‘Wait!’ cried Mystagogus. ‘I suddenly think I know the answer!’
Flavia stopped and turned.
‘At noon today,’ he said, ‘comes a man running through crowds. He has two, maybe three days of beard and torn tunic. His eyes they are wild and red. His hair is like this!’ He ruffled his coarse hair and adopted a wild-eyed look. ‘Maybe these stains on his tunic are old blood.’ Mystagogus pointed at imaginary spots on his own tunic. ‘Maybe this is the man you seek?’
‘Yes!’ cried Flavia. ‘Lupus! Show him the picture!’
Lupus nodded, chomped a last piece of sausage, threw his whole head back, swallowed like a dog and then took out his wax tablet. Mystagogus was staring at Lupus open-mouthed.
‘Don’t look at him!’ said Flavia. ‘Look at the picture.’
Mystagogus squinted down at the wax tablet and his face lit up. ‘Yes! That is the man. Though he looks not as divine as your tablet shows.’
‘Can you take us to him?’
‘Of course.’ The youth bowed. ‘I am Mystagogus. I am your Delphi guide.’
‘Can’t we go any faster?’ asked Flavia, tapping the guide’s shoulder.
‘As you see,’ Mystagogus gestured with both arms, ‘today are many people on the sacred way. The Pythia sits on her tripod and so the sanctuary path is crowded.’ He turned and shuffled backwards, so that he was facing them. ‘Do not worry, we will arrive. We will arrive. Meanwhile you may ask me any questions.’
‘What are all these marbles and bronzes?’ asked Nubia, gesturing at the forest of statues, columns, altars and miniature temples around them.
‘Most statues are private dedications to the god. The altars are for fulfilment of vow. The small buildings are treasure houses of many cities across the world.’ Mystagogus spread his arms wide. ‘Whenever a city wants to thank Apollo the Far-Shooter for answered prayer or his special favour, they build a treasure house and put in it the gifts they promised to give him. Athletes who maybe win olive crown in Olympia or kings who vanquish their foe cannot afford a whole house, so they set up merely a statue.’
‘Look at that giant three-headed snake, Nubia,’ said Jonathan.
She shuddered. ‘It is as tall as that golden palm tree.’
‘Look over there, Lupus,’ said Jonathan, ‘there’s a bronze statue of a dolphin. And there’s a wolf, too.’
‘Sometimes wolves still come down from the slopes of Parnassus in the winter,’ said Mystagogus. He gestured towards the rugged, pine-clad slopes looming above them. ‘That is Parnassus, you know.’
Ahead of them a group of Ethiopians had stopped and they heard the guide saying, ‘This is the most famous treasury in Delphi. It was once estimated that the goods inside are worth six hundred million sesterces.’
‘Has anyone ever tried to rob the treasuries?’ asked Jonathan in a whisper.
‘Many times,’ said Mystagogus, as they moved forward again. ‘But the god always protects what is his. For example, Nero Caesar takes many statues. That is why you see these naked plinths. But Nero dies soon after. Other time a thief steals gold from this treasury my colleague is now describing. This thief runs up to woods on Parnassus. But a wolf finds this thief and kills him and howls until people come to discover all the gold. That is why they make statue of the wolf.’
‘But where is the altar of Apollo?’ asked Flavia. ‘Where will the fugitive be?’
‘It is there, in the great temple of Apollo!’ said Mystagogus as they rounded a bend in the path. ‘Do you see the letters written there? GNOTHI SEAUTON. Do you know what means gnothi seauton?’
Jonathan nodded. ‘It means “Know yourself”.’
‘Oh!’ cried Mystagogus, looking at Nubia. ‘This one is very clever! He is maybe your boyfriend?’ He winked at her.
‘I’m interested in philosophy,’ said Jonathan.
‘And I’m interested in catching the man who tried to kill my father,’ snapped Flavia. ‘Just take us to the temple.’
Mystagogus bowed in mock humility, winked at Lupus and gestured for them to ascend the marble steps. The Ethiopians dispersed from around an object in the temple forecourt. Now, as their guide moved them on, Flavia stared. It looked like a the top half of a huge marble egg. It was decorated with a strange relief pattern and it sat on a painted base.
