‘Yes,’ said Olympias. ‘Where the slaves will be put to death.’ Her face became hard. ‘Crassus’s men shouldn’t have used those trees. They belong to the forest of Lake Avernus, farther north. No man owns them. The Avernine wood is a holy wood. To have cut down even a few of them for any purpose is a great impiety. To have cut down so many to satisfy his own ambitious schemes is a terrible act of hubris for Marcus Crassus. No good will come of it. You’ll see. If you don’t believe me, ask the Sibyl when you see her.’
We continued in silence along the ridge, then entered the forest again and began a gradual descent. The woods became thicker. The trees themselves changed character. Their leaves were no longer green, but almost black; great shaggy trees loomed all about, fingering the air with convoluted branches. The understorey grew dense with thorny bushes and hanging tufts of mossy lichen. Mushrooms sprouted underfoot. The goat path disappeared, and it seemed to me that Olympias was finding her way by instinct through the woods. A heavy silence enfolded us, broken only by the footfall of our horses and the faraway cry of a strange bird.
‘You travel this route alone?’ I said. ‘Such a lonely place, I should think you would feel unsafe.’
‘What could harm me in these woods? Bandits, brigands, runaway slaves?’ Olympias looked straight ahead, so that I could not see her face. ‘These woods are consecrated to the goddess Diana; these woods have been Diana’s for a thousand years, before even the Greeks came. Diana carries a great bow with which to guard her domain. When she takes aim, no beating heart can escape her arrow. I feel no more fear here than if I were a doe or a hawk. Only the man who enters these woods with evil intent faces any danger. Outlaws know this in their hearts and do not enter. Do you feel fear, Gordianus?’
A cloud obscured the sun. The patches of sunlight faded, and a grey chill spread through the forest. A strange illusion gripped me: night reigned within the woods, the hidden sun was replaced by the moon, and darkness seeped out of the hollow bowls of dying trees and from the deep shadows under fallen branches. All was silent except for the footfall of the horses; even that seemed muffled, as if the moist earth swallowed the sound of each step. An odd drowsiness descended on me, not as if I fell asleep but as if I slowly wakened into a realm where all my senses were slightly askew.
‘Do you feel fear, Gordianus?’
I stared at the back of her head, at the soft golden mane of her hair. I imagined the strangest thing ��� that if she were to turn suddenly I would see not her own beautiful face, but a visage too terrible to look at, a harsh, grinning mask with cruel eyes, the face of an angry goddess. ‘No, I feel no fear,’ I whispered hoarsely.
‘Good. Then you have a right to be here, and you will be safe.’ She turned and it was only the harmless, smiling face of Olympias that looked back at me. I sighed with relief.
The woods grew darker. A heavy, clinging mist spread through the forest. The smell of sea spray mingled with the dank odours of rotting leaves and mouldering bark. Then another smell assaulted us, the stench of boiling sulphur.
Olympias pointed to a clearing on our right. We rode onto a lip of bare rock. Above us loomed the tattered edge of a fog bank rolling in from the sea. Below us opened a great gulf of space. A vast bowl of vapour swirled below, ringed by dark, brooding trees. Through the vapours I could barely discern the surface of a great roiling cesspit that bubbled and seethed and spat.
‘The Jaws of Hades,’ I whispered.
Olympias nodded. ‘Some say that it was here that Pluto pulled Proserpina into the Underworld. They say that beneath this pool of sputtering sulphurous mud, deep in the restless bowels of the earth, there run a host of subterranean rivers that separate the realm of the living from the realm of the dead. There is Acheron, the river of woe, and Cocytus, the river of lamentation. There is Phlegethon, the river of fire, and Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. Together they converge into the great river Styx, across which the ferryman Charon carries the spirits of the dead to the bleak wastelands of Tartarus. They say that Pluto’s watchdog Cerberus escapes his bonds every so often and flees to the upper world. I spoke once to a farmer in Cumae who had heard the monster in the Avernine woods, all three heads howling together under the light of the full moon. On the other nights the dreaded lemures escape from Lake Avernus, malicious spirits of the dead who haunt the woods and inhabit the bodies of wolves. Still, Pluto always draws them back by morning. No one escapes his realm for long.’ She turned her face from the ghastly vista below to glance at Eco, who stared back at her, wide-eyed.
