Oracles of Delphi

by Marie Savage

  “Sit with me, Althaia,” Thea said. She patted a pillow and Althaia gladly dropped to the blanket to join her. Thea looked up at her brother and nodded as Theron turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd. “Theron aims to move about the crowd. Watching, listening. He would have Praxis join him, but I understand he has instructed your slave to relax and leave all concerns about your safety to Theron.” She turned and Althaia followed her eyes to the blanket behind them where Praxis was already stretched out, his head resting in Nephthys lap.

  Near Praxis and Nephthys, Menandros busied himself with opening wax tablets and sharpening styli in the hopes of recording the evening’s events as an eyewitness to history—and as fodder for his plays. Beside him, Zenon sat on his knees eying the line of priestesses and making mental notes of the attendants he intended to try his luck with first.

  “Why are you not participating in the funerary rituals? Althaia asked.

  “My duties tonight are to the living,” Thea answered. She motioned for an attendant to pour a cup of wine for Althaia and thought about the conversation she’d just had with her brother.

  “I don’t know, Thea, according to the good people of Delphi, Nikos has quite a reputation,” Theron had protested when she brought up the subject of Althaia and Nikos.

  “She is not a child and he is not a fiend. In fact, from what I now know of your past, the two of you are not so different.”

  “By the gods, Thea, I would not wish a man like myself on Althaia in a thousand years. When I was Nikos’s age, I made it my life’s work to not care about anyone or anything. And then I met Lysandros who was, well, an extraordinary man. And there was Althaia. From the very first day, she reminded me of you.” He stopped and looked into the distance. “Well, anyway, she is more than an employer, more than a student, she is—”

  “I understand,” she interrupted, her own voice thick with regret. “But remember, no matter what else she is to you, she is a woman first and foremost. I have seen, as have you, how the two of them look at each other. There is a connection there, a desire deeper than mere flesh and blood, deeper than lust and release. Come,” she said, “do not try to tell me you have never looked at a woman the way Nikos looks at Althaia.”

  Despite himself, he could not suppress a smile. “I do not deny it,” he sighed.

  “So why do you seek to deny this joy to her?”

  “I don’t want to deny her joy; I want to protect her from pain.”

  “Brother, I am not blind. Nor am I deaf. I know Nikos is involved in things I do not approve of, that you surely will not approve of. But I am not his keeper. The mistakes he has made, he carries heavy in his heart—of that I am certain. Listen to me. He is a good man. His whole life he has been searching for one thing and I think, in your Althaia, he has found it.”

  “As much as I fear you are right, I swear to you that I am willing to renounce my impiety, fall prostrate before Olympos and pray to all the gods devised by man that you are wrong.”

  “That would mean going home, my dear brother, right to the very foot of Olympos.” Thea said. “I would like that. Even if just for a short while. And even if you decide not to renounce your impiety.” Theron said nothing and the quiet had stretched between then. Then he excused himself and disappeared into the crowd.

  Coming back to the moment, Thea took a sip of her wine and said, “Theron said you made a discovery today regarding Melanippe’s death, but he didn’t have time to tell me what was found.”

  Althaia told her about the additional wood fragments and the discovery of the cart tracks. “We followed them from the ravine and they lead directly to an old, overgrown well near the farmhouse. Our theory is that whoever killed her did it there and then threw the rest of the walking stick into the well, bundled her in the cart, and then dumped her body in the ravine.”

  Thea looked off into the distance. “Melanippe had long been a troubled woman, but she did not deserve to die in such a way.”

  “No one deserves such an ignominious death,” Althaia said.

  “How far is the well? I don’t think I know it.”

  “Maybe a fifteen-minute walk from the house, longer in the bad weather that day. The well looked like it hadn’t been used in years. There were fresh marks—stone scraping against stone—on the well cover. And, in addition to the cart tracks, we found several sets of different-sized footprints clustered around the well and leading back and forth in the direction of the house. Praxis tracked them for a ways, but they were difficult to follow. We wanted to talk to Kalliope about what had happened, how she came to be injured, but you all had already left the farmhouse, and then, well, we need to get ready to come here as well.”

