Voyage of the Snake Lady

by Theresa Tomlinson

  “Ha! Now you see my secret way!”

  “How long has it been here?” she asked.

  “It is older than the ancient priestesses . . . older than time.”

  Myrina could believe it, for as they began to ascend the steps she saw that they were worn with the passage of many feet but still quite easy to climb, each step well spaced. Nonya led the way and Myrina followed, her heart beating fast.

  “Prepare yourself for an uphill journey!” the old woman warned. “The sacred way is long and the temple is high!”

  Myrina knew that must be true. They plodded onward, around many sharp bends. In some places the roof came down so low that they could stretch up a hand to touch it. It was as though a natural passageway had been worked on and widened wherever it was needed.

  Nonya’s breathing grew harsh as the steps rose higher and higher.

  “Stop for a rest,” Myrina advised.

  “We . . . are almost there,” the old woman gasped. “I . . . know every twist and turn of it.”

  “I see that you do!”

  At last the sacred way leveled out and the sound of muffled voices could be heard, as the temple guards grumbled at each other through the night to keep themselves awake.

  “The slaves will be sleeping,” Nonya whispered.

  “Where will we come out?” Myrina asked, fearful that Nonya would emerge first and attack Iphigenia.

  “In the priestess’s chamber; she, too, will be asleep by now.”

  “But . . . my friend must have discovered this secret.”

  Nonya laughed. “That I do not think!”

  “Why?”

  “You will see. Here is where the passage ends.”

  They had come up against a solid stone wall, but Nonya put out her hand and felt carefully. She counted to six under her breath and then moved two along. “This is it!”

  She threw her weight forward, and with a slight grating sound the stone that she pressed against gave a little. Myrina quickly understood and reached forward to help as the stone pivoted smoothly, leaving a gap just wide enough for one person to climb through.

  “Let me go first?” she begged.

  “Huh! So much for trust!” Nonya grunted. She blew out her tapers and bent her head to climb through the space with surprising alacrity. Myrina hurriedly struggled through after her, hampered by the sudden darkness. The hole was hidden behind a heavy wall hanging that swung in her face, restricting her movement, but she quickly fought her way past it and stepped out into a fine bedchamber lit by an oil lamp.

  Her worst fears had not been realized, for the old woman stood blinking in the dimly lit chamber and coughing at the smoke from her tapers. Iphigenia was awake and sitting on the balcony that overlooked the steep drop down to the sea. Now she rose shakily to her feet, alarmed at the sight of Nonya in her room.

  Myrina quickly strode forward to greet her, arms wide open.

  “Snake Lady!” Iphigenia cried. “It is you! I knew you were close by!” They hugged each other tightly. “But what and how . . . ?”

  “There is no time to lose,” Myrina told her. “We can leave at once! You must remember Nonya, who was priestess here before you. She has a secret way in and out of the temple, and I have promised her that we will see her reinstated. You must leave a message for the king ordering him to return her to her position as priestess in your place.”

  “I would willingly do so,” Iphigenia said. “But . . . there is something . . .”

  “What?” Myrina asked. She did not like the way Iphigenia’s face had clouded over at the mention of leaving. “You cannot wish to stay!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Agamemnon’s Curse

  NONYA SHUFFLED UNEASILY and frowned as though she was beginning to doubt the Snake Lady’s promise. Iphigenia saw that she was angry and turned to appeal to her directly.

  “Old One”—she addressed her with courtesy—“I wish nothing more than to leave this place and see you high priestess once again, but something has happened that I could never have believed possible and it changes everything!”

  Nonya sprang forward and caught her by the arm. “I knew it,” she snarled. “I knew it. I should never have trusted you moon priestesses!”

  “By Maa!” Myrina cursed beneath her breath. Her carefully laid plan seemed to be going very wrong.

  “No!” Iphigenia tried to soothe the old woman by stroking the hand that clutched at her. “I do honor you, Priestess. Believe me, this role has been forced upon me. I would willingly see you in my place, but . . . I cannot leave yet. I cannot leave alone!”

