Dark Omens

EIGHT

Already close to noon and Marcus’s impatient page awaiting me! I sat up, groaning, and flung the furs and blankets back. Of course my patron had warned me that he’d want to see me soon. Obviously he’d already come back from the town today, and that fact — more than anything — persuaded me how long I must have slept. ‘Dear gods,’ I murmured, rolling out of bed. ‘And I left my toga in the workshop yesterday.’

Gwellia nodded briskly. ‘Never mind. You’ve got your old one here. I’ve sent the boys to hang it in the sun while you have some food. That will freshen it, at least. It’s frayed and mended, but it will have to do. Better than attending Marcus in a tunic, anyway. And you’ll have to wear a cloak in any case — it’s fine this morning but it is very cold. The water bucket had a full thumb’s breadth of ice on it, and when Kurso went up to the spring to get the day’s supply, he had to break the surface with a stick and wait a little while for it to thaw enough to flow.’

‘I trust that he was careful?’ I said, recalling the fate of the poor herb-seller.

‘It took him twice as long as usual. But he brought it back and there is some here ready for you in the jug. Wait and I’ll call Minimus to help you wash and dress.’

‘No time, if I’m wanted at the villa instantly.’ I had poured a little of the water out into the bowl, dipped my face and hands in it — though it was so cold it almost took my breath away — and was pulling on a cleaner tunic by this time. ‘Where is this toga?’

Gwellia shook her head. ‘You have your oatcakes first.’ She gave a knowing wink. ‘Don’t worry. You have sufficient time. Marcus’s page is in the servants’ roundhouse now, eating one that I had Kurso serve to him — and a cup of watered mead as well. Just as well you left some, when you went to bed!’

‘My clever wife!’ I laughed approvingly. Offering the messenger refreshment in this way would be regarded by my patron as a courtesy — honouring the slave is an established way of honouring the slave owner as well — but it also gave me the opportunity to rise and eat and dress without keeping Marcus’s servant waiting idly at the door.

Gwellia grinned and produced two still-warm oatcakes from a cloth beside the fire, and I ate them greedily, together with a little of the strong and crumbled cheese made from the summer milkings of the goats. A cup of fresh water and my meal was done. By this time my two red-haired servants had appeared and I was ready to be dressed in the sorry toga which they’d brought in with them. I rose and held my arms up while they draped it on. Maximus was especially dexterous at the task, but even he could not arrange the folds in such a way as wholly to disguise the patched and mended hems. All the same it was the best that could be done. I nodded my approval.

‘Very well. Minimus, you can go and tell the page that I am ready to accompany him.’

Minimus scurried off to do as he was told, while Maximus looked doubtfully at me. ‘Master, will you be wanting us to go with you as well?’

I stole a glance at Gwellia. ‘Just one of you, perhaps. I can hardly pay a visit unescorted by a slave. Marcus would not think it fitting for a citizen, especially not a favoured client like myself.’

‘You can go with him, Maximus,’ my wife agreed. ‘Minimus can stay and help me in the house — the bed needs changing soon, and I haven’t got the reeds. It’s been too cold to cut them since the year began — do it when they’re frozen and they simply spoil.’

‘The page awaits you, Master,’ said Minimus, who had reappeared and now was standing glumly at the door, obviously disappointed to be left behind — not so much because he longed to come with me, I guessed, as because he faced the prospect of a cold, unpleasant chore.

I grinned at him. ‘Never mind. I’ll take you with me next time, and Maximus will get his turn at cutting reeds: he can take over from you as soon as we get back.’

But when we set off for my patron’s villa it was clear that very little reed-cutting would in fact be done today. The day was crisp and bright enough; a pale sun shone wanly in a clear blue sky, but there was no warmth in it at all and it had clearly been freezing overnight. Pools of melt water stood beside the path — and sometimes on it — with a crust of ice on top and despite our cloaks the chill bit to our bones.

So I was not surprised — when we encountered someone coming towards us on a skinny mule, leading another with a frame across its back, on which some heavy load was covered with a cloth — to find that the rider was muffled in a cape and had the hood pulled forward to protect his face. I muttered the conventional ‘Greetings!’ as we passed, expecting simply to be answered by a grunt.

