Gladiatrix (28 page)

Alexander slid back into her eye line to give her a lethal smile. ‘We're strangers in Rome. We were looking for someone to approach. But everyone seems to be busy outside.'

‘Oh?' She was pooling at his feet like an ice cream left out in the sun. She smiled back this time. ‘And what did you want to know?'

Alexander and I both eyeballed her so intently, that the calculations should've appeared across our foreheads like a digital readout.

‘Can you tell us what these characters mean?' I pointed to the two sets of hieroglyphs we'd spotted earlier.

‘Ah. The meaning? You're trying to work out the story of Isis?'

From her expression we'd hit a warm spot with her, but she'd completely by-passed my very specific question.

At our blank looks, she said, ‘Well that's what these murals tell. We use this wall area to teach novices about our religion. Some of us can read Egyptian characters, but most can't. But everyone can use the pictures to understand the story of Bright Isis.'

Alexander chipped in, ‘Isn't there a Dark Isis, too?' I'd mentioned the two faces of the goddess to him.

She stiffened back into formal priestess mode. ‘Not here. If that's what you're interested in, then please leave. Now!'

Alexander and I looked at each other.

‘We're sorry for any offence given. We don't know enough yet to know what's good, or what's not,' I said, going into full country yokel grovelling. I indicated the murals. ‘But they're so beautiful, we just want to know more.'

And they were beautiful. Brilliantly coloured and painted with an eye for detail and technical accuracy. Each person, animal, and plant was depicted so perfectly, that they appeared to hover above us. The universal archetypes of their species.

At that she seemed to unbend again. ‘In that case, my name is Ankara. And I would be happy to explain the story and the pictures.'

The first mural was an exquisite white lotus, floating in the middle of a luminously blue body of water, under a black, empty sky.

‘In the beginning,' intoned Ankara, speaking as though to a larger crowd, ‘only the great ocean existed. Then the lotus grew. When it opened, Ra, the first being, emerged from its centre. All life you see comes from water, even divinity.'

‘That makes sense,' I said, the archaeologist in me coming out. ‘The Egyptians were completely dependent on the Nile for their crops. So of course water had to be at the very centre of their spiritual cosmos.'

‘We're all dependent on water,' Ankara corrected. ‘Rome couldn't exist without aqueducts either.'

‘The next three pictures show Ra's creation of his family and Earth.' Ankara continued her well-practised monologue. ‘Ra created his children and they became the material foundations of the cosmos. His son Geb became the Earth. His daughter Nut bent over the Earth to form the sky. Between them, the first humans began to populate the Earth. Ra appeared to them each day as the solar disc, traversing the sky in his flaming chariot. In time Geb and Nut produced two sons, Osiris and Set, and two daughters, Isis and Nephthys.'

Ankara bent her head respectfully when she said the name of Isis.

The next mural was quite graphic.

In the top half of the picture a man and a woman were making passionate love inside the belly of their pregnant mother.

‘Isis and Osiris fell in love in the womb of their mother, the sky goddess,' said Ankara.

Incest must have been a sticking point for many Romans because she hastened to say, in apology, ‘In
Egyptian belief, the divinities can only marry each other …'

She was about to wind into a longwinded prodivine incest spiel, so I cut in and said, ‘Of course — who else could they marry? The Roman gods don't have a good track record either. What about Zeus? The Greek god they modelled Jupiter on? He keeps having sex with mortal women, while in the form of a swan or a bull. Lot of farmland around here … Now just what's that saying to people?'

Alexander turned away to have a coughing fit, while Ankara looked stunned.

We were standing not that far from Jupiter's own temple, on top of the Capitoline hill. But at least it cut that lecture short, and we moved to the next mural a little more briskly than before.

And it was the next mural I was interested in.

In the bottom half of the mural, Isis and Osiris sat side by side on thrones and wearing the full regalia of Egyptian monarchs.

‘What does that mean?' I pointed to a glyph below the picture. The one of the broken rectangle hovering over the sword.

