The Legatus Mystery

Chapter Three

Usually, of course, the place is thronged with people. But not today. Today there was not a priest, not a temple slave, not a worshipper — not even a money-changer or a seller of sacrificial birds. Only the stone gods and silent colonnades. I am not a superstitious man — I have more respect for the ancient gods of wood and stone than for the carved deities of Rome — but standing under the verandaed entranceway, alone with Marcus in that silent place, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. A hundred basalt eyes seemed to be upon me.

Even Marcus seemed momentarily uncertain, and his slave (who had finished paying the litter-carriers and just now arrived) looked around the courtyard and shivered visibly.

‘Dear Mercury!’ he muttered, and when he thought Marcus wasn’t looking he shifted the towel and bath slippers he was carrying and fished in his tunic for a coin. I heard the splash as he dropped a propitiatory as into one of the great stone water bowls at the door. It must have represented his tip for the entire afternoon.

As if in answer to the gesture a priest suddenly appeared from the temple. Not a sevir, by his robes, but one of the junior Priests of Jupiter, resplendent in a white toga praetexta banded in purple and gold, with a narrow circlet of silver around his head. He moved out of the shadow of the columns and came busily down the steps towards us. ‘I regret. .’ he began, holding up his hands as if to ward us off, but Marcus cut off his explanations.

‘I am Marcus Aurelius Septimus.’

The young man turned an embarrassed shade of puce. At the name, probably. Aurelius has become the commonest surname in the Empire, but Marcus is widely rumoured to be related to the imperial family itself and (given that patrician toga) the young priest hardly knew how to conduct himself.

‘Most honoured Excellence, of course — in normal circumstances. . But I have been instructed, Mightiness, that no one is permitted in the temple court today, for religious reasons.’

Marcus regarded him frostily. ‘The Sevir Meritus is expecting me. Would you be good enough to let him know I’m here?’

‘Ah! Then you know about the. .’ the young priest hesitated, ‘the unpleasant incident?’

‘Indeed! And who are you, and what’s your function here?’

‘I’m the sub-Sacerdos Trinunculus,’ the young man said. ‘The newest neophyte. The senior priests are busy with the rites — there has been a desecration of the shrine, and there will have to be a day of ritual cleansing. I am afraid, Excellence, I shall have to ask you, too. .’ he gestured apologetically towards the great urn and basin by the door, ‘if you would bathe your hands and face? This is such a dreadful omen, Excellence.’

‘Not least for the imperial ambassador,’ Marcus said dryly, but he made the ritual cleansing as requested.

Trinunculus — the very word means ‘beginner’ so whether that was his name or his official rank I could not tell — seemed oblivious of any irony. ‘I will tell the sevir you are here. If you would be good enough to wait. .’ He bowed himself away and, without finishing the sentence, scuttled off across the courtyard in a most unpriestly fashion.

We waited, under the painted roof of the arcade, looking out over the great courtyard. It was eerily quiet, with its dancing shadows and bloodstained altars and the smoke of sacrifice still hanging in the air.

There is a smell about temples which is unmistakable: part perfumed oils, part charring meat, part fragrant herbs, part abattoir. And hanging over the whole place like a pall, stronger than burning feathers and the smell of blood, there is something else: a scent of human sweat, and greed and fear. It is a potent mixture. I do not know that I have ever experienced it more strongly than that afternoon, standing in slanting sunlight in the colonnade and — ironic after an hour in the baths — rinsing my face in the cold water from the urn. Perhaps it was my imagination, but the water seemed unnaturally cold.

We waited for what seemed a long time, but at last Trinunculus came hurrying back. He was more apologetic than ever. ‘The Sevir Meritus regrets, Excellence, but he cannot come to greet you in person for the moment. He is engaged in a sacrifice of purification. However, if you would care to follow me. .?’ He began to lead the way towards the inner shrine.

I hesitated. This was as far into the temple as I had ever been. I had come here, of course, on days of festival as every citizen is expected to do, to attend the major public rituals — but only to the outer courtyard. The place is very different on those occasions, with half the populace cramming the steps and entranceway to see the processions — pipes, priests, pigeons, sheep and bulls — and standing on tiptoe to see the spectacle that followed — prayers, incense, invocations and the final dramatic moment when the High Priest of Jupiter gives the signal, and the knife is plunged into the creature’s throat so that the hot blood pours out on the altar-front. I have roared with the rest as the heart of the beast is cut out and burned with herbs and incense on the sacred hearth and cheered as the remainder of the carcass is dragged away — sometimes to be roasted and ritually eaten by the priests, sometimes even distributed to us.

But all this always took place in the safety of the outer courtyard, with the people watching from the ambulatory: only the great and mighty dared to approach the altars or mount the steps beyond. And there were always crowds of people then. Today there was only silence, and the smell of death, and I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up at the thought of crossing the inner courtyard between those mighty shrines. Suppose this priest led us right up onto the podium and under the colonnade? That would take us to the real centre of the temple, its most sacred place, the cella of the divinity, which is not usually entered except by the most devout of worshippers. This was a Roman temple, not a Celtic one, and — on all but the rarest of occasions — for ordinary mortals the inner sanctum was a forbidden place. Only the priests and temple slaves could enter there.

