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“Oh,” he said. “Thank you.” He hesitated, looking round, either for the leather hatbox or for his ragged palm-frond hat, but didn’t see either one.
“Never mind,” said Accompong, and leaning forward, slid his hands carefully over Grey’s shoulders, palm up, as though lifting something heavy. “I will take your snake, instead. You have carried him long enough, I think.”
BEWARE THE SNAKE
An SPQR Story
by John Maddox Roberts
John Maddox Roberts is best known for his acclaimed twelve-volume SPQR series of historical mysteries, detailing the adventures of a young Roman aristocrat who keeps getting entangled with murder and other nefarious doings in the dark underworld of Ancient Rome. The SPQR series consists of The King’s Gambit, The Catiline Conspiracy, The Temple of the Muses, The River God’s Vengeance, and eight other novels. In addition to the SPQR books, the prolific Maddox has written fantasy series such as the five-volume Stormlands sequence (consisting of The Islander, The Black Shields, and three others), science fiction series such as the two-volume Spacer sequence (Space Angel, Window of the Mind), and the three-volume Cingulum series (The Cingulum, Cloak of Illusion, The Sword, the Jewel, and the Mirror); contemporary detective novels (A Typical American Town, The Ghosts of Saigon, Desperate Highways); eight Conan novels; a Dragonlance novel; novels in collaboration with Eric Kotani and under the name Mark Ramsay; and stand-alones such asCestus Dei, The Strayed Sheep of Charun, Hannibal’s Children , and King of the Wood. His latest novel is The Year of Confusion, the new SPQR mystery.
Everyone knows that some snakes can be deadly. As Decius Caecilius learns in the SPQR story that follows, sometimes the problem is knowing one when you see it.
YOUNG HEROD ONCE TOLD ME THAT HIS PEOPLE ABHOR SERPENTS. IT seems to have something to do with his people’s fall from a sort of Golden Age, in which the serpent is mysteriously implicated. This is the sort of primitive superstition one must expect from barbarians. Civilized people, by contrast, think the world of snakes. We revere and esteem them. Snakes enhance the prophecies of oracles and facilitate contact with the gods of the underworld. It is difficult to imagine civilized life without snakes. Egyptian kings had cobras on their crowns, while Mercury and Aesculapius bear serpent-wound staffs. The very spirit of a place is symbolized by a pillar with a snake coiled around it.
To be sure, one occasionally encounters the odd asp, adder, or cobra, which carry deadly venom, but that is just the gods’ way of reminding us that their gifts are often double-edged. It keeps mortals on their toes and prevents them from growing too complacent.
It is true that certain people carry this reverence for serpents too far. Some families, including very respectable ones, keep a family snake and consult with it on all matters of importance. Personally, I consider this a rather un-Roman practice. It’s more like something Greeks would do. But nobody in Italy is as mad about snakes as the Marsi, the mountain people who live around Lake Fucinus, east of Rome.
Which brings us to the day the Marsian priest came calling.
“WE HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THAT OUR SNAKE IS IN ROME.” THE MAN wore a saffron-colored toga and a ribbon of the same color around his brow.
“I see. I don’t suppose it crawled here on its own?”
“Of course not! She was stolen and we want her back!”
So the gender of the snake was established. We were making progress already. I glanced down at the letter of introduction the priest had brought. Its message was characteristically bald and laconic.
Decius Caecilius, the bearer of this letter is Lucius Pompaedius Pollux, high priest of the temple of Angitia. He is my client and he has a problem and I can think of no man more fit than you to solve it for him. Below the brief text was appended, instead of a seal, the signature Caesar, Pontifex Maximus. Since he invoked his office as pontifex, this was to be treated as a religious matter.
“Has there been a ransom demand?” I asked.
“Ransom?” Pompaedius looked scandalized. “You think this is some sort of kidnapping?”
“I don’t see why not. Distinguished personages are often held for ransom. People have been doing it since Homer. No reason why the same can’t be done with a beloved snake.”
“Senator, the Serpent of Angitia
is a sacred being of the utmost religious importance, not some sort of—of animal!”
“And I would never suggest such a thing,” I assured him. “It is simply that I can assist you better if I can establish some sort of motive for this unique theft. The motive for theft is usually profit of one sort or another. If not money, then what?”
He pondered this for a moment. “Power.”
“What?” I said, brightly.
“What is it you Romans say about the Marsi?” he asked.
I could think of several sayings we had said about the Marsi, all of them uncomplimentary, but I knew the one he meant. “That we have never triumphed over you, and have never triumphed without you.”
“Precisely.” He seemed to think he had answered something.
In the old days, we had fought several wars with the Marsi, and they had made us regret it. A very tough, disciplined, military people, to be sure. We much preferred to have them as allies. They had stood fast with us against the incursions of the Gauls and had not wavered when Hannibal all but destroyed Rome. Our last fight against the Marsi had been a generation before this time, when they had joined with the rebelling allied cities of Italy in demanding their citizenship rights. The war had been bloody, but once the rebels knew they could not win, the Senate had acknowledged the justice of their demands and granted them citizenship. I thought of the Marsian soldiers I had seen with our legions. They wore distinctive helmets, usually crested with serpents in fanciful coils and loops, often in threes.
“Are you telling me that this serpent embodies the martial valor of your people?” I hazarded.
“Very much so. When the Marsi first became a people and founded Marruvium on the lake, they prayed and sacrificed to Angitia, asking her to grant them a token of her approval and her patronage of our city and our people. On the tenth day of the rites, a great serpent emerged from the lake. The people built a temple to Angitia on that spot and built a sanctuary for the serpent in its crypt. The serpent is the protector of the people. As long as she is in her sanctuary and healthy, Marruvium is safe and the Marsi will be victorious. Should word get out that she is gone . . .”
