SPQR XII: Oracle of the Dead Read online

  By late morning, Hermes was back with Perna. “What does the praetor wish of me?” he asked.

  “You will accompany me back to the tunnel of the Oracle.” I said. “There are some questions about its construction that I wish you to clear up for me.” I said these things in the tones of a Roman magistrate, tones leaving no scope for protest or debate, tones that allowed for nothing save obedience.

  He knuckled his forehead. “As the praetor wishes.”

  A while later we were on our way to the temple complex. Besides Perna, Hermes and a dozen or so of my men rode with us, together with my lictors.

  “What’s this about, Praetor?” Perna asked.

  “I want to know everything you can tell me about the ventilation system that provides air to the tunnel.”

  “Oh. I see.” Of course he comprehended nothing, but knew better than to question me in my present mood.

  We found the temple complex doing a fine business. The impromptu fair had dispersed, but there were plenty of petitioners seeking the advice of the Oracle. Iola emerged from the tunnel with her latest group and looked surprised to see me and alarmed at the size of my entourage.

  “What may I do for the praetor?” she asked, approaching my horse. Behind her were a number of her acolytes, looking even more apprehensive.

  “Iola, I must go into the tunnel again. There are some things I did not look into last time.”

  “Sir, we have many people who need the counsel of Hecate.” She gestured toward the small crowd resting beneath the shade of the trees.

  “They can come back another time. This is official business. It is business in which you should best not interfere.”

  She bowed. “Even the servants of the gods must yield to the authority of Rome.”

  I dismounted. “Perna, you and Hermes come along with me.” We went to the tunnel and ignited the torches we carried. We didn’t have to go far inside. I stopped at the first set of ventilation slots and held my torch up. The flame was drawn slightly toward the first slot.

  “Perna, what lies above this tunnel? I know there must be some sort of channel to convey air into or out of the tunnel. What is its nature?”

  Perna took a close look at the slot. “Well, there must be a tunnel up there, lying parallel to this one, following it down.”

  “How large would that tunnel be?”

  He shrugged. “At least as large as this one. It couldn’t be any smaller, or there’d be no room for whoever carved it.”

  “Where would that tunnel lead?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know of any tunnels surfacing anywhere near here. Of course, it might’ve caved in or got filled with rubble. But there’s enough clearance for air to move, or everyone would suffocate down there.” He pointed down the dimly lit descending tunnel.

  “I need to know exactly where it leads. Perna, this is what I want you to do: I want you to go find some really good stone carvers. Bring them back here, equipped with their tools—and be quiet about it.”

  “What do you need them for?” he asked.

  “I want them to carve a hole up there,” I pointed to the slot, “large enough for us to get into the overhead ventilation tunnel. I want to know exactly where it leads, in both directions.”

  “But, Praetor,” he said, “what about the goddess? She’ll consider this a desecration, and from what I hear, she’s a bad goddess to cross. I don’t want to get on the wrong side of Hecate.”

  “Nonsense,” I told him. “Temples get altered and augmented and restored all the time. The gods never take notice of a little chiselwork. We’ll tidy it up nicely when we’re done and I’ll make a handsome gift for the goddess. Now go, and remember, not a word of what we are doing here.”

  “As you wish, Praetor.” He left and we went outside.

  “Do you think this is a good idea?” Hermes said.

  “It’s the only way we’ll ever learn what’s been going on here, and how it’s been carried out. We can expect trouble from Iola and her colleagues. When the time comes, the lictors will have to take care of them. Go pass the word, but quietly. And they’re to take note if any of the Oracle staff try to leave. I don’t want them warning anybody, so be prepared to stop them.”

  “I’ll see to it,” he said.

  While we waited for Perna to return, I walked about under the shade of the trees, pondering what I had learned so far and what more I needed to learn. This was where the woman Floria had unknowingly betrayed her master, and, as I thought of this, something else clinked into place like a stone in a well-made wall and I smiled slightly. Things were getting clearer now.

  I left the trees and walked around the complex to the Temple of Apollo. There I went into the precincts and examined once again the ingenious trapdoor, recalling that that tunnel had no vent holes. Because nobody expected to be down there long enough to suffocate.

  Then I went outside, to the stableyard. There I looked around the place where we had found the body of the slave girl Hypatia. She had come out here in the middle of the night to get away or to meet somebody. It must have been someone she trusted. Who? And why was she killed? She was pregnant. Was that significant? Perhaps she had a lover who might find himself embarrassed by her condition and had killed her to eliminate the problem. It would be a sordid sort of killing, but such were quite common, and it would have no bearing on the case. I had tinglings of imminent revelation, but nothing definite. I felt sure that her death was tied in somehow. I just had to put together the sequence of events that had led her out to this stableyard that night, and to her death.

  My men followed at a discreet distance while I rambled about. Nobody had forgotten the hidden archer, least of all me. I was faintly amused by this. Hermes asked me why I was chuckling.

