presumably from unaccustomed scrambling through the passageway. He looked quite unimportant in comparison, but his toga’s purple edge announced him as a patrician of some consequence. Obviously this was Publius Martinus himself.
My neighbour nudged me sharply in the ribs. ‘Hardly a Greek statue, is he — if that’s the bridegroom, as I suppose it is? I hope the Vestal isn’t disappointed in her choice. When she sees him, perhaps she’ll change her mind.’
I shook my head. ‘From what I hear from Marcus Septimus, she’s formally agreed, and since she is a Vestal…’ I broke off and glanced around. I was half-expecting to be ‘shushed’ again, but I realized that other people were listening in to this. I was being indiscreet! So I said no more, except, ‘But shh! Let’s watch the ritual.’
The sevir was already plunging the knife into the bull and had seized a chalice in which to catch the blood. The beast began to stagger and was soon sagging at the knees and as it fell the crowd gave out a cheer. The trained attendants, the victimarii, fell upon it to disembowel it and hack it into pieces for the public feast.
‘I hear they give the creatures poppy juice to keep them quiet,’ my neighbour muttered as the noise died down again. ‘That would make sense, I suppose. Terrible bad omen if that ran amok and gored a priest or something.’ He nudged my ribs again. ‘Can you see it all from there, or is that pillar in the way? The hirospex is reading the entrails, by the look of it. Oh great gods, he’s hesitating! Is there something wrong?’
I stood on tiptoe to get a better view. ‘It doesn’t look like it. He’s put them on the altar fire, so they must have been all right, and he has decided that the omens spell good luck.’
My neighbour grinned. ‘Except for the poor animal, that is. Still, I won’t be complaining, if I get a decent slice.’
He was getting disapproving looks again, so I looked away and tried to pretend that he was not with me. In fact he wasn’t really. I had come here with Junio, my adopted son, but the pressure of the crowd had separated us as soon as we came in and he had been borne down nearer to the front, though he was still in sight. He was crammed up against a pillar not very far away.
He turned his head and saw me and flashed a smile. It was obvious he was enjoying this. It was only the second Emperor’s birthday festival that he had ever seen — last year had been the first; up to that time he had merely been my slave, and slaves were not generally brought into the temple court at feasts, but left outside waiting for their masters to come back. But now that I had freed him and adopted him he was a citizen and therefore entitled — and expected — to attend the rite.
I looked at him with pride. He wore the awkward toga effortlessly, as if he’d done so all his life, and looked more like a proper citizen than I did myself. Of course it was likely he did have Roman blood. He was born in a Roman household, before he was sold on to the trader that I got him from, so — though it is certain that his mother was a slave — his father was probably the master of the house. (The owner of a slave girl has exclusive rights to her — she is not permitted to consort with other slaves — and if a resultant offspring is not required by the house it will either be exposed and left to die, or passed on to a slave trader prepared to keep it till it is old enough to sell.) Of course Junio didn’t know his mother’s whereabouts or name — any more than she knew his, or what his fate had been; he would have been taken from her shortly after birth.
I wondered what she would think of him, if she could see him now, at nineteen years of age (or perhaps it was twenty, we could not be sure), a handsome married man with a family of his own. It was hard to remember, looking at him today, the piteous half-starved child that I’d purchased from the dealer all those years ago.
‘Are you going to stand there all day, citizen?’ The bald man who had frowned at us broke into my thoughts. ‘Only some of us would like to go and get positions at the feast.’
I had been so busy with my thoughts that I had not noticed that the crowd was shuffling forward by this time, towards the little grove within the grounds where the Imperial temple was. The sevir Augustalis was carrying the phial of blood, to pour out on the altar there; what remained of the entrails, the offal and the brains would be cooked on the altar fire and eaten as a ceremonial collation by the priest. The singers and musicians struck up again, but they were quickly drowned as the crowd — which had been silent — broke into tumultuous cheers and there was much enthusiastic waving of the fronds.
‘Well, citizen?’ The bald man was sounding more impatient now; I was blocking the access to the aisle.
