The Circus Maximus Murders!!! Chapter XIII
Originally posted May 29, 2001
Author: L. Silva Didius [Reposted with permission]


Aelia was as hot as Vesuvius and just as unpredictable -- I never knew when she was going to explode. I didn't know what I had said or done, but the weather at "The Sign of the Owl" had instantly gone from "hot and steamy" to "cold and chilly." I won't say that Aelia's two bodyguards threw me in the street; but Dorigo and Marthrax (whom I always called Doris and Marsha, but not to their faces of course) each grabbed an arm, effortlessly lifted me up, and trotted for the front door. My feet only brushed the paving stones at every third or forth step. As the door slammed at my back, no one had to tell me that at "The Sign of the Owl" I was definitely "persona very non grata."

I weaved across the street to what passed in this neighborhood for the local bubbling fountain and ducked my head under the brackish water. It took three dunks before the wine fumes began to clear away. As I stood bent over the rim, shaking the water from my eyes, it started to dawn on me what I had done. Aelia had offered me tickets, prime seating tickets at that, to the Season Opener at the Circus Maximus, and I had panicked. I had panicked because I'd already accepted tickets from my landlady Olivia Antonius and the obligation of escorting the widow Zoe Xanthippos to the races. I shouldn't have panicked. I shouldn't have lied to her. I shouldn't have done a lot of things. I should have told Aelia the truth, but instead I had told her that I was working on a case and couldn't go with her. Aelia knew that, barring a death in the family -- mine -- I would never miss an opening day. There was only one conclusion she could reach. That while I thought she was good enough to spend the night with, she wasn't good enough to be seen with in public. What else could she think. She had been instantly humiliated and hurt, perhaps irreparably so. I hadn't even realized it at the time. Her two big, dumb, ex-gladiator, German bodyguards had been smart enough to realize it. Only me, the person who was supposed to care about her, had been too self-centered to see it. Edepol! What a mess! In the course of one day I'd lost my purse, my money, my tickets and my girl. Yes sir, just another red letter day at the Domus Didii.

The city smells differently at night -- cleaner, and it's harder to see that the slums and the tenements outnumber the mansions ten-to-one. If you live here long enough, every alley, every street, leads to a memory -- most of them bad. I was in an ugly mood, angry with the world, angry with the Urbs and most of all just plain angry with myself. The whole day had been one long series of tragic errors and bad luck. I was looking for a fight, anything to relieve the misery I felt. Normally the thieves, the muggers, the cutpurses, and the second-story boys line the streets at this time of night looking for an easy mark. But it was obvious that the word was already spreading way ahead of me: "WARNING! WARNING! PARIAH DIDIUS SILVA IS COMING! APPROACH AT YOUR OWN RISK! DANGER! DANGER! WARNING! WARNING!" The streets were so empty you'd have thought that every criminal was on holiday at the Isle of Capri.

I decided to take the long way home. I walked past the Theater of Balbus, cut across the Saepta Julia, where my footsteps echoed eerily off the marble walls, and into the Baths of Agrippa. An hour's soak and a rubdown later, I emerged clean, refreshed, and covered in an unguent that had been advertised as the "Scent of the Pinewoods -- One Sestertius the Ounce" but now smelled remarkably like "Turpentine, Common -- One Sestercius the Ton. I strolled across to the Portico of Pompey, went around behind the Theater that also bore his name and up the stairs into the Temple of Venus Victrix. The goddess and I joined in a staring contest, my hazel eyes vs. her blue ones. I lost. You just can't outstare a pair of marble eyes even if the artist has them painted a lovely shade of peacock blue. I finally crossed the Tiber at the new Pons Aurelius, climbed the Janiculum Hill to LXVII Via Aurelius and plodded up the stairs to my apartment. As I passed the landing on the second floor I could see several oil lamps burning in Zoe's apartment. Somebody inside was humming and I was tempted to peek in the window to see if it was her. I didn't. The way my luck was running today, someone would spot me for sure and I'd end up as the resident "Peeping Paulus." I threw my tunic in the corner and fell onto the sleeping couch naked. I hoped that if I left all the windows open, some of the turpentine smell might evaporate from my skin overnight. Fat Chance!

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Corvus, top charioteer of the White Faction, stood before the altar of Venus Murcia. On the night before a major race he should have already been asleep for several hours. But Venefica, the girl with the strange vacant eyes, had whispered a message in his ear, a message from the High Priestess Artemesia, and he had hastened to obey her instructions.

"Corvus!"

He spun around at the sound of his name. The High Priestess Artemesia stood calmly before him, the smoke and incense from the multiple braziers swirling and eddying around her. Corvus fell to one knee and bowed his head, not daring to look into the face of the living representative of the goddess Venus Murcia.

"Corvus, the Raven, you are aptly named with your black hair swept-back like wings around your face. You have found favor in the eyes of the goddess and she has chosen you for a special destiny. If you will give yourself totally into her keeping this night, she promises that you will never again know defeat in the Circus. Do you accept this charge?"

What was there to think about? He was already good, maybe the best. But to never again suffer a defeat meant to retire a rich man...... a very rich man. Corvus bowed his head. Artemesia took two quick steps forward, drew the silver "falx" from the sheath at her waist and made a shallow inch-long cut on his left cheek. A small golden cup, half filled with wine, sat in the center of the altar. She picked it up and placed it under the cut on his cheek so that several drops of his blood slid into it and mingled with the wine. She dropped in several grains of incense and a pinch of myrrh. She held the cup into the smoke surrounding the altar and swirled the contents of the cup as she chanted in a language Corvus did not recognize. She turned back to him.

"Sip!"

Corvus held the cup for a moment, then bent and took a sip from the golden cup, a toast to his "golden" future. Artemesia again took the cup, held it into smoke, then slowly poured the blood-red wine onto the white marble.

As the High Priestess continued her chanting, Corvus felt a gentle tug on his arm. It was Venefica. The girl motioned for him to follow her. He was about to step through the doorway when the sound of muted laughter made him turn his head. The High Priestess still stood immobile with her back toward him and her arms outstretched in the smoke. Again muted laughter. The goddess? The priestess? His imagination?

L. Didius Silva © 2000, 2001