  “Well,” I said, “it just occurred to me that this would be a fitting place for whoever tried to kill me to have another go at it. After all, this temple is dedicated to Apollo the Archer, patron of bowmen. The god might help out and secure a fatal shot this time.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Hermes said. “Remember what Julia said the last time you talked like this, and you were almost killed immediately after.”

  “You listen to Julia too much. She puts too much faith in the fates and godly interaction in mortal doings. You’ll find that human beings will give you no end of trouble, with no involvement of the immortals whatever. The gods are just distractions when working out what has gone on here.”

  “If you say so,” Hermes said dubiously. Despite being around me for so many years, he was born a slave, and a Roman slave at that. Such persons are usually inclined to superstition and to see supernatural forces at work everywhere. Especially if they are passionately fond of gambling, as Hermes was.

  My podium still stood from the last time I had held court here, though my curule chair had of course gone with me on my travels. We sat on the podium and lunched on provisions we had brought with us, and by early afternoon Perna was back with four men who had tool bags slung from their shoulders. They wore workingmen’s tunics, the sort that leaves one shoulder bare, and their hair was gray with stone dust. When Iola saw the chisels and mallets protruding from the men’s bags, her eyes almost popped from their sockets. She came rushing over to me, black robes flapping.

  “Praetor! What do you intend? You cannot allow the sanctuary of the Oracle to be harmed!”

  “There will be no great harm done,” I assured her. “The sanctuary of the Oracle will not be touched, nor the shrine and statue of Hecate. We are just going to make a small hole up here near the entrance. We’ll plug it up again when we are done, if you like. You can even smear soot over it to hide any marks left behind.” I was watching her, and when I mentioned soot she knew I was talking about the ceiling. From alarm and anger her expression turned to one of stark fear.

  “I forbid it!” she shouted like a Tribune of the Plebs blocking legislation. “You cannot lay profane hands on the sanctuary! Hecate will curse you! She will send her black bitches t
o tear you to pieces! She will—”

  “Be silent!” I barked. I didn’t want the workmen to refuse to do my bidding for fear of divine retribution. I snapped my fingers and my lictors quietly surrounded Iola and her little knot of acolytes. “Confine these people to their quarters until I tell you to loose them. If any tries to get away, they are to be killed.”

  “You cannot do this, Praetor!” Iola screamed. “You have no authority!” One of the lictors stifled her protests by placing a broad hand over her mouth.

  “I have all the authority I need. As I’ve told you before, if you have serious objections, you may go to Rome and take them up with the Senate.”

  They were marched away while the small crowd of petitioners and a few locals gaped. I addressed them. “You might as well go to your homes. The Oracle of the Dead is closed until I or the Senate decree that it is to be reopened. I rather fancy that that will be a very long time indeed.” With looks of great disappointment they gathered up their possessions and left.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Perna and his workmen. We entered the tunnel once more, and when we stopped at the first vent, Perna gave the men their instructions, which I could not follow very well because he spoke in the specialized language of stonecutters, using terms and abbreviations with which I was unfamiliar. He scratched a square on the ceiling with the corner of a chisel, and I had to admire the precision with which he drew, freehand and using a crude tool never intended for the task. I could not have drawn such a perfect square using a scribe and a compass to keep the corners true.

  The cutters set about their work, two of them beginning at opposite corners of the square. The other two stood by. Perna explained that they would spell one another at intervals. There was not room for all four to work at once, and in any case when a man must work with his arms above his head, his hands and arms quickly grow numb and he has to lower them to get the feeling back before he can resume work.

  Soon the air was full of stone dust and the sound of the mallets and chisels in the confined space became overpowering, though the workmen didn’t seem to notice. I left them to it and went in search of breathable air.

  “What do we do when they finish?” Hermes wanted to know.

  “We go into the ventilation tunnel and see where it leads,” I told him.

  “I was afraid you’d say that,” he said with a sour face. “More tunnel-crawling. I never want to see another tunnel as long as I live. There’s something unnatural about descending into the underworld before you’re dead.”

  “Well, this is good practice, since we all have to make that journey eventually.”

  “Cheerful thought.”

  In time I went back to check the work. The carvers were making progress, but they were carving, with great precision, an absolutely square hole, its sides as true and smooth as the altar of a temple.

  “It doesn’t have to be precise,” I reproved them. “Just carve a hole up there I can get through. I don’t care how ragged the hole is. This isn’t for display.” The carvers looked at me as if I were speaking Etruscan. Perna took me back to the entrance and explained.

  “Sir, these men have been trained in fine stonework since childhood. They couldn’t do sloppy work if you threatened them with torture. Besides, this way it will be easier to tidy up afterward; just cut a block exactly the size of that hole and you’ll hardly be able to tell there was any carving done at all. They don’t want to anger the goddess more than they absolutely have to.”

  I sighed, knowing when I was beaten. “Very well. Let me know when you have a hole I can get through.”

  “Right you are, Praetor,” he said cheerfully.

  I told Hermes about the problem and he, predictably, thought it was funny. “You’d have done better to get some convicts with sledgehammers.”

  “I’ll know better next time,” I said, as if there would be a next time for this sort of work.

