From the shadows, two acolytes stepped forward in well-rehearsed unison. Boys of twelve, maybe thirteen, dressed in the same long, flowing robes as the priest.
"Drink,” the priest said, but when Laertes turned, the man was gone. In the distance, he could see small chinks of daylight. They seemed far, so far, away.
The first acolyte handed him a goblet on which the word “Forget” was engraved. The drink was wine, and Laertes drank. Then the second youth passed him a goblet on which the word “Remember” was etched. To Laertes’ mind, it tasted the same. With spirals of smoke coiling round his head one second, his feet the next, they steered him towards what looked like a gaping hole in the floor. Squinting cautiously, he could see nothing but darkness below. The acolytes motioned for him to sit, then retreated in silence, taking their torches with them. Even as he'd prepared to face battle, Laertes had never known his heart beat so fast.
How long did he sit there, dangling his feet in the Stygian blackness? A minute? An hour? Time had no meaning in the world of the gods. For was this not the site where Apollo slew the dragon snake that had raped his mother when she was pregnant with him and his twin sister, Artemis? Alone in the timeless void, Laertes set to wondering for the millionth time how best to phrase his question.
Then he was falling.
Tumbling through nothingness, with his arms flailing wildly, since the smooth stone denied him a grip. Down, down he spiralled, funnelling into the blackness. In his struggle, his forehead made contact with rock, then he found flagstones cushioned with reeds. Dusting himself down, his soldier's eyes searched for the hands that had tugged at his ankles. It took only seconds to realise that his only companion was a statue of Apollo—
"Welcome,” a voice echoed. It was thin and crackled with age. “Welcome to the world of answers and truth."
Making the sign of the horns, Laertes traced the sound to a narrow entrance over which “None May Enter” was written in gold lettering. From the doorway, he peered into a small inner sanctum lit by the dim flame from a tripod. Its flickering light revealed a solitary female, veiled and seated upon a stool.
"Welcome to the point where heaven and earth and east and west meet. The navel of the world, that is home to the Oracle."
What had he been expecting? An old woman, to be sure. Wisdom went hand in hand with age and prophesy, and he remembered now that the previous sibyl's trance had turned her into a wild animal, thrashing and groaning as she frothed on the floor, to die only a few hours later. Would that happen now? Listening to drumbeats and doves cooing curiously close-by, Laertes was transfixed by the frail figure bent over her tripod, still dressed in the wedding robes of her marriage long ago to long-haired Apollo. To his shame, his strong limbs were trembling.
"Dost thou wish to enquire of the Lord of Light and Prophesy, whose arrows of knowledge shine into the future?” she quavered.
"I do."
"Art thou pure of body and heart?"
"I am."
"Then Apollo will speak to thee through the vessel of my body. What is it thou wish to know?"
"My question...” He cleared his throat. He was a general, after all. A commander of men. “My question is this."
His mouth was dry. Was it the smoke, the vile smell, or the fact that this was the first time he had voiced his intentions so bluntly?
"The king who rules the city-state from which I come is a weak man. He puts the good of himself before the good of his people, and I want to know if ... if...” The words did not come easily. “...I move to unseat him—"
"Whether thy campaign will succeed?"
He didn't feel better, now it was out in the open. His heart still pounded harder than a blacksmith's hammer on the anvil. “Yes,” he said eventually.
"Then shall ye know."
With a twirl of her wrist, an explosion erupted from the tripod, a flurry of sparks flew into the air. Then she hugged her arms tight to her chest and began rocking back and forth, keening softly. Swaying himself in the abominable heat of this underground tomb, Laertes watched the flames from her fire reflect in the Pool of Prophesy at her feet and sensed the past and the future fusing together. It wasn't only the crack on his head, he thought, that was making it throb.
Time passed. The Oracle rocked, wailed, muttered, and reeled. The flames in her tripod guttered and died. In their place, smoke, white and sweet, welled from the walls, from the floor, from the ceiling. Laertes’ tunic clung, sodden, against his skin.
"When a guest of wood doth pass through thy portals...” When she spoke this time, it was not in a voice tremulous with old age. This voice was low, deep, and even. “...then must thou build a city of metal walls and woollen roofs, and set it beside the dancing pebbles."
