by Corby, Gary
“Oh.” I should have thought of that. “What did her father say?”
“The mother was very upset. The father seemed more put out, if you know what I mean. He demanded compensation from the sanctuary, but really it wasn’t our fault. I pointed that out to him.”
“It was you who spoke to the parents, not the High Priestess?”
“Thea apologized to them. She really has little understanding of legal process. I’ll leave you here. The jetty is over that hill.” Sabina pointed.
Our feet sank into the same soft dirt that had made my steps so quiet the night before. Now I saw why: the hill was built from silt that had heaped up over long years. It curled about the toes of my bare feet and was pleasant to walk upon.
On the opposite side, the bushes struggled to live, not because of the soil but because the hill protected the sanctuary from the strong, dry winds that descended from the north every summer. The side facing the inlet was windswept. And inlet it was: narrow, almost pointy where we stood, and no wider than a stadion, it slowly widened out as it stretched from us until the coast curved away to the left and right, fully into the Aegean Sea.
The jetty was plain to see, a small affair but solid-looking: pylons driven into the seabed and weathered timbers to walk upon. The boat that floated at the end was tethered by a thin line. It all seemed terribly peaceful. The craft was larger than the small rowboat I’d imagined, but smaller than a fisherman’s workboat.
We stepped onto the boards, walked gingerly along in case one of the boards should be ready to snap, and stopped at the end. The oars had been shipped on board, and I saw at once that Doris was at least partially right. No child could have lifted those oars.
But an adult with a child could. If Ophelia had left this way, it could not have been on her own. It was possible, though, if someone had helped her. Or if an adult had kidnapped her.
“Have you found anything?” a voice shouted to us. Diotima and I turned to see Doris. She carried wicker baskets and trudged the same path we’d taken to the jetty.
“Did you come looking for us?” Diotima asked.
“No. I’ve come to take the boat to Brauron. It’s easier than walking if there’re goods to carry, and faster than the cart.”
“You row?”
Doris laughed. “On rare occasions, when I can’t avoid it. Usually I’d take a slave along to row for me and carry the purchases in town, but Zeke has them all busy today, rebuilding fences.”
Doris bent to load the baskets into the rowboat, a somewhat undignified posture for a lady her age. I took them from her, to load them myself.
I said, “Doris, we need to ask about this marriage of Ophelia’s. It’s a complication for us.”
“It caused us quite a problem, too!”
“Why didn’t you tell us about it?” Diotima asked.
“Because it was all over and done with long before there were any skeletons. About a month ago, Ophelia’s father came to visit. We don’t encourage family visits, it only makes the girls homesick—or more determined never to return home, one or the other; both are a problem. But it’s not unusual for a girl’s father to make an unexpected call in the final months.”
“Why?”
“Polonikos brought another man with him: the father of a young man.”
“Oh, I see.”
Doris shrugged. “Ophelia was within months of officially becoming of marriageable age. A graduate of Brauron is considered a superior catch. She wouldn’t have been the first girl to return home to discover her future has been decided for her while she was away. It’s normal too for the father of the groom to want to meet the prospective daughter-in-law before the contract is concluded. The High Priestess doesn’t like such dealings to be negotiated within the sanctuary, she feels it upsets the girls, but she can hardly refuse when a girl’s father insists.”
“So Ophelia’s father and father-in-law turned up to inspect the merchandise,” Diotima said. She sounded bitter.
“Prospective father-in-law, my dear,” Doris corrected. “These things are never certain until the contract’s sworn, and there’s no point getting upset with me, young lady. We all do our best, but the world can’t be to our liking.”
“Yes, Doris. I’m sorry,” Diotima said, contrite, and for a moment I saw the adolescent girl that was, standing before her mentor.
“How did Ophelia take this?” I asked.
Doris shrugged again. It seemed to be her way of dealing with unpleasantness. “She didn’t cry, and she didn’t smile. Who can tell what a child truly thinks? Both fathers spoke with her. The second man asked Ophelia to demonstrate her skill at weaving with the loom, and at sewing cloth, and spoke a few words with the child. He went away happy, I think. There was no problem until the son arrived.”
“That was Melo?”
“Yes. You may well be surprised. We certainly were. A young man rode in a few days later. He said he was Melo, the son of Thessalus, and that he was betrothed to Ophelia. Then, without even pausing for breath, he demanded to see his fiancée. In private.”
“Had they ever met before?”
“No.”
“Were they truly betrothed?” Diotima asked.
“Good question! We had no idea. We’d heard nothing from the girl’s father, but then, there was no requirement for him to tell us. I’m certain Ophelia herself didn’t know. She was standing right behind me when the young man announced their intended marriage. The look on the child’s face told me this came as news to her.”
“Tricky for you,” I said.
“Very. Thea decided that, in the absence of a formal note from Ophelia’s father announcing a contract, she couldn’t possibly allow the couple even to see each other, let alone be together in private.”
No, of course not. I nodded to show I was in total agreement with the High Priestess. If the man and the girl were alone for any appreciable time, it would call into question the girl’s virginity. Not necessarily a problem if the couple were to marry, but if Melo was there on a pretense then it would be a disaster for the girl. Thea had done the right thing.
