The Outcast

by Laura Gill

  “Orestes, it’s all right. Relax.”

  I strained at the rawhide thongs. “They’re going to sacrifice me!”

  Making soothing noises, he held me down. “No one is going to kill you. It’s all a dream.”

  At length, he did release me. “I restrained you for your own protection.” He set a hand against my clammy brow. “You feel a little warm. What is it that ails you so?”

  I chafed my wrists where the thongs had burned them. “Father set me on the altar like Iphigenia. I had to die to make the wind blow. Mother never wanted me, he said, and she wouldn’t avenge me. And then he was feasting on me. It was an abomination, and we’re all an abomination, and...” The words gushed from me in a torrent, heedless of grammar or propriety. I started to shudder. “Help me, Didymus! Keep them away.”

  He held me fast until the shuddering fit subsided. “I can’t interpret dreams, Orestes.”

  Through the auspices of the high priest, he arranged for a priest of Morpheus, the god of sleep who had a small shrine within the precinct of Delphi, to visit. The man came loaded with amulets, and wearing a hesitant look; he did not want to touch me, even to breathe the same air, and tried to hurry through the examination. “Obviously you’re tormented by demons that haunt you because of the great weight of your blood guilt,” he said quickly. “No more needs to be said.”

  “Come, Aktaios!” Didymus chided. “You can’t interpret a dream without hearing it first.”

  “I don’t have to hear his dream to know he’s cursed, and hounded by the Erinyes. When he is purified—if he is ever purified—then the dreams will cease.”

  Aktaios’s brusque manner irked me. “I’m sitting right here,” I said hotly.

  “You’re an outcast, young man. Anathema. You’re not fit to be acknowledged.” Aktaios did not look at me. “Go forth from the sanctuary into the high places and let the Daughters of Night take you.”

  I started to speak, to upbraid him for his rudeness, when Didymus came to my defense. “Shame on you, Aktaios! You know as well as I that Prince Orestes was obeying the law when he committed his crime, and that he had no choice. He is under Apollo’s protection, the kouros cast his serpent rod over him, so do your duty and interpret his dream.”

  Aktaios must have been under strict orders; when he yielded, he did so with an air of extreme duress. “As you will, Didymus, but don’t expect me to touch the matricide, or look upon him.”

  Didymus remained with me, to ensure the dream-priest did his job thoroughly. I did not want to confide in Aktaios, though; he did not deserve access to my innermost demons and ghosts. Had we been alone, I would have turned my face to the wall and shut him out.

  “I’m bound to an altar, or sometimes just a stone slab, and my ancestors come to feast upon me. Sometimes it’s Atreus and Tantalus, but other times it’s my father. The blood runs down his chin as he chews on my flesh, and he tells me I have to die because the winds must blow.” From my periphery, I saw Aktaios stroking his pointed beard. Was he even listening? “Father tells me he can taste the abomination in the meat, because it’s been well-seasoned over the generations.”

  Silence. I did not expect the dream-priest to say anything at all, much less enlighten me. Several moments passed, then, slowly, he spoke, “Curious, the ancestors who came to you. All killers of children.” Aktaios’s questioning tone betrayed his growing engagement. “And there’s a double curse on the House of Atreus.”

  This was a colossal waste of time. Aktaios was merely repeating what he had heard, making himself sound astute. Typical priestly nonsense. Still, I had one more thing to add. “Father said the abomination would be gone once I was devoured.”

  Aktaios hemmed and hawed under his breath; he did not know anything. “You have become the offering,” he said. “Morpheus is sending you a sign from the gods. They require something from you.”

  When he said nothing more, refused, and pleaded ignorance, Didymus berated him. “Is that all? I could have told him that.”

  “You wanted an interpretation,” Aktaios answered sharply, “so I gave him one. Morpheus has sent signs—that’s the god-given truth—but you know full well that the gods never speak plainly. You will have to consult the Pythia if you want to know exactly what they expect from the matricide, though from what I hear, she balks at undertaking that oracle.”

  Didymus had not told me that. What else was he keeping from me? “Then she won’t do it?” I asked.

