by Marie Savage
“Our first night here. The night before I discovered Charis’s body in the theater.”
“Oh, god,” he groaned. “What else did you see? The other man. Can you remember anything else about him?”
“No, that’s it. I’m surprised I remember that much. Sometimes bits and pieces of the dreams stay with me, but usually they fade, if not by morning, then within a few days. But I know it was you.” She smiled in the dark and let her fingers trail from his face, along his jaw line and down his neck, “This afternoon I had another dream, and you were most definitely in that one. And it was not a nightmare.” She pushed him back against the floor, and lay on top of him, her breasts pressing into him.
“Althaia, please,” he rolled her off him and sat back up. “I would stay here, blind with need, and love you until the end of time, but we both know that is impossible. Especially now, with this dream. As much as I fear and dread this, it’s time to face what comes next. You deserve to know what will happen when we leave our cocoon.”
“I was afraid to come in here. That monster’s mouth is a fearsome thing. But now I treasure that gash, for if others were as afraid to enter as I, no one will dare invade our privacy. Nikos, this is our sanctuary. Why must we bring the outside world into our safe harbor so soon?”
“Here,” he groped around the floor and then handed her chiton and boots to her. “I think it must be nearly morning. We need to get dressed. I’ll be right back.”
Panic seized her. “Don’t leave me here.”
“I’m going to go out to find someone who will relight my lamp. So I can see you.” He pulled on his clothes and felt for her hand, felt his way up to her face and then kissed her. “I would never leave you here. I promise. Now get dressed or you’ll get chilled.”
She heard his bare feet pad across the floor. Blindly she pulled on her clothes and waited. Time stood still as she sat, frozen, eyes shut tight against the darkness. Soon she heard him approach and dared open one eye. She let out a long breath, opened both eyes wide and took in the full length of him. He walked toward her, lamp in hand, a halo of light framing his face like a god.
He sat down, cross-legged, in front of her. “You need to trust me because now I am going to tell you the truth. I’m going to tell you things that you do not want to hear.” He clutched her hand and held it tight as if the physical connection would continue to bind them together no matter what.
“Nothing you can tell me will change how I feel.”
“That is a lovely and foolish sentiment, and it cleaves my heart in two.”
“But, it’s true. I—”
He put a finger to her lips. “Hush, please, and listen.”
Chapter Fifty
Althaia’s fingers hurt from Nikos’s grip, yet she knew she gripped him harder. In silence, she had listened to every agonizing word as he told her about his relationship with his mother, about how Kalliope had followed him since she first arrived in Dodona, about selling stolen treasures from the Sacred Precinct with Diokles and Kleomon, about Charis and her brother. She did not want to believe him, but his green eyes, shadowed in pain, were windows to the truth. The cave’s pulse, that reassuring drip, drip, drip, went on, oblivious of the tribulations of mere mortals. The smell of the damp stone, the steady glow of the oil lamp, the feel of hard ground beneath her, all these were in Althaia’s mind, as if concentrating on the minutiae of them would make everything else go away.
“The marks on your back. I could feel them in the dark,” she whispered. “It was your skin, your blood, I found under Charis’s fingernails.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “And now Kalliope says she will see me punished or see me married before the next moonrise. She says nothing now can stand in her way. Althaia, she means for us to leave Delphi, to return to Dodona today—as man and wife.”
“But what did she mean ‘nothing now can stand in her way’? Is she talking about your mother? And how did she find out that it was you who left the body on the temple steps? I don’t understand how Kalliope can blackmail you and accuse you of murder when I am certain Charis’s death was an accident.”
“There is always Charis’s brother. Sooner or later his body will be found. But Kalliope has proof that ties me directly to Charis’s death.”
“What proof can she possibly have?”
“You examined Charis in the adyton, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Someone was watching you.”
Althaia shuddered and her heart skipped a beat. “In the hallway, as we left the adyton, we felt a wash of fresh air as if a door had opened or closed. But we saw nothing, heard nothing. Why, if someone in the temple knew we were there, why did they not alert the guards?”
“Because someone saw a man leave a body on the temple steps, but could not identify the man in the darkness. That same person discovered it was Charis and decided to use her body to send a message to the priestesses. When he learned you were going to examine her body, he decided to watch and see if you would discover something that would lead him back to the man who left her on the steps, back to Charis’s murderer. And you did. You found something.”
“Yes.” Althaia’s voice was barely audible.
“That next morning at Menandros’s … you were going to tell me what you found before Theron interrupted.”
Althaia nodded. She was unsure where he was leading her, what he was trying to tell her.
Nikos pulled his hand from hers and reached over to pick up one of his boots. He reached into the shaft and pulled out a small leather purse. Fingers shaking, he loosened the tie. “You found this,” he said as he pulled out a silver necklace with a single polished orb dangling from its chain, lamplight flickering across its surface.
Althaia almost choked on her surprise. . “Where did you get that? It was hidden at Menandros’s.”
“I took it from Kalliope this evening.”
“But how did she find it? Did she order someone to break into Menandros’s house?”
