Saturnalia

9

“Hey, Decius, wake up!” it was Hermes. I felt around for my dagger. It was time to murder the boy. Then I remembered what day it was. He barged into my bedroom, all joy and cheer.

“Io Saturnalia! How about some breakfast, Decius? Come on, get up!”

Creakily, aching in every joint, I lurched up and sat on the edge of my bed. The light hurt my eyes, and I buried my face on my cupped palms.

“Why didn’t I kill you yesterday when it was legal?” I groaned.

“Too late,” he said cheerily. “You can’t even execute a traitor on Saturnalia. Go fetch me something to eat.” Then he saw what I looked like. “What were you doing all night? You must have been in the roughest lupanar in town.” He inspected some of my more egregious wounds. “I’ll bet it was one of those places where the madam chains you to a post and the girls work you over with whips. You should try being a slave; then you could live like that all the time.”

I found my dagger and started for him, but he pointed at it with an odd expression and I held it up. There was brownish blood all over the blade.

“I hope you didn’t kill anyone inside the City,” he said.

I pondered the weapon. “I’ll have to wash this blood off or it’s going to rust the blade.”

“You can do that in the kitchen,” Hermes suggested. “While you’re there, find me something to eat.”

Wearily, I shuffled back toward the kitchen. From Cato and Cassandra’s room I heard the sound of snoring. At least I wouldn’t be fetching breakfast for them. I poured water from a jug into a basin and dipped my blade into it, scrubbing away the dry, flaky blood with a rough cloth and a sponge. When all the blood was gone, I inspected it. It was too late. The fine sheen of the Spanish steel was marred with tiny pits. Blood is the worst thing in the world for weapon steel. That is an oddity, when you think about it. I made a mental note to stop at a cutler’s and have it polished, when people were back at work again.

I poked around until I found some bread and cheese and a few dried figs. I was sure my slaves had stocked up for the holiday, but I had no idea where they stored the provender and was in no mood to institute a detailed search of the kitchen. I found Hermes in the courtyard seated at his ease in the chair I usually employed. I began to sit in the chair opposite him, but he waggled an admonitory finger at me.

“Ah-ah-ah. Not today, you don’t.”

I sat down anyway. “Don’t overdo it. We’re not supposed to remember how you behave on Saturnalia, but we do anyway.” I grabbed some of the food and started to eat. “My clients will be here soon. Did Cato and Cassandra make up their gifts?”

“They’re in the atrium,” he said, munching cheese. “Speaking of which, how about some money so I can celebrate properly?” Hermes was insolent at the best of times. On Saturnalia, he was insufferable. I went into my bedroom and opened a chest. I took out a pouch, first counting to make sure he hadn’t appropriated some of my money already.

“There,” I said, dropping the pouch on the table in front of him. “Keep it out of sight. In the streets you like to frequent they’ll cut your throat for that much money. Don’t come home with any exotic diseases, and I don’t want you so hung over that you’ll be of no use to me tomorrow. I’m in the middle of something very bad and I expect to be busy.”

“Who wants to kill you this time?” he asked, taking a swig of watered wine.

Before I could answer him my clients began to arrive. There was the usual round of greetings. They gave me presents. Since they were mostly poor men, these consisted mainly of the traditional candles. By custom, my own gifts to them had to be more valuable, although my own circumstances were modest. I gave Burrus a new sword for his son who was with the Tenth Legion, soon to be in the thick of the fighting against the Gauls and the Germans, winning glory for Caesar.

From my house we all trooped off to my father’s. His mob of clients spilled out onto the street outside and had to make their way through in shifts. When I finally got in, I found Father talking with a couple of distinguished-looking men, although their rank was hard to guess since they wore plain tunics. I made my formal obeisance, and Father introduced the two as Titus Ampius Balbus and Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, two of the praetors of the year. Balbus was to govern Asia in the next year, and Saturninus was to have Macedonia. Clearly, Father thought I should be currying favor with these two, who were up-and-comers in a position to offer me fine appointments, but I needed to confer with him privately.

“What do you want?” he asked impatiently, when we were a little separated from the others. “You know that official business is forbidden today.”

“And you know that I am acting in a highly unofficial capacity. I’ve come upon something important and I need to know a few things. Was Celer engaged in suppressing or expelling forbidden cults within Rome and its environs?”

“What kind of idiot question is that? He was a praetor, not a censor. And when no censors hold office, that is the province of the aediles, along with public morals.”

“You and Hortensius Hortalus were our most recent censors,” I pressed on. “Did you take action concerning such cults?”

He frowned. But then, he always frowned. “Hortalus and I conduced the census, we completed the lustrum, and we purged the Senate of some very unsavory members. Beyond that, we oversaw the letting of the public contracts. I turned in my insignia of office last year, and the subject of obscene foreign cults never came up.”

“Not foreign cults, Father. Domestic cults. Native Italian cults operating within and just outside of Rome. Cults numbering among their members some very highly placed Romans.”

“Explain yourself,” he said. So I gave him a succinct rendition of my experiences of the previous two days, leaving out nothing. Well, leaving out very little, anyway. When I got to the part about the sacrifice, he muttered, “Infamous!” and made a complex gesture to ward off the evil eye, one he must have learned in childhood from a Sabine nurse.

“A cult of witches, eh?” he said when I was finished. “Human sacrifice. A hidden mundus. And noble Romans involved?” Absently, he rubbed a hand across the scar that divided his face, a characteristic gesture meaning he was plotting evil against his enemies. “This is a chance to rid Rome of its three very worst women. Exiled, at the very least. After this they could never return.”

“Don’t forget the man who wanted to poke my eyes out,” I reminded him.

“Oh, him. Yes, it’s too bad you didn’t get a look at his face.” This was for the sake of form. If you wanted to get rid of murderous men, the best way would have been to block up the doors of the Senate house during a meeting and set fire to the place. Murder was a popular pastime among the male gentry. It was the scandalous women who outraged men like my father.

