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  'Tell that to the temples' priests! It does not do to underestimate the power of such institutions. Even the Emperor would approach cautiously. I think Anacrites will be roundly rebuffed-if only because of the outrages committed last night by the Praetorians in his name.'

  'That was stupid.' He should have cleared the operation with the temple first.

  Helena nodded. 'He has no diplomacy. But anyway, it may be that the priests really cannot help with Veleda's current whereabouts. If she sensed that pursuit was closing in on her, she may have left in a hurry and without revealing her plans.'

  I was not convinced. She was sick, foreign, and probably short of funds. The Temple of Diana Aventinensis may not have liked being stuck with a fleeing barbarian, but once they took her in, they would see it through. 'So where could she go, my darling? She must be running out of options now. Where next?'

  Helena Justina gave me a straight look. 'It seems nobody knows.'

  I bet! I knew Helena, so I was convinced Ganna told her something in confidence when they tried the 'two shy girls have to go to the lavatory together' trick. You could tell Anacrites had no real knowledge of women, or he would never have fallen for that one.

  I gave Helena a glance that told her I believed that she was holding back-and in return she gave me a smile that said she saw what I thought, and wouldn't give… Fine.

  'So was Anacrites impressed by your help, my darling?' Helena Justina let out an uncharacteristic snort. 'He thinks he's very clever-but the man is a fool!'

  Excellent. Anacrites had failed to notice that my wife secretly possessed a clue.

  Helena mentioned that she was going over to the Capena Gate later, to tell her parents and Claudia that Justinus was now free and well. She spoke idly, like any efficient wicked woman. Either she had taken a lover-which I always feared was possible-or she was up to something she thought she could bring off better than me. She might be right, but if she went out on the loose, I was a heavy-handed Roman husband: I intended to play the chaperon. During the day, I watched for indications. She spent a lot of time giving instructions about Julia and Favonia; normally she would have taken them with her to see their doting grandparents. She collected a few things, as if she might be travelling.

  I gave her a couple of hours' start, using the time to shave and to pack necessities myself I put Clemens in charge of everything at home, and I asked for a volunteer who could ride. The legionaries were still too upset by what had happened to Lentullus. Only Jacinthus whispered please could he come? Typical. I was better off when I worked alone. Still, he was a dead loss in the kitchen, he took no interest at all in cutlets or calamari, and I might well need a companion. So gritting my teeth at my usual filthy handout from fortune, I set off accompanied by my cook. Jacinthus seemed thrilled to be taken on an unknown mission. He could have been a soldier; all he wanted was to be on the move, never mind why or where.

  We tailed Helena from the senator's house to the stables where I knew her father kept his carriage. Two female companions were with her, closely cloaked and followed by a slave carrying small hand luggage. They left the slave behind when they departed in the carriage like the three Graces taking their dancing sandals to a summer picnic. It was a slow vehicle, giving me time to acquire horses for Jacinthus and me.

  Whether Ganna had whispered it to her, or whether Helena simply worked it out for herself, as soon as I saw that she was taking a route along the Via Appia and out towards the Alban Hills, it struck me where we were probably going. In winter it would be a long haul: we were heading for another shrine of Diana. We were going to Lake Nemi.

  XLV

  The carriage stopped for a comfort break after about six miles. I rode up. 'Surprise!'

  'I thought we'd let you catch up,' said Helena pleasantly. Her eyes lingered on Jacinthus. The cook had no idea his presence was making me feel unprofessional.

  To my surprise Helena not only had Albia with her, which I might have expected, but also Claudia Rufina, the hard-done-by wife of

  Justinus. Claudia was exhibiting the bright eyes and firm mouth of a wronged woman who now had her rival pinned down in catapult range. If Veleda really was skulking at Nemi, she was liable to end up buried there in a shallow grave.

  When I grumbled about being excluded, Helena retorted that men were superfluous. The shrine of Diana Nemorensis had become a wildly fashionable complex for wealthy wives who needed assistance in conception. Helena and Claudia were going to Nemi under guise of seeking fertility advice.

