II

The Legionary Fortress of Castra Regina on the Danube

The Kalends of January AD236

‘What do you know about Abonouteichus?’ Vollo asked.

Censorinus thought before answering. ‘A town in Paphlagonia, on the southern shore of the Black Sea. Now called Ionopolis. There is an oracle of a god called Glycon there.’

‘And what does Lucian tell us about the oracle?’

Censorinus took his time. When the commander of the imperial spies asked a question any of his men would do the same. Sometimes, Censorinus thought, just sometimes, honesty was best. ‘I have never read Lucian.’

Vollo nodded, as if he had already known the answer, and was pleased that the young frumentarius had not lied.

‘You should, you really should,’ Vollo said. ‘You have to read widely if you want to rise in the world. Being a good frumentarius involves much more than delivering covert messages, eavesdropping and opening the letters of the disloyal, much more than occasionally, for the safety of the Emperor, removing such people from this world with speed and discretion.’

Censorinus took the words not as a rebuke, but an encouragement. There had been no call for literature in the remote Alpine village in which he had been born. He had learnt to read and write serving in the Legion in Raetia. Although his Greek had not progressed much beyond putting the letter theta on rosters against the name of a soldier who was thanatos, dead. His promotion into the frumentarii had been the result of native wit, a good memory, and the efficient obeying of orders, no matter how unsavoury. Yet now he accepted that knowledge, if not power itself, was a key to gaining that desirable and both status and wealth enhancing quality. To move unnoticed in elite circles, a frumentarius needed to be able to pass himself off as a man of culture. Censorinus had bought a primer on the poetry of Homer, and, when unobserved in the barracks, had begun to laboriously plough through its turgid pages.

‘The oracle was founded back in the reign of Marcus Aurelius by a man called Alexander. Lucian says that he was as great in villainy, as his namesake the son of Philip was in heroism. This Alexander was worse than a bandit, because he filled not just one region, but the whole empire with brigandage. His soul was a compound of lying, trickery, perjury, and malice. He deserved to be torn apart by foxes and apes in the amphitheatre.’

Vollo paused.

‘Of course, Lucian was far from an unbiased witness. He knew Alexander, and hated him. Many still hold that Alexander was a genuine prophet. Even among some of the less credulous he is often thought to have been a reputable Pythagorean philosopher, if such a thing is possible.’

Vollo again stopped. This time he smiled.

Censorinus waited, as patiently as the schoolboy he had never been. He did not smile, as he had no views whatsoever on the merits of Pythagorean claims to respectability.

‘There had been prophecies circulating throughout Asia that the god Asclepius was going to appear in Abonouteichus. The locals set about building a temple. One morning Alexander ran through the streets of the town. He was naked, foaming at the mouth, as if in a divine frenzy. He dived into a muddy pool in the foundations of the half completed temple. When he surfaced, there was a large egg in his hands. Alexander cracked the egg. The Paphlagonians were amazed to see a tiny snake twining around his fingers. Alexander and the snake retired into seclusion. A few days later the locals were admitted to shuffle through a dark room. As thick-headed rustics might be, they were astounded at how the serpent had grown. Its huge coils were wrapped around Alexander. Yet that surprise was nothing when they glimpsed how it had changed. Its head had ears, a beard, and looked almost human. And then it spoke – in Greek – “I am Glycon, the third in descent from Zeus, a light to mankind.”’

Outside the wind whistled down the alley, threw flurries of snow at the window.

‘Lucian claims it was all a fraud. The oracles were written by an accomplice of Alexander, an out-of-work composer of choral odes. Chewing soapwort makes you foam like a rabid dog. Alexander had placed the young snake in a goose egg, which he had blown, and sealed. The adult serpent was a domestic pet he had bought in Macedonia. Its head was made of painted linen – remember the light was bad. Horsehairs made its mouth open and shut, its forked tongue dart in and out. Its voice was not that of a deity, but another, hidden accomplice speaking through the wind pipe of a crane. It is a device that other charlatans have employed.’

There were documents of all sorts spread across Vollo’s desk: bound in codices, papyrus rolls, scraps of paper held down by weights. On the floor by Vollo was a travelling case. It was open, revealing compartments stuffed with more papers. All that information painstakingly gleaned from across the empire, processed, and filed. All at Vollo’s fingertips. Yet what impressed Censorinus was that Vollo consulted nothing. It was all stored in his head. That was true knowledge, true power. Vollo had commanded the frumentarii under the last Emperor. Now he did the same for Maximinus. Emperors came and went, but Vollo remained – a spider safe in its web.