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Look, we can’t stay closeted like this. People will suspect we are doing something official. I’ll manage to get the aediles aside sometime today to discuss this.”

“I am not sure that would be a good idea. I am not satisfied with Murena’s handling of the murder of the woman Harmodia. For some reason he took the official record of the case and hid or destroyed it. He is either concealing something or protecting somebody.”

“You are making too much of the matter. The slave who was sent to fetch the document probably stopped at a tavern on the way to court, got drunk, and lost it. It happens all the time. It was just another murder of another nobody.

“But if it will set your mind at ease, I’ll avoid Murena and confer only with Visellius Varro and Calpurnius Bestia and the others. I should speak with Caesar as well, although he is probably too busy preparing for his Gallic campaign to take much of an interest. Still, as pontifex maximus it’s his duty to make a pronouncement upon the danger of a corrupting, nonstate religion. In the meantime, you should go to your gangster friend Milo and get him to assign you some protection. Since they didn’t kill or blind you, they may be looking for you now.”

“I can’t go to Milo!” I said. “He is going to marry Fausta and he’s entirely irrational about her. He might kill me if I threaten to have her exposed!”

Father shrugged. “Then go to Statilius Taurus and borrow some of his gladiators. Now, come along. We must make our rounds.”

I accompanied him to a few more houses, but my heart simply wasn’t in the spirit of the season. He was also being unrealistic. What use would hired thugs be to me when the people I was dealing with specialized in spells and poisons? I wasn’t worried about any bumpkin daggermen as long as I was armed and on familiar ground. It was depressing to have to watch everything I ate or drank though. Luckily, for the duration of the holiday, food stalls were everywhere. They would have to poison the whole city to get me.

About spells I was not so sure. Like most rational, educated men I was extremely dubious of the efficacy, even the reality, of magical spells. On the other hand, recent events were causing my rationality to flake away like dandruff. Witches were supposed to be able to strike their enemies down with ailments of the heart, liver, lungs, and sundry other organs. They could cause blindness and impotence. But if they could do all that, I wondered, how did it come about that they had any enemies at all?

By late morning I managed to break away from my father and his crowd, but as I wandered through the streets the gaiety of the season transformed itself before my eyes to the menacing and the sinister. Why did so many people wear masks if not to take on the personae of demons? What was the reason for the whole hilarious occasion but a primitive midwinter fear that, if we didn’t jolly the gods along a bit, they wouldn’t give us springtime next year?

I knew I was just being morbid. People wore masks, for the most part, because they were taking advantage of the confusion to mess about with other people’s wives and husbands. They were celebrating because, to Romans, any excuse for a party is a good one. The world-turned-upside-down aspect was just the unique fillip of Saturnalia. Even weirder things happened at our other rites. There was the Lupercalia, where a team of patrician boys ran through the streets naked, flogging women with thongs of bloody goatskin, and the Floralia, where respectable women and whores went out in public and tooted on trumpets. There were others on our year-round calendar of official holidays, each with its tutelary deities and singular rites. Saturnalia was the biggest of the year, that was all. Still, I could not shake my mood.

In the Forum the festivities were in full swing. On the judicial platforms before the basilicas, mimes were performing parodies of the trials ordinarily held there, rife with obscene gestures and indecent language. From the rostra men pretending to be the great statesmen of the day made speeches even more nonsensical than the real thing. On the steps of the Curia Hostilia a pair of men wearing outsized insignia of the censors solemnly forbade such activities as feeding one’s children, observing the proper rituals of the state gods, serving in the legions, etc.

The music was cacophonous and deafening. People were dancing and reeling everywhere. Nobody seemed to be walking in a normal manner. I dearly wanted to consult some court and Senate records and interview a few officials and secretaries, but it was out of the question on such a day. I wandered about, scanning the crowds for faces from the ritual of the previous night. In so vast a throng it was futile. I could only be certain of the three patrician women I already knew, Furia, and perhaps one or two others.

I went to a booth next to the Curia and spoke with its proprietor long enough to establish that he was not Marsian and bought a loaf stuffed with grape leaves, olives, and tiny, salted fish, generously drenched with garum. To this I added just enough wine to settle my nerves and sat on the bottom step, wolfing it all down while the pseudocensors pronounced punishments for showing respect for one’s parents and forbidding senators to attend meetings when sober.

I was gratified to note that my recent harrowing experiences had not affected my appetite. Come to think of it, nothing ever affected my appetite. I was finishing up the final crumbs when the last person in the world I expected to see hailed me.

“Decius Caecilius! How good to see another man in Rome whom Clodius hates almost as much as he hates me.”

“Marcus Tullius!” I cried, standing up to take his hand. We knew each other well enough to use this familiar form of address. Cicero had aged since I had seen him last, but few of us grow younger. It was odd to see him entirely alone, for he was usually attended by a crowd of friends and clients. No one was paying him any attention, and it is entirely possible that no one recognized the great and dignified orator dressed as he was in a dingy old tunic and cracked sandals, his bony knees and skinny legs exposed, his face unshaven, and with his hair untrimmed. He looked as mournful as I felt. Cicero’s military record was as undistinguished as my own, and in seeing him thus the reason was plain. He could never look like anything but a lawyer and a scholar.

“Surely all your friends have not forsaken you?” I asked.

“No, I just wanted to be able to wander around alone for a change, so I dismissed all my followers. This is the one day of the year when I am probably safe from attack. Not that Clodius is likely to try violence now. He wants the glory of driving me into exile as tribune. He’ll have it, too. Next year is his year, and even I am not inclined to fight it.”

“Go somewhere peaceful and get some studying and writing done,” I advised. “You’ll be recalled as soon as he’s out of power. For what it’s worth, I know that you had no choice in ordering those executions. Even Cato is on your side, and Jupiter knows he’s a stickler for the legalities.”

“I appreciate your support, Decius,” he said kindly, as if I were important enough for my support to mean something.

