I was not surprised to find the temple of Apollo attached to the Sibyl’s shrine to be in a state of some decay. It had never been a grandiose structure, notwithstanding tales of Daedalus and his golden embellishments. It was not even built of stone but of wood, with a bronze statue of Apollo upon a marble pedestal at the centre. Painted columns of red, green, and saffron were surmounted by a circular roof, the underside of which was segmented into triangles and painted with images of Apollo overseeing various acts in the tale of Theseus: the lusting of Pasiphae for a bull and the birth of the Minotaur of Crete; the casting of lots for the yearly sacrifice of seven Athenian sons to the beast; the construction of the great maze by Daedalus; the sorrow of Ariadne; the slaying of the monster by Theseus; the winged flight of Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus. Some of the paintings looked very old and were so faded that they could hardly be discerned; others had been recendy repainted and glowed with vivid colour. A restoration was in progress, and I suspected that I knew the woman responsible.
The temple was situated in a nook of land hemmed in on three sides by walls of jagged stone. It was the only flat surface on the steep hillside, which otherwise was strewn with boulders; the great stones seemed to have frozen in mid-avalanche and were overgrown with twisted trees that looked as if their nailing limbs were outstretched to save themselves from falling. The priestess walked ahead of us with a serene and unfailing sense of balance, never setting a foot wrong, while Eco and I followed, slipping and sliding after her, sending bits of gravel flying down the hill as we grabbed branches for support.
The spot was secluded from sight and protected from the wind. A quiet hush reigned over us. Above our heads the fog struggled to push itself over the hilltop and emerged in tatters, casting the place into a weird, dappled mixture of darkness and sunlight.
Within the temple the priestess turned to face us. Beneath her hood her features remained hidden in darkness. Her voice emerged as strange as before, the way that Aesop says that animals would speak if they could, forcing their inhuman throats to make human noises. ‘Obviously,’ she said, ‘you didn’t bring a cow.’
‘No.’
‘Nor a goat.’ ‘No.’
‘Only your horses, which are not a suitable sacrifice to the god. You have money, then, to purchase a beast for sacrifice?’ ‘Yes.’
She named a sum that did not seem outrageous; the Sibyl of Cumae was apparently not the hard bargainer she once had been. I pulled the money from my purse and wondered if Crassus would accept the expense as an addendum to my fee.
I saw her right hand for just an instant as she accepted the coins from me. It was an old woman’s hand, as I would have expected, with prominent bones and patches of discoloured flesh. No rings adorned her fingers, and there was no bracelet on her wrist. There was, however, a smudge of blue-green paint on her thumb, just such a hue as Iaia might have been using that morning to touch up a bit of her mosaic.
Perhaps she saw the smudge of paint herself. Either that or she was eager for the money, for she clutched the coins and snatched her hand away, hiding it again within the sleeves of her robe. I noticed also that the hems of her sleeves were a darker red than the rest of her garment, stained by blood.
‘Damon!’ she called. ‘Fetch a lamb!’
From nowhere a child appeared, a little boy who thrust his head from between two columns and then as quickly vanished. A few moments later he reappeared carrying a bleating lamb over his shoulders. The beast was not farm stock, but a pampered temple animal fattened for ritual sacrifice, kept clean and carefully groomed and brushed. The boy swung it over his shoulders onto a short altar before the statue of Apollo. The creature bleated at the touch of cold marble, but the boy managed to calm it with soft strokes and whispers in its ear even as he deftly trussed its legs.
He ran swiftly away and then returned, bearing in his outstretched hands a long silver blade with a handle encrusted with lapis and garnets. The priestess took it from him and stood over the lamb with her back towards us, holding the blade aloft and muttering incantations. I expected a longer ceremony and perhaps a series of questions, as many oracles required from their supplicants, and so I was a little startled when the blade suddenly-flashed and descended.
The priestess possessed skill, and more strength than I would have thought. The blade must have gone straight to the heart of the beast, killing it instantly. There were a few convulsions and a spattering of blood, but not a sound, not even the least whimper of protest as it gave up its life to the god. Would the slaves down in Baiae die as easily? In that moment a chill descended upon the place, though the air was still. Eco felt it as well, for I saw him shiver beside me.