‘Once the oracle was established, the deity spoke directly only to a few of the favoured rich. They paid handsomely for the privilege. The rest wrote their questions, submitted them in sealed rolls. With their answer, they received back the rolls, seals apparently unbroken. Lucian tells the methods used to remove and replace the seals. The methods are those employed by us who look to the safety of the Emperor – lifting with a heated needle, reattaching with marble dust and glue, or taking an impression with a compound of Bruttian pitch, asphalt, pulverised gypsum, wax, and Arabic gum. You have used them yourself.’

Censorinus nodded in acknowledgement. It was an honour that Vollo remembered one of his cases.

‘The oracular announcements were suitably obscure. If events proved them wrong, they were amenable to reinterpretation. A father asking who should tutor his son was told, “Pythagoras it should be, and the good poet, master of warfare.” When the boy promptly died, the faith of the foolish father remained. Pythagoras and Homer were dead. Obviously, the oracle had meant not that the boy should study their writings, but that they would tutor him personally in the underworld. If a response of Glycon was irredeemably false, it was expunged from the records, and replaced with a more fitting one.’

Vollo looked as if he admired such a procedure. Perhaps the gatherer of incriminating secrets sometimes had occasion to do the same.

‘The fame of Glycon grew. Alexander dispatched men to every province, spreading tales of successful predictions. Paintings and statues were made. Oracles sent out across the empire to those who had not asked for them. The plague in the reign of Marcus was a blessing to the enterprise. With death all around, who would not welcome being told that they would be safe if they inscribed on their house: “Phoebus, the unshorn god, keeps away the onset of disease”? Alexander was careful to cultivate the favour of long established oracles. Often he would refer clients to Clarus, Didyma, and Mallus. Soon powerful men in Rome began to consult the oracle. Alexander was forewarned by a network of paid informants in the capital ferreting out all they could about such men.’

Perhaps, Censorinus thought, Vollo was approaching the heart of the matter.

‘Alexander announced that after a hundred and fifty years he would be struck by lightning. Apparently his deity deceived him. Disease took him at seventy; not a bad age, almost half way there. No matter, Glycon had stated that he would remain at Abonouteichus for a thousand and three years. The shrine has over nine hundred years to run. It continues to flourish.’

Now Vollo did briefly consult one of the papers on his desk.

‘Each oracle costs a drachma and two obols. It is not exorbitant, two days’ wages for a labourer. But one source claims that Glycon receives up to eighty thousand requests a year. In the temple grounds are many so-called expounders who for a fee will interpret even the obscurest of the oracles. Each of the expounders pays the oracle for the right to conduct their business. The shrine makes a great deal of money. Yet seemingly not enough.’

Vollo gazed at the door, as if measuring his words.

‘The majority of questions concern mundane things. Is a journey propitious? Will I be healed? Who is the thief? Where has my slave run? Is my wife unfaithful?’

It was coming. Censorinus felt a quickening of excitement.

‘But others asked things more venturesome and dangerous.’ Vollo looked sharply at Censorinus. ‘You understand what questions are likely to be put by men who are rich and very powerful?’

Censorinus nodded. Even the head of the frumentarii was circumspect discussing treason.

‘Such questions the oracle does not send back. The fools who submit them will pay any sum so that they do not become known. They are stored, under lock and key, in the innermost sanctuary. You have a question?’

Censorinus was unpleasantly surprised. He had not thought his face would betray him. ‘Why does the Emperor not openly send soldiers to take the incriminating documents?’

‘A mortal should not interfere with the possessions of the gods.’

‘It is Paphlagonia. In the East the living Emperor has always been worshipped as a god.’

‘Do not try to be too clever.’

This time Censorinus made sure his face was impassive.

‘What else?’

Hades, Vollo was observant.

‘Most of the questions about the Emperor’s health will date to previous reigns.’

‘Treason is a state of mind. If you inquire about the death of any Emperor, you are by nature disloyal.’

Censorinus accepted that.

‘You will travel as Eurybatus, son of Autolycus. You are a slave dealer based on the Quirinal Hill in Rome. You migrated there from the Cottian Alps. A shipment of slaves from Delos has not arrived. You want to know if they are lost at sea, or if your business partner has betrayed you. The duty Centurion will furnish you with money, and assign you two suitable slaves as attendants. If that is all clear, you may leave.’

Censorinus took a breath. ‘May I have the order in writing?’

Vollo actually grinned. ‘No, you may not. In fact you will hand over your identification MILES ARCANA badge to the Centurion.’

‘Sir.’ Censorinus did not salute. Frumentarii never saluted. It was one of the first things about their previous service as normal soldiers that they were required to forget.

‘Censorinus?’

The young frumentarius stopped in the doorway.

‘Use all means necessary to obtain the incriminating documents.’

‘Sir.’

‘And get a copy of Lucian. Read it on the way.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘By the way, how are you getting on with Homer?’