One Virgin Too Many Part 5

"During a break in the Games. I met him at the latrines, actually."

"Nice timing."

"Oh, I am the sophisticated one in our family!"

"Yes; your life is a.s.suming remarkable elegance." I was smiling over his bitter quip, which had a wry note that was typical of all the Camilli. "So tell me, Aulus: at that point there had been a lot of noise, and folk milling about the complex?"

"Yes." Aelia.n.u.s immediately saw what I meant. "There were trumpets and applause from the Games too--a scuffle behind the pavilion would have been well m.u.f.fled."

We spoke no more until we arrived at the Grove.

There were trees. Over the centuries these had been reduced to a straggly windbreak around the complex. The Arval Brothers were not keen foresters. Even routine lopping of the sacred boughs called for elaborate religious procedures; whenever decay or lightning strikes necessitated felling and replanting, major solemn sacrifices had to be performed. This was inconvenient and had had the result that the trees which stood around the sanctuary were in a gnarled, half-rotted condition. The Brethren might worship fertility, but they should have been ashamed of their arboretum.

Its buildings were a different matter. In decor and taste, the temples with their clean styling could have leaped straight from an architect's cla.s.sical pattern book. The most refined lines and crispest details belonged to the Caesarium, the shrine for the deified emperors; every triglyph and antefix had a superior Augustan smirk. It looked as if the imperial family had plied the edifice with imperial money to ensure they were sufficiently honored. Very astute.

Aelia.n.u.s led me straight to the Master's pavilion. It was a lavish marquee erected once a year on festival days, a far cry from the ten-man leather tents used by the legions in what I called camping. This large, fanciful party piece boasted p.r.o.ng-topped poles and ta.s.seled ropes. Its roof was formed from st.i.tched sheets the size of cornship sails; elaborate side walls were attached all around, and there was a porch, above which hung wreaths of corn and laurel leaves. New torches had just been set up outside the entrance, though nothing was going on inside.

I crossed the porch extension and glanced into the tent. The air temperature rose sharply. The hot, humid atmosphere took me straight back to the army. There was the familiar suffocating smell of warm, trodden gra.s.s. A few oil lamps were lit. A portable throne stood opposite the entrance. Before it, fine cloths covered a low table where only crumbs remained. Cushions were piled against the back wall of the tent, behind the throne. Attracted in by the light, moths and long-legged insects knocked against the roof. n.o.body else was there.

I pulled out one of the torches. Dew dampened our bootstraps as we made our way behind the tent. Aelia.n.u.s was starting to look apprehensive. Whatever he had seen earlier, he wanted never to see again.

As it happened, somebody had obliged him. When we turned around the corner to where he told me the corpse had been lying, it was no longer there.

I left him at the pavilion entrance while I tried to find attendants. Eventually I learned that there was n.o.body with any authority left at the Grove. All the Arval Brothers had returned to Rome. Oddly, n.o.body seemed to know anything about any man who had been terribly knifed under the guy ropes. There should be a commotion over the sudden death of one of the twelve Brothers. I saw no signs of consternation. The murder must have been hushed up.

I made Aelia.n.u.s return with me to where the body had been. I had no doubts about his story, though I was beginning to fear that other people might be skeptical. I put one hand on the gra.s.s; it was very wet, far wetter than dew alone would cause. By torchlight, no traces of blood were now visible. On the skirts of the pavilion, however, I found a distinct spray of blood splashes. Whoever sluiced the ground had overlooked them.

The knife that had been with the body was gone too. There seemed to be no other evidence. Aelia.n.u.s pushed his hand under the bottom edge of the tent; its side wall had once been pegged to the ground with wooden stays, but they were pulled out. It may have been an oversight; the side walls were probably looped up earlier that day to air the interior.

With some difficulty we dragged up the wall of the tent, finding that the cushions I had seen were piled just here. We shoved some of them aside. Moving the torch closer, I discovered that the gra.s.s inside the pavilion, under the cushions, was stained with the rusty red of blood.

"Believe me now?" Aelia.n.u.s demanded defensively.

"Oh, I always believed you."