The priestess slit open the lamb’s underside from its breast to its belly, then reached inside. I saw how the hems of her sleeves had become so dark with bloodstains. She searched for a moment, then found what she was seeking. She turned toward us, bearing in her hands the lamb’s quivering heart and a portion of its entrails. We followed her a short distance to the side of the temple, where a rude brazier had been hewn from the stone wall. The boy had already prepared the fire.
The priestess cast the organs upon the hot stone. There was a loud sizzling and a small explosion of steam. The vapour issued outward and then was sucked back toward the rock wall, drawn into fissures in the stone like smoke pulled into a flue. The priestess stirred the hissing entrails with a stick. The smell of seared flesh reminded me that we had neglected to eat at midday. My stomach growled. She cast a handful of something onto the heated stone, producing another cloud of smoke. A strange, aromatic scent like burning hemp filled the air, making me dizzy. Beside me, Eco swayed so violently that I reached to hold him up, but when I gripped his shoulder he looked at me oddly, as if it were I who had stumbled. I saw a movement from the corner of my eye and looked at the great wall of stone above and before us, where peculiar faces had begun to appear amid the fissures and shadows.
Such apparitions are not unknown at sacred shrines. I had witnessed them before. Still, there is always a sudden stirring of dread and doubt in that instant when the world changes and the powers of the unseen begin to manifest themselves.
Though I could not see her shadowed face, I knew that the priestess was watching me. She saw that I was ready. Again we followed her up a steep, stony path that traversed the slope, then descended into a dark, ever deepening ravine. The way seemed very far. The path was so difficult that I found myself stooped over, scrambling on my hands and feet. I glanced behind to see that Eco did the same. Strangely, the priestess was able to walk upright, striding forward with perfectly measured steps.
We came to the mouth of a cave. As we stepped inside, a cold, clammy wind rushed over my face, carrying a strange smell like the breath of many flowers in decay. I looked up to see that the cave was not a tunnel but a high, airy chamber, pierced all about by tiny holes and jagged fissures. These openings admitted a twilight glimmer, and the rush of the wind sighing through them created an ever changing cacophony that was sometimes like music, sometimes like a great chorus of moaning. Sometimes a singular sound would rise above all the others and then fade away - a trilling of notes like a satyr playing his pipes, or the bellowing voice of a famous actor I heard once as a boy, or the sigh that Bethesda makes before she wakes in the morning.
We descended deeper into the cave, to a place where the walls narrowed. The darkness deepened and the chorus of voices receded. The priestess raised her arm to signal that we should stop. In the dimness her blood-red robe had become jet black, so dark that it seemed to be a gaping hole that moved about in the grey gloom. She stepped onto a low shelf of stone, like a stage, and for a moment I thought that she danced. The black robe spun and twisted and seemed to fold in on itself. There was a long, wailing shriek that made my hair stand on end. The contortions were not a dance but the convulsions of the priestess as her body was possessed by the Sibyl.
The black robe fluttered to the ground, becoming nothing more than a great lump
of cloth. Eco stepped forward to touch it, but I restrained him. In the next instant the robe began to fill again and rise up. Before our eyes the Sibyl of Cumae began to take shape. She seemed taller than the priestess, larger than life. She lifted her hands and pushed the cowl from her head.
Her face was barely discernible in the darkness, and yet it seemed that I could make out her features with a kind of supernatural clarity. I chided myself for ever imagining that the priestess was Iaia. This was the face of an old woman, to be sure, and in some superficial regards it resembled Iaia; the mouth might have been the same, and the high, gaunt cheekbones, and the proud forehead - but no mortal voice ever uttered such noises, and no mortal woman ever possessed such eyes, flashing as brightly as the light through the fissures in the cave.
She began to speak, then clutched herself. Her breast heaved, and a rattling sound issued from her throat as the god began to breathe through her. A sudden wind blew up from behind us and scattered her hair like flailing tendrils. She struggled, not yet submissive to the god and trying to shake him from her brain, like a horse trying to unseat its rider. Her mouth foamed. Noises came from her throat like wind in a cavern, and then like the gurgling of water in a pipe. Little by little the god mastered her and then calmed her. She hid her face in her hands, then slowly drew herself erect.