  “Two-faced one!” Nonya bellowed.

  Myrina tried to push herself in between them, her heart thundering, panic rising at the noise that the old woman was making. “You must listen to Hepsuash—let her explain!”

  “You swore to me! You swore me false!” Nonya wouldn’t listen and she turned so fast that neither of them could stop her snatching the hunting knife that swung from Myrina’s belt. She lunged at Iphigenia, but Myrina’s arm shot up between them, catching the intended blow, her arm ripped open from elbow to wrist, just as two temple guards burst into the chamber. They grabbed the old priestess, one on either side.

  “The old witch! Curse her!”

  “How did she get in here?”

  “Trying to murder Hepsuash!”

  “And another one!”

  “No!” Iphigenia intervened at once, concerned at the blood that flowed from Myrina’s arm. “She was defending me . . .”

  “Yes!” One of the guards confirmed her words. “I saw her step between them and prevent the witch from harming Hepsuash!”

  “This is Myrina, a novice priestess.” Iphigenia spoke quickly but she kept her voice steady. “I have chosen her to train for temple duties!”

  The two men kept tight hold of Nonya, who screeched ferociously and hurled a mouthful of spit in Iphigenia’s direction. The captain of the guard appeared in the doorway and ordered Nonya to be taken away and locked up. “How could this happen?” he demanded. “There will be trouble when Thoas hears of it!”

  “Take her away and keep her safe!” Iphigenia ordered. “But do not harm her or treat her ill! The goddess will punish you if you disobey me.”

  Nonya was dragged away, but they could hear her cursing them both roundly until the sound of her anger faded into the distance.

  “Priestess . . . are you hurt?” The captain spoke with respect.

  Iphigenia shook her head.

  “Shall I send some of the slaves?”

  Iphigenia nodded quickly. “Tell them to bring water and clean cloths. Myrina has protected me; now I will see to her needs. I wish a little peace to compose myself and allow this injured one to rest.”

  The man bowed and quietly left the room.

  “I promised the old woman . . .” Myrina murmured, her voice suddenly weak. “She has a right . . . to curse us both, for I promised that you and I . . .” But the color fled from her face and her words petered out as she slumped back onto the couch, faint with loss of blood.

  Iphigenia made Myrina lie down. “Be still . . .” She quietly took charge. She ripped a strip of cloth from her own gown to stanch the flow of blood, tying it tightly about her friend’s arm.

  Three temple slaves came into the chamber, carrying the things that Iphigenia had requested.

  “Do not even try to speak!” Iphigenia warned. “Lie back and let me tend this wound or you will be good for naught but worms!”

  The weakness of blood loss overcame Myrina as she watched Iphigenia with the ghost of a smile. Then everything went black.

  When she opened her eyes she found that she was in Iphigenia’s bed and bright sunlight filled the room. She was dressed in a beautiful silken priestess’s gown, similar to the one that Iphigenia wore, and though her arm throbbed, it had been skillfully bandaged. She lay there puzzled for a moment, but as she looked at Iphigenia’s face bent over her with concern, the memory of all that had happened last
night came back.

  “I cannot lie here,” she complained, struggling to sit upright. “The girls are left alone and I must not leave Nonya imprisoned in her own temple.”

  “No.” Iphigenia bent to speak low to her. “But we must be careful and not raise suspicion. There is something I must tell you and somebody I wish you to meet. We have to talk together and it cannot be explained in a moment.”

  Iphigenia’s serious tone of voice made Myrina lie back again. She acknowledged that she was still too weak to drag her friend away at once, so she must just trust to the good sense of the young girls who guarded the cave and the devotion of Big Chief.

  Iphigenia sat down on the bed and took her hand. “You must listen with patience,” she insisted. “There is much to tell.”

  “Patience is not my greatest quality, as you know,” Myrina said. “And I have much to tell you, but it must wait a while.”

  “How to start?” Iphigenia struggled to find the right words. “When I mirror gaze, I have sometimes seen a face.” Myrina huffed with impatience.