"Whoever cleaned up outside failed to realize there was more work to be done inside the tent."

"Yes. If it's a coverup, they will have been in a rush. I am seeing what happened now. Looks like the fight started inside the pavilion. A good place to ambush somebody--it would have given the killer privacy. At the first a.s.sault, the victim may have fallen against the tent wall. Since it isn't pegged, it gave way under his weight. He would have half fallen outside, then probably struggled right under the tent, trying to flee."

I ducked under the flap myself going in. On the inner surface of the tenting there were more smears of blood, long marks like dragging, which had not soaked through to the outside. They could have been made by a man falling.

"The trouble started inside. The desperate victim somehow made it outside, probably got caught up in the guy ropes in his panic, and was finished off. Ceremonially, with the sacrificial knife--" We both winced. "The killer then pulled the tent wall down straight, piling the cushions up to cover the blood inside."

"Why bother?"

"To delay discovery. You heard people, you said?"

"It sounded like attendants, clearing the interior."

"Maybe the killer had also heard them coming. There was time for a few swift adjustments to make the scene look normal." I wondered if the killer then walked out, pa.s.sing the attendants, or ducked back under the tent wall again. Either way, an encounter with Aelia.n.u.s must have been only narrowly avoided. "The corpse, behind the tent, could safely have been left."

"Right, Falco. It might not have been discovered until the pavilion was taken down. That's not going to happen until at least tomorrow--or even the day afterwards, when the festival formally ends."

Thinking about this, Aelia.n.u.s was staring at the area next to the throne where the a.s.sault must have begun. He gave a start. He had seen something glint under the cushions. Flinging the ta.s.seled soft furnishings further aside, he retrieved a decorative holder of some sort. It was a flat tube, with one open end, the other closed in a curved shape. As a scabbard, it would be too short for a sword and too big for a dagger. It formed a distinctive, short, broad-bladed shape. We both knew what it was: a priest's fancy holder for a sacrificial knife.

"Well, somebody committed sacrilege," Aelia.n.u.s exclaimed dryly. "It is forbidden to bring any kind of blade into the Sacred Grove!"

X.

DAWN OVER THE Arx.

Here, on the least high of the Seven Hills, stood the Temple of Juno Moneta. Juno the Admonisher. Juno of the Mint. Juno the Moneybags.

Before her temple stood M. Didius Falco. Falco the ex-informer. Falco the Procurator. Falco, dutifully working in his new post--and looking for a get-out clause.

Juno's temple on the Arx possessed the now-pampered geese whose ancestors had once saved Rome from marauding Gauls by honking when the guard dogs failed to bark. (It said little for the military commanders of the time that they had failed to post sentries.) Now once a year hapless dogs were rounded up to be ritually crucified while the geese looked on from a litter with purple cushions. I had to ensure proper treatment was being meted out to the geese. I had no remit for dogs. And n.o.body ever had a remit for correcting military incompetence.

Crying birds caught my attention. Two swallows were wheeling, pursued by a predator--broad wings, distinctive tail, short bursts of flapping flight interspersed with hovering and quick fluttering displays: a sparrowhawk.

This was the place of augury. It was the most ancient heart of Rome. Between the two peaks lay the Saddle, which Romulus had decreed a place of refuge for fugitives--establishing from the very first that whatever austere old men in togas liked to think, Rome would succor social rejects and criminals. On the second peak, the Citadel, rose the huge new Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest, the largest temple ever built, and once it was completed in full decorative splendor with its statuary and gilding, the most magnificent in the Empire. There was a fine view of it from the Arx, and from there too another view looking eastwards to Mons Alba.n.u.s, whence the augurs sought inspiration from the G.o.ds. Here, especially at dawn, a man with a religious soul could convince himself he was close to the chief divinities.

I did not have a religious soul. I had come to see the Sacred Chicks.

Alongside the Temple of Juno Moneta lay the Auguraculum. This was a consecrated platform which formed a practical, permanent augury site. I had always avoided the mystical lore of divination, but I knew broadly that an augur was supposed to mark out with a special curly stick the area of sky he intended to watch, then the area of ground from which he would operate and within which he pitched his observation tent. He sat inside from midnight to dawn, gazing out southwards or eastwards through the open doorway until he spied lightning or a significant flight of birds.