‘The god is with me,’ she said, in a voice that was neither male nor female. The Sibyl seemed merely to mouth words that issued from some other source. I glanced at Eco. His forehead was beaded with sweat, his eyes were wide open, his nostrils were dilated. I clutched his hand to give him strength in the darkness.
‘Why do you come?’ the Sibyl asked.
I started to speak, but my throat was too thick. I swallowed and tried again. ‘We were told … to come.’ Even my own voice sounded unnatural to my ears.
‘What do you seek?’
‘We come … seeking knowledge … of certain events … in Baiae.’
She nodded. ‘You come from the house of the dead man, Lucius Licinius.’ ‘Yes.’
‘You seek the answer to a riddle.’
‘We seek to know how he died … and by whose hand.’ ‘Not by the hand of those who stand accused,’ said the Sibyl emphatically.
‘And yet I have no proof of that. Unless I can show who murdered Licinius … every slave in the household will be put to death. The man who seeks to do this thinks only of his own advancement … not of justice. It will be a cruel tragedy. Can you tell me the name of the man who killed Licinius?’
The Sibyl was silent.
‘Can you show me his face in a dream?’
The Sibyl set her eyes upon me. An icy shiver ran through my bones. She shook her head.
‘But this is what I must know,’ I protested. ‘This is the knowledge I seek.’
Again the Sibyl shook her head. ‘If a general came to me and asked me to strike his enemies dead, would I not refuse? If a physician came and asked me to heal his patient, would I not send him away? The oracle does not exist to do the work of men for them. Yet if these men came to me seeking only knowledge, I would give it. If it were the will of the god, I would tell the general where his hidden enemy lurked, and I would tell the doctor where he might find the herb that could save his patient. The rest would be up to them.
‘What shall I do with you, then, Gordianus of Rome? To find knowledge is your work, but I will not do your work for you. If I give you the answer you seek, I will rob you of the very means by which you may achieve your end. If you go to Crassus with nothing but a name, he will merely laugh at you or punish you for false accusations. Unless you acquire it on your own, using your skills, the knowledge you seek will be meaningless. That which you assert you must be able to prove. It is the will of the god that I assist you, but I will not do your work for you.’
I shook my head. Of what use was the Sibyl if she refused to utter a simple name? Could it be that she did not know? I cringed at playing host to such impious thoughts, but at the same time it seemed that a veil was being slowly lifted from my eyes and the Sibyl once more began to look suspiciously like Iaia.
Eco touched my sleeve, demanding my attention. With one hand he held up two fingers, and with the other hand turned two fingers down, his sign for a man: two men. He wrapped one hand around the wrist of the other, symbolizing a shackle, his sign for a slave: two slaves.
I turned back to the Sibyl. The two missing slaves, Zeno and Alexandros ��� are they living or dead? Where can I find them?’
The Sibyl nodded in stern approval. ‘You ask wisely. I will tell you that one of them is hidden, and the other is in plain sight.’
‘Yes?’
‘I will tell you that after they fled from Baiae, this was their first destination.’
‘Here? They came to your cave?’
‘They came to seek the guidance of the Sibyl. They came to me as innocent men, not guilty ones.’ ‘Where can I find them now?’
‘The one who is hidden you may find in time. As for the one in plain sight, you will find him on your way back to Baiae.’ ‘In the woods?’ ‘Not in the woods.’ ‘Then where?’
‘There is a stone shelf that overlooks Lake Avemus …’ ‘Olympias showed us the place.’
‘On the left side of the precipice there is a narrow path that leads down to the lake. Cover your mouth and nose with your sleeve and descend to the very mouth of the pit. He will await you there.’
‘What, the shade of a dead man escaping from Tartarus?’
‘You will know him when you see him. He will greet you with open eyes.’
