The courtyard filled up. The black bull was led in and paraded around the periphery. Over in front of the temple, priests had lifted the gilded image of Attis off its litter. They were tying it to the gilt pine tree with stout ropes. Other ropes served as guide wires to keep the pine tree from toppling under the weight.
A line of robed priestesses-Margo was sure, this time, that she was looking at women-appeared from inside Cybele's temple and took up positions in a semicircle. The High Priest led the black bull onto the platform, where several attendants held it with strong ropes. A swift glance at Malcolm showed Margo a man completely lost in study. He watched the barbaric scene as though memorizing every baffling detail.
This is his specialty, Margo remembered suddenly, what he took his degrees in., Classics and Antiquities and stuff. He's forgotten me completely. She'd seen Malcolm the teacher, Malcolm the guide, Malcolm the sparring partner, even Malcolm the perennially broke friend who made her smile when she felt like curling into a ball and hiding from the world, but she'd never seen Malcolm the scholar enthralled by his life's passion.
The intensity of his gaze made her wish suddenly he'd look at her that way.
You want him to do that, you're going to have to meet him on even ground, Margo. And that meant she had to become a scholar. Well, she'd already discovered a burning desire to learn and understand; what better place to start than with something Malcolm, too, found passionately interesting? So get started already!
Margo studied the scene before her, trying to look at it as a student of ancient cultures. She wished she hadn't skipped so many Latin lessons or skimped on the cultural reading Kit had assigned her in favor of more time in the gym. Robed initiates stripped naked and descended into the deep trench. The bull lowed piteously. Its eyes rolled white. Someone she couldn't see too well was doing something under the animal's belly. She caught a flash of sunlight on steel as the High Priest shouted something.
The bull screamed and lunged. The men holding it strained at the ropes. The knife flashed again to the throat, this time. Margo flinched. God, they're really killing it .... Blood poured through gaps into the trench. The bull fought, screaming and bellowing and bleeding to death at the end of its ropes. Margo covered her ears. She'd never seen an animal die up close like this, hadn't realized they would scream so pitifully. It was terrible, cruel, monstrous ....
You're not in Minnesota, Margo.
But the bull's agonizing death shook her, nonetheless.
They don't take so long to die in modern slaughterhouses, she told herself. But it would be a long time before she wanted to eat beef again. Eventually the bull sank to its knees, dead The High Priest held up something long and crooked at one end, like the walking cane on Attis' statue.
Then she realized what it was. "My God!"
Her shocked expletive was lost in the cheer from the crowd. Trumpets sounded again, wild and shrill in the April sunlight. The young initiates emerged, reeling and covered with blood. They looked like they'd been drinking it. They stumbled past the High Priest, each touching the bull's severed member in turn, then vanished into the temple. The priestesses followed. The High Priest, too, entered the temple. Other priests took up a chant that lasted a long time. Then, at some signal from inside the temple, the crowd began to cheer wildly. The high priest of Attis returned, still holding the bull's severed genitals.
Margo's head swam. None of this made any sense. The crowd had taken up its own chant. Malcolm looked like he was trying to memorize every word. Then she realized he'd loosened the flap on the bag which held his personal log. How long had he been recording? She caught a glint in his palm and recognized a miniature digitizing camera, one that worked like a video recorder but fed directly to the computerized log. Surely he'd attended one of these parades and ceremonies before?
No, she remembered suddenly, this was supposed to be a historic first for Rome.
No wonder he'd been desperate to get here and see this, record it in its entirety. She wondered how many other scholars had come on this tour? Given the questions about the Messalina lottery, probably none. Perhaps Malcolm was the only scholar present to record the Procession of Attis. She felt like a heel that she hadn't thought to turn on her recorder, too.
"Malcolm," Margo hissed, "just what are Attis and Cybele?"
He hushed her. He seemed to be waiting for something, as though unsure what might happen next. The High Priest bowed low before the great gilded statue of Cybele in her lion chariot. He placed the severed bull's phallus before it and backed away, flailing himself and chanting. Initiates stumbled out, assisted by other priests. Then, at something which completely escaped her, he said, "Ahh" and suddenly relaxed
The High Priest had obtained a basket filled with reed scepters. He presented one to each reeling initiate. While Margo stared, the new priests broke the reed scepters violently in half, then carried them one by one and tied the broken reeds to the gilded pine tree. The crowd was chanting along with the priests.
"What are they saying?" Margo demanded. "What are they doing?"
Once again, Malcolm hushed her. She stood in the midst of an insane crowd and tried hard to figure out the lunacy she'd just witnessed, but didn't come up with anything rational as explanation. Some scholar I am. To interpret something, one first had to know something on which to base an interpretation.
Why was it there was never enough time to fulfill one's dreams properly? To be a proper scout would take years. If she took years, the one burning goal that had made the past three years tolerable would never amount to anything more than daydreams. Margo sighed as the priests re-entered the Temple, carrying their sacred images inside. Then it was all over and the crowd broke up. People chattered excitedly, sounding for all the world like sports fans comparing the performances of favorite basketball stars. Malcolm fussed briefly with the bag containing his personal log, sliding the digitizing camera back into it and shutting off everything. Then he stood blinking like a sleepy English spaniel just coming awake in the morning.
"Well ..." Malcolm's glance rested on her. His face reddened. "Hi. I, uh, think you had a question?" he asked sheepishly.
"Or three, yes." She stood glaring at him, hands on hips, then had to laugh. "You look so funny when you're embarrassed, Malcolm. What the hell was that all about? I tried to make sense of it, but it was pretty weird."
"Today is known as Black Friday, the day of the Sun's death," Malcolm explained as he led the way down from the sacred Palatine Hill. "Attis is a Solar god, castrated and sacrificed to fructify the earth, then reborn again after coupling with his mother/consort Cybele. The Taurobolium-the ritual slaughter of the bull-is a purification ritual."
"Did they really drink its blood?"
"Yes, indeed. Then each initiate mated with a priestess of Cybele in the Temple of the Magna Mater. I'm surprised they didn't couple in the courtyard. I believe in some areas, the sacred marriages are done publicly." He smiled. "Roman morals, however, are generally much stricter, despite what you may see in movies. Of course, his eyes twinkled, "all bets are off during Hilaria."
A shiver ran up Margo's back. Hilaria was only a couple of days away. Just exactly what would the festival be like? And her seventeenth birthday was going to fall right in the middle of it. She couldn't have asked for a better birthday present.
"Anyway, after going inside to mate with the Goddess, our young initiates symbolically castrated themselves by breaking those reed scepters. I'd wondered how they would get away with the ritual in Rome, Imperial law being what it is."