The Bow of Heaven - Book I: The Other Al - By Andrew Levkoff Page 0,68

lined up outside our gates - which I had arranged to transport the familia to the Campus Martius. Vulcan is Ostia’s patron god; no wonder, since the majority of Rome’s imported grain passes through that harbor.

As soon as the family had left, I looked in on my teaching staff (in our expanded school, a building Crassus owned near the foot of the hill, we taught everything from shorthand to mathematics, from carpentry to bricklaying) and sent them all off to the festival for the rest of the day. Then I trudged back up the hill to attempt to clean up my work table; if I were able to get caught up, my appreciation of the subtleties of immolated seafood would have fewer distractions and was sure to be enhanced. As I passed through the gates, I noted that Betto had left, probably dragging Malchus with him, passing their duties off to hapless subordinates. I found Sabina hard at work in her clinic and made a joke about how devotion and holidays were rarely found in the same bed, at least not until later in the evening. She laughed politely at the first part of my jest, but found little humor in the final allusion to sexual congress. These acts built throughout every Roman holiday until late at night the only couples not fornicating were either lying unconscious in their own vomit or buried in their own graves. I supposed it was because she assumed I was talking about Livia and myself. Which I was not. I said I would try to find her later on the Field of Mars and made a hasty exit, as all misunderstood comics should.

Just before sunset, I rubbed my eyes, dropped my calamus in its inkwell and decided I had better go and find my master’s banner up on the field. Sabina was still hard at work, but promised to find me. I told her I would send my escort back to fetch her. Down through the forum and up the hill we went, guided by the glow of a hundred bonfires. The entire field had been transformed into a bazaar, each merchant’s stall punctuated by blazing cones of light and heat. People stood in line before each of these infernos, waiting to be blessed by a priest in blue robes, his cowl pulled over his head so that he was almost faceless. He solemnly received their piscatorial offering and flung it into the flames. Something familiar about the holy man nagged at me, but I could not make the connection.

I looked in vain for Livia, which was just as well. The smell of burning fish was hardly enough to dampen the blossoming ardor of the revelers, and I could not risk succumbing to the excitement of the moment in her presence. The best insurance for that policy arrived about an hour behind me: Sabina.

We rallied by Crassus’ flag, but the only people present from our house were two soldiers standing guard over the almost empty baskets of mackerel. I reached into one, slipped a forefinger up through the jaws of two long-dead, slimy specimens and off we marched to the largest of all the bonfires, which also happened to be the nearest.

The line was formidable. We inched forward, seeming to make little progress. The high priest of the Vulcanalia was moving slowly up and down the line, greeting supplicants and encouraging their patience, although shaking few hands. He walked by us and, seeing the plaque around my neck denoting my house and my station, instantly summoned us to the front of the line. He was also hooded, but his robes were a rich purple trimmed in gold. Again, a memory stirred within me, a recent one at that, but I could not put my finger on it. I had the feeling that much depended upon the connection being made, but it was impossible to concentrate. Quite frustrating. While my attention was thus diverted, the high priest was happily recounting how Senator Crassus had donated a special offering; his holiness had commanded that anyone from the house of Crassus must be moved expeditiously through the line as gratitude for their service to the god. I was about to ask what service that might be when a portion of it bumped into me from behind. A terrified herd of goats and sheep was being driven past us into a corral situated perilously close to the flames. Acolytes were sprinkling thousands of rose petals upon them as