  “I’m glad you are here,” Thea said. “It will give us a chance to get to know one another.”

  “Theron guessed that since Melanippe was such an important priestess, Phoibe would likely turn the funerary rites into a spectacle to demonstrate the cult of Gaia is still strong. He said”—Althaia mimicked Theron’s voice—“‘such an event does not happen every day and we might as well enjoy it.’”

  “And as I said, I’m glad of it.” Thea squeezed Althaia’s hand. “Tonight we will celebrate happier times in Melanippe’s life. But first I want to ask if you are truly well. Theron also told me about what happened at the ravine.”

  Althaia tried to look unfazed, but could feel the heat color her cheeks. “Yes … I am unhurt. Nikos….”

  “I thank the goddess Nikos and Diokles came along when they did.” Thea paused and looked out over the crowd. “I’ve asked Nikos to join us after he lights the pyre,” she said, watching Althaia’s face out of the corner of her eye. “I’ve known Nikos his whole life, you know. I often spent time in Dodona, studying with Melanippe.”

  “What was he like, growing up, I mean?”

  A smile tugged at Thea’s mouth as she looked off into the distance. She could picture the Sacred Grove, see the priestesses busy at their work, hear Nikos running around, poking his wooden sword in bushes, challenging saplings to bloody duels, and generally ridding the place of all the invisible shades and daemons threatening the priestess’s work. “He was all boy,” she said fondly. “Unfortunately, he was surrounded by all women. He was built like a little Ajax with an appetite like a Titan, and once he learned to walk, he never slowed down. He was always running headlong into trouble, always too willing to take a dare, to ride faster, fight harder, always trying to prove himself a man, trying to be worthy.” She turned to look at Althaia. “Melanippe never loved him as a mother should love her only child. Never forgave him for being his father’s son—”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “It’s a long story, best told by Nikos himself, if he can ever bear to share it. At any rate, it is not my tale to tell. At least not tonight. Suffice it to say, he never knew his father, and his mother despised the very thought of the man. The rest of us tried our best to fill the void in the boy’s life. I spoiled him, the other priestesses spoiled him and the men and women of the village spoiled him, but what he wanted most was his mother’s love.”

  “Why did he stay to serve his mother so long if she treated him so poorly?”

  “Duty, guilt, love, anger, who knows what motivates another person? I do know he is a good man—and he deserves a good woman.”

  Althaia swallowed the heart that threatened to leap out her throat. She looked straight at Thea. “I don’t know why you are telling me this.”

  “I’m an observant woman. It’s part of what makes me a good priestess. I saw the way he looked—or didn’t look—at you the other night. And I saw your face when Kalliope touched him, and when he walked by you without a word.”

  “Thea, I cannot be that woman. I’m already married. I live in Athens. I can’t—”

  “Perhaps not,” Thea said with a sigh of finality although Althaia was fully prepared to continue counting off the many reasons she and Nikos could not be together, even though in her mind she had thoroughly exami
ned, scientifically dissected, and illogically rejected every one of those reasons to return over and over again to the one burning idea that inflamed her mind: Nikos.

  Thea poured more wine and chewed thoughtfully on a fig. “You know I envy you, Althaia of Athens.”

  “Envy me, why?” Althaia was still chafing to justify herself.

  “You have my brother’s undying devotion. That is a gift I will never have.”

  “I don’t know,” Althaia stammered, thrown off by the sudden change of topic. “You seem to have picked up where you left off.” She didn’t know why she said that. She had no idea where Thea and Theron had left off—or why.

  “It is better than I expected. Much better. This meeting. Besides the murders, of course.”

  Althaia took a deep drink. Dare she ask? Now that Thea had brought it up, she was dying to ask. Theron’s past was the one topic that could keep her mind off Nikos’s present.

  “Has he ever told you how we were parted?” Thea continued.