‘The omphalos,’ said Jonathan.
‘What are those bumps on it?’ asked Nubia.
‘It is a carving of how should we say, net made with locks of hair,’ said Mystagogus. ‘This altar is the omphalos. It shows that here, this temple of Apollo where you are now standing, is the very centre of the world.’
‘Bad news, Miss Roman Girl,’ said Mystagogus, emerging from the temple a few moments later. ‘The man seeking sanctuary is not the one you want.’
‘What?’ asked Flavia.
Mystagogus drew them down the steps of the temple and off the path to a space between an oleander bush and an iron sculpture of Hercules and the hydra. ‘The priests tell me that the man who came earlier was fratricide.’
‘What is fratricide?’ asked Nubia.
‘It’s a special word we use,’ said Flavia, ‘for someone who kills their brother.’
Nubia’s eyes widened. ‘You have a word for someone who kills their brother?’
‘Are they sure the man was a fratricide?’ Flavia asked Mystagogus.
‘They are sure. He is confessing, saying, “I am sorry! I killed my own brother! I didn’t mean to do it! The Kindly Ones pursue me!” and other such things.’
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re telling us that the wild-eyed man in a bloodstained tunic who came here is a different one from our wild-eyed man in a bloodstained tunic?’
‘Yes, Young Roman Boy. That is exactly what I am saying.’
‘Do you get a lot of bloodstained murderers coming through?’ asked Jonathan drily.
Mystagogus nodded cheerfully. ‘At least one or two a month,’ he said. ‘Even more when the south wind blows.’
They all stared at him and Lupus mouthed the word: ‘What?’
‘The south wind,’ said Mystagogus. ‘You Romans call it the Africus. It was blowing here two nights ago, and probably elsewhere, too. They say that when Africus blows, men cannot be held accountable for their actions.’
‘You know,’ said Flavia slowly. ‘I’m sure the Africus was blowing in Corinth the night Aristo attacked pater. Remember the warm wind that kept banging the shutters?’
‘Yes,’ said Nubia, ‘I remember.’
‘Have there been any other blood-stained fugitives coming through today?’ asked Jonathan.
‘No,’ said Mystagogus firmly. ‘I would know. Mystagogus knows everything that goes on at Delphi.’
‘Then that blood-stained man must have been Aristo,’ said Flavia. Suddenly her eyes widened. ‘Great Juno’s peacock! Maybe Aristo is pater’s brother!’
‘What? How? What?’ Jonathan asked.
‘Maybe pater and Uncle Gaius had a younger brother who was stolen by slave-dealers in infancy and brought to Greece and pater never told me because he thought it might upset me.’
They all looked at her.
‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Flavia closed her eyes and rested her forehead on the cold marble base of the statue. ‘All the clues are tangled together in my head like a ball of wool. Only the gods could unravel them. That’s it!’ she cried suddenly, lifting her head and turning to look at them. ‘Mystagogus! Can you get me an audience with the Pythia? I could ask her why Aristo tried to kill pater and how to lift the curse!’
‘I am sorry,’ said the guide. ‘First of all, women and girls are not allowed to visit the Pythia. But even if you could, it is almost dusk.’ He gestured towards the temple. ‘You can see how long is the queue of people. Many will be turned away.’
‘But I have to ask her. I’m sure she would have the answer.’
‘What about all these many people who have come so far to see her?’ asked Nubia.
‘They must
go home disappointed,’ said Mystagogus, ‘or wait here until the seventh day of the next month.’
For several moments they stared silently at the crowd of people waiting on the temple steps.
‘See there?’ Mystagogus pointed. ‘The priests are already sending people at bottom of queue away. The precinct closes at sunset.’
‘Mystagogus,’ said Jonathan suddenly, ‘were you born here in Delphi?’
‘Of course.’ The young man bowed. ‘I am Mystagogus, your Delphi guide.’
‘And have you ever had an audience with the oracle?’
‘Me myself?’ he said in surprise. ‘No, no, no.’ He showed his dimples. ‘Give me enough silver to buy bread and cheese and wine and I am perfectly content. There are no mysteries in Mystagogus’s life!’ He giggled at his own joke.
‘According to my guidebook,’ Jonathan tapped his codex, ‘natives of Delphi have something called promanteia.’