‘Strange, isn’t it,’ she said, ‘to think that all this exists so near to the civility and comfort of Baiae and its villas? At Gelina’s house the world seems to be a place made of sunlight dancing on water, and fresh salty air; it’s easy to forget the gods who live under dank stones and the lemures that dwell beneath the sulphurous pits. Lake Avernus was here before the Romans, before the Greeks. These woods were here, and so were all the steaming fumaroles and the boiling pits filled with stench that circle the Cup. This is the place where the Underworld comes closest to the world of the living. All the beautiful houses and bright lights that ring the Cup are like a mask, a charade, as insubstantial as the skin of a bubble; beneath them the sulphur rumbles and boils, as it has forever. Long after the pretty houses rot and the lights grow dim, the belching Jaws of Hades will still be gaping open to receive the shades of the dead.’
I looked at her in wonder, bewildered that such words could come from the Lips of a creature so young and full of life. She met my eyes for an instant and smiled her cryptic smile, then spun her horse around. ‘It’s not good to look too long at the face of Avernus, or to breath the fumes.’
Our course began gradually to descend. At length we left the woods for a grassy landscape of low hills pierced by jagged white rocks. The hills became more and more windswept and barren as we neared the sea; the fog lifted and hung above our heads in tatters. The rocks grew as big as houses and lay scattered about us like the broken and weathered bones of giants. They took on fantastic shapes, bristling with sharp edges and shot through with swirling tunnels and wormholes.
We passed through the maze of rocks for a time, until we came to a hidden hollow set into a steep hillside, like the crook of an elbow. The narrow defile was strewn with tumbled rocks and trees weirdly sculpted by the wind.
‘This is where I leave you,’ said Olympias. ‘Find a place to tie your hone, and wait. The priestess will come for you.’
‘But where is the temple?’
‘The priestess will take you to the temple.’
‘But I thought there was a great temple to mark the site of the Sibyl’s shrine.’
Olympias nodded. ‘You mean the temple that Daedalus built when he came to earth on this spot after his long flight. Daedalus built it in honour of Apollo, and decorated it with panels all in hammered gold and covered it with a golden roof. So they say in the village of Cumae. But the golden temple is only a legend, or else the earth swallowed it up long ago. That happens here sometimes ��� the earth gapes open and devours whole houses. Nowadays the temple is in a hidden, rocky place near the mouth of the Sibyl’s cave. Don’t worry, the priestess will come. You brought a token gift of gold or silver?’
‘I brought the few coins I had with me in my room.’
‘It will be enough. Now I leave you.’ She tugged impatiently at the reins of her horse.
‘But wait! How shall we find you again?’
‘Why must you find me at all?’ There was an unpleasant edge in her voice. ‘I brought you here, as you asked. Can’t you find your own way back?’
I looked at the maze of rocks. The descending fog swirled overhead and a low wind moaned amid the stones. I shrugged uncertainly.
‘Very well,’ she said, ‘when the Sibyl is done with you, ride on a short distance towards the sea. Over the crest of a grassy hill you’ll come upon the village of Cumae. Iaia’s house is at the far end of the village. One of the slaves will let yo
u in, if - she paused uncertainly - ‘if I’m not there. Wait for me.’
‘And where else would you be?’
She rode away without answering, and quickly vanished amid the boulders.
‘What vital business draws her to Cumae every day?’ I said to myself. ‘And why is she so eager to be rid of us? Well, Eco, what do you think of this place?’
Eco clutched himself and shivered, not from the cold.
‘I agree. There is something here that sets my teeth on edge.’ I looked at the maze of rocks all around us. The wind moaned and whistled through the wormholes. ‘You can’t see farther than a few feet in any direction, thanks to all these jagged boulders. A whole army could be hidden out of sight, an assassin behind every rock.’