To my surprise the traveller brought the creatures to a halt and pushed his hood back to reveal his face. ‘Libertus! I see that you are home again.’ It was Cantalarius, a look of grim dissatisfaction on his face.

‘Indeed, citizen neighbour,’ I replied at once, before he had time to utter a reproach. ‘I got here late last night and I was intending to call on you sometime. I understand you didn’t get the fee I promised you for delivering that message to my wife — thank you for doing so. It saved her — as I hoped — from much anxiety. She did not have the money, and nor — just now — have I. But I have not forgotten, and I gave my word. I am owed money for that pavement that I told you of, and as soon as I get it you shall have your fee.’ I gave him what I hoped was a placating smile.

His grim expression did not change a jot. ‘That couple of sesterces might assist, I suppose. But it hardly seems to matter any more. My wife is right — there is some kind of curse. You know what happened to my sacrifice, I think?’

I nodded. ‘It was most unfortunate.’

‘Unfortunate? It was an insult to the gods. And all the fault of that confounded priest. How many hundreds of offerings take place without the slightest hitch in ritual? And then — when it is vital for me to placate the deities and I have already spent a fortune to provide the sacrifice — he doesn’t simply put the wrong foot forwards first, or make an error in the ritual, which might have been recovered with a prayer or two — no, he has to let the animal escape so that it is useless for anything at all!’ It was a long speech for Cantalarius.

I raised an eyebrow. ‘You might have eaten the mutton, I suppose?’

He shook a mournful head. ‘Even to eat it would be unlucky now. My wife would not have considered doing so — she’s very superstitious where omens are concerned — and everyone in town had witnessed what occurred so I could not sell it to the butchers’ stalls. The army would not take it back again, because they said it would be folly to try to breed from it. In the end I had to sell it to the gluemakers for only a fraction of what I had paid for it — and even they weren’t very keen, in case the carcass brought bad luck while they were boiling it.’ He stopped and glowered at me.

He was obviously distressed. I said, sympathetically, ‘But didn’t you ask the priest responsible to come and try to lift the curse? I heard you in the forum and I thought that he’d agreed to do it, for a fee.’

He shook his head. ‘Why do you think I’m setting off to town today? I mean to see him and persuade the wretch to come as soon as possible. Tomorrow, preferably. I’ve still got my ram at home — the one I meant to offer to the gods before the weather changed, though that will starve to death, as well, if there’s much more delay from that confounded priest. It’s the only pure white sheep that I possess — all the rest are speckled — so let’s hope he comes in time. If it helps, I’ll even send a mule to bring him there and back.’

‘You know where to find him?’ I asked in some surprise. There is accommodation at the temple site — in the sacred grove behind the Capitoline shrine, near where the Imperial temple stands — but mostly that is for temple slaves and duty celebrants, though it is also sometimes used for visitors. Of course the Imperial Servirs have a room there for the year in which they serve, and the senior Priest of Jupiter and his wife have an official residence next door, but most of the other priests have private homes — and often families — elsewhere. ‘Does the priest of Diana not have an apartment in the town?’ I enquired.

My neighbour shook his head. ‘He has no family left and he’s too old and frail to live alone, even if he had a household full of slaves — which he does not. I understand the temple’s given him a private cell these days, within the dormitory for the temple acolytes. I’m sure I’ll find him there. I want him to come and make this sacrifice, though no doubt he’ll ask for an enormous bribe — he’ll call it a “donation” but it comes to the same thing — and how we are to find that I simply cannot see. I’ve collected almost everything that we can’t do without — mostly the remnants of my poor wife’s dowry, I’m afraid.’

‘You’ve obviously found something,’ I murmured doubtfully, gesturing to the large, wrapped-up object on the mule. I had supposed that there was nothing left he could sell.

He made a little face. ‘That! It’s a most dreadful statue of some ancestral god. A river deity or something of the kind. Her great-great uncle was armourer for the Romans once, but he was not a great craftsman at the best of times, and he contrived to drop some molten metal on his leg — he carved this as a thanks offering for healing, I believe.’

‘And your wife permitted you to you take it?’ I exclaimed in some surprise. ‘I thought you said that she was superstitious?’

