XLI
The Temple of Diana Aventinensis had been built to dominate the major peak of the Hill. After centuries of isolation, it had succumbed to the crush when the Aventine became a popular living space, and it had lost its drama. The view from afar was lost. The altar court was nothing like the grand meat-slaughtering area at Ephesus, where the warm cuts from daily sacrifice feed the entire city. On the Aventine, noisy, narrow streets abutted the two long portico wings, and the front steps came down into an equally squashed thoroughfare where the altar lurked amidst normal toings and froings. It was no place to hold a riot.
The situation deteriorated rapidly. Trust a mob to sense a carnival: the frolicking freedmen immediately saw that they were unwanted obstructions to an official operation. They whooped and set out to disrupt it. Waving their caps of liberty, they began taunting the Guards, oblivious to danger.
Among them, ran a man I had seen on the Via Appia, the one who tootled a one-note pipe until your teeth gritted. I wanted to ask him if he knew anything about the boy flautist from the Quadrumatus house, but I was not free to deal with that.
The Praetorians were not only armed, but every one was an ex-centurion. Many had made it to the top: first-spear, chief centurion in a legion, hard-bitten as they come. All of them were just what you would expect from soldiers who had served out their time yet could not bear to leave the service. These types always begged to be allowed an extra stint in the legions. Then, instead of becoming veterans with provincial farms, the gnarled obsessives signed up for yet another posting, on imperial protection duty. Many had never even been to Rome before. With their special camp on the city outskirts that acted like an enormous officers' club, their fabulous figured breastplates and their immense scarlet helmet crests – not to mention their privileged position so close to the Emperor – they then thought they had been posted to be gods on Mount Olympus.
They rarely had a chance to do more than ceremonial duties. Their mood was edgy. Most of these bullies would at some period have served a tour in Germany; inevitably, some must have been there in the Year of the Four Emperors, during the bloody rebellion Veleda caused. The barbarian element in their duties tonight must be unsettling them. Grim-faced, scarred, and solid as slaughtered beef carcasses, they were keyed up to whip out their swords and fight someone. It could be anyone who offended them. These bastards had a low threshold for annoyance and once they were riled, they were not fussy whom they took it out on.
'Hold off!' I ordered my little gang. 'We can't engage with Praetorians.' The lads looked disappointed. I was not sure I could control them. Clemens, inexperienced as an acting centurion, looked as if where they led he would follow.
I had other problems. Anacrites jumped from his conveyance. Before I could intervene, Helena Justina stormed up to him. Delight at being in ascendance had healed his ankle magically, but Helena looked ready to kick his legs from under him. She had not yet spotted her brother; she was concentrating on the Chief Spy. Ever since Anacrites and I once worked together on the Census, she treated him like my junior clerk.
'This is a mess! Anacrites, I hope you have a properly thought-out public safety plan!' I doubted that Anacrites had put in place any crowd-control measures. In fairness, he would have thought it unnecessary. Like me, he had believed he was coming to conduct a quiet search, when the temple would be virtually closed. Now he discovered innocent members of the public milling about. From his behaviour, the bastard did not care.
My mood took another knock. As Justinus worked his way around one of the portico buildings, he had noticed the Guards and must have guessed why they were here. It made no difference. He did dodge behind a swarm of bystanders, but when they failed to provide sufficient cover, he broke free and raced straight up the central temple steps and into its colonnaded porch. We glimpsed him, but not for long. Although it was night-time, the great doors had not yet been closed but stood open as a concession to the revellers. Justinus pushed straight through a clutch of priests and priestesses, who had been watching the street party; they were too startled to stop him. He vanished into the interior. Lentullus followed. Nobody imagined they wanted to check the time on the elderly sundial fixed outside, or to consult the ancient treaty between Rome and the cities of Latium that was housed in the cella. 'That was Quintus!' Before Helena could take off after him, I managed to grab her.
Anacrites signalled the Guards. Hampered by the marauding crowd, the heavy troops gathered themselves for an onslaught on the temple. Clemens and I exchanged anguished glances. We reached a decision. He and I stripped off our cloaks, followed by the men of the First Adiutrix who had spotted their comrade Lentullus entering the precinct and knew he was in trouble. As one, we piled the garments in Helena's arms. 'Marcus, I did not come just to be the girl who holds the cloaks!'
'Do it. You're a heroine – but you can't fight the Guards. In any case, lady, you know the price of cloaks!' My grin stalled her. Staggering under the weight of heavy winter wool, she succumbed momentarily. 'Seems we should give your men a hand,' I said, very politely, to Anacrites. That simpleton looked shocked that we were armed with swords. Then we were all storming through the crowd and up the steps, trampling the big-booted heels of the Praetorians as they clambered ahead of us. Everyone on the Aventine has a sense of being separate from Rome. It goes right back to Romulus and Remus. Our Hill was occupied by Remus; when he was murdered by his twin, the A ventine was excluded from the original city walls that Romulus completed. The Temple of Diana is the oldest and most venerable in Rome – but it was once outside Rome and that makes its priests reek of superiority. These indignant figures held up their hands and forbade the Guards entrance. 'You desecrate our shrine! Do not offer violence to a place of asylum!' There are precedents for requesting the return of a fugitive from the goddess Diana, but even if you are Alexander the Great and all his hosts, you are supposed to be polite.
The Guards, who reckoned they could go anywhere, were outraged. An altercation ensued. Negotiation achieved nothing, so by virtue of their weaponry, the Guards carried the motion and clanked straight indoors. They had slowed down though. Some even removed their helmets deferentially as they reached the inner precincts.
We were not wearing helmets. But like the Guards, once we crushed into the dimly lit interior, we walked more quietly. We passed through a forest of columns, to murky, incense-scented spaces. Statues of Amazons, with disconcerting friendly expressions, gazed at us from all sides. In the centre of the shrine was a lofty statue, modelled on the one at Ephesus: Diana, as a many-breasted mother-goddess, a serene smile on her gilded lips, holding out her hands, palms up, as if in welcome to fugitives.
Our hands were on our sword hilts, but we kept them sheathed. We struggled to overtake the Guards, but the overbearing bastards held us back. Some wheeled around, set themselves shoulder to shoulder, and penned us in a corner. It would be a bad idea to try and hack our way out.
Justinus and Lentullus had disappeared. Nobody else seemed to be there. A gaggle of priests and priestesses pushed in behind us. They hissed when the Guards started systematically searching. For a time those oafs tried not to cause disruption in the precinct, but their standard approach was to fling property about carelessly. Pretty soon a candelabrum went over. There was a scuffie while quacking priests doused the flames with a curtain, 'helped' by emboldened Guards plucking more draperies from their hanging-rods and tossing them aside. Votive statuettes were kicked around under needlessly clumsy boots. As priestesses shrieked and swooped protectively on temple furniture and treasure, the jubilant Guards found Ganna.