The sweat on his back turned inexplicably cold.
"Sacrifice in this place a creature that makes both music and food, and I, Apollo of the Lyre, will surely march at thy side."
With a jerk, she slumped forward. The drumbeats fell silent. The cooing of doves ceased at once.
"Leave me,” the old woman quavered, and her voice was so weak he had to strain to hear it. “Leave me, for I am spent."
Perhaps he should have thanked her, but she seemed barely conscious, so he turned, and the last sight was of her thin breast rising and falling with unnatural rapidity. He did not understand the riddle, but as he clambered up the rope ladder that had been lowered through the hole he knew there was a priest in the temple, a seer called Periander, who would help him unravel the mystery. With the seer's help, and with Apollo's, there was no doubt in his mind that his revolt would succeed.
Tumbling back into the real world, Laertes was positively breathless with relief.
* * * *
Below, in the underground sanctum, the Oracle threw off the veil that filtered the fumes and stretched her slender arms high.
"How many more?” she asked the wall.
The wall parted, spilling a thin finger of light into the cavern. “Five,” the young man said, consulting his scroll by the glow of his candle. “Though none of the other petitioners require such elaborate theatre."
"Good. I was half-choked with that smoke."
"You were?” The young man laid his drums aside and squeezed through the gap in the false wall. “When you tossed those herbs into the tripod and set off that explosion, I had to pinch my nose to stop myself sneezing."
Cassandra smiled with him. “Next time, I'll stow a smaller bunch of borage up my sleeve, but at least Laertes should have no trouble interpreting the riddle.” She pulled off her old woman's mask and blotted the sweat off her face with her sleeve. “I made it simple enough, I thought."
When a guest of wood doth pass through thy portals—in other words, when a ship enters harbour—that's the time to build a city of metal walls and woollen roofs—i.e., set up camp, since soldiers use spears to support their blankets. And if this didn't make it plain that this undertaking should be conducted in the spring, when the seas opened once more for trade, beside the dancing pebbles, she had added firmly. It wouldn't take much working out on Laertes’ part to understand that this meant when the first snowmelts cascade down the mountains, and as for sacrificing a creature that makes both music and food—well, what other animal's flesh is succulent when roasted and shell makes the perfect soundbox for a lyre but a tortoise?
"Laertes is a soldier, not a politician, my love.” Jason began to knead the muscles in her neck that tightened from hours bent over the tripod. “Men like him think in straight lines. Not too rough?"
"No, that's lovely,” she purred.
"I'll bet you a chalkoi to an obol that Laertes heads straight for Periander.” He moved down to massage the knots in her shoulders. “He's the very sort who needs a seer to solve the puzzle for him—and ho, ho, talk of the devil."
An older man in ankle-length robes, whose craggy face was softened by a beard, shinned down the ladder with the skill of a ship's rat.
"Father!” Cassandra embraced him warmly. �
��What a delightful surprise!"
She hadn't seen much of him over the past six months, and he had never, in her recollection, come down here to see her. Was this because she was too engrossed in her new appointment, she wondered? Or because the memories that this sanctum held were too painful for him?
"Did you solve the riddle for our rebellious general? Because all in all, I thought it went rather well,” she decided.
The admission fee, the costs of purification, one gold statuette, plus, what? a silver wine cup, perhaps, for the seer's deciphering. Traitor or not, the Delphic Treasury would welcome Laertes back anytime.
"I suppose, Cassandra, that depends how one defines the word ‘well.'” Periander's eyes were grave, but then they always were. “Laertes collapsed at my feet."
"And?” she cried.
"And he's dead,” her father said quietly.
* * * *
Ever so softly, Night threw her cloak over the mount of Parnassus. Flexing the stiffness out of her legs, Cassandra paced the portico as, one by one, the priests and attendants made their way home to their wives and their supper and bed. The last of the petitioners was long gone, the temple swept with purifying hyssop in readiness for tomorrow, and the only sound that broke the silence was the grinding of bolts as the sanctuary was locked up against thieves. She paced and paced until only the creatures of darkness prowled the Sacred Way that zigzagged its way up to the shrine. Fox, jackal, hedgehog, and caracal. They moved from shadow to shadow.