  “No. I mean, he promised to. After I met you. He said he would tell me everything. But with all the excitement, he hasn’t had a chance.”

  “Would you like me to tell you? He has given me leave to tell you our story.”

  “Yes,” Althaia found she was tearing up. “He is as dear to me as my own father.”

  “You do my brother great honor by comparing them thus. So, while we wait for the funeral to begin, let me tell you our tale in the hopes you will understand Theron, and, perhaps, give me leave to come back into his life without feeling the intruder.”

  “Intruder?” Althaia started to protest, but Thea held up her hand to silence her.

  “Please, listen and do not think ill of me.”

  Althaia nodded, her mouth dry in anticipation.

  “Theron and I, like most twins, were close. But when we were twelve, our lives changed. A little brother was born. While he was a baby, his care was entrusted to me and the wet nurse. But as he grew, toddling around, he came to dote on Theron who would do tricks for him. Stand on his head or produce a coin out of his ear, silly things like that. Our brother’s name was Leonidas, our fat little lion-hearted boy, and he followed Theron everywhere.

  “As we grew older, I was stuck inside, weaving and embroidering, reciting prayers and learning the rites and rituals necessary for a priestess of Gaia. Theron and Leo spent their days outside, together, seemingly without a care in the world.

  “One day, Leo fell ill with fever. Theron stuck by his bedside day and night, holding his hand and telling him of the adventures they would have together once he got better. I sat with them until Mother ordered me back to my handiwork and recitations. Finally, after he had drifted in and out of consciousness for almost five days, I glanced over to the bed on which Leonidas lay just as his long lashes fluttered their last and fell still. It was early morning, and first light had not yet touched the eastern sky. Theron was wrapped in a blanket beside him, fast asleep. They wouldn’t let me wake him. Mother said he needed to sleep in order to help in the fields. The time for mourning would not last forever and men’s work waited.

  “But after we had washed and wrapped Leo in his burial shroud, I woke Theron anyway. He was distraught. He wept like a woman and Father had to keep him away from the body. Our parents had already buried three children and they were well aware that Leonidas may not be the last.

  “During the funeral, our mother went about her duties as priestess of Gaia Pytheion, shedding not a single tear while Theron sat on his knees by the mound of freshly dug dirt, rocking back and forth crying. Never one to show a shred of emotion—or mercy—mother turned away from Theron even as he tore his clothes and pulled his hair in frenzied grief for his little acolyte. Friends and relatives averted their eyes first from Theron’ grief and then from Mother’s stoic resolve. I could do nothing but stand beside my mother and serve her or, later, suffer the lash.

  “I longed to sit beside my twin, to hold and comfort him. After all, I had not died; I was still there to offer him love and admiration. But he suffered his grief alone, for I was not allowed to grieve with him. A priestess must rise above such petty human emotions to serve the larger purpose of the gods. That is what our mother believed.

  “Mother tolerated Theron’s cries for a time and then, before the whole gathering, said, ‘The goddess has spoken and we cannot question her ways. It is time for you to be a man. Stand now and stop mourning the boy’s death like an animal in the wild. It is not befitting the son of a priestess of Gaia and a warrior of Thessaly.’

  “Theron looked up, his face streaked with dirt and the salty tracks of tears and spat at her, —and, by the gods, I will never forget his words—he said, ‘You didn’t love him! You don’t love anybody! I hate Gaia and I hate you!’ Our mother looked across the grave at our father and spoke calmly. ‘I have lost two sons this day, for this boy is no longer my own. He has rejected everything that I am. Take him to the stable. He can live there from now on, but he will not return to my house.’

  “Althaia, I tell you my heart beat like the drums of war on a battlefield choked with armies. I longed to go to Theron, but fear of my mother held me in place as if I were a marble statue with my feet rooted in stone. I felt the swell of my twin’s emotions in my own breast and thought I might vomit. Instead, I swallowed the bile and stood silently by our mother’s side even as Father carried my other half, stunned and limp from exhaustion, toward the stable.