‘A thousand pardons…’ I squeezed myself into the wall and allowed him to go past, hoping that the talkative trader would depart at the same time, so that I could link up with Junio again.
But my neighbour was not so easily deterred. He was forced forwards by the pressure of the crowd, but he turned to call to me, ‘I’ll go and do my duty by filing past the shrine, and then I’ll try to go ahead and save a place for you. They are already making preparations, by the look of it.’
He waved a vague hand in the direction of the court, where the dismembered bull’s carcass was being hauled away, taken off to the temple kitchens to be cooked. Already I could see a group of little temple slaves, at the doorway of the building where the attendants lived, ready with the trestles to set out for the feast.
‘Don’t trouble! There is my son — he’ll need a place as well,’ I shouted back. But I could have saved my breath. The man had already been borne off in the throng and my voice was lost in all the noise. I remained pressed against the wall until the crush had eased, and then made my own way down towards the court, looking out for Junio, who had likewise sidestepped from the crowd and was waiting beside a giant statue of the Father of the gods.
He emerged as I approached and fell into step beside me, his face alight with smiles. ‘A splendid ritual! Even better than last year.’ He gestured delightedly towards the Imperial shrine. ‘And what a culminating sacrifice! I hope the god Commodus appreciates the smoke. Myself, I am content to be a mortal and just enjoy the flesh!’
I flashed a warning look. This was a daring joke, if not outright indiscreet. Someone might have been close enough to hear. We were almost the last to join the file and the leaders of the original procession to the shrine were making their way back towards us by this time, so that my patron and his guest were almost parallel with us, though going the other way.
Junio saw the danger and added instantly, ‘But what a splendid basis for a feast. There will be enough for all — although there is a crowd.’
I nodded. ‘Enough for everybody here to have a piece — of one of the offerings, if not the bull itself! The temple slaves will see to that. Though it will take a little while for the later beasts to cook.’
He grinned at me. ‘So you are wise to have avoided rushing to the front. Trust you to think of clever things like that.’
In fact there was a considerable delay before we had made our duty visit to the shrine, ritually rinsed our faces and our hands and had our foreheads dabbed with altar-ash, so that we could join the crowd waiting at the long table in the court. My companion from earlier had reserved a space and was looking out for me, so Junio and I both went across and we managed to insert ourselves into the narrow gap and find a garland to put around our heads.
Just in time, in fact. The great dishes of cooked meat were being brought into the court, and the sevir muttered an incantation over them before they were taken and shared among the crowd. There is not much decorum at such a public ‘feast’. The attendant priest moved down one side of the table, offering the bowl and a muttered blessing to each man in turn. People seized a portion and gnawed it where they stood, followed by a quick swig from the communal cup, while people on the fringes queued to get a share. I ate mine and retired, being careful to keep my toga clean — the temple slaves would bring the bowls of rinsing-water for fingers afterwards, when the final prayer of dismissal had been said.
The trader, who had followed at my heels, licked the last scrap of cooked beef from his fingertips. ‘Well, that was very good. I suppose we must thank your Publius Martinus. Though no doubt he’ll have more than a taste of it himself — he and your patron will have the better bits. Along with all the rest of the councillors, I suppose. Just as they’ll have the best seats at the games this afternoon.’ He nodded towards Marcus and the official guests, who were on the dais at the front and had a proper place to sit.
I was about to murmur — diplomatically — that, since they were the ones who had provided all the beasts, of course the choicest portion would be reserved for them, but I was interrupted by Junio tugging at my sleeve.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘That visitor from Rome. It seems as if he’s leaving. And the final prayer’s not said.’
The trader goggled. ‘There’s been a message for him, by the look of it. It must have been important, to disturb him here.’ He pointed out the crimson-faced young courier who had fought his way unnoticed to the central dais, and was now escorting the Roman towards the outer gate. The crowd stood back to make way for them.
‘It’s no doubt to tell him that his Vestal Bride’s arrived,’ I said. ‘I understand he plans to present her to the
