Wrath of the Furies (37 page)

As soon as we were inside, the door was closed behind us, and the concealing platform was pushed back in place by Kysanias. We were in absolute darkness.

There was a tremendous crash as the midsection of the tree struck the altar and splintered into pieces. The altar lurched as if there had been an earthquake, but the marble did not crack.

Freny struggled against her bonds and squealed into the gag.

“Quiet!” I whispered in her ear. “Trust me, Freny.”

She grew still, but her body remained stiff and wary in my arms, like a frightened bird.

Only vaguely could I hear any noises from outside. It was impossible to know what was being said or done.

My work was finished. I had only to lie very still, keep Freny quiet, and wait until one of the others came for us.

Unless the enraged Furies came for us first.

 

XXXIII

In that dark, tomblike chamber, Freny and I lay side by side for what seemed to be hours.

For a while I heard muffled, indistinct noises from outside. Then the noises stopped, and there was only silence.

Eventually I dared to speak, but only in a whisper. I explained to her what had happened, and what I hoped would happen next. We would have to be patient. If we were to push open the door, and someone should see us, all would be lost. We had to wait until one of the others came for us.

Moving awkwardly and in darkness, I managed to undo her gag and the bonds constraining her arms. Then I fell into a sort of stupor. My performance as the embodiment of Antipater's uncanny voice had depleted all my resources. I was exhausted.

Time seemed to grind slowly to a stop. The air became thick. The darkness was absolute. I began to wonder if we might already be dead, slain by the Furies, and this was to be our afterlife. Had we arrived in Tartarus, here to dwell in blackness forevermore?

Perhaps I slept for a while, and this notion of Tartarus was only a dream. In such a place it was hard to tell whether I was awake or not.

At last I heard the noise of the door being opened, and a shaft of light entered the compartment. It was the faint gray light of the hour before dawn, but to my light-starved eyes it seemed bright. At the same time a small gust of fresh air entered the chamber. I sucked it in, and realized how foul the air had become inside that tomblike space.

Stiff and blinking at the sudden light, and gasping for air, I managed to crawl backward out of the chamber. Freny, more nimble than I, quickly followed. Samson averted his eyes from her nakedness and handed her a simple tunic and a pair of shoes. She quickly dressed herself, and then the two of us managed to stand, blinking at the predawn glow that revealed the aftermath of our night in the Grove of the Furies.

The tree that had fallen lay broken into two parts on either side of the marble altar, bisecting the circular space. We three were alone in the grove.

“Your performance last night was quite amazing,” said Samson.

“So was yours,” I said, “far beyond what I expected.” For it was Samson, acting alone, who had shaken the trees and caused one of them to fall. “How exactly did you do it?”

He smiled. “Last night, while you and Antipater were going over your lines, I slipped out of the palace and came here, to have a look at the place.”

“By yourself?” said Freny, staring up at him wide-eyed. “You dared to come to such a spot in the dead of night, alone?”

“Young lady, I am a Jew,” he said. “This place is not sacred to me. I have no fear of these so-called Furies. I looked at the grove purely as a theatrical venue, and asked myself: what is there to work with, and what sort of effects might be achieved? As I circled the grove, from the outside, it occurred to me that if a man were strong enough, he might be able to run from tree to tree, leaping inside them and giving them a good shaking. I practiced doing so, and by breaking a few branches here and there I was able to clear a sort of path which allowed me to run from tree to tree, making each one shiver. Then I thought, what if, ahead of time, one of the trees was nearly severed, near the base, and then, when the time came, given a very hard push—”

“But how did you manage to cut through the tree trunk?” said Freny.

“I used an ax I found in that storage compartment inside the altar, where you've been hiding.”

I shook my head. “You used a consecrated ax from the altar of the Furies to cut down one of the sacred trees in the Grove of the Furies.” The brazen impiousness of such an act made my head spin. “I think we should leave this place as quickly as we can.”

