by Marie Savage
Nikos jerked away as if Kalliope held scorpions in her hand. “Do what you need to do, Thea,” he choked. He couldn’t stand to have that fawning, grasping thing touch him, and he couldn’t pretend he’d honor his mother and travel back to Dodona with her lackey. It was too much to ask any man. Ever since Kalliope had arrived in Dodona, she’d been a black shadow on their threshold. Catering to his mother’s every whim and agreeing with every word she said until even the other priests and priestesses could hardly stand to be in the same room with them. And it had never been enough for her to sink her claws into Melanippe. It had been clear from the way Kalliope mooned at him and followed him around when his mother wasn’t looking that she had plans for him, too. And now that she was taking his mother’s place, would she expect him to attend to her as he attended his mother?
“I’ll be at The Cove,” he said as he turned his back on Kalliope and his mother’s body and strode to the door. Without so much as a glance at Althaia, he yanked it open and stormed into the dark alone.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Thea cleared the room as soon as Nikos stormed out. “Kalliope and I must prepare the body,” she said. She met her brother’s gaze, “Althaia may stay and observe, but you and your friend—”
“Praxis.”
“You two must wait outside. You may shelter in the barn out back. Althaia will come for you when we’re finished.”
After the door closed behind them, Kalliope wasted no time taking charge. She pulled away the blanket and untied the cloak until Melanippe lay clothed in just her winter-weight chiton and worn leather boots. Kalliope’s face was fixed, determined.
“Before we begin the rites,” the new priestess of Dodona said, “there is something I must do.” She shoved the old woman’s woolen chiton and her undergarment, a sheath of finespun linen, up to her waist exposing thin, flabby legs attached to wide hips and a bloated belly. Thea struggled to keep her face expressionless, but saw Althaia fall back a step and her eyes widen in horror at the callous and disrespectful action. Kalliope tugged at a leather thong tied around the old woman’s waist and pulled a small purse from between Melanippe’s legs. Her fingers stroked the soft leather before she loosened the drawstring, held it to the lamp and peered inside. The hint of a smile played at her lips. She looked up.
“Melanippe always wore this small purse around her waist. In it, she kept her most treasured personal possessions. Tokens of her long life dear to her alone.” She unknotted the thong and unceremoniously pulled it free. “She instructed me, upon her death, to take it and keep it as my own. As her successor, and as the woman she hoped would one day be her daughter.” Her eyes flicked up toward Althaia. “It is not an official gift, but a personal one.”
“Kalliope, I do not doubt the sincerity of Melanippe’s wishes, but should not her personal possessions pass to her son?” Thea said.
“You know, better than most, that relations between the priestess and her son were strained. Often it was only my close, my intimate, relationship with each of them that kept them bound together.”
Intimate! Thea had seen how Nikos stiffened and jerked his hand away when Kalliope touched him. She knew well how he felt about Kalliope. “But still—”
“She wanted me to have these trinkets,” Kalliope interrupted as she looked once more into the purse.
“Nikos has the right to know what is in there. Perhaps there are things that belong to him. Melanippe’s ring, for instance. Her silver band, is it in there?” Thea asked. “It is not on her hand, and it should definitely pass to him. That and whatever other gifts his father gave to her.”
“She was wearing a plain silver band when we found her,” Althaia spoke up. “Nikos took it from her finger at the ravine.”
“Good,” Thea said. “Kalliope, I must insist you see to it Nikos gets the mementos his father left. They must go to him.”
“Believe me, Theodora,” Kalliope said with a strange smile, “I will show Nikos what is in the purse and we will come to terms over the contents.”
