Saturnalia

by Lindsey Davis

  We clambered uphill on a short roadway to a large walled enclosure. Albia skipped on ahead, though Claudia was breathing hard so Helena and I slowed our pace for her. Inside the walls, the sanctuary was planted with gardens. Even in December this was a pleasant place to stroll among the topiary, quiet arbours and statues, and the fine lake view beyond. Around the fane were other facilities, including an empty theatre.

  ‘You look too virile,’ Helena told me. ‘We can’t take you. They will know I spend a lot of time fending you off and trying not to conceive.’ I raised an eyebrow silently reminding her that there had been no fending off last night. Helena blushed. ‘Jacinthus will be acceptable as our bodyguard.’ Jacinthus was tiresomely excited; he was hoping that a wild boar would thrust its snout from the undergrowth—not so he could turn it into escallops and terrine as he should do, but so he could fight it. ‘He can find you when we’re finished. Go and amuse yourself somewhere, Marcus, and we’ll meet later.’

  ‘How long will you be?’ ‘Not long.’

  ‘Any husband knows what that means.’ We could see that there were pilgrims in the sanctuary. I reckoned there would be a slow queue at the fertility shrine. The priests would keep everyone waiting, to unsettle them and make them suggestible—or as they would say, to allow the shrine’s calming influence to soothe them.

  ‘Oh don’t make a fuss. Go and play in the woods, Falco—and take care!’

  Woods did not frighten me.

  I walked about for several hours. I searched all the small shrines, temples and recreational facilities, a task which was as tedious as I expected, then I strolled down weedy paths among the trees. Scowling with cold and boredom, I listened to the rustles and sighs that nature devises to unnerve town-dwellers who find themselves out in the open. I remembered this from Germany. We had spent weeks trailing through miles of forest, growing more and more leery; I knew how it felt to be quite alone in the woods, even for a short time. Every crack of a twig makes your heart bump. I hate that smell of old animal trails and suspicious fungi. I dread that sense, every time you enter a clearing, that somebody or something rank has disappeared on one of those damp paths moments before you—and is still close by, watching with hostile eyes.

  I could understand how dark legends about Nemi had sprung up in Rome’s prehistory. This spot had been sacred for centuries. In times gone by, there was always supposed to be King of the Grove, a chief priest, who came here first as a runaway slave; he plucked a golden bough from a special tree, which would only yield to the true applicant. He would find and kill in single combat the previous King of the Grove. Then he could only wait anxiously for the next runaway to arrive through the spectral mists and kill him… Those bloodthirsty days had supposedly been ended when the Emperor Caligula casually decided that the current incumbent had been in post too long, so he sent a tougher man to depose him and make rex Nemorensis a civic position, presumably with the normal terms and conditions.

  Public service has its dark side. The pay is always meagre and the pension rights are rubbish. Do your job well, and some mediocrity always gets jealous, then you end up being shifted sideways, to make way for a half-baked management favourite who cannot remember the old days and who has no respect for the gods…

  Caligula liked Nemi. He used the place as a decadent retreat. He had two stupendous barges built to float on the lake, floating pleasure palaces. I had heard that those barges were larger and even more extravagantly decorated than the gilded state barges used by the Ptolemys on the River Nile; their fabulous on-board accommodation included a full suite of baths. They had every kind of top-flight nautical equipment too, some specially invented. In the polite version, these great ships were created so that crazy Caligula could partake in the rites of Isis. The better story says that they were intended for imperial orgies.

