I skirted the meadow, keeping in shadow, until I reached the door. From my tunic I took out a small bag my father had given me before I left on my travels. In it were some tools he had taught me to use. Some were veritable antiques; others he had fashioned himself. While other fathers were teaching their sons to barter in the market, or build a wall, or speak in the Forum, my father had taught me everything he knew about picking locks.
I was happily surprised to discover that no guard of any sort had been set on the door; the meadow and the grove all around appeared to be deserted. Perhaps the place was considered too sacred for any mortal to inhabit except on ritual occasions.
Still, I dared not strike a flame, and so I had to work by moonlight. The lock was of a sort I had never encountered before. I tried one tool, then another. At last I found an implement that seemed to fit the keyhole, and yet I could not make the lock yield, no matter how I twisted or turned the tool—until suddenly I heard a bolt drop, and the door gave way.
The fact that I might be committing a crime against the goddess gave me pause. I was poised to enter the cave—but would I ever step foot outside it? I took heart from something my father had told me: The threat of divine punishment is often invoked by mortals for the sake of their own self-interest. You should always evaluate such claims using your own judgment. I myself have made a lifelong habit of violating so-called divine laws, and yet here I stand before you, alive and well, and at peace with the gods.
I stepped inside the cave, leaving the door open behind me as my eyes adjusted to the greater darkness. The cave was not completely black; here and there, from narrow fissures above my head, shafts of moonlight pierced the darkness. I began to perceive the general shape of the chamber around me, and saw that it opened onto a larger one beyond. That chamber was illuminated by even brighter shafts of moonlight. Dangling from a rocky roof three or four times the height of a man, suspended from a silver chain, I saw the Pan pipes. They were in the very center of the chamber and I could see no way to reach them.
A third chamber lay beyond. It was the smallest and the darkest. Only by feeling my way around the walls did I discover a small door, barely big enough to admit a stooping man. I attempted to pick the lock, but I dropped my tools, and in the darkness despaired of retrieving them. As I groped about, my hands chanced upon several objects, including a knife and an ax of the sort the Megabyzoi used to sacrifice animals, and a sack of some strong material, large enough to accommodate a small body.
Then I touched something bony and pointed, like a horn, which seemed to be attached to an animal’s hide.
I gave a cry and started back, hitting my head on an outcrop of stone. By the dim light, I saw the glinting eyes of some beast, very close to the ground, staring up at me. My heart pounded. What was this creature? Why did it make no noise? Was this the guardian of the cave, some horned monster set here by Artemis to gore to death an impious intruder like myself?
Gradually, I perceived the true shape of the thing that seemed to gaze up at me. It was the stag’s-head mask that had been worn by Chloe in the dance of Actaeon.
I picked it up and carried it into the larger chamber, where I could examine it by a better light.
Suddenly I realized that I had never shut the door by which I had entered. I returned to the antechamber, pulled the door shut, and heard the bolt drop into place.
Taking my time, I retrieved the tools I had dropped and eventually managed to open the door in the third chamber. Fresh air blew against my face. I ventured a few paces outside and found myself in a rocky defile overgrown by thickets. Clearly, this was a secret rear entrance to the cave.
I stepped back inside the cave and locked the small door behind me. I returned to the large chamber and tried to find a comfortable spot. I had no worries that I would fall asleep; I kept imagining that the stag’s-head mask was staring at me. Also, from time to time I imagined I heard someone else in the cave, breathing softly and making slight noises. I remembered another of my father’s lessons—His own imagination is a man’s most fearsome enemy—and assured myself that I was completely alone.
* * *
Eventually I must have dozed off, for suddenly I awoke to the muffled sound of women lamenting, and the discordant music of rattles and tambourines from beyond the iron door.
A ceremony was taking place outside the cave. The words were too indistinct for me to make them out, but I recognized the stern voice of Theotimus, the head Megabyzus.
At length, I heard the iron door open, and then slam shut.
The music outside ceased. The crowd grew silent.
