Saturnalia

7

My clients showed up the next morning. Word had gotten out. Burrus, my old soldier, was there. So were several others I knew well, along with quite a few that I didn’t. Celer had died childless, and it seemed that his clients had been divided among the rest of the family. There were so many of us that none was burdened with too many of them, but it seemed to me that, as the most penurious of the lot, I should have inherited no more than two or three. Instead, I had eight of them, almost doubling my crowd. I suppose I should have been flattered. It meant that my family believed I had a political future, if they thought I would need so many.

After a lot of greeting and learning of names, I had a sudden thought and took Burrus aside.

“Burrus, it occurs to me that you’ve been over much of Italy on maneuvers and military operations. Have you ever heard this accent?” Here I spoke a few words in the fashion of my attackers. I had been particularly struck by the odd way they used p for c and placed strong emphasis on dipthongs. Burrus frowned at my amateurish recital, but he also showed recognition.

“If anyone talks that way, it’s the Marsi, up around Lake Fucinus. We did a lot of fighting in that area in the Social War. I was with Pompeius Strabo’s army in that one. It was my first war and bloodier than any I ever saw afterward. Strabo was a hard one. Why, in one day we executed so many prisoners that …”

“Yes, yes,” I interrupted, knowing he could go on all morning. “Strabo was a savage of the old school. But have you heard anyone talking like that lately?”

He shrugged. “Just about every day. The Sabellian lands aren’t far from here, and they bring their livestock and produce to the markets in Rome all the time. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I had a few words with some men who spoke that way recently and I was curious.” The market was probably where I had heard the dialect, among a score of others. Like most Romans I separated accents into “City” and “country” and seldom drew further distinction. The Sabellians were among the many ancient races of Italy, their most prominent people being the Marsi, with whom we had fought a terrible war thirty years before over the demands of the Marsi and other peoples to have their rights as Rome’s allies acknowledged. They were ruthlessly put down, and then, in an almost whimsical fashion, almost all of their demands were granted. Now they were full citizens and an invaluable well of manpower for our legions.

I needed to be able to move about freely that day so I dismissed my clients, reminding them that I would require them all to attend me for the upcoming rites at the Temple of Saturn. Then, with Hermes at my heels, I went out for my morning shave and a walk to the Forum.

The whole month of December is sacred to Saturn, so very little official business is transacted in that month. There are no Senate meetings unless there is an emergency; there are few trials or other judicial proceedings. The outgoing officials are wrapping up their affairs and preparing to be sued for their actions in office, and the incoming ones are preparing for a year of unrelenting toil. December is Rome’s breathing space. In the old days, it was a time of recovery from the sheer physical exhaustion of the harvest and the vintage. Now slaves do most of that work. At least they get a holiday on Saturnalia, although not for the whole month of December.

The Forum was filled with citizenry, many of them putting up decorations, the rest gawking at those doing the work. Everywhere there were sheaves of grain and quaint figures made of plaited corn stalks. Wreaths and garlands of vine leaves were draped from all of the Forum’s many points of attachment. Marquees, stalls, and booths were being set up, bright with dyed awnings and new paint. For the holiday, most restrictions on vending in the Forum were relaxed. Most of the booths would be hawking food, but many would sell masks, wreaths, and chaplets. Others sold the wax candles and the little earthenware figurines that were the traditional Saturnalia gifts.

“Hermes,” I said as we surveyed the preparations, “I plan to be in the archive for a while. I want you to wander among these vendors and keep your ears open. You remember how those two louts last night sounded?”

“I’m not likely to forget”

“Find out if there are many speakers of that Marsian dialect in town selling their wares. If you see those two, come running to get me.”

“The light wasn’t very good last night,” he said doubtfully. “I’m not sure I’d recognize them if I saw them. Peasants mostly look alike.”

“Do your best.” I went to the tabularium, trudging up the lower slope of the Capitoline, where the temples clustered thick on our most sacred ground. The state archive was housed in a huge, sprawling building graced with rows of imposing arches and columns and statues on the side overlooking the Forum. The rest of it was as undecorated, inside and out, as a warehouse.

And warehouse it was, after a fashion. In it reposed all the records of state that were not kept by ancient tradition in one of the temples. There were various religious explanations given why the treasury records were in the Temple of Saturn and the archive of the aediles was in the Temple of Ceres and so forth, but I think it was just so that we wouldn’t lose all our records in a single fire. The walls of the tabularium were lined with shelves and honeycombed with cubbyholes containing documents in every conceivable form: Scrolls predominated, but there were wooden tablets, parchments, even foreign treaties written on palm leaves. Those of a more grandiose frame of mind left tablets inscribed on sheets of lead, impressed on slabs of baked clay and carved in stone. Those wishing special magnificence for their documents had them carved on polished marble.