  I made my way to the shore, where I found a man who claimed he had once worked aboard the vessels. The old whelk now spent his days dreaming of past glory. He had the sense to dream out loud, in order to receive charity from visitors. Even more bored than I was, in return for half a sestercius in a rather fine bronze bucket he just happened to have handy, he was happy to talk. He admitted he had stolen the bucket from on board. He spoke of triple lead-sheathing on the hull and heavy marble cladding on cabins and the poop; lion headed bollards; revolutionary bilge pumps and folding anchor stocks. He swore there had been rotating statues, powered by fingertip bronze bearings on secret turntables. He told me how these great ceremonial barges had been deliberately scuttled, once Claudius became emperor. I had heard about plenty of bad behaviour under Claudius, but the elderly ruler had at least claimed to clean up society. During his early days of promise, he had ordered the symbols of his predecessor’s luxury and decadence to be destroyed. The Nemi barges were sunk. And then, like any King of the Grove knowing himself to be doomed, old Claudius settled down to wait for Nero’s ambitious mother to serve him with a fatal dish of mushrooms. The nutty old emperor is dead; long live the even nuttier young new one.

  The thought of the lost ships depressed me. I went back to walk in the woods. I wandered about despondently. Suddenly a man wielding an enormous weapon ran out from behind a nearby tree and rushed me. My assailant had a crude approach to fighting, but he was sturdy, fired up, and as he swung his big sword, I saw the panic in his eyes. I was in no doubt: his one idea was to kill me.

  XLVII

  I had brought my own sword, but could not immediately unsheathed it from its scabbard’s cosy nook under my armpit. At first I was too busy dodging. There were plenty of trees to jump behind, but most were too slender to provide real cover. My opponent sliced through the sapling stems with all the hatred of a gardener slashing giant thistles.

  Once I got my sword out, I was in a real predicament. I learned to fight in the army. We were taught to parry a stroke as violently as possible, jar the other man half senseless, then plunge in and kill him. I was happy to send this madman straight to the River Styx—but the investigator in me yearned to know first why the suicidal menace was attacking me. As we danced around and clashed blades, the effort seemed pointless. I was on the verge of ending it with one brutal stab through his ribs.

  He was desperate. Every time I lunged forwards, he managed to stop me. I stabbed again: he accepted it like a gladiator who knows he won’t leave the arena alive. Soon it was all defensive work; every time I attacked, he furiously protected himself If I slacked off, he should have gone for me with renewed vigour, but he seemed to have lost his initiative.

  In the end I took a chance. I let my sword dangle from my hand, point down. I held open my arms, baring my chest for a death blow. (Believe me, I was out of range and I kept a good grip on the sword.) ‘So kill me,’ I taunted him.

  The moment seemed ageless and endless. Then I heard him whimper.

  I whipped up my sword, jumped across the clearing, knocked him flat and fell on top of him. My sword point was pressing on his neck. I noticed it was slitting the complicated gold braid of a rather fine long white tunic—out of keeping with its wearer. He had a face like a milk pudding, with a dumpling where his nose should be and his body was degraded by rickets. His manner was an odd combination: bombastic authority mingled with sheer terror. The closest I had seen to this clown was a bankrupt financier when the bailiffs came—immediately before denial and self-justification set in.

  ‘I know who you are!’ the curious specimen gurgled.

  ‘I bet you bloody don’t… Who are you? Apart from a raving maniac?’

  ‘I am nameless,’ he wavered. This mission was full of spooks.

  ‘Well that was an oversight on your father’s part.’ I released him abruptly and stood up, taking his weapon. I sheathed my own sword immediately, and stood back.

  ‘Can I get up?’

  ‘No. Stay there on the ground. I’ve had enough of you jumping around like a Spanish flea and trying to do me in.’

  ‘I’ve been following you. I watched you searching—’

/>   ‘I wasn’t searching for you. Not unless you are a woman and extremely well disguised. Now listen to me. Whoever you think I am, my name—given to me by my mother, in fact, since my father was off buying a statue in Praeneste at the time—my name is Falco. Marcus Didius Falco, son of Marcus—a free Roman citizen.’

  He gasped. By then I thought he would.

  In a quieter tone I said encouragingly, ‘That’s right. Calm down; I am neither a slave nor a runaway. So I haven’t come for you. You are the King of the Grove, I presume?’

  ‘Yes I am.’ The Rex Nemorensis spoke proudly, even though he was lying on his back in his own grove, covered with leaf litter and squashed toadstools, while being insulted by me. ‘Now you know what it is all about, can I get up please?’