The sound of a girl sobbing echoed through the cave. The sobbing eventually quieted, then drew nearer, then ended in a gasp as Anthea, dressed in a simple white tunic, stepped into the large chamber and perceived me standing there.
In the dim light, she failed to recognize me, and started back in fear.
“Anthea!” I whispered. “You know me. We met yesterday in your father’s house. I’m Gordianus—the Roman traveling with Antipater.”
Her panic was replaced by confusion. “What are you doing here? How did you come to be here?”
“Never mind that,” I said. “The question is: how can we get those pipes to play?” I gestured to the Pan pipes dangling above our heads.
“They really exist,” muttered Anthea. “When the hierodules explained the test to me, I didn’t know what to think—pipes that would play a tune by themselves if I were truly a virgin. But there they are! And I am a virgin—that’s a fact, as the goddess herself surely knows. These pipes will play, then. They must!”
Together we gazed up at the pipes. No divine wind blew through the cave—there was no wind of any sort. The pipes hung motionless, and produced no music.
“Perhaps you’re the problem,” said Anthea, staring at me accusingly.
“What do you mean?”
“They say the pipes refuse to play in the presence of one who is not a virgin.”
“So?”
“Are you a virgin, Gordianus of Rome?”
My face grew hot. “I’m not even sure the term ‘virgin’ can be applied to a male,” I said evasively.
“Nonsense! Are you sexually pure, or not? Have you known a woman?”
“That’s beside the point,” I said. “I’m here to save you, if I can.”
“And how will you do that, Roman?”
“By playing those pipes.”
“Do you even know how to play them?”
“Well…”
“And how on earth do you propose to reach them?”
“Perhaps you could play them, Anthea. If you were to stand on my shoulders—”
“I’m a dancer. I have no skill at music—and even if I did, standing on your shoulders wouldn’t raise me high enough to reach those pipes.”
“We could try.”
We did. Anthea had a fine sense of balance, not surprising in a dancer, and stood steadily on my shoulders.
“Try to grab the pipes and pull them free,” I said, grunting under her weight. She was heavier than she looked.
She groaned with frustration. “Impossible! I can’t reach them. Even if I could, the chain holding them looks very strong.”
From out of the dim shadows came a voice: “Perhaps I could reach them.”
Recognizing the voice, Anthea cried out with joy and jumped from my shoulders. Amestris stepped from the shadows to embrace her mistress, and both wept with emotion.
I realized Amestris must have followed me to the cave, slipped inside while the door was still open, then concealed herself in the shadows. It was her breathing I had heard in the quiet darkness.
Amestris drew back. “Mistress, if you were to stand on the Roman’s shoulders, and I were to stand on yours—”
“I’m not sure I can hold both of you,” I said.
“Of course you can, you brawny Roman,” said Amestris. Her words made me blush, but they also gave me confidence. “And I can play the pipes,” she adde
d. “You’ve said yourself, mistress, that I play like a songbird.”
From outside, after a long silence, the sound of lamenting had gradually resumed. Women wailed and shrieked. Hearing no music from the cave, the crowd assumed the worst.
Anthea put her hands on her hips and gazed up at the pipes, as if giving them one last chance to play by themselves. “I suppose it’s worth a try,” she finally said.
She climbed onto my shoulders. While I held fast to her ankles, she extended her arms to steady herself against the rock wall. Amestris climbed up after her. I thought my shoulders would surely collapse, but I gritted my teeth and said nothing. I rolled up my eyes, but I couldn’t lift my head enough to see what was going on above me.
Suddenly I heard a long, low note from the Pan pipes, followed by a higher note. There was a pause, and then, filling the cave, echoing from the walls, came one of the most haunting melodies I had ever heard.
The wailing from outside ceased, replaced by cries of wonderment—and did I hear the voice of Theotimus, uttering a howl of confusion and disbelief?
The strange, beautiful tune came to an end—and just in time, for I could not have supported them a moment longer. Amestris climbed down, and Anthea leaped to the ground. I staggered against the wall and rubbed my aching shoulders.
