Oracles of Delphi

by Marie Savage

Phoibe slipped it back on and then dangled her fingers toward the ground. The ring slipped off and landed noiselessly on the furred rug at their feet.

  “It’s too big,” she said with a stifled sob. “Sometimes I feel this is all too big for me, but Charis believed in me. Melanippe believes in me. She drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know what to do without Charis,” Phoibe said softly. She looked as if her daimon, her life spirit and creative energy, had abandoned her. As if she were an empty vessel too faded and cracked for use.

  Theodora bent, picked the ring up and slipped it back on Phoibe’s finger. “You are Pythia of Gaia. You were chosen as a child, and now you have been named by the goddess herself. She will show you what to do.”

  Phoibe looked up at the older woman. “Today I achieved everything I had always dreamed about and yet what do I have? My best friend is dead. I have no husband. No children.”

  “You have me,” Georgios’ voice cracked as he spoke. Was there nothing he could do to ease her pain or share her burden? Nothing to convince her that he was what she needed more than handmaidens or priestesses—or even goddesses?

  Phoibe reached out and ran her fingers down Georgios’ cheek. “You love me, but you do not love Gaia.”

  “I will not abandon you.” His voice was hot with determination and passion—and sadness. He knew she could not control the trembling of her limbs or the wayward paths her mind wandered down. How many nights had it been since she had slept undisturbed? She barely ate and when she did, she could not keep her food down. He would never abandon her, but he prayed to every god he knew that she would abandon the goddess. And yet he knew she would rather die than make such a choice.

  “You do not want this life,” she said. “You fear it. Sometimes I think you fear me. My visions are coming now even without Gaia’s sacred pneuma. I hear her voice in my head and see things I do not understand even when I do not seek it. The visions are getting stronger and I am getting weaker.”

  “The gift of sight was always strong in your father’s family,” Theodora spoke up, “and now it will finally be used to honor Gaia. I know the visions can be frightening, but you must not let them overtake your senses. That is why you must seek guidance from all of us gathered here for your naming ceremony. Take counsel from each priestess before you decide on a course of action.”

  “What you mean is that I should not listen to Melanippe of Dodona.”

  “What I mean is that a wise person does not take counsel from only one counselor.”

  Phoibe searched the face of the older woman and then looked around the room at her other handmaidens. “Tomorrow we will meet midday at the sacred Korycian Cave. It will be within the womb of the goddess and the birthplace of her drakon that together we will find the strength to counter our adversaries.”

  Theodora smiled. “This is a good first step. Let Georgios attend you, and I will tell the others.” Theodora’s handmaid stepped forward, the priestesses’ cloak in hand.

  “Wait,” Phoibe said. “According to our informer in the Sacred Precinct, there is a man, recently arrived from Athens, who will help us. According to Kleomon, the man is the son of a priestess of Gaia. If that is true, he will gladly do my bidding and exact blood payment for Charis’s death.”

  “From whence does he hail?” Theodora asked. “We must know his mother as there are so few priestesses left.”

  “Apparently he is an old man. He could be the son of a priestess who long since joined the Mother.”

  “Old to you or old to me?” Theodora asked with a smile.

  “I know only this: he hails from Thessaly, and he arrived yesterday from Athens in the company of a woman and several attendants. He is staying with Menandros the playwright, and he has the reputation of being a man who will, for the right price, administer justice with a sip of soup or the tip of a spear. Once I confirm that he is indeed one of us, I will send him a message to join us tomorrow. He will, surely, be eager to help us, and I am prepared to reward him handsomely for the deed. In the meantime,” Phoibe said reaching out to Georgios again, “you must travel to Charis’s village to find her brother. He is all the family she had left.”

  “Send someone else, Phoibe,” he protested. “I dare not leave you now.” He could not leave, not when she looked as fragile as a withered leaf in the wind. Not when her visions came upon her like thieves, leaving her bereft of hope and bruised in both body and soul. If he left, who would look after her? Who would keep Melanippe of Dodona away from her?

  “I can do without you for a few days,” Phoibe said. “You are the only messenger I can truly trust.”

