CHAPTER 31: A View of the Fates
Keladeine looked back, and then turned away as if she'd only imagined someone calling her name.
Melaina shouted after her, "Keladeine, don't you recognize me?"
Keladeine wheeled about and raced toward Melaina, threw her arms around her. "Melaina, how could I? You've changed so."
Lykos bristled at Kallias, uttered a low growl with teeth showing. Kallias stepped back. "Stay the beast!" he said.
"Lykos!" said Keladeine. "Heel, Lykos!"
"Lord Kallias, forgive me," Melaina said. "I've met a friend."
"Then you're in good hands," he said, looking relieved the wolf was no longer eyeing him. "You'll not see me for a while, but I'll contact you when I decide you should return to the mainland." With that, he left the temple.
Keladeine took Melaina to a chamber where handmaids fixed a bed beside hers, covering it with embroidered quilts and thick firs. Then the two girls sat facing each other and clasped hands.
Melaina spoke. "Tell what's happened to you first, Keladeine, why you're on Delos. What brings you so far into the Aegean?"
Keladeine was more radiant than Melaina remembered, still dressed in her short, sleeveless chiton, skin golden from Helios. "Oh, how I wish to get off Delos!" Keladeine said. "I've been stuck here two months by the Persian threat. The warriors won't leave me alone, always singing the praises of Aphrodite and trying to get their hands on me. They never understand the path of a virgin. I've been alone and wretched, without a friend."
"But why are you here, Keladeine. It's strange to see you so far from the Isthmus."
"Apollo has ordered me to Ephesus. Word came from Delphi that a priestess must be sent because of a transformation about to occur in Ionia. My dream of living at Ephesus has come true, but I can't fulfill it. And this general, Kimon, he's ever after me like a viper."
"Yes, I know him," Melaina said, "quite an appealing fellow."
"That's the bad part, my own disease. I crave him with a sort of distemper, ranting and raving I am like a lunatic, but won't let him know. I've got to get off this island before I end up in your condition." Keladeine squeezed Melaina's small hands with her large ones until they hurt. "Tell me what's happened. Whose child is this? How could you go against your vow to Artemis." Keladeine's face showed more than concern. It projected irritation.
Melaina felt humiliated. Not since learning she was pregnant at Epidaurus did she feel such guilt. No one but Keladeine could realize the dread consequence of her pregnancy. She tried to talk but could only cry, tears spilling down her cheeks. "I don't know how to begin. First, you must know that I have the falling sickness, epilepsy."
Keladeine became quiet, and Melaina told of falling at the battle of Salamis. How she'd known she had epilepsy even at the Isthmus, but thought she'd been cured and hadn't mentioned it. She told of Sophocles, how she'd developed great affection for him and become jealous, that she'd made a mistake one night and left herself open to the influence of Aphrodite. She told of the strange coupling, how it had all seemed a dream and that she knew not who'd visited her bed. She told of the trip to Epidaurus to seek a cure for the epilepsy, learning of her pregnancy while there, and of Kallias saving her during the burning of Eleusis, marrying and shunning her after learning of her illness, all within a single day.
"Is your baby the divine child talked about all over Hellas?"
"I've wanted to think that it's Sophocles' child, but memory of that night, while unclear, refutes it. Oh Keladeine! How can one suppose herself to be carrying a divine child?"
Melaina fell silent, and Keladeine said, "When I met you at the Isthmus, I realized that your life was but clay on the potter's wheel of the gods, some deity spinning and shaping it to divine will. Remember? I told you this then. Even being with you takes courage for any who have the ability to sense divine presence. We're all in your service, as evidenced by my sweet sister giving her life to rescue you. Even my being here on Delos may be but support for you in time of need. Tell me, what brought you here? The island buzzes with news of a priestess come this very evening on a mission from the gods. Could that be you also?"
"It's but my own foolishness, Keladeine. Before each seizure I have visions, some of great battles. I'm here to tell the generals, so they can decide if my visions be omens of future events or baseless hallucinations. Kallias didn't believe so but brought me anyway, unwilling to decide against me himself. I went before the generals this evening after arriving."
"All you tell fits a divine pattern, but one thing concerns me greatly. Artemis deals harshly with those who stray. Have you prayed to her about this?"
"O Keladeine! If you knew the anguish this very thought has caused me. After learning I was pregnant, I went to Artemis at Epidaurus and tried to propitiate her, but felt the goddess remote, not listening. The priest at Epidaurus thought Apollo must be the father of my child. Such he read from the dream I had in the Abaton. He said that Artemis rebuffed me by appearing with Apollo as a hind instead of in human form."
"If this is true, you've come between divine brother and sister, not an enviable position. But I don't believe it. At Iphigeneia's sacrifice, Artemis substituted a hind in her place. Could be she was simply showing you the same principle of mercy."
"I fear not only the wrath of Artemis but also Hera. On the way to Epidaurus, I stopped at her temple to pray, but felt great hostility from her."