I waved up toward the forbidding crag of the Tarpeian Rock. “There are men walking free and safe today who deserved the rock for their part in that incident.”

“I know whom you mean,” he said ruefully. “Calpurnius Bestia and a dozen others. Most of them escaped through Pompey’s protection and the rest were cronies of Caesar and Crassus. No chance of calling them to account now. Never mind, we’ll get them for something else another time.”

It struck me that Cicero was a man I should consult. “Marcus Tullius, I wonder if I might beg a favor. I find myself in the midst of the strangest investigation of my career, and I am in need of your advice.”

“I am at your service, Decius. I need something to take my mind off my own woes.” He looked around in annoyance. “But it is too noisy here. However, there is one place in Rome that is sure to be quiet this day, and it is only a few steps away. Come along.” He began to climb the broad stairway and I followed.

The interior of the Curia was a scene of ghostly quiet. Not even a slave remained to sweep up. Even the state slaves had holiday. From these tiers of seats had come the decisions that had declared and directed our wars, settled treaties with foreign powers, determined the rights and obligations of the citizens, and proclaimed our laws to the world. Here had also been concocted most of our worst follies, as well as corruption and knavery beyond measure. But even our basest transactions had at least taken place in a setting of great dignity. The old Curia had the austere simplicity that had once characterized most of our public edifices. We descended the central stair and took our seats on the marble chairs reserved for the praetors, next to the long-vacant chair of the Flamen Dialis.

“Now, my young friend, how may I help you?”

I could see from the sharpness of his expression that he was indeed hoping for a brain-cracking puzzle to distract him from his formidable array of sorrows, and I wondered how I could broach the matter at hand without sounding demented.

“Marcus Tullius, you are one of the most learned men of our age. Am I correct in believing that your knowledge of the gods is as deep as your scholarship in the law, in history, and in philosophy?”

“First, let me say that no man can truly know the gods. I have studied extensively in what has been written and spoken of the gods.”

“That is what I need. If I may dare so personal a question, may I ask what your own beliefs in the matter may be?”

He paused for a moment. “Twenty years ago, I took an extended trip to Greece. I did this to study, to regain my failing health, and, incidentally, to escape Sulla’s notice. He was still dictator and had cause to dislike me. I studied with Antiochus, a most distinguished and learned man. At that time I also became an initiate in the Eleusinian mysteries. I had been a profound sceptic, but the mysteries provided a most illuminating and moving experience. It is of course forbidden to discuss them with one who is not an initiate, but suffice it to say that I have remained since convinced, not only of the possibility of a good life, but of the immortality, or at least the continuity, of the soul.”

I had not been expecting anything quite so deep. “I see. And yet, most people, in most parts of the world, have their own gods, which they believe to regulate the cosmos. Have these any validity?”

“What people have, for the most part, is fear,” Cicero said. “They fear the world in which they live. They fear that which they see and that which they cannot see. They fear their fellowmen. None of these fears, I hasten to point out, is unfounded. The world is indeed a dangerous and hostile place. People seek out the powers that control this world, and they seek to placate them.”

“And can these powers exist as we envision them?” I asked.

“Do you mean, is Jupiter a majestic, middle-aged man attended by eagles? Does Neptune have blue hair and a trident? Is Venus a voluptuous woman of infinite sexual allure?” He chuckled. “We got that from the Greeks, Decius. For our ancestors, the gods had no form. They were powers of nature. They were worshipped in the fields and in woods and at shrines. But it is difficult to imagine gods without form, and when we saw the images created by the Greeks to represent their gods we adopted them.”

“But do we truly influence the gods, with our rituals and ceremonies and sacrifices?”

“We influence ourselves. When we acknowledge these ineffable powers, we see ourselves in a proper perspective, which is one of humility. Our rituals reinforce the ordering of society, from the daily ceremonies conducted by the head of each household to the great rites of state. All are held communally and all emphasize the strict hierarchy of the state in subordination to the gods of the state. As for sacrifice, all men understand the principle of exchange. One gives something of value in exchange for something else. To the common people, sacrifice is just that-the exchange of material objects for less material but nonetheless palpable benefits from the gods. Educated people understand sacrifice as a symbolic act, which brings about the unity of our mortal selves and the higher powers whose supremacy we acknowledge.”

“And human sacrifice?”

He gave me a penetrating and half-exasperated look. “Decius, you spoke of an investigation. Might I know where all this is leading?”

“Please bear with me, Marcus Tullius. I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter before I get down to specifics. All shall be made plain. As plain as I can make it, anyway.”

“As you wish. Most people, we Romans included, have practiced human sacrifice. It was always the most extreme of offerings. Some societies have been notorious for it, most notably the Carthaginians. We have long since suppressed the practice, not only within Rome, but in all parts of the world where Rome holds sway. If I were a cynic, I might say that this is because there are few things we value less than human life and so we cannot conceive that our gods would want so worthless a sacrifice.

“However, the truth is somewhat different. In a human sacrifice, we offer to the gods that which most resembles ourselves. Identity is a most important factor in religion and in magic. We may despise our fellowman as an economic unit of less worth than a domestic animal, but we recognize the fact that he is a creature very much like ourselves. In fairness to the savage Carthaginians, I must acknowledge that they carried the principle not only of greatest value but of closest identity to its ultimate form, for in their most terrible ceremonies they sacrificed their own children. Toward the end of our last war with them they immolated hundreds to their gods, not that it did them any good.

“Each of us dimly recognizes a life force shared by all of us, and it is the offering of this force that, it is hoped, will please the gods. But it must be done in the proper place, at the proper time, and with the proper ritual. Were it not for these factors, slaughter grounds and battlefields and arenas would be the holiest spots in the world. Now, Decius, why are you asking about human sacrifices?”

I took a deep breath. “Because I witnessed one last night.”

He gazed at me steadily. “I see. Please go on.”

“The reason I am in Rome right now is that my family recalled me to look into the death of Metellus Celer. You are aware that many people think Clodia poisoned him?”