“Melo refused to leave,” said Doris. “Never in my time at Brauron have I seen such rudeness. Thea told him to come back with the father’s permission, which he should have obtained in the first place. He pushed past her.”
“He laid hands on the High Priestess?” Diotima said. She couldn’t have been more surprised if Doris had said that Zeus had descended from Olympia.
“That was when Zeke hit him. Goodness, it’s been ages since I saw him move that fast.” Doris laughed. “Melo’s major concern seemed to be whether Ophelia was attractive.”
And fair enough, too. Who wants an ugly wife? But I kept that thought to myself; I was fairly sure neither woman would appreciate the point.
Doris said, “He repeated several times, in the hearing of every woman present, that he’d refuse a wife who wasn’t erotic.”
That probably wasn’t the most tactful way of putting it, especially to a temple full of women.
“Was Ophelia listening in?” Diotima asked.
“Probably!” Doris said, and she grimaced. “They’re normal children; I wouldn’t be surprised if every one of them returned and watched from around a corner.”
“So Ophelia heard that her future husband was there to check her out.” Diotima grimaced.
“She also saw her High Priestess order Melo off the sanctuary. The young man went away angry. And that was the end of that. The High Priestess wrote a note to Ophelia’s father and sent it with our fastest runner. After that ugly episode, I expected to hear that the marriage negotiations had fallen through. But we heard nothing.”
“Wait,” I said. “Did you tell this Melo which girl was Ophelia?”
“No, but when he announced the betrothal many of the girls gasped, and every eye turned to Ophelia. That and the expression on her face must have told him which girl was his bride. I’m sure he knew.”
“Then that explains how he knew
to find Ophelia in the girls’ bedrooms, and not some other girl.”
“What’s this?” Doris said, startled.
I explained that the intruder the other night had been Melo—something we’d withheld from the sanctuary, telling them merely that someone had tried to break in and that Diotima had spotted them.
It was Doris’s turn to grimace. “Thea isn’t going to like it when she hears this.”
“Then don’t tell her,” Diotima said.
“Spoken like a true schoolgirl, my dear. Unfortunately, we adults have other standards. I fear …”
“Yes?”
“The thing is, Nicolaos, there’s another possibility. This is a man who wanted to know his future wife was erotic. Those were his own words. I fear Melo waylaid Ophelia at night, raped her, killed her, and then hid her body somewhere in the woods.”
WE FOUND ZEKE in the fields to the northwest of the complex. The sanctuary owned land about the place and used it to grow crops for food, plus a few goats, a cow for milk, sheep, and a hen house for eggs. As small farms went, this one was highly productive, which was a good thing considering the number of mouths that had to be fed. Zeke was obviously an accomplished farmer; his darkened, dry skin certainly attested to the days he spent out here. At that moment he labored at the hen house, where the fencing had been damaged.
“Foxes,” he explained between grunts. “They didn’t get in, but it was a near thing. The night guard chased those four-legged bastards away.” Zeke had younger men to do the heavy work, but he insisted on resetting the posts himself. “ ’Cause they gotta be done right,” he said.
“Is there always a night guard out here?” I asked.
“That’s why we’ve still got our animals.”
“But setting guards around the entire sanctuary was a new thing, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Since Allike. The guards settled the girls right down, made ’em feel safe.”
I said, “The thing is, Zeke, we’re not sure the sanctuary guards were entirely effective.”
Zeke’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment I thought he would shout at me. Perhaps I could have put it more delicately, but if Melo had told us the truth, then on at least one occasion after the guards were placed, Ophelia had managed to creep out of the grounds to meet her betrothed, and then had crept back to her bed. That was if Melo was telling the truth, of course. If the security had been solid, it would cast doubt on his word.
“Perhaps you could tell us how you set the guards?” I said.
“By talking to them,” he said slowly, as if he were speaking to a village idiot.
“No, I meant where did you place the guards. How do you know someone couldn’t have slipped through?”
The last post dropped into its hole with a satisfying thud. Zeke nodded. He gave the young men detailed instructions how he wanted the holes filled in. Then he rubbed his dirty hands on his dirty tunic and said, “Come with me.” Without looking to see if we followed, he set off across the land. He led us to the stone bridge that crossed the river.
“This is the main road in and out of the sanctuary. In fact, it’s the only real road. All the other routes are tracks you couldn’t drive a cart down. I was short of men, but two guards I set here, both good men,” Zeke said.
“Why two guards, then?” Diotima asked. “The bridge is wide, but one is enough to see all of it.”
I knew the answer to that one, but I let Zeke answer.
“ ’Cause it’s the most obvious route. If one man gets knocked out, the other can call for help.”
I nodded. That’s what they’d taught me in the army.
The bridge was wider even than the distance across the river, so that it resembled a square.
“Does this road go any farther?”
“No, this is the end.”
The bridge was supported by long stone blocks that ran lengthways in the river. Those supporting blocks were two hands in width, and almost ten paces long! The stream ran smoothly between them. The road was made of heavy, thick pavers laid across the supports. Even the heaviest of wagons could have crossed with ease.
