The decision was made for him when he caught a scent of cooked meat. A vendor was weaving through the throng, a tray of food suspended from straps around his neck. As if of their own volition, Ballista’s feet took him over to those gathering around the storyteller.
The street trader was selling grilled pork wrapped in flatbread. Ballista bought two of them with the last of his small coins. Wolfing them down, he worked his way into the crowd; deep enough hopefully to block him from the casual glances of those passing by, but not so far as to prevent him seeing out, or to hinder a quick escape.
‘Who here believes in ghosts?’
Those assembled were of all walks and stations; free and slaves, men and women, gaggles of older children, others still with their nurses. They murmured with happy expectation, and smiled; one or two laughed. Some might prefer the mimes, but among most people the storytellers, along with singers and musicians, were as popular as jugglers and conjurers, entertainment as good as backstreet boxing and animal fights.
‘And when you are walking alone in the dead of night, down a deserted street, or out on a country lane? Do you then never look over your shoulder, never whistle or sing to keep away the spirits of the dead? Are you then so certain that the mere chink of metal, a shout, or the bark of a dog will send flitting away the vengeful shades of the murdered, the crucified, the hanged, of all those violently wrenched from life, of those denied burial, of all the dark multitude without a coin to buy passage across the Styx?’
The speaker was good. It was easy to overlook the teaming street, the safe afternoon sunshine, and the fact that he was perched on a crate that, by its smell, had recently contained dead fish. Ballista made sure that he kept an eye on those walking past. So far only one group had caught his attention; a party of off-duty escorts of a magistrate, standing out by their neat uniformity.
‘Now I don’t know about ghosts, but I can swear to the existence of other terrible creatures that stalk the night. What I am going to tell you is true. It happened to me, two winters past, not six miles from where we stand here.’
A frisson of pleasurable fear at the proximity of the supernatural ran through the crowd.
‘When I was living around the corner – the lodging house that Gavilla owns now – I started seeing the wife of Terentius who kept an inn out on the Capua road. Late one afternoon she sent me word that old Terentius had gone off for the night drinking in the subura with some of his cronies. Let me tell you, I don’t hold with philosophers, but those wise men who say that desire is a cruel tyrant know just what they are talking about. I decided it was too good an opportunity to miss, even if I had to walk half the night.’
An ex-soldier and his servant joined the edge of the listeners. Ballista tensed, ready to run or fight. The veteran was respectable looking. He did not wear a sword, and was nearing old age. The swordsmen at the Mausoleum, and the one in the baths, had been young, still of an age to be in service. They had been accompanied by no slaves. Ballista relaxed a little.
‘There are a lot of thieves out in the country. So I talked another of the guests into walking with me as far as the fifth milestone. He was a soldier, sword on hip, brave as a lion. Fool that I am, I thought I was safe. Out of the city, where the tombs line the road, he goes off to one side. Thinking he needs to relieve himself, I wait, singing away, counting the stars. After a bit, I looked over, and do you know what I saw?’
The crowd, entering into the spirit of the thing, waited with baited breath. Ballista had a shrewd suspicion what was coming.
‘The soldier had stripped off all his clothes. My heart was in my mouth. Naked as the day he was born, he pisses in a circle all around them. I stood there like a corpse. Then before my eyes, he throws back his head and howls. I was off, running down the road, like I was in the stadium. When I had gone a good way – the sweat pouring off me – I glance back. And there, in the pale moonlight, the biggest wolf you ever saw is loping off through the tombs.’
True or not, it had not happened to the storyteller two winters past, or any other time. Ballista had read the story in the Satyricon of Petronius when he was young. It was Maximus’s favourite book. Ballista had used it to teach his bodyguard to read. Werewolf, my arse, as the Hibernian might have said.
Ballista’s attention left the story, although he kept watch on the street. No distance now to the Camp of the Strangers. But, unable to convincingly affect the cowed bearing of a slave, his tattered and slashed tunic, let alone the bloodstain on the chest, drew attention. So far his attempts at disguise had been less than successful.