‘That's the word for ruler. It's referring to Isis and Osiris. They came to Earth in human form, and were the first rulers. The first pharaohs.'

Hmm. Ruler? Okay we were getting somewhere — just very slowly.

The following mural was violent, dark. ‘But the forces of chaos were about to be appeased,' said Ankara, with high drama. ‘Set, envious of his brother, killed Osiris and hid his body.'

The mural showed the murder of Osiris. Set, depicted with a forked tail, was cutting him into small pieces. ‘Isis, suspecting Set's treachery, began to search
for the body of Osiris with Anubis, her faithful hunting dog.'

By the next mural Isis had located the body of Osiris. ‘Using her great magic Isis re-enchants his body for a brief moment, and makes herself pregnant with her son, Horus.'

Alexander and I both recognised several more glyphs from my copy at the same time. Pointing, Alexander asked, ‘What do these characters mean?'

Her voice a little harsh, she said, ‘Why do you want to know that?'

She'd been so forthcoming it seemed quite strange. ‘But this picture's so singular, doesn't everyone ask?' I said.

Ankara looked at the painting. Isis was sitting buck naked on top of Osiris' dead body. She appeared to be ‘conjuring' his penis with her hands. Well she was doing something with it, anyway.

There are only so many ways you get pregnant, even for a goddess.

‘Yes, people do ask.' That was said with a heavy load of reluctance. ‘But often their curiosity is mainly about the magic. We've had too many problems with converts who join purely to gain magical power. All I can tell you is that the words you've singled out are related to Isis' ability to summon cosmic power. The source of her divine power. But I will not go into details.'

Cosmic power? Was that part of the ritual the Moral Legion had been talking about? Maybe the Isis dagger was needed for that specific ritual?

Ankara saw the speculative gleam in my eye. ‘I'm sorry, perhaps you only ask out of ignorance, but still we cannot speak about the mysteries outside the community.'

Damn. Just when things were getting relevant! I shrugged and to lighten the moment said, ‘I'd imagine people would find this picture interesting for many reasons.'

‘Yes you are right.' She showed a dimple. ‘Actually men most often ask about this picture.' Then she whispered, ‘Isis is known for her ability to … er.' She paused, and said delicately, ‘… raise the dead.'

A double entendre? I couldn't believe it, Ankara was making a joke.

I gave a chuckle, then said, ‘Yes, Alexander's been having a lot of problems with that lately. Maybe you can recommend something?'

Alexander's face went completely blank. Then he said very seriously, ‘At least I don't have the terrible dripping disease, which is why my friend can't show his face. Perhaps you can recommend something for him too?'

While maintaining a sincere expression of sympathy, Ankara simultaneously moved one full pace away from me.

After that little bit of repartee she took us through the final three murals at a clipping pace. Which was fine because none of the remaining hieroglyphs looked familiar.

‘While Horus was still a child, Isis hid from Set in the swamp and the animals of the swamplands protected her. Her time there was dangerous and desperate, but in the end she triumphed over all obstacles and emerged, assisted by Horus, to destroy Set.' She finished with a summary, ‘Queen Isis has proven that she is the greatest of all the gods. She has dominion over life and death, war and peace, the worlds above and below, the earth, the sea and the sky.'

At that Ankara started backing away from us, obviously keen to be on her way, and convinced that we'd be no great loss to the Isiac community.

‘Er. Before you go.' I had to ask. ‘Why did you become an Isiac?'

She didn't seem like an axe murderer. Domitia had joined for the power, but why had Ankara?

My question seemed to throw her, as though she'd not thought about that for a long time. But when she finally spoke, it was with a passion, a conviction. ‘You have to understand, to us Isis is truly our mother. We can call upon her in all situations, and she will answer. And she has proven her devotion to those she loves. For Osiris she defied the laws of the universe to bring him back, and she will do the same for us. In Isis we will live forever, in her arms we will be reborn. She is our resurrection and our salvation.'

She stood for a moment waiting for any more questions. But neither of us spoke, so she bade us goodbye and continued on her way.