  I said a fertility shrine seemed an odd place to hide a virgin priestess. Claudia sniffed. Albia spluttered with laughter. Helena just grinned and told me that if I had to tag along, I must keep right out of their way at the shrine. That suited me.

  Since Nemi lies between fifteen and twenty miles from Rome, our late start was ludicrous. We only reached the area by the feeble light of lanterns. We were forced to stay overnight at Aricia. Aricia had been a stronghold of Augustus' horrible family, so it was full of people who took a snide view of anyone who lacked gods in their ancestry. There were inns. Any town on the edge of a famous sanctuary extends hospitality to those it can exploit. In theory Aricia was a pleasant spot, famous for its wine, its cuts of pork, its woodland strawberries. The whole place was half dead in December, however. Dinner was foul, the beds were damp, and the only consolation was that there were few Saturnalia revellers creating a din on its sour streets. At least we slept. Helena and I slept together, and since we were so close to a fertility shrine, I made sure we demonstrated that we did not need any divine assistance in our matrimonial rites. No votive statue sellers tomorrow would be selling me little models of sick wombs or wobbly penises. In the morning I had barely enough energy to beat up the landlord for overcharging-but that was nothing to do with my exertions, just seasonal depression clamping down.

  We did not linger over breakfast, since the inn did not offer any. We found a solitary bakery that condescended to sell a bag of old rolls and some must-cake. Eating as we went, in a manner that would not be approved of by snobs, we set off soon after dawn to find the sacred grove and the lake.

  SATURNALIA, DAY THREE

  Fourteen days before the Kalends of January (19 December)

  XLVI

  The Alban Hills enclose two inland lakes known as the mirrors of Diana-the Lakes of Nemi and Albanus. Of these, Lake Nemi is famously the more isolated, beautiful and mysterious. When the country road brought us three miles from Aricia along the upper ridges, nothing prepared us for what would lie below. That frosty December morning, mist writhed like abandoned laundry on the silent forest trees and hung over the lake basin in a suspended white canopy. The shrine of Diana was set apart from the world, within a perfect circle of volcanic peaks. The enclosed lake gave the impression it might be as deep again as the surrounding hills are high. Tangles of age-old vegetation clothed the steep interior slopes, ancient holm oaks and ash, thriving amidst head-high brambles and ferns; yet somehow a road had been hacked out down inside the ancient crater. Even the presence of Julius Caesar's enormous villa, sprawled in ugly splendour at the southern end of the lake, could not spoil the remote perfection of the scene.

  The narrow road led us fairly gently through the deserted woods via overgrown hairpin bends. As we descended, we passed little fields and market gardens, clearly benefiting from fertile soil, though most looked abandoned and some gave the impression they had been frozen in time since our primitive rural ancestors. There were occasional tiny dwellings, more like cowsheds than homes, with no sign of occupants. We lost our way a couple of times, but then a man in a cart came racketing around a corner and nearly ran into us. He had the haunted gaze of a husband who thought his wife was cheating on him, an obsessed cuckold who was gallivanting up the hill in the hope of catching the culprits at a tender tryst in Aricia. I bet they knew he was coming. I bet it happened every week, and they always eluded him.

  Despite looking unreliable, he gave us accurate directions. We took a side
road we had already passed twice, that had looked as if it led nowhere, and soon came out in a flat area close to the water, just below the levelled terraces upon which the sanctuary was built.

  We were in a deep basin the eye could only take in if you turned on the spot. Ahead of us stretched the limpid waters of the lake, unmarred by fishing boats. All around, striking hills rose steeply to a sky that seemed so far away we felt like moonstruck rabbits at the bottom of their burrow.

  'This place would make poets wet themselves.'

  'Ever one for the fluent phrase, Falco.'

  'I'm not happy. It's too sure of its own magnificence.'

  'You just hate seeing that a local landowner has selfishly scarred the vista with an ostentatious holiday home!' Helena was glaring angrily down the lake to the abomination that disfigured the southern shore. She was no supporter of Julius Caesar or his great-nephew Augustus, with their boasts and empire-building machinations, let alone their crackpot, incestuous, empire-destroying descendants, Caligula and Nero.

