Free One Virgin Too Many by Lindsey Davis Page B

started inside. The desperate victim somehow made it outside, probably got caught up in the guy ropes in his panic, and was finished off. Ceremonially, with the sacrificial knife--" We both winced. "The killer then pulled the tent wall down straight, piling the cushions up to cover the blood inside."
    "Why bother?"
    "To delay discovery. You heard people, you said?"
    "It sounded like attendants, clearing the interior."
    "Maybe the killer had also heard them coming. There was time for a few swift adjustments to make the scene look normal." I wondered if the killer then walked out, passing the attendants, or ducked back under the tent wall again. Either way, an encounter with Aelianus must have been only narrowly avoided. "The corpse, behind the tent, could safely have been left."
    "Right, Falco. It might not have been discovered until the pavilion was taken down. That's not going to happen until at least tomorrow--or even the day afterwards, when the festival formally ends."
    Thinking about this, Aelianus was staring at the area next to the throne where the assault must have begun. He gave a start. He had seen something glint under the cushions. Flinging the tasseled soft furnishings further aside, he retrieved a decorative holder of some sort. It was a flat tube, with one open end, the other closed in a curved shape. As a scabbard, it would be too short for a sword and too big for a dagger. It formed a distinctive, short, broad-bladed shape. We both knew what it was: a priest's fancy holder for a sacrificial knife.
    "Well, somebody committed sacrilege," Aelianus exclaimed dryly. "It is forbidden to bring any kind of blade into the Sacred Grove!"

X

    DAWN OVER THE Arx.
    Here, on the least high of the Seven Hills, stood the Temple of Juno Moneta. Juno the Admonisher. Juno of the Mint. Juno the Moneybags.
    Before her temple stood M. Didius Falco. Falco the ex-informer. Falco the Procurator. Falco, dutifully working in his new post--and looking for a get-out clause.
    Juno's temple on the Arx possessed the now-pampered geese whose ancestors had once saved Rome from marauding Gauls by honking when the guard dogs failed to bark. (It said little for the military commanders of the time that they had failed to post sentries.) Now once a year hapless dogs were rounded up to be ritually crucified while the geese looked on from a litter with purple cushions. I had to ensure proper treatment was being meted out to the geese. I had no remit for dogs. And nobody ever had a remit for correcting military incompetence.
    Crying birds caught my attention. Two swallows were wheeling, pursued by a predator--broad wings, distinctive tail, short bursts of flapping flight interspersed with hovering and quick fluttering displays: a sparrowhawk.
    This was the place of augury. It was the most ancient heart of Rome. Between the two peaks lay the Saddle, which Romulus had decreed a place of refuge for fugitives--establishing from the very first that whatever austere old men in togas liked to think, Rome would succor social rejects and criminals. On the second peak, the Citadel, rose the huge new Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest, the largest temple ever built, and once it was completed in full decorative splendor with its statuary and gilding, the most magnificent in the Empire. There was a fine view of it from the Arx, and from there too another view looking eastwards to Mons Albanus, whence the augurs sought inspiration from the gods. Here, especially at dawn, a man with a religious soul could convince himself he was close to the chief divinities.
    I did not have a religious soul. I had come to see the Sacred Chicks.
    * * *
    Alongside the Temple of Juno Moneta lay the Auguraculum. This was a consecrated platform which formed a practical, permanent augury site. I had always avoided the mystical lore of divination, but I knew broadly that an augur was supposed to mark out with a special curly stick the area of sky he intended to watch, then the area of