  “This is important!” Iphigenia reproved, speaking sharply. “This face—I have glimpsed it in my mirror all through my years with the Moon Riders.”

  “Whose face?”

  Iphigenia shook her head. “I didn’t know then, but I do now!”

  “Those we see are those we love!” Myrina protested. “How can it be possible to love and not know?”

  Iphigenia looked at her steadily. “Oh, you can love and not know, if you are from Agamemnon’s family.”

  Myrina fell quiet, knowing only too well the strange and terrible childhood that Iphigenia had suffered. “And now you do know who it was?”

  Iphigenia nodded. “It is the young man who is to be offered for sacrifice, the dark-haired one. As soon as Thoas presented him at the temple, I recognized him as the face in my mirror visions.”

  Myrina remembered the moment when she had stood with the girls at the front of the crowd. She herself had seen that something important passed between the young sacrificial victim and the quiet priestess.

  “The troubled one!”

  Iphigenia nodded sadly.

  Myrina sighed. Had Iphigenia fallen in love at last? Surely she could not look with love on a man so young and half out of his mind. “Do not tell me that you want to stay here with him. He is due to be sacrificed in two days’ time! I was there in the crowd and I felt desperately sorry for him, too, but I thought that you looked on him with motherly concern, not love!”

  All at once Iphigenia laughed, and the sound of it amazed Myrina.

  “I do love him,” she said. “But not in the way you think. It is not motherly love either—the love I feel for him is . . . a sister’s love!”

  “A sister’s love?” Myrina struggled to understand and then she began to remember that terrible time when Agamemnon had offered the young Iphigenia as a sacrifice.

  “A brother . . .” She frowned. “Yes, you did have a brother.”

  Iphigenia nodded, smiling.

  Myrina saw it more clearly now. Clytemnestra, the queen of Mycenae, had traveled to the town of Aulis with her daughter, both of them dressed in rich wedding clothes, believing that Iphigenia was to be the bride of the great warrior Achilles. They’d traveled in a litter and in Clytemnestra’s arms there had been a baby boy, new born.

  “Orestes!” she murmured. “You had a brother Orestes. Somehow . . . I have never thought of him!”

  “But I have,” Iphigenia said. “It was his face that I saw in my visions, even though I did not know him as my brother. But when he started to tell me who he was and where he came from I suddenly understood why I had seen him in my mirror!”

  “Does he know who you are?”

  “Yes—he does now, and that knowledge has soothed his troubled mind. His ship is anchored just a little way up the coast, but he and his friend Pylades came here searching for the ancient image of Artemis. They heard of a statue washed up by the sea and thought it might be what they were looking for.”

  “You and I know that to be the figurehead from Neoptolemus’s slave ship.”

  But Iphigenia would not be distracted. “I believe the Moon Lady saved me for a purpose,” she insisted. “She washed me into Tauris harbor to meet my brother.”

  Myrina frowned and rubbed her arm. This certainly altered things; her plan was completely thrown. “You say he has a ship?”

  “Yes . . . but it is anchored in a hidden bay to the east. He and Pylades set out in a smaller boat to seek the statue and were blown into Tauris harbor. It is hard for a boat to escape once it has slipped through the narrow channel.”

  “I have seen it.” Myrina nodded. “And the crazy Taurians snatched them from the sea and named them as the Chosen Ones.”

  Iphigenia’s face fell. “I cannot see how we can leave at all, but I know this—I cannot leave without my brother.”

  Myrina sighed. What should they do now? She remembered the battered ship they had passed, anchored at Yalushta, where the coastline split into two levels. “I saw his ship. An ancient galley with Agamemnon’s symbol blazoned on its sails, the Castor and Pollux.”

  “That is it,” Iphigenia said.

  “Then it is simple,” Myrina insisted. “We must all escape together down Nonya’s secret way.”

  But a cloud of sorrow shadowed Iphigenia’s face. “It is not so simple,” she said. “The Chosen Ones are guarded day and night and, though I may go to speak with them, the guards never leave their side.”

  Myrina frowned again.