  'You said it. Filthy-rich monsters with brazen ambitions… Also, fruit, I am sneering at this so-called isolated shrine, which has cynically attracted shoals of elite-and loaded-so useful in gynaecology women, whose real reason for failure to conceive is that they are all inbred to buggery-'

  'I don't believe buggery would help,' Claudia Rufina murmured sweetly, as if I might not know its definition. The tall young woman (provincial, but substantially loaded herself) rearranged a stole over one shoulder, gazing around as if she feared to meet her destiny in this near-perfect place. They were all subdued. Entranced by the wild beauty of the setting, young Albia turned on me an expression she saved for when she knew indelicate issues were being discussed by adults who preferred her not to listen. Then she lost interest in being precocious and went back to admiring the grove-covered hills and the lake.

  Any religious nymph from the endless forests of Germanyought to feel at home close to these graceful trees and the water. I finally began to believe that Veleda might be here.

  Helena had a vague recollection of some story about horses being banned within the temple precincts. 'Wasn't Diana's hunting consort, Virbius, a manifestation of Theseus' son Hippolytus, who was torn apart by horses for rejecting the adulterous advances of his stepmother, Phaedra?'

  'Sounds like a load of old myth to me…' I grinned. 'Families do have their troubles.'

  I listened to Helena. Our purpose today would hardly be welcomed. We could not march in and demand that a priestess who had been granted sanctuary be handed over to us. So rather than offend even more, we left our carriage and horses, and continued unobtrusively on foot. The shrine lay above us. Its main rites were in August, the birthday of the huntress goddess, when crowds of women came from Rome to celebrate the compassionate patroness of midwives, lighting up the whole area with torches and lamps. Today, we passed nobody as we walked.

  We clambered uphill on a short roadway to a large walled enclosure. Albia skipped on ahead, though Claudia was breathing hard so Helena and I slowed our pace for her. Inside the walls, the sanctuary was planted with gardens. Even in December this was a pleasant place to stroll among the topiary, quiet arbours and statues, and the fine lake view beyond. Around the fane were other facilities, including an empty theatre.

  'You look too virile,' Helena told me. 'We can't take you. They will know I spend a lot of time fending you off and trying not to conceive.' I raised an eyebrow silently reminding her that there had been no fending off last night. Helena blushed. 'Jacinthus will be acceptable as our bodyguard.' Jacinthus was tiresomely excited; he was hoping that a wild boar would thrust its snout from the undergrowth-not so he could turn it into escallops and terrine as he should do, but so he could fight it. 'He can find you when we're finished. Go and amuse yourself somewhere, Marcus, and we'll meet later.'

  'How long will you be?' 'Not long.'

  'Any husband knows what that means.' We could see that there were pilgrims in the sanctuary. I reckoned there would be a slow queue at the fertility shrine. The priests would keep everyone waiting, to unsettle them and make them suggestible-or as they would say, to allow the shrine's calming influence to soothe them.

  'Oh don't make a fuss. Go and play in the woods, Falco-and take care!'

  Woods did not frighten me.

  I walked about for several hours. I searched all the small shrines, temples and recreational facilities, a task which was as tedious as I expected, then I strolled down weedy paths among the trees. Scowling with cold and boredom, I listened to the rustles and sighs that nature devises to unnerve town-dwellers who find themselves out in the open. I remembered this from Germany. We had spent weeks trailing through miles of forest, growing more and more leery; I knew how it felt to be quite alone in the woods, even for a short time. Every crack of a twig makes your heart bump. I hate that smell of old animal trails and suspicious fungi. I dread that sense, every time you enter a clearing, that somebody or something rank has disappeared on one of those damp paths moments before you-and is still close by, watching with hostile eyes.

  I could understand how dark legends about Nemi had sprung up in Rome's prehistory. This spot had been sacred for centuries. In times gone by, there was always supposed to be King of the Grove, a chief priest, who came here first as a runaway slave; he plucked a golden bough from a special tree, which would only yield to the true applicant. He would find and kill in single combat the previous King of the Grove. Then he could only wait anxiously for the next runaway to arrive through the spectral mists and kill him… Those bloodthirsty days had supposedly been ended when the Emperor Caligula casually decided that the current incumbent had been in post too long, so he sent a tougher man to depose him and make rex Nemorensis a civic position, presumably with the normal terms and conditions.