‘She was awake all right. “If only you had got here earlier,” she said. “A wolf got into the grounds, tore the livestock to pieces. But he didn’t get away unscathed. One of the slaves got him in the neck with a spear.” I could not close my eyes all night.’
An extraordinary figure was walking down the street. Tall with a shaven head, he was dressed in a long skirt of linen, hitched up high across his otherwise naked chest. Over his face he wore a mask fashioned like the face of a dog, one side painted black, the other gilded. Only his eyes could be seen. It was the priest of Isis from the street of the Sandal Makers, or at least one very like him.
Perhaps, Ballista thought, the gods do care after all. Sidestepping and twisting, insinuating himself into gaps, he worked his way out of the audience. He was not destined to hear the denouement of the story; the journey home, where the storyteller found the soldier, returned to human form, lying in bed, with a bandaged wound to the neck.
It took some time to get clear of the crowd – the storyteller was popular indeed – and the street itself was busy. For a moment, Ballista thought he had lost the priest of Isis. But then he caught sight of his bald cranium, some distance off. Most stepped aside from the priest, and he was walking steadily, making good progress. Ballista set off to follow. The jostling pedestrians did not get out of his way. The priest was drawing ahead. Soon he would be out of sight. Ballista could not risk causing a scene by elbowing and shoving. Then, a more religious man again might have seen the hand of a god. A train of three porters carrying heavy amphorae emerged from a side street. Their purposeful step, and the loads they bore, prompted bystanders to give them free passage. With just a few hefty pushes, which earned a couple of curses, Ballista reached their slipstream. Now, tucked in behind in their wake, if anything, he was gaining on his quarry.
Last night on the Campus Martius, Ballista had been economical with the truth talking to Diomedes and his gang of roughs. True he had never served in Egypt, but, thanks to a drunken night in a bar on the waterfront in Ostia, he was not entirely ignorant about the worship of the Isis. His informant had been an initiate who had become disillusioned. As far as Ballista could recall, the goddess had been incestuously married to her brother Osiris. Another god, possibly another brother called Seth, had killed Osiris, chopped him up, and scattered the chunks of flesh all over Egypt. Helped by Anubis – whose mask the priest was wearing – Isis had gathered up the body parts, and brought Osiris back to life.
It was regeneration, life after death, that the cult offered its adherents. To achieve it required much fasting, abstinence, and, after hefty payments to the priests, secret ceremonies of initiation with drugged wine, and much smoke and mirrors. Its exotic, foreign origins, its openness to women as well as men, combined with its wealth and mysterious rituals, made it an object of suspicion to the traditionally minded. They accused the cult of greed and sexual licence. There had been a notorious scandal in the reign of Tiberius. The priests here in Rome had persuaded a credulous devotee, a woman married to a senator, that Anubis would manifest himself to her if she spent a night in the temple. The dog-headed visitor had been vigorous, but no epiphany. Later, if he had resisted the urge to boast of his conquest, and how he had bribed the priests, her seducer would not have been unmasked.
The slaves with the amphorae turned left onto the Via Labicana. Ballista trailed the priest across the road. As they ascended the Caelian,
there were fewer people on the streets. But they were not deserted. There could be no witnesses to what Ballista intended. Somehow he had to get the priest on his own.
Although it was still daylight, the priest held a lit lamp in one hand. In the other was a gilded rattle. The latter jingled as he walked. After a time the sound became maddening. It was no more than two hours until sunset. Ballista closed up behind the priest. Alleyways and courtyards opened off their path. Every time they passed one there were people in sight. Soon the priest would be safe inside the temple.
Assaulting a priest was frowned upon in most cultures. It invited eventual divine retribution, and much swifter human intervention. Having come so far, Ballista wondered whether to abandon the idea. But they were heading in roughly the right direction. He might yet get a chance, or something might occur to him.