‘What is pro man tee uh?’ said Nubia.
‘It means they can go straight to the front of the queue,’ said Jonathan. ‘Anybody born in Delphi can see the Pythia without waiting.’
‘If only the Pythia will answer my question,’ sighed Flavia a half hour later. ‘I might be able to save pater.’
They were seated on the wooden terrace of the Castalian Inn, sipping honeyed barley water and waiting for the return of Mystagogus. Atticus and Nikos had been waiting when they arrived, and Tigris had greeted his young master with ecstatic barks.
‘This is a most beautiful inn,’ said Nubia, ‘and a most beautiful sunset!’ She looked up at the mountains of Delphi rearing around them, their rounded peaks golden in the light of the sinking sun. The clouds were moving east and the clear sky to the west was tinted with bands of orange and yellow. ‘This place,’ she added, ‘has something magical about it.’
‘Yes,’ said Flavia. ‘I think that’s the presence of the god, the Far-Shooter. We have a word for it: numinous.’
‘Numinous,’ whispered Nubia, tasting the sound of the word. ‘Yes, this place is numinous.’ She stood up and went to the wooden rail. Below her the pine-dotted cliffs tumbled steeply down towards the little sanctuary of Athena. On the green slopes below she could see tents peeping between the olives and pines – a semi-permanent campsite for poorer pilgrims. ‘I feel small here,’ said Nubia, ‘but also,’ she groped for the word, ‘precious. I feel that something important wants to happen here.’
‘To you?’ said Jonathan, looking up from a slender papyrus codex.
‘To all of us.’
A haunting cry echoed in the crystal clear air above them.
‘Look!’ cried Flavia. ‘An eagle!’
‘I think he is a kind of hawk,’ said Nubia.
‘Yes, it’s a hawk,’ said Jonathan, and returned to his codex.
‘It’s flying on our left!’ said Flavia.
‘Is that good?’ whispered Nubia.
Flavia nodded. ‘It’s a very good omen,’ she said. ‘I think you’re right, Nubia. Something good is about to happen.’
‘Hey!’ said Atticus. ‘Where’s Lupus?’
‘I think he went to the latrine,’ said Nikos.
‘But that was ages ago,’ said Flavia.
Jonathan looked up from his book and frowned. ‘So where is he?’
The sun had just set as Lupus slipped out of the latrines of the Castalian Inn and wove through the pines in the direction of the temenos. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a movement high in the air: something as dark and silent as a flake of soot but flitting like a moth. It was a bat.
Lupus smiled. He liked bats. They were small, fast, unpredictable and virtually invisible.
He would be like a bat now. Difficult to see in the fading light of dusk. He peeped around a smooth marble column at the entrance to the Roman Market. Most shops were now shuttered, but one or two had torches burning in their brackets, so he took no chances. He ran fast and low, stopping every so often to press himself against one of the columns of the portico.
When he reached the main gates of the sanctuary he found the priest ushering out the last pilgrims. No entry there. But that was no problem. Only last month he had crept into another sanctuary of Apollo, the one on the island of Rhodes. All he needed was a tree beside the sanctuary wall. And there were plenty of trees here in Delphi.
As he moved up the steep hillside, he thought about the sanctuary on Rhodes and the battle of wits he had fought there with a criminal mastermind. He remembered the white-haired priestess who had told him that his mother was alive, but that he could not see her because she had dedicated herself to the service of Apollo. He remembered the dream he had dreamt that night in the sanctuary of Rhodes: a dream in which his mother had come to him and held him and sung softly to him in Greek. But in the morning there had been no trace of her and the white-haired priestess told him she had been sent far away to another sanctuary of Apollo.
Lupus paused beside a tree to catch his breath. There were hundreds of sanctuaries to the Far-Shooter; he couldn’t visit them all. But the Pythia might be able to tell him which sanctuary his mother had been sent to, and she might not even have to breathe the sweet fumes from the crevice to do it.
Mystagogus had told them that the Pythia never saw women or girls, but he hadn’t said anything about boys. Lupus knew exactly where she would be: in the Temple of Apollo, seeing Mystagogus, her final client of the day.