  Public service has its dark side. The pay is always meagre and the pension rights are rubbish. Do your job well, and some mediocrity always gets jealous, then you end up being shifted sideways, to make way for a half-baked management favourite who cannot remember the old days and who has no respect for the gods…

  Caligula liked Nemi. He used the place as a decadent retreat. He had two stupendous barges built to float on the lake, floating pleasure palaces. I had heard that those barges were larger and even more extravagantly decorated than the gilded state barges used by the Ptolemys on the River Nile; their fabulous on-board accommodation included a full suite of baths. They had every kind of top-flight nautical equipment too, some specially invented. In the polite version, these great ships were created so that crazy Caligula could partake in the rites of Isis. The better story says that they were intended for imperial orgies.

  I made my way to the shore, where I found a man who claimed he had once worked aboard the vessels. The old whelk now spent his days dreaming of past glory. He had the sense to dream out loud, in order to receive charity from visitors. Even more bored than I was, in return for half a sestercius in a rather fine bronze bucket he just happened to have handy, he was happy to talk. He admitted he had stolen the bucket from on board. He spoke of triple lead-sheathing on the hull and heavy marble cladding on cabins and the poop; lion headed bollards; revolutionary bilge pumps and folding anchor stocks. He swore there had been rotating statues, powered by fingertip bronze bearings on secret turntables. He told me how these great ceremonial barges had been deliberately scuttled, once Claudius became emperor. I had heard about plenty of bad behaviour under Claudius, but the elderly ruler had at least claimed to clean up society. During his early days of promise, he had ordered the symbols of his predecessor's luxury and decadence to be destroyed. The Nemi barges were sunk. And then, like any King of the Grove knowing himself to be doomed, old Claudius settled down to wait for Nero's ambitious mother to serve him with a fatal dish of mushrooms. The nutty old emperor is dead; long live the even nuttier young new one.

  The thought of the lost ships depressed me. I went back to walk in the woods. I wandered about despondently. Suddenly a man
wielding an enormous weapon ran out from behind a nearby tree and rushed me. My assailant had a crude approach to fighting, but he was sturdy, fired up, and as he swung his big sword, I saw the panic in his eyes. I was in no doubt: his one idea was to kill me.

  XLVII

  I had brought my own sword, but could not immediately unsheathed it from its scabbard's cosy nook under my armpit. At first I was too busy dodging. There were plenty of trees to jump behind, but most were too slender to provide real cover. My opponent sliced through the sapling stems with all the hatred of a gardener slashing giant thistles.

  Once I got my sword out, I was in a real predicament. I learned to fight in the army. We were taught to parry a stroke as violently as possible, jar the other man half senseless, then plunge in and kill him. I was happy to send this madman straight to the River Styx-but the investigator in me yearned to know first why the suicidal menace was attacking me. As we danced around and clashed blades, the effort seemed pointless. I was on the verge of ending it with one brutal stab through his ribs.

  He was desperate. Every time I lunged forwards, he managed to stop me. I stabbed again: he accepted it like a gladiator who knows he won't leave the arena alive. Soon it was all defensive work; every time I attacked, he furiously protected himself If I slacked off, he should have gone for me with renewed vigour, but he seemed to have lost his initiative.

  In the end I took a chance. I let my sword dangle from my hand, point down. I held open my arms, baring my chest for a death blow. (Believe me, I was out of range and I kept a good grip on the sword.) 'So kill me,' I taunted him.

  The moment seemed ageless and endless. Then I heard him whimper.

  I whipped up my sword, jumped across the clearing, knocked him flat and fell on top of him. My sword point was pressing on his neck. I noticed it was slitting the complicated gold braid of a rather fine long white tunic-out of keeping with its wearer. He had a face like a milk pudding, with a dumpling where his nose should be and his body was degraded by rickets. His manner was an odd combination: bombastic authority mingled with sheer terror. The closest I had seen to this clown was a bankrupt financier when the bailiffs came-immediately before denial and self-justification set in.