“She didn’t have to. This is not the necklace you found stuck in Charis’s throat. My father took two of three silver balls from the torc he wore around his neck and threaded them on silver chains. He left one for his lover and one for his son. It’s all I ever had of him. My necklace is what killed Charis. This was my mother’s. She never wore it anymore, and I thought she kept it in Dodona, but Kalliope said she always wore it in a little pouch tied around her waist, hidden in case she was ever robbed.”
Althaia clutched at Nikos’s hand. “I saw Kalliope take the pouch from your mother. It was the first thing she did after you left the farmhouse, before the ritual cleansing began. By all that is holy, Nikos, she took it because she knew what I had found in the adyton. She took it because she meant to blackmail you with it.”
“As soon as she learned what it was you had found, she knew I was responsible for Charis’s death.”
“Stop saying that. Your necklace may have killed Charis, but you did not. It was an accident. You didn’t mean for her to die.”
“It may have been an accident, but she would not be dead had I not been there in the first place, had I not been willing to … to betray my partners so I could—”
“Nikos,” Althaia interrupted. “She aspirated the ball, choked on it. You didn’t stick it down her throat. You didn’t kill her!”
“Look at me,” he took Althaia’s face in his hands. “Since the end of the last Sacred War, I have been profiting from treasures stolen from the Sacred Precinct by people like Charis and her brother. I was the conduit for getting those treasures into the hands of collectors around the Middle Sea. I was willing to cheat my best friend just to make love to Charis. I killed her brother and abandoned his body to the wolves. Althaia, I am no innocent no matter how much you might wish it so. The truth is Charis would not be dead if it were not for me.”
They were both quiet as the silver ball swayed, a pendulum silently marking the moments they had left together. How long they sat without a sound, neither of them could
say. Finally, Nikos broke the silence. “What I want to know is who watched you and told Kalliope what you found? Who amongst the temple workers knew the body was in the adyton? Who knew about your plans to examine it, and, more importantly, how is that person connected to Kalliope?”
“We were told Philon’s personal guards moved the body from the storehouse.”
“Who told you?”
“Palamedes. Well, he told Praxis. He was the one who helped us get into the adyton.”
“Palamedes, the temple artisan?”
“Yes. He and Praxis are both Syrians, and my father arranged for them to meet years ago on my first trip to Delphi. Palamedes said he saw Philon’s guards moving the body through the tunnels below the temple. He was the one who led us through the tunnel from outside the Sacred Precinct walls into the subterranean temple complex while you created the diversion with the mob. It was Palamedes who laid the thread, like Theseus in the labyrinth, from his quarters to the adyton, and—”
“Althaia, we traffic in his work.”
“What do you mean you traffic in his work?”
“Diokles, and I, and Kleomon. Kleomon takes pieces of Palamedes work from the temple treasury and we sell them abroad. The artisan doesn’t even know it, but his work is sought by collectors from Massalia to Phoenicia.”
“Or perhaps he does know and doesn’t much like the idea that the three of you profit from his talent while he remains a temple slave. Does he know you? I mean, have you met him personally? Would he recognize your necklace?”
“Of course, I’ve met him often in Kleomon’s apartment in the temple complex. He knows I’m the son of Melanippe and that I have money to spend. He knows I admire his work. But what connection can he have to Kalliope? He must be near sixty and has been a temple slave since he was a boy. Kalliope is not yet sixteen and has rarely set foot in Delphi.”
“That is what we must discover. If Kalliope is so obsessed with you, she may have had the means to pay someone to keep track of your activities while you are in Delphi. Perhaps Palamedes is no more to her than a spy, getting paid for keeping an eye on you, and by spying on you he also learned of your activities with Kleomon and Diokles. If you are stealing and selling his works abroad, he has reason to hate you. Kalliope and Palamedes may each have their own motivations, but the one thing they have in common is you.”
“But there’s another piece to the puzzle, Althaia. Kalliope is now priestess of Dodona. Perhaps once she learned about my connection to Charis’s death, she decided to kill my mother and blackmail me. She would, in one stroke, possess the two things she desires above all else—Melanippe’s position and Melanippe’s son.”
“It makes perfect sense— ”
“But wait … why wouldn’t Kalliope have removed my mother’s purse as soon as she killed her? Why wait until the ritual cleansing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a traveler was approaching. Maybe they had to hurry to bundle up the body and dispose of it. Think, Nikos. It wouldn’t really matter to Kalliope. She knew the body would be discovered, and she knew she would take part in the ritual cleansing. All we have to do is prove it.”
“Althaia, you’re forgetting one thing: the body rotting under the haystack. However much you want to rationalize my role in Charis’s death, I killed her brother with a blade to the heart, and I do not regret it.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“All that I am is bare to you.”
“All those years, why didn’t you just leave Dodona, leave your mother’s service?”
