“The first question that arose was: Had Celer been poisoned at all? I consulted with Asklepiodes and he advised me that, in the absence of classic symptoms of well-known poisons, there was very little likelihood of a conclusive analysis.”
“Quite logical,” Cicero said approvingly.
“But the most likely source of poison, if poison was indeed involved, were the herb women who run a sizable medical and fortune-telling practice out by the Circus Flaminius, since the aediles drove them out of the City.”
“A great Italian tradition,” he said dryly. “The state cults fail to satisfy some basic needs of the common people. They must forever be bothering the great cosmic powers for details about the future of their petty lives.”
“While there I had a rather disturbing interview with a woman named Furia and heard the name Harmodia spoken. Further investigation revealed that this woman had been murdered. The murder had been briefly investigated by the aedile Licinius Murena, but some days later he took the report from the Temple of Ceres and it seems to have disappeared.”
“A moment, please,” Cicero said sharply.
“When you say ‘he took the report,’ do you mean that Murena did this personally?”
That stopped me and I had to think about it. “No, now that you mention it, the slave boy at the temple said that a slave came from the court of the praetor urbanus and said that the aedile needed it.”
“Very well. Go on.”
“I went to the Flaminius and there I questioned the watchman who had discovered Harmodia’s body. He had little of importance to tell me concerning the incident, but she had been one of the herb women and he was most uneasy in speaking of the subject at all. He was afraid of their powers to curse and cast spells, and he said that the witches had a sacred place out on the Vatican field where there was a mundus. He said that the herb women held a great celebration there on the night before Saturnalia.”
“That does not greatly surprise me,” Cicero said. “These witches, saga and striga and so forth, are for the most part remnants of the ancient earth cults that once dominated the whole Mediterranean littoral. They were there when the Dorians came down from the north to bring the sky gods to Greece, and they were in Italy when the ancestral Latins migrated here. We acknowledge the underworld gods by holding their rituals in the evening, after sunset. But these remnants of the archaic faith carry out their rites in the ancient fashion, in the dead of night. As for their mundus, any hole in the ground will do for a mundus, if one is of a frame of mind to believe in such things.
“Everywhere one goes in the world, the greatest festivals are held at the same times of year: the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and the summer and winter solstices. Saturnalia is our winter solstice celebration. It follows logically that the earth cults would hold their revels at night during those seasons.”
Cicero could get pedantic at times.
“So it seems. Anyway, last night I went out there to see for myself.” Then I told him what had happened in the grove. He listened with great attention and seriousness. When I came to the part about the patrician women I had recognized, he stopped me.
“Fausta? Are you sure it was she?” He seemed alarmed.
“She is a most striking lady. Even without her clothes there is no mistaking her.” Why, I wondered, was he disturbed about Fausta? Why not Clodia?
“This is … upsetting,” Cicero said.
“Not as upsetting as the next part,” I assured him. Then I told of the sacrifice. Unlike my father he made no superstitious gestures although his expression conveyed a mild distaste, probably more at the primitive proceedings than at the killing. No one got to high office in Rome back then without witnessing abundant bloodshed. When I told of how I had bested my captors and made it back to the city, he chuckled and clapped me on the shoulder.
“My congratulations upon your heroic escape, Decius. I have never known a man like you for getting out of incredibly tight spots. You must be a descendant of Ulysses. Someday you must give me a full account of that business in Alexandria. I’ve had four wildly differing accounts from friends who were there at the time. They all say they don’t want to see you back.”
Then he resumed his serious tone. “As to this disagreeable business on the Vatican field, it could prove a touchy matter to deal with.”
“Why is that? Human sacrifice is specifically forbidden by law, is it not?”
“It is, except under the most pressing circumstances, and it is never to be undertaken without the most solemn state sanction and performed by duly consecrated officials of the state cults. We consider it a remnant of our primitive past and always use a victim who has already been condemned to death for a civil offense.