“Ah, the birds.” He clucked his tongue. “I wasn’t sure it would work,” he admitted. “I feared blocking the light from my one tiny flame would make no difference when I threw the sheet over their cage, but bless you, my love, you were right. They stopped talking at once.”
“I wish you would,” she said. “We have so little time.”
“Why the hurry?”
She pressed her lover’s hand in urgency. “I’ll explain later,” she said. There wasn’t time now to go into why she needed to unmask Laertes’ killer during her first trance of the morning.
“For you, O Prophetic One—” He kissed her lightly on the nose — “I will borrow Hermes’ winged sandals and fly like Pegasus himself.”
Watching him sprint across the courtyard, she thought it wouldn’t be the first time that the Oracle had delivered a prophesy only for it not to come true. Accuracy wasn’t essential. Had Laertes died trying to overthrow his sovereign, it would only prove that, although Apollo had been with him, Zeus or Poseidon had sided with his opponent. When it comes to gods battling it out, no one argues.
In addition, many riddles were deliberately open to misinterpretation. Some for political reasons. Some because bribes had been passed (the Treasury was no slouch when it came to filling its storehouses). And some because, quite simply, Cassandra had no idea how to answer. Thanks to the meticulously maintained library of files at Delphi, she knew who the supplicants were, where they came from, the political background. But there was never any advance notice of their question.
And today the Oracle had quite clearly foretold that Laertes would set up camp beside the river next spring.
The Oracle could not afford to be that wrong.
Outside, Selene’s silver light spilled over the rooftops, bathing the theatre, the shrines, the fountains in silver as bats squeaked on the wing. With a thousand city-states constantly at war with one another, Delphi remained spectacularly neutral. In fact, it thrived on optimism, Cassandra decided as she waited for Jason to return. And it was her job to keep it that way. Without optimism, one tiny shrine could not have grown into the most prestigious religious centre in the world, bursting with treasuries, overflowing with marble, and where eight hundred statues stared out to sea. Thanks to its oracles, a federation of small (and otherwise insigificant) city-states had grown to become the most powerful council in the Greek world. Today, it was not so much a case of consulting the Oracle as obtaining sanction. Kings would not make war without it.
But Cassandra was only one link in the chain and, incredible as it may seem, not even the most important.
If anything happened to her — and the sibyls had a curious habit of dying in agony — there were other girls trained to step into her bridal robes and take that famous seat over the tripod. Girls like her cousin Hermione, for example, who’d been primed to take over, had it not been for Cassandra’s outstanding aptitude for deception. She smiled in recollection. The Governing Council, always eager to stock a new treasury, revelled in the fact that each new generation brought fresh ideas to the role. Cassandra’s proposal to enclose her lover, Jason, behind a partition to add to the drama cast poor Hermione into oblivion.
“Great Zeus, what are you doing out alone this time of night?”
She spun round. “Father! You frightened the life out of me!”
Grey eyes stared solemnly at her in the moonlight. She tried to remember the last time he’d smiled, but could not. “Can’t you sleep, child?”
“Can’t you?” she retorted. Like her, he was still in his day robes.
“The death of those carried young to the Elysian Fields is tragedy beyond measure,” he said sadly. “To have them die before one’s eyes is a burden greater than Atlas, who holds the whole world on his shoulders.”
Periander wrapped one arm round her shoulder and squeezed. Together father and daughter watched the moon dance on the sea.
“We old folk find consolation in the knowledge and wisdom that comes from maturity, but it is always the young that we envy, Cassandra.” He sighed heavily. “You have so much to give.” He placed a kiss on the top of her head. “So much to lose.”
She watched him walk away, stroking his beard in thought, though it was only later, much later, that she realised he wasn’t talking about a young general collapsing dead at his feet.
He had been talking about Cassandra’s mother.