  Aktaios turned his head toward me, but was careful to rest his gaze on the window to my right. “The Pythia doesn’t get to pick and choose what oracles she delivers. I only said she was reluctant. It doesn’t take a wise man to understand why.”

  I did not need the dream-priest or even the Pythia to tell me what the gods would ultimately demand; they were already making their will clear. I must be bound upon the altar and bare my throat for the knife. I must do it willingly, so the rite would take. Once the high priest slit my throat, the double curse would flow from me along with my blood. I told Didymus as much, after the dream-priest left.

  He found my insistence troubling. “Human sacrifice is a very grave matter,” he answered quickly. “No priest will cut your throat unless he has a clear directive from the gods.”

  “They will welcome the chance,” I muttered. “You heard the dream-priest. I’m a matricide, an anathema.”

  “Aktaios is but one man.”

  “It seems he speaks for almost everyone, even the Pythia.”

  “That isn’t true,” Didymus said. “There are many others who sympathize with you, who see you as an unfortunate plaything of the gods who has been unjustly punished for obeying the law and bringing your father’s murderers to justice.”

  “So they pity me!” I spat. Pity was for women and weaklings; it was far better to be hated and feared than pitied, for at least then men would respect me.

  “I said they sympathized with you, not pitied,” he answered gruffly. “There’s a difference. People know you didn’t willingly commit matricide.”

  “Perhaps I did!” He was not going to patronize me. “Mother betrayed my father, she cuckolded and murdered him, and ruined us all—and for what? A dead daughter? A dead infant? All she ever cared about were the ones he killed, but not me!” Tears burned my eyes. I made no effort to brush them away. “She deserved to die!”

  “Orestes!” Didymus grasped my shoulder, shook me hard. I could have struck him had I wanted to—broken his nose or jaw, or strangled him with both hands—but I did not hate him enough for that. Rather, I loathed myself. Imagine, a grown man harboring such childish resentment toward a dead woman! I had wanted so much to love her, and have her return that love; it was all twisted inside like a deadly serpent.

  “I did it. It was the law, it was my right.” My voice was breaking like a child’s. “I did it, and wish I never had!”

  The priest stayed with me that night, yet for my own safety bound my limbs with linen ropes, and fastened on the mittens, which he smeared with the foul-tasting wormwood ointment. He painted talismans on my skin, yet they were no shield against the dreams which continued to plague my sleep.

  Always the same theme: sacrifice. Altars and knives swam above me. In my nostrils hung a sharp smell of blood. Disembodied hands sprinkled sacred barley meal upon my head. Invisible fingers cut a lock of my hair to throw into the fire, and removed the garland of flowers from about my neck. Things I had done countless times with sacrificial animals. The air was radiant with heat. I sweated and gasped for air.

  Morpheus had sent the sign: I was to be immolated, purified through fire. How simple, how elegant. Spilling my blood would pollute the altar; fire would sterilize all. All that remained was to prepare. I refused food and water; there was no further need for earthly nourishment. I must be purged, hallowed.

  Didymus tried his utmost to dissuade me from these stern measures, saying, “You swore an oath not to harm yourself.”

  “I’m making myself ready.” My every b
reath was a blast of hot air. How could he, a priest, not feel the furnace against his face and realize the importance of these preparations? “All the impurities will burn away.”

  He pressed a cool cloth over my brow to try to dampen the flames, he soaked a cloth in sweet barley water to moisten my parched lips; I burned too hot for his febrile efforts. Yet still he tried. “Only the gods can authorize your sacrifice, and Apollo hasn’t yet returned to speak to his oracle. You must be patient. Theophania is but a week away.”

  “Morpheus has already told me.”

  Even after my fever cooled, and despite his attempts to reason with me, my conviction remained strong. “Orestes,” he said, “the voices you hear are the Erinyes trying to drive you mad, infecting your mind with these suicidal phantasms. Apollo almost never demands human sacrifice.”

  I watched the weak afternoon light playing against the walls. The gray spider occupied her usual haunt high up near the ceiling. “There are the pharmakoi.” Pylades had told me about them, the scapegoats who, each spring, were stoned or burned alive or hurled to their deaths from the mountain heights.