It was no longer ‘honored priestess of Pytheion,’ Theodora noted. And there was that edge to Kalliope’s voice. Thea had heard it before, and she didn’t like it. Truth be told, she did not trust Kalliope and never had. Thea had been visiting Dodona when the girl first arrived from Patra as an apprentice. She had seen pride and ambition before, but Kalliope topped those with a grand sense of entitlement. Not yet eleven, she acted like the Sacred Oak had been bequeathed to her and her alone. She latched onto Melanippe immediately, barely acknowledging the other priestesses. It became apparent, at least to Thea, that Kalliope studied Melanippe, knew her history, knew her weaknesses, and played them pitch perfect. How a child from Patra knew so much about a nearly fifty-year-old priestess from Dodona was a mystery. Now, Melanippe was dead and Kalliope clearly had her sights on Nikos. Thea scolded herself, this is not my business. Melanippe was right. He is not my son, and it has been many years since he needed me to shield him.
Kalliope closed the purse and cinched it tight. She tied it with the thong and then hiked up her chiton and secured the leather tie around her waist just as Melanippe had worn it. The sight of Kalliope’s pale, bony legs and narrow, boyish hips was startling. There was hardly anything to the girl, and yet, Thea had to admit the girl unnerved her. Her cold resolve was intimidating and not a little frightening, and Thea turned her eyes away from Kalliope’s nakedness and back to Melanippe’s body. Whatever she felt about the Kalliope or Melanippe, it was her duty to perform the ritual washing and preparation of the body. She knew Althaia would be standing beside her watching carefully, trying to see if there were any clues to how Melanippe died. But Thea didn’t need Althaia to tell her how the priestess died. She believed she already knew. The question was not how, but who.
***
Althaia watched quietly as Theodora’s attendant entered the room followed by several younger girls. They carried a basin of water, olive oil, an incense burner, spring scissors, and a several cotton cloths. They were followed by the matron of the house, a strong, broad shouldered woman with a gentle face. Folded neatly over her arm was a plain white linen chiton, a braided hemp belt and a sheer white burial shroud. She handed it reverentially to Theodora.
“I wove this myself, for my own shroud. Melanippe often honored our home with her presence on her visits to Delphi, and I would like to give her this one last gift. I would be glad if you would use my shroud for the priestess.”
“Your generosity is overwhelming,” Thea said. “I pray the goddess gives you many more years in which to live abundantly and that your daughters help you weave a shroud even more lovely than this one.”
The matron bent, kissed Melanippe’s bloodied forehead, and then backed away, turned and followed the attendants out.
Theodora used the scissors to cut Melanippe’s bloody chiton and undergarment open down the front and to cut it off her arms while Kalliope worked to remove her boots. The death rigor had set in and they both worked with care around the stiff limbs until they peeled the last vestiges of mortal drapery from the body.
Then, as if on an invisible cue, Theodora and Kalliope began to sing. Their voices were as soft as the snow that had begun falling outside, dusting Delphi and the shoulders of Mt. Parnassus in a white mantle of mourning. Theodora lit the incense while Kalliope dipped the cloths into the basin. She handed one to Theodora and, together, they began to wash the body. Their hands were gentle, loving, as they wiped away the cares of this world and prepared the body for an eternity of purity in the next.
Mesmerized by the ritual, Althaia wondered if this was how her aunts had prepared her mother’s body for burial. She hoped so. It was one thing for families to pay professional mourners for the funeral procession, but this, this final act of respect, was the true testament of love. The tenderness of the priestesses’ touch—even Kalliope’s—was comforting, reassuring, and Althaia realized she was weeping. She wiped the tears away and fought to concentrate on the task at hand.
Me
lanippe’s skin, though mottled with age, was translucent, like light from a new moon. Blue and green veins traced their way beneath it like tiny tributaries of a distant river. A sparse patch of grey wiry hair was all that remained to mark her womanhood. Althaia could see none of the bruises that would have come from a twenty-five or thirty foot fall into a creek-bed filled with rocks. If she had been killed earlier, then wrapped in her heavy himation and rolled over the ledge into the ravine, it would explain why the fall had not caused more damage to her legs or torso.
Theodora gently rolled the body onto its side and Althaia craned her neck so she could see Melanippe’s back. Again, nothing other than the normal marks of a long life. Other than the damage done to the skull and side of the face, there was no obvious evidence of any other injury that could have caused her death. It was clear to Althaia that Melanippe had been beaten with a blunt weapon and had been dead well before she landed at the bottom of the ravine.