He gave me a grim smile. ‘She wasn’t keen to let me bring it — said it was certain to bring still more ill-luck — but as I pointed out, it hasn’t brought us much protection up to now. It didn’t even help her ancestor — he died a little later by falling in the fire. He was no better at woodcarving than at working bronze, and it’s an ugly thing — but it’s inset with bronze and gold and amethyst and that will have some value I expect. Enough — I hope — for the priest to accept it as a gift.’

‘Although it represents a Celtic river god?’

‘There is no problem about that. This deity’s a version of Mars Lenis, the Romans have declared. They’ve taken over his local temple on those grounds. And if it’s Mars — at least officially — there’s no problem with the priest accepting it.’

I nodded. The chief temple — where the ill-fated rite had taken place — is, of course, a Capitoline one, dedicated to the central trinity of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. But any member of the Roman pantheon could be represented there, and Mars was once a member of the Triad anyway. (Of course, most deities have other temples of their own — some of them based on earlier places sacred to the Celts, like the spring belonging to this ancient river god — but at public festivals all of them are ritually invoked and can be worshipped at the Capitoline shrine, or even — like Janus! — offered special sacrifice.)

‘Images of Mars are always welcome, I suppose,’ I said.

Cantalarius made a doubtful little face. ‘Though this one’s hardly handsome. Take a look — see what you think yourself.’

I lifted a corner of the cloth a little gingerly, revealing quite the ugliest statue I have ever seen. The face was crudely carved, as if a child had drawn a figure on a slate, and the eyes and teeth were inlaid afterwards. The result was to give it lopsided staring eyes and distort the mouth into an evil twisted leer — more like a demon than a deity. It was so horrid it was almost comical.

I grinned and behind me I heard Maximus give a stifled gasp. My neighbour laughed.

‘You see? Would you not want to be rid of such a thing? It’s my belief that might be what’s bringing down the curse. I told my wife so. Truth to tell, I think she hated it herself. At all events I swayed her in the end.’

‘If it goes to the temple there’s no disrespect,’ I ventured, doubtfully. ‘And if you two had nothing else to sell …?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing else of value. A few bronze bowls, that’s all. More of her great-uncle’s handiwork. At first she was reluctant to let me take them, too — because if this fails, and she does divorce me and go back home again …’ He trailed off unhappily.

‘She would need a bit of dowry to make another match?’ I finished. ‘But she did agree that you could have them, finally?’

A sigh. ‘Events persuaded her. This morning our last land slave caught the fever — we’ve already lost our other slaves to it. If he dies we shall have no help at all and I cannot work the farm myself. That finally convinced her that things were desperate. She let me have it all.’ He spat on his hand and rubbed his ear with it in the ancient gesture to ward off a curse. ‘If it’s not enough to bribe the wretched priest to come, the gods knows what I’ll do. She will divorce me, certainly. In that case, I might just as well be dead — as no doubt I will be, if I really am accursed.’

There did not seem to be an answer I could make to this, so I said simply, ‘Well, I wish you fortune. Perhaps your luck will change. I’ll bring you what I owe you — that would be a start, at least.’

This time he did manage a wry smile. ‘Citizen, what I need is a miracle — not a few sesterces — but thank you all the same. Now, if I’m to find this priest and get back home tonight I had better hurry, or it will freeze again. Even a mule will stumble if there is ice enough — and I can’t afford to lose these animals as well. They are pretty well the only healthy things we have.’ So saying he pulled his hood up round his ears again and, jerking his laden mule behind him, he started down the track.

I glanced at Maximus, who had been standing back but obviously listening to this whole exchange. ‘Unhappy fellow!’

My young servant nodded and watched him move out of sight. ‘Sometimes, Master, there are worse things than to be a slave. We do not have his troubles.’

A piping voice surprised me. ‘Well, I’m a slave and I’ll have troubles of my own, if we don’t hurry to the villa very soon.’ I’d forgotten the existence of Marcus’s young page, who had been behind me all this time. ‘My master will be waiting, and he does not care for that.’

He was right of course. I nodded. ‘Then we’ll hurry.’ And we did.