Saturnalia (16 page)

A woman broke from the whirling rings of dancers and stood next to the fire, shouting something, repeating the cry until the others slowed and, finally, stilled. The noise of the instruments died away, and the woman chanted something in a language I did not understand, with a prayerlike cadence. Her face was so transformed by her ecstatic transport that I did not immediately understand that this was Furia. Her long hair was laced with leafy vines and over her shoulders was thrown the flayed skin of a recently sacrificed goat. Its blood liberally bespattered her body, as it had so recently been decorated by my own. In one hand she held a staff carved with a twining serpent, one end terminating in a pine cone, the other in a phallus.

I saw then that she stood between the fire and a ring of stones perhaps three feet across. This had to be the
mundus
through which the witches contacted their underworld gods.

Bowls were passing among the celebrants; ancient vessels decorated in a style that was vaguely familiar to me. Then I remembered the old bronze tray on which Furia had cast her miscellaneous prophetic objects. The wild-eyed, heavily sweating worshippers seemed to be unaffected by the chill of the December night. Whatever the brew was, the patrician ladies sucked it up as lustily as their rustic sisters.

The men did not partake. I noticed then that, besides their grotesque masks, the men wore cloths wrapped tightly about their lower bodies, as if to disguise the fact of their maleness, rendering them temporary eunuchs for this female rite.

Now a woman, one of the peasants and older than Furia, came forward. She wore a leopard pelt over her shoulders, and her arms had been painted or tattooed with coiling serpents. In one hand she held a leash and its other end was looped around the neck of a young man, who wore only garlands of flowers. He was a sturdy youth, handsome and well-proportioned. His skin was perfect, free from scars or birthmarks, and I was uneasily reminded of the perfect bull we had sacrificed earlier that evening. If he had an imperfection, it was in his blank gaze. He was either utterly fatalistic, half-witted, or drugged.

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!”

She actually chuckled. “A man may always will his own destruction, even if the gods are kindly disposed. You have brought this upon yourself.” Her hair was a snarled mare’s nest, and her eyes were wild. She was bloody and sweaty and she stank abominably from the flayed goat’s skin, but at that instant I felt a powerful lust for her, far surpassing anything I could have felt for the immaculate noblewomen. Some things are entirely beyond reason.

She noticed. Stepping close to me she said in a low voice, “We celebrate here to propitiate our gods and bring peace to our dead. If this were a fertility rite, I might have made use of you.”

Clodia stood next to me. “You were always a man of peculiar tastes, Decius, but your timing is off. In the spring rites, randy he-goats like you are in some demand.”

“He is on sacred ground in the presence of the gods, Patrician,” Furia said. “The powers of life and death are strong in all of us at such times.” She turned to the men who held me. “His blood cannot be shed on this holy ground. Take him outside the grove and kill him.”

“Wait,” Clodia said. “He is a well-known eccentric, but his family is one of the most powerful in Rome. His death will not be passed over lightly.”

“He is one of them!” said one of the Marsian men. “We
should never have permitted these high-born Romans into our rites! You see how they stick together?”

“Not me,” said the cultured Roman who held one of my arms. I was sure I knew the voice. He held my dagger up. “I will be more than happy to cut his throat, Priestess.”

She paused for a moment, thinking. “Roman, I saw a long life for you, and I will not oppose the will of the gods in this.” Then she addressed the men. “Take him from the grove and put out his eyes. He will never be able to lead anyone back here.” She turned to Clodia. “Will that satisfy you, Patrician?”

Clodia shrugged. “I suppose so. He is a troublemaker and no one will credit his ravings if he shows up blinded.” Then, to me, “Decius, you are like some creature out of Aesop. You are a living embodiment of human folly.” I thought her eyes were trying to tell me something else, but her tone was as nonchalant as always. Somehow I didn’t find her blood-speckled nudity as intriguing as that of Furia. But then I had seen Clodia naked before. Besides, I was about to get my eyes poked out with my own dagger.

“Take him away,” Furia ordered. As I was dragged off, we passed close by Fausta.