Something caught Althaia’s eye. Something brown. A twig or fragment of wood was stuck in the snarled strands of hair matted to the back of the battered skull. It fell to the floor when Theodora worked her oiled fingers through the hair. Althaia bent to pick it up but Kalliope’s fingers closed over it before she could reach it. Their eyes met. Kalliope’s lips tightened across her teeth in something that resembled a smile, or a snarl, and a chill ran up Althaia’ spine.
Then the ritual washing was over and it was time to wrap Melanippe in her final garment. “Althaia, please remove the blanket and cloak,” Theodora asked while she and Kalliope gently rolled the body. Althaia pulled the old garments off the table and then handed the white chiton to Theodora. They slipped it over Melanippe’s head and cinched it loosely around her waist with the hemp belt. “The shroud, please,” Theodora said. The priestesses once again rolled the body so Althaia could unfold the shroud and spread it on the table. Whether for spending money in the afterlife or to pay Charon for passage across the Acheron, every corpse needed a coin placed in or on the mouth. Theodora now produced a shiny new obol with Zeus Dodona and his wreath of oak-leaves on one side and the obelisk of Apollon Ambrakia on the other. She firmly placed it between Melanippe’s lips, said a silent prayer, and began to wrap the shroud around the body.
Her observations complete, Althaia picked up the blanket and folded it carefully, then did the same for the bloodied remnants of the chiton and undergarment. She picked up Melanippe’s cloak and shook it slightly to straighten it and make it easier to fold. That’s when she found them. Two fragments of wood, one nothing more than a long, jagged splinter, but the other was something far more interesting—the broken head of a finely carved serpent with two tiny ruby eyes staring up at her.
***
Althaia shook the snow from her cloak as she stepped into the barn where Theron was pacing and Praxis was sitting silently staring at the floor.
“Well?” Theron asked.
“As I suspected, I believe she was struck on the head with a blunt object. Multiple times. I think she was hit both from behind and from the side and that she bled profusely from both locations. The shoulders and back of her chiton and linen undergarment were soaked with blood. There were no lacerations, as such, anywhere else. Legs, arms, chest or the rest of the torso. Just the normal signs of age. And there was no significant bruising on the body. Nothing that would indicate she fell and hit the rocks while her body was animated and the blood was still coursing in her veins.”
“We need to talk to Kalliope,” Theron said. “According to Thea’s message, she went out with Melanippe and returned bleeding.”
“Kalliope—” Althaia started, but didn’t know how to continue. She couldn’t trust her feelings about the new priestess now that she knew Kalliope had designs on Nikos. But why should I care? She chided herself. I’m a married woman!
“Kalliope what?” Theron said.
“She … I don’t know … she behaved very strangely after you left.”
“How so?”
“It’s hard to describe. At first she was abrupt, callous even. She yanked Melanippe’s clothes up and laid claim to a small purse full of trinkets the priestess wore around her waist. She said Melanippe had bequeathed the contents to her, but Thea challenged her saying Nikos should at least see what was in the bag. They seemed to be talking about items of Nikos’s father. But then, Kalliope said of course she would see to it that she and Nikos ‘came to terms’ about the contents. There was something very calculating about her manner. But then, during the ritual cleansing, her manner changed. She was respectful, tender even. The process was quite lovely.” Althaia’s eyes filled with tears, but she held them at bay. “I’m glad Thea allowed me to witness it.”
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Theron asked.
“She would have been fine had I listened to her and not the lieutenant, had I kept her by my side instead of leaving her alone with those bastards at the ravine,” Praxis growled.
Althaia dropped to the hard, dusty floor beside Praxis, whose face was twisted in a dark glower, and took his hand in hers. Some say the gods are harsh masters, she thought. Others say men. But as Theron always insisted when they talked about her dreams, about her need to forgive herself for her childish actions on the day her mother and brother died, she realized the harshest master of all was the self. She knew Praxis blamed himself for not protecting her, and she was determined he know that she did not hold him responsible.