“Of course. But that is just gossip.” He looked at me sharply. “It has been gossip until now, anyway. What did you find?”

This was sticky. There were rumors, and I had reason to believe that they might have been true, that Cicero had at one time been involved with Clodia. He might still be, which could be delicate. Otherwise, he was just a part of the great Roman brotherhood of men Clodia had made use of then cast aside. The latter seemed most likely, as Clodia was interested mainly in men of current or potential political power, and Cicero’s sun looked to be setting at that time. Her only real loyalty was to her brother, anyway. That didn’t mean that Cicero wasn’t still infatuated with her.

“The first question that arose was: Had Celer been poisoned at all? I consulted with Asklepiodes and he advised me that, in the absence of classic symptoms of well-known poisons, there was very little likelihood of a conclusive analysis.”

“Quite logical,” Cicero said approvingly.

“But the most likely source of poison, if poison was indeed involved, were the herb women who run a sizable medical and fortune-telling practice out by the Circus Flaminius, since the aediles drove them out of the City.”

“A great Italian tradition,” he said dryly. “The state cults fail to satisfy some basic needs of the common people. They must forever be bothering the great cosmic powers for details about the future of their petty lives.”

“While there I had a rather disturbing interview with a woman named Furia and heard the name Harmodia spoken. Further investigation revealed that this woman had been murdered. The murder had been briefly investigated by the aedile Licinius Murena, but some days later he took the report from the Temple of Ceres and it seems to have disappeared.”

“A moment, please,” Cicero said sharply.

“When you say ‘he took the report,’ do you mean that Murena did this personally?”

That stopped me and I had to think about it. “No, now that you mention it, the slave boy at the temple said that a slave came from the court of the praetor urbanus and said that the aedile needed it.”

“Very well. Go on.”

“I went to the Flaminius and there I questioned the watchman who had discovered Harmodia’s body. He had little of importance to tell me concerning the incident, but she had been one of the herb women and he was most uneasy in speaking of the subject at all. He was afraid of their powers to curse and cast spells, and he said that the witches had a sacred place out on the Vatican field where there was a mundus. He said that the herb women held a great celebration there on the night before Saturnalia.”

“That does not greatly surprise me,” Cicero said. “These witches, saga and striga and so forth, are for the most part remnants of the ancient earth cults that once dominated the whole Mediterranean littoral. They were there when the Dorians came down from the north to bring the sky gods to Greece, and they were in Italy when the ancestral Latins migrated here. We acknowledge the underworld gods by holding their rituals in the evening, after sunset. But these remnants of the archaic faith carry out their rites in the ancient fashion, in the dead of night. As for their mundus, any hole in the ground will do for a mundus, if one is of a frame of mind to believe in such things.

“Everywhere one goes in the world, the greatest festivals are held at the same times of year: the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and the summer and winter solstices. Saturnalia is our winter solstice celebration. It follows logically that the earth cults would hold their revels at night during those seasons.”

Cicero could get pedantic at times.

“So it seems. Anyway, last night I went out there to see for myself.” Then I told him what had happened in the grove. He listened with great attention and seriousness. When I came to the part about the patrician women I had recognized, he stopped me.

“Fausta? Are you sure it was she?” He seemed alarmed.

“She is a most striking lady. Even without her clothes there is no mistaking her.” Why, I wondered, was he disturbed about Fausta? Why not Clodia?

“This is … upsetting,” Cicero said.

“Not as upsetting as the next part,” I assured him. Then I told of the sacrifice. Unlike my father he made no superstitious gestures although his expression conveyed a mild distaste, probably more at the primitive proceedings than at the killing. No one got to high office in Rome back then without witnessing abundant bloodshed. When I told of how I had bested my captors and made it back to the city, he chuckled and clapped me on the shoulder.

“My congratulations upon your heroic escape, Decius. I have never known a man like you for getting out of incredibly tight spots. You must be a descendant of Ulysses. Someday you must give me a full account of that business in Alexandria. I’ve had four wildly differing accounts from friends who were there at the time. They all say they don’t want to see you back.”

Then he resumed his serious tone. “As to this disagreeable business on the Vatican field, it could prove a touchy matter to deal with.”

“Why is that? Human sacrifice is specifically forbidden by law, is it not?”

“It is, except under the most pressing circumstances, and it is never to be undertaken without the most solemn state sanction and performed by duly consecrated officials of the state cults. We consider it a remnant of our primitive past and always use a victim who has already been condemned to death for a civil offense.

“But”-he held up a hand, fingers splayed in lawyer fashion while he counted off each objection, like an egg and a dolphin being taken down to mark each lap of a chariot race-“what you witnessed last night took place outside the walls of the City, across the river, in what used to be Tuscia. That alone will greatly reduce the indignation that might have been stirred had it happened within the walls, in some secluded house or garden.”

“It’s no more than an hour’s walk away!” I protested.

He shook his head. “We Romans all but own the world, but mentally we are still the inhabitants of a little city-state situated on one of Italy’s less important rivers. It is very difficult for a Roman to feel that something happening outside the walls actually involves him.” Another finger went down. “Have you any witnesses?”

“Well, yes, but they were all dancing around the fire and participating.”

“In other words, unlikely to support your testimony. You accuse three women from very powerful families.” Another finger went down. “Granted, they are women of considerable notoriety, but can you imagine the woe they can bring upon your head? You have Clodius’s sister and his betrothed, and you have the betrothed of your good friend Milo, and she is a Cornelia, the daughter of a dictator and the ward of Lucullus, who is still a man of great power and influence. If we were dealing merely with a pack of peasant women and villagers it would be different.

“Then there is the victim.” Another finger. “If he were a citizen, especially one of good family, mobs would assault the Curia to get something done. Did you recognize him?”

“No,” I admitted.

“In all probability he was a foreign slave. Legally, they are expendable persons, mere property with no rights. The fact of the sacrifice may have been in contravention of the laws, but the victim was of no consequence.”

