by Jo Graham
Neas grabbed my hand and drew me back. “Take care!” he said.
There was an asp curled on the floor in the shadow of the door.
“Snakes are not death in dreams,” I said.
“Are you sure of that?” Neas said.
I did not answer him, only went to the door. Inside, vast columns rose up into dim ceiling, dust making whirls of gold in the light that came in from somewhere far above. “Is this the future?” I asked. “Or the past?”
The snake spoke. “The gods do not see the future, for mortals write it. We can see only the past.” It slithered nearer. “Come within,” it said, and its voice seemed like my mother’s. “And choose your own long destiny. This man is not your charge.”
“He is my friend,” I said.
“He is a flawed man,” it said. “He does not love you. And he will bind you to his own destiny regardless of yours. Let go now. It is not easy, but you will be glad of it. Otherwise you will be tied with blood and iron for many years.”
Behind was the room of scrolls, shelves and shelves of them, stretching up into the light at the ceiling. Neas was silent. I looked at him and saw that he was frozen too, a look of sadness on his face.
“Look at him truly,” the snake said, and it seemed that I saw an Achaian there, helmed and armed, a terrible wound disfiguring his face. “Patroclus of Achaia,” it said. “And many more besides. He is born to arms, to kill and go down in blood.” The snake’s voice was sad. “He was your enemy, and now he is your prince, born to live in the ruins he created.” I looked at him, and he was fair and strange to me at the same time, a man I had never seen and did not know.
“You tell me he is one of them, a man of blood. But you are telling me nothing I do not know.” I had seen the love of battle in his face, the pleasure he took in the most daring plan, reckoning the cost and finding it worthwhile.
The snake’s voice was filled with regret, and it seemed to me that it was the voice of She Who Had Been Pythia. “And you, daughter, might understand. You might be so much more. The world will grow old while you play men’s games of blood and death, of wars and kingdoms and princes, and you sorrow for what might have been yours.”
“Great Lady,” I said carefully. “I know that You speak the truth. And perhaps I will regret; I do not know. But I am what I was born, and this is what I choose.” My voice was stronger now, and my eyes were full of tears. “I am not wise or deep. I am not the river with its currents or the mountain with its secrets. I am not the worthiest or the best. I am not night, but fire. I love the dawn and the skies, the beat of drums around the fire and the passion of birth. I am not suited for the deep places, for Your Underworld. I am a lioness, and I must have the sun.”
The snake changed. She stood before me lion headed, golden Sekhmet of Egypt, Her woman’s body wrapped in scarlet linen. “There is nothing wrong with being a lioness,” She said.
I bent my head. “No, Lady,” I said.
She came closer and I felt Her breath, like a great cat pacing nearer. One hand lifted my chin, and I looked into Her eyes, as dark as the spaces between the stars. And I thought that She purred.
“All people see Me according to their nature,” She said. “Do you understand?”
“I believe so,” I said. “But, Lady...”
“If you are a lioness, then that is what you are. The bright fire of day is no less holy than the night.” She looked up, Her eyes over my shoulder. “I commend you to My friend. May you have both Our blessings, Death’s handmaiden.”
I looked where She pointed. Behind Neas in the doorway stood a young man of surpassing beauty. His head was shaved in the Egyptian fashion, and His dark skin was shining with oil. He wore a linen skirt pleated and drawn, and a spear was in His hand. Behind Him rose the faint shadow of wings.
He looked at Sekhmet and shrugged. Then He smiled at me, a lopsided smile I had seen before. “Hello, Gull,” He said.
“Mikel?”
“I think we’d get along well,” He said. “I’ve got some ideas.”
“How can I serve You and Her too?” I asked. “Mikel, I am already dedicated. And You belong to life, and to the world above.”
“Have you not learned by now that they are the same?” She said. “Did Hry not teach you that as it is above, so it is below? Death without life is hollow and cruel, and life without death an empty mockery. All things must be in their time, in their course. For an old man to die when his time has come is not evil. You know that.”
