The Legatus Mystery

Chapter Twenty-one

It was getting seriously dark by now. Dark clouds had blocked out whatever stars there were and the feeble light of the taper we were carrying only served to make our surroundings seem more mysterious. Also there was suddenly a damp chill in the air. I am a rational man — or try to be — but even to me the graven faces of the gods appeared to stir as our moving torch-flame flickered across them, and a hundred expressionless stone eyes seemed to be silently following our every move.

Beside me, Hirsus was panting with terror. I could see him fingering his amulet.

I could feel my own pulse racing. From somewhere beyond the temple there came a faint, persistent roar. Too far away to be distinct, but rising and falling like the sea, with sometimes a high shout, louder than the rest. The crowd. I have heard them like this at the arena, shouting ‘Kill the netman! Death to the trident-bearer!’ I did not need to hear what they were chorusing tonight. I knew.

Ours was not the only light in the precinct, however. In the distance we could dimly see the shadowy silhouettes of slaves, coming and going beside the outbuilding, with lamps or burning torches in their hands. Further off, half shrouded by the grove, we could see the dull red light of an altar fire. A group of dark figures could be seen, and behind them the columns of the Imperial temple gleamed menacingly in the glow.

Hirsus, who had not addressed a single word to me, gestured towards all this with his hand. He was clearly too petrified to speak. It must be my presence, I thought suddenly, rather than his surroundings, which terrified him so. He must after all have crossed this courtyard a hundred times, and the shadows of the temple were his second home. I knew from Scribonius that the duty priest sometimes kept watch all night. Yet he was genuinely terrified. He really feared that I was cursed.

I turned towards him, intending to say something reassuring, but he drew back with such a sharp gasp of alarm that I thought better of it, and simply allowed him to guide me to the shrine.

Meritus was there, with Scribonius, and a whole team of temple slaves with lighted brands. They were ranged around the outer altar once again, and from the mingled smell of burning feathers, blood and fur, it was clear that they were offering continuous sacrifice.

Meritus looked up at our approach — or rather, looked towards us. In this intermittent light he looked bigger and more powerful than ever, as if one of the stone statues had climbed down from its plinth. He did not hurry, but completed the sprinkling of oils that he was engaged in, so that the altar flame leapt up and the sharp smell of frankincense mingled with the other odours on the air. Only then did he pull back his hood and come slowly towards us, moving with that dignified calm which gave him such solemnity.

‘You have come back, citizen,’ he said. ‘I had feared, with the crowds. .’ He smiled, but even in the torchlight I could see the tension in his face. ‘I am glad to see you safe. You have heard of the latest dreadful discovery to afflict us here?’

I nodded. ‘I was in the pontifex’s house. Hirsus and my slave brought word. A bloodstained body, I believe.’

Scribonius had finished muttering at the shrine, and joined us in time to hear my words. ‘Blood-soaked would be a truer description!’ he said, with feeling. ‘I have slit a sheep’s neck for a sacrifice and seen less blood than that.’

‘Or a man flayed.’ Meritus nodded sombrely. ‘I’m afraid that’s true.’

‘It’s fresh blood, I understand?’ I said. ‘Marcus believes that this may be the legate’s messenger. If so this could be very serious for us all. And if he is still bleeding, the man may not be dead.’

‘Of course!’ the sevir said. He looked surprised. ‘Why did that not occur to me? I’m sorry, citizen, I ordered that the shrine be sealed. I suppose, after the last time, I assumed the worst.’ Another strained smile. ‘I shall have to send Hirsus for the key. I wanted to contain the evil, as it were, keep it away. . And, if I am honest, to make sure that the body could not disappear again — by mortal means, at least.’

It was my turn to look astonished. In the light of everything that had happened, why had that possibility not occurred to me? I looked at him weakly. ‘I think we’d better have Hirsus fetch that key.’

Meritus nodded. ‘Hirsus, see to it.’

For a moment I really thought the red-headed priest was going to protest, so unwilling did he look, but in the end he bowed his head and walked reluctantly away, accompanied by one of the servants with a torch.

The sevir turned to me. ‘I did not know whether to open up the shrine again and get the little statue out or not. It would be wanted for the ritual parade, but in the circumstances. .’ He sighed. ‘I hoped for instructions from the pontifex. You know that he ordered a procession here?’

‘I did. He wanted me to be a flagellant.’ For a moment, I had a foolish hope. Perhaps, now, the procession would be cancelled and I’d be spared. But as soon as I had formed the thought, I knew that it was doomed. With another body at the shrine, the pontifex would think my penance more desirable, not less. And as for the crowds, when they once heard of it. .! I listened to the rumbling murmurs in the street and shuddered. Was it my imagination, or were they louder now?

The sevir gave a thin smile. ‘Well, we shall see. Let’s hope that your famous reasoning is right, and that this unfortunate man is still alive. Though, I confess, I see no hope of it. Here is Hirsus coming now. I see he has the key.’

The sub-sevir was hurrying towards us, carrying the key on a metal tray. Even then he was handling it gingerly, holding it with the tips of his fingers and away from his body, as if it had been in the fire and was too hot to hold. He was clearly anxious to be rid of it, but Meritus did not take it from him. Instead he signalled for a lighted torch, then, holding the flame above his own towering head, led the way around the altar to the shrine.

