“You are making too much of the matter. The slave who was sent to fetch the document probably stopped at a tavern on the way to court, got drunk, and lost it. It happens all the time. It was just another murder of another nobody.
“But if it will set your mind at ease, I’ll avoid Murena and confer only with Visellius Varro and Calpurnius Bestia and the others. I should speak with Caesar as well, although he is probably too busy preparing for his Gallic campaign to take much of an interest. Still, as pontifex maximus it’s his duty to make a pronouncement upon the danger of a corrupting, nonstate religion. In the meantime, you should go to your gangster friend Milo and get him to assign you some protection. Since they didn’t kill or blind you, they may be looking for you now.”
“I can’t go to Milo!” I said. “He is going to marry Fausta and he’s entirely irrational about her. He might kill me if I threaten to have her exposed!”
Father shrugged. “Then go to Statilius Taurus and borrow some of his gladiators. Now, come along. We must make our rounds.”
I accompanied him to a few more houses, but my heart simply wasn’t in the spirit of the season. He was also being unrealistic. What use would hired thugs be to me when the people I was dealing with specialized in spells and poisons? I wasn’t worried about any bumpkin daggermen as long as I was armed and on familiar ground. It was depressing to have to watch everything I ate or drank though. Luckily, for the duration of the holiday, food stalls were everywhere. They would have to poison the whole city to get me.
About spells I was not so sure. Like most rational, educated men I was extremely dubious of the efficacy, even the reality, of magical spells. On the other hand, recent events were causing my rationality to flake away like dandruff. Witches were supposed to be able to strike their enemies down with ailments of the heart, liver, lungs, and sundry other organs. They could cause blindness and impotence. But if they could do all that, I wondered, how did it come about that they had any enemies at all?
By late morning I managed to break away from my father and his crowd, but as I wandered through the streets the gaiety of the season transformed itself before my eyes to the menacing and the sinister. Why did so many people wear masks if not to take on the personae of demons? What was the reason for the whole hilarious occasion but a primitive midwinter fear that, if we didn’t jolly the gods along a bit, they wouldn’t give us springtime next year?
I knew I was just being morbid. People wore masks, for the most part, because they were taking advantage of the confusion to mess about with other people’s wives and husbands. They were celebrating because, to Romans, any excuse for a party is a good one. The world-turned-upside-down aspect was just the unique fillip of Saturnalia. Even weirder things happened at our other rites. There was the Lupercalia, where a team of patrician boys ran through the streets naked, flogging women with thongs of bloody goatskin, and the Floralia, where respectable women and whores went out in public and tooted on trumpets. There were others on our year-round calendar of official holidays, each with its tutelary deities and singular rites. Saturnalia was the biggest of the year, that was all. Still, I could not shake my mood.
In the Forum the festivities were in full swing. On the judicial platforms before the basilicas, mimes were performing parodies of the trials ordinarily held there, rife with obscene gestures and indecent language. From the rostra men pretending to be the great statesmen of the day made speeches even more nonsensical than the real thing. On the steps of the Curia Hostilia a pair of men wearing outsized insignia of the censors solemnly forbade such activities as feeding one’s children, observing the proper rituals of the state gods, serving in the legions, etc.
The music was cacophonous and deafening. People were dancing and reeling everywhere. Nobody seemed to be walking in a normal manner. I dearly wanted to consult some court and Senate records and interview a few officials and secretaries, but it was out of the question on such a day. I wandered about, scanning the crowds for faces from the ritual of the previous night. In so vast a throng it was futile. I could only be certain of the three patrician women I already knew, Furia, and perhaps one or two others.
I went to a booth next to the Curia and spoke with its proprietor long enough to establish that he was not Marsian and bought a loaf stuffed with grape leaves, olives, and tiny, salted fish, generously drenched with garum. To this I added just enough wine to settle my nerves and sat on the bottom step, wolfing it all down while the pseudocensors pronounced punishments for showing respect for one’s parents and forbidding senators to attend meetings when sober.