Lupus studied the tree beside him. It was a laurel – the tree sacred to Apollo. It was close to the wall and perfect for climbing.
Before he went up it, Lupus touched the wax tablet at his belt, to make sure it was safe. On it he had carefully written his question for the Pythia:
IN WHICH OF APOLLO’S SANCTUARIES IS MY MOTHER, MELISSA OF SYMI?
As Lupus dropped from a pine branch into the sanctuary, his right foot slipped on a pine cone and he gave an involuntary cry. He had twisted the same ankle the previous month and it was still tender. He paused, holding his breath, waiting for the guards to seize him.
Nothing. No sound. Just an owl hooting softly in the violet dusk. He gave a slow sigh of relief and looked around. He had landed beside a small marble altar which still bore the messy remains of someone’s sacrifice. He moved away from the smell and peered around a granite statue base. The temple of Apollo rose up directly before him. He was surprised to see it closed and dark apart from a torch on either side of the firmly shut double doors. Wasn’t this where Mystagogus was having his audience with the Pythia?
He cautiously crossed the path and limped up the marble steps, past the omphalos to the huge bronze doors, with their lattice-work pattern. Peering inside, he could see one flickering torch, but nothing else. Beyond was darkness.
The disappointment struck him like a blow to the stomach. If the Pythia wasn’t here, where could she be?
*
‘Mystagogus!’ Flavia jumped up from the table as their guide appeared in the doorway of the dining room. ‘Did they let you see the Pythia?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said, ‘I am Mystagogus, your Delphi guide; I have promanteia!’
‘Then come and tell us quickly!’
‘Behold!’ said Nubia, pointing at the table. ‘We save you dinner. It is young rooster,’ she recited, ‘pressed and seasoned with salt and rosemary. There are mushrooms and artichokes, too.’
‘Flavia got us this nice table close to the fire,’ added Jonathan.
‘Come,’ said Atticus, using his foot to push an empty chair out from under the table. ‘Sit. Eat. Drink.’ He twisted in his chair. ‘Waiter,’ he called, ‘bring more mulsum!’
‘Mystagogus, this is Atticus,’ said Flavia, ‘our bodyguard, and that’s our friend Nikos. Oh, and that’s Tigris.’
Mystagogus sat down and nodded at them.
‘Did you ask the Pythia my question?’ said Flavia, leaning forward. ‘Tell us what happened!’
‘After I present the priest with a pelanos, a kind of pie, he takes me to altar and t
here I must put my hand upon goat’s head.’
‘Was the money I gave you enough for a goat?’
‘Yes. Money was sufficient. Priest takes goat and sprinkles cold water on goat and goat shivers.’
‘Is that good?’
‘If goat does not shiver then no oracle.’
‘But the goat shivered.’
‘The goat shivered. Then priest says some words and cuts throat of goat. The other priest helps him to pour blood out on altar. Then other priest stays to cut up goat and first priest leads me into temple.’
‘Then you saw the Pythia?’
‘No. Then they lead me into the inner room of the temple so that it appears I visit Pythia. But from there we descend steps and then go down dark corridor for a long way perhaps how do you say, underground. We walk and walk and walk and presently I perceive the path climbs again. Then I find myself in a cave or how do you say, chasm. It is dark and damp with two scribes and a curtain beyond. That is where Pythia now prophesies.’
‘So she’s not underneath the temple?’
‘Correct,’ said Mystagogus. ‘She is not in the temple.’
Lupus angrily swiped at the tears in his eyes and leaned back against one of the massive fluted columns. He was too late. The Pythia had gone and he had missed his chance.
Suddenly he heard the crunch of footsteps on the path below him and the sound of someone singing – a boy or a woman. He moved behind the column and peered out.
A pale, slender shape was moving on the same path they had taken earlier that day. The flickering torches either side of the temple doors showed it was a woman in white with a water jar on her head. Was it the Pythia? No, she seemed too young. She must be a priestess of Apollo.
He could not see her clearly as she moved off into the deep purple dusk but he could hear her singing in Greek, singing the words of a dimly-remembered lullaby: When you come home, when you come home to me. Suddenly all the blood in his arms seemed to fall to his fingertips and he felt the stars above him being sucked into blackness.
Could it be his mother Melissa?
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 137