It would be a clever place to hide, granted, but what sort of man could pitch his camp on the very shores of Avernus, amid the sulphur and steam and the reeking phantoms of the dead? The stone shelf was as near as I had cared to venture to the place; to descend to its edge sent a shiver through me. I could tell from the way he clutched my arm that Eco disliked the idea as much as I did.
‘The boy,’ said the Sibyl crisply, ‘why does he not speak for himself?’
‘He is unable to speak.’
‘You lie!’
‘No, he cannot speak.’ ‘Was he born dumb?’
‘No. When he was very small he was stricken by a fever. The same fever killed his father; from that day Eco never spoke again. So his mother told me before she abandoned him.’
‘He could speak now if he tried.’
How could she say such a thing? I began to object, but she interrupted.
‘Let him try. Say your name, boy!’
Eco looked at her fearfully, and then with an odd glimmer of hope in his eyes. It was another strange moment in a day of strange moments, and I almost believed that the impossible would come to pass there in the Sibyl’s cave. Eco must have believed as well. He opened his mouth. His throat quivered and his cheeks grew taut.
‘Say your name!’ the Sibyl demanded.
Eco strained. His face darkened. His Lips trembled.
‘Say it!’
Eco tried. But the sound that came from his throat was not human speech. It was a stifled, distorted noise, ugly and grating. I closed my eyes in shame for him, then felt him against my breast, shivering and weeping. I held him tighdy, and wondered why the Sibyl should demand such a cruel price - an innocent boy’s humiliation - in return for so little. I drew a deep breath and filled my lungs with the scent of decaying flowers. I summoned my courage and opened my eyes, determined to reprimand her, vessel of the god or not, but the Sibyl was nowhere to be seen.
We left the Sibyl’s cave. The cavern of echoes and voices no longer seemed quite so mysterious ��� a curious enclosure, to be sure, but not the awe-inspiring place it had been when we entered. The way back to the temple was strenuous and rocky, but it hardly required that we crawl; nor was it as long on the way back as it had been on the way to the Sibyl’s cave. The whole world seemed to have awakened from a strange dream. Even the fitful fog had receded, and the hillside was bright with afternoon sunshine.
Th
e fire had died in the brazier. The blackened entrails still sputtered and popped occasionally on the hot stone, startling the swarm of flies that circled overhead. The sight was unpleasant, but the smell of charred flesh reminded me again that we had not eaten in hours. In a small recess behind the temple, the boy Damon had strung up and skinned the carcass of the lamb and was carving it with surprising expertise.
We scrambled down the ravine and untethered our horses. Bright sunshine reflected off the maze of rocks, making it as baffling a place as before, if not quite so menacing. We made our way towards the coast. At the crest of a small rise, a glittering expanse opened before us, not the circumscribed sweep of the Cup, but the true sea, an unobstructed body of water extending all the way to Sardinia and beyond to the Pillars of Hercules in the west. The ancient village of Cumae was at our feet.
We rode in silence. On our journeys I usually kept up a running conversation, even if Eco could not answer with his own voice. Now I could think of nothing to say. The silence between us was heavy with an unspoken melancholy.
A wagon driver pointed us to the house of Iaia, which stood perched on a cliff at the far end of the village, overlooking the sea. It was not impressive as villas go, but it was probably the largest house in the village, with modest wings extending to the north and south and what appeared to be another storey stepping down towards the sea on the west. The wash of colours that decorated the facade was subtly original, a blending of saffron and ochre together with highlights of blue and green. The house at once stood out boldly against the backdrop of the sea, and yet seemed an essential part of the view. The hand and eye of Iaia turned everything to art.
The door slave informed us that Olympias had gone out but would return, and had left word that our needs should be attended to. He led us to a small terrace with a view of the sea, and brought food and drink. Presented with a bowl of steaming porridge, Eco began to seem more himself. He ate with relish, and I was heartened to see him shake off his sadness. After eating we rested, reclining on couches on the terrace and gazing at the sea, but I soon grew restless and began to question the slaves about Olympias’s whereabouts. If they knew where she was, they would not tell. I left Eco dozing on his couch and wandered through the house.
Arms of Nemesis - Roman Sub Rosa 02 Page 16