“I do,” I said, and my voice throbbed. “But when a baby in arms is slaughtered, that is evil.” I bent my head. “I have seen the world falling, Lady. Cities crumble one by one. More people than there are stars in the sky are starving. Men are desperate. And there is nothing I can do.”
“You’re already doing,” Mikel said. “What do you think you’ve been doing, trying to preserve Egypt, getting your people across the sea when they might otherwise be dead? You can’t do everything at once all by yourself, you know.”
“But I would,” I said, desperate still with the longing. “Tell me how! How shall I raise dead men up to plow fields that are fallow? How shall I plant young olive trees?”
Mikel smiled, and it was a beautiful smile. “One tree at a time,” He said.
I bit my lip, and the tears overflowed my eyes.
“Come,” He said gently. “If you are resolved, come. There is a city to found.”
I nodded and took His hand.
AND THEN I stood beside Neas in a field of grain. He was crying. He knelt on the ground, hugging his knees.
I bent and put my arms around him. “What has happened, my prince?” I saw neither Mikel nor Her, nor any sign of the temple.
“Did you not see her?” Neas said.
“Who?” I said.
“Basetamon. She is dead. She burned herself alive.”
I felt a chill run through me, remembering the fire we had seen as we left Sais, my invented prophecy.
“When she knew I had gone with the ships, she built a pyre and burned herself. If we should not lie together in eternity she would lose it too, life and life after life.” Neas shook in my arms. “She burned herself alive. Ah, gods! She burned herself alive!”
I took his face between my hands. “Neas! Neas! This is not your fault!”
“I knew that she might do something. I didn’t think it, but I knew she might.” He looked past me, to the edge of the fields where the woods met the river, as though looking after her. “I saw it. I saw her face blackening and her flesh sizzle, while her brother who had been called to the place stood there in horror and sadness. She killed herself because of me.”
“Neas!” I grabbed both his hands. “What else should you have done? Stayed there as her concubine? You are not the one who changed her.”
“I might have helped.”
“And she might have killed you. Or killed Wilos or me or anyone else you loved. Madness is bad enough, but madness with power is terrible.”
“She was not mad, only strange and sad. Only damaged. So terribly damaged.”
“Neas.” I had his attention now, and he was quieter. “Her healing is in the hands of the Lady of the Dead. You do not have that power. You never have. You cannot walk in the deep places with her, and you could not heal her. You are not a person who ever could. Should we blame the lion that it doesn’t fly? Blame the ox that it doesn’t swim?”
“I’m not an ox,” he said.
“No, my prince. You are not,” I said. “You are a man who tries to do what is best. And no more can be asked of you than that. No more can be asked of you than you ask of yourself, for already you expect more than any man.”
“It isn’t enough,” he said. “I knew I could not be king. I have known since boyhood when men first began to sound me out about putting myself before the council in Wilusa that I could not do it.”
“My prince,” I said, “that is the Mystery.” And as I said it I knew it to be true. “Any man who thinks he kno
ws what is best, that he can mend all ends, should not be king. But to put yourself forward when there is no better man to the task and it must be done is not insubordinate. It is what must be done. You must do this. There is no one else.”
“There’s Maris and Xandros,” Neas said.
“And do you believe either of them would make a better king?” I asked.
“No.” He shook his head. “They are good men, and my friends. But no. They would not be better kings.”
I took his hand and drew him to his feet. “Then stand, and walk with me there. I see Anchises coming for you.”
In the rich meadowland along the river Anchises was walking, and it seemed to me he was different than I had seen before. His hair was gray, but he moved with the vigor of youth. Neas ran to him and they embraced.
“My son,” Anchises said. “Know that I am proud you have come so far.”
“I will not be the king you wished,” Neas said abruptly. “Wilusa is no more, and I cannot bring her back. I cannot restore the past for you, or emulate my heroic uncles.”
