Steven Saylor - Arms of Nemesis

We dismounted and led the horses deeper into the crook of the hill. A bald band had been worn into a twisted branch, showing where many others before us had tethered their horses. I secured the beasts, then felt Eco tugging urgently at my sleeve.

'Yes, what do you-'

I stopped short. From nowhere, it seemed, a figure passed between two nearby stones, following the same path that Olympias had taken. The descending fog swallowed all noise of his horse's footfalls, so that the figure passed by as silently as a phantom. He was visible for only an instant, draped in a dark hooded cloak. 'What do you make of that?' I whispered.

Eco leaped to the tallest of the nearby rocks and scrambled atop it, finding holds for his fingers amid the wormholes. He peered into the middle distance. For an instant his face lit up and then darkened again. He waved to me but kept his eyes on the maze of rocks. By way of signal, he pinched his chin and drew his fingers away to a point.

'A long beard?' I said. Eco nodded. 'Do you mean the rider is Dionysius, the philosopher?' He nodded again. 'How peculiar. Can you still see him?' Eco frowned and shook his head. Then he brightened again. He pointed his finger as the arrow flies, in an arc that ascended and then fell, indicating something farther afield. He made his sign for Olympias's tresses. 'You can see the girl?' He nodded yes, then no as she passed from sight. 'And does it seem that the philosopher follows her?' Eco watched for a moment longer, then looked down at me with an expression of grave concern and slowly nodded.

'How odd. How very odd. If you can see no more, come down.' Eco watched for a moment longer, then sat on the rock and pushed himself off, landing with a grunt. He hurried to the horses and indicated the knotted tethers.

'Ride after them? Don't be ridiculous. There's no reason to assume that Dionysius means her any harm. Perhaps he isn't following her at all.' Eco put his hands on his hips and looked at me the way that Bethesda so often does, as if I were a foolish child. 'Very well, I'll admit it's odd that he should pass by on the same obscure path only moments behind us, unless he has some secret reason. Perhaps it was us he was following, and not Olympias, in which case we've given him the slip.'

Eco was not satisfied. He crossed his arms and fretted. 'No,' I said firmly. 'We are not going after them. And no, you are not going off on your own. By now Olympias is probably already in Cumae. Besides, I doubt that a young woman as strong and capable as Olympias is in need of protection from an old greybeard like Dionysius.'

Eco wrinkled his brow and kicked at a stone. With his arms still crossed he began to walk toward the tall rock, as if he meant to climb it again. An instant later he froze and spun around, as did I.

The voice was strange and unnerving — gruff, wheezing, barely recognizable as that of a woman. Its owner wore a blood-red hooded cloak and stood with her hands joined within the voluminous sleeves so that no part of her body was visible. From the deep shadow that hid her face the voice issued like the moaning of a phantom from the Jaws of Hades.

'Come back, young man! The girl is safe. You, on the other hand, are an intruder here, and in constant danger until the god sees your naked face and judges whether to blast you with lightning or open your ears to the voice of the Sibyl. Both of you, gather your courage and follow me. Now!'

Very long ago there was a king of the Romans called Tarquinius the Proud. One day a sorceress came up to Rome from her cave at Cumae and offered to Tarquinius nine books of occult knowledge. These books were made of palm leaves and were not bound as a scroll, so that the pages could be put in any order. This Tarquinius found very strange. They were also written in Greek, not Latin, but the sorceress claimed that the books foretold the entire future of Rome. Those who studied them, she said, would comprehend all those strange phenomena by which the gods make known their will on earth, as when geese are seen flying north in winter, or water ignites into flame, or cocks are heard crowing at noon.

Tarquinius considered her offer, but the sum of gold she demanded was too great. He sent her away, saying that King Numa a hundred years before had established the priesthoods, cults, and rituals of the Romans, and these institutions had always sufficed to discern the will of the gods.

That night three balls of fire were seen hovering above the horizon. The people were alarmed. Tarquinius called upon the priests to explain the phenomenon, but to their great chagrin no explanation could be found.

The next day the sorceress visited Tarquinius again, saying she had six books of knowledge for sale. She asked the same price she had asked for nine books the previous day. Tarquinius demanded

to know what had become of the other three books, and the witch said she had burned them during the night. Tarquinius, insulted that the sorceress demanded for six books what he had refused to pay for nine, sent her away.

That night three convoluted columns of smoke rose above the horizon, blown by the wind and illuminated by the moon so that they took on a grotesque and foreboding aspect. Again the people were alarmed, thinking it must be a sign from an angry god. Tarquinius summoned the priests. Again they were baffled.

The next day the sorceress came to visit the king again. She had burned three more books the night before, she said, and now offered him the remaining three, for the same price she had originally asked for all nine. Though it vexed him greatly, Tarquinius paid the woman the sum she demanded.

And so, because Tarquinius hesitated, the Sibylline Books were received in only fragmentary fashion. The future of Rome could be discerned only imperfectly, and the reading of auspices and auguries was not always precise. Tarquinius was both revered for obtaining the sacred texts and derided for not acquiring them all. The Sibyl of Cumae gained a legendary reputation for her wisdom. She was respected both as a great sorceress and a shrewd bargainer, having obtained the price of nine books for only three.

The Sibylline Books became objects of awesome veneration. They outlasted the kings of Rome and became the most sacred property of the Roman people. The Senate decreed that they should be kept in a stone chest deep underground in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill, above the Forum. The books were consulted in times of great calamities or when inexplicable omens appeared. Those priests who were specially charged to study the books were constrained under penalty of death to keep their contents secret, even from the Senate. One curious fact about the verses became commonly known, however. They were written in acrostic; together, the initial letters of each line spelled out the subject of each verse. Such cleverness as would have driven a mortal to distraction must have been child's play for the divine will.

Because the books remained so mysterious, very few persons know exactly what was lost when, ten years ago in the final convulsions of the civil wars, a great fire swept the Capitoline and consumed the Temple of Jupiter, penetrating the stone chest and reducing the Sibylline Books to ash. Sulla blamed his enemies for the fire, his enemies blamed Sulla; in any case it was not an auspicious beginning for the dictator's three-year reign. Without the Sibylline Books to foretell it, did Rome have a future? The Senate sent special envoys all over Greece and Asia to search for sacred texts to replace the lost Sibylline Books. Officially, this has been done to the full satisfaction of the priesthood and the Senate. For those respectful of divine will, but sceptical of human institutions, the opportunities for fraud and bamboozlement offered by such a scavenger hunt are too staggering to contemplate.