Steven Saylor - Wrath of the Furies

The baying of the distant hounds grew louder.

Then I realized it was not Amestris in the pool, but Freny. Still holding her by the arms, I looked over my shoulder, and saw that Diana, standing on the bank where I had left her, was very angry.

“How dare you gaze upon the virgin naked in the bath?” she shouted. “How dare you touch her?”

“But … I only wanted to save her,” I said.

The hounds were now very near, and very loud.

“Ha! Save yourself, Actaeon-if you can!” said Diana. “Run, Actaeon! Run!”

The hounds were almost upon us. I could see them in the woods beyond Diana. Freny slipped from my grasp. I looked all around and saw that she had vanished.

I ran. Naked and barefoot I bounded through the woods. Branches and twigs scraped my flesh. Brambles bit my ankles. Thorns stabbed my feet. I ran into a mass of hanging vines, which slithered around me like writhing snakes. I was trapped like a wild beast in a net, and then the hounds were upon me, tearing at me with their claws and their fangs-

“Have mercy on me, Artemis!” I cried. “Have mercy! I beg you!”

Then I remembered the talisman that hung from the chain around my neck, my lucky lion’s fang. I laughed aloud with relief, for as long as I possessed it-at least in the dream-no harm could come to me. I reached up to grab hold of it-only to find that it was gone!

I was naked and defenseless against the ravening hounds. Blood spattered my face. Thrashing in agony, I looked around me and saw that the leaves and vines were covered by a shower of blood, as if the sky had opened and poured down red rain. There was so much blood, it could not all be mine. No single mortal could contain so much blood! The rain grew even heavier, flooding the earth. There was such a rush of blood that it swept the hounds away, and the mesh of vines released me, and I found myself awash on the grisly current, wounded and weak and about to drown in a sea of blood-

“By sweet Artemis, wake up! Wake up!” someone said.

It was Zeuxidemus, shaking me awake. Above and behind him loomed the Artemis of Ephesus. The statue stared straight ahead, as stiff and silent as ever, but now silhouetted by bright sunlight.

Had I spoken in my sleep?

That was the first coherent thought that came to me, as I was gradually released from the clutches of that horrible dream. Had I muttered a name, or cried aloud for mercy? I looked at Zeuxidemus, to see by his face if I had given myself away. He only smiled and sat back, looking relieved.

“You were thrashing and whimpering so much, I feared that … well, I’ve kept watch over other sleepers in this room, but I’ve never seen anything like it. Usually their dreams are sweet. And usually they’ve awakened before now.”

I sat up, craning my neck. Through the round opening beyond the statue I saw a bit of bright blue sky.

“It’s almost noon,” said Zeuxidemus. “By rights, I shouldn’t have awakened you, because the suppliant is supposed to sleep as long as … well, as long as it takes the goddess to come to him. But no one has ever slept this long, or seemed to experience such a nightmare. I was afraid I had…”

His voice trailed off, but I knew what he was thinking: had he given me too much of the sleeping potion, making me sleep too long and have the wrong kind of dreams? Instead, unknowingly, he had drunk it, and had awakened from the sleep intended for me. He appeared to be quite alert and well rested, and his expression was very serious, in contrast to the ridiculous state of his hair.

“Well, Agathon? Did Artemis come to you in your dreams?”

I blinked, then nodded vigorously. Indeed she had!

“And? Did she grant your request?”

I looked at him blankly.

“Has she restored your speech, Agathon?”

I opened my mouth. I moved my lips. No sound came out. I bowed my face and slowly shook my head.

Zeuxidemus sighed. “I’m sorry for you, then. The goddess doesn’t grant every request. Not even the Great Megabyzus can predict whether she will show favor or not. But take heart, Agathon. This confirms that you’re suitable for the ritual in the Grove of the Furies.”

He stood up and pushed his hair back, then put on the tall yellow headdress. At once his whole demeanor changed. It is remarkable, how a few articles of clothing can make a man look like he knows what he’s doing.

I washed my face, drank some water, and relieved myself-there were vessels for doing this in a little room off to one side-and then Zeuxidemus led me down the long winding stair to the sanctuary.

The floor was still crowded with people sitting or lying down, but not as crowded as it had been during the night. In darkness, those lumps of flesh had seemed hardly human, but by the bright light from the open doors, I could see the faces in the sea of bodies around me. Their despair was jarring. Why did they not speak? By the yellow tunic I wore they must have known I was a suppliant seeking the favor of the goddess, and they were beyond hoping for help from a stranger. Instead, they cowered and cringed as we passed. I looked from face to face, and shivered.

A cordon of spear-bearers awaited us at the bottom of the temple steps. We walked up the Sacred Way at a steady pace, toward the city. As in the temple, the scene that had been disturbing by starlight was even more frightful by daylight. There were thousands of Romans all around me, people of all ages, all wretched, all slowly being starved-deprived not just of food but also of hope. By divine law, the temple and its grounds offered them sanctuary from the wrath of the Ephesians, but unlike the gods these mortals could not live on incense and smoke. It would almost be more merciful if Mithridates would put them out of their misery-

I shuddered, and tried to banish the thought. But if such an idea could occur to me, surely the king had thought of it already, and so had every Roman-hater in Ephesus. They looked on the Romans as pests, as vermin. First we had infested their city, taking all the best things for ourselves. Driven out of the city, now we were infesting and polluting their most sacred and beloved institution, their claim to fame, their very own Wonder of the World, the Temple of Artemis.

As we approached the boundary of the sacred temple precinct, a toga-clad figure suddenly rushed up to one of the spear-bearers in the rear, catching the man by surprise and taking the spear from him. The others in the troop reacted swiftly, turning about and lowering their spears toward the Roman, who assumed a defensive crouch and pointed his stolen spear back at them.

I drew a sharp breath, for I recognized the Roman. It was the man who had come into the city to beg the day before, the man the crowd had pelted with food. The image of his desperate face was burned into my memory. Now his desperation was verging into madness.

“You must give us food!” he shouted. “My child is almost dead with hunger.” He glanced at a nearby woman who held a frail-looking boy in her arms. The woman’s red hair hung in tangles and she wore a tattered stola. “And someone must come and tell us what’s to happen to us. We ask those yellow-robed fools at the temple and every one of them tells us a different story. What does the king intend to do? Does he mean to make slaves of us?”

“He wouldn’t dare!” shouted a woman. A crowd had begun to grow behind the Roman wielding the spear.

“What would the monster not dare to do?” said another woman.

The captain of the spear-bearers strode through the troops, pushing aside the lowered spears to either side of him until he stood before the crouching Roman, apparently unafraid of the spear in the man’s trembling hands.

“You will drop that weapon at once,” he said.