  Theodora reached out to reassure Georgios who looked as if Phoibe had slapped him full across the face. “She will be well protected while you are gone,” Theodora said. “We will make sure of it.”

  Chapter Eight

  The door slammed shut. Startled, Kleomon turned to see Philon lunge toward him like an enraged hoplite breaking ranks for the kill. Philon pushed the older man up against the wall, and Kleomon kicked and flailed until he realized it was futile. He went limp and Philon loosened his grip for a moment—just long enough for Kleomon to narrow his rheumy eyes and spit in Philon’s face. Philon twisted the front of the old man’s chiton in a wad and pushed it up into his throat.

  “Who do you think you are?” Philon’s knee pinioned Kleomon’s groin and he pressed the old man’s arms against his sides. Though smaller and lighter than the heavily built Kleomon, Philon was younger and in better shape than any casual observer would suspect.

  “Get off me! I can’t breathe,” the old man gasped.

  “You tell me what you’re playing at accusing Theron like that.”

  “Let go of me,” Kleomon whispered, eyes bulging.

  “I let go and you tell me what you are up to. I think that’s a fair deal,” Philon taunted as the old man struggled to break free.

  “I can’t breathe,” Kleomon sputtered.

  “Give me your word,” Philon demanded. He pushed his fist into Kleomon’s throat.

  “I said—”

  “Your word,” Philon snarled.

  Kleomon nodded and blinked then slumped to the floor as Philon let go.

  Breathing hard, Kleomon sat against the wall, chiton twisted beneath him, bare legs splayed out on the cold tile floor like dead fish displayed in the marketplace. Philon dipped a jeweled goblet into a krater of wine, and reclined on a sumptuously pillowed couch across the room. He looked around, as if surveying his surroundings for the first time, taking in Kleomon’s choice of decorations for his private quarters in the temple.

  Kleomon knew from the look on Philon’s face that the man was biding his time, making him wait, attempting to wield his superior status over him like a blunt club. Philon was insufferable. He’d been in Kleomon’s private quarters in the temple complex hundreds of times and every single time Philon acted as if there was a bad smell in the air, as if he might at any moment choke on his own bile. Let him choke.

  Kleomon waited. He followed Philon’s eyes as the younger, but more senior priest let his gaze track around the room, taking in every piece of furniture and pottery, every detail as if were some new and repulsive revelation. The walls were painted in brilliant yellows and blues, with murals of satyrs chasing maenads and virile youth while sporting phalluses so thick and long it was laughable. That was the point. That was the fun. But there was nothing fun about Philon.

  “So, my esteemed friend,” Philon began, “Why did you kill her?”

  Kleomon pulled himself to his feet, dusted himself off and poured a rhyton of wine into a goblet. He pulled a chair next to the table and sat down. “I didn’t kill her.”

  “Honestly, I don’t understand why those poor women bother you so. They are no threat to us.” His voice was sing-song, mocking.

  “Phoibe will not be as easily controlled as the old Pythia of Gaia, your old—what do we call her?’”

  “I’m not so sure of that.” Philon twirled the stem of his glass betwe
en his fingers and watched the honey-colored wine swirl in the goblet. “And you can call her what you like. I care not, and as she is dead and buried I’d wager she cares not as well.”

  “Unlike your friend, Phoibe will not be so easily cowed. She’s a firebrand.”

  “A firebrand can be doused.”

  “Good luck with that. Georgios, that giant, guards her like a newborn babe. The way he dotes on her … what a waste….”

  “Careful or you’ll start drooling.”

  “Shut up. At least I appreciate beauty when I see it.” Kleomon’s voice was ragged.

  “Did you kill the girl, Kleomon? Or was it one of those thuggish boys that follow you around? Your own little flock of admirers. You’re like Sokrates without the philosophy. Tell me, if you’re convicted of murder will you be so eager to drink your hemlock?”

  “By the gods, you don’t really think I killed her?”

  Philon sighed deeply. “No. I don’t think you have it in you.”

  “Maybe it was one of your own bodyguards, Philon. Maybe you don’t keep as tight a leash on your men as you think you do.”

  Philon closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. He was quiet for a moment, as if considering the possibility. “No. No, I don’t think it was one of my men.”