On they tramped up the hill: two tall men with shaven heads, one in outlandish gleaming white linen, the other in a shabby and torn blue tunic.
The main Temple of Isis was down on the Campus Martius, but there had been another on the Caelian for generations. It stood opposite two groves of trees that flanked the home of the Tetricius family of senators. The head of the house was one of the main supporters of the pretender Postumus in Gaul. Perhaps it would be shuttered, the road outside deserted.
As the trees came into view, Ballista’s hopes were dashed. The porter lounged outside, talking to no fewer than four litter-bearers. Doubtless, like many of the noble families in times of civil war, the Tetricii hedged its bets, and maintained a relative in both camps.
Ballista quickened his pace. ‘Excuse me, sir.’
The priest was on the threshold of the temple.
‘My son.’ Behind the canine visage, his eyes were shrewd, but not unfriendly.
It would have to be in the temple.
‘Can I help you?’
‘It is a delicate matter,’ Ballista said.
The muzzle of the dog rose, as its owner looked at the top of Ballista’s head. ‘Have you cast off the man that you used to be?’
‘I have.’ Claiming to be an initiate was a risk. One drunken conversation had not produced all that much information that he could remember. Yet he needed to go with the priest into the temple, get him on his own.
‘Follow me. We can talk inside.’
Beyond the gate was an open courtyard with buildings on two sides, and the temple in the middle. Other shaven priests strolled here and there, servants scurried about, and a few worshippers made their way to and from the temple. The priest led Ballista to the larger of the two ranges of buildings. Inside it was decked out as a communal dining hall. Servants were placing tables by just three of the many couches.
‘It is a thing that calls for much discretion,’ Ballista said.
The priest pinched out the lamp, and put it down, along with the irritating rattle. ‘Do not be concerned about the slaves. They have served Queen Isis all their lives. They are house-born.’
A single witness would be too many. Ballista had to get the priest alone. Perhaps the events in the time of Tiberius suggested a stratagem.
‘As you see, I am a poor man.’ Ballista indicated his grubby and ripped tunic. ‘But I am a freedman of a great house’ – he paused for dramatic effect – ‘that best remain nameless. My mistress has reached the boundary of death, and returned.’
The dog’s snout rounded on him. Had he misused a half-remembered line of the cult? Before he could be questioned, he pressed on. ‘Anubis appeared to my mistress in a dream. The god commanded her to make offerings of gold to the goddess, and to spend the night alone in the temple.’
‘Impossible!’ The priest had raised his voice. It sounded strange issuing from behind the mask, but clearly was intended to be heard by the servants. ‘The rite of incubation has been denied to women since the time of the false priest Arbaces.’ The priest continued to talk loudly. ‘I am sorry that you must take that response to your mistress. But, as you are a worshipper of the queen of goddesses, before you go, let me offer you hospitality in my quarters.’
The priest’s room was decorated with paintings and statuettes of strange Egyptian deities with animal heads. There were several large, inlaid pieces of furniture, and rich covers on the bed. The place smelt musky with old incense.
‘A discreet visit may be possible, depending on the size of the offerings.’ The priest turned his back, and undid the thongs that held the mask in place.
Ballista drew his knife, and put it to the priest’s throat.
‘What?’ Freed from the mask, the priest’s face was round. Sleek with good living, it exhibited no signs of fasting and abstinence.
‘Do not make a sound. I have no wish to harm you.’
‘You dare steal from the goddess herself?’
‘Only a few trifles. She will not miss them.’
‘It is sacrilege. You will be cursed. The goddess will hunt you to the ends of the earth.’
‘I have been cursed before. As you can tell, I am still here, and I have a knife at your throat.’
‘The goddess will pursue you beyond the grave.’
‘Quite possibly. Enough talk now. Take off your clothes.’
‘What?’ The priest looked thoroughly alarmed.