  “Our father was a farmer and a warrior and he had seen many men come and go in his lifetime. He was a poor but honorable and brave man whose fortunes were tied to the priestess of Pytheion. It was her fathers’ land his hand tilled and her fathers’ silver that held them over when crops were poor. On his death bed, my father finally spoke to me of that day. Father saw that Theron’s very soul had been wounded by Leonidas’ death just as surely as if his heart had been pierced by a warrior’s lance. As a man, he knew Theron was better off separated from the implacable cruelty of our mother. Even before that day, I believe he knew Theron would never stay to inherit the land. He had seen that his son was at once too tender for war and too inquisitive for a pastoral life tethered to the land. So he stroked his son’s sweaty hair and felt the rise and fall of his ragged breathing against his chest as he kicked open the stable door and set him on the ground. Theron, already tall and lanky for his age, stood slump-shouldered, watching silently as our father prepared a pile of blankets in an empty stall. Father then walked toward the door and turned and looked into his son’s eyes. Theron was no longer crying. ‘Today,’ our father said, ‘you are a man.’ Then he put his fist to his heart, turned and left the stable, pulling the door shut behind him. That was the last time our father ever saw his son.

  “I watched the scene from a distance, my whole body burned in anger—not just at my mother, but at Leonidas and Theron as well. Although Leo had been with us just four winters, he had changed everything. I knew I would have eventually been separated from Theron—a brother and sister must always go their separate ways. Theron would be a great horseman and warrior, and I would be a priestess. But as I watched Father and Theron disappear into the darkness of the stable, I flushed with hatred—especially for the boy who lay entombed within Grandmother Earth. Leonidas had stolen Theron’s love from me before it was time. And our mother had pushed him from me for all time.

  “That night I lay awake, straining to hear some noise drifting on the cool air from the stable. Should I try to get up and sneak out toward the stable? How badly would mother beat me if I were caught? Finally, after hours of lying quietly, I slipped out from beneath my blanket and stole my way through the house and out across the wet grass. By the time I reached the stable, Theron was gone.

  “Frantic, I tore down the path that led toward the edge of our property and then beyond, eventually leading to the pass at Thermopylae where the brave Leonidas, King of Sparta, led 300 warriors to their deaths defending all Greece from the Persian horde. Leonidas again! He’s gone loo
king for Leonidas, I thought. I convinced myself he’d lost his senses.

  “I dared not yell, but instead kept running, slipping, falling and then scrambling back up to keep running again. My nightgown was muddy and torn when I crested a small rise and saw him in the distance. That moment is emblazoned upon my mind. I stood, bent over, hands on my knees, panting. I could go no further. I focused my mind on his and willed him to turn and see me, to return to me. I saw his horse stop. I saw him turn. Don’t leave me alone, I prayed. Not with her. Please come back home, I whispered, my breath ragged. My twin remained still, silhouetted against the glow from the silvered moon. Nothing was said. We were already too distant. We looked at each other, a gulf widening between us. After a moment, he raised his hand in farewell then turned and continued riding down the path away from Thessaly, away from me.”

  Althaia blew her nose into her cloak. She clutched Thea’s hand and held it to her breast. She could not see through her tears and could no more speak than if her tongue had been cut out. Thea’s eyes brimmed with unshed tears; her face mottled from holding her emotions in check. Althaia held Thea’s hand to her lips and kissed it. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Now I understand, finally. Now, I know.”

  ****

  Thea looked up and saw Theron standing on the ledge watching them. He touched his hand to his heart. He had done many difficult things in his life, but he was glad he did not have to tell Althaia that tale. He, Lysandros, and Praxis had shared the basic outlines of their childhoods, but they were all content with the outlines. Men were able to take the measure of a man without needing to know every bump and curve in the road that took them to their destination. But he knew Althaia would want details. As a woman, she would want more. And he knew he was not prepared to give them. Even now.

  Chapter Forty-five