  ‘You can’t get up until you’ve answered my question.’ I kept my tone rough. I was tired of my quest and ready to be ruthless in ending it. ‘The woman I am looking for is a high-status German, who would have skulked here very recently. Good-looking number; sent on from Diana Aventinensis; seeking sanctuary. She may be ill. She has good reason to be desperate.’

  ‘Oh that one! Arrived two days ago,’ said the Rex Nemorensis, grateful that my demands could be met so easily. He did not care about Veleda. All he wanted was his own survival. ‘Claims she is a victim of international injustice, hounded by violent elements in her own country, kidnapped against her will, due for intolerable punishment, under a death threat—the usual foreign woes. You’ll soon find her moping around if you look.’

  ‘I was looking, when you jumped me,’ I reminded him.

  ‘I thought my time had come,’ pleaded the King of the Grove, his belligerent spirit now collapsed like a rotten gourd.

  ‘Not yet,’ I said kindly, gripping his arm and pulling him back on to his feet.

  ‘Oh you have no idea what it is like, Falco, hiding behind trees all day, just waiting for someone new to turn up and kill you.’

  ‘I thought they’d put a stop to all that.’

  ‘So they say—but can I believe them? I took sword lessons from an old gladiator before I came, but I’ve forgotten all the theory. Besides, I’m not getting any younger…’ I felt as if I was listening to some antiquated fisherman deploring how the younger generation had fished out all the mullet. ‘Dead men’s shoes,’ he muttered. No, he was like some ghastly public scribe, anticipating the day a spotty underling with a sharper stylus finally usurped his place.

  I brushed down his long priestly tunic, gave him back his sword, put him on a path with his face to the main road, and left him to his perpetual wait for death.

  I quite liked him, once I got to know him. Still, the man was doomed. Being in proximity to inevitable failure is bad news. It makes you start thinking too much about your own life.

  The Rex Nemorensis offered to assist me. I wanted to go on by myself, but when I set off, he came tagging along behind me like an inquisitive goat.

  I was heading down to the lake again. That was when I spotted her. A woman was standing motionless, right on the shoreline, wrapped in a long dark cloak with its hood up. She had her back to me. She was quite alone, either gazing into the water or simply staring out across it. She was the right height and I thought I recognised her bearing. From behind there was no way of interpreting her mood, but her stillness and her posture suggested deep melancholia.

  The King of the Grove could be useful after all. Looking back over my shoulder, I called quietly, ‘One question: since she came here, has anybody died a violent death?’

  He shook his head, almost sadly. ‘Nobody.’

  I pulled my own cloak across so it was hiding my sword again, then

  I walked cautiouslyout from the woods and crossed the low flat beach until I reached Veleda at the water’s edge.

  XLVIII

  She was older than I expected—much older than I remembered. That was a shock. Although the circumstances of our first encounter may have washed my memory of her with a golden haze of romance, being captured by Rutilius Gallicus had brought about one of those abrupt deteriorations that affect some people physically. She must have aged fast over a short period; endless forests notoriously lack discreet little cosmetics shops to remedy that kind of damage.

  She recognised me. ‘Didius Fako.’ Those blue eyes saw what I was thinking about her appearance. Mind-reading is one of the traits that mysterious priestesses always cultivate. ‘You seem unaltered by time!’ It did not sound like a compliment. Rats, I was used to that.

  ‘Don’t be fooled. I’m married with two children. I grew up.’ I wondered if she knew that something similar had happened to Justinus. Presumably when the fool wrote, he told her. Or maybe not…

  Away in the forest Veleda had looked every inch a rebel leader, the brilliant inspiration of ferocious warriors who under her guidance not only took on the Empire, but took on Rome and nearly won. My companions and I had seen her walk among her people with magnificent assurance. The wiles that entrapped Justinus had been based on her physical beauty, as well as her intelligence and power (Plus that talent all clever women use against men—showing an interest in him). She still was a striking woman. Tall, erect of bearing, riveting blue eyes, fair—though when her hood fell back as she turned towards me, the shining blonde had faded. If grey was not yet covering the golden braids, it would be rampant soon. None of her confidence seemed to have been sucked from her by the humiliation of capture, yet something had died—or was dying—within her. It was simple enough. The legendary Veleda was no longer a girl.

