A single omitted word, a mere slip of the tongue, would compel them to stop the ceremony and start again from the beginning. Meanwhile, flute players with bulging cheeks shrilled on their instruments to prevent any ill-omened word from being overheard. A burly victimarius, naked to the waist, swung his hammer, striking the animal between the eyes, then swiftly its neck was stretched over the altar and its throat cut so that the severed jugular spewed hot blood onto the stone. Then the belly was slit open and the Gut-Gazers performed their ancient charade, frowning over the animal’s steaming liver, turning it this way and that, pulling apart the lobes, noting the striations—a map of the heavens written in flesh—searching for the smallest disqualifying blemish. They pronounced it acceptable and the next animal was led up.
Beast followed beast until soon the altar was a dripping mess and round it the officiants stood ankle deep in slippery pools of blood, each animal spilling about two gallons on the ground.
If this was how the ancestral religion worshipped the high gods, there was little here to excite the ordinary man or woman in the Roman street, whose grandparents, very likely, had been brought here in chains from the swamps of Germany or the sewers of Antioch, and few of them bothered to attend. Their religion was something else entirely, a grab-bag of popular deities: Isis, Cybele, Atargitis, and a dozen others, who promised ecstasy, secret knowledge, and a blessed hereafter to their devotees. Their priests and priestesses could be seen on any street corner, jumping up and down in some outlandish eastern garb, clashing cymbals, wailing, some even slashing their arms with scimitars. To a conservative like Pliny these cults were contemptible, disturbing, even frightening—the more so because people of his own class, people who should know better, had begun lately to dabble in them. The Flavian dynasty, it was well known, was devoted to Egyptian Isis. The present emperor’s father, the otherwise sensible Vespasian, had actually performed faith healings in her name, and the young Domitian, at a dangerous moment in the civil war, had been smuggled to safety disguised as one of her priests.
By mid-morning the last animal had been dispatched. A portion of each was burnt on the altar and tasted by the priests. The fat-rich smoke rose up and drifted over the city. The remaining carcasses were already being carted off to the city’s butcher shops for sale as ordinary food. The Roman Games would continue, however, for another fourteen days, beginning with a round of stage plays in all the theaters and concluding with five days of chariot races in the Circus Maximus. During this time public business came to a standstill. The law courts did not meet and therefore no verdict could be handed down in the Verpa case.
The Verpa case, thought Pliny with an inward groan. He must begin his investigation, such as it was, today. The prefect’s orders. As the crowd dispersed, Pliny summoned his bearers. First, lunch and a mid-day nap.
At home his slaves unbuckled his helmet, his boots, and his cuirass. He shrugged the thing off gratefully, letting his belly expand with a sigh. He felt as though he hadn’t drawn a deep breath in three hours. His tunic was sticking to him. A slave hurried up with a basin of cool water and a sponge. There wasn’t time for a proper bath.
Calpurnia had felt nauseous again in the morning. He was happy to see her feeling better now. He called for a light meal and watered wine for them both and, while he ate, answered her endless questions distractedly.
Because something was bothering him. Not Verpa. But something to do with the ceremony. It had occurred to him on the way home. He had not had a clear view of the altar during the sacrifice and hadn’t really been paying attention. But had he counted wrong? Wasn’t someone missing who should have been there? He dismissed the thought from his mind. He had more pressing things to think about.
Chapter Six
Earlier the same day.
Marcus Valerius Martialis awoke before dawn from long and necessitous habit, yawned heavily, and heaved his bulk out of bed. He was a big man, barrel-chested, coarse-featured, with a broad forehead, which, as soon as he stirred, began to throb horribly, the result of too much bad wine and too little sleep.
His breakfast, a cup of watered vinegar and a lump of hard cheese, delayed him only a moment. He splashed water on his face, combed his thick head of curly, salt-and-pepper hair, and rubbed a bit of pumice over his teeth. His toilet complete, he tipped the chamber pot out the window, flung on his threadbare toga, and was out the door. The whole process had not taken the tenth part of an hour.
Martial inhabited a one-room flat on the third floor of a ruinous seven-story insula on the Quirinal Hill, near the Temple of Flora. In pitch darkness, he descended the sagging steps. That the stairwell stank of urine, charcoal, and rancid oil, he scarcely noticed.