He lowered his hands and placed them upon his spread knees. “But worst of all, Decius, is the time of year. None of the sitting praetors or aediles will want to institute proceedings just a few days before they leave office.”

“There are still next year’s,” I said.

“And which among them will want to take up such a dubious prosecution, one which must drag in the man who will be the uncrowned king of Rome next year?” Then, more gently, “Decius, do you think you can even find this place again?”

I thought about it, trying to remember just where I had turned off the Via Aurelia onto the farm road, and where along the farm road I had heard the screech owl and followed its call to the sunken lane. And how far along the lane had that isolated copse stood?

“I think so,” I said uncertainly. “The Vatican is a big area, but I think if I looked long enough …”

“I thought so. Today being Saturnalia I will bet you my library against your sandals that you couldn’t find it by the end of the month. I’ll bet further that, even if you could find it, all evidence of the sacrifice is gone. You will find no bones, no sorcerous paraphernalia, no more than a scorched patch of ground. That is not enough to take to court.”

“This is most discouraging,” I lamented.

“I am sorry that I could not be of more comfort or aid.”

“You have been a great help,” I protested hastily. “As always, you have clarified matters and put them into perspective. You may also have saved me from making a fool of myself.”

He grinned, a welcome expression on his mournful face. “What is life if we can’t make fools of ourselves from time to time? I make a regular practice of it. Is there any other way I may be of service?”

“Can you tell me what I should do now?”

“Continue your investigation of Celer’s death. Concentrate on the facts involved there and forget about the witches and their repulsive rites. What you have uncovered there is an ancient but deep-rooted cult that will never be fully eradicated and a pack of bored, thrill-seeking women who need something a little more lively than the state religion to get their blood stirring.” He stood. “And for now, I return to the festivities. Io Saturnalia, Decius.”

“Io Saturnalia, Marcus Tullius,” I said, as he climbed the stair.

When he was gone I sat pondering for a while. Unquestionably, he was right. To institute judicial proceedings at that moment would not only be futile, it would invite ridicule. I took some comfort in the thought that my father and his cronies would be seeking a way to turn my findings to account. Where strict legality failed, perhaps political malice would succeed.

Where to go next? I tried to think where I had been sidetracked and decided it was my interview with Furia. I had let her mountebank’s trickery distract me. In the midst of her sorcerous set-dressing, she had given me Harmodia. Forget about Harmodia being one of the witches; Harmodia had been an herb woman. She may have sold somebody the poison that killed Celer, and she had undoubtedly been killed to silence her. If Celer had been murdered because he was about to crack down on the witches, would they have killed one of their own?

With great reluctance, I had from time to time attended classes on philosophy and logic and related subjects. Sometimes, in exile, there is little else to do. Occasionally, these studies coincide with the necessary arts of law and rhetoric, for there are few more distressing things when arguing before the courts than to find yourself tied up in a logical knot because you got some elementary point wrong. A philosopher in Athens had once told me that when you discovered that you were pursuing the wrong course because you had made an incorrect assumption, you should do what a hunter does; you should go back to the last place where you know for certain that you were on the proper track.

I thought this over and decided that I had stepped off the trail when I entered Furia’s booth. What I needed to do was to go back and act as if I had never entered it. For purposes of my real investigation anyway. I wasn’t about to forget what I had seen, and I wasn’t entirely persuaded that the two were unconnected, despite what Cicero had said.

Things began to look a little more clear. What I had to do was find another herb woman, one considerably less formidable than Furia, and question her about Harmodia. They couldn’t all belong to the witch cult. It ought to be easy enough to find one I was certain had not been out on the Vatican field the night before. A blind one, perhaps. Nobody without eyes could have danced like that.

Having so decided, I got up and walked from the Senate chamber. I wasn’t halfway down the stairs when Julia ran up and grabbed me.

“Decius! I’ve been looking all over for you! What in the world were you doing inside the Curia?”

“I called my own Senate meeting,” I said. “It wasn’t well attended.” I quailed at the thought of having to go over the previous night’s adventures one more time, especially to Julia, who was somewhat more gently bred than her frightening colleagues of the patrician sisterhood who had a taste for human sacrifice. I knew that she would have it out of me though.

“Decius, are you all right?” She held me at arm’s length and looked me over. “You’ve been fighting again!” As if there were something wrong with that. Women are strange.

“Come along, my dear,” I said. “It’s just that things have taken a new turn, and it is a turn immeasurably for the worse.” Arm in arm, we descended the steps. “But before you hear my account, tell me what you’ve found out. I can tell by the way you’re panting and quivering that you have news.”

“I am not panting, neither am I quivering,” she said. That was true. She had that well-schooled patrician demeanor, which does not leave the breed even during earthquakes and while aboard sinking ships, but the signs were there if you knew where to look.

“My apologies. Please go on.”

We walked to a booth and picked up a few items to sustain us through a full day of reveling.

“Are you familiar with the Balnea Licinia? Crassus built it last year on the Palatine, and it’s become the most fashionable bathhouse in Rome. The appointments are marvelous, far more luxurious than anything we’ve seen before. Anyway, it has women’s hours in the morning, and I’ve just come from there.”

“I thought you smelled especially delectable,” I said.

“Better than you,” she said sharply, wrinkling her nose. “What have you been doing?”

“Never mind that. Just tell me what you’ve found.”

“All right, if you’ll just be patient.” She took a big bite of flat bread with toasted cheese on top, sprinkled with chopped, spicy sausage. “Anyway, all the most fashionable ladies go there, you know, members of Clodia’s set.”

“Just a moment,” I interrupted. “Was Fausta there or Fulvia?”

“You mean the younger Fulvia?” Her brow wrinkled. “No, I didn’t see either of them. Why do you ask?” There was deep suspicion in her voice.

“It’s just that they must be in terrible need of a bath this morning.”

“Decius! What have you been up to?” she said, spraying crumbs.

“All shall be made clear in time, my dear. Pray continue.”