  “Then who did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about Theron? Don’t you think it’s a little strange—him turning up in Delphi at the same time as those priestesses?”

  “Perhaps it was just a coincidence.”

  “You don’t believe that for a moment,” Kleomon retorted.

  “Stranger things have happened in this world.”

  “The strangest thing is that someone got the best of her. Charis was devoted to Phoibe, but aside from that, I don’t think she had a human bone in her body. More like Pseudologos, the very embodiment of lies. You couldn’t trust a word she said.”

  “She was no innocent, that is one thing on which we can both agree,” Philon said. “But why accuse the priestesses, Kleomon? They would never kill one of their own followers. And why, by all the gods on Olympos, would you ever accuse Theron?”

  “Perhaps I got carried away.” Kleomon admitted. “But it was your Sofia that prophesied trouble for us. It is that damnable prophecy that has filled Phoibe’s head with the idea that it is her destiny, to reclaim our sacred site here for the earth-worshippers. Now that Phoibe is the Pythia of Gaia, who knows to what lengths she would go in order to discredit The Oracle of Apollon. Is murder such a stretch?”

  “She might want to murder you or me,” Philon chuckled, “but Phoibe would never sacrifice Charis. Every time I laid eyes on the girl, she was either with Georgios or Charis. Besides, if you really believe the Oracle of Apollon can be destroyed by a lone girl who, even now, is falling victim to the power of her visions, then you are well past the time of retirement.”

  “Wait—what do you mean ‘even now falling victim to her visions?’”

  “According to my sources, Phoibe’s visions are becoming, shall we say, debilitating. Sofia said the power of prophecy runs strong in Phoibe’s bloodlines. That in some generations it borders on madness.”

  Kleomon studied Philon. He knew Phoibe’s gift of sight was strong. She was rumored to be like the great priestesses of old. But, Kleomon wondered, were these recent visions the result of a gift from the gods, a madness of some sort—or, more likely, poison?

  You’re a fool, Philon,” he blurted.

  “Is that so?”

  “You think I’m a stupid old man, but you’re the one who doesn’t understand the threats we face. You think you can just snap your fingers and they will disappear, that things will go on the way they were before. But they won’t. We are threatened by more than Phoibe and her aging band of deluded priestesses. We’re threatened by all those sophisticated philosophers of yours who worship reason over the gods. ”

  “What a paranoid little fellow you’ve turned out to be.”

  “I’m not paranoid. You’re blind.”

  “Yes, I can see it now. Aristotle storming the Sacred Precinct with old Isocrates, Speusippus and Xenocrates close behind him! Is that the real reason you’re so afraid of Theron? Because he worships reason above all else?”

  “I’m not afraid of Theron and armies do not always come bearing weapons of steel.”

  “Believe me; I am well aware of that. And I am well aware of the fact that as times change, as new ideas emerge and people’s faith in the gods ebb, it is essential that we control the oracles. Whether in Delphi or Dodona, it is up to us to manipulate the messages in order to perpetuate our power. After all, what need will the people have for priests if the gods no longer speak through them?”

  “So you agree with me.”

  “Of course, but that is not the point. The point is that we have the upper hand and you lack subtlety. Implicating the priestesses is one thing. Accusing Theron is quite another. And threatening to strike his precious Althaia was a supreme miscalculation.”

  “He is one of them. His mother was a priestess of Gaia. Doesn’t it make sense that he still has loyalties to the cult, to the Pythia?”

  “The last thing Theron has loyalty to is any priestess of Gaia. His interests lay not in gods or goddesses, heavenly spheres, prime movers or ultimate causes. He’s interested in the causality of here and now and, most likely, in exactly where you were last night when a certain girl appeared dead in the Sacred Precinct.”

  “I said I don’t know anything about the girl!”

  “You don’t have to justify yourself to me. It’s Theron you have to worry about. Let me give you a little background on your new friend.”

  “I don’t need a lecture from you. I’ve heard the rumors.”

  “So you know about Theron’s history?”

  “I have my spies,” Kleomon growled as he stared into his wine.