Anchises bowed his head. “I know. And I have burdened you too long with my hopes. I feared for you. And I was wrong to think that you would ever be less than honor requires.”
“My honor or yours?” Neas asked.
“Mine,” Anchises said, and his eyes were far away. “It is I who should have died for Wilusa, I who should have been there when they burned our temples and killed our kin, when Agamemnon ripped my Lysisippa’s sister from her altar and raped her. But I was not there. I had gone to beg aid of the Hittite emperor. I did no deeds of arms on the field, and I did not even have the decency to die!”
Neas clasped his father in his arms, and at last I knew what had burned so, what had consumed Anchises with bitterness, this same guilt that burned too readily in Neas’ breast. “My father,” he said, “your service to the People has been hard indeed, but you have preserved us and come with us to a new home. If all the men were dead, who should preserve the memory of Wilusa That Was? Who should have saved Wilos? Who should have brought him from the fire, for he will be our next king?”
Anchises nodded. “He will be. That is assured.” He took Neas by the hand and led him along the river. I followed. “Come. There is something I want you to see.”
Beside a willow that trailed in the water a young man was practicing with a bow. He was lithe and dark, with a heart-shaped face and brown eyes, long quick limbs.
“This is your son,” Anchises said. “He waits here to be born. When the time comes he will cross the River and open his eyes in your world.”
The boy did not look up, or even seem to see us.
“My son,” Neas said, wonder in his voice. “Wilos’ brother.”
“Yes,” Anchises said. “They will govern the People between them, the People of the sea and the People of the hills, and there will be no quarrel between them.”
“And after?”
“Who can tell what the future holds?” I said. “So much depends on what we do. Whether we falter or not.”
Anchises smiled. “And yet there are things that may be, a proud line and a proud city, son of Aphrodite. No, these things would not be if you flung yourself into the sea tomorrow, but you will not do that. I say to you the only thing one can say to a king. The things you desire may yet be.”
Neas bent his head. “And that is the greatest burden of all. To desire.”
“If you were free of desire you would not have tried Night’s Door,” Anchises said. “If you were not filled with longing.”
“And then what should I have?” he asked, and his eyes were calm and blue.
“Peace,” Anchises said. “Here, free of desire, is peace.”
Neas looked about. “In these endless fields where nothing ever changes?”
“Yes,” his father said gently.
Neas looked about, and I saw his face relax, his jaw unclench as though a fever slipped away, like a man terribly injured who has at last died, and with the final relaxation of muscles has passed beyond pain. I caught my breath.
Neas looked at me and smiled. “That’s not for me,” he said. “Better the pain and the joy too.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Anchises said.
I let out a breath I did not know I’d been holding.
“Come and walk by the River,” Anchises said.
I did not know if the invitation included me too, but Neas held out his hand to me and I took it. It was warm and real, flesh, not fantasy.
All along the riverbank people were walking. Sometimes one would slip away, shouting farewells, exchanging embraces, joyfully promising remembrance. They stepped into the River, and its waters washed over them, pearl and silver streaming. And then a breeze took them, and they floated clear and light toward sunlight streaming down from above.
“What is happening?” Neas said.
“They are being born,” I replied, and my voice was filled with wonder. “Twice we cross the River. When we die we cross the Styx, and come to the lands beneath and dwell here for a time. Then we cross this River, which is Memory, into the world above.”
“They do not remember?” he asked.
“No,” I said, and shook my head sadly. “Not even you. Not even me.” I looked up at the light. “But that is not how we will leave this place. We will leave by the Gate of Horn, from which come true dreams.”
I felt us rising up, saw the Gate of Horn before us, shimmering with a nacreous sheen. “We have dreamed in this place, my dear king. We have dreamed things that are true, and now we must return to the world above.”
The light was blinding, and I clung to him. Brighter and brighter, until at last I closed my eyes.
I OPENED THEM.
I lay across Neas’ naked body in the front chamber of the cave at Cumai, looking up at the bright sun pouring in through the cleft in the ceiling.