“I don’t know. Even now I can’t explain it to myself. A boy with no father yearns for the love of his only parent, I suppose. And even though I was the bastard child of an unmarried woman, I was also the son of a powerful priestess. There was a legitimacy in that position that had a power I did not choose to renounce. Being the son of Melanippe of Dodona meant that I had the means to travel freely, meet powerful people. Once she fell ill and no longer traveled farther than Delphi or Pella, I continued to travel on her behalf—taking messages back and forth to other priests and priestesses, to others who honored the Sacred Oak. I was her conduit for knowledge and contacts beyond Dodona, Epirus, Hellas. I was useful to her and she was useful to me. And, most of the time, it was not such a bad life. I have seen much of the world in my travels. I guess I came to believe that her dependence on me was her way of showing she did love me. I know it is beyond pathetic. A grown man pining for his mother’s love like a babe in arms, especially after she got sick, after her mind began to go.”
“Listen to me, Nikos. Perhaps your mother did love you, perhaps she died protecting you.” Althaia reached for the purse. “I was there when Kalliope took this from your mother’s body. There was a ruthlessness about her. Yet, during the ritual cleansing, her actions were tender … I can’t explain it. As much as I am loathe to admit it, I do believe Kalliope had some affection for your mother. Perhaps she didn’t set out to kill her. What if Kalliope intended to confront your mother with the evidence you were involved in Charis’s death and force her to arrange a marriage between the two of you. What if your mother refused? Maybe that’s when Kalliope decided to kill her—or had someone else wield her walking stick against her.”
“Her walking stick?”
“Yes, we know that’s how she died. We found pieces of it in the ravine and stuck in her cloak, fragments of a serpent with ruby eyes. At first we didn’t know what the broken piece came from, but we showed it to Thea and she knew at once it was from your mother’s walking stick.”
“I carved that for her,” Nikos whispered. “When I was just a boy. I must have made five or six of them of them before I got it right.”
“Oh, Nikos, I’m so sorry. Theron has the fragments.”
“I don’t think I want to see them.”
“Those pieces represent one beautiful thing you and your mother shared. Someone took all that away from you when they picked up that stick and used it to end her life. I think that someone was Kalliope. Kalliope and Palamedes.”
Nikos eyes misted over. “It’s a nice story, but even now I can’t pretend to hope my mother would ever have done such a thing as take my side against Kalliope.”
“Think! Think of the look in Kalliope’s eyes. You know she is capable of anything. Even if your mother didn’t protect you, she would not have wanted such a woman to be her successor if she knew she intended to blackmail you. She would have realized her mistake, the moment Kalliope opened her mouth and demanded you.”
The possibility began to sink in and, like flotsam saving a drowning man, Althaia saw that Nikos wanted to grab onto it. “You did not hear the words we exchanged the last time I saw her—just yesterday morning,” he said. “They were not the words of a mother who loved her son.”
“Perhaps not, but some people are not able to give voice to their emotions. And some do not recognize what is valuable until it is lost. It is true you may never know what your mother was thinking in her last moments. But there are several things we do know. Someone moved Charis’s body and someone watched me examine her in the adyton. Someone killed your mother with her own walking stick. Kalliope took the purse from your mother’s waist. I saw her take it. She insisted on keeping it even though Thea said it should be yours. At your mother’s funeral, Kalliope pulled out your mother’s necklace and threatened to go to Heraklios and tell him you murdered Charis unless you married her. If your mother was in favor of you marrying Kalliope, Kalliope would not have had to blackmail you. And if your mother was not dead, Kalliope would not be a priestess.”
“Do I dare hope that Melanippe of Dodona stood up for me, that she took my part at the very end?”
“I think there can be no other explanation.”
“By the gods, this is making my head spin. But, Althaia, I would, for all the world, not have you involved in all this.”
“If you thought that, by telling me all this, I would turn on my heel and walk away, you were mistaken. In the night, you said yo
u loved me, but you do not yet know my reputation for stubbornness. Nikos, you have been a fool. You have made terrible mistakes, but the fact is that there is no innocent victim in your tale.”
“You’re innocent.”
“I’m not a victim.”
“But I have drawn you into this and the last thing I would have is you suffering for my mistakes.”
“I do not intend to suffer for them. I intend to help you rectify them.”
Chapter Fifty-one
Georgios held Phoibe’s hair away from her face as she retched again. Her skin was the color of smoke. Since they returned from the funeral, her condition had rapidly deteriorated. Rhea picked up the basin, opened the door and handed it to an attendant.
“Bring it back quickly,” she urged. “And more wine. Hurry.”
“I’m better,” Phoibe whispered. She sank back into the bed. “I think I will be better for a while. I need to sleep so I can reserve my strength for the re-sanctification ceremony.”
“You do not still intend to go to the theater tomorrow?” Georgios asked.
“The invitation came directly from Philon, and I no longer have the strength to defy a priest of Apollon.”
“You are not well enough to travel even the short distance to the Sacred Precinct,” Rhea objected.
“My hero will carry me,” he reached and laid her hand on Georgios’s arm. Her fingers were icy and he held them tight to warm them.
He smiled wanly. “I would carry you to the ends of the earth. But perhaps it’s smarter to take a litter.”
“Then I shall travel in style—like the Pythia of Apollon in her curtained palanquin.”
A rap at the door signaled the attendant’s return. Rhea hurried to the door and retrieved a new pitcher of wine and the rinsed basin. “Is she going to die?” the girl asked as she peeked into the room. “Is she going to die just like Sofia?”
“My daughter is not going to die.”