Oracle of the Dead(15)
“Praetor,” Hermes said in a low voice, “we’ve found the other priests.”
3
OF COURSE THE WHOLE BUGGERING lot of party guests, including half of the slaves, had to come along. You don’t get to see a spectacle like this every day, and all my protests and fulminations did no good. So much for the dignity and majesty of Roman office. Like some great traveling festival, we all descended upon the precincts of the Temple of Apollo and the Oracle of the Dead.
The evening was well advanced, and thus the uncanniness of the venue all the more pronounced. A mild wind blew, causing a sinister rustling among the funereal trees and shrubs, like small deities of the underworld conversing just below the level of human hearing. I was just as happy to bypass the gloomy grove and go to the temple instead.
“So close,” Julia said, stepping down from her litter. “Just a few steps from where it all started.”
“I felt it must be so,” I told her. “There was just no time for them to have gotten far, or that no one would have seen them.”
My lictors arrived from our quarters and I directed them to stand guard on the steps of the temple and let no one enter save myself and the members of my party.
Hermes came to join us, accompanied by a few of my other young men. They had that smug look of men who know something important that nobody else knows yet. I suppose I’ve worn that expression myself from time to time.
“It was easy to miss,” Hermes said. “The Oracle isn’t the only place around here with odd passageways.”
We followed him into the temple. The lamps glowed warmly and the god smiled down upon us benignly, above all human foolishness.
“Well, let’s get to it before the word spreads and the sightseers start to gather,” I said.
Hermes nodded to young Sextus Vespillo, and the boy, trying not to swell with importance, went to a decorated paving stone just before the plinth supporting the statue of Apollo. He bent and fiddled a moment with a bit of carved ornamentation. Then he worked free what looked like a loop of stone vinework. He twisted the loop and tugged and up came the stone, and not just that one but about eight adjacent blocks. The whole must have weighed the better part of a ton, but the boy raised it as easily as a wooden trapdoor in a house. Another piece of that mysterious engineering we had come to so admire.
Julia and the other women gasped. The men muttered. I merely asked, “It’s well hidden. How did you discover it?”
“I am a brilliant investigator like you and—” he caught my look. “Actually, Sextus Lucretius here got on rather well with one of the temple slave girls. She told him she’d spied on the priests opening this trap one night.”
“If only all my assistants exercised their gifts to such beneficial effect,” I said. The boy blushed furiously. “Where is the girl?”
Hermes signaled and the girl stepped from the shadow of a column. “Her name is Hypatia.”
“Come here, child.” The girl was about sixteen, and quite beautiful. This was to be expected. Apollo is associated with all that is beautiful, so his temples never employ ugly slaves. Any physical imperfection bars one not only from Apollo’s service but from his priesthood as well. This girl had hair as yellow as that of a German princess and huge blue eyes. Her simple white shift was modest enough, but it left no doubt as to the perfection of her body. She stepped near me and lowered her beautiful eyes.
“Hypatia, how did you come to be spying on your master?”
“I did not spy, Praetor,” she said softly. “I was new here, and did not know the rules. One of my duties is to extinguish the lamps just before we slaves retire to our quarters for the night. I did not know that upon certain nights, no one was to enter the temple except for the priests. That night I came in and went to the first lamp niche.” She pointed to one of a pair that flanked the doorway. “But I heard a noise. I looked up here toward the god’s statue and I saw all the priests gathered before it with lamps and torches. The high priest, Eugaeon, stooped and twisted the stone loop that I revealed to your assistant. I saw him raise the doorway and I was amazed. I thought he must be very strong to lift such a weight. They went down and never even glanced in my direction. I left the lamps alight and hurried to my quarters.”
“I see. Did they close the doorway behind them?”
She thought for a moment. “No, they lowered it but it seemed to me that they left it slightly ajar. I didn’t go close to look. I was afraid.”
“And why did you not come forward when the priests disappeared?”
“Again, I was afraid. I feared that just speaking of it might violate some ritual law. This place has many such rules. And I feared being called to testify.” That I could understand. A slave can testify in court only after being tortured. It’s nothing severe, but certainly not an experience to be anticipated with pleasure.