What befell Periander’s wife befell most of the Delphic prophetesses. One day the Oracle was sitting in her sanctum, dispensing riddles as usual. The next, she was a gibbering wreck. Drooling, moaning, writhing, screaming. She saw visions — terrible, marvellous, hideous visions — but these were the visions that killed her. Slowly and painfully, they would torture her to death while she frothed at the mouth, suffered spasms, amnesia, until the final convulsion came as a blessing.
Cassandra was just a baby when her mother had died. She only ever knew her through her father’s memories, but from what he told her, she would have loved her. They shared the same dark hair and eyes, he said, the same sense of joy and laughter.
“Ah, but she was a wonderful actress,” Periander would remind her. “The minute she donned those robes and mask, she became Apollo’s virgin bride, waiting for her adoring bridegroom.”
Then he would explain how it wasn’t that the Oracle was a fraud. Just that Mighty Apollo couldn’t sit there, day in and day out, with nothing else to do but assure this merchant that his investment was sound or that poet that his next work would be a masterpiece. When the gods spoke, mortals knew it, Periander reminded her solemnly, and when Apollo did speak through the mouth of the Oracle, then the poor creature was doomed. But by maintaining the pretence, such was Delphi’s standing in the Greek world that men came from all over to receive the god’s approbation, undergoing various rituals to win Him over. It was vital their trust in Him was upheld.
Backed by a massive administration ranging from the Governing Council to the countless scribes that toiled to keep the mountain of files up-to-date, the Oracle hosted Games to rival Olympia and held musical competitions that would turn Orpheus himself green with envy. And thus, for the thousands of pilgrims who flocked to the shrine hoping to have a curse lifted or find love, found a new colony overseas or sue for peace with their neighbours, the Oracle represented stability in a changing and unsettled world.
“You, child, are even better than your mother,” Periander would tell her, and for her part, Cassandra was proud to contribute to the miracle that was Delphi. Rich or poor, every petitioner went home reassured that, if he sacrificed here or did penance there, Apollo would surely be with him. The emancipation of slaves was particularly rewarding for her. You couldn’t ask for more than to give a man happiness.
And so, watching her father prostrate himself before the shrine of Zeus, the moonlight turning the lines in his face into chasms, her heart ached for the man whose wife had died after hearing Apollo’s voice, and who had never got over the loss. And now, to add to the tragedy, his daughter’s prophesies had been brutally sabotaged…
As he rose and poured a libation to the King of the Immortals, God of Vengeance and Justice and Honour, she realised with a start that her mother would have been the same age Cassandra was now. In her twenty-fifth summer.
Despite the throbbing heat of the night, the Oracle shivered. And wished Jason would hurry.
Zeus is the first, Zeus is the last, Zeus is the god with the divine thunderbolt.
The hymn kept going round in her mind.
Zeus is the head, Zeus is the middle, of Zeus all things have their end.
As she gazed down over the hillside, across the building works in various stages of construction, at the statues that lined the Sacred Way, Cassandra knew that she would remember this night for the rest of her life.
It was the night she walked into womanhood.
Behind her, the Shining Cliffs lived up to their name, glistening white in the moonlight. Riddled with caves and rich with fountains and s
prings, they were the playground of Pan, home to the Muses, and the stairway to the pinnacle from which those convicted of sacrilege against the gods were flung to their deaths. From the grove of holm oaks, an owl hooted softly.
Not a seer like her father, or a prophetess as was made out, Cassandra nevertheless saw the picture clear in her mind.
The king who rules the city-state from which I come is a weak man. Laertes’ words floated back to her. He puts the good of himself before the good of his people.
The files had backed up this assessment, but weak and self-serving doesn’t mean stupid. One by one, as Hercules tramped round the heavens, the pieces fell into place.
Laertes’ king hadn’t trusted his general an inch, and when Laertes set off on that long trek to Delphi, the king knew there could be only one question which needed an answer. Not about to give up his dynasty, he duly despatched his own man, an assassin, to ensure Laertes would not return.
