“If there was a chasm here, perhaps it closed when Christ was born,” said young Gaius, whose father was one of the few senators who had converted wholeheartedly to the new religion.
“Indeed, it might be so,” said Lactantius approvingly.
By this time, the food was ready and the boys, who were at that age when a meal was always welcome, were attacking it with their usual gusto. In addition to the hard breads and olives and cheeses, the cooks had included a crock of the seafood stew that was a specialty of Baiae, featuring various shellfish cooked with sea nettles and spices. I eyed it dubiously, but the cooks had packed it with snow from the cellars, and it seemed to be good.
“What is the temple whose dome I see shining above those trees?” I pointed towards the top of the hill behind us.
“It is the Temple of Apollo that crowns the hill of Cumae,” answered one of the slaves.
“Cumae!” exclaimed Lactantius, gazing upward with interest. “But of course, it would be, for the Sibyl gave her oracle to Aeneas from her cave and then led him down to the lake to enter the Underworld.”
“Is there still a seeress there?” I asked, remembering how Heron had prophesied the coming of Constantius and wondering, with a remnant of professional curiosity, how the oracle was conducted here.
“Oh no,” replied Lactantius. “Have you never heard the tale? In the time of Tarquin, the last king of Rome, the seventh seeress of Cumae brought to him nine books of prophecy. When he, considering her mad, refused to pay her price she burned three of them, and then another three, and then at last the king bought the remaining three for the price she had originally asked for all of them. And after that the words of other sibyls were collected from all the cities of Italia and Graecia, expecially those of Erythraea, and the leaders of Rome have been guided by them from that day to this.”
“So there is no sibyl resident at the shrine of Cumae?”
“No, Noble One,” replied the slave. “Only the priestess who tends the temple of Apollo. But the cave in which the sibyl gave her oracles is there still.”
“I should like to see it,” I said then, “if the bearers have finished their meal.” Cunoarda, the little Alban girl who had become my maid after I freed Hrodlind, went off to the water’s edge where the slaves were eating, and returned with the eight strong Germans whom Constantine had given to me. Her red hair reminded me of Dierna, the little cousin I had loved so long ago.
“It should be safe enough,” Lactantius said seriously. “There is no wind, and the demon Apollo will be still. And perhaps the spirit of the Sibyl who proclaimed the unity of God will speak to you. I will stay to watch over the boys.”
I refrained from raising an eyebrow. After so many years, the crescent of Avalon had nearly faded from my brow, and I had no wish to explain to the old man why I did not fear the voice of the daimon of Cumae, whether it were that of a spirit or a god. Lactantius had never questioned me about my faith, but he knew that I was not a communicant of his church, and Crispus had confided to me that his tutor worried about the state of my soul.
I have never resented the prayers of anyone who wished me well, no matter what god he prayed to, and Lactantius was a kindly soul, as well as a learned one. If my grandson must be tutored by a Christian, he was fortunate to have the old man.
An hour of travel brought us to a bare cliff of golden sandstone, pierced by a shadowed tunnel that was the entrance to Cumae.
“Do not tell them who I am,” I cautioned Cunoarda as she helped me to descend from the litter. “Say to the doorkeeper that I am a widow from Gallia called Julia, and will make an offering if they will show me the Sibyl’s cave.”
I sat down on a bench beneath an oak tree, glad that we were now high enough to catch the sea breeze, and watched the sunlight glisten on the girl’s russet braid as she made her way to the gate. When she returned she was smiling.