“What now?” whispered Anthea.
“Supposedly, the door should open of its own accord,” I said.
“If it doesn’t, the Megabyzoi have the key,” said Amestris. “Perhaps they’ll unlock it.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Theotimus joins us soon.”
“What do you mean, Gordianus?” said Anthea.
I hurriedly explained that there was a secret entrance in the chamber beyond—and told them what I wanted them to do.
Only moments later, there was a sound from the rear entrance, and a flash of light as it was opened and then shut. I heard a stifled curse and an exclamation—“By Hades—the ax, the knife, the mask—where are they?”—and then Theotimus stepped into the main chamber. In one hand he held his priest’s headdress, which he must have removed in order to duck through the small doorway. He stopped short at the sight of Anthea and Amestris standing side by side, then gazed up at the dangling Pan pipes.
“How did the slave girl get in here?” he said in a snarling whisper. “And how in Hades did you manage to play those pipes?”
He was unaware of my presence. I stood behind him, my back pressed against the wall, hidden in a patch of shadow. At my feet were the knife and the ax—the deadly implements with which he had intended to kill Anthea.
I had moved the weapons deliberately, so that he could not pick them up when he entered—and also so that I could use them myself, if the need arose. Theotimus was a large, strong man—he had a butcher’s build, after all—and if we were to come to blows, I would need all the advantages I could muster. But before resorting to the weapons, first I wanted to try another means of dealing with him. In my hands I held the stag’s-head mask.
While the sight of the two girls continued to distract the Megabyzus, I stole up behind him, reached high, and placed the mask over his head. His head was larger than Chloe’s, and it was a tight fit. I shoved downward with all my might, and through the palms of my hands, I could feel the impact of the short, needle-sharp spike fixed inside the top of the mask as it penetrated his scalp.
I had glimpsed the spike the day before, in the temple, when I looked inside the mask. If my guess was correct, the spike had been covered with a poison that had caused the death of Chloe; her motions of panic and dismay had not been acting or dancing, but death throes, as the poison entered her skull and worked its evil on her. After the mask was removed, the puncture mark and any traces of blood amid her lustrous red hair would not have been visible to anyone unless they closely examined her scalp, and there had been neither time nor reason to do so before Theotimus arrived and took control of the situation. No wonder the Megabyzus had expressed alarm and moved so quickly to snatch the mask from me after I picked it up, and afterward had brought it to this hiding place, along with the implements with which he intended to put an end to Anthea and a sack for the disposal of her corpse.
No doubt it had been his intention to wait until the grieving crowd dispersed, and then, at his leisure, to return to the cave, come in by the secret entrance, and deal with Anthea. Before killing her, what other atrocities had he planned to commit on her virgin body? A man who would commit murder against one of Artemis’s virgins in the goddess’s temple certainly would not stop at committing some terrible sacrilege in the sacred cave of Ortygia.
Theotimus was a monster. It seemed fitting that his own murder weapon should be used against him.
But did enough poison remain on the spike to work its evil on Theotimus? The puncture certainly caused him pain; he gave a cry and reached up frantically. Clutching the antlers, trying desperately to remove the mask, he lurched this way and that, looking like a dancer playing the role of Actaeon. He ran blindly against one wall, butting it with the antlers, and then against another. Convulsing, he fell to the ground, kicked out his legs—and then was utterly still.
The three of us stared down at his lifeless body for a long moment. I was hardly able to believe what had just happened. Never before had I caused a man’s death. I had done so deliberately, and without compunction—or so I thought. Nonetheless, I was gripped by a succession of confusing emotions. I became even more confused when Anthea grabbed my shoulders and kissed me full on the mouth.
“My hero!” she cried. “My champion!”
Beyond her, I saw Amestris gazing at me. Strangely, her smile meant even more to me than Anthea’s kiss.