“This bridge would do credit to the main entrance of a major city,” I said, impressed. “You could get an army across it.”
Zeke shrugged.
“What in Hades is it doing on a dead-end road to a minor temple?”
“A major temple, Nico, thank you very much,” Diotima said.
“Mind if I look underneath?” I asked.
“I won’t stop you,” Zeke said.
I hitched up my exomis and stepped into the running water. Holding on to the top of the bridge, I pulled myself across, stopping at each gap between the underlying supports to peer beneath.
“What are you looking for, Nico?” Diotima asked.
“Dead bodies,” I said. “But no luck.”
“You’d call that luck?”
“I guess not.”
Zeke walked north along the river bank. He said, “The river’s fordable for a man. I doubt a girl could cross it, not without risking drowning, anyways, so if you’re thinking Ophelia crossed the water at night, you can stop thinking it.” He stopped a hundred paces north of the bridge. “I set the next guard here. Everyone carried a torch. I walked it myself to make sure either the guards at the bridge or this one here could see me no matter where I stood. No blind spots, you see?”
I saw.
“This guard along the river was alone?” Diotima asked.
Zeke nodded. “Not enough men,” he explained. “But I ran the same system all round the rest of the sanctuary.”
I said, “An attacker could take down one of your guards, then get to the girls.”
“But that ain’t what happened,” he pointed out.
“Did you set guards at the rowboat?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because we were keeping a killer out, no one thought we needed to keep a child in.”
That sounded all too reasonable.
“So Ophelia could have rowed away.”
“No. The boat’s too heavy for a girl to pull. Besides, the row-boat’s still in place.”
How obvious. So Ophelia didn’t leave that way.
Zeke knew his business. I said as much to him.
He shrugged. “I’ve been here many years. I’ve seen every way the girls have found to get in and out without being seen. There ain’t no way a stranger’s going to get in that I ain’t already walked myself.”
We thanked Zeke for his time. As we left, I said to Diotima, “One thing’s for sure: Zeke’s no ordinary maintenance man. There’s military in his background.”
“Yes,” Diotima said. “Thea told us he served during the Persian Wars.”
“That was in the ranks as a common soldier. I mean more than that. At one time or another, Zeke’s been an officer.”
“The way he set those guards?” Diotima asked.
I nodded. “There are camp commanders who are slacker than him.” I hesitated, then asked, “Do you think he’s trustworthy?”
“Zeke?” Diotima looked surprised. “He was here when I was a child. He was probably here when the gods walked the earth. If Zeke was going to do anything wrong, he’d have done it years ago. I can’t imagine not trusting him. Why?”
“Just asking.”
There was something about Zeke that made me doubt him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Gaïs approached us from the other direction, going to the north. It was one of those long and embarrassing moments when people who barely know each other are forced to stare and wave for ages before they’re finally able to say anything.
Gaïs carried a wicker basket, the contents of which were covered with a small cloth. I guessed she was on her way to feed the men working in the field. Her hair was still straggly, but at least it was pulled back and held with a silver clasp. She may even have combed it, but if so it hadn’t had much effect. She wore clothes now, one of the standard, highly conservative priestess c
hitons; on her slim frame it resembled nothing so much as a sack. Her bare feet poked out from beneath the material. It was clear that Gaïs didn’t go naked to flaunt her body; to her, clothes were merely an impediment. As she passed by, Gaïs gave us a cool look and said, “Ajax pulled Cassandra from the temple.” She didn’t break her stride but disappeared through the narrow gap between temple and stoa.
I said to Diotima, “What was that supposed to mean?”
Diotima looked upset. “In the legends, after Troy falls, Cassandra goes to the temple sanctuary to seek refuge.”
“So?”
“Ajax drags Cassandra from the sanctuary and rapes her.”
CHAPTER SIX
THERE WERE TOO many things to do and not enough people we trusted to do them.
I made ready to depart for Athens, because tracing the scroll was a top priority. Diotima was to remain at the sanctuary to organize a search across the countryside, because Ophelia might still be alive, and finding her was another top priority.
Thea agreed to release the temple slaves to the search, though as Zeke pointed out, somewhat acidly, he’d already led a search party days ago. Zeke gave his opinion that Diotima (an inexperienced young woman, in his view) and Melos (a foolish young man) had no hope of doing better than him. This view was met by everyone with embarrassed silence.
We’d had to report what Melo had told us, of Ophelia sneaking in and out of the sanctuary, in order to persuade Thea. That too had raised Zeke’s ire. We’d made him look bad, because security was his business.
Zeke said, “You saw yourselves how I set those guards. There’s no chance a man could have gotten past.”
“But Ophelia was meeting Melo outside the grounds,” I said. “It seems Ophelia had a regular route out.”
“It’s as you said before, Zeke,” Diotima added. “You set guards to keep evil out, not to keep children in.”
“Do you trust the word of that arrogant young man?” Zeke asked in a tone that suggested that if we said yes, then we were idiots.
Diotima and I looked at each other and wondered what to say. Because we weren’t all that sure we trusted Melo either.