Much of this was an exercise in futility. Personally, I think the clay slabs will last the longest. Lead melts at a low temperature, and many people are unaware of how easily marble is damaged by fire. Not that much of the stuff cluttering the tabularium would be missed anyway, however it might perish.

On the second floor, on the airy side facing the Forum, was the Hall of Court Documents. Like the rest of the establishment, this division was presided over by state freedman and slaves. They were all experts in the sole task of storing and caring for the documents and memorizing where everything was. At the time the freedman in charge was one Ulpius, a man of dry and musty manner, no doubt absorbed from his surroundings.

“How may I help you, Senator?” he asked. His Latin had the faintest Spanish tinge, although he must have come to Rome as a child.

“My friend, I need information about one Harmodia.” I smiled at him benevolently. It is customary to be chummy with slaves and freedmen around Saturnalia.

He blinked, not buying it. “Harmodia? Is this a woman?”

“The form of the name makes this the logical conclusion,” I said. “I am looking for any court records concerning a woman named Harmodia.”

“I see. And you have no information concerning this woman save her name?”

“That is correct,” I told him happily.

“Hm. It might help to know if she is slave, freedwoman, or freeborn.”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.”

“Living or dead, perhaps?”

“Wouldn’t have the foggiest.”

“Have you considered consulting the Cumaean sibyl?” Still dusty dry, but with a definite edge of sarcasm.

“Listen,” I told him, “I am engaged upon an important investigation …”

“For which consul, praetor, tribune, iudex, investigative committee, or other authorized person or body? Or have you, perhaps, a special commission from the Senate?”

Trust a fussy bureaucrat like Ulpius to ask questions like that. I was so accustomed to talking my way around such embarrassing inquiries that I had to think for a moment before I remembered that I actually had official backing, of a sort.

“I am acting for the tribune Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica”-ah, that great, thumping name-“… and the tribune-elect Publius Clodius Pulcher.”

“I see,” Ulpius said, sighing, disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to turn me away with a few withering words. “But I have very little hope of assisting you if you have nothing but a name.”

“As I was about to say, one of my informants in this investigation mentioned a Harmodia who may have met with a lamentable fate. I think it must have been within recent weeks.”

“Anything else that might narrow the field, as it were?”

“She was probably from the countryside or the nearby villages, and I think she may have been an herb seller.”

“I suppose that helps,” he said, gloomily. “It would help further if we knew what district the woman is, or was, from. That would at least tell us whether a case involving her was brought before the praetor peregrinus or one of the others.” He turned and snapped his fingers. Immediately, six men sprang forward. He reeled off instructions, as if they were needed. Of course, all of them had been listening. They went to their shelves and began sifting the documents with amazing speed and efficiency. This called for prodigious feats of memory, because there was very little system in the way the documents were filed. Each slave or freedman and his apprentice simply had to keep a mental picture of everything in his area.

While they searched, I walked over to one of the arches and looked down over the bustle of the Forum while leaning against a bust of Herodotus. The old Greek didn’t seem to approve of Rome’s prosperity from the way he was scowling. He probably thought Athens should be running things. Well, it’s just what they deserved for being political and military idiots.

Despite Ulpius’s gloomy forecast, a young slave boy was back in a few minutes with a papyrus that looked almost new.

“This is the morning report brought before the praetor urbanus on the ninth day of November,” the boy said. “On that morning, a woman named Harmodia was found murdered on the Field of Mars, near the Circus Flaminius. Nearby stall keepers identified the woman as an herb seller from Marruvium.”

I felt that little surge that I get when a piece of the puzzle fits. Philosophers probably have a Greek term for it. Marruvium is the very heart of Marsian territory.

“Is there anything else?” I asked.

“I checked the morning reports and court records. No one has been apprehended as the murderer.” No surprise there. Criminal investigation in Rome was a haphazard affair at best and a peasant woman who wasn’t even from the city would have rated even less attention than most victims.

“If you need to learn anything more about the woman,” Ulpius said with deep satisfaction, “then you will have to consult the archives of the aediles.”

