Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [179]
Without speaking, Tarquinus now carefully unwrapped a small bundle he had been carrying and held it out towards Petrus. It was the little stone figure from the shrine, the goddess Sulis who was the guardian of the place where the five rivers met. Petrus reverently kissed it.
“Sulis, be my friend,” he whispered.
For in the act which he was about to perform, it was important that the local goddess should act as a messenger and intermediary, pleading his case before the unknowable gods who ruled the heavens and who could not be approached directly by man.
The girl also did the same.
Then, at a further signal from Tarquinus, the two young people went to the ladder and began to descend into the pit, Petrus going first. When they were both down, they knelt again.
“May the gods accept their servant and make me pure.” Petrus prayed aloud.
Meanwhile, Tarquinus and his two assistants had vanished. For long minutes, Petrus and the girl waited silently in the pit. And then they heard heavy footfalls above.
From the trees Tarquinus and his men had reappeared. They were leading a large, black bull.
The bull lumbered forward slowly. It was Tarquinus’s magic that he could, by speaking to it softly, control the huge animal and keep it docile; but when its hoofs touched the wooden grid over the pit it halted, unwilling to go on. Still Tarquinus muttered in its ear, his skilful hands coaxed it, and finally the bull lumbered forward, its heavy tread echoing in the pit below. Petrus and the girl looked up at the huge black shadow: they could see the hairs on its long belly and feel its warm breath as it snorted impatiently.
Now came the critical moment. From his belt Tarquinus gently drew a long narrow sword. Still whispering to calm the bull, he stepped back, and then, with a single movement, so smooth that it was hard to believe anything had happened, he drove the sword straight down to the bull’s heart.
For a moment the huge animal stood transfixed, not knowing what had happened; then suddenly its hoofs slipped across the wooden grid with a clatter, and its heavy body crashed.
It was now that the stout wooden grid served its purpose. As Tarquinus moved about, hissing between his teeth, he made small slits in the animal’s carcass so that the blood flowed, not too much at a time but in a steady stream through the grid and into the pit below. Gazing up at the black form outlined against the moonlit sky, Petrus and the girl shifted their position so that the warm dark stream of blood fell on their naked bodies. And all the time Petrus, lost in concentration, murmured half aloud: “May the gods make me pure.”
For this was the sacred rite of the taurobolium, an important ceremony of purification that was practised all over the pagan empire. Men and women who had gone through the rite in the pit knew that by doing so they had been purified and drawn closer to the gods, and they often recorded the fact on their tombstones with the word tauroboliatus or tauroboliata.
For more than an hour, Tarquinus continued his work, cleverly opening new cuts in the bull’s body until he had satisfied himself that all the animal’s blood had dripped into the pit. The two young people below moved about on the earthen floor, now slippery with blood, placing themselves under each new jet. Finally, when it was over, Tarquinus called quietly to them to come up; once again, while the blood dried on their bodies, they knelt before him while he recited prayers and his two assistants carefully dissected the heavy carcass on the grid and carried it away.
At last he motioned them to rise and dress again; when they had done so, all three bowed gravely, and Tarquinus led his niece away.
As she left, the girl turned back and stared at Petrus’s body with a look of secret greed; but Petrus did not notice. Conscious only of the great and mystical event that had taken place, and of the wonderful fact that from this day onwards he was purified and closer to the gods, he turned away and started