I wondered idly just how he was supposed to see birds before dawn, in the dark.

Today no auspice-taker was in action. Just as well, because I looked inside the booth to say h.e.l.lo--forgetting that any interruption would negate the whole night's watch.

The Sacred Chickens had a different role from the Sacred Geese, but being used in augury they too lived on the Arx, and so it had seemed convenient to Vespasian to bundle them in with my main job. I found the chicken-keeper, one of the few people about. "You're early, Falco."

"Had a late night."

Preferring to remain a man of mystery, I did not explain. Going to bed late after a crisis makes me stay awake, brooding over the excitement. Then it's a choice of nodding off at dawn and feeling terrible when you wake up late, or getting up early and still feeling terrible but having time to do something. Anyway, Helena and I had stayed the night at the Camillus residence after I returned with her brother. I could not face breakfast being polite to people I hardly knew.

The keeper showed me the hen coops. They stood on legs to keep out vermin. Double doors with lattice fronts kept the hens in and gave protection from dogs, weasels, and raptors.

"I see you keep them good and clean."

"I don't want them dying on me. I'd get the blame."

If I wanted to be pedantic, now that I was the procurator in charge of poultry management, it was my job to answer questions if too many of the precious pullets popped off, but I was not giving him an excuse to slack. "Plenty of water?" I had been in the army. I knew how to be irritating when people were doing a perfectly adequate job without my supervision.

"And plenty of food," the keeper said patiently (he had met my type before). "Except when I've been tipped the wink."

"The wink?"

"Well, you know how it works, Falco. When the augur wants to see the signs, we open the cage and feed the chicks with special dumplings. If they refuse to eat, or to come out of the coop--or if they come out and fly off--it's a bad omen. But if they eat greedily, spilling crumbs on the ground, that's good luck."

"You are telling me you starve the chickens in advance, I suppose? And I imagine," I suggested, "you could make the dumplings crumbly, to help things along?"

The chicken-keeper sucked his teeth. "Far be it from me!" he lied.

One reason I despised the College of Augurs was that they could manipulate state business by choosing when the auspices should turn out favorable. Lofty personages who held opinions that I hated could affect or delay important issues. I don't suggest bribery took place. Just everyday perversions of democracy.

The Sacred Chickens' main function was to confirm good omens for military purposes. Army commanders needed their blessing before leaving Rome. In fact, they usually took Roman chickens to consult before maneuvers, rather than relying on local birds who might not understand what was required of them.

"I always like the story of the consul Clodius Pulcher, who received a bad augury when he was at sea, chafing to sail against the Carthaginians; the irascible old b.a.s.t.a.r.d threw the chickens overboard."

"If they won't eat, let them drink!" quoted the chicken-keeper. quoted the chicken-keeper.

"So he lost the battle, and his whole fleet. It shows you should respect the Sacred Birds."

"You're just saying that because of your new job, Falco."

"No, I'm famous for being kind to hens."

I made notes on a tablet, so it looked good. My instructions for my position as procurator were typically vague, but I would prepare a report even though n.o.body had asked for one. That always makes officialdom jump.

My plan was to suggest making the coop legs one inch longer. I would enjoy thinking up a spurious scientific reason for this. (Experience suggests that since the time of King Numa Pompilius the average length of weasels' legs has increased, so they can now reach higher than when the statuory Sacred Chcken coop was first designed . . . ) (Experience suggests that since the time of King Numa Pompilius the average length of weasels' legs has increased, so they can now reach higher than when the statuory Sacred Chcken coop was first designed . . . ) Duty done there, I sought out the Sacred Geese, my other charges. They rushed up, hissing in a way that reminded me that their their keeper's specialist lore included warnings that they could break my arm if they turned nasty. Unlikely. Juno's geese had learned that humans might be bringing food. After I checked them out, they waddled after me relentlessly. I was returning to Helena, whom I had left feeding the baby in a secluded spot. A retinue of feather pillows on legs did not help my dignity. keeper's specialist lore included warnings that they could break my arm if they turned nasty. Unlikely. Juno's geese had learned that humans might be bringing food. After I checked them out, they waddled after me relentlessly. I was returning to Helena, whom I had left feeding the baby in a secluded spot. A retinue of feather pillows on legs did not help my dignity.