“Come, Anthea,” I said, stepping back from her embrace, “there’s no reason for you to remain a moment longer in this terrible place. I can open the iron door from the inside, using the same tool I used to get in. The door will open, you will step into the daylight, and the door will shut behind you. The trial shall end just as it should.”
“What about you and Amestris? What about—him?” She looked at the corpse of Theotimus.
“Amestris and I will leave by the back way. And later, after we’ve talked with your father, we’ll figure out what to do about Theotimus.”
So it happened. Staying out of sight, I opened the iron door for Anthea and then shut it behind her. Through the door, I heard a loud cry of joy from Eutropius, and the cheering of the crowd.
Amestris and I headed toward the back of the cave. Under the pipes of Pan, she grabbed me and pressed her mouth to mine. Her kiss was very different from the one Anthea had given me.
It was she who broke the kiss, with a laugh. “Gordianus, you look as if you’ve never been kissed that way before.”
“Well, I…”
She gazed up at the pipes and frowned. “What do you think? Would the pipes have played if I hadn’t come along?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did the presence of one who was not a virgin prevent the pipes from playing? I worried about that when I decided to follow you inside. But a voice in my head said, ‘Do it!’ And so I did. And surely it was the right thing to do, for only with the three of us working together were we able to save my mistress.”
“I’m sure we both did the right thing, Amestris. But are you saying that you’re not…”
She cocked her head, then smiled. “Certainly not! No more than you are, I’m sure.” She laughed, then saw my face. Her smile faded. “Gordianus, don’t tell me that you have never…”
I lowered my eyes. “I don’t know how these things are done in Ephesus, but it is not uncommon for a Roman citizen to wait until a year or so after he puts on his manly toga before he … experiences the pleasures of Venus.”
“Venus? Ah, yes, that’s the name you Romans give to Aphrodite. And when did you put on your manly toga?”
“A year ago, when I turned seventeen.”
“I see. Then I suppose you must be due to experience the pleasures of Venus any day now.”
I didn’t know what to say. Was she making fun of me?
Feeling suddenly awkward, I led her to the rear door and we made our exit from the cave unseen.
* * *
That night, after the initial joy of his daughter’s salvation had subsided a bit, Eutropius conferred with Antipater and Mnason and myself. The others were at first shocked at my impious behavior in breaching the entrance of the cave of Ortygia—“Crazy Roman!” muttered Mnason under his breath—but Antipater suggested that perhaps Artemis herself, driven to extreme measures to rid her temple of such a wicked priest, had led both Amestris and me to the cave, and to Anthea’s rescue.
“The gods often achieve their ends by means that appear mysterious and even contradictory to us mortals,” said Antipater. “Yes, in this matter I see the guiding hand of Artemis. Who else but Gordianus—a ‘crazy Roman,’ as you call him, Mnason—would have even thought of breaking into the cave, and entering ahead of Anthea? Theotimus was counting on our very piety to doom the girl, knowing we would do nothing to stop or affect the trial. Yes, I believe that Gordianus and the slave girl were nothing more or less than the agents of Artemis,” he declared, and that seemed to settle the matter.
As for the body of Theotimus, Antipater said that we should do nothing and simply leave it where it was. Perhaps it would not be found for a very long time—unless some of the Megabyzoi were in league with Theotimus, in which case they might or might not realize the cause of his death, and either way would be unable to implicate Anthea or anyone else, and would almost certainly conceal the fact of his death. It would seem that the head of the Megabyzoi, after making a foul and false accusation against Anthea, had vanished from the face of the earth. The people of Ephesus would draw their own conclusions.
“Everyone knows Theotimus was a puppet of the Romans,” said Mnason. “People will see his downfall and disappearance as a divine punishment, and a sign that the rule of the Romans and the traitors who support them is coming to an end. Perhaps—perhaps the death of my dear Chloe will serve a greater purpose after all, if it brings her beloved city closer to freedom.”
The Seven Wonders: A Novel of the Ancient World (Novels of Ancient Rome) Page 6