Saturnalia mdf-18

by Lindsey Davis

  On the steps and in front of the temple, the banquet had been set out. Saturn's image, a large hollow statue, was made from ivory, so to keep it from cracking it was kept full of oil. The statue had been brought out from the interior. The ancient deity had his head veiled and was holding a hooked sickle. His feet were normally bound together with wool (no idea why; perhaps the sacred one is prone to absconding to seedy bars). The wool had been ceremonially unbound for this occasion. Oil had leaked out around the couch when he was put in position. The public slaves who moved him every year were efficient and reverent, but just you try shifting an outsize statue filled with viscous liquid. The weight was appalling, and as the oily ballast started slopping to and fro, the deity wobbled dangerously. The priests always got in the way trying to supervise, so the slaves grew ratty and lost concentration, with inevitable leakage. They would fill him up again, but not until they took him back indoors.

  Helena and I, and her parents, were privileged, in theory. The whole city was supposed to attend tonight, but fitting them in would be ridiculous so hungry crowds were clustered in the darkness all around the periphery. Vespasian was a parsimonious emperor who loathed his obligation to supply endless public banquets. This feast was a lectisternium, a banquet offered to the god in thanks for the new harvest; Saturn's oversized, hoarily bearded, goggle-eyed image presided on a giant couch, before which were placed tables laden with rich fare. Traditionally, the fare was rich enough-and had been hanging around in kitchens long enough-to cause severe stomach upsets in the human diners who would eventually devour it (paupers, who were already queuing hopefully at the back of the temple). There were other tables, less opulently covered, where mediocre lukewarm foodstuffs in meagre quantities were available to us lucky invitees.

  We had been told to come in informal Saturnalia dress. That still meant looking smart because the Emperor, Titus and Domitian would be present. They would patrol among us, pretending to be part of one giant family. So we had to concoct a reversed-rank version of formality, dressing up as we pretended to dress down. Most of the women had just borrowed their slaves' frocks then piled on as much jewellery as they could. The men looked uncomfortable because their wives had chosen their dinner robes and, according to recognised domestic rules, had chosen dinner robes their husbands hated. I had been put in blue. On men, blue is for floor designers and second-rate shellfish suppliers. Helena, who often wore blue and looked gorgeous, tonight was in unaccustomed brown, with rows of crimped hair that must have taken all afternoon to set. Unless it was a wig; I did wonder. She looked like a stranger. The ridged hair had added five years to her and seemed to belong to some impoverished orator's parchment skinned spinster sister.

  'That's certainly a disguise.'

  'Don't you like it?'

  'I'll like you better when you take it off,' I affirmed salaciously. If you are going to abandon a mission for an evening, you may as well get into the festive spirit and while you are at it, try to seduce a girl. Helena reddened, so I reckoned I was in there.

  Camillus Verus was wearing his normal white, complete with full senatorial purple stripes. 'Olympus, I'm overdressed for this fiasco, Falco!' Nobody had reminded him that he had to play the part of a slave tonight, and somehow he had omitted to consult on his outfit with his wife. Julia Justa must have been preoccupied; she was having problems remaining decent. She had decided that playing lowborn and low budget must mean wearing low-cut. Inexperienced at flaunting, she kept fiddling with the skimpy drape across her bosom. Her husband tried to stare in other directions, pretending not to notice her difficulties. He was terrified she would ask him to assist with pinning things.

  'And who have you come as, Marcus dear?' chirped Julia, bright with embarrassment. Her discomfiture inevitably drew the eyes directly to its cause.

  I must have been wearing the horrified rictus of any man in danger of glimpsing his mother-in-law's nipples. 'I think I'm a back-alley debt-collector. '

  'Isn't that rather similar to what you do normally?'

  'I don't work in a damned skyblue tunic!'

  'Indigo,' murmured Helena.

  'I feel like a periwinkle.'