We dismounted and led the horses deeper into the crook of the hill. A bald band had been worn into a twisted branch, showing where many others before us had tethered their horses. I secured the beasts, then felt Eco tugging urgently at my sleeve.
‘Yes, what do you���’
I stopped short. From nowhere, it seemed, a figure passed between two nearby stones, following the same path that Olympias had taken. The descending fog swallowed all noise of his horse’s footfalls, so that the figure passed by as silently as a phantom. He was visible for only an instant, draped in a dark hooded cloak. ‘What do you make of that?’ I whispered.
Eco leaped to the tallest of the nearby rocks and scrambled atop it, finding holds for his fingers amid the wormholes. He peered into the middle distance. For an instant his face lit up and then darkened again. He waved to me but kept his eyes on the maze of rocks. By way of signal, he pinched his chin and drew his fingers away to a point.
‘A long beard?’ I said. Eco nodded. ‘Do you mean the rider is Dionysius, the philosopher?’ He nodded again. ‘How peculiar. Can you still see him?’ Eco frowned and shook his head. Then he brightened again. He pointed his finger as the arrow flies, in an arc that ascended and then fell, indicating something farther afield. He made his sign for Olympias’s tresses. ‘You can see the girl?’ He nodded yes, then no as she passed from sight. ‘And does it seem that the philosopher follows her?’ Eco watched for a moment longer, then looked down at me with an expression of grave concern and slowly nodded.
‘How odd. How very odd. If you can see no more, come down.’ Eco watched for a moment longer, then sat on the rock and pushed himself off, landing with a grunt. He hurried to the horses and indicated the knotted tethers.
‘Ride after them? Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no reason to assume that Dionysius means her any harm. Perhaps he isn’t following her at all.’ Eco put his hands on his hips and looked at me the way that Bethesda so often does, as if I were a foolish child. ‘Very well, I’ll admit it’s odd that he should pass by on the same obscure path only moments behind us, unless he has some secret reason. Perhaps it was us he was following, and not Olympias, in which case we’ve given him the slip.’
Eco was not satisfied. He crossed his arms and fretted. ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘We are not going after them. And no, you are not going off on your own. By now Olympias is probably already in Cumae. Besides, I doubt that a young woman as strong and capable as Olympias is in need of protection from an old greybeard like Dionysius.’
Eco wrinkled his brow and kicked at a stone. With his arms still crossed he began to walk toward the tall rock, as if he meant to climb it again. An instant later he froze and spun around, as did I.
The voice was strange and unnerving ��� gruff, wheezing, barely recognizable as that of a woman. Its owner wore a blood-red hooded cloak and stood with her hands joined within the voluminous sleeves so that no part of her body was visible. From the deep shadow that hid her face the voice issued like the moaning of a phantom from the Jaws of Hades.
‘Come back, young man! The girl is safe. You, on the other hand, are an intruder here, and in constant danger until the god sees your naked face and judges whether to blast you with lightning or open your ears to the voice of the Sibyl. Both of you, gather your courage and follow me. Now!’
XII
Very long ago there was a king of the Romans called Tarquinius the Proud. One day a sorceress came up to Rome from her cave at Cumae and offered to Tarquinius nine books of occult knowledge. These books were made of palm leaves and were not bound as a scroll, so that the pages could be put in any order. This Tarquinius found very strange. They were also written in Greek, not Latin, but the sorceress claimed that the books foretold the entire future of Rome. Those who studied them, she said, would comprehend all those strange phenomena by which the gods make known their will on earth, as when geese are seen flying north in winter, or water ignites into flame, or cocks are heard crowing at noon.
Tarquinius considered her offer, but the sum of gold she demanded was too great. He sent her away, saying that King Numa a hundred years before had established the priesthoods, cults, and rituals of the Romans, and these institutions had always sufficed to discern the will of the gods.
That night three balls of fire were seen hovering above the horizon. The people were alarmed. Tarquinius called upon the priests to explain the phenomenon, but to their great chagrin no explanation could be found.