  “And there is more to tell! More horror—perhaps the worst of all!” Iphigenia’s mouth twisted with a painful bitterness that Myrina had never seen in her before. “My mother is dead . . . murdered by my brother.”

  “What!”

  “Orestes visited the oracle at Delphi, and the powerful, priestess whom they call the Pythoness told him to avenge his father’s death; he must go to Mycenae to kill Agamemnon’s murderers.”

  “Those Achaean priests and priestesses have much to answer for!” Myrina spoke angrily. “Why do they always want blood? The Pythoness must come from the same mould as Chalcas! They call the Moon Riders barbarians, but we cannot compete with their pointless blood lust!”

  Iphigenia’s face was white with pain.

  “Did he do it?” Myrina asked her gently.

  “Yes, he did.” Iphigenia spoke low. “My brother has killed his own mother and mine.”

  Myrina shuddered. Even to a tough warrior woman like her this was a terrible thing. “To kill in battle is one thing,” she murmured, shaking her head, “but to kill the one who bore you! Can you still love him?”

  Iphigenia’s face was racked with grief, but she nodded. “He is . . . little more than a child, and he is broken up with sorrow and guilt. My mother died in his arms and whispered to him that his sister still lived. She told him that he could redeem the sin he’d committed if he found his sister and made his peace with her! So he has been searching for me ever since.”

  “And his search for a statue?”

  “He was sent before a great council at Athens in judgment for his matricide. They banished him, saying that he could return to his home only if he found the ancient image of Artemis.”

  Myrina’s eyes were full of tears, and her voice broke a little. “Such a quest is impossible to fulfill. What does it mean—the ancient image of Artemis? I knew when I saw him in the procession that his sanity had fled. Now I understand his madness,” she whispered. “But . . . he has found his sister and I think he has made his peace with her! That is the most important thing.”

  Iphigenia nodded as tears spilled down her cheeks. “We do not need an old priestess to curse us! In my family we are cursed from birth to death at every turn.”

  Myrina held out her arms, and Iphigenia laid her head on her friend’s shoulder and wept bitterly, with huge racking sobs that made her slim frame shudder. They hugged each other tightly, and Myrina cried, too, rocking her friend gently
. Through all the years of bitter struggle and despite all her harsh memories, Iphigenia had never, ever wept like this. She’d never truly allowed herself to weep for her father’s treachery nor for the tragic chain of death and revenge that had been set in motion when Agamemnon commanded his young daughter to go to Aulis as a bride.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A New Plan

  AT LAST THEIR sobbing quieted a little and they began to dry their eyes. “How is your arm?” Iphigenia asked, pushing her own misery aside.

  Myrina stretched it out and flexed her fingers. “It is very well bandaged.” She smiled and then hiccuped. “It will mend. But now, my dear friend, we must think carefully what to do. If you can find it in your heart to forgive your brother, then none of us have the right to wish him ill. Your forgiveness means everything; your forgiveness must have the power to banish this curse forever!”

  “Thank you.” Iphigenia clasped her hand. “You see why I cannot leave without finding a way to free both Orestes and his faithful friend Pylades.”

  “Yes,” Myrina said. “And it seems we have little time. But there is something that I must honor. I made my promise to Nonya, and though the woman will never listen and casts blame as fast as lightning, still I would not leave without reinstating her as high priestess in your place.”

  Iphigenia was of the same mind. “I will do all I can to achieve such a thing. I’d give anything to exchange places with her, though I wish she’d repudiate this terrible belief in sacrifice.”

  Myrina’s brow was furrowed. “Is there any way we can get Orestes and his friend up here to your room so that we can take them down the secret way?”

  “No.” Iphigenia was quite definite. “I have power of a kind, but it is very limited. The guards will not let them out of their sight, but I may go to their prison and speak to them.”

  “One thing may help.” Myrina took her friend’s arm. “I saw you receive the sacrificial victims—I was there in the crowd—and I do know that you are loved and honored as Hepsuash. Now tell me—what kind of a man is Thoas?”