‘Don’t worry, you can keep your loincloth on.’
‘The temple servants will come at any moment. You will be caught. The authorities will torture you on the rack, nail you on the cross.’
‘No they won’t. You will not be missed until the ceremony of the closing of the temple at sunset.’ And before then, Ballista thought, I have to reach the Colosseum. He prodded the priest with the knife. ‘Stop talking, and remove your clothes.’
Once the priest was nearly naked, Ballista cut up the coverlets from the bed. With the strips, he tied the wrists and ankles of the priest, tethered him to a heavy piece of furniture, and gagged him securely.
Stripped to his own loincloth, Ballista fastened his belt around his bare waist. He slid the dagger in its sheath to the small of his back. It should not show there, but would be hard to get at. It was not easy fastening the strap which held the linen skirt in its unaccustomed place almost under his armpits, but eventually he got it right. As they looked more serviceable, he had kept on his own boots. The folds of the linen almost covered them. Finally, he put on the mask.
There was even a mirror. Ballista checked his reflection. It was not identical to the priest, but one tall man with a shaved head, and the face of a dog, looked much like another.
‘Do not struggle,’ he said. ‘You will be free in an hour or two.’
Outside, as at the building site, Ballista walked purposefully, as if he had every right to be there. He strode across the courtyard towards the gate.
‘Master!’ A voice called behind him. Ballista marched on.
‘Master!’ The patter of running sandals.
Ballista stopped.
A servant ran up. ‘Your lantern and rattle.’
Without a word, Ballista took them, and walked away.
Twenty paces to the gate. He could feel the eyes of the servant on his back. Ten paces, nine. Almost there.
Glancing back as he went out, through the eyeholes of the canine mask, Ballista saw the servant. The man was staring after him, but had not uttered a sound. Thank Isis herself that her servants knew their place, and were not encouraged to question the eccentric behaviour of her priests.
CHAPTER 22
The Camp of the Strangers
A
PRIEST OF ISIS WAS NOT AN unfamiliar sight on the Caelian. Which was just as well, Ballista reflected, as a moment earlier he had walked past a squad of the City Watch. The headquarters of their fifth Cohort was just to the west of that of the frumentarii. Far too close for comfort, if he had not been hidden behind his canine face mask. It was a good job that the ridiculous linen skirt was girdled under his armpits, concealing the bandages wrapped around his chest. As it was, despite his outlandish appearance, the men of the
Watch had not given him a second glance.
The Camp of the Strangers was set on the highest point of the hill. Although for the majority of the population it might be a place to be dreaded, its solid and distinctive, brick-built walls proclaimed it an army base. For Ballista, catching sight of it as he trudged up from the east, at this moment it represented safety at last, the final way station on his journey across the city to the Colosseum. The men inside were soldiers. They existed to protect the emperor. Should their prefect not be in the camp, once Ballista had told his story, any officer of the frumentarii would organise an escort to rush him to Gallienus. Once he had reached the emperor, everything would be alright.
‘Halt.’
There were four frumentarii guarding the gate. They were armed, ready for trouble. The diversity of their armour and equipment pointed to the different regular units out of which they had been seconded. Like specially selected soldiers everywhere, they affected a certain slovenliness that would not have been acceptable in their original formation. Such chosen men always saw themselves above the petty regulations that bound lesser men serving under the standards.
‘State your name and business.’
‘Arbaces, priest of Isis.’ Until he was off the street, Ballista had no intention of revealing himself. Or maybe lying became a habit. After ten years away, the home life of Odysseus must have been difficult.
‘And your business?’
‘I have information of a plot against the life of the emperor.’
‘Centurion.’ At the call of the guard, an officer emerged from the gatehouse. Another universal feature of elite units that were composed of disparate elements was their high number of officers compared with ordinary ranks.
The Last Hour: Relentless, brutal, brilliant. 24 hours in Ancient Rome Page 23