The next day the sorceress visited Tarquinius again, saying she had six books of knowledge for sale. She asked the same price she had asked for nine books the previous day. Tarquinius demanded
to know what had become of the other three books, and the witch said she had burned them during the night. Tarquinius, insulted that the sorceress demanded for six books what he had refused to pay for nine, sent her away.
That night three convoluted columns of smoke rose above the horizon, blown by the wind and illuminated by the moon so that they took on a grotesque and foreboding aspect. Again the people were alarmed, thinking it must be a sign from an angry god. Tarquinius summoned the priests. Again they were baffled.
The next day the sorceress came to visit the king again. She had burned three more books the night before, she said, and now offered him the remaining three, for the same price she had originally asked for all nine. Though it vexed him greatly, Tarquinius paid the woman the sum she demanded.
And so, because Tarquinius hesitated, the Sibylline Books were received in only fragmentary fashion. The future of Rome could be discerned only imperfectly, and the reading of auspices and auguries was not always precise. Tarquinius was both revered for obtaining the sacred texts and derided for not acquiring them all. The Sibyl of Cumae gained a legendary reputation for her wisdom. She was respected both as a great sorceress and a shrewd bargainer, having obtained the price of nine books for only three.
The Sibylline Books became objects of awesome veneration. They outlasted the kings of Rome and became the most sacred property of the Roman people. The Senate decreed that they should be kept in a stone chest deep underground in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, above the Forum. The books were consulted in times of great calamities or when inexplicable omens appeared. Those priests who were specially charged to study the books were constrained under penalty of death to keep their contents secret, even from the Senate. One curious fact about the verses became commonly known, however. They were written in acrostic; together, the initial letters of each line spelled out the subject of each verse. Such cleverness as would have driven a mortal to distraction must have been child’s play for the divine will.
Because the books remained so mysterious, very few persons know exactly what was lost when, ten years ago in the final convulsions of the civil wars, a great fire swept the Capitoline and consumed the Temple of Jupiter, penetrating the stone chest and reducing the Sibylline Books to ash. Sulla blamed his enemies for the fire, his enemies blamed Sulla; in any case it was not an auspicious beginning for the dictator’s three-year reign. Without the Sibylline Books to foretell it, did Rome have a future? The Senate sent special envoys all over Greece and Asia to search for sacred texts to replace the lost Sibylline Books. Officially, this has been
done to the full satisfaction of the priesthood and the Senate. For those respectful of divine will, but sceptical of human institutions, the opportunities for fraud and bamboozlement offered by such a scavenger hunt are too staggering to contemplate.
It is no small indication of the depths to which the Sibyl of Cumae has fallen in public esteem, at least in Rome, that no envoy was sent to her when the original books were lost. Surely it would make sense to go back to the source in order to replace the arcane books ��� or did the Senate balk at the prospect of losing face in a second bargain with the Sibyl of Cumae?
Around the Cup, the Sibyl is still venerated, especially by denizens of the old Greek towns, where the chlamys is worn instead of the toga and Greek is spoken more often than Latin, not only in the markets but in the temples and law courts as well. The Sibyl is an oracle in the Eastern sense; she, or more precisely it, is a mediating force between the human and divine, able to touch both worlds. When the Sibyl enters one of her priestesses, that priestess is able to speak with the voice of Apollo himself. Such oracles have existed since the dawn of time, from Persia to Greece and in the far-flung Greek colonies of old, like Cumae, but they have never been wholly embraced by the Romans, who prefer that inspired individuals should interpret the will of the gods by watching puffs of smoke or rattling beans in a gourd rather than uttering the divine message directly. The Sibyl of Cumae is still venerated by the local villagers, who bring her gifts of livestock and coins, but she is not favoured by the fashionable elite of Rome who inhabit the great seaside villas; they prefer to seek wisdom from visiting philosophers and to bestow their patronage on the respectable temples of Jupiter and Fortune in the forums of Puteoli, Neapolis, and Pompeii.
Arms of Nemesis - Roman Sub Rosa 02 Page 15