“Wait until Milo hears about this!” I hissed at her. She laughed loudly. Typical Cornelian.

When we were among the trees, the Roman waggled the blade of my dagger before my face.

“You’re always poking that long Metellan nose of yours where it doesn’t belong,” he said. “I think I’ll cut it off for you, after I take out your eyes.” This man was simply not in the spirit of Saturnalia. He held my right arm with his free hand while the other was held by one of the Marsians. I could not tell how many more were behind me, but I could hear at
least one. I wanted to say something biting and sarcastic, but I was doing my best to seem stunned and fatalistic.

“This is far enough,” said the Roman, as we cleared the trees.

“I don’t know,” said a Marsian. “I think we should take him to the road. This is too close to the
mundus
.”

“Oh, very well.” The Roman was impatient for my blood. We walked out onto the plowed ground. This suited me well as the new furrows made for uncertain footing. I had to make my move before we got to the road.

The Marsian holding my left arm stumbled slightly on a ridge of plowed earth and I pretended to fall. The Roman cursed and braced himself, and in that instant I lurched against him with my shoulder and jerked my right arm loose.

“That won’t save you!” he said, coming in with my dagger held low.

Most men, having taken a weapon off me, fancy that I am unarmed. That is one reason I usually keep something in reserve. My hand went into my tunic and came out gripping my
caestus
. I swung at the Roman, trying to smash his jaw, but the spiked bronze bar glanced off his cheekbone. The blow put him down, and I whirled to my left. The Marsian, foolishly, tried to grip my arm more tightly instead of letting go, springing back, and going for his own knife. The spikes of my
caestus
sank into the thin bone of his temple and he collapsed, dead as the bull beneath the hammer of the
flamen
’s assistant.

I sprang free and saw my dagger glittering in the slack hand of the supine Roman. I dived for it, caught it on the roll, and came up facing back toward the grove. I was about to cut the Roman’s throat, but there were three other masked men almost upon me. I managed to slash the arm of one; then I spun and ran.

I could hear their feet slapping the soft earth behind me, but they weren’t slapping it as hard as I was. Terror lent me the winged heels of Mercury and I had trained as a runner, as much as I disliked exercise. The men behind me were plodding peasants, unused to a fast sprint. Besides, I was wearing a good pair of boots where they were barefoot or sandaled. Still, I was sweating ice at the thought that I could easily take a fall on this uneven earth in the dim light of the low-hanging moon.

Then I was on the sunken lane and able to reach full speed. I could hear the men behind me still, but they were slowing. By the time I reached the paved road, I could not hear them at all. I went the rest of the way to the Via Aurelia at a steady lope and then I slowed to a walk. If the men were still behind me they would be awfully tired when they caught up. I wanted to get my breath back before I had to fight.

In the event, I made it into the city without further violence. This was a good thing, because I wasn’t feeling up to anything really epic. My cut palm throbbed where the gripping bar of my
caestus
had transmitted the impact of the weapon’s blows. I was covered with scratches and bruises and minor cuts and was horrendously fatigued.

As I walked I thought of the nightmarish scene I had just experienced. We regarded human sacrifice as uncivilized, and it was practiced by the state only in the most extraordinary circumstances. The casual use of humans, even worthless humans, as sacrificial animals we regarded as barbarous, a practice fit for Gauls and Carthaginians, but not for civilized people, but how long ago, I thought, had our Saturnalia offerings been genuine heads instead of “lights”? I thought of the thirty straw puppets we threw into the Tiber from the Sublician
Bridge on the Ides of May. When had those been thirty war captives?

As I crossed the Forum I thought of the man and woman who had been buried alive there to consecrate its founding. Their bones were still down there somewhere.

These were the last coherent thoughts to pass through my mind that night. I have no memory of getting to my home, undressing, and falling into bed. The moon was still up as I crossed the Forum, and the eastern sky was fully dark. It had been one of the longest days of my life.

“
HEY, DECIUS, WAKE UP!” IT
was Hermes. I felt around for my dagger. It was time to murder the boy. Then I remembered what day it was. He barged into my bedroom, all joy and cheer.