  “Apparently, your spies have let you down, so let me put your rumors in context. Maybe that will help you grasp the foolishness of your outburst. Apparently King Philip and Theron met when they were boys. But it was when Philip was held in Thebes that they became fast friends. I have never heard how it was that Theron of Thessaly turned up on his own in Thebes, but that is of no consequence to my story.

  “As you might guess, becoming king is a difficult business and there are people all around you who may decide at any moment they could do the job better than you. That’s when Philip turned to Theron. Rather than the kind of philosopher who contemplated the nature of the heavens, he has always been interested in more immediate questions. Questions such , who would gain if the king were to suddenly have an accident with a rogue horse, a spicy bowl of soup, or, perhaps, an errant spear to the groin.

  “Of course, we all know how that turned out. After Philip felt he had matters well in hand, Theron did a bit of traveling and disappeared for a while. Then suddenly he is in Athens in the very lucrative employ of Lysandros who, as you may know, had more money than Apollon himself.”

  Kleomon shifted in his seat.

  “Rich as Croesus. And the daughter you spat at today inherited everything.”

  Kleomon examined the jewels on his goblet. He didn’t want to hear one more word from Philon, but figured he might as well listen now as be dogged by Philon for days.

  “Yes, it is true that Lysandros came from a long line of distinguished archons and strategos, but doesn’t it sound odd that a man who had worked for a king would suddenly decide to hire on with a mere merchant? And as a tutor to a ten-year old girl?”

  “So? Maybe he prefers nubile little girls to pretty young boys.”

  Philon threw his head back and laughed until his eyes were bleary with tears. “Ah, Kleomon, you are entertaining if nothing else. Must everything for you revolve around sexual pleasure?”

  “Money and sex, Philon. They’re the only two things you can count on. Even you take your pleasure where you can.”

  “Do you honestly think a man su
ch as Lysandros would bring a rangy traveler like Theron into his household and allow him to bed his only child?”

  Kleomon shrugged. “Who knows what men do when no one else is looking? Besides, why else would a beautiful young woman like her take an older man like Theron as her confidant if he were not also her lover?”

  “Perhaps because she grew up in a household full of men. Perhaps because he was her tutor. Perhaps because he’s the only man who treats her like she has a brain in her head. Who knows? For Zeus’s sake, I can’t believe I’m sitting here discussing Theron’s sexual proclivities with you.”

  “At least it’s an entertaining subject.”

  “By the gods, I don’t know why I bother even trying to reason with you.”

  “And I don’t know why I bother to listen.”

  “Because life is precarious for those who incur Theron’s wrath.”

  “So the rumors are true. That he was Lysandros’s paid assassin?”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. But he will not hesitate to kill when necessary. And neither he nor that silent Syrian slave they call Praxis will hesitate to eliminate anyone that threatens their precious Althaia.”

  “That Praxis is a marvelous specimen. I wouldn’t mind finding out what his proclivities are.”

  Philon stood, drained his goblet and set it firmly on the table in front of Kleomon. “Listen to me, Kleomon. Theron has his sights trained on you. You invited it with your outburst. I want to make certain I’m not in his peripheral vision. The last thing either one of us needs is for a man like him to start asking questions. And, by the gods, I fear we may both pay a high price if he discovers something he does not like.”

  Kleomon listened to the door shut behind him and then dipped his goblet in the krater and filled it with wine. His hand shook and the golden liquid dripped over his fingers. He put the cup to his lips and drained it in one gulp.

  Chapter Nine

  Praxis piled more coals on the brazier as Althaia pulled off her boots, tucked a woolen throw around her shoulders and curled up on the couch in Menandros’s andron. He saw her shiver and watched as she stared into the fire, deep in thought. He had been a favored slave in her household since she was five years old and knew her as well—better, even—then if she’d been his own sister. And he knew that her chill had nothing to do with the weather or with the body on the altar. Years earlier, he had been appalled when he’d learned that Theron had arranged for Althaia to study the mummification process with that damnable Egyptian priest, but as a result of her time with Inaros she’d seen—and touched and probed—plenty of dead, naked bodies. No, it wasn’t the weather or the body that had Althaia of Athens chilled. Her chill was due to one thing, one man: Kleomon.