A series of loud shrieks from below halted the conversation. The stroke-master’s drum restarted and the ship got under way.
‘Who’s this Amphiaraos then?’ Magnus asked Rhaskos as they walked up a steep track from their anchorage in the glittering cove below. ‘If he’s a god I’ve never heard of him.’
‘He’s not a god; he’s a demi-god, one of the Heroes,’ Rhaskos replied, removing his floppy straw hat and rubbing the sweat from his freshly shaven head. ‘He was the king of Argos and greatly favoured by the Greek god Zeus, who some say is our Zbelthurdos; he gave him oracular powers. He was persuaded to take part in a raid against Thebes led by Polynices, one of the sons of Oedipus, in an attempt to wrest the kingdom from his brother, Eteocles, who had gone back on his word and refused to share the crown with him after their father had killed himself. Amphiaraos went despite the fact that he foresaw his own death. During the battle, when Periclymenus, the son of Poseidon, tried to kill him, Zeus threw his thunderbolt and the earth opened up, swallowing Amphiaraos and his chariot, saving him from a mortal death so that he would be forever able to use the power that Zeus had given him.’
‘How’s telling the future going to remove this curse?’ Vespasian asked.
‘So you agree that there is a curse?’ Rhaskos replied.
Vespasian glanced at Sabinus beside him, who shrugged. ‘It can’t do any harm telling him now if he wants to believe all that bollocks.’
‘Tell me what?’
‘Rhoteces did pronounce a curse on the voyage when we brought him on board,’ Vespasian admitted.
‘Why in the name of all the gods didn’t you tell me?’ Rhaskos exclaimed indignantly. ‘I could have got a priest to come and counter it when we were at Tomi.’
‘Because it’s rubbish, that’s why,’ Sabinus replied forcefully.
‘Rubbish! Have you not noticed all the misfortune that has happened to us on the voyage? That’s the proof that it’s not rubbish.’
‘We weren’t the only ones to be affected,’ Vespasian pointed out. ‘Every ship in the Euxine was affected by those storms and every ship in the Aegeum is affected by this calm. What makes you think that the weather is directed solely at us?’
‘Because we’re carrying a priest; he has great influence with the gods and can call on their help.’
‘Well, I have some sway with my god, Mithras, and so far his influence has been the most powerful,’ Sabinus said. ‘Before we left Tomi I prayed to him and he answered; he’s kept the sea calm for me and I haven’t been sick once.’
‘Believe what you like,’ Rhaskos said dismissively, ‘but if you heard that priest utter a curse I can promise you that we are cursed, and I intend to put an end to it.’
‘Well, it can’t do any harm, can it?’ Magnus said, looking from one to the other, clearly confused by the argument. ‘I mean, if there is a curse we’ll get rid of it and if there isn’t we’ll just have to do some more praying or whatever.’
‘If you start praying for wind and I’m sick all the way back to Ostia I shall personally see to it that you are cursed by every god that you hold sacred,’ Sabinus warned as the track entered a resin-scented cedar wood.
After a couple of miles of steady uphill walking in the pleasant shade of the sweet-smelling trees the wood suddenly ended and they found themselves in a ravine between two steep hills. Before them, on the west bank, was the sanctuary of Amphiaraos. It was a long thin complex overlooked by a theatre cut into the hillside above. There was a soporific quality about the atmosphere; the few people that Vespasian could see were either walking very slowly or lying in the shade of a colonnaded, covered walkway leading away from the temple just ahead of him. The only sounds were the ubiquitous cicadas and the mournful bleating of a dozen rams in a pen just behind the temple. The rich smell of cooking mutton filled the air.
‘There doesn’t seem to be a lot happening,’ Vespasian said, suppressing a yawn.
‘That’s because the Hero speaks to the supplicants in their dreams,’ Rhaskos replied. ‘You make your sacrifice of a ram, ask your questions of the priests and then you go to sleep on the ram’s fleece and wait for the reply.’
