“Who? ”

“The one who ran away. This was, almost certainly, the person you needed to speak to.”

He thought about it. Then he saw what I meant. He banged a clenched fist on his forehead. “Oh rats, Falco!”

“Would you know him again?”

“A lad. The Brothers have youngsters assigned to them as attendants at their feasts-called camilli, coincidentally. There are only four. I could pick him out.”

“You’ll have to get into a feast first,” I pointed out, perhaps unnecessarily.

He dropped his head onto the table and covered his face, groaning. “Another day. I cannot face any more. I’m whacked.”

“Pity.” I grinned, dragging him upright. The crass, snooty article had behaved abominably in the past over Helena and me; I loved paying him back. “Because if you really want to get anywhere, you and I have to make ourselves presentable and take a stroll to the house of the Master of the Arval Brothers-now, Aulus!”

It was the final day of the festival. This would be his last chance. My youthful apprentice had to accept that his mission was governed by a time constraint. Like me, he was astute enough to see that if we were to tackle the slippery intendant of a cult that was hiding something, we would need all our wits and energy-and we had to act fast. His day’s work had hardly begun.

“Men’s games,” I apologized to Helena.

“Boys!” she commented. “Be careful, both.”

I kissed her. After a momentary hesitation, her brother showed he was learning, and forced himself to do the same.

Aelianus knew how to find the Master’s house; he had been invited to the feasting as an observer on the first day of the festival. It was a substantial mock-seaside villa on its own property island, somewhere off the Via Tusculana. A profusion of stone dolphins provided salty character and looked cheerful and unpretentious, though in the urban center of Rome the rows of open-sided balconies on every wing gave a twee effect. On the Bay of Neapolis the owners could have gone fishing off their boarded verandas, but here their nostalgia for long-gone August holidays was way out of place. Nobody fishes in the gutters in Rome. Well, not if they know what I do about things that float in the city water supply.

As we arrived, it was clear from the disgorging palanquins that the elite members of the college were just assembling for that night’s feast. There was a special buzz. I wondered if these men in corn-ear wreaths were greeting each other with extra excitement, knowing of the death the night before.

One man was leaving, however. Tall, gaunt, elderly, haughty as Hades. Eyes that were careful never to alight on anyone. Flyaway white hair around a bald pate.

He had paused at the top of the entrance steps, as if waiting for some flunky to clear a free path. When Aelianus leaped up the steps athletically, his cloak brushed very slightly against this old man, who flinched as if he had been touched by a leprous beggar. Sensing a patrician who might own a senate election vote, Aelianus apologized briefly. The only answer was an impatient humph.

The man seemed vaguely familiar. Perhaps he held some position of honor, or I might have seen him lounging in the good seats at the theater. Jove knew who he was.

We marched boldly inside the main porch. I found a chamberlain. Our manner had warned him we were trouble, but we proved quiet enough to win him over. “I apologize; this is very urgent. Before the fun begins this evening, we need to see the Master on a confidential matter. Didius Falco and Camillus Aelianus. It concerns an unfortunate occurrence yesterday.”

The chamberlain was suave, expressionless-and without doubt apprised of the scandal in the Grove. To the disbelief of my companion, we got straight in.

That was bad. The Master must be playing this the clever way.

At first it was not the Master himself we met, but his vice-a flustered barnacle covered with warts from whom, had he been a commoner instead of a pedigreed noble, I would not have bought a fresh fish in case it gave me bellyache. He was accompanied by the college’s vice-flamen-a pallid cheese with a drip on his nose who must be the main source of this month’s summer cold in Rome. These two stand-ins greeted us nervously, explained who they were, and mumbled a lot about having to officiate at that day’s rites in the temple because the real Master and flamen had been called away. They were spared embarrassment when their principals turned up in traveling clothes.

I stood to attention deferentially. So, at this cue, did Helena’s brother.

“Camillus Aelianus!” Washing his hands in a bowl held by a slave, the Master nodded congenially to show that he recognized him. “And you are-?”

“Didius Falco.” It was probably convention in such company to name your own association with religion, but I was not prepared to admit being the guardian of the geese. “I have worked for the Emperor.” They could guess how. “I am here as a friend to this young man. Aelianus had a rather unpleasant experience in the late hours of yesterday. We do feel that he should report it formally, should you be unaware of what occurred.”

“I am so sorry to keep you waiting; we had extra business at the Sacred Grove.” The Master was a huge-bellied man whose size must have been enormous long before he took office in a post with compulsory feasting. Dogging him, the cult’s sacrificing flamen had neither girth nor height, but made his presence felt by a harsh laugh at inappropriate moments.

“A purification rite?” I asked quietly.

The efficient chamberlain must have warned his head of household what we had said we wanted. “Exactly. The Grove has been polluted by an iron blade, but due solemnities have now been offered-a suovetaurilia.”

Major expiation by swine, ram, and bull. Sorted. Three perfect animals rounded up and their throats cut, the very next day.

Would a bloody corpse be dealt with just as briskly? In this cult, yes.

The three subsidiary officers had found seats. The ears of grain in their headdresses nodded gently in the light from a bank of suspended oil lamps; shadows passed across their faces. They were used to the effect. Aelianus, who had hoped to join them, must have trained himself to accept the sight. I managed to contain a smirk. Just.

“So, young man! Tell me what happened to you,” offered the Master, so graciously that my teeth set. He was now changing into a flowing white dinner gown, like those the others already wore. Over one shoulder was placed a folded vestment. The feast must have been delayed; still assisted by the discreet slave, he dressed hurriedly. The pressure on us rose. Well, nobody wanted the Arval cook to start bewailing a burned roast.

Aelianus exhibited his least attractive scowl and said bluntly, “I fell over a corpse at the back of your pavilion, sir.”

“Ah.” The big man revealed no surprise, only delicate concern. Garbed for the feast now, he gestured to the slave to leave us. “That must have been a terrible experience.”

“You saw the body?” I slipped in.

“I did.” He was making no attempt at subterfuge. Normally in my job you meet head-on resistance, but this was a familiar scenario too; I knew it was far worse. To deal with complete openness is like falling into a grain storage pit. It can very quickly suffocate.

“The body subsequently disappeared.” Still upset, Aelianus spoke too harshly. If I let him continue in this style, we would lose any grip on the conversation that we still possessed.

The Master looked from one to the other of us. It was a fine display of gentle reproach. “Oh dear. You are suspecting dark deeds!” I felt my cheek twitch. We could have been discussing a few missing denarii from their petty cash, instead of a man who had been honoring the old religion, hacked to death in a tent.