I pushed myself up on one elbow. My mouth was dry and my breasts were aching with the need to nurse Markai. I heard a moan.
Xandros was lying in the light coming in through the door, one hand almost in the ashes of the fire pit. He rolled over and threw up.
“Xandros?” I crawled over to him. “Are you all right?”
He nodded but did not speak. The color was coming back in his face, and his hands were steady.
I stood and went over to Neas. “Neas?”
He opened his eyes. For a moment they were blank, but then memory came flooding back. “Sybil?”
“Yes,” I said. “Can you sit up?” I helped him sit.
Xandros called out to me. “I can’t wake Maris!”
I stood again, more steady now, and went to him. I knelt down beside them.
“What is it?” Neas said from across the chamber.
“Maris is dead,” I said.
We mourned him and crowned Neas at the same time. For Maris there was a great pyre on the beach. Not only had he been Pearl’s captain, but he was the sacrifice that sealed Neas’ kingship, the man who had willingly gone into the darkness beside his prince and taken the death that waited. The rest of the incenses of Egypt went on his pyre, and we all wailed for him, his young wife, Idele, gray with grief, her belly swollen with the child he would never see.
I sang the Descent in a choked voice. Perhaps if I had not steeped the concoction so strong, or if there had been less...
He is mine, She whispered at my elbow. His heart was not so strong as his body. He gave himself for his king, a death he chose. He did not have to come.
I bent my head and let the smoke wash over me.
There was no crown, of course. The crown of Wilusa was plunder for the Achaians a generation ago. They crowned him with vine and summer flowers, toasted him with full cups of the local vintage.
Neas drank, and then they acclaimed him. “Aeneas! Aeneas! Son of Aphrodite!” They began the snake dance then, winding round and round the fire. I sat, and the wine was vinegar in my mouth.
Xandros came with our son in his
arms, gave Markai to me and put his arms around me, his cheek against mine. “Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t grieve for him.”
“He was so young,” I said. “It is my fault.”
“I almost stayed too,” he said. “I wanted to. I could have stayed with Ashterah. I could have been healed of all this grief and pain. It was my choice.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
Xandros rested his chin on my shoulder. “Well, there’s Neas and you and Markai. I think I’ve got plenty of time in the future to be dead.”
I smiled at that. “I suppose you do.”
Xandros shrugged. “And so do you.”
“The whole time I was singing the Descent I was thinking that I’m so glad it wasn’t you. That’s so wrong of me. To wish this grief on Idele and her child instead of on me...”
“That’s the problem with love,” Xandros said. “It makes you care more about one person than another.”
“I can’t not care anymore. I can’t pretend that I don’t feel more for Markai and Kianna than the other children. I can’t pretend that I don’t value your life more than other men’s. And that’s wrong in a priestess. Wrong, Xandros.”
Xandros touched my face, the wet track of a single tear. “It’s human. You can’t help it. Only the gods can love everyone the same.”
I buried my face against his neck. “I am so glad it wasn’t you,” I whispered. “That it wasn’t you She chose to keep.”
“Me too,” said Xandros.
AB URBE CONDITA
We sailed on the fifth day, a gorgeous summer day with a following wind to urge us northward up the coast. The great bay disappeared behind us, the mountain sunk into the distance. We followed the coast. Fields were ripening and poppies blooming. The weather was perfect. There was a faint chill in the air at night that spoke of autumn, a lowering of the sun on the horizon. Summer was ending, and the harvest was coming in.
It seemed strange on Dolphin without Kos. Maris’ second in command was much less experienced, and had only been at the helm since we left Egypt, so Neas promoted Kos as Pearl’s captain. It was true he was of low birth, but he had proved himself again and again. Xandros began teaching Bai how to steer. He already knew the chants, but when to use which orders was not something he could see from the first oar, since the bow hid the sea ahead from him and he could not see any other rowers. Xandros let him take the tiller under his eyes, instructing all the while.