Leaning her back against a pillar, Cassandra realised she’d never know for certain. Had the assassin travelled a different route, which took longer? Had he been caught in a storm out at sea? Taken ill? Who knows, but whatever happened, he must have arrived in Delphi well after Laertes had registered his petition and paid his admission fee. Prowling round on padded feet, enquiring in whispers, the assassin would have noted the power that one gold statuette held, shooting Laertes up the queue of merchants and military men, athletes and musicians, much less the scores of humble smallholders. And the assassin would have quickly realised that, if the Treasury could be bought, so could individuals. It was his nature to probe and investigate. To determine which priest drank from gold goblets at home. Which acolyte kept an expensive mistress. Whether the Guardian of the Keys had run up debts.
From the moment Laertes set foot outside his own country, he was a dead man. It had only been a question of timing. Cassandra understood. This was the way of the world. It was the next part she had trouble comprehending. The fact that the murder had not only happened in her world, but that the killer specifically intended to discredit the Oracle.
And she did not mean the assassin.
His job was over once he’d established who could be bribed, and for how much. Even the method of execution was out of his hands.
Poison…
Extracted from the deadly nightshade, whose juice induces dry mouth, impaired speech — all the things, in fact, that she had witnessed from inside her sanctum, before Laertes’ eyesight failed and he’d found difficulty breathing, prior to lapsing into unconsciousness and finally death. The heat from the column diffused into her backbone. It all came back to that tiny phial of liquid that had been fed to him inside the temple, she reflected, and that was the sad part. Inside the temple. For in this killing, timing was crucial. And, standing beneath the stars and the moon that saw everything, Cassandra knew that the hand that had delivered that fatal dose of belladonna belonged to someone not only familiar with the temple, but who knew the sanctum inside out. Who understood not only the mind of the petitioner, but also the intricacies of the disorientation process — and was in a position to play on both. Manipulating the timing of the drug, so that Laertes wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, whilst ensuring that the Oracle’s suspicions would not be aroused, either. Someone, in short, who knew she would set the supplicant a riddle. And be discredited when Laertes collapsed of natural causes…
It was not coincidence, she realised with a chill, that the temple physician was laid up with a broken leg. His fall from the Shining Cliffs was a nudge, not a stumble, and her stomach churned as she remembered who it was who’d raced down the cliffs to sound the alarm—
“So that’s where you’re hiding!”
His voice broke the silence now, and as she turned, Cassandra’s limbs were shaking.
Ah, but she was a wonderful actress, her father said of her mother. But you. You are even better.
This was true. Her smile was wide as she greeted him brightly.
“Jason!” She injected relief into her voice. “I thought you’d gone back to bed! So now tell me. What symptoms did you find on Laertes’ body?”
“That’s what took me so long,” he said, and when he moved towards her, she backed away. “No matter how hard I pleaded, no matter what tricks I pulled, the Guardians of the Vigil would not let me near him.”
Cassandra wished she could have sounded surprised.
In the darkness of the inner sanctum, music that was a combination of Persian and Egyptian, Phoenician and Arabic filtered down from the temple. Behind the partition painted to resemble the rockface, the doves of prophesy cooed, and in the tripod, sweet-smelling herbs emitted their scents. Lemon balm, oregano, and mint.
She was a wonderful actress, but you, child, you are better.
In the past, whenever a sibyl had heard the true voice of Apollo, she had complained of smoke rising from a fissure in the floor that gave off a light, scented odour. The breath of the god. After which she fell into that fateful, delirious trance—
Wailing and thrashing in her created odour, Cassandra quickly attracted the attention of the priests and acolytes above. Jason burst through the false wall in alarm.
“What is it, my love? What’s the matter?”
When she didn’t respond, he called for “Water! Light! Give her air!” And when he tried to lift her off the stool, he found that he could not. A crowd gathered round, her father among them, his face a picture of agony.
I’m sorry, so sorry, she wanted to tell him. I know this is how you found my mother so long ago, but truly I know no other way…
The Oracle could not — must not — be discredited.