I stared at her retreating back. Hmm. Her answer had been completely sincere.

Could this happy bunch all be psychotic followers who showed a different face in private? Maybe I wanted them to be innocent just because it was good to see a strong female as an object of worship in the midst of a rigidly patriarchal society.

But where did the sacrificial dagger fit in? And what had happened to Victoria?

‘What do you think?'

Alexander had crossed his arms and was perusing the murals once again. ‘I don't think we're going to find someone to bribe. If they're all like her …' He ended with a shrug.

I nodded. They all seemed like Bambi. ‘Yeah, if they
won't even discuss stuff they've put on their own walls, then that text from the dagger would probably get us kicked out.'

We both looked towards the inner sanctum, but without a great deal of hope. Even with help from a priestess all we'd discovered were the glyphs for ruler and some vague reference to cosmic power. But we might as well look at the lot.

Once past the stone guards I let out an incredulous, ‘What's going on here?'

‘It's new,' said Alexander.

The inner sanctum was an ill-fitting add-on to the rest of the temple. The front of the Iseum was pure Egypt, in colour and style. This was … pure Rome. Everything was marble and there wasn't a single animal-headed god in sight.

‘There was a fire a few years ago and the Isiac community decided to start Romanising the Iseum,' said Alexander. ‘They thought the animalistic side of the religion was putting off too many of the customers. So now they have this instead.'

The sanctum was one huge, round room. Around the walls were statues of Isis in different poses. The fierce warrior queen striking the demonic Set with her sword. The faithful wife holding the dead body of her beloved Osiris.

Each statue had a small altar in front of it, and here and there devotees were lighting incense and performing ritual worship in front of them.

The statues were all striking in their own way, but it was the one in the very centre of the room that captured your attention.

Shafts of light streamed in through a row of windows running along the roofline, illuminating the giant statue of Isis which rose, centre-stage, to touch
the three-storey-high ceiling with her dark gold crown. Directly above her, a red-gold sun was painted on the dark blue ceiling, with pale golden rays radiating out and down the supporting walls. She was wearing the sun as a halo.

This was Isis in full splendour as the supreme deity, robed in sky-blue clothes decorated with gold stars. It was a different portrayal to the one on the hilt of the dagger. Here she was the serene, benevolent queen.

And she was completely Roman, her skin a milky white. The light made her marble features appear to glow from within, as though she truly lived. But you couldn't see any hint of her ancestry as a daughter of the Nile in her wide blue eyes.

‘No wonder Augustus is wary of the Isiacs,' I said, looking around. ‘Between the number of people working outside. Combined with the obvious cost of this temple …' I shook my head. ‘Powerful people.'

The few devotees tending the individual altars were far enough away for me to pull the headdress back from my face, so I could fan myself with my hand. The breeze didn't reach this far into the Iseum.

‘Crassus isn't the only wealthy member they have.' Alexander pushed the turban back off his forehead and wiped it with his sleeve.

‘What a waste of time.' I'd been hoping for more. Maybe not a direct clue … But something! ‘Now we know the hieroglyphs for “Ruler” and “Cosmic power of Isis”, but that doesn't exactly help me pinpoint where Victoria is. Or how to find her.'

‘Kannon, it was worth a try. Anyway while we're here why don't we do a thorough search? You take the rest of the gardens, and I'll check out the back of the temple. I've seen the picture — I know what Victoria looks like.'

I nodded. ‘Valerius' men have been through here already, but we should do it anyway.' Then I muttered to myself, ‘I don't know what else we can do to find her.'

There was a statue behind Alexander. Isis as Mother, seated with baby Horus on her lap. A man and a woman knelt in front of the altar earnestly praying. Alexander turned along my eye line. ‘What are you looking at?'

‘That sculpture. It's the spitting image of ones I've seen of Jesus and Mary.'

He raised his eyebrows in a question.

‘Mary's the mother of Jesus Christ. The founder of Christianity. The religion I was telling you about.'

‘The one that's in conflict with the Isiacs in your time?'

‘Not all Christians. Mainly just one radical group.'