  From time to time a workman would emerge with a bag of stone chips which he carried off to dispose of somewhere. These were truly men who believed in keeping their worksite tidy. At last, in late afternoon, Perna emerged from the mouth of the tunnel. “It’s ready, Praetor.”

  Hermes and I went inside to view the work. We looked up an absolutely true, square, smooth-sided hole that went through about two feet of solid stone. Despite their fussiness, the carvers had cut stone fast. They had even swept the floor clean and the draft through the hole had sucked the rock dust out of the air. We were ready to begin our exploration. I sent the workmen and Perna out, but bade them stand by for further instructions. I didn’t really expect to need any more stonework done. I just didn’t want them heading for the taverns and blabbing about what we’d been up to here.

  “This won’t take many of us,” I told Hermes. “Get two of the men and plenty of torches. I’ve no idea how far we’ll have to travel and I don’t want to do any of it in the dark.”

  Hermes went out and was back minutes later with two of the men, the ones he regarded as his best sparring partners. Both wore swords and one carried a bundle of torches. Hermes and the other man boosted the third up through the hole in the ceiling. He reached down and they passed him a torch. Hermes went next, then, with the two above pulling and the remaining man boosting, they hauled me into the tunnel overhead. Then the two reached down and hauled the other man up.

  I held up a torch and had a look around. The tunnel was nearly identical to the one below. The chisel marks on the walls looked the same. It was probably carved out simultaneously with the main tunnel. This one hadn’t seen much traffic over the centuries and its ceiling hadn’t collected as much soot. But this one didn’t follow the other all the way to the entrance. Instead, it ended right at the first vent slots. The only way to go was downward.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  We followed the tunnel, examining everything as we had before. This time, naturally, the slots were in the floor instead of in the ceiling. The niches in the walls were not neatly carved in this tunnel, just rough alcoves for holding lamps. Undoubtedly, these had been for the benefit of the miners, since this tunnel was probably not intended to be used once it was finished. I counted the slots we passed, and when I came to one I thought was significant, I stopped and got down to peer through it.

  “What’s this one?” Hermes wanted to know.

  “This should be the one that ventilates Hecate’s shrine,” I said. I couldn’t see much through a slot carved through two feet of rock, but there was more light coming through it than through the others. I thought I could make out Hecate’s altar below.

  I stood up and raised my torch, taking a look around. This area was different from that we had come through. There was a pad like a thin mattress on the floor, and there were the remains of meals here and there; bread crusts, old cheese rinds, fruit pits, and so forth. There were a couple of pitchers for wine or oil. Someone had been accustomed to spend the better part of a day here. I bent and picked up a pit.

  “Cherry,” I announced. “Poor people don’t yet have cherry trees in their orchards. This came from somewhere prosperous.”

  “Anyone can raid an orchard,” Hermes said.

  “So they can,” I mused. “Someone has been visiting this spot for some time. They can lie on that pad, probably with one ear to the slot. When they hear their cue, they can utter the agreed-upon prophecy.”

  “Wait, that can’t be right,” Hermes said. “This is Hecate’s shrine and altar. The Oracle speaks from the lower chamber, where the Sty—where that river goes through it.”

  “That’s the way we got our Oracle,” I agreed. “Still, something occurred to me. It was what the woman Floria said: that her master was given his prophecy in the shrine of Hecate. If at the time I thought about it at all, I thought it was a slip of the tongue, that she meant the chamber of the Oracle. But she had meant exactly what she said. You recall that she said he came back a second day. This is where the ones they intend to fleece get the Oracle that sends them to
their death.”

  “So the Oracle of the Dead has more than one meaning,” Hermes noted.

  “Let’s see where this leads,” I said. We began walking. From this point the niches had lamps in them, most of them holding fresh oil. We lit some of these so we would have light on our way back, should we run out of torches.

  The floor sloped up after the chamber of the shrine, and we climbed for a while. Then it leveled out. At intervals we found holes in the ceiling, these ones round and about six inches across, but these were either choked with rubble or else they had been deliberately covered over. Doubtless they had been intended to supply air to the miners when the tunnel was being driven.

  “How far have we come?” Hermes asked after a while.

  “About a mile as I figure it,” I said.

  “It seems like more than that,” Hermes said, “but I suppose distances are deceptive underground.”

  “There’s light ahead,” I said.

  “It’s not much light if that’s the exit,” Hermes noted.

  Indeed, the light that came through what I could now see was a doorway was rather dim. Surely we hadn’t been underground long enough for night to overtake us. Then we were out of the tunnel and looking upward. Overhead, the light of late afternoon streamed down through a round, stone-rimmed orifice about twenty feet overhead. We were at the bottom of a well.

  “Now,” I said, “where have we seen stonework like that?”

  “The mundus on Porcia’s property?” Hermes said.

  “I don’t know of any other within a mile of the temple,” I said. “Then again, there’s a lot I don’t know about this district.” I looked around on the ground. We were walking on a litter of leaf mold several inches deep. I wondered how long it would take to build up this mass from the leaves that drifted through the opening over the years and centuries. There was a path trampled through it that led from one side to the entrance of the tunnel.