Of course, I told myself, this was a rare occasion. And I was accompanying Marcus, who was a dignitary, with the religious honour due to rank. All the same, as the assembled gods scowled stonily down on me, I hesitated. The temple had already been desecrated. By trespassing into the inner shrine I was likely to desecrate it further. Marcus’s slave was obviously of the same opinion, and he hung back with me under the veranda.

‘Libertus?’ Marcus had stopped and was gazing back towards me. He sounded exasperated.

The possible irritation of the gods seemed suddenly preferable to the certainty of my patron’s wrath. I thrust my damp towel towards the slave and followed Marcus and Trinunculus. Somewhat to my relief, our guide did not lead us into the inner temple, but round the side of the complex towards the Imperial shrine.

Through the little grove of trees which fronted it, we could see it clearly now: elegant marble pillars forming an outer passageway around the tiny shrine. The outer walls were decorated with magnificent wall paintings in vibrant colours, depicting the Emperor in heroic guise. There was a mosaic, too (of intricate design but indifferent workmanship), forming a path in the space created by the pillars. The entrance was a heavy wooden door flanked by life-sized marble statues in niches, and edged by carved posts in richly gilded wood. Lead curse and blessing tablets were nailed to the posts — only a few petitions, compared to other temples I had seen, but even the Imperial gods, it seemed, are worth a try in an emergency. One supplicant, ‘Lucianus the wretched’, had left a whole cluster of petitions, and there was the glint of gold among the coin offerings in the water basin, perhaps offered as additional inducement for the gods’ attention.

The door of the sanctuary was closed, and in front of it a priest in mauve and reddish-purple robes was burning something on an outdoor altar while two — clearly lesser — priests stood by. Clouds of aromatic smoke arose, and there was the chanted rhythm of a prayer. The priest raised his hands and wafted the smoke towards the temple, then towards himself, and finally towards his attendants. Then he scattered something onto the altar from a silver flask, and all three prostrated themselves upon the ground. I could not help noticing, as they revealed their feet, that all three were wearing exquisite shoes of costly soft purple leather. Of course, I thought, all Augustales were wealthy men!

There was a short pause, and then the chief sevir rose, pushed back the part of his robe with which he had covered his head — as required for the ceremony — and came striding towards us. He walked slowly and impressively, and I had to resist a temptation to fling myself to my knees in his presence.

Tall, broad-shouldered, swarthy-skinned, with the bronze diadem of an Imperial priest pressed down upon a riot of dark curly hair — this could only be the sevir Meritus who had been described to us. He was, certainly, a commanding figure. There are tall men in Glevum, but this man was one of the tallest that I have ever seen. He might have been as much as six feet tall — perhaps even a little more — and he was commensurately broad. The hands which he was extending to us in welcome were the size of dinner bowls, and the muscles in the brawny arms were evident even under the heavy folds of the draped robe he wore.

His voice, too, made the columns ring.

‘In the name of the Immortal Commodus Britannicus, Emperor of these islands and of the provinces across the sea, I welcome you to this unhappy temple.’

Marcus’s voice seemed muted in comparison. ‘This is where the ambassador was killed?’

‘Where he was found,’ the sevir said, in a more normal tone. ‘As for killed, I cannot say. There was no weapon, no sign of any struggle, simply the body lying on the floor. I found him, myself, this morning when I went in to read the noontime auguries.’

I saw Marcus stiffen. There is an official auspex, of course, in any major town, to warn of evil omens and auspicious days — but reading auguries is a particular calling. Men are especially trained to it, and decisions on what should be done as a result are usually made in conjunction with a senior magistrate. No doubt this fellow was a skilled hirospex, entitled to read the entrails of sacrificed animals to judge the pleasure of the gods, but even so the idea of a Sevir Augustalis presuming to read other omens at the temple was something clearly not to Marcus’s taste.

‘And what did the omens tell you?’ Marcus said.

Meritus refused to be snubbed. ‘I could not read the signs with that ill portent there, Excellence. I covered the body with a cloth, and then came out at once and locked the door. I called for my assistant priests and we began the purification rites immediately. And I sent for you — it was not clear to me what we should do with the body.’

‘You are sure the man was dead?’

Meritus looked at him pityingly. ‘I am quite certain, Excellence. He was not breathing and he was quite, quite cold.’

‘And you are convinced it was an ambassador?’

The sevir frowned. ‘I believe so, Excellence. He had a sealed warrant at his belt, and an imperial ring on his finger. I did not touch the document, of course. I felt that — with respect, Excellence — that was your affair.’

I could understand his decision — tampering with an imperial seal is in itself a capital offence. ‘An imperial warrant?’ I enquired.

‘I am no expert, citizen, but it looked like one to me.’ He turned to Marcus. ‘I am sure, Excellence, that you would be a better judge of that than I am. The document is still hanging at his belt. Come and examine it for yourself.’

Marcus nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said with a sigh. ‘We had better see this body, I suppose. Libertus, come with me. You too, Meritus. I shall want a witness if I break the seal.’

The sevir selected a key from his belt and offered it to Marcus. Together we skirted the still-smoking altar and approached the door. One of the assistant priests scraped a little warm ash from the fire and spread it reverently on our foreheads as we passed.

Marcus fitted the key to the lock and the door swung open. The shrine was a tiny building, no more than a few feet square. There was a small silver statuette of Augustus in a niche, a life-size bronze statue of Commodus in an alcove at the back, and a small marble altar in the centre. Nothing else.

Of the body of a legatus there was no sign whatever.