“At once,” said Samson. “If you're strong enough to walk,” he added, looking at Freny. “If not, I can carry you—”

“I'm not a weakling!” said Freny, with a laugh. She looked very slender and delicate by the soft morning light, but her laughter was strong and clear, and to hear it brought joy to my heart.

“Where are we going?” I asked, for this next step had been left undecided the night before.

“To the Temple of Artemis,” he said. “With all that's happening, we decided that would be the only safe place for us all.”

“So the massacre has been called off?”

His face darkened. “The thing we hoped for … was not accomplished.”

“But why? What went wrong?”

“Come with me now. Hurry! We'll have plenty of time to talk about it when we reach the temple.”

“But surely that's the last place we want to be.”

“Trust me, Gordianus.”

“Where is Bethesda?”

“She's already there, waiting for us. Follow me.”

On shaky legs, I followed Samson out of the Grove of the Furies. It was first necessary to climb over the fallen tree, and then to duck through the tunnel-like entrance surrounded by foliage. Once we stepped beyond the stone wall that marked the sacred precinct of the Grove, I had no idea where we were, and saw no landmarks by which to orient myself. The land around us was a mixture of woodland and meadows, misty in the early light.

By what route we made our way to the Temple of Artemis I cannot remember. Perhaps the vividness with which I remember what came later that day somehow blurred my memories of what came before. I know that we didn't go through the city. At some point I saw the temple ahead of us, and the thousands of Romans who crowded the temple grounds.

“Samson!” I hissed, taking his arm. “If this is the day, and the thing is to happen, we have to warn them.”

At that moment the captain of a troop of armed men took notice of us. The soldiers were patrolling the perimeter of the sacred precinct.

“Who are you and what's your business here?” asked the captain.

“We're pilgrims, come to worship at the temple,” said Samson.

The captain scrutinized him. “What sort of accent is that?”

“Alexandrian Greek,” said Samson. “The purest form, handed down from Alexander himself.”

The captain laughed. “You Alexandrians, always full of yourselves! But if you wish to worship Artemis of Ephesus, you might want to wear something nicer than that.” He indicated the faded old cloak that Samson insisted on wearing. “Anyway, this is not a good day to visit the temple. Come back tomorrow.”

“But I have an appointment with the Grand Megabyzus.”

“I'm sure you do!” the captain scoffed.

Samson produced a rolled-up piece of parchment, undid the yellow ribbon tied around it, and showed it to the captain. The man examined it for a moment, then handed it back.

“The Grand Megabyzus himself! Well then, I suggest you get inside the temple and find him, quickly. In fact, my company will escort you, to make sure these Roman scum don't give you any trouble.”

“That's not necessary—”

“I insist.”

The troop formed a cordon around us. As we strode toward the temple I looked at all the people around me, longing to cry out to them, to warn them of what was about to happen. But I said nothing.

As we approached the temple, I saw a strange thing. The round window in the pediment through which one could see the statue of Artemis was black, as if some sort of curtain or screen had been drawn across it from inside.

The temple steps were covered with refugees, many of them still asleep. They stirred and scrambled out of the way to let us pass. The troop came to a halt at the temple entrance.

“Stay here, men,” said the captain. “I'll be back shortly.”

He handed his sword to his second-in-command and then escorted Samson, Freny, and me into the temple, hailing the first of the Megabyzoi he saw and telling the priest to fetch the Great Megabyzus. When the man balked, the captain told Samson to produce the document. The priest raised his eyebrows as he read it, then quickly went off to find the Great Megabyzus.

The interior of the temple was dimly lit. Only a few lamps were burning, and the weak morning light from the doorway did little to dispel the shadows. While we waited, I looked around us, at all the unsuspecting refugees lying huddled in sleep or milling about. Again, I longed to warn them, and again I said nothing.

A few moments later, Kysanias appeared, dressed in his yellow robes and towering headdress. He surmised the situation at once.

“Thank you, Captain, for escorting this party into the temple.”

“My pleasure, Your Eminence,” said the captain, who then looked sidelong at Samson. “So the letter was genuine! If it had been a fake, I was going to cut the heads off of all three of you.” He turned about and went to rejoin his men outside.