Even at the expense of her own father’s pain.
Soon the Council came running, the heavyweights who ran the administration, and the aristocrats who governed it. Through her twitching and groaning, Cassandra saw the face of her cousin, Hermione, at the edge of the crush. Familial concern tinged with more than just a little hopefulness, she noticed through her jibbering. Poor, sweet Hermione. Fated to be disappointed again.
“I see death which is not a death,” she howled, and there was no need to disguise her voice. This was Apollo speaking through Cassandra’s own voice, just as he had through previous sibyls’.
“Laertes,” someone hissed in translation. “She means it was murder.”
Her arms flailed. “From fruit which is not a fruit.”
“Poison,” whispered somebody else.
“I see the shadow of the Ferryman inside this chamber.”
Beside her, Jason’s frame had gone unaccountably still and, as her frenzy caused her to toss more herbs of prophesy into the eternal flame, she reflected again on how handsome he was. How funny. How virile. How cunning.
“Who?” one of the priests asked. “Who killed Laertes?”
But the Oracle was passing into convulsions, and as she thrashed, Cassandra noticed her father slip away from the sanctum, tears streaming down his bearded cheeks. She ached to go with him, hug him tight to her breast, show him that his daughter was not dying. But the Oracle could not leave. Rooted to her stool — to her destiny — Cassandra tore at her hair in grief and despair.
You are better than your mother…
She was not, she was not, this anguish was real. Here, before the Governing Council and the enterprise that was Delphi, she was betraying the only man she’d ever loved.
“Can you see in your flames the face of the murderer?” one of the elders asked. “Do you see the face of the man who sought to bring disgrace on this place?”
Not in the flames, she wanted to scream. I see his face here, in my heart.
“Zeus is the foundation of the earth and the sky.” She was supposed to be rambling. She might as well ramble from the hymn that had kept her awake all through the night. And the images that had tormented her with it. “Zeus is the breath of all things.”
“She means divine retribution will befall him,” someone interpreted.
“I
see two heads in a womb and two quivers of arrows. And the bear will ride on the back of the dolphin and smite the beast that tried to kill him.”
“Twins!” an acolyte shouted. “She means twins,” and suddenly all the priests were chorusing at once.
“The dolphin is Apollo—”
“—his arrows are rays of light!”
It must be the shock of the Oracle’s trance, she decided. Otherwise they’d have realised instantly that the dolphin was Apollo’s sacred emblem, just as the bear was his sister’s.
“Apollo is telling us that sacrilege has been perpetrated against him, but that Artemis, the huntress, will strike down the assassin on behalf of her brother.”
Mutterings ran round the sanctum.
“The killer has already left Delphi—”
“—but we need take no action ourselves—”
“—because Apollo will have his revenge through his sister!”
“Justice is served,” someone pronounced.
But what was justice, if not a matter of perspective? From the corner of her eye, she glanced at Jason. His face might as well have been carved of stone. Tasked with ensuring Laertes’ death, the assassin had been true to his mission, and in so doing he had saved a crown and a dynasty. To his king, crushing rebellion was righteous. The assassin would be a hero when he returned — but what justice for the man who fed Laertes the poison?
With a final shriek, Cassandra threw her arms into the air, then collapsed onto the floor. This was the sign that the Oracle had stopped prophesying. Visions were only possible when seated upon her sacred stool. The crowd gasped.
“It’s a miracle!”
“The trance hasn’t claimed her life after all.”
Even Hermione appeared relieved.
“Apollo has spoken without killing his mouthpiece—”
“—he wants us to know that this sacrilege will be avenged.”
As they trickled out — the Council, the priests, even Jason, who she noticed was shaking — four words echoed inside her head. Sacrilege will be avenged. Yes, it would, she thought dully. Sacrilege would be avenged, but not in the way they imagined.
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 787 & 788, March/April 2007 Page 17