  'Be good. It will soon be over.' Helena was fooling. It took us almost an hour merely to obtain seats. You needed to be fit. If there had ever been a table plan, nobody could find it. We squeezed in only by shoving harder than the people who were trying to climb on to benches ahead of us. 'As soon as the first course is over, everyone can get out their cloaks. Then it won't matter what you look like.' We did all have cloaks. We needed them too, dining under the stars on a gusty night in the middle of December. To do Saturnalia properly means celebrating the new crops in the wide outdoors. Helena and I were both longing for a warm brazier indoors and two comfortable armed chairs, each with a good scroll to read.

  Near the temple steps, adjacent to Saturn's awesome spread, was a table for the imperial family and their courtiers. King for the Day was a public slave, but he had been carefully chosen-an elderly palace scribe who could be trusted to behave sedately. His mischief-making was forced: he kept eyeing the chamberlains to make sure he had not gone too far.

  'He's a bummer. I think I ought to help him out-' That was not me, but the senator.

  'You stay where you are!' commanded his wife.

  Once I had thought this couple staid, but the more I knew them the more I could see where their three children had acquired eccentricity and humour. There was the senator, winking wickedly at Helena as if she was still a giggly four-year-old. Here was Julia Justa, that rigid pillar of the cult of the Good Goddess, showing more cleavage than a cheap whore in a travellers' inn; what's more, just like Ma, she distrusted food at public banquets and had lugged a hamper here. The only difference was that Julia's home fare had been cooked and packed by a battalion of slaves.

  It caused a problem for me. Men of action eat or work. It is bad practice to attempt both simultaneously before a busy night. My physical trainer would have been horrified to see Julia Justa's tempting nibbles and nuggets find their way into the cheap food bowl we had all been provided with.

  Vespasian, our untroubled old ruler, tossed away his wreath happily when he progressed to his place at table. He looked jovial, but I noticed he managed to avoid any real indignities. His staff played the festive game by bowling the occasional apple at one another, making quite sure none hit the Father of his People. I recognised Claudius Laeta, plus a couple of other palace retainers I knew, and a man in a discreet moleskin-coloured tunic, who had his back to me but who could only be Anacrites. A small group of Praetorian Guards, bareheaded to suggest informality, were lounging at the back of Saturn on the temple steps; they may have shed their glittering crested helmets, but they were on duty to protect the Emperor.

  Titus and Domitian, Vespasian's chubby sons, made themselves amiable by moving around the tables and sitting with ordinary folk. They both wore plain tunics, but in purple, so it was obvious they were princes being gracious. I saw Titus laughing and joking diligently, some distance from us. Domitian was working our sector of the crowd, but came no nearer than the end of our table, still out of earshot. He and I loathed each other, but I was confident he would never start anything with his father or elder brother watching.

  As the noise of participants rose until it almost drowned the music of a few polite tambourinists and flautists, I busied myself attempting to acquire some of the thimble-sized cups of wine. The senator was talking to a neighbouring diner, so he could ignore the fact that his wife kept diving under the table to extract dainties from her hamper for us all. Every time she bobbed up again with new treats hidden in her dinner napkin, her dress had slipped even lower. I rather suspected the noble Julia had been plied with tots of false courage while her wardrobe mistress and makeup girl were decking her out for this occasion. Maybe the old republicans were right and it was shameful for women to drink. Meanwhile Helena Justina, that model of moral rectitude, grabbed a tot, knocked it back, pulled a face, and snaffled
another one.

  A sewer rat ran across the table. He thought the Forum belonged to him at night. I was the only one who noticed. Everyone else was screaming with laughter at the antics of a group of professional entertainers who were dressed as circus animals. I had never seen so many fake woollen manes or such thickly plastered artificial hide. They were rather warty. Some were going to lose a lot of skin when they tried removing their rhinoceros masks tomorrow. One frolicking jester tried investigating Julia Justa's cleavage; he got his horn stuck on her pearl necklace, without doubt purposely. 'Aah… Decimus, help me!'

  Now I was happy. It was worth coming, to have seen my father-in-law removing a clown from his wife's naked bosom by applying the fulcrum principle to the fellow's rhino horn. The appendage had been well glued on. The man's screams must have sounded right up on the Arx.