She was waiting back at the Auguraculum, tall and stately. Even after being with her for four years, the sight of her made me catch my breath. My girl. Unbelievable.

Julia was now wide awake; last night, after being scrubbed and scolded about the ink episode, she and her grandfather had fallen asleep together. We crept away to a spare bedroom, leaving him in charge. There were plenty of slaves in the household to help him out if necessary. We had made love that morning without the risk of a nosy little witness appearing at the bedside.

"Lightly stained with woad!" Helena giggled. "She and Papa were rather well tattooed."

I put my arms around her, still yearning with intimate affection. "You know how laundries bleach things--maybe somebody should have peed on them."

"Papa preempted you with that joke."

We were facing east, squinting into the pale morning sun. Behind us was the temple; to our left, the vista across the Field of Mars and gray-silver hints of the river; more to the right, the augurs' long scan towards the distant misty hills.

"You don't seem a happy gooseboy," said Helena.

"I'm happy." I nuzzled her neck lasciviously.

"I think you are planning to make trouble."

"I'll be the most efficient procurator Rome has ever had."

"That's exactly what I meant--they don't know what they have done appointing you!"

"Should be fun, then." I leaned back, turned her around to look at me, and grinned. "Do you want me to be respectable but useless, like all the rest?"

Helena Justina grinned back wickedly. I could handle becoming pious, so long as she was prepared to stick it out with me.

The city was stirring. We could hear beasts bellowing below, in the Cattle Market Forum. I caught a faint whiff from a tannery that must offend the refined nostrils of the G.o.ds--or at least their snooty antiquated priests. It reminded me of the ex-Flamen Dialis, who had complained about the goslings. That reminded me of his troubled granddaughter.

"What are you planning to do about Gaia Laelia and her family?"

Helena pulled a face at the suggestion that it was her responsibility, but she was ready: "Invite Maia to lunch--I have not seen her yet, in any case--and ask her about that royal reception."

"Am I supposed to come home for lunch too?"

"It's not necessary." She knew I was dying to be in on what Maia said. "So," she retaliated, "what are you you intending to do about that body Aelia.n.u.s found and lost?" intending to do about that body Aelia.n.u.s found and lost?"

"Not my problem."

"Oh, I see." Appearing to accept it (I should have known better), Helena mused slowly, "I don't know that I approved of my brother being set up for the Arval Brethren. I can see why he thought it would do him good socially, but the appointment is for life. He may enjoy feasting and dancing in a corn wreath for a few years, but he can be rather staid and serious. He won't endure it forever."

"You know what I think."

"That all the colleges of priests are elite cliques, where power is traditionally wielded by nonelected, jobs-for-life patricians, all dressing up in silly clothes for reasons no better than witchcraft and carrying out dubious, secretive manipulation of the state?"

"You old cynic."

"I am quoting you," said Helena.

"What a misery!"

"No." Helena pulled a dour face. "You are an astute observer of the political truth, Marcus Didius." Then she changed tack: "In my opinion, unless it is already known who killed the man Aelia.n.u.s found, then my brother should make it his business--with your technical help--to discover the murderer."

"Why's this? So that he can inform the rest of the Arval Brothers and in grat.i.tude they will elect dear Aulus to fill the vacancy?"

"No again," scoffed Helena. "I told you he is better off without them. So that when those sn.o.bs gratefully offer him membership he can make himself feel better by crying 'No thank you!' and marching out on them."

Sometimes people suggested that I was the hot-headed one.

"So you will be investigating this with him?" she grilled me.

"I have no time for unpaid private commissions. Helena, my darling, I am very busy making recommendations for the care of things that honk and cluck."

"What have you suggested to Aulus?"