  She felt no change. I could see that. The blur of a bronze or silver mirror would not have shown her those fine lines around her eyes and mouth, or the way her skin had begun to lose its elasticity. It was likely the doctors who attended her at the Quadrumatus house, the men Helena had derided for instantly deciding that Veleda’s problems were ‘women’s hysteria’, had correctly diagnosed that she had hit the change of life—though looking at her, I could see signs of real illness too. But Veleda was still herself; she faced the future wanting life, influence, success. It meant she was still dangerous. I must remember that.

  ‘Veleda. I never thought that we would meet again. Sorry; that’s trite.’

  ‘You don’t improve, Falco.’ Now I remembered, she had never liked me. She had taken to Camillus Justinus at once because he was uncynical, innocent and—as far as he ever could be on a dangerous mission—honest. Very few Romans would be as open in a tight situation as he was. She had convinced herself the young hero was genuine—and he did very little to disappoint her.

  In contrast, she had realised I was trouble. I had been sent to the endless forest where she lived in an old Roman signal tower, guarded by a disgusting crew of hangers-on: male relatives, exploiting their relationship. I was sent specifically to manipulate her, coerce her, stop her fighting Rome. I might even have killed her. For all she knew, that had been my intention. I was not sure myself what I would have done, had the opportunity presented itselPS Whenever I worked as the Emperor’s agent, I was the hitman with no scruples, ordered off on dirty tasks abroad that the state would not acknowledge and could not openly condone. I unbunged the blockages in the diplomatic sewers. If elegant conversation had been enough to deter Veleda as our foe, Vespasian would never have sent me.

  Last time we met, I was her captive. Now there were just the two of us, standing on a deserted lakeside, me with a sword and her unarmed. Once again, she knew what I was thinking. ‘So, are you going to kill me, Falco?’

  ‘If this were Germania Libera…’ I sighed. Life was foul and fate was filthy. Here a swift end for Veleda was against the rules. I didn’t care about the rules, but somebody might be watching us. ‘I don’t expect you to believe me, lady, but my version of civilisation says it would be best to kill you cleanly, rather than have you paraded on a cart like a trophy and the life choked out of you by some filthy executioner. ‘

  Veleda made no answer. Instead, she turned away again, staring into the lake as if she glimpsed
shifting images of those sunken barges in its peaceful waters.

  I moved closer to her side. ‘You may have met an old man who told you, there are fantastic ships lying in the lake, ships created for an emperor. I shall never forget that you gave me the precious gift of a general’s ship once. You saved our lives. Your tribe must have hated you for it. So, Veleda, are you calling in favours?’

  Veleda turned and raked me with a cold glance. ‘If I wanted a return of my favour, I would have sent to you as soon as I arrived in Rome.’

  ‘Who did you send to for help then?’ I challenged her.

  She stood straight as a spear. ‘I sent to no one.’

  I smiled thinly. ‘No need, of course. There was a young man with a high sense of duty—and strong feelings for you that had never died.

  So he wrote to you.’

  ‘If you know that, Falco, then you know I never answered him.’ I could not decide whether we were making progress, or just swamping ourselves in pointless talk. Now we were both staring into the lake water.

  ‘I believe you, Veleda. We may be enemies, but in the past we dealt with one another fairly. I told you straight why I came to your domain, and you in turn honourably told me the fate of a man whose death I was investigating. When my companions and I left you, we went with your foreknowledge and approval. We had put our arguments for peace before you; you remained free to choose whether to continue hostile activity against Rome or to be swayed by us.’ I meant, swayed by Camillus Justinus, for he had been our spokesman. He was the only one Veleda would listen to.

  I dropped my voice. ‘So still in the same spirit, Veleda, tell me this: was it you who killed Sextus Gratianus Scaeva?’