“And so I shall,” I told him. “I thank you all.” I made certain to memorize the face of the boy who had found the report so quickly. Next time I needed to find something in the tabularium I would know who to ask.

I found Hermes prowling the Forum and told him to come with me.

“Any Marsi?” I asked him.

“Quite a few, although I didn’t spot anyone who looked like those two from last night. They’re mostly selling herbs and medicines. I asked around. Everyone says the Marsi are famous for it.”

“Somehow, I’m not surprised. Hermes, we aristocrats are losing contact with our Italian roots. We’ve been employing Greek physicians for so long that we forgot what every other Italian knows: that the Marsi are famed herbalists.”

“If you say so.”

While we spoke, we walked at a fast pace toward the Circus Maximus. “And I’ll wager,” I went on, “that they are poisoners and abortionists of note, as well as witches and general practitioners of magic, for those things always seem to go together.”

“Makes sense to me,” Hermes mumbled.

The Temple of Ceres is a structure of great beauty and dignity, and its basement holds the cramped offices of the aediles. Inside I learned, without surprise, that there were no aediles present. Like everyone else who could, they were taking an early holiday. Not so the freedman who had charge of keeping an eye on the records and the slave boy who swept out the offices.

The archive of the aediles was nowhere near as voluminous as the great tabularia but it was extensive enough. Luckily, I now knew exactly what date I wanted, and the old man shuffled off to fetch what I demanded. A few minutes later, he shuffled back.

“Sorry, Senator. There’s nothing about this dead woman.”

“What?” I said, astounded. “There must be! This happened in the market area on the Campus Martius, and it involved a stall keeper who must have paid her … fees, I suppose, to the aediles. How could there not be a report?”

“I couldn’t say. The aediles are only in charge of markets and streets and so forth; they don’t handle criminal investigations.”

I left very dissatisfied. Granted that it is always difficult to find anything in the state archives, something this recent should be available. We were almost to the plaza surrounding the circus when the slave boy from the temple ran up to us.

“What do you want, you little mouse?” Hermes said, with the usual contempt of a personal slave for one owned by the state.

“I have something that may be of use to the senator,” the boy said.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Well, they don’t give me much back there,” he said insinuatingly.

“You’re a slave,” I informed him. “They don’t have to give you anything.”

“I’m owned by the state, so they have to feed me and give me a place to live. On the other hand, I don’t have to tell you anything if I don’t feel like it.”

Hermes was about to punch the boy, but I grabbed his shoulder.

“What makes you think you have something worth paying for?”

“You want to know about that report, don’t you? The one about the woman Harmodia?”

I took out a copper and tossed it to him. He tossed it back. “You’ll have to do better than that.” This time Hermes did punch him. He merely got up off the pavement and held his hand out. I dropped a silver denarius in it.

“The woman Harmodia was found by the Circus Flaminius, murdered,” he said.

“I already know that, you little twit,” I said. “What else?”

“The aedile Caius Licinius Murena was in the offices that morning and he went out to the Field of Mars to look into it. He came back a couple of hours later and dictated a report to his secretary and gave it to me to file. A couple of days later, a slave from the court of the praetor urbanus came and said the aedile needed the report for his presentation to the praetor. I was the only one in the offices that hour and I fetched it. It never came back.”

“Who came to report the killing?” I asked him.

“A watchman. I think he was one employed at the Circus Flaminius.” The primitive organization of vigiles we had in those days did not extend beyond the old City walls. They weren’t very efficient within the walls, for that matter.

“Do you know the name of the man who came to get the report?”

The boy shrugged. “He was just a court slave.” Court slaves, obviously, were inferior to temple slaves.

“Anything else?”

“I told you what happened to the report, didn’t I?”

“Away with you, then,” Hermes said, jealous of the boy’s financial success. “That wasn’t worth a denarius,” he said when the temple slave was gone.

“You never know,” I told him. “Let’s go pay a visit to the Circus Flaminius.”

As we walked I thought about the aedile, Caius Licinius Murena. The name was vaguely familiar to me. Gradually, I straightened it out. During the Catilinarian fiasco he had been a legate in Transalpine Gaul and had arrested some of Catiline’s envoys who had been stirring up the tribes. His brother, Lucius, had been proconsul there but had returned to Rome early for the elections, leaving Caius in charge. Lucius had been elected consul for the next year along with Junius Silanus, Afterward he had been prosecuted for using bribery to get elected, but Cicero had gotten him acquitted. And that was as much as I knew about the aedile Murena.