  It was Helena, standing up so she could more easily reorganise her mother's disarray, who spotted another flurry of excitement. 'Marcus! Someone you know has had an accident…'

  I followed her gesture. Behind the statue of Saturn a man had fallen over awkwardly on the spilled oil. It was Anacrites. Like me, he must be waiting his moment to slip away from the banquet unobtrusively; I thought I could see slaves with a litter waiting in the narrow side street by the temple. He must have tried to disengage from the courtiers' table and sneak around behind the statue, but when his foot skidded under him, he crashed against the image of Saturn and nearly pushed the god right over into his golden bowls of ambrosia. Fortunately the statue was held in position by hidden wooden bracing. As Anacrites stumbled back on to his feet, concerned slaves rushed to help him-which was what had attracted Helena's notice. They were anxiously checking that Saturn was still safe, under cover of testing if the Spy had a twisted ankle. I wished it was his neck he had twisted.

  Another movement caught my eye. A helmet flashed, among the Praetorians assembled on the temple step. Oh no.

  The Chief Spy had been visiting Ma just before me yesterday. She must have told him what she told me. Now Anacrites and some of the Guards were on the move, and I could guess where they were all going. They too were heading to the Temple of Diana Aventinensis-and they would probably arrive ahead of me.

  XL

  The senator had half risen from his seat. He liked heroics. Helena Justina pushed him back. 'Marcus, take me!' 'No.' I did not want to tell her that it might be dangerous. 'Stop shutting me out, Marcus.' She would never change. She had tamed a reprobate, settled down, borne two children, run a household-but Helena Justina would never become a respectable matron, satisfied with domesticity. We first met during an adventure. Action formed part of our relationship. Always did, always would do.

  She and I shared a tussle of wills, which I enjoyed more than I should have done. As I looked into those determined dark eyes, she nobbled me as she always did, and I felt a smile twitch. I wanted her to be safe-yet I wanted her to come. Helena spotted my weakness. At once she whipped off the costume wig. Her own fine hair had been pinned up under it, but escaped in a whoosh. She wore little jewellery; with the plain brown dress under a plainer cloak, she would be anonymous on the streets. That was obviously planned.

  She bent down, mouthing in her mother's ear, 'We are just going to look for-'

  'Oh pee on a column, Marcus! Be like everybody else.'

  Bright-eyed, Helena exploded into giggles. I grinned at the senator over Julia Justa's head, as she burrowed in her hamper again, oblivious. Camillus Verus, trapped there at the banquet, shot us an envious look. Then I clutched Helena by the hand and we left.

  We ran into Titus Caesar. Youthful, splendid in the purple, famously magnanimous, the heir to the Empire greeted us like favourite cousins. 'Not leaving already, Falco?'

  'Following a lead on that case, sir.'

  Titus raised his eyebrows and gestured towards Anacrites. 'I thought it was in hand.'

  'Joint operation, sir!' I lied. His eyes lingered on Helena Justina, clearly wondering why she was coming with me. 'I always take a girl to hold the cloaks.'

  'Chaperon duty!' Helena snorted, as she let Titus see her elbow me hard, correcting my cheeky suggestion. With a jaunty grin for the heir to the Empire, I dragged her away.

  Anacrites had been held up. The slaves who guarded the statue were not willing to let him leave the scene until they had checked Saturn over for damage. They milled around the Spy; he was stalled, desperately trying to shake off the unwanted attention without drawing down any more on himselPS The man was completely incompetent. He would be lucky to escape from his ill-timed trip on the spilled oil without a charge of insulting the god. I did not stay to watch.

  We were on foot. In light leather party shoes with sloppy straps and flimsy soles, every uneven pavement tortured our feet. Still, we had no need to mill about making decisions. Our only problem was pushing through the crowds. First the banqueters, who were merrier than they should have been, given how hard it was to find any of the free wine. Then the unfed onlookers, who saw no reason to let people who had an invitation dodge their duties. '10 Saturnalia!' And 10 to you, you gawking menace… We were elbowed and shoved-all in a cheerful spirit, of course-and only escaped after we were bruised and swearing.

