Steven Saylor - Wrath of the Furies

A few moments later, Kysanias appeared, dressed in his yellow robes and towering headdress. He surmised the situation at once.

“Thank you, Captain, for escorting this party into the temple.”

“My pleasure, Your Eminence,” said the captain, who then looked sidelong at Samson. “So the letter was genuine! If it had been a fake, I was going to cut the heads off of all three of you.” He turned about and went to rejoin his men outside.

I spoke in a whisper. “Your Eminence, we have to warn-”

“Say nothing!” Kysanias said through gritted teeth. “All of you, be silent and follow me.”

I did as he said. I was beginning to feel light-headed from hunger and queasy from dread. He took us to the hidden stairway that led to the upper room, locking the door behind us. Up, up we trudged. My legs were like lead.

When we stepped into the room inside the pediment, Freny gave a cry of joy and rushed into the arms of her sister.

“Amestris!” I said, then saw that Anthea was there as well. “But how did the two of you come to be here?”

“Do you forget, Gordianus, that I’m in training to become a hierodule, a lifelong servant of the goddess?” said Anthea. “And of course Amestris goes wherever I go.”

“Yellow becomes you both,” I said, for they were dressed much like the Megabyzoi, but without the headdresses.

I was staring at Amestris and Freny, and beginning to feel a bit jealous of their long, loving embrace, when someone behind me produced a polite cough. I turned about and saw-

“Bethesda!”

The next moment she was in my arms, never mind that Romans and their slaves do not display mutual affection in public.

“Samson told me you’d be here,” I said.

“He brought me here from the palace while it was still dark.”

“What a busy night he’s had,” I said, and laughed at the pure joy of holding her-and then started back and gaped, slack-jawed, as the statue of Artemis dominating the room slowly began to turn. It was as if she heard us speaking and was turning around to look at us.

“But how-?”

Kysanias saw my wonder. He looked a bit chagrined. “That’s Zeuxidemus, in the chamber below us, turning the crank. It’s merely mechanical, Gordianus, not miraculous. Even though we’ve covered the round window so that the goddess will not have to witness the thing about to happen, I thought it proper that she should turn her back upon the proceedings, as well.”

Kysanias walked past the pedestal of the statue, to the sheer black curtain that covered the window. Bethesda and I followed him. From outside, the curtain would appear solid black, but from the relative darkness of the room we were able to see through it, as if through a thin veil of smoke. Outside, the Roman refugees were beginning to wake up.

“Samson says we failed,” I said. “He says the massacre will take place, in spite of all we did.”

“That’s right,” said Kysanias with a sigh.

“But how can that be? What did we do wrong?”

“Once you were inside the altar, you couldn’t hear what was said?”

“Not a word. Only murmurs.”

“Then you didn’t hear the argument between myself and the Grand Magus and His Majesty?”

“No.”

Kysanias stiffened his jaw. “There was a great deal of bluster and bravado from the king-exactly what you might expect from a famously fearless man who’s been badly frightened. I told him that the sacrifice had failed and the portents were against him. But the Grand Magus had a different explanation. According to him, since the sacrificial victim had vanished, that meant the Furies had taken her-that they had accepted the offering, indeed were so very pleased with her that they wished to take her whole and unharmed. I protested and pointed out the apparitions in the trees. The Grand Magus agreed that we had seen the Furies unleashed, but against the Romans, not the king. Their appearance proved that they were eager to oversee the massacres today. When I continued to object, the king silenced me. The Grand Magus told him what he wanted to hear, you see. The king accepted every word the Grand Magus said and refused to listen to me.”

“But what about the words of the uncanny voice?”

“They became lost in the argument. The king and the Grand Magus remembered them one way, I another. I turned to Metrodorus, knowing he must recall every word that was spoken, but the Rome-Hater had an inexplicable lapse of memory and refused to back me up.”

“Then we failed,” I said.

“Not entirely. You saved the girl.”

I looked at Freny and Amestris across the room, still embracing. I turned and gazed through the black scrim at the Romans outside. “Only one life, compared to so many. The life of a single slave, compared to so many Roman citizens-”

“How is one life any more or less valuable than two lives, or three, or a thousand?” asked Kysanias. “All lives begin and all lives end. There is no scale upon which to weigh the value of one life against another, or one life against many lives. You did what you could, and thanks to you, Freny is still alive and her sister is filled with joy. Whatever Freny does from this moment on, however she affects the lives of everyone she meets, will owe something to you.”

I sighed and looked outside again. “How soon will it begin?”

“Very soon, I suspect. First there is to be-”

“Gordianus!”

I turned to see Antipater. Apparently he had just emerged from a hole in the floor, for the trapdoor was still open and Zeuxidemus was following him through the hatchway.

“I’m so relieved to see you!” Antipater threw his arms around me. “I feared you might suffocate inside that altar.”

“Where did you come from?” I asked.

“From the room below. I wanted to see for myself the mechanism that turns the pedestal upon which the statue stands. It’s simple, really, but I was surprised that a single man could turn it so easily. Very clever. But not half as clever as you, my boy. I’m told that your performance last night was flawless. You truly looked possessed. Young Zeuxidemus tells me he almost wet himself, watching you mime the lines I spoke.”

“I never said that!” protested Zeuxidemus.

“Antipater is known to take poetic liberties,” I said. Suddenly I was very hungry. “Is there anything to eat?”

“We have bread, water, and wine,” said Zeuxidemus.

“Have you any of that sleeping potion?”

Zeuxidemus cocked his head. “Why do you ask?”

“Freny had a restless night. She needs to sleep. And after the horror of what was done to her, I don’t think she needs to see yet more horror. It would be a blessing if she could sleep though the day, never hearing or seeing what’s about to happen.”

“You speak wisely,” said Kysanias. “Those who sleep in this chamber do so with the blessing of Artemis. I’ll see to it that Freny receives the wine we give to dreamers. Perhaps you should drink some of that wine yourself, Gordianus.”

“No. For better or worse, I’ll stay awake, if I can.”

“As you wish. Brace yourself.”

I was given bread and water. Freny was given bread and wine. I watched her fall asleep in her sister’s arms amid the cushions at the foot of the pedestal, where I had watched Zeuxidemus sleep before.

Amestris continued to hold her sister for a while, then gently extricated herself. She saw me watching her and came to me. Bethesda was elsewhere, and so was Anthea, so that Amestris and I had a moment to ourselves.

“Thank you, Gordianus, for saving her.”

“My reward was the look on your face when we came in the room.”

Her eyes glimmered with tears. “I was heartbroken when they took her. Now I have to say good-bye to her again.”