From inside the house, the cries of lamentation suddenly shattered the night. The ritual washing complete, the priestesses must have opened the doors to the rest of the attendants and the farmer’s household. She imagined the women pulling at their hair, ripping their gowns and bursting their lungs to out-mourn each other. The murder of the eldest priestess of Dodona was no small thing, and Althaia could not help but think that what had been her father’s idea of a trip to mark the anniversary of his death had turned into one marked by murder. But she would not have it turned into one that marked a breach in her relationship with Praxis.
She looked up at the man she considered confidant, friend, brother, and said, “You must not blame yourself, Praxis. Look at me.” She took his chin in her hand and turned his face toward hers. “See? I am whole. I am uninjured either in body or soul.” She held Praxis’s hand to her cheek. “I am unhurt. Truly.”
Praxis took a deep breath and then nodded slightly. “So … what do you think is in the priestesses’s little purse?”
Althaia smiled and looked up at Theron. “That is a very good question. One to which I have no answer. But,” she stood and reached into the fold of her chiton and pulled out the broken fragment of wood with the serpent’s head and ruby eyes. “I know this was not in the purse, and I also know that, had I not clasped my fingers around it first, Kalliope would have snatched it away.
“Where did you find this?” Theron asked.
“It fell out as I was folding Melanippe’s cloak,” Althaia said, handing it to Theron. “That and another fragment of splintered wood that, unfortunately, Kalliope reached before I did.”
“I believe that must be a piece of the murder weapon,” Praxis said.
“I believe you’re right,” Theron agreed as Althaia beamed at both of them.
“This is no ordinary splinter. This was broken off something precious. The question is what,” she said. “After the mourning ritual quiets in the house, we should take your sister aside and see if she recognize this.”
“First Charis and now Melanippe….” Theron said.
“Are you thinking now Charis’s death might not have been an accident?” Praxis asked.
“Whether her death was an accident or not, the presentation of her body was designed to send a message. And we still have no idea what that message was or for whom it was meant. And if it was meant for Phoibe, as she claims, is her life in danger, too?”
Chapter Thirty-nine
“You’re forgiven.”
“I didn’t say I was sorry.” Nikos opened one eye
and looked up at Diokles standing in the doorway. He had passed out in his clothes the night before and was still in bed, flat on his back, and was in no mood for company.
“No matter. I forgive you anyway.” Diokles pulled in a stool from the hallway and plopped down in it. He tipped it back, leaned against the wall, and looked around the room. Since Nikos often stayed at The Cove for weeks at a time, he always kept the same room. He traveled light and kept his room spare but neat and always decorated with a few favorite pieces of painted pottery or gold or silver ornaments waiting to be sold down at the port in Kirra or delivered to buyers on Nikos’s next trip abroad. Now kindling, or what had been his table and chair, was lying scattered across the floor among pieces of shattered pottery. The room looked like the site of a tavern brawl. “You had Aphro pretty worried. She thought the Furies had taken you.”
“Maybe they had.”
“A woman doesn’t like to be interrupted by a madman while she is getting fucked.”
“Oh, so now you’re the considerate gentleman.”
“I’m clearly not the murderous son of a bitch you thought I was last night.”
“All right. I was wrong to suspect you.”
“No, not wrong to suspect me. Just wrong. You know, there’s been plenty of times I wished your mother a swift trip to the underworld. And there've been plenty of times I was tempted to escort her to the gates of Hades myself, but I told you at the ravine I didn’t do it.”
“You said you were sorry it had to happen this way.”
“And I am. Do you honestly think I would have chosen a blow to the head instead of nice sip of poisoned wine? I’m not a barbarian.”
“By the gods, Diokles, as much as I could hardly bear the woman, she was still my mother. And seeing her like that….” Nikos swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. He ran his fingers through his hair, and hung his head in his hands.