"Perhaps Hera will soften her anger now that you've married. Could be the gods are taking turns with you, each working their will on your life. Artemis is a complex deity. In Asia, she's known as the great mother goddess. Her worship there is even more ancient than in Hellas. That's the reason I'm going, to merge Hellene and Asian views of her. Perhaps out in the middle of the Aegean, as we are here on Delos, her influence over you is mixed, ambivalent."
"But lately I've felt close to Athena. Ever I come closer in temper to that of the fleet. Sailing in a trireme is such a joy."
"We must get you up the mountain to the temple of Athena tomorrow morning. If Athena is influencing your fate, we must pay homage to her. That you've married an Athenian certainly makes that likely. Athena has taken you into her charge for the sake of Athens."
As the two young women talked, sounds from outside, of dancing feet and singing choruses from all over Greece, lofted into the chamber. The island seemed in continuous festival. A group of girls, who called themselves Deliades, entered the chamber and formed a circle around Melaina and Keladeine. They were the friendliest creatures Melaina had ever met, dancing about like children begging attention, laughing and poking at her until she thought them a nuisance. They were unusually interested in her pronunciation of words, the way she used her mouth while talking, and her hand gestures. They would set her in motion across the room just to watch her walk.
Later that evening, Melaina and Keladeine left their chamber to see the festivities. They entered the courtyard and passed a modest temple of Artemis beside the Keraton, Palace of Horns. Choruses came from within it dancing the Crane: an invocation of birds, swamp walking, and maneuvering the Labyrinth. Melaina and Keladeine stood and watched. First came long-robed Ionians, refugees fleeing Persian dominion, performing dances of great solemnity and dignity. Keladeine joined the thin-veiled women cloaked in flowing garments. She danced like a delightful dove, tilting her head first this way, then that, her feet placed in precise measure to the beat, a gentle lifting of the arm, a pose. The aulete's tune was slave to her song.
The Deliades also returned to the festivities. Many people of different origins came to Delos. These the Deliades mimicked, imitating dialects and chatterings of all men. Then Melaina learned why they'd been so interested in her back in her chamber. One of the Deliades stepped forward, her chiton stuffed with a pillow, puffed her cheeks and stiff-legged about the courtyard to the aulete's beat. She twirled about each stiff leg and lumbered from side to side.
Melaina fell against a wall overcome with hilarity at her own likeness. "They us
e laughter as a lethal weapon. Tell them stop it, Keladeine, or they'll have me delivering the child."
The Deliades praised Apollo with a hymn by ancient Olen, like that Melaina had heard in the thymele at Epidaurus, one to Leto and arrow-pouring Artemis. Melaina sang too, voice lifting, lofting. She sang with a gleeful force she'd never before achieved. It came from pure ecstasy. With Melaina in the center, the chorus circled, then twirled so fast that their hair stood out straight from their shoulders. Melaina loved the flickering torchlight, the smell of trailing smoke winding a path among the dancers. The lyre player stepped onto the dance floor and smote the ground with flashing feet. A throng stood around the courtyard clapping.
Melaina felt the mildest confusion and was momentarily deprived of her senses. She experienced a throat spasm, cheek twitching, and suffered a minor facial convulsion. She heard a call go up from the chorus for the deity to join them, and they all began an ethereal dance, mimicking the movement of heavenly bodies. Frenzy overtook the crowd, hysterical, wild dancing. Melaina felt a rush at the flurry of pounding feet, the deafening screech of the pipes, and her vision shifted. She saw dancing stars spiral above, a gigantic vortex of cosmic motion, and felt the Cyclades spinning about Delos.
A swirl appeared in the middle of the dance floor, and grand Apollo himself swooped down from the firmament to high-step a tune among them. All mortals spun about him, his satellites, as the cosmos circled above. The great Spindle of Necessity, she saw, and round it whirled the planets, moon, and sun, each assigned a humming Siren. The three white-robed Fates, divine spinners of lives, chanted while twirling the axle of mortality. Each sang in turn of the past, present, and future. It was as if Melaina viewed the creation of the Universe, the machinery of the gods weaving human reality from primordial chaos.
Melaina didn't cry out or fall. She had no splitting pain, but recognized her affliction, the vertigo and stupor, followed by a period of incoherence and the slow return of understanding. She had thoughts of violence and felt malice toward everyone.
I'm having a partial seizure, she thought, one seemingly without end. She saw other divine Olympians: Artemis, Athena, Zeus, and Hera. The frowning warlord Ares stood alongside the sea-god Poseidon. Divine Demeter, without her daughter, sat on a golden throne. Aphrodite danced nude.
When Melaina fully roused, she realized Keladeine had hold of her hand and was talking to her calmly, her voice coming from far in the distance. "Come back to me, Melaina," she was saying, "I'm here when you return."
Melaina watched as Athena leaned forward and touched Zeus, her father, on the shoulder, whispered in his ear. Melaina saw Zeus nod.
"Zeus has just decided our fate," Melaina said aloud. "Woe be unto Persia."
The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis Page 77