Dead? How could Laertes be dead?
In the Pool of Purification, she saw a young woman with hair blacker than a raven's wing and eyes darker than an adulterous liaison. Plunging her hands into the cool, clear water, Cassandra splashed her face with her own reflection.
With the temple physician laid up in splints after a fall, there was no one to confirm or refute the cursory diagnosis that cause of death was a weak heart. Several witnesses testified to the chills and sweats that Laertes experienced beforehand, but then most supplicants suffered similar effects at the prospect of coming face-to-face with the gods. As for being breathless after his consultation, there was nothing unusual about that, either. The higher a petitioner's status, the harder the temple worked at disorientating him, because farmers, for instance, eager to know the most auspicious time to plant their beans or bring in their harvest, were far less worldly than kings or insurgent generals. Deeply religious, highly superstitious, the peasant folk believed with all their hearts that Apollo's spirit spoke to them straight through the mouth of the Oracle. They didn't need further convincing.
But a crown is not held in place by thin air. Kingship requires plotting and scheming, travel and trade, just as it requires war and diplomacy. Such sophisticates are not easily fooled and are even less likely to trust. Hence, the magic that is brought into play.
Senses manipulated by darkness, by narcotic fumes, by strange, haunting music. Rituals take on even greater importance. The petitioners are passed from one priest to another before they are able to take stock of their surroundings. They're given goblets of wine that will supposedly make them forget everything except the focus of their question yet remember clearly the Oracle's prediction. Then they are left alone to commune with the gods, and who would imagine that an old woman's hands could grip their ankles and drag them into the void? Disorientated by their fall every bit as much as the blackness, they do not see the old woman hurry back to her stool. But—! (And it was always possible.) One of these days, this chicanery might just bounce off their defences. In which case, keeping the petitioner outside the inner sanctum, where there was no possibility of him seeing that the face was a mask, was essential.
As indeed was the Oracle's constant monitoring of the supplicant's body language and expression from beneath her veil...
High overhead, Hercules wielded his olive-wood club and the moon rose full and white through the pines. Cassandra sat on the steps of the temple and buried her head in her hands. Weak heart be damned. While she was teasing Laertes with her riddles, what she had mistaken for nervousness and disorientation were, in fact, the symptoms of a man who was dying. Dying in front of her eyes.
And manifesting all the symptoms of poison.
* * * *
"Jason.” She had to shake him twice to rouse him. “Jason, wake up."
When he saw her, fully dressed and her hair still pinned up, he was on his feet in an instant. “What's wrong?"
"Laertes was murdered,” she explained, while he pulled on a tunic. In the lamplight, his skin shone like bronze. “I need you to go down to the temple mortuary."
She did not need to elaborate. Women, even the most important woman in Delphi, were forbidden to set foot inside.
"Examine his body, check his eyes, his skin colour, look in his mouth, his ears, under his nails, then report back to me on your findings."
She was pretty certain she knew what had killed him, having ruled out corn cockle, since Laertes had suffered no abdominal cramps, while aconite would have had him throwing up, and with hellebore he'd have been salivating like a rabid dog. Other poisons were either too slow or too fast and so, given the time frame in which he died, Cassandra concluded that only belladonna could have taken his life. But confirmation would not go amiss.
"I love you, I adore you, I would give my life for you,” Jason said, combing his tousled hair with his hands. “But frankly, my darling, I'd rather face the Minotaur in Hades than ask the Keepers of the Vigil to stand aside while I poke and prod their dead charge at this ungodly hour of the night. What excuse am I supposed to give them?"
"I have absolutely no idea,” she said, smiling in spite of herself. “But you did so well today, with the drumbeats and doves, that I'm sure you'll come up with something."
The invisible doves of prophesy were Cassandra's idea, but the drums and the white smoke had been Jason's. All it needed, he'd insisted, was a bowl of hot water and some terracotta pipes to filter the steam. Delphi, after all, was founded on the principle that the quickness of the hand deceives the eye.
"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, Cassand
ra 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.
EQMM, March-April 2007 Page 16