  “The folk here on Parnassus still keep the old ways,” Didymus replied. “Pharmakoi are dedicated to the Mother of the Mountains. Apollo kills through his plague darts. Whether or not you are sacrificed, you’re in no state to consent, and anyway, it’s foolish for you to dwell on it. Most matricides are made to face an ordeal, except that you, in your sorry state, wouldn’t make it ten paces past the temenos. So stop this talk of burnt offerings and sacrifice. It’s the Erinyes twisting your mind.”

  Days later, he brought word that Apollo had returned from his winter sojourn in the northern lands. There was no need. I could hear the distant shouts and strains of the Theophania festival; the valley amplified the sounds coming from the town. Didymus also brought nourishing red meat from the sacrificial oxen, strong red wine, and a description of that morning’s colorful procession of priests and priestesses which had carried the kouros from the sanctuary to bless the people. “King Strophius was there,” he said, “with offerings of oil and grain and gold for the sanctuary.”

  It was growing late in the day. After paying his respects to Apollo, my uncle always returned straightaway to Krisa to preside over a magnificent feast in the god’s honor. “He didn’t ask to see me?” I asked morosely.

  “It isn’t permitted.” He proffered the bowl of roast meat, but I had no stomach for the rich fare after a diet of gruel and broth, and shook my head. “Not even the men Prince Pylades left here to watch over you are allowed.”

  “What men?”

  “Your kinsmen left five men to serve as your personal guard,” he explained. “They spend their days making certain no miscreants venture into the precinct to do you harm.”

  “Are there such people?” Surely there must be, if the hostility of the god’s own servants and priests was anything to judge by. An entire ocean of pilgrims who wished me dead, who would have stormed into the temenos to tear me limb from limb if they could. “Am I so despised, then?”

  “It isn’t the pilgrim season.” Didymus set the meat aside, covered it with a cloth. “There aren’t as many naysayers as you might think.”

  I knew he was lying. From the priests and temple servants, to the men outside the sanctuary, even to the Pythia who was reluctant to consult the god on my behalf, people had already judged and found me guilty.

  Chapter Ten

  One evening, the priest handed me a clay cup. “You were troubled last night,” he said. “Drink this, and pray that tonight you will be free from your nightmares.”

  It was sweetened barley water, nothing more, yet it brought me a deep, dreamless sleep. I should have awakened feeling refreshed; instead, I felt nothing at all. No soporific haze, this, for I was lucid, able to rise and look about, even acknowledge the spider without dread. Rather, it was a nothingness that was a profound and unnerving disconnectedness to the world around me. I knew perfectly well that my caretaker was drugging me, as he always did when the nightmares came, but the results were something new and strange, and ominous.

  I listened to the priests chanting the morning offices elsewhere in the sanctuary. It was cold, scarcely an hour past dawn, and the light streaming through the window’s thin parchment covering was a soft pinkish blue; the pink faded before Didymus arrived with breakfast: black barley bread and white cheese. “Did you sleep well?”

  “What did you give me?” I asked the question without urgency, as though inquiring about the weather. How strange.

  He set the food on the little bedside table. “How do you feel?”

  I had to think about that, and then the thinking was slow; my brain seemed encased in viscous honey. “I feel nothing, nothing at all.”

  “So you’re numb?”

  “What did you give me?”

  Didymus drew up the chair and sat down. “Nepenthe,” he replied. “An Egyptian potion sent by your aunt, the queen of Sparta. From what Athos told me, she acquired it from a high priestess during her time in Egypt.”

  Queen of Sparta. Egypt. I needed several moments to sort through what he told me. Did he mean Helen, that faithless slut who had run away with Trojan Paris? “Why would she?” We were nothing to each other.

  “It seems your cousin made the request,” he replied. “I have a letter from the lady, for you to read once you’ve eaten and washed.”

  “Cousin?”

  “Princess Hermione,” he said, studying me intently. “Orestes, do you know where you are?”

