Saturnalia(46)

Two of the men came forward and seized the youth from behind by both arms. They marched him to the lip of the mundus and forced him to his knees beside it. Furia handed something to the woman in the spotted pelt. It was a knife, and it was as archaic as the ritual, almost as primeval as the women’s own bodies. It was even more ancient than the bronze dagger I used on my desk as a paperweight. Its grip was the age-blackened antler of a beast I had never beheld, one that certainly had not roamed the Italian peninsula since the days of the Aborigines. Its blade was broad and leaf-shaped, made of flint, its edges chipped in rippling facets, beautiful and cruelly sharp.

I knew that I should do something, but I was paralyzed with a sense of futility. These were not women who would run screaming at the sight of a lone man brandishing his dagger. The men might have weapons handy. And if the dazed boy was not inclined to run, it would be the height of folly to try to bear him off. Perhaps if it had been a small child I might have added to my night’s foolishness by attempting a rescue. I like to think so.

Furia held her hands out, palms downward, over the youth’s head. She began a slow, tuneless song. The others joined in, except for the men, who held their hands before their eyes and slowly backed away from the firelight into the obscurity of the trees. The song ended. The young man now was held only by the older priestess, whose left hand gripped his hair. He seemed perfectly ready to accept his fate. I wondered whether the sacrificial bull had been drugged. Furia clapped her hands three times and three times called out a name, which I will not try to reproduce. Some things must not be written.

With the tip of her wand Furia touched the side of the boy’s neck. Instantly, the other priestess plunged the flint knife into the indicated spot. It went in more easily than I would have imagined, up to the antler hilt. Then she withdrew it and a deep, collective sigh went up from the worshippers as the bright, arterial blood fountained into the mundus. It happened in eerie silence for there was no sound of splashing from the stones within. Perhaps it truly led all the way to the underworld. Or perhaps something was drinking it as fast as it poured in.

The blood seemed to gush from the boy’s neck for an impossibly long time, until his heart ceased to beat and he slumped forward, pale and already looking like a shade. Then a number of the women rushed forward, seized the corpse, and hurled it onto the blazing pyre with a strength that seemed unnatural.

I was cold and sweating at the same time, and I knew that I must look as pale as the unfortunate sacrifice. I had looked upon a great deal of death, but this was different. The commonplace slaughters of the street, the battlefield, and the arena entirely lack the unique horror of a human sacrifice. Rage and passion and cruelty, even cold-blooded calculation, are paltry things compared to murder when the gods are called upon to participate.

I was so transfixed by what was happening before me that I neglected to pay attention to what was going on behind.

I nearly fainted when something grabbed my ankles. For an insane moment I thought that one of the underworld deities, summoned by the blood offering, was going to drag me down beneath the earth. Then other hands were on me and I was twisting around, yanking out my dagger and thrusting. Bay leaves whipped my face as I was jerked upright, and I heard a deep, masculine voice cry out as my blade connected. Then both my arms were held in wrestler’s locks, and my dagger was snatched away from my grasp.

Like the boy, only struggling, I was frog-marched into the clearing, and women, amazed and outraged, drew back from my defiling presence. Then, screeching, they attacked. I suffered a few nail scratches, but Furia beat them back with her wand and they quieted.

“Look what we found, Priestess!” said one of the men who held me, in the by now familiar Marsian accent.

“I think he wants to be sacrificed,” said another of the men. “Shall we take him to the mundus?” This one was Roman, and upper class to judge by his diction. Furia lashed him across his face mask with her wand and he yelped.

“Fool! This one is ugly and scarred like a gladiator! The gods would be mortally offended if we offered them such a one!”

I thought she was being a little rough on me. No artist had ever asked me to model for Apollo, but I had not judged myself to be truly repulsive. She was right about the scars, though. I had picked up a lot of them for a basically peaceable man. I was not going to argue with her, however. She tapped the tip of her wand against my cheek.

“I told you not to look into these matters, Roman, and my two attendants warned you as well. If you had listened, we would not have to kill you now.”

“You said I was going to live a long time!” I protested. “That makes you a pretty poor prophetess, if you ask me!”