We retraced my steps of the day before, across the cattle market, which was more crowded than ever, what with people buying supplies for the feasting to come and animals for sacrifice. The whole city, in fact, was filling up as people poured in from the countryside to celebrate the holiday.

The Campus Martius, in sharp contrast, was nearly deserted. I saw immediately that the previous day’s horde of tents, booths, stalls, and so forth had temporarily moved into the City proper, taking advantage of the relaxed market laws. I felt obscurely relieved, not having to pass by Furia’s booth.

A bit of asking and poking around turned up the watchman, one of several employed by the circus to keep thieves away from the expensive decorations and prevent indigents from kindling fires beneath the arches on cold nights and perhaps burning the place down. He lived in a tenement near the circus. In common with most of Rome’s insulae, his was a five-story building, its ground floor mostly let out for shops and its lower living quarters rented to the better-off classes. The upper floors, divided into small, waterless, and nearly airless rooms, were rented to the poor. The object of my search lived on the top floor, beneath the eaves.

Hermes and I toiled our way up four flights of stairs amid the noises of squalling infants and arguing children and adults. The smells of poverty were not pleasant, but I was so familiar with them that I didn’t bother to wrinkle my nose. Most of my neighbors lived no better. When I found the door, Hermes pounded on it, hard. For a long time we heard nothing.

“Maybe he’s not in,” Hermes said.

“He’s in. He’s a watchman. He sleeps days.”

After repeated knocking we heard shuffling and scraping noises from inside. In time, the door opened fractionally and I got a vague impression of a bleary-eyed, unshaven face.

“What is it?” Then he recognized my senatorial insignia and the door swung wide. “Oh. Pardon me, Senator. How may I help you?” He seemed to be equal parts bewilderment and trepidation, unable to fathom what this strange visitation could portend. Also, he was still half-asleep.

“I am Senator Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, and I am engaged upon an investigation. Are you Marcus Urgulus?”

“I am.” He nodded vigorously. He was a middle-aged man, once robust but running to fat, with more lines in his face than teeth in his mouth.

“Did you, on the ninth day of last month, discover the body of a murdered herb woman named Harmodia?”

“Yes, yes, I did.” He looked uncomfortable and embarrassed. “Ah, Senator, I hesitate to invite you into my crib. One reason I took the job of watchman was so I wouldn’t have to spend my nights here.”

I, too, had little eagerness to enter.

“Is there a tavern nearby? If so, I’ll stand you to a cup or two while I hear your report.”

“Just a moment, sir.” He went back in and I could hear water splashing into a basin. A minute later he reappeared. His eyes were clearer and his hair had been smoothed to a semblance of order. “There’s a little dive at the corner of the insula next door,” he said, leading the way.

We descended and walked out of the tenement with a sense of relief. A walk to the corner and across a tiny street brought us to a low doorway, above which was carved a relief of a charioteer driving a quadriga, the four horses depicted in full gallop and painted in garish colors. The area around the Flaminius had for many years been the only developed part of the Campus Martius, and the building was an old one.

“This is the Charioteer,” Urgulus said. “It’s where most of the men who work at the Flaminius hang out.”

We ducked beneath the lintel and went inside. The shutters were propped open, lightening the gloom of the smoky interior. The smoke came from a number of charcoal braziers that warmed pots of spiced wine and pans of sausage. The smell hit my nostrils, and my stomach reminded me that I was neglecting it. I handed some coins to Hermes.

“Fetch us a pitcher of wine and something to eat,” I told him, making a mental note to count the change when he came back.

“There’s a good table back here where we can talk,” Urgulus said, walking back to the murkiest corner, where a square table was placed beneath a sign warning against loud arguing and disorderly dicing. We walked past the tavern’s half-dozen or so other patrons. If they were impressed by the presence of a senator in their midst, they didn’t show it. Circus people are a notably tough and aloof breed.

We took our seats and a minute later Hermes arrived with a pitcher, a platter of bread and sausage, and three cups. He was taking liberties, but I did not bother to upbraid him for his presumption. It was almost Saturnalia, after all. The wine was not bad at all, only lightly watered, with steam rising from it and flecks of spices floating on its surface. I tasted clove and fennel as I drank, and the hot drink warmed my insides agreeably.

“Now,” I said, “tell me about your discovery.”