We followed him, like a small procession in ourselves: Hirsus — still carrying the key — Scribonius, the other two torch-bearers and myself. The sevir made directly for the door, and the rest of us would have followed him, but Scribonius paused at the water bowl.

‘Forgive me, sevir,’ he said, in his pedantic voice, ‘but we must not neglect the rituals. Particularly now!’

A look of impatience crossed Meritus’s face, but he returned, and handed the torch back to a waiting slave. Hirsus, meanwhile, had plunged his hands into the water as if he could not wait to cleanse himself, but as he brought them out again he gave a wail.

‘Merciful Apollo! What have I done to deserve all this? Look! Look! Oh, Mercury!’ He had fallen to his knees and was sobbing wretchedly, his hands outstretched and real tears coursing down his face.

The rest of us looked at each other uneasily, and then Meritus gave a cry. ‘By Great Jupiter! He’s right! Look at the water there!’ He seized the torch again, and in its light we saw what he had seen. The liquid in the bowl looked merely dark and shadowed, but Hirsus had plunged his hands in it and cupped them to bring water to his face. Streaming between his fingers in the torchlight was a little slippery string of something darkish and congealed, and round it the water was faintly tinged with red.

There was blood in the ritual cleansing bowl again.

Hirsus had turned away, retching, and I thought that he was about to repeat my morning’s desecration of the grove. Meritus ignored him. He motioned for Scribonius to pick up the key which Hirsus had set down beside the water urn, and strode up to the door, still brandishing the torch.

‘Open it,’ he commanded, and we watched while Scribonius fumbled with the complicated lock. At last we heard the levers tumble, and Scribonius turned to look at us. His face in the torchlight was grim and set. ‘Sevir,’ he said desperately, ‘the rituals! We none of us are cleansed.’

‘Stand aside!’ Meritus’s voice was thunder. ‘Stand aside, I tell you. What have you to hide?’

Scribonius looked despairing, but looking at Meritus’s face he saw that it was hopeless to resist. He said helplessly, ‘On your authority, then. So be it, Sevir Meritus. But if there is catastrophe, don’t say I did not warn you. We defy the rituals at our peril.’

He looked back towards the water basin, as if he intended to wash his hands as a sign that he ritually cleansed himself from responsibility, in the way that priests and magistrates sometimes do. But — one could almost see the process in his face — the memory of what was in the bowl dissuaded him. In the end he simply fell back, and allowed Meritus and me to pass.

I admit that my heart was pounding and my throat was dry as the sevir pushed back first one door and then the other. In the interior, the embers of the altar-fire still glowed faintly, but the rest of the shrine was by now completely dark. He raised the torch, and I was almost reassured to see the faint glimmer of something pale and motionless, lying there huddled on the floor. Something covered in a cloth, a lifeless bundle at the altar’s foot. Not a disappearing corpse, this time, at least. I felt a surge of something like relief.

‘Let us have some more light, here!’ Meritus commanded. Despite his fierce attempt at self-control, this ordeal was having its effect on him. His face was a mask of tension and alarm.

But he still held authority, and — although there was a dreadful chill about the place — the two temple slaves came in at once, holding their torches so that we could see. One of the boys, I noticed, was quivering so much that he could hardly hold the flame steady.

He was right to be alarmed. The bloodstained bundle on the floor was sickening. As soon as I could see it clearly in the light, I realised that Hirsus had been right. There was no hope of life. The blood was almost dry by now, great rivers of it, which had run down in all directions from the head, so that only small portions of the pale cloak could still be seen — mockingly pale against that darkening stain. The folds of stuff had collapsed upon themselves, and it was hard to believe that something so meagre and reduced had ever been a man. There was the faint stench of death upon the air, foul and rotten-sweet.

I moved a little closer, like a viper fascinated by the charmer’s pipe. I could make out the outline of the man — there was the shape of the head, the arms, the knees, even a pair of bony feet barely concealed beneath the bloodstained cloak. But there was something unnatural in the angle of the back. . And that smell. .?

I glanced at Meritus. He was looking at me fixedly and I knew that the same thought had come to him. He nodded faintly and I bent forward, mastering my terror, and lifted back the dreadful blood-soaked cloth.

This time it was Scribonius who screamed. ‘Merciful Jupiter, have pity on us all!’

Hirsus, at the door, merely moaned and rocked himself. ‘It can’t be true,’ I heard him mutter stupidly. ‘It can’t, it can’t, it can’t! Whatever else, he cannot have come to this!’

Even Meritus gave a strangled cry. ‘Great Mercury!’ and I saw that there was sweat on his brow, while the little slave who had been trembling before simply dropped his torch and fled whimpering into the night, careless of the threat of fire or of the overseer’s lash.

I picked up the brand, almost without conscious thought, and lifted it aloft as if more light could somehow alter the truth of what I saw.

Under the bloodstained cloak there was nothing but a pile of bones, some of them with scraps of rotting flesh attached. Yet the shape of the once-living man was there — as if some supernatural power had come and stripped away blood and sinew where he lay.