  “Delphi,” I mumbled. Hermione had written to me, when I had not heard from her in how long? I should have sprung to my feet and demanded the letter straightaway, not sat there apathetic.

  “And who am I?”

  He asked half a dozen more questions, assessing my awareness, and came away troubled. “I will have someone examine you later, if this spell does not pass. First, you must eat and wash, and then we will go out where the light is best to see what your lady cousin has to say.”

  A month after the equinox, the mountain snows were retreating. Tough alpine flowers brightened the rock crevices, in stark contrast to the winter chill lingering in the air; it should have enervated me, driven away the unnatural haze, yet it did not.

  Didymus spread a fleece across the stone bench facing the rock wall. I sat down, stared at the mountain daisies poking through the rocks, and thought about nothing, not even when he settled beside me and produced my cousin’s letter.

  He broke the wax seal, unfolded the packet, and tilted it toward the light. “Here we are. ‘Dearest Orestes, I hope this letter...’” For some bizarre reason I found myself focusing on the yellowish weave of the Egyptian writing material. It looked almost like linen, except for...

  “Orestes?” Didymus’s query brought me back to attention. He had stopped reading aloud. “You’re not listening.”

  I blinked, forced my gaze from the papyrus, with a mumbled explanation, “Sorry.”

  “Are you awake?” he asked. Then he leaned closer, so close I could smell the garlic on his breath, and studied my face a second time. “I want you to follow my finger with your eyes. Just your eyes. Keep your head still.”

  Though there was nothing wrong with my eyes, I did my best to follow his instructions; he had to correct me several times, to get me to stop moving my head. So I failed his test. What did it matter?

  “Most interesting.” And that was all he said on the subject. “Do you still want me to read the letter, or wait until you can concentrate?”

  Concentrate. I could not concentrate, no matter how much I wanted to know what Hermione had written. So we tried again, with the priest reading in short increments.

  “‘Dearest Orestes, I hope this letter finds you in better health and spirits.’” A prompting cough from Didymus. I nodded for him to continue. “‘If I could, I would be there with you, to hold your hand and soothe your bad dreams away.’” How nice. But I did not want her to see me thus. “‘I have asked my
mother to send you a drug which may help ease your suffering. Do not be alarmed at how it deadens you inside. It is an Egyptian potion, and the Egyptians have strange ways with herbs.

  “‘Our grandfather Tyndareus died during the winter.’” Didymus abruptly stopped reading. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “I’m not.”

  My admission puzzled and disturbed him. “Is this nepenthe so potent, then, that you feel nothing?”

  Just a detached sense of good riddance, as though my Spartan grandfather had been some other man’s kin, and had died decades ago. I was not even bitter. “I don’t care about him,” I answered dully, “because he never cared about me.”

  Didymus coughed nervously, then continued, “‘He did not suffer much. We buried him with all the rites.’”

  “I don’t care,” I mumbled. Nepenthe might have blunted my emotions, but I could still distinguish when something was unimportant. “Is there anything else?”

  The priest rattled the papyrus in his hand. “That is all the princess says about the matter.” A pause. “Ah, here. ‘Aethiolas spent the winter at Mycenae, and has just returned with news. All is well with Pylades and Elektra, and the Mycenaean court.’” Another pause. I nodded. Maybe Hermione did not know that Pylades had already written to me. That must be it. “‘He brought Chrysothemis and Erigone home with him. Pylades gave his consent.’”

  I nodded again. “Go on.” In truth, though, it was becoming increasingly difficult to focus.

  “‘Chrysothemis is overjoyed at being here. Erigone is very shy, but harmless...’ Orestes, you look half-asleep.” Didymus lowered the papyrus sheaf to his lap. “This can wait until later.”

  I did not argue with him, not then or when he urged me to get up and walk around the courtyard with him to get my blood flowing. My breath felt tight in my chest, as though I had run a full stade. When he escorted me inside, I was breathing hard, and coughing to try to loosen the constriction. He had me sit on the edge of the cot, bent over me, and placed his hand, and then his ear, over my chest. “You’re wheezing, Orestes.”