‘You mean to say that the priests do nothing,’ Sabinus scoffed.
‘They’re the conduit, they eat a part of the sacrifice and in doing so they transmit the question or request for healing through to the Hero.’
‘Oh, so they do do something, they eat mutton all day.’ Sabinus laughed. ‘Nice work if you can get it.’
Rhaskos scowled at Sabinus. ‘This is a very old and sacred place; you didn’t have to come but now that you’re here, respect other people’s beliefs. Now I’m going to buy a ram and make the sacrifice; you can join me if you wish.’
The ram was, of course, hideously over-priced, the shepherd being well aware that he could charge what he wanted to supplicants who had made the mistake of arriving without their own. After much haggling and a few barely veiled threats from Magnus concerning the shepherd’s well-being after dark, they made the purchase and entered the temple.
A huge, marble statue of Amphiaraos, reaching almost to the ceiling, dominated the cool interior. Seven flaming sconces were set in a line along its base; beneath each one sat a well-fed priest. In front of the statue stood a hearth filled with red-hot charcoal covered by a grill; next to it was a blood-stained altar upon which lay a knife. Hanging on all the walls were innumerable fleeces from past sacrifices.
‘Come forward, supplicants,’ the oldest priest said, rising from the central chair as they entered. ‘My name is Antenor, chief priest of Amphiaraos. What is yours?’
Rhaskos led the ram to the altar and bowed his head. ‘Rhaskos.’
‘Tell us, Rhaskos, what you wish to know of Amphiaraos and what healing you require of him.’
‘I have had a curse put upon my ship in the name of Zbelthurdos. I wish to know how to preserve my crew so that we may complete our voyage and I look for healing for my galley slaves who suffer from fever.’
‘We will make these requests. Make your sacrifice, Rhaskos.’
Rhaskos turned to Vespasian, Sabinus and Magnus and indicated that they should help him lift the ram on to the altar. As they came forward Vespasian noticed Antenor staring intently, first at him and then at Sabinus.
‘Who are these men, Rhaskos?’
‘They’re passengers aboard my ship; they are here to witness the power of the Hero, not to make sacrifices themselves.’
‘You two are brothers?’
‘Yes, we are,’ Sabinus replied dismissively, unimpressed by the old priest’s perception; even the most cursory glance at them would discern a sibling likeness.
‘From where did you sail?’
‘From Tomi in the Euxine Sea,’ Vespasian replied, gripping the ram’s horns as it was lifted, unwillingly, on to the altar.
‘And you are sailing west?’ Antenor asked, stepping forward to the altar staring all the time at the two brothers.
‘To Ostia, yes,’ Vespasian confirmed as he and Sabinus fought against the growing urgency of the ram’s struggling.
The priest nodded, as if satisfied by what he had heard, and then turned his attention back to Rhaskos. ‘In the name of truth and healing accept this ram, mighty Amphiaraos.’
Rhaskos picked up the sacrificial knife and flashed it across the ram’s throat. Blood splattered on to the altar. The ram’s eyes rolled in their sockets and its back legs kicked violently as it tried to resist death. Gradually the kicking died down and it sank to its knees; then it collapsed into the pool of its own blood, which soaked up into its fleece.
The other six priests came forward, each brandishing knives, and began to skin the victim.
After a while of hacking and sawing the blood-matted fleece came off intact. Antenor nodded his approval and turned the red-raw carcass on to its back. He took the sacrificial knife from Rhaskos and slit open the skinned ram’s belly. With a couple of sharp cuts he removed the liver and placed it on the altar’s edge. Again he nodded his approval — the auspices evidently were good — before something caught his eye and he turned the liver over, picked it up, looked closely at it and then glanced at Vespasian and Sabinus.
‘Stay a while,’ he said to the brothers, putting the liver back down. He turned to Rhaskos. ‘Now sleep,