  I reckoned Anacrites would be heading up the Clivus Capitolinus, so we ducked the other way. I took us through the Arch of Tiberius and the Arch of Janus to the back of the temple, then turned along the dark rear portico of the Basilica. On the Palatine side it was deserted, apart from a few ever-hopeful women of easy virtue, but none tried to approach us. At the far end we took a straight run to the right up the Vicus Tuscus, a swerve as we headed for the Circus Maximus, a rush across the Street of the Twelve Gates. To climb the Aventine, I picked the first steep lane. Temple of Flora, then Temple of the Moon. A veer to the left, a shuffle to the right, and we came out by the Temple of Minerva where I had told Clemens to establish his watch-point. Flanked by enormous double porticoes, the Temple of Diana sprawled at an angle, right next door, just beyond our arrival point.

  Everywhere should have been silent and in darkness, but the piazza in front of the temples was ablaze with lamps, music and excited voices.

  We had picked a bad night. The neighbourhood was choked with a crowd of manumitted slaves, who claimed the goddess Diana as a patron. Their main celebration is supposed to be the slaves' holiday on the Ides of August, the day when the temple was inaugurated centuries before; at Saturnalia, freedmen pull their cap of liberty back on if they are tired of being sober citizens and want another chance to indulge in riotous behaviour. The singing, dancing crowd was intermingled with others whose shyness suggested they were fugitives. If these furtive souls had been hiding up at the temple, they had now ventured outside to party in the streets, thinking the festival gave them security. But I thought I recognised some from my dark adventure on the Appian Way. I certainly knew their alarming habits. A flock of them were swooping around like uninvited guests, obviously trying to unnerve other people.

  'Hello, pretty boy!' Clemens greeted me, with a teasing glance at my blue tunic and soft shoes. Dropping the joke, the acting centurion helped a sword belt over my head. Concealing it beneath my cloak, I nestled the familiar weight of the weapon under my right arm. The others were carrying too. It was illegal-but the laws for private citizens in Rome had not been composed to cover occasions when you might have to search the oldest temple recorded by the pontiff, looking for an enemy of the state.

  'This is a bit busy, Falco!'

  'The night is going to be fun. I warn you, we'll be vying with the Praetorian Guards.'

  'Marcus knows how to organise a good night out,' Helena told Clemens, perhaps with pride in me.

  'I-o!'

  We had a hard time squeezing through the crazy revellers. By the time we reached the altar court below the steep steps to the Temple of Diana, nothing was going as planned. Coming towards us from the gentle dogleg of the Clivus Publicius I now saw Anacrites' litter, presumably with him lolling inside, massaging his tw
isted ankle. A small armed escort marched behind. The few Guards who had peeled off from imperial duties at the Temple of Saturn would have been a manageable group for us. But I saw with despondence that a much larger force had already formed up here in the compressed outdoor altar space, waiting to rendezvous with the Spy.

  Pressing forward, Clemens had seen neither the new arrivals nor their waiting phalanx of colleagues. I nudged him hard. 'Hold off!

  'Shit on a stick!' he muttered, behind his hand. He hissed an order and the lads pulled up. We edged back, hoping to hide in the crowd.

  No luck. Anacrites had seen us. He had his litter carried right alongside. His sleek head appeared through the curtains. 'Falco! You were perfectly right and I should have listened. Your prescience is wonderful.' Sickened by his fake adulation, I stared around for its cause. The Spy pointed happily. Two figures approached at a fast trot from the direction of Fountain Court: Lentullus, with his ears looking big on a shaven head, loping breathlessly after my taller, faster brother-in-law. ' You warned me I did the wrong thing keeping him in custody. I should have let him go myselPS If the priestess will not come to him,' Anacrites gloated, 'you knew that Camillus Justinus would come straight to her!'

  XLI

  The Temple of Diana Aventinensis had been built to dominate the major peak of the Hill. After centuries of isolation, it had succumbed to the crush when the Aventine became a popular living space, and it had lost its drama. The view from afar was lost. The altar court was nothing like the grand meat-slaughtering area at Ephesus, where the warm cuts from daily sacrifice feed the entire city. On the Aventine, noisy, narrow streets abutted the two long portico wings, and the front steps came down into an equally squashed thoroughfare where the altar lurked amidst normal toings and froings. It was no place to hold a riot.