“It was just getting light,” Urgulus began, “and I went to the circus watchmen’s office to turn in my club and my keys. I’m in charge of the passageways and the gates on the second level, south side.” He rolled the cup between his hands and gazed as if into a great, far distance. “I left the circus and walked out from beneath the arches, and I hadn’t gone three steps before I tripped over the woman’s body.” He gave me a strained, sheepish grin. “I was already half asleep, and this side of the circus,” he nodded toward the hulking structure visible through the open door, “was still in deep shadow. I landed right in a big puddle of blood.”

“Did you recognize her?” I asked.

“Not just then. It was still too dark. I tell you, sir, I almost went home and didn’t report it. There I was with blood all over me, and I thought people might think I’d killed her. But I got over my first scare and realized the blood and the body were both plumb cold and the woman had gone stiff. She must have been lying there all night.

“So I went to the fountain and washed the worst of it off, and when I went back it was light enough to see that it was Harmodia.”

“You knew her?”

“Oh, yes. She’d had her stall beneath arch number nineteen for years. Can’t say I knew her well. I try to avoid those countrywomen unless I need some doctoring, like when I get the toothache or belly cramps.”

“Describe her,” I said. The man’s cup was empty and Hermes refilled it.

“She wasn’t really a big woman but built sort of stocky. About thirty years old, not bad-looking. She had brown hair and blue eyes and all her teeth. She talked with a Sabellian accent, you know … Marsian. A lot of the herb women are from there, or Tuscia.”

“How was she killed?”

“Throat cut,” he said, drawing his stiffened fingers across his neck in the universal gesture. “And cut good, right down to the spine. That’s why all the blood.”

“Any other wounds?”

“Not that I could see. Of course, her dress was soaked with blood and for all I know she was stabbed as well. When the other countrywomen came in to set up their stalls, they took charge of the body and I went to the aedile’s office to report what I’d found. The aedile Murena came back with me and talked to the people who knew her for a while, then he left. That’s all I know, Senator.”

“Who claimed the body?” I asked him.

“Some of the market women said they’d take her back to her home. I think it was up around Lake Fucinus somewhere.”

“Did no one come forward who had witnessed the murder?”

He gave a cynical laugh. “Do they ever?”

“Seldom. Have there been any rumors?”

“Not that I’ve heard, and I guess that says something in itself.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, there are always rumors, aren’t there? If no one’s talking, it probably means somebody important is involved.”

“And the other herb women have said nothing?”

“Like I said, Senator, I don’t have more to do with them than I have to.” He looked as if his wiser nature was telling him to shut up, but the hot wine was warring with his wiser nature and in such a contest, wine always wins.

“Why is that?”

“Well,” he looked around, as if someone were trying to eavesdrop. The men at the other tables were rattling dice and knocking back wine, paying us no attention. “Well”-he went on-“they’re all witches, you know. They can put the evil eye on you, cast spells, all sorts of things.”

“But most are just harmless saga, surely?” I prodded.

“Not all of them,” he said, leaning forward, speaking low and earnestly. “Some are striga, and there’s no way of telling which are which until you get on the wrong side of them!” He sat back. “And people say they’re especially powerful right about this time, too.”

“Why should that be?”

He looked surprised. “Tonight’s one of their most important festivals, isn’t it? The eve of Saturnalia is when they dance and sacrifice and perform their rites, out on the Vatican field.”

This was the first I had heard of such a thing. “Why the Vatican?”

“There’s a plot of sacred ground out there,” he said. “It’s said to have a mundus and the witches can call up the dead through it or contact the gods of the underworld. Mark me, sir, at midnight tonight you won’t find a striga in the city. They’ll all be out there.”

“You’ve been very helpful, Marcus Urgulus,” I said, handing him a few denarii. “Here. Have a fine holiday.”

He thanked me and hurried off, leaving me to sit and ponder. Rome contains worlds within worlds. This world of the witches was a new one to me. It was a part of the world of the peasants and the small country towns, as the politics of the Senate and the rites of the great temples were parts of my own world. Witches and spells and poisons; the thought made my cut palm throb.

“Why all this talk of witches and their rites?” Hermes asked, the hot wine working on him as well. He looked uncomfortable with the subject.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I thought this would be a straightforward murder investigation, just a simple poisoning for sound personal or political reasons. Now we’re off into the realms of the occult and the supernatural.”

Like most educated people I was sharply sceptical of all superstitions and persons claiming supernatural powers. On the other hand, I knew better than to take chances. And the woman Furia had unnerved me. I couldn’t help but wonder: Just what did they do out there on the Vatican field?

I just knew that my curiosity was leading me into something incredibly foolish.