question, with your permission, Excellence,’ I said.
Marcus nodded though the old priest looked displeased.
I turned to Hirsus. ‘The body. Did you recognise the man?’
He made a helpless little gesture with his hands. ‘I could not see the face.’
‘So it could be the same body as before?’ Marcus had seen what I was thinking. ‘How is the dead man dressed? As a legate?’
‘Or a messenger?’ I said, and saw the high priest pale. There had been another messenger today. If it was his body lying at the shrine, then all our fears about reprisals in the city could be multiplied a hundredfold.
Marcus looked sharply at the sub-sevir. ‘Well, tell us, man. Is there a seal? A ring?’
Hirsus shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Excellence. I couldn’t see. There seemed to be a cape. . a hood. . pulled over him. He is just lying there. Face down. And all this blood. .’ He broke off, shuddering.
‘You’re sure it is a man?’ I put in. It was perverse. A few moments ago, when I had expected to be sent back to that accursed shrine, I had been afraid to go: but now that Marcus had decided otherwise, I was suddenly anxious to see this for myself.
This time Hirsus answered readily enough. ‘A man? I thought it was. How could it be otherwise? There, in the inner temple? Women don’t come in. I thought at first it was a penitent, one of the supplicants who sometimes come. In fact, I almost thought. .’ He met my eyes a moment and then quickly looked away as if I might bewitch him by my glance. ‘I’m almost sure it was a man.’
‘And he was bleeding? Did you see a knife?’
He paled again. ‘No knife. Just blood. From head to toe. He looked like. . like. .’ he shook his head, like a man trying to wake himself from a dreadful dream, ‘some sort of sacrifice.’
‘Did you touch the body?’
From Hirsus’s look of horror, I might as well have suggested that perhaps he could have kissed a venomous snake. ‘I did not, citizen. And if you had seen it lying there, in all that blood — after what’s been going on in the temple these few days — neither would you have done.’ He paused. ‘Anyway,’ he muttered sulkily, ‘if any other strange manifestations occurred we were to fetch the senior priests, and not to go near anything ourselves.’