“This rivalry between the temples,” he said at last. “That’s been going on a long, long time. This profit-making scheme may be much more recent. Ten years isn’t so much time in the scheme of things. The priests of Apollo just may have been in on it. We’ve been thinking that they were uninvolved with the doings of the Oracle except for some sort of long-term effort to thwart or destroy the Hecate cult. What if they were killed to silence them before they could betray their own complicity?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” I admitted. “I don’t know why, since it’s my custom to suspect everybody of everything.”
He grinned. “You’re getting slow, being so preoccupied with politics, and you’ve been talking with the wrong people. I think that now we should concentrate on finding out what the local slaves know. Leave that to me, I know how to talk to them. I’d especially like to find that temple slave this woman Floria spoke of.”
“If she exists at all,” I cautioned. “The story could be a total fabrication.”
He took a cautious drink. “I think it’s true, most of it, anyway. It has a feel to it. In the morning, I’ll start working with the slaves. I’ll just get rid of my toga and hang around the fountains and the bars that cater to the slave trade.”
“You’ll seize any excuse to get out of court duty.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
At this moment a little slave girl padded up to us on bare feet. “Praetor, my mistress and your lady say you must come to the terrace for the most wonderful spectacle.”
“How could I resist either the temptation or the command?” I said, standing. Hermes got up as well and started to walk a bit stiffly as he began to feel his stripes. The little girl led us by the shortest way to the terrace, where the company were gathered at the railing that faced the fire-topped crag.
“Way for the praetor!” Hermes shouted, as if he were one of my lictors. Amid much inebriated jocularity, we made our way to the railing, where Julia and Sabinilla stood with the guests of greatest prestige.
“Ah, there you are, Praetor.” Sabinilla said. “Just in time.”
“And very rude of you to abandon our hostess and her guests at the height of the evening’s entertainment,” Julia said, glaring daggers at me and Hermes indiscriminately.
“Duty called, my dear. A Roman in service to Senate and People must never neglect duty.” This raised a drunken laugh from the guests nearby. Julia had had a few too many herself, or she never would have berated her ultradignified praetor husband in front of all and sundry. Sabinilla clapped her hands for attention, and perhaps to prevent an unseemly scene.
“Watch, everybody!” She signaled to a musician, who blew a series of shrill notes on his double pipes. It is a peculiarity of pipes that they can be heard at greater distances than a trumpet, and are clear even above a loud clamor such as that of a battle.
All eyes turned to the bonfire atop the cliff opposite us. It had burned down, for pine burns very hot but very swiftly. What was there now was a huge heap of glowing coals with tongues of flame spurting up from it at intervals. At the signal from the pipes we heard a groaning, grinding, scraping sound. I could not guess at its origin until the heap of coals began to rise and hulk up in its center, as if it had come alive. The crowd gasped as if they were seeing some supernatural apparition. I was just a bit startled myself, though I am completely free of superstition.
Then we could see two teams of oxen to either side of the coals and I understood. They were dragging a huge scraper like the sort that is used for leveling roads and grounds for building projects. I think it is called a grader or something of the sort. In any case, this time one was being used to drag that gigantic heap of coals toward the cliff. The coals continued to tower ever higher until, abruptly, the forward edge reached the rim of the cliff, which was all but invisible by this hour, just a blackness with a faintly visible mass of seething whiteness at its base, where the waves broke upon the rocks.
Everyone gasped, all but stunned, as the coals poured over the cliff. They formed a huge cascade of glowing light, like a waterfall of fire. Flames burst anew from the coals, and in an instant there was a solid, broad stripe of living fire from cliff to surf, and when the coals hit the water below there was a hissing noise like a thousand dragons waking up and angry about it. Steam billowed upward in a cloud Jupiter could have hidden himself in. It flowed over us in a strange, warm wetness, lit from within so that the cloud glowed orange.
Then the last of the coals dropped, the light and the hissing faded, the cloud dispersed, and we were all standing there, stunned, and there was no trace left of what had just happened. A long-pent sigh escaped from every throat, including mine, and I turned to our hostess. She looked at me with an almost demented eagerness.