“All right,” she said darkly, “but I expect a full explanation. So there I was on a massage table with Cornelia Minor and your cousin Felicia and about five others on other tables in the room … they have huge Nubians there, Lydian trained, the best masseurs in the world …”

“Men?” I said, shocked.

“No, silly. Eunuchs. It’s a wonderful place to pick up the latest gossip and talk about those things women only discuss when there are no men present.”

“You must talk rather loudly, I would think,” I said, my mind going into an irrelevant reverie. “All that smacking of flesh, I mean. All those grunts and explosions of breath as the delicate female bodies are pummeled by the dusky hands of brawny masseurs …”

“You just wish you’d been there. So I let it be known that I might soon need the services of a saga for a condition that must prove embarrassing, since I am unmarried.”

“Julia! You shock me!”

“It is not at all an uncommon subject among this crowd. They trade the names of the most fashionable abortionists just as they do those of pearl sellers and perfumers.”

“Oh, the degeneracy of the times,” I lamented. “Did any familiar names emerge from this colloquy?”

“The first name to be mentioned was Harmodia, but someone said that she had been killed.”

“Do you remember who knew about her murder?” I asked.

“I think it was Sicinia, the one called Swan, because she has such a long neck. Is it important?”

“Probably not. She might have wanted to hire Harmodia, asked around the Flaminius, and found out she’d been murdered.”

“Furia was also recommended. You mentioned her yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did,” I said.

“But you didn’t tell me everything, did you?”

“No, I did not.” We had come to the shrine of the Lares publici, before which was a low stone railing. I brushed away the dust and we sat. All around us people were carrying on dementedly, having a fine time. A huge man wearing a lion skin and carrying an outsized club performed feats of strength a few steps from us. At the corner of the Sacred Way and the Clivus Orbius a platform had been erected to display Spanish dancers from Gades who were performing one of the famous dances of their district, which were forbidden by law at other times of year because of their extreme lasciviousness.

“Decius! Stop watching those dancers and pay attention!”

“Eh? Oh, yes. Go on. Did you get anything else out of your langorous companions of the bath?”

“One of them said a woman named Ascylta is very trustworthy and that she has a stall beneath arch number sixteen at the Circus Flaminius.”

“Ascylta? At least it doesn’t sound like a Marsian name. It’s Samnite, isn’t it?”

“I think so. And didn’t you say Harmodia’s stall was at the Flaminius?”

“Urgulus said Harmodia had arch nineteen. There were only two between them. Perhaps this Ascylta is a woman I should question.”

“You mean we, Decius. We should question her.”

I sighed. I should have seen this coming. “As always, Julia, I appreciate your help. But I don’t see how your being with me will improve matters.”

“Decius,” she said gently, “I’ve never said this to you before, but you can be uncommonly dense at times. Especially when you are dealing with women. I think I may be able to speak with this woman and gain her confidence. You would come on like a prosecutor and make her shut up in fear.”

“I am not at all intimidating! I am the soul of diplomacy, when I want to be.”

“With all those new cuts and bruises, you are even worse than usual. Not only do you lack tact, you are not even truthful. Now tell me about Furia!”

I was not entirely certain where that had come from, nor how her original assertion had led to her ultimate demand. Nonetheless, I knew better than to hold back. So I told her of my upsetting interview in Furia’s tent. She sat and glowered as she listened.

“And you thought,” she said, when I was finished, “that I would be upset just because you were fondling the udder of that striga?”

“I wasn’t fondling!” I protested. “The woman took possession of my blood-dripping hand and fastened it to her mammary. ‘Udder’ is not a properly descriptive term, in any case. Rather an attractive appendage, if you must know.”

“Spare me,” she said.

“Anyway,” I went on, all but squirming like a schoolboy before an unforgiving master, “it wasn’t that. It was what she said, about being Pluto’s favorite and a hunting dog and a male harpy and all my life being the death of what I love. You know I am not a superstitious man, Julia, but I’ve dealt with frauds all over the world and I know when I am confronted with something different. The woman left a mark on me.”

She took a swallow of the coarse wine and settled down, apparently mollified. “Now tell me the rest of it. What happened last night after you left me?”

The recital didn’t take long. It was the third time I had delivered it, and it wasn’t even noon yet. I was getting good at it. She listened with equanimity until I got to the part about the sacrifice. Then she turned pale and dropped the honey cake she had been about to nibble. She was no hardened power chaser or decadent aristocratic thrill seeker.

“Oh!” she said when I was finished. “I knew those women were wicked; I never realized they were truly evil!”

“An interesting distinction. I take it you mean the patrician women, not the witches?”

“Exactly. The strigae sound no more than primitive, like barbarians or people from the time of Homer. But Clodia and the rest must do this for the perversity of it.”

“Cicero said much the same thing just now,” I told her.

“Cicero? When did you speak with him?” So I gave her our conversation. Julia loved philosophical things for some reason, and she listened with close attention. Luckily, I had a well-trained memory and was able to repeat him word for word. I was a little put out that she hadn’t gone into palpitations over my mortal danger and desperate flight. True, I was right there so she could see that I had survived the experience, but I expected some display of concern. It was not the only disappointment of my life.

“He is right,” she said, nodding. “What you witnessed was a ritual of a very ancient religion. It makes those rustic wise women seem rather innocent, in a horrible sort of way.”

“Philosophical detachment is an admirable trait,” I told her, “but those people wanted to kill me! Put my eyes out anyway.”

“Punishments for profanation and sacrilege are always severe. Besides, you got out of it in one piece. You shouldn’t make such a great thing of it. You really aren’t a hero out of some epic.” I could tell she was still angry with me.

“Cicero himself compared me with Ulysses.”

“Cicero is sometimes guilty of rhetorical excess. Most politicians are. Now, how do we find Ascylta?”

It was no use. “We may have to wait until she’s back beneath her arch at the Flaminius. She is probably out there somewhere”-I gestured grandly to take in the spectacle of the overcrowded Forum-“but it would be futile to try to find her.”

“Have you anything better to do?” she asked impatiently.

“Well, it is a holiday, and I had a rough night. I had planned to indulge in a little debauchery …”

She pushed off the railing with her hands and landed lightly on her dainty, highborn feet. “Come along, Decius, let’s go look for her.”

Julia’s sprightly energy depressed me. Undoubtedly, she had enjoyed a good night’s sleep. Perforce, I concluded that wandering around the city was as good a way as any to spend the day, and we certainly would not lack for distractions. So off we went, peering into booths and tents, pausing to take in some of the innumerable performances or allow a chain of dancing celebrants to wind its mindless way past us.

The fortune-teller’s establishments were everywhere. Instead of being concentrated in one area as on ordinary days, they were set up wherever they could find space. And there were far more of them than usual, because the practitioners from all the villages and towns for many miles around Rome had come to town for the holiday. They had come from as far as Luca to the north and Capua to the south.

It seemed as if most of the Italian peninsula had crammed itself into Rome that day. And there was the usual crowd of foreigners, come to the center of the world to gawk, everything from Syrians in long robes to check-trousered Gauls and Egyptians with their eyes outlined in kohl. Somehow, Rome had become a cosmopolitan city. I suppose you can’t be the capital of the world without a lot of aliens hanging about.

By early afternoon we had exhausted the possibilities of the Forum Romanum so we decided to try the Forum Boarium, the cattle market. There the relative lack of monuments, platforms, podia, and the like made it easier to explore, as the many small merchants had established a sort of tent city, like a legionary camp, with an almost orderly grid of streets. There were fewer fortune-tellers and more people selling merchandise: ribbons, children’s toys, figurines, small oil lamps, and other things of trifling value to be passed along as gifts.

Julia acted as if she were in the great marketplace of Alexandria, exclaiming over every new display of tawdry trash as if she had just discovered the golden fleece hanging in a tree in Colchis. I think it was Colchis.

“Julia, I never knew you had this streak of vulgarity,” I said. “I approve. It makes you seem … well, you seem more Roman.”

“You do have a way with compliments.” She picked up a little terra-cotta group: two ladies gossiping with pet dogs in their laps.

I selected a lively little Thracian gladiator, poised to strike and painted in lifelike colors. He held a tiny bronze sword and his helmet sported a crest of real feathers.

“I like this one,” I proclaimed.

“You would, being not only vulgar and Roman, but male. Carry these.” She handed me her purchases and quickly added a half-dozen others. I thought she had forgotten her mission to locate Ascylta, but Julia had a rare ability to divide her attention. While she was trying to decide between a scarlet scarf and a purple one, she spotted a garish tent covered with floral designs.

“Let’s try that one,” she said, walking away and leaving me trying to juggle all her junk. I bought the red scarf in order to wrap them all up. I caught up with her at the entrance to the tent. “You stay out here,” she said. “If it’s the woman we’re looking for, I want to speak with her alone for a while. I’ll call you when I need you.” She pushed the door covering aside and went in.

When Julia didn’t come out for several minutes, I decided that we had found our woman. I wasn’t used to dancing attendance in such a fashion and I fidgeted uncomfortably, wondering what to do. When I left Hermes this way, he usually sneaked off somewhere for a drink. I always upbraided him for this habit, but now it seemed like an excellent idea. I was looking around for a promising booth when Julia called to me to come inside.

The woman was neither old nor young. She wore a coarse woolen gown about the same shade of brown as her gray-shot hair. She sat amid the usual baskets of dried herbs and jars of unguents.

“Good day to you, sir,” she said with a thick Oscan accent.

“Decius, this is Ascylta,” Julia told me, although by that time I scarcely needed to be informed. “Ascylta is a wise woman. She is learned in the lore of vegetation and animals.”

“Ah, just the lady we have been looking for,” I said, unaware of how much Julia had told the woman.

“Yes, but you are not here for my herbs. You are the senator who is asking about Harmodia.”

“She guessed,” Julia said, smiling sheepishly. “But we’ve been having a nice talk.”

“You people don’t need to wear your fine clothes for us to know who you are,” Harmodia said. “The way you talk is enough. The highborn people send their slaves when they just want herbs for the household. They come personally only for poisons or abortions. No woman brings her man along when she wants to get rid of a child.”

“A wise woman indeed,” I said.

“You are not an official from the aedile’s office,” she said. “Why do you want to know about Harmodia?” To these market people the aediles were the totality of Roman officialdom.

“I think that she sold poison to someone, and I think that the buyer had her killed to silence her. I am looking into the death of a most important man, and I have been warned not to look into her death. My life has been threatened.”

She nodded gloomily. I studied her as closely as I could, trying to remember whether I had seen her out on the Campus Vaticanus. I tried to picture her without her clothes, her hair streaming wildly, dancing frantically to the music of pipe and drum. She did not look familiar, but there had been so many.

“It is Furia and the Marsi and the Etruscans who want you to stay away, is that not so?”

“It is,” I said. “Was Harmodia one of them? I know that she was from Marsian country, but was she a member of their … their cult?”

Her gaze sharpened. “You know about that, do you? Aye, she was one. Some say she was their leader, and now Furia has taken her place as high priestess.”

“Do you know whether Harmodia sold poisons?” I asked.

“They all do. The strigae, I mean, not honest saga like me. It isn’t such an uncommon trade. Usually, it is a wife who wants to rid herself of a husband who beats her or a son impatient for his inheritance. Sometimes it is just someone who is tired of life and wants a painless way to die. Everyone knows it is dangerous to sell to the highborn, to the people who talk like you two. That is what brings the aediles down upon us. But many are greedy. Harmodia was greedy.”

“How greedy?” Julia asked.

Ascylta seemed puzzled by the question. “Well, everyone knows that the highborn can afford to pay better than others. A seller will charge them ten, twenty, even a hundred times what they would demand from a peasant or a villager. To one who would inherit a great estate or be rid of a rich, old husband to marry a rich, young lover, the money is trifling.”

“I understand,” Julia said. “What I meant was, do you think Harmodia was greedy enough to be dissatisfied with even an exorbitant price for her wares? Might she have heard of the murder and demanded money for her continued silence?” Once again, my wisdom in bringing Julia along was vindicated. I had not thought of this.

“I cannot say, but I certainly would not put it past her. She was the one who dealt with the aediles, you know.” Her mouth twisted in sour distaste. “She was the one who passed along the fees to them. We were all assessed, and no small part of our monthly dues stuck to her fingers.”

“Shocking!” Julia muttered. In some ways she was remarkably naive.

“You have no idea whether the poison buyer was a man or a woman?” I asked her.

“I could not tell you who bought it nor when it was bought. But between the October Horse festival and the night she died, she was spending more freely than before. Her booth had new hangings and her clothes were all new. I heard she had bought a farm up near Fucinus.”

So far this wasn’t getting us anywhere. “Tell me this, Ascylta. Do you know of a poison that produces death in this way?” And I described the symptoms of Celer’s death as they had been described to me by Clodia. Following my recitation, Ascylta thought for a few minutes.

“There is a poison we call ‘the wife’s friend.’ It is a combination of herbs carefully blended, and it produces death as you describe, almost impossible to distinguish from a natural passing.”

“I would think it would be the most popular poison in the world,” I observed.

“It is not an easy one to make. It requires many ingredients and even I know only a few of them. Some of the ingredients are quite rare and costly. It is not easy to administer because it has a most unpleasant taste.”

“Does it work swiftly?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Very slowly. And it is cumulative. It must be given in small doses over a period of many months, in constantly increasing doses.”

“Why ‘the wife’s friend’?” I asked. “Why not ‘the heir’s friend’? I would think it was ideal for someone impatient to come into a legacy.”

She looked at me as if I were simple-minded. “Sons do most of the inheriting. How many men take food or drink daily from the hand of a son?”

“Would Harmodia have known how to mix this poison?” Julia asked.

“Oh, yes. It is a specialty of the Marsian striga …” she cut short, as if a sudden thought had struck her. “Now I think on it, twice last year a Greek-looking man came to my booth for some dried foxglove. It’s used in several medicines, but it’s also one of the ingredients of that poison. The reason I recall this man is that he came to my stall from Harmodia’s. Hers was beneath the next arch but one, and I usually sit outside mine so I saw where he came from.”

“And you think she might have been selling him that poison, but was out of foxglove those two times?” I asked.

She shrugged. “It could be. He just stuck in my mind because he didn’t look like our usual customers.”

“Why so you say that?” Julia asked her. “You’ve said he was Greek-looking. What was unusual about him?”

“Well, he was very tall and thin, and he wore very expensive clothes in the Greek fashion, three or four gold rings and expensive amulets. And in the front of his mouth, on the bottom, he had a couple of false teeth bound in with gold wire the way they only do in Egypt.”

We spoke a while longer, but the woman was able to remember nothing more of any use to us. We thanked her and gave her some money and got out of the cramped little tent.

“What do you think?” Julia asked. “Have we learned anything?”

“We now have a likely poison, if he was poisoned at all. As for the bad taste, Celer was in the habit of taking a cup of pulsum every morning. That stuff is so vile someone could mix bat dung in it and you’d never notice.”

“So suspicion still points at Clodia. What about the Greek-looking man?”

“Could be a coincidence. Harmodia may have sold that poison to a number of customers, and the foxglove was just one ingredient anyway. As Ascylta said, the ones buying poison usually come personally. Not many want to trust a job like that to a confederate. And if Harmodia was killed because she was extorting the buyer, well, that bothers me too.”

“Why?” We were wandering back toward the Forum with no particular aim in mind.

“Urgulus said the woman was nearly beheaded. It takes a strong man to do that with a knife. Somehow I feel that Clodia would have done something more discreet and tidy.”

“If she was covering her tracks, she’d deliberately want to direct attention away from herself, wouldn’t she? This city is full of thugs who would do such a thing for a handful of coins. If half the stories about her are true, she might have offered him payment in kind.”

There was something wrong with what she was saying, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Most likely, I was distracted by my craving for something to eat and some wine to wash it down with.

“You are letting your dislike of her color your judgment.”

“I think you are trying to find her innocent when that is the most unlikely conclusion possible. So what now?”

“I must talk to a few people: the ex-tribune Furius, with whom Celer had so many colorful rows last year; and Ariston, the family physician who attended him at the time of his death. But I don’t think I’ll be able to find them today.”

When we reached the Forum, a man approached me. He was a dignified individual whom I recognized vaguely as a prominent lawyer and one of my father’s clients. He gave me the usual formal salutation.

“Decius, your father instructs you to attend the slave banquet in his house this evening. You may bring your own staff. He says there are important matters to discuss. He couldn’t send a slave to fetch you today so I’m the errand boy.”

“And a splendid job you’ve done, my friend. I thank you. Io Saturnalia.”

He walked off and I grimaced. “His house! I was hoping to have mine at home. Then I could get the disagreeable business over with early.”

“It’s the oldest tradition of the holiday,” Julia chided. “The rest of it is meaningless without the banquet.”

“It’s all pretty meaningless, if you ask me,” I groused. “All this Golden Age posturing and fake leveling of classes. Who can take it seriously?”

“The gods, one presumes. Now quit whining. Your father probably has some important men to confer with you. This could be useful. I shall be attending at the banquet in the house of the pontifex maximus so I may be able to pick something up.”

She kissed me and bade me good-bye, and I stood pondering amid the monuments and the riotous crowd. This business had begun with great promise, and now I was awash in a sea of irrelevancies and meaningless complications, with a terrible feeling that I would probably never be able to find out what had happened. In such circumstances I did the only thing possible. I went to look for a drink. When all the other gods fail you, there is always Bacchus.