I spoke in a whisper. “Your Eminence, we have to warn—”

“Say nothing!” Kysanias said through gritted teeth. “All of you, be silent and follow me.”

I did as he said. I was beginning to feel light-headed from hunger and queasy from dread. He took us to the hidden stairway that led to the upper room, locking the door behind us. Up, up we trudged. My legs were like lead.

When we stepped into the room inside the pediment, Freny gave a cry of joy and rushed into the arms of her sister.

“Amestris!” I said, then saw that Anthea was there as well. “But how did the two of you come to be here?”

“Do you forget, Gordianus, that I'm in training to become a hierodule, a lifelong servant of the goddess?” said Anthea. “And of course Amestris goes wherever I go.”

“Yellow becomes you both,” I said, for they were dressed much like the Megabyzoi, but without the headdresses.

I was staring at Amestris and Freny, and beginning to feel a bit jealous of their long, loving embrace, when someone behind me produced a polite cough. I turned about and saw—

“Bethesda!”

The next moment she was in my arms, never mind that Romans and their slaves do not display mutual affection in public.

“Samson told me you'd be here,” I said.

“He brought me here from the palace while it was still dark.”

“What a busy night he's had,” I said, and laughed at the pure joy of holding her—and then started back and gaped, slack-jawed, as the statue of Artemis dominating the room slowly began to turn. It was as if she heard us speaking and was turning around to look at us.

“But how—?”

Kysanias saw my wonder. He looked a bit chagrined. “That's Zeuxidemus, in the chamber below us, turning the crank. It's merely mechanical, Gordianus, not miraculous. Even though we've covered the round window so that the goddess will not have to witness the thing about to happen, I thought it proper that she should turn her back upon the proceedings, as well.”

Kysanias walked past the pedestal of the statue, to the sheer black curtain that covered the window. Bethesda and I followed him. From outside, the curtain would appear solid black, but from the relative darkness of the room we were able to see through it, as if through a thin veil of smoke. Outside, the Roman refugees were beginning to wake up.

“Samson says we failed,” I said. “He says the massacre will take place, in spite of all we did.”

“That's right,” said Kysanias with a sigh.

“But how can that be? What did we do wrong?”

“Once you were inside the altar, you couldn't hear what was said?”

“Not a word. Only murmurs.”

“Then you didn't hear the argument between myself and the Grand Magus and His Majesty?”

“No.”

Kysanias stiffened his jaw. “There was a great deal of bluster and bravado from the king—exactly what you might expect from a famously fearless man who's been badly frightened. I told him that the sacrifice had failed and the portents were against him. But the Grand Magus had a different explanation. According to him, since the sacrificial victim had vanished, that meant the Furies had taken her—that they had accepted the offering, indeed were so very pleased with her that they wished to take her whole and unharmed. I protested and pointed out the apparitions in the trees. The Grand Magus agreed that we had seen the Furies unleashed, but against the Romans, not the king. Their appearance proved that they were eager to oversee the massacres today. When I continued to object, the king silenced me. The Grand Magus told him what he wanted to hear, you see. The king accepted every word the Grand Magus said and refused to listen to me.”

“But what about the words of the uncanny voice?”

“They became lost in the argument. The king and the Grand Magus remembered them one way, I another. I turned to Metrodorus, knowing he must recall every word that was spoken, but the Rome-Hater had an inexplicable lapse of memory and refused to back me up.”

“Then we failed,” I said.

“Not entirely. You saved the girl.”

I looked at Freny and Amestris across the room, still embracing. I turned and gazed through the black scrim at the Romans outside. “Only one life, compared to so many. The life of a single slave, compared to so many Roman citizens—”

“How is one life any more or less valuable than two lives, or three, or a thousand?” asked Kysanias. “All lives begin and all lives end. There is no scale upon which to weigh the value of one life against another, or one life against many lives. You did what you could, and thanks to you, Freny is still alive and her sister is filled with joy. Whatever